moonslav59

One would and should expect better than that, and unexpected declines happen, often. The Sox saw almost all their returning vets decline, all at once, and some were in or approaching their prime years. Stanton turns 34, later this year. One would expect a dropping OPS, and that's what we see, His OPS dropped more, last year than it has this year: .887 2020 .870 2021 (-17) .759 2022 (-111) .708 2023 (-51) DJ turns 35 in a couple weeks. He dropped 300 points from 2020 to 2021, and he's just 32 below his '21 numbers, now- 2 years later. One might have expected more of a drop. Donaldson started his decline before going to NY. He turns 38 in December. .950 '16-'17 .875 '18-'19 .829 '20-'21 .686 '22-'23 He's actually improved on his '22 .682 OPS by hitting .724, so far. One could argue he's doing better than expected. Rizzo turns 34 in August. His decline started long ago, but he was still hitting well. ,914 '16-'17 .883 '18-'19 .775 '20-'21 His .817 in '22 could be viewed as a blip. .768 in 2023 is maybe higher than one might expect from the '20-'21 numbers and the age curve factors. I'm thinking much of this should have been expected, but people tend to look at teams and players as they used to be, and forget about injury proneness and age decline projections.

Houck will be out a while. Pivetta should start, until he returns. I never said give Pivetta a chance to stay in the rotation, all year, but with all our pitching injuries, he may end up there for a while. No Sale. No Houck. Pen is missing Schreiber, Joely, Bleier, Kelly and Mills

I was convinced Ben was going to make a blockbuster trade or two, before he left, but we'll never know. I doubt he'd have made all the DD moves. He might have traded for Jose Quintana not Sale. I doubt he makes the Pomeranz trade. Kimbrell? Who knows. It's hard to know what Bloom would do, if given a totally free hand. Many seem to think he would hoard prospects forever, but it's hard to know. For all we know, he may have asked JH for approval of going after top talent by trading prospects, and JH said no- or "not yet." The former seems more like it, but it's probably somewhere in between. Bloom will never wheel and deal like DD or Theo, IMO, but I do think he might surprise us with a big prospect deal every 3-5 years. He's gone 3.5 years and his biggest prospects traded have been Aldo Ramirez (Schwarber), Alex Scherff (Robles), Groome (Hosmer, Ferguson & Rosier) and maybe Chavis (A Davis) and Northcut (T Pham). That list is almost laughable. Not only has he rarely traded even midling prospects, the Groome trade also brought back prospects! Many trade he made were for just prospects or a vet and a prospect(s). JBJ w Hamilton & Binelas (Renfroe) Ottavino w F German (cash relief) Pivetta w Seabold (Workman/Hembree) Wink, Gambrell and 2 others with Cordero (Beni) Wong and Downs w Verdugo (Betts) Vets for prospects only: EValdez & Abreu (Vaz) Jacob Wallace (W Mills) Others, like Moreland, Pillar, Osich and others Plus a bunch of prospects for prospects like German for Denlinger and Aybar for Koss. A rare vet for vet trade only: McGuire for Diekman

It really seems like a strange thing. On the surface, many of Bloom's moves have looked good. IMO, more good than bad, but the W-L record has been in decline. Last year: Good: Wacha, Hill, Strahm, Paxton (looked better than Richards, Perez, Andriese, Sawamura, Robles and Ottavino trade in 2021) Bad: Story, JBJ trade is a lot more money and worse than 2021's Renfroe, Marwin, Santana This year: Good: Paxton (option), Jansen, Martin Bad: Kluber, Joely, Good: Yoshida, Turner (Reyes addition & last year deadline additions: McGuire & EValdez) ???: Duvall, Chang Bad: Kike extensión, Mondesi trade The Kluber signing did really hurt, and Kike's D and O have taken their toll, too, but the rest seem to have outweighed those two. (Cheap additions from beyond 2021 are coming through: Refsnyder, Schreiber, Whitlock, Verdugo, Wong and Wink, while the only bad Bloom holdovers look to be: Pivetta and Bleier via Barnes.

When the Yanks win, much of the talk about Boone and Cashman goes away. They both suck- winning and losing. I hope they keep both for the next decade.

I can't see any other choice but Pivetta. Since Pivetta's last start on May 16th, he has pitched 16.1 innings 2.20 ERA 3.34 FIP .479 OPS Against (Best on the staff in the last 28 days w 30+ PAs agaisnt) Maybe he found his spot in the pen, but let's give him another chnace at SP'er.

