moonslav59

No BBs from Bello was a minor miracle. Wong would have made him walk 5. LOL

The response was on "stuff." BTW, he has a .731 career OPS Against. .727 Late & Close .699 RISP .685 2 out, RISP He's had some luck- good and bad over his career. He's got some good "stuff" but not great and not bad.

Someone disagrees: SCOUTING REPORT A towering right-hander with an ideal pitchers' frame (6-6, 215 pounds), he has very good sinking movement on his fastball and a great changeup. Displays great command of the strike zone. Can dominate under pressure. What may prevent him from becoming a big winner in the bigs is his lack of a dominant breaking pitch, though his slider is improving. It may also prevent him from becoming a big strikeout pitcher. Injuries are an issue. Long Range Potential: Excellent right-hander, when healthy. -Sports Forecaster

I think Houck is going to get a longer look at the rotation. He probably would have, even if he didn't have a nice "3rd time through" last game. The fact is, Houck going 18 batters is still way better than what we can expect from Pivetta and Kluber. Crawford looks to fill the long man role much better than SP'er. The rotation (all healthy) 1. Sale 2. Bello 3. Paxton 4. Houck 5. Whitlock Pen Closer: Jansen Set-Up: Martin Set-UP: Schreiber (can go more than 1 from time to time) Lefty: Joely Rodriguez (Bleier?) High Leverage Long Man: Winckowski High Leverage Long Man: Crawford Low/Mid Leverage Long Man: Pivetta Low Leverage Long Man: Kluber

I wouldn't count 2020, and not just because it was a short season. He only started 9 of the possible 12 starts. That's 25% of the season lost.

Maybe not the number one reason, but he did mention it as a reason... SI article: Signing with the Texas Rangers and getting a little closer to home in the process has been a bit of a theme the past two offseasons. Newly-signed pitcher Nathan Eovaldi is the latest to use that as incentive to sign with the Rangers. “I mean, it's everything,” Eovaldi said. “I think one of the biggest things is family... I know everybody always loved it when we'd go down there and play the Astros because there's an opportunity for them to come out and watch me play,” Eovaldi said. “Even if I wasn't playing, they would come out there to just watch the game and support us, so it's going to be a lot better I think this year having them so close.”

I knew you'd love that!

Sox pen in the last 7 games: 22.1 IP 3 ER 1.21 ERA 20 BB+H 0.896 WHIP

Nate was born not far from me: Alvin, TX. He went to school in Alvin, too.

It's pretty easy to determine why we are currently on the outside looking in on the WC slots: pitching. Current rankings, per fangraphs: 26th fWAR at 2.3 (KCR 2.5, CWS 2.8, SG & WSH at 3.1) 24th ERA- at 106 (Det & MIA at 105, PHI 104 and AZ 103) 22nd WHIP at 1.34 (6 teams between 1.31-1.33) 17th xFIP at 4.31 (TEX 4.26, STL & PIT at 4.22) 15th K-BB% at 14% On the other side of the coin.... 5th best K% at 20.5% but 22nd in BB% at 8.3% 8th in OPS at .766 (CHC at .768) 10th in FWAR at 6.8 (LAA at 7.0) 10th in ISO .171 10th in O at 14.4 20th in D at -11.1

We are just about 1/3 into the 2023 season, and here are some of my observations: The offense has been as balanced as it has in a while. Our depth has been amazing. A look at the top OPS+ guys highlights that point, and we have 8 guys over 107 and 9 over 95. 303 Duvall (37 PAs is a tiny sample size) 131 Duran (coming back down to earth a bit) 130 Yoshida (not much talk of bonehead overpaying, lately.) 118 Verdugo (has slipped from his amazing start to '23.) 112 Devers (poised for an eruption?) 111 Valdez (the boost we needed at middle IF) 111 Refsnyder (perhaps silencing those who claimed '22 was a mfluke) 107 Turner (a traditional second half basher, so...) 95 Reyes (not sure he can stay here) 86 Wong (a nice OPS+ for a catcher, as Vaz was 98 last year and 86 '22-'23) 86 Tapia (has given some spark) 83 McGuire (injured?) 80 Casas (has been doing better but needs to continue improving) 77 Arroyo/ 73 Kike/ 34 Chang (needing the return of Story) OPS+ Against SP'ers 75 Paxton (small sample size but encouraging) 84 Houck (finding his groove) 100 Sale (started out very badly) 123 Bello (coming around) 135 Pivetta (what happened to the consistent 4.50 guy?) 140 Kluber (close to pen demotion) 155 Whitlock (needs to regain and quickly) RP (30+ PAs Against) 56 Martin (big help) 57 Wink (the year's surprise, so far) 79 Crawford (ditto with Wink) 89 Schreiber (perhaps showing 2022 was no fluke) 106 Jansen (was doing great until recently) 112 Bernardino (hasn't done badly) 128 Bleier (may not be around much longer) 131 Kelly (out for a while)

