moonslav59

Yes, that's why I said "don't carry as much weight," and not that the numbers I gave are unimportant.

Take away 2021, which many viewed as an aberration, anyway, and I can see steady growth, but minimal growth, of late. .400 to .493. In 3 more years, we should be at .586! LOL!

Yes, right now. I agree. I will say, I am getting closer to the point many seemingly have already reached, and some were at before the season even started, but I still have significant hopes we right the ship. My main area of optimism is that our weakest area- the rotation- looks to be greatly improving, and our second worst area- defense- should improve, now that Kike is no longer the SS, and the returning Duvall and eventually Story should help as well. Of course, the bats could stay dormant, but to me that is not expected. It is depressing, right now, so it is what it is.

His answer would likely be more about 2024 and beyond, but I really believe he thought and might still think he built a 2023 team that should make the playoffs. If the rotation keeps going like this, we just might,

Good point, and this shows why some of the stats I used that show he is swinging at out of zone pitches less than his norm may not carry much weight. Thanks for the deeper dive.

One more small tidbit of information highlighting the flaws of using the W-L records to judge pitchers.

If the team can't get above .500 why keep a SP'er who is a FA, after this year? Is .490 over .475 better than a decent prospect?

Woo was 2 hit with Scott hitting a 2 run HR in the loss. Por lost game 1, but Rafaela went 2-4. Mayer doubled while going 1-4 Meidroth 0-1 w 2BB Hickey 1-3 Kavadas 0-3 w 3Ks POR lost game 3-2 in game 2. Kavadas and Mayer both homers for 2 of the team's 3 hits. (Kavadas K'd twice/ Yorke 3 times.) Joirdan homered and doubled in GRE's loss. Anthony had 2 hits. FCL lost 12-11 (They scored 10 in the 8th and 1 in the 9th.) The team walked 9 times. Brannon 2-5 w BB & 3B Yuten 2-6 w 2B Alcantara 1-4 w 2BB Avila 1-1 w 2BB DSL Red lost 6-2 Arias 3-5 (1.023 OPS) The 10-0 DSL Blue was already mentioned

Games left before trade deadline: 3 NYY 4 @MN 3 @CWS day off 3 MIA 3 @TOR day off 3 TEX 3 OAK All Star Break- 4 days 3 @CHC 3 @OAK day off 3 NYM day off 2 ATL day off (7th day off in 18 days) 3 @SFG 3 @SEA (deadline before game 2)

Bloomspeak... Boston GM Chaim Bloom reflects on state of Red Sox WWW.MLB.COM This story was excerpted from Ian Browne’s Red Sox Beat newsletter. To read the full newsletter, click here. And subscribe to get it regularly in your inbox.

I get that, but I do think JH knows Bloom drafted mostly HS players, and so is giving his farm pipeline longer than might be normal. That being said, if Bloom did not add Whitlock and Wink to the "pipeline," he might certainly be out of a job, soon. Bloom's prospects and ETAs according to SPs: 1. Mayer late '24 2. Bleis late '26 4. Yorke late '24 5. Drohan mid '24 6. Anthony '26 7. Romero '26 15. E R-C '26 16. Jordan 2025 18. Hickey 2025 19. Hamilton mid '24 20. Murphy mid '24 (saw action in '23) 21. Alcantara 2027 23. Meidroth 2025 25. Guerrero mid '24 26. Ravelo 2026 28. Kavadas 2025 29. C Coffey 2027 30. Rogers 2026 Added to Pipeline outside of draft or IFA Graduated: Whitlock, Winckowsi, Wong, Ort, Kelly, Bernardino 10. Valdez '23 14. Abreu mid '24 Others: Denlinger, RHern, Gambrell, Ferguson, Rosier, de la Rosa

Yes, you have to go to 200 IP to get him included on the list if top pitchers from 2022-2023, however only 64 pitchers make that 200 IP cut off. That's about 2 per team on average. Some interesting notes that highlights how fangraphs really screws low K/higher weak contact pitchers: bWAR: 4.8 (I'm not sure where than places him in the rankings) fWAR: 3.5 (This is 40th out of 64 who qualified and nearly bottom third tier.) BTW, Kluber is 54 at +2.4 and Pivetta is 6th at +1.4. It's pretty telling to see that you have to go down to 100 IP from 2022 and 2023 combined to reach 150 qualifying SP'ers! WOW! Here are some notably ranked SP'ers: 13. Luis Castillo (traded last deadline and extended) 30. Pablo Lopez (traded last winter) 33. Jordan Montgomery (traded at the last deadline) 41. Jose Quintana 46. Eovaldi 47. Jesus Luazrdo (maybe a trade target?) 50. Michael Wacha- now this sample size places him in the top 3rd tier of 50 each. 2nd tier (middle 50) 58. T Walker 59 C Bassitt 60. K Gibson 63. R Stripling 67. Z Eflin 73. Kluber 74. Taillon 76. R Hill 78. T Mahle 81. J Cueto 83. Syndergaard 84. M Gore 86. F Montas 92. B Bello (just 104 IP) 101. C Irvin Bottom 3rd 110. Pivetta (only Marco Gonzalez and Josiah Gray have more IP and a lower fWAR.) 113. Heaney

No, but I felt that way, all along. I've always felt they were never going to pay what Bogey wanted at any point along the timeline. To me, blaming losing on just the GM's moves misses the context and may not even be accurate to say the totality of his moves sucked. To each his own. I certainly understand how and why the GM is blamed for the team being inlast place after 3.5 years. I feel he shares in the blame, but my expectations for years 1-3 were much lower than most, here..