How's this? 352 players with 300+ PAs since 2022 (about an avg of 7 per team) Refsnyder OVERALL (not lefty splits) 6th OBP at .398 (Yandy Diaz is 5th at .399/ Alvarez 4th at .401 wOBA 13 .th .375 (tied with Betts, who has more than 3X the PAs) wRC+ 17th 140 (just ahead of Arraez, Machado, Arozarena and Jose Ramirez OPS 20th at .850 vs LHP ONLY (145+ PAs) OPS 1. Goldschmidt 1.114 2. A Riley 1.006 3. Betts 1.000 4. R Castro .998 5. Y Alvarez .996 6. Refsnyder .994 OBP .455 Goldschmidt .445 Refsnyder Thanks, Bloom.

This year, he has played much less vs RHPs: 2023: .532 v R in 50 PAs (started 6 gms v R) .980 v L in 73 PAs (started 20 gms v L) PAs: 60-40% v L/ GS 23% v L) 2022: .792 v R in 104 PAs (started 41 v R) 1.005 v L in 73 PAs (started 16 v L) PAs: 41-59% v L (complete flip)/ GS 72% v L, almost a complete flip Should Ref play more vs RH SP'er? Would he better vs them, if he did? Who would he replace in the line-up? ( I see nobody.) Yoshida- NO! Turner- NO! Duvall- NO! While Casas, Duran and Dugo struggle vs LHPs, they all do very well vs RHPs, so I don't see where Ref gets more time.

The thing working in our favor, that I have mentioned before, is that every team, except maybe the Rays have major issues and or injuries to deal with. Some will try and fix them at the deadline, some may not. The league seems pretty balanced, and if someone can knock of the Rays, it's a free-for-all. I've been a known anti- crapshoot playoffs guy, but this year seems different, to me. Maybe, nothing has changed but the more balanced schedule. I have to think, if we are still in it at the deadline, we will add players. We also have some salary space to add salary dump type players who still are producing. If we get Story back, we will have a couple logjams that can create some trade opportunities. We can also afford to pay down any salary we trade away to improve the return. All healthy, we'll have excess at LF/1B/DH with Yoshida, Duvall, Turner and Casas battling for 3 slots. All should play FT, as of now. We can have a nice L-R platoon in CF w Duran and Kike, or we could trade one and use Duvall there, at times. I doubt Reyes or Arroyo have much trade value, and even if we pay down all of Kike's contract, I'm not sure how much trade value he will have in 6 weeks. We can't afford to trade pitching, unless we get better pitching back... something like Dalbec and Pivetta for a slightly better SP'er. I doubt we move mountains at the deadline, like SEA did by acquiring and then extending Castillo, but if something come sup that could also help the team, longterm, maybe JH will allow Bloom to pounce. (He may have to twist his arm to do it, or maybe Bloom has to talk JH into commiting to a salary addition via extension or otherwise while also sacrificing some of our top prospects.)

Top Team OPS 2022 and 2023 split seasons .818 ATL '23 .803 TBR '23 .798 TEX '23 .775 LAD '22 and '23 .770 ARI '23 .770 LAA '23 .764 BOS '23 .761 ATL '22 .760 TOR '22 Sox Positional Comp from 2022 to 2023: 2022 POS 2023 .694 C .732 +38 .683 1B .751 +68 .724 2B .648 -76 .856 SS .638 -218 .815 3B .792 -23 .694 LF .832 +138 .671 CF .833 +162 .661 RF .833 +173 .763 DH .807 +44 Line-UP Slots 1) .655 2) .843 > .811 -32 3) .836 >741 -95 4) .781 5) .732 6) .724 7) .751 >.684 -67 8) .570 9) .642 How about out 3 OF slots all at .833-.833! The OF alone makes up for the offensive loss at 2B & SS: .676 to .833 WOW!

No, The Butthole Surfers are from San Antonio.

The looked excited in the 8th game.

Did you call me "nuts" for thinking Turner would pass JD?

Our fWAR Leaders and MLB Rankings (100+ PAs) T 20. Verdugo 2.3 T 88. Devers, Yoshida and Duran 1.2 T 113. Turner 1.0 T 139. Refsnyder 0.8 (just 123 PAs) T 152. Wong 0.7 Notables: 7. Betts 3.0 13. Swanson 2.6 31. Bogey 2.1 136, Dubon & JD 0.9 150. Margot 0.8 161. Beni 0.7 178. Pillar & T Pham 0.6 258. Schwarber & Moncada 340. J Abreu -1.0 Pitching (20+ IP) 52. Sale 1.2 63. Paxton 1.0 (missed 7-8 starts) 74. Bello & Houck 100. Jansen 0.8 133. Martin 0.6 158. Whitlock, Crawford & Wink 0.5 Notables: 5. Nate 2.6 10. Castillo 2.1 11. Wacha 2.0 13. Eflin 1.9 24. ERod 1.7 63. Logan Allen 1.0 100. Strahm 0.8