After the 10-1 beat down by the Mariners, the pen has not been all that bad: IP-ER 5/16: 3.2-0 (2 H+BB) 5/17: 4.0-1 (5 H+BB) 5/19: 3.0-0 (1) 5/20: 2.0-0 (2) 5/21: 6.2-2 (3) 5/22: 2.0-1 (3) 5/23: 1.0-2 (4) 22.1 IP 3 ER 1.21 ERA 20 BB+H 0.896 WHIP I think the pen is coming back around after a bad 6 game stretch with ATL, STL and that first game v SEA. Now, it's the bats.

All aboard on this. I understood why he held off on getting a top line starter from 2020-2022, because I don't think anyone felt we were an ace away from a ring before any of those seasons, but this was the turn-around winter. This was the big budget winter. This was the legacy building winter. I will say, his faith in Sale, Paxton and Bello have paid off, but we needed more- much more. I applauded the building up of the 40 an and farm, first philosophy, but he seemed to continue with the philosophy beyond its usefulness, at least on the rotation. His plan may still pay off. It seems Houck has made a serious move at securing the 4th slot in the rotation. That leaves one slot left, and many a team gets by with a weak #5. I no longer have 2023 hopes that Mata, Walter or Murphy getting a shot at the #5, but there is hope one of these three step up into the slot and succeeds: Crawford, Pivetta or Kluber. We are almost to the one-third mark. If the bats come back around, and we keep avoiding major blunders on D and the basepaths, we can probably get by with 4 good starters and a solid pen.

Some were against the idea, but I don't recall chastising, either. I was briefly for offering a QO on Wacha, too, until I realized he would not be getting any offers near a QO, last winter, but I did want to try and bring him back. Bringing Strahm back would have been better than Kluber, too.

Maybe the risks were too great on Nate, and although many here wanted Nate all along, this is kind of hindsighting.

Wacha year by year: better of ERA or FIP: 2.78 3.17 3.38 3.91 3.63 3.20 4.76 5.25 (short 2020 season) 4.47 3.32 3.48 (so far in 2023)

I agree. This is on Bloom. No budget "what ifs," on the Kluber choice. He could have spent more on pitching. He could have traded for one of the pretty good pitchers trades, this past winter. He chose to spend on the pen (good) and maybe too much on the offense. He may "absolve" himself, if we can find a solid 5 with or without Kluber doing well, or by making a deal at the deadline, but Bloom is being held over the fire on this.

There is so much "advanced metrics" out there, they can find something. Wacha seems to defy metrics. When his ERA is good, his FIP is worse or bad. When his ERA is bad, his FIP is better or good. If he's lucky, he's on one hell of a long roll.

It does seem to go hand in hand more often than randomness would suggest it might.

They did offer him a QO. Let's see how that second year plays out (and the rest of this one, too.) It's easy to find "what ifs" all day long. I've wanted to add at the top of the rotation for years, but I just did not see anyone on the market with real good odd at coming even close to earning his pay. Kinda knew some would, but how to pick that very few "some" is the hard part, and the part we get wrong more often than right, when it comes to starters.

Say goodnight.

Big night for the Sox farm teams... WOO won 13-3 Dermody w 11 Ks and 1BB (7IP, 7H, 3 ER) Hamilton homered twice. (OPS back up to .897) Sogard, Goodrum & Palka all homered Abreu 1-3 w 3B & 2BB Alfaro 2-5 w 2B POR won 6-4 Liu 5.1 IP 1H, 1ER, 4BB, 8K Scott w 2 HRs & 4 rbi Yorke 0-2 w 3BB Meidroth 1-3 w 2BB GRE won 9-0 Bastardo 4 IP, 3H, 0ER, 4BB, 6K Mayer w 2HRs (OPS to .963) 2-5 Paulino & Jordan SAL completed the minors sweep, but nobody homered twice. E R-C K'd 10 in 5 IP (1BB) but 3 ERs 3-3 Chacon w 3B Liendo homered 2-5 Anthony

Maybe he pretended Wong was catching.

He was drafted by the Sox in 2010, but did not sign. 3 years later he was drafted by the Padres. In 2019, he was traded for Jake Cronenworth & Tommy Pham 2020, the Rays non tendered him and he was signed by the Sox. 2021, the Renfroe for JBJ, Hamilton and Binelas trade. 2022, traded to LAA for literally junk. (Jason Junk, Elvis Pequero & Adam Seminaris)

Good thing McGuire has not allowed a BB, so far. If Wong was catching, the Angels would have 5 BBs by now. Sarcasm alert.