moonslav59

CBS MLB Sox Injury Report and ETAs: at least until... APRIL 11 Whitlock 16 Bello 24 Paxton MAY 1 J Rodriguez 1 Mills 30 Mondesi June July 14 Story

Big start for Houck. Here is the lineup: (No Casas or McGuire) 1. Refsnyder LF 2. Devers 3B 3. Turner 1B 4. Yoshida DH 5. Duvall CF 6. Verdugo RF 7. Arroyo 2B 8. Kike SS 9. Wong C

I'm not certain about our pitching being okay. They almost have to get better- only because they have been so very bad, up to now. To me, we have a pretty solid 6 SP'ers and sketchy but still more promising depth than recent years. They still need to do it on the mound, but I do remain optimistic, as long as injuries don't equal last year's totals. If we can keep 4-5 of these top 6 healthy, at almost all times, we'd have a real chance: Sale Whitlock Kluber Bello Paxton Pivetta If no, we'll need 1-2 from this group to shine: Crawford Mata Walter, Murphy, Drohan move Wink back to SP?

Sending Crawford down keeps him in a starting role at AAA, but if he does well in his next start, I'd consider moving Houck to the pen, instead and sending Kelly or Ort to AAA. The tougher choice may be when Bello becomes ready. I doubt they keep him in AAA, and hopefully it is they they move Houck to the pen, leaving this 13 man staff until Paxton and or Joely are ready: Rotation: Sale, Whitlock, Kluber, Bello, Pivetta Pen: Jansen, Martin, Schreiber, Houck, Bleier, Winckowski, Brasier and one from Kelly, Ort or maybe Crawford. Paxton and Joely would force all of Ort, Kelly and Crawford to the minors.

We did have hopes some players would be returning back in 2022, as well, but perhaps with more uncertainty about time table and effectiveness of those about to return. Kike went out June 7th and didn't return until mid August. I'm not sure he was suspected to be out so long. He had been a big key to the second half and playoff success of 2021. Story's injury in Mid July was a killer. He had hit .786 in his previous 2 months. The worst part, of course, was the massive overlap of SP'er injuries that forced us to go too deep on the rotation depth chart: Whitlock: June 7 to July 15 Nate: June 8 to July 15 Wacha: June 28 to August 14 R Hill: July 1 to August 3 Houck: August 2 to end of season Sale: made 2 starts in mid July then missed the rest of the season Paxton: never made it. It would have been close to impossible to foresee such a timing scheme of injury like that. We ended up starting 12 different pitchers with Paxton never getting a start. For argument's sake, this might have been our rotation depth chart with all healthy: 1. Sale 2 GS 2. Nate 20 3. Paxton 0 4. Wacha 23 5. Hill 26 6. Pivetta 33 7. Whitlock 9 8. Houck 4 9. Winckowski 14 10. Crawford 12 11. Bello 11 (Davis 3) We were forced to yank Houck and Whitlock from successful pen roles and then use Wink, Crawford, Seabold and Bello for 42 starts, That's nearly the same as Nate + Wach (43). It's almost double Sale, Paxton, Nate (22)- our best 3 SP'ers. Not many teams can overcome that. The Houck injury came after the trade deadline, but the rest were before it and some left hopes of prompt returns to action. It never happened. Devers playing hurt in August only added to the confluence misfortune.

14 AL Teams are within 2.5 games of each other. Only the Rays (7-0) stand alone, although 3 teams are within 2.5 of them.

On the farm, today... Mata struggled with control: 3.2 IP 2 H 1 ER 5 BB 6 K Hamilton 2-3 w 2B Bobby D with the team's only rbi in a 3-1 win. Game 2 Murphy 3.1 IP 6 H 2 ER 3 BB 5 K Hamilton (2-2 w 3B) & Bobby D (2-2 w 2 rbi) were a big part of the offense in a 9-5 win. Crook homered. Sea Dogs won 2-0. Droahn 5.0 IP 3 H 0 ER 1 BB 5 K Denlinger 2 IP, 0, 0, 3K Rosier (Groome trade) went 2-3 Greenville lost 5-3 Mayer & Meidroth got 5BBs combined (no hits) Salem just scored 5 in the 8th to tie it 6-6. Bleis 2-4 w BB

As sucky as the Sox are, the Yanks are just 1 ahead, right now. lmao.

Franchy was not enough. Maybe, next time.

Baserunning. A .730 to .740 OPS in AA/AAA does not seem like anything to get our hopes up about, but a 2Bman who hits .740, can steal 50-70 bases and defend okay may stick around. .690 with so-so speed and 25 SBs, maybe not.

I hate to even do scenarios with Paxton healthy and doing well, but here it goes... 1. Sale 2. Whitlock 3. Kluber 4. Bello (Paxton piggyback) 5. Pivetta Closer: Jansen Set-up: Martin, Schreiber, Bleier (Joely when healthy) Long: Houck, Wink Low Leverage: Brasier (Paxton is the 8th RP'er, technically, unless we start him and piggyback Bello.) I suppose we could piggyback Pivetta and Paxton, but I think Bello's innings might be restricted.

With us, the BB always came before the HR.

Hamilton seems to be ML ready, now, but he's just not good enough. It's like they put mid 2024 in hopes he just improves, and not necessarily matures.

It sucks not having baseball on a Friday.

