moonslav59

But, yesterday...!

Agreed, but we need to also hope for no new and longer term injuries. We might also add a SP'er and move a rotation arm to the pen.

The Rays won 11-10, as the Dodgers bum of a leadoff hitter went 0-5. The next 4 guys went 8-15 with 2 BBs, so you have to think...

I liked it better when the other 4 were playing each other, but we hit a losing streak at that time.

I had and still have my doubts about this year's chances at success, but I never understood those who felt there was nothing to get excited about. Bello Whitlock Houck Casas The Sale & Paxton sagas Masa vs Bogey Turner v JD Wong/McGuire v Vaz/Plawecki Duvall v JBJ & Co. Brand new pen v the ugly 2022 pen There is more, including surprises from Duran, Valdez, Crawink and others.

Houck > Kelly Why abandon your "what have you done recently" criteria, just for today?

Agreed. A good start by Paxton and Whitlock would go a long way towards improving my view of the starting 5, too.

No split seasons: 2022-2023 combined: (70+ PAs) Blue: no longer on roster .860 Devers (132 wRC+) .849 Refsnyder (139 wRC+) .842 Yoshida (130) .833 Bogey (134) .790 JD (119) .778 McGuire (115) .759 Vaz (110) .756 Dugo (108) .752 Turner (108) .737 Story (100) .729 Valdez .720 Arroyo .720 Casas .720 Duran .710 Wong Under .700 .697 Cordero .672 Pham .667 Tapia .647 Dalbec (in AAA) .641 Kike .578 JBJ .574 Plawecki .549 Chang

2022 Blue 2023 Red OPS by Season (70+ PAs) .881 Refsnyder .879 Devers .877 McGuire .842 Yoshida .842 Duran .833 Bogay .826 Dugo .803 Devers .790 JD .785 Refsnyder .766 Casas .765 Wong .759 Vaz .752 Turner .737 Story .736 Arroyo .732 Dugo .729 Valdez .697 Cordero .694 Casas .672 Pham .668 Kike .667 Tapia .660 Arroyo .652 Dalbec 353 PAs .650 McGuire .645 Duran 223 PAs .629 Kike 402 PAs .578 JBJ 290 PAs .574 Plawecki 175 PAs Those bottom 5-6 killed us in 2022.

That's part of the equation, for sure, but my hope is the rotation can be top 15 from APR 30 to the end of the season. The whole staff has been top 15 in some areas since 4/30, already. With reduce or no innings from Kluber, Pivetta, Brasier and Bleier, it might not be so hard to show much improvement.

Since April 30th: T 22nd in fWAR at 1.7 (2 teams at 1.8) 9th in ERA- at 93 11th xFIP at 4.18 11th K/BB at 2.8 12th SIERA at 4.14

Some Team Pitching Rankings fWAR 23. WSH 3.2 24. CWS 2.9 25. DET 2.8 26. BOS 2.7 27. KCR 2.4 28. MIL 2.1 29. NYM 0.5 30. OAK -3.6 10th BB/9 at 3.1 11th K/BB at 2.8 T15th SIERA at 4.16 18th xFIP at 4.33 18th K/9 8.5 23rd ERA- at 105 (103 would be 18th place) T24th ERA 4.69 Looking better than in mid/end of April. 13th BAbip .290

There is another scenario, too, but I won't go there.

True. One could weigh which will be better: Abreu & Eflin vs Turner & Kluber

That's the conundrum. Ultimately, you normally have to find your best 5 guys to start, even if it means hurting your pen. Bloom chose to add 2-3 solid pen arms (Jansen, Martin and maybe Joely) and just 1 starter, if you don't count Paxton as 2 and Sale as 3. That pretty much forced Whitlock, Houck, Crawford and maybe eventually Wink to have to start. Had Bloom added 2-3 SP'ers and just Jansen, we'd have seen most of the tweener guys in the pen, assuming good health and production from the rotation. I think Whitlock wanted a chance to start. That is not reason enough, alone, but he does have the stuff to be a plus starter, so as much as I love him in the pen, I think starting him made sense. Houck really should have a wider range of pitches to be a starter, and his record the third time through a line-up strongly suggested he not start. Even the difference between his first time through vs the second was great enough to strongly indicate he belongs in the pen, but the fact is, even with that flaw, he's a way better starter than Kluber & Pivetta. He also seems like the better choice over Crawink. If we can somehow manage to keep Crawink in the pen, all year, and the pen stays healthy, our pen will be the strongest and deepest it's been in a long time. That helps make the starters better, as we can yank them earlier than in the past and earlier than many other teams can afford to do with their struggling starters in any given game.

I think the anger over the Kluber signing goes beyond just Kluber. It's also about not really adding anyone else. I will add that because none of us wanted to count on even one start from Sale or Paxton, the fact was both were looking like they could and would be healthy, and Bloom did count on them. He also counted on recently injured Bello, Houck and Whitlock. He also counted on Crawford and Wink as reserves. He did not totally drop the ball, but I am firmly in the camp of those who felt he should have done better with his one addition or added two capable starters, last winter.

