moonslav59

Those 99 pitches were 15 more than his previous MLB career high, as well. My guess is, his next start will be 65-75 pitches. Man, he looked as sharp as ever!

I think the stark contrast between the amazing Whitlock and the s***** BraisOrt, threw off the Angels' timing.

The O's lost some good veteran talent and club house leaders. The should make that up as their plentiful young players get one year closer to prime, but on paper, they look worse. The other teams added talent but lost some, too. They all have some big question marks, too.

I get your point. There are steady .500 teams and rollercoaster .500 teams, and we have been the latter. I do think getting Whitlock back was huge, but losing Duvall hurt like hell, since he was our hottest hitter. At some point, we should get Story, Mondesi and Duvall back, and we will be seeing Bello & Paxton, soon and Joely and maybe Mills, later on. Of course, we are likely to lose another player or two to injury, but I think we will be seeing a different team come July and August. (I know, we heard the same thing, last spring.) I do realize this team could easily finish in last, again, but I'm thinking it is more likely we compete for a playoff slot, right to the end. I think our pitching staff is better and deeper than many think it is, and what we have seen, up to now, is not "the norm." My biggest worry is the defense. If by mid season, with the return of Story and/or Mondesi, having Kike in CF and one of those 2 at SS would greatly improve the D, especially up the middle. Casas and Devers are ok to fine at the corner IF slots, so our D coulkd go from bottom 5-10 to maybe middle 10, overnight. That could boost the pitching, as well.

I think his career is about long enough, where we can say, the guy can pitch very well. He has some very nasty stuff, that I don't think anyone can deny. Can he be a legit SP'er for a full season? Maybe not. Did the injury, last year, change his long term outlook? Maybe. My hopes are high, but only because I know he can pitch. I'm not sure about 160+ IP, let alone 180+, but He's a damn good pitcher- maybe our best, right now.

Paxton? He has not let up any HRs in his 2 games with WOO. 6.1 IP 6 Hits (O HRs) 2 ER 4 BB 9 K 2.84 ERA Too many walks, but he did not look all that bad. Does he get one more start in AAA?

With no Duvall, out 9 best hitters by OPS, regardless of sample sizes are: .968 Tapia CF .964 Devers 3B .939 McGuire C .815 Verdugo RF .779 Turner 1B .699 Refsnyder LF .662 Yoshida DH .607 Kike 2B .586 Dalbec SS Bench .511 Casas .500 Wong .417 Arroyo .377 Chang I'd play Casas or Arroyo over Dalbec.

Getting Duvall and/or Story back will lengthen the line-up, but yes, until they come back, we will need our 6-9 hitters to do more. Right now, it looks like we have just 4 decent hitter or better: Devers Turner Verdugo Yoshida (not proven, yet) There is still hope one of these guys can hit .800: Kike Casas Maybe .775+ Refsnyder McGuire Arroyo Need better than .650 from... Wong Dalbec Chang I'm not sure Tapia will get to play much, unless Change keeps hitting near his 4 something OPS. Some of our worst hitters are near the top or middle of our PA leaders: PAs and OPS ranking 72 Turner 6th 70 Dugo 5th 65 Devers 3rd 62 Kike 9th 50 Arroyo 13th 50 Casas 11th 48 Yoshida 8th 41 Ref 7th 37 Duvall 1st 36 Wong 12th Two of our best OPS guys have among the least PAs on the team: 25 Chang 14th 25 McGuire 4th 14 Tapia 2nd 11 Dalbec 10th

My Rotation: Whitlock Bello Kluber Sale Pivetta Paxton (I'd piggy back Paxton with Bello, until we know more about these 6.) Pen: 8-9th inning Jansen Martin, Schreiber 6-7th inning Brasier, Bleier (JRod when healthy) Ort in AAA if not DFA'd/traded 2-3 inning guys (may pitch through 8th and 9th) Houck, Winckowski Crawford in AAA

Maybe this will be the first time we win one without at least one of the aces being acquired by trade or free agency. Pedro- trade Schilling- trade Schilling- trade Beckett- trade Lester- homegrown Lackey- FA Sale- trade Price- FA

