moonslav59

I don't read game threads, which is worse than what people say on air. The show hosts seem to defend keeping him in the line-up, but just moving him down. Abreu has zero HRs. He's hitting .220 and his SLG is .262. WOW!

I hope Yoshida can keep this up. His approach hints at a yes, but in baseball, one never knows.

The smaller sample sizes sure help skew this list, but you'd expect more 2023's at the bottom of the list, too. It is kind of surprising to see that 5 of the top 6 OPS are not from Devers, Bogey or JD: Duran Yoshida Ref '22 Devers '22 McGuire '22 Verdugo

Right. You can't do this for 5 starts. You'd use 10 pitchers and still need 3-4 innings of relief every day from the other 3 pitchers, but maybe we can support it for one game out of the 5, but we will need the others to go 6. I'm not sure we can count on that. Ideally, Whitlock could go more than 9 batters. Houck is sometimes not so bad the second time through. it's the third that kills him. Also, if we could use these guys in short situations between their scheduled piggyback games, that could make it work. I'm not saying I'm for the idea, but certainly using a long guy in their starts will likely happen, anyway- scheduled or not..

This site is so good at re-enacting it!

The Houston area talkshows are going nutty over that signing.

2022 and 2023 OPS Leaders (split seasons) 50+ PAs Red= 2023 1.006 Duran .881 Yoshida .881 Refsnyder .879 Devers .877 Verdugo .877 McGuire .833 Bogey .828 Devers .795 Turner .790 JD .783 EValdez .766 Casas .759 Vaz .748 Refsnyder .737 Story .736 Arroyo .732 Verdugo .705 Casas .701 Wong .697 Cordero .672 Pham .668 Tapia .667 McGuire .660 Arroyo .652 Dalbec .647 Kike .645 Duran .631 Hosmer .629 Kike .585 Wong .578 JBJ .574 Plawecki

As well as our team has hit, we've spread it out pretty well. We have no batters in the top 30 in OPS with over 110 PAs. If we set the bar at 110 PAs, who would have expected this Sox leader board? 5. Duran 1.006 36. Yoshida .881 37. Verdugo .877 (42. Betts .869) 64. Devers .828 (77. Bogey .806) 87. Turner .795 (89. Renfroe .790) (91. JD .786) 148. Casas .705 (.696 Beni) 194. Kike .647 (220. Abreu .531)

Maybe they try a Houck-Whitlock piggyback with each going through 9 batters.

It seems like a lot of his "near misses" have gone on to do well. Also, some of the guys he liked and acquired, but then did not keep have gone on to do better, elsewhere- like Springs and Perez. I'm not sure we can read into this all that much, and we probably don't know all the players he was "seriously" pursuing. Also, there are apparent flops like Abreu that could be added to a list that counters my claim.

What is kind of strange about this year's offense, is that as strong as we look with LHBs, and I think we can field a 9 lefties line-up, is that we actually hit better in games where a LHP starts: .805 in games a lefty starts .786 in games a RHP starts The overall splits tell the opposite story: .774 v LHPs .802 v RHPs

That's what I think it came down to. Not so much the money, but the belief that last winter did not have "the right guy." Does Bloom like Giolito? Who knows? Maybe someone else. Nobody mentioned Eflin, before the reports came out on the near miss. Maybe we trade for someone at the deadline or next winter.

Gausman was certainly a viable option, and there were a few posters who suggested we try hard to sign him. I don't see him as an ace, but he is certainly a big step up from the Klubers, Richards and Perezes of the world. $22M was not a ton of money, and 5 years is not the 7 we gave Price. At this point in the Sox budget outlook, I don't think the 5 years would be a major concern. They could have done it, but I think they just didn't value him that highly, or near enough to overpay by a little more than what they felt he was worth. In hindsight, we could have paid the $22M and reset by not signing ... $10M Kluber $7M Duvall and maybe no Mondesi trade or Joely signing. I believe this would have left us very close to the tax line, depending on what site you use. Had we known Duran would look like this, no Duvall would have been a serious option.

I have said this has been one of my disappointments with Bloom. I think a major reason we hired him was the rays track record at finding low-priced players who perform above expectations, because we knew the budgets were going to be tight for a few years. He did find a few: Arroyo, Kike I, Renfroe, Schreiber, Refsnyder, Whitlock and a few others- some off to good starts, this year, but not as much as I expected. Too few were pitchers, although Wacha, hill and Strahm looked good, last year, and Wink has turned it around, so far.

I meant in 2021, instead of the guys we signed. About this year's signings, for every Gausman and Bassitt, there are 2 or more Rodon & Verlanders.

