moonslav59

Seems like there are a lot less posts after a win.

Yup! Where is the extra tough Boston media?

Sure, but why not be out in front on something we all saw coming? SB Leaders 10 BAL 3 gms 6 HOU 4g 5 NYY 3G 5 CWS 4g 5 CLE 4g 4 AZ, NYM, SEA 4g We and 11 other teams have 1. Five have none.

I like to see Yoshida at least walking a ton while he works on upping his BA. Our early OBP Numbers: .600 Duvall .533 Turner .467 Devers .455 Kike .400 Yoshida .400 Dugo .400 Ref .333 Casas Team: .395 (4th) We are also 4th in SLG at .564 and OPS at .959 after just 3 games. We are 27th in ERA at 7.67. OUCH!!! (28th in WHIP at 1.96)

The O's are lined up for a snOrt.

Tiny sample sizes, but it's nice to see Yoshida reach the .400 OBP mark. OPS as of right now: 1.957 "K-man" Duvall 1.455 "Utility" Kike 1.114 "Mookie's Shadow" Dugo 1.067 "Chubby" Devers 1.033 "Over-the-Hill" Turner

Duvall is scorching the ball, even with some of his outs!

Some encouraging pen numbers: 0.00 ERAs 3 IP Winckowski 3 IP Martin 2 IP Schreiber 1 IP Jansen The last 3 are the big 3. Houck may join this group, as might Crawford and/or Joely Rodriguez.

How many 1-2-3 innings has our offense had, this season?

If Schreiber can be the 2022 Schreiber, again, our pen might be a huge plus. Remember, he only had 4.1 IP by May 9th (33rd game of the season). He ended up with 65. (61 IP over the last 129 games.) Give him 75-80 IP at his 2022 numbers, and watch out!!!

Our pen is better and deeper than 2022 and even 2021. I'd prefer he take Whitlock's long relief role, but getting to the 5th inning is the norm, these days. BTW, Houck has a career 1.12 WHIP, so he might make it to the second batter in the 5th, on average. 4.48 runners after 4 IP at 1.12 compared to 5 runners after 4 at 1.25.

I'm hopeful Houck can take over Whitlock's pen role of 2021-2022. Moving Whitlock to the rotation created a big hole in what had been a shaky pen over those last 2 years. Houck for Whitlock Schreiber for Schreiber Martin for Strahm Jansen for Barnes/Ottavino Joely for Sawamura/Davis

One example of when people say the Sox look bad, I say, "Look at many other teams."

I wouldn't mind starting Houck, if they yank him after 18 PAs.

Can we buy a crooked number?

Houck Career, before today... (OPS Against) .504 first PA .647 second 1.017 third[ .455 first 25 pitches .675 26-50 .754 51-75 .767 76+ He looks like a RP'er, smells like a RP'er, tastes like a RP'er, yet he keeps starting.

Devers shows no signs of contractual laziness.

It seems Houck does much better the first and second times through the line-up. Mullins was the first guy up for the third time. Tie game.

1 is not crooked.

Crooked number needed, here.

Shouldn't this have been something we knew and did from day one?

Good points. When you look at what positions seem "covered" for 3 or more years, it's interesting to see what we have on the farm at the positions not covered. Covered: C: McGuire/Wong 1B: Casas 2B: Story 3B: Devers LF: Yoshida UT: Chang Uncovered/ to be covered by???: SS: Mayer/Romero CF: Rafaela RF: Paulino/Anthony/Abreu/Duran DH: Dalbec/ EValdez/Kavadas UT: Yorke/Hamilton/Lugo/Bonaci/Jordan Pitchers: Covered SP: Whitlock, Bello, Crawford, Winckowski (Sale w option) RP: Houck, Schreiber, Kelly, Mills, Ort Uncovered SP Mata SP Walter SP Murphy/Perales/Wikelman RP Fernandez/ Converted SP'ers

It is a pretty small sample size, and when he joined the team, last August, not only should an adjustment period be given, the team and staff were in chaos. McGuire never caught Nate, Houck or Wacha and hardly caught any of Whitlock and Strahm. That's maybe 5 of our best 7 pitchers of 2022. (Hill & Schreiber being the other two, and RM did not catch more of them than his share.) With all the change-overs from 2022 to 2023, it's like a brand new staff. Here are the pitchers he caught the most in 2023 by PAs Against: 186 Pivetta 120 Hill 110 Crawford 67 Bello 67 Brasier 60 Schreiber 52 Barnes 46 Ort 45 Winck 41 Davis 35 Seabold 31 Danish 30 Sawamura 29 Bazardo 26 Familia While the bottom 6 on this list do not have large sample sizes, their total PA is 192, which is more than with Pivetta. Look how McGuire's PAA list compares to the full season list of PAs Against by Sox pitchers: 773 Pivetta 526 Hill (120 w RM) 515 Wacha (0 w Rease McGuire- a huge disparity) 460 Nate (0 w RM- a huge disparity) 334 Crawford 316 Winck 311 Whitlock (only 21 w RM- a huge disparity) 268 Bello (only 67 w RM) 263 Brasier 257 Schreiber (only 60 w RM) 254 Davis 247 Houck (0 w RM) 221 Sawamura 193 Strahm (only 19 w RM) 176 Barnes 134 Ort 111 Robles As you can see by the pitchers highlighted in red, RM hardly caught 5 of our very best pitchers. The biggest disparities in RM's favor (meaning more PAs w Reese than an even distribution would be) were Pivetta, Hill and Crawford- not really our best pitchers, except for Hill. It was large an apples and oranges scenario, last year. The two game sample size of 2023 does look frightening, as did the ST'ing numbers, but I think there is still an adjustment period underway. Sale and Kluber are new to RM. OPSA in 2023: 1.168 w McGuire 1.460 Kluber (19 PAs) 1.526 Sale (19 PAs) 1.125 Ort (9) 1.270 Kelly (9) .286 Wink (7) 1.214 Brasier (7) .650 Jansen (5) 1.167 Schreiber (4) .000 Martin (3) with Wong (.844): 1.100 Martin (5) .400 Wink (5)

It will be interesting to make the what-if comparison of keeping all or most of last year's players vs what we replaced them with. The cost comp is more difficult, as we will always wonder about what we could have signed Bogey for, instead of what he ended up getting with SD, but here is the financial comp: Lost Sox Players in $millions 25.4 x 11 Bogey 17.0 x 2 Nate 10.0 x 3 Vaz 10.0 x 1 JD 8.0 x 1 Hill 7.5 x 2 Strahm 6.5 x 4 Wacha Total: 84.4M AAV 2023 FA Additions: 17.0 x 5 Yoshida (not counting posting fee) 16.0 x 2 Jansen 10.9 x 2 Turner 10.0 x 1 Kluber 7.0 x 1 Duvall 6.8 x 2 Martin 2.0 x 1 JRod Total: $69.7M for 2023 It's too early to look at 2023 production, but some players on both lists are off to good starts.

You can throw to 1B with 0.1 second remaining, so I'm not sure about this.