Today... Woo got killed 10-1. I'll skip the pitching. Alfaro 2-4 Hamilton 1-4 (1.094 OPS) Por lost 3-2 as no pitcher went more than 2.1 IP Sikes 2-4 (.887 OPS) Yorke 1-2 w HR and 2BB (.829 OPS) Kavadas 1-3 w BB Gre- not many times can we say Greenville was the only winning Sox farm team on a given day. Encarnacion 5 IP, 4H, 1ER, 1BB, 5K Paulino 1-4 w HR Jordan 2-4 Mayer 1-3 w BB Meidroth 1-4 Ferguson 1-3 w 2B Salem shut out 7-0 with all runs scored in the first. E R-C with a weird stat line: 0.1 IP 5 Hits 0 ERs 7 Runs 0 BB 0 K Ravelo went 2-4

Whitlock and Bello are likely the reason, Bloom only signed 1 SP'er to replace the 3 we left. The return of Sale & Paxton may end up secondary.

Yup. Meant to write Wink not Whitlock

Updated Team OBP Leaders .514 Duvall (out for a while) .417 McGuire (plays less than Wong) .389 Turner (notorious second half hitter) .386 Verdugo (loving his changed approach) .385 Tapia (small sample size) .366 Refsnyder (maybe 2022 was not such a fluke) .364 Dalbec (tiny sample size) .354 Yoshida (finding ways to get on base) .308 Devers (The .656 SLG makes up for this) .274 Kike (on the rise) .250 Wong (needs to start showing some O) .204 Arroyo (rough start) .200 Casas (not living up to the hopes) .160 Chang (placeholder)

While Martin has not looked super impressive, I think the group of Matin, Schreiber and Winckowski is falling into a groove that could easily do better than last year's 2-4 pen guys. If Houck or some other SP'er moves to the pen, we could see a vastly improved and deeper pen than we have seen in over 3-4 years.

I think we all kinda felt this season was full of so many questions, hopes and doubts. I think what we have seen has been about what maybe should have been expected. I'm hopeful some questions will be answered, some doubts put to rest, and some hopes achieved. To me, it's going to be about the rotation, but I'm beginning to think we may find a successful group of 5 without needing Sale to be a stud. Is that so UNrealistic?

When I first started these threads back at the old site, it was in hopes that posters would keep their suggest trades like Braiser, Ort and Refsnyder for Trout on other threads. It didn't work then, either.

Agreed, He was not one of our worst 2-3 pitchers, even before today. I hope he keeps it up and proves us all wrong.

The suspense is unbearable. We are just days away from having all our SP'ers healthy, at the same time. To me, Whitlock could easily be the best SP'er we have on the team, so I'm not sending him to the pen. Bello may morph into the second best by year's end, but he's not going to go 190 IP. Houck might be a top 3 SP'er, and maybe I'm reading too much into his small sample size of horrible numbers the third time through a line-up. Besides, not many SP'ers go past 18 batters, anyway. That being said, with so many SP'ers healthy, unless some are or still are really stinking things up in a couple/three weeks, I like Houck taking over Whitlock's 2021-2022 role in the pen. Whitlock Bello Kluber Sale Pivetta Paxton (I'd piggy back Paxton with Bello, until we know more about these 6.) Pen: 8-9th inning Jansen Martin, Schreiber 6-7th inning Brasier, Bleier (JRod when healthy) 2-3 inning guys (may pitch through 8th and 9th) Houck, Whitlock Crawford

Maybe around 10th. If we spend at the deadline, maybe we end up in the top 25%. We fell so far behind in new spending, which to me, is real line to watch, and now, we are turning it around. Let's see, if the spening continues, next winter.

Had some things to do, and just finished watching the end. Really nice win and outing by Whitlock. I hope this is the start of a full season of great success for GW. He showed some real nasty stuff, today. Good to see Turner quiet his critics for a few minutes, anyway. Even Brasier is shutting me up.

Arroyo was a FT player, last year for a larger sample size than this season: July 30-Sept 3 28 Games started .860 OPS

He hit that pretty hard but to the exact wrong place.

$650M in 12 months likely places us top tier (top 10 of 30 teams.)

Except it keeps SP'ers in the same routine and readiness mode. Is that enough to outweigh the benefits of just having several long men in the pen? Normally, I'd say, no, but for a couple weeks (a 3 start stretch, each), maybe it makes some sense.