Me too, and I'm not backing off my statements that included these phrases... "Make or break winter" "His defining moment" "This is now Bloom's team." That being said, I really did not like any of the big FA pitchers, last winter, so I was okay with not signing Rodon, Verlander, deGrom and some of the other big names, but there were trades made, and he could have blown TB away with an offer for Eflin- not that he is an ace or that I knew he was going to look real good to start 2023. I also don't blame him for not signing Nate to more than the QO he offered him. This does not take him off the hook. he obviously thought he could make up for our short-comings in the rotation by beefing up the O and pen. Let's see, if it works. I do think the rotation showed some promise-perhaps too much promise and not enough actual recent results by the pitchers vying for a slot in the 2023 rotation. I n some ways, the rotation looked more promising that it did in March 2021 and March 2022. 1. We had all tired of hoping for Sale's return and many felt that even if he returned for 24+ GS'd, his level might be as a 3rd starter, at best. 2. Paxton? Kinda the same outlook as Sale. 3. Pivetta was viewed as a solid and reliable #5 SP'er that could be okay as a #4, but no better. 4. Kluber was old, but had shown signs of being a good #3. He had more and better recent success than Richards, Perez, Wacha and maybe Hill had before we signed them. 5. Bello had a pretty nice ceiling and finished strongly in 2022. 6. Whitlock was coming off an injury, but had been our best 2021-2022 pitcher. 7. Houck was also coming off an injury and was just about as good as Whitlock from 2021-2022. 8. Interestingly, 2 of our best 2023 pitchers were viewed with the most skepticism in March 2023: Winckowski & Crawford. (they started 26 games, combined in 2022.) 9. Mata, Walter and Murphy offered some glimmer of hope from the farm as ML ready or near ML ready pitchers who had success in 2022 at WOO. That was over 10 pitchers- back in March. I guess Bloom hoped we could find 5 in quicker fashion.

How is providing another example "arguing?" You mentioned needing to go back 75 years to find one, and I found one that pitched less than 15 years ago. I didn't even look to see if there were more. I agree that the numbers are very small. I was just adding some information.

Agreed, but he was small and aged well.

I really think Bloom's SP choices have been made with the budget in mind, but I think there is one significant factor above the budget, particularly the long term budget, and that is TIMING. I think he chose shorter term deals, because the rest of the roster was not good enough to make "the big push." Sure, he could have pooled all the money we spent on shorter term rentals and gotten one better, longer term pitcher 2-3 years ago, but by the time the team was going to be ready for ring competition, that starter would be 2-3 years older, and probably not as good, anymore. I hated the $5-10 bridge starters, but I understood why that was the choice... UNTIL, last winter. Bloom had the budget and a pretty strong and deep foundation with several prospects very near MLB readiness in the wings. IMO, last winter was "the time," but it seems they may feel next winter is- maybe even the one after. Maybe signing one pitcher at $13-15M x 3 years back in 2021 would have worked better, but IMO, the 2 guys (Wacha & Hill) he added, last winter worked out pretty well. The funny thing is, the year we did well, 2021, the two (Richards & Perez) he added sucked. 2021: Richards $10M + Perez $6M 2022: Wacha $7M + Paxton $6M + Hill $5M 2023: Kluber $10M + Paxton $4M What one pitcher could we have signed for $48M/3? ($16M x 3)

Well, we gained a half game on 3 division rivals, which may not have ever happened, this year. We did lose a half game to our closest rival- the Yanks. We are... -1.0 NYY & TOR -4.0 BAL -7.5 TBR In the WC race, all 3 other ALE teams hold all 3 slots, with HOU between us and NYY and TOR +3 BAL 0 NYY 0 TOR -0.5 HOU -1.0 BOS -2.5 LAA -3.5 SEA -4.5 CLE/DET

I totally agree. And then you have a guy like Ted, who certainly had a natural gift but also worked super hard at maximizing his potential. He seemed to have instincts, ability and skills, but which was which and how much of each created who he was? There is no answer. Trying to just define these terms could take pages and pages of back and forths.

I was pointing out how well a 6-0 170 pound pitcher aged. I used a comp, most are very familiar with. If an 80 year old maddux is better was better than all our starters, it does tell a story.

Ok, "as good or better" than all our starters.

Bloom does not strike me as the type of guy that reaches out to GMs to offer big packages of top prospects for an ace or a young and possible ace-to-be, but who knows? I was convinced Ben was going to make a big trade or two, right before he was replaced, but I'll never know on that one. It's hard to imagine parting with Mayer, when SS seems like our second biggest hole, next to ace. Romero is farther away. I had mentioned Casas, last year, but I'm not sure how many teams trade an ace for a 1B prospect, even with his "value" being very high, according to several sites and ranking lists.

It seems like we all know guys who just seem to pick up a sport easily and naturally, without much effort. I'm not trying to define "instincts" as not involving effort and practice, and it is a hard term to understand. To me, anticipation is a big part of baseball "instincts," but even that can be viewed as a skill- like an defender watching pitch location, bat angle and timing of the swing to figure out what direction the ball will likely be hit. Maybe he begins leaning that way before the hit. On the batting end, I think so much is related to eyesight and and the brain's ability to recognize spatial things and moving objects. Is that a skill, an ability or an instinct?