All three are injury prone. One year deals with injury prone pitchers seems better than longer ones.

Very true, but pitchers are often signed based on just last year. Also, 298 IP from 2019-2021 is not all that great, either (Nate.) 285 (Wacha) is not great, either. Both better but not great. 2019-2022 413 Wacha 407 Nate 281 Kluber BTW, starting this chosen sample size right after Kluber led the league in IP (2018) could be considered cherry-picking. No doubt, after about a third of the season is over, both Nate and Wacha look like way better signings. They will likely end the season way better, too. I had hoped we'd have brought Wacha back, but I think the QO and added draft pick for Nate was the prudent thing to do, at the time.

Agreed. We may see Kutter get a chance, this year, as an injury or two is almost a certainty. i'm absolutely loving what I'm seeing from Crawink. These two really lowered our expectations, last year, despite having decent "stuff," but now they are shining brighter than just about any other pitcher on the team, except maybe Sale, but he started out slowly. These two have been buttah, all year. We may see Wink get a shot at starting, again, too. (I hope not this year.)

Max, you are the king of "what have you done (or not done) for me recently." There is nothing wrong with that. It's the way you see things. You mention what players did in their last game, a lot.

Good point. I thought about that good move, when it happened, but forgot about it.

Many felt we'd be above .500 and others near it. Yes, we are streaky. We have 24 losses and 13 have come in series sweeps. 0-3 PIT 0-4 TBR 0-3 STL 0-3 LAA We started the season 2W, 3L, 3W, 4L, 3W. We also had an 8 game win streak. It's been hard to develop a gut feeling about this team, but so far, I'm feeling pretty good about our chances, despite what all the odds makers are saying. I know many teams have major injuries, including several ahead of us in the standings, but we might get some major boosts from returning Schreiber, Story, Duvall and possibly something from Arroyo/Mondesi/Chang. Our rotation finally looks set, although some doubts and questions remain. Our pen has looked as solid as it has since at least early 2018. Our make-shift or "no-name" line-up, as you call it, has carried this team for much of the season. Our defense looked awful, on paper, to start the year, and Kike gave that a kick start, but we've actually done better than I expected on D, and guys like Duran have shown miraculous improvement. (Even Kike is looking much better.) We've lessened the baserunning outs, blunders and increased the aggressiveness in mostly good ways- the two outs at home on double steals notwithstanding. There is a much better feel about this team than 2022's. Maybe it's better clubhouse leadership. Maybe it's better focus and energy. Maybe it's just a better roster. Probably, it's a little of all this. We've done what we've done facing good teams, for the most part. We have a better schedule, going forward, but it's hard to tell. Teams heat up and cool down, much like we have, and we may meet up with bad teams while they are hot or get lucky. I like what I see.

Maybe we can find a way to give him some innings, today. LOL

Indeed.

A lot has been said about Bloom's failures as our GM, and no doubt, he has had a lot. I guess when you make 15-20 changes or additions, each year, there will be many failures. Our opening day roster saw a major changeover, despite Bloom being at the helm for 4 winters. One of my letdowns on Bloom expectations has been his failure to find many "gems in the rough," as I have called them, over the years. That was something the Rays seemed to be very good at, and since our budget was slashed and not replenished for over 2 years, I expected to see more success stories. We've seen a few, along the way, and several near misses on timing, like Springs and Martin Perez, but less than I expected and hoped for. It does seem like some, acquired a while ago are now giving more production, prospects acquired through trades are beginning to shine at the ML level and in the minors, and some new "gems" are helping us win games, this year. I'm sure I missed some, but here is a selected list of "hidden gems" that have helped, at times: Pivetta: sucks, now but gave us a nice run while eating a lot of innings for 2+ years. Verdugo was not really "hidden" but being under the shadow of Betts was tough. He seems to be maxing his skills, this year. Wong came from the same trade and is helping us forget who Jeter Downs was. Arroyo was claimed off waivers. His continued time on the IL has dampened his value, a lot, but he has played well most of the time he plays. Whitlock has to be considered the gem of the gems. Not many Rule 5's turn out like this. Schreiber was another waiver score. WOW! He's been buttah! Refsnyder has the second best OPS by all Sox hitters from 2022-2023 (200+ PAs). Winckowski has made the word Beni obsolete in Sox Nation. (Others from that trade are now shining in the minors, too.) McGuire for Diekman? MAN! I'd have paid the CWS to take Diekman off our hands. Valdez and Abreu for 2 months of Vaz! Yoshida looks to have fooled many "baseball execs." Duvall and Turner make too much money to be called hidden gems, but both could be big parts of the this 2023 team's success. Tapia, Reyes, Bernardino, Garza... Paxton still has a lot to prove, and he's not really "hidden," but he may just beat expectations, when all is said and done. Maybe, Bloom has not done as badly in this area as I and maybe others have thought he had done and was doing, all along.