How about Turner heating up as we near the midpoint of the season? This guy is a second half stud, of late, There is no guarantee it will continue, but I am more than encouraged by his hot streak. It seems to be contagious, too: 7 Days OPS 1.269 Yoshida (steady as a rock, this year.) 1.140 Verdugo (finding the groove, again- career year?) 1.138 Turner (was one of MLB's best second half hitters, last season) 1.039 Duran (maybe he adjusted to the adjustment) .947 Devers (burn, baby, burn!) .888 Casas (very encouraging) .864 Refsnyder (quietly putting together two good seasons in a row) .762 Reyes (has really helped us for a dumpster dive addition) .686 Wong .648 Arroyo .600 Kike .538 Duvall .286 McGuire Last 14 Days .991 Turner (12 rbi leads team) .921 Devers (4 HR ties with Turner for club lead) .864 Duran .826 Casas .798 Ref .692 Yoshida .644 Wong (I don't want to list the rest.) Last 28 Days .875 Ref .847 Yosh .841 Wong .806 Turner .801 Dugo .783 Casas First, I want to say, I do not wish JD falls off a cliff, like last year, but here is the head-to-head OPS race: April 30: .840 JD .723 Turner JD +.117 May 31st: .931 JD .755 Turner JD +.176 June 19th: .879 JD (.495 last 8 games) .799 Turner JD +.080 It was .945 to .749 on June 10th (JD+ .196!) Only 9 games to cut .116 off the lead!

...with yellow water.

Not much lower since May 16th, either.

What was up is down.

They didn't suck in 2021, not did Iggy and Shaw- 2 more low budget anti-sucktitude players.

They did look pretty lackluster during that 7 game win streak.

Let's hope we fair better vs the American Central Division than the National Central Division.

Want some encouraging numbers? Team Pitching Rankings since May 16: fWAR 5.3 MIA 4.9 BOS & SDP T2nd 4.8 SFG ERA 3.06 SFG 3.19 CWS 3.37 HOU (with 3 starters out all year) 3.48 SDP 3.50 BOS 3rd in ERA- at 79 4th in FIP at 3.69 7th in xFIP- at 95 10th K-BB% at 15.6% (2.98 K/BB) Starters: T4th fWAR at 3.0 5th ERA at 3.58 5th in ERA- at 81 (1 behind TR and 2 behind 1st tie CWS, HOU, TEX) T3rd xFIP- at 88 Now, some of those numbers included Sale and Houck, but we got back Whitlock and others. Anyone know when Schreiber returns?

I felt we had depth to start the season. I even spoke of too much quantity and not enough quality. Some of the depth I saw was an illusion, and I'm still not sure Murphy is not an hallucination. Starters: Sale (60 day IL) Paxton (started on IL) Kluber (demoted to pen) Pivetta (demoted to pen but may return) Whitlock (was on IL but has returned) Houck (was on IL, returned and now is back on it) Bello (started season on IL) We knew Paxton was starting on the IL, and Sale was one violent sneeze away from it, but we started with 7 pretty good or pretty promising SP'ers, and here was the depth beyond those 7: 8. Crawford (was on IL earlier) 9. Winckowski (has not been used as a SP'er) (Minors) 10. Mata (was our 6th rated prospect and was considered close to ML ready) 11. Walter (was our 8th rated prospect and was considered close to ML ready) 12. Murphy (was our 13th rated prospect and was considered close to ML ready) (Drohan and Wikelman were considered too far away) Of course we knew many would be or get hurt, but what GM plans on his top 8 SP'ers spending time on the IL in the first 72 games of the year? Then, all 3 minor league guys sucked, big time, to start the season. It is very strange how over 90% of our ILs are pitchers or SSs. Pen: Martin, Screiber, Kelly, Mills and probably some I forgot. SS: Story, Mondesi, Chang

Agreed, and several other teams seem to be making some smart choices, too. Most by building their farm.

It looks like Bello is rounding into a solid SP'er. Nothing is for sure, but he's grown more quickly than I ever expected. Anything can happen, but I feel safe counting on him as our #2 in 2024 and beyond. I hate to count on Sale as our #1 in 2024, so I hope we find some way to add a solid 1/2 type, but I've come to try and not get my hopes up. Assuming no additions... 2024: 1. Sale 2. Bello 3. Whitlock 4. Houck 5. Pivetta/Crawford (Wink from pen?) (Drohan, Mata, Walter, Murphy) 2025 1. Bello 2. Whitlock 3. Houck 4. Crawford 5. Drohan, Mata, Walter, Murphy (Wink) 2026 Same as 2025 with Perales, E R-C and Wikelman maybe in the mix