Sometimes, you get a feel for how a team's make-up is going to carry or drop for the rest of the season by mid May, and certainly some teams can turn things around, for the good or bad, late in a season, but by the end of May, it seems like you just kinda "know." Last year, we had hopes some players would be returning from injuries and that Casas might be ready to replace Dalbec, but then he got hurt. We went 14-14 in May after that 9-13 April, and then June gave us false hopes (20-6), before July (8-19) and August (12-16) ended any sliver of hope.

I'm thinking this might be the one area almost everyone, here, agrees with. I'd also send Ort down to AAA before Kelly, when Whitlock is called up. When Bello is ready, I'd send down Kelly over Crawford, but if Crawford keeps sucking, maybe not.

It has to have more to do with the added 1-2 mph. They knew about the whiff% in their end of year rankings.

It would be interesting to see what their track record is. They do adjust their projections, at times. I was surprised they did not have Mayer in AAA to start 2024. The "late '24" designation for his first MLB game does seem conservative. I'm not sure others jump out at me as being overly conservative.

Whitlock went 6 IP 1 H (an HR) 1 ER 1 BB 8 K Meidroth went 3-3 w a BB and Mayer 1-4 w 2B Perales could not get out of the first. Bleis 2-4 w 2B & BB Castro 3-4 w 2B & BB Coffey 3 of the team's 11 BBs.

Sox by Age (Players & Prospects with 3+ years of team control, counting 2023) 18: Anthony, Alcantara, Coffey, Brannon, F Encarnacion, J Garcia 19: Bleis, Romero, Perales, E R-C, Ravelo, Paez, Castro 20: Mayer, Paulino, Jordan, Bonaci 21: Yorke, Lugo, Wikelman, Meidroth 22: Rafaela, Guerrero 23: Bello, Casas, Mata, Hickey, Abreu 24: Winckowski, EValdez, Murphy, Kavadas, McDonough, R Fernandez 25: DHamilton, Koss, Scott 26: Devers, Whitlock, Houck, Wong, Walter, Duran 27: Arroyo, Crawford, Dalbec 28: McGuire, Kelly, Mills 29: Yoshida, Schreiber 30: Story, Ort 34: Sale

soxprospects.com's ETAs: 2023: 2. Casas 5. Mata (mid) 17. Murphy (mid) 9. Walter (late) 15. EValdez (late) 2024: 4. Rafaela (early) 1. Mayer (late) 7. Yorke (late) 12. Drohan (late) 13. Lugo (late) 20. Kavadas (late) 24. Abreu 25. Guerrero 2025: 10. Paulino 14. Wikelman 18. Jordan 19. Hickey 22. Bonaci 2026: 3. Bleis 7. Romero 8. Perales 11. Anthony 16. E R-C 23. Coffey 2027 21. Alcantara

My opinion is he will make the bigs closer to your time than theirs. (They list "Late 2024.")

I'd only change May 1st to Memorial Day.

Hardly. I was maybe the first to jump ship, last summer. I hear you on commiserating with fellow Sox fans. I came to these sites, when I moved to Mexico and had nobody to talk Sox with.

How many big splash FA SP'er signings have worked out over recent years? 2023: 37 x 5 deGrom 27 x 6 Rodon 43 x 2 Verlander 15 x 5 Senga 18 x 4 Walker 17 x 4 Taillon 21 x 3 Bassitt 13 x 3 Eflin 17 x 2 Nate (10 x 1 Kluber) 2022: 43 x 3 Scherzer 23 x 5 R Ray 22 x 5 Gausman 15 x 5 ERod 24 x 3 Stroman 14 x 4 Jon Gray 25 x 2 Verlander 22 x 2 Rodon 11 x 4 Matz 12 x 3 Kikuchi 6 x 4 N Martinez 13 x 2 Alex Wood 21 x 1 Syndergaard 10 x 2 Cobb 17 x 1 Kershaw 13 x 1 Greinke 8 x 1 Kluber & T Anderson (5 x 2 Paxton, 7 x 1 Wacha and 5 x 1 RHill) 2021: 34 x 3 Bauer 8 x 3 Odorizzi 8 x 3 T Walker 19 x 1 Gausman 19 x 1 Stroman 9 x 2 M Minor 15 x 1 Morton 11 x 1 Kluber 11 x 1 Smyly 10 x 1 Richards (5 x 1 Perez) 2020: 36 x 9 Gerrit Cole 35 x 7 S Strasburg 24 x 5 Z Wheeler 17 x 5 M Bumgarner 20 x 4 H-J Ryu 18 x 3 Keuchel 9 x 3 K Gibson 12 x 2 T Roark 10 x 2 M Pineda 18 x 1 Cole Hamels 2019: 23 x 6 Corbin 17 x 4 Nate 14 x 4 Kikuchi 17 x 2 Happ 15 x 2 Morton 10 x 2 An Sanchez 18 x 1 J-H Ryu 8 x 2 Richards 13 x 1 Keuchel 11 x 1 Harvey 2018: 21 x 6 Darvish 25 x 3 Arrieta 14 x 4 Cobb 13 x 3 M Minor 8 x 2 J Vargas & A Cashner 2017: 16 x 3 RHill 9 x 3 I Nova 11 x 2 Volquez 2016: 31 x 7 Price 34 x 6 Greinke 22 x 6 Cueto 22 x 5 Zimmerman 18 x 5 Samardzija 16 x 5 Chen & Leake 15 x 5 I Kennedy 16 x 4 Kazmir 2015: 30 x 7 Scherzer 26 x 6 Lester 19 x 4 Shields 14 x 4 Santana 12 x 4 McCarthy 13 x 3 Liriano