Depends, if they are looking at trying to win in 2024. Here is a bit of a logjam that can easily be fixed, but seems a bit needless. I assume Turner will take his $13.5M option on 2024 and Casas will be viewed as a FT player (1B/DH) in 2024. If we want to improve OF defense, and keep Dugo, playing Yoshida at DH makes the most sense, but then we logjam 1B. Maybe, we trade Turner. I wonder, if any GM values Kike as a CF'er, assuming he's not still at .650 on August 1st.

Is it that hard of rbatters with significant L-R splits? It might mean a 1-2 game adjustment in most cases.[ A lefty, who struggles vs lefties has plenty of days to choose from. A righty, not so much. Our team has faced 49 RH's SP'ers to 20 LH'd SP'ers. I like to see that Refsnyder started all 20 of those games (and only 5 v RHPs) GREAT! I get that we might not know about minor injuries or other factors that go into deciding on a needed day off, but here are some numbers: Devers did not start in 2 games out of 49 vs a RH'er. He did not start in 3 of 20 v LH'ers. More v LH'ers is good but 3 to 2? BTW, Devers does not have wide splits, career. Verduog does. Why did he start in 19 of 20 games vs LH'ers but only 44 of 49 v RH'ers? If it was not injury-related, it's bad choice. Kike hits LH'er much better: He started 19 of 20 v LH'ers- Good, but maybe could have been 20 and one less vs RH'ers. He started 41 of 49 v RH'ers (Maybe 40 would have been better, some might say 0.) He did it with Dalbec, last year- a huge L-R split guy. He played Ref vs RHPs, a lot, last year. [/b]

It must. Fielding Errors by year 42 '18 52 '19 26 '20 (short season projects to about 65) 58 '21 37 '22 20 '23 (Pro-rates to about 41) Throwing Errors 35 33 19 (short season projects to about 59) 49 48 29 (projects to about 60 for 2023) Throwing Error Leaders: 24 Kike Projected from 12 in 2023) 12 Devers '18 10 Devers '21 9 Devers '20 8 Devers '19 6 Bogey '18 & '21 and Renfroe in '21 FE is way different: Kike has just 2, which projects to 4 over a full season) 14 Devers '19 12 Devers '18 12 Devers '21 9 Dalbec '21 8 Bogey '19 6 Bogey '22 6 Renfroe '21 Kike has 12 of our 29 throwing errors but just 2 of our 20 FEs. 14 of 49 total or 29%!!!! Note: he's had about 310 out of 2420 Total Chances, too. (13%)

I'm not concerned about how it is set up or trying to guess at how it they are determined: I'm concerned that it seems immovable by even 1 game.

I get it, but are you saying there is zero chance the team takes the $24M/2 or $55M/4 options?

That is a separate issue and worthy of a separate debate. The other issue was clearly related to your issue in 2020 and to a lesser extent before 2021, and IMO all the way to March 2022, when Bloom signed Story. I can't really say Bloom botched the spending prior to Story. He was given a negative budget in 2020, and didn't come close to replacing the salaries of Betts, Half-Price and Porcello by 2021, and also had to deal with no Sale and his contract plus no ERod in 2020. To me, the judgment begins with Story and runs to now, but I'll start with the winter before 2022 until now, and here it is: The only Big Contracts (3): $314M/10 Devers: begins in 2024 and is hard to judge, right now. $140M/6 Story: looks like a total failure but made some sense, at the time, but could be TBD. $90M/5 Yoshida: looks good, so far, but it is very early. The Moderate deals (4): $32M/2 Jansen: looks good, to me. $24M/3 Kike (I added 2 deals): looks bad, now, despite a solid second half to '21 and an awesome post season. $21.7/2 Turner (assuming he takes the option): looks good, to me. $17.5M/2 Martin: looks good, to me. ($18.8M/2 Barnes extension sucked) (JBJ trade that added significant money to the budget sucked) Shorterm $7-10M/1 or $14-20M/2 Deals $10M/1 Richards: YUCK! $10M Kluber: YUCK! $7M Duval: TBD $7M Wacha: looked good, to me $10M/2 Paxton: TBD $2.5-$5M/1 or $5-$14M/2 Deals $5M/1 Hill: Looked good, to me $8M/2 Diekman: Bad, but getting McGuire and shedding $5.5M helped. $3M/1 Strahm: very good I gave my comments, but I'm not trying to make excuses or apologies, here. I ask you to think about what expectations should be on the money spent on mostly moderate to low budget deals, and then opine on just how bad, okay or good Bloom did, in retrospect or maybe how these deals looked at the time of their signings. Personally, I don't think he has been as horrible as many make him out to be, and feel our poor records have been related to other issues more than how many mistakes he's made on stab-in-the dark signings (not counting the Story deal, which was a major choice made.) Looking at the list above, what is your grade? Looking at that grade, how does those signings compare to the issue of Sale & his contract giving us next to nothing plus almost every big-named vet from 2018-2019 giving far less production from 2020-2023 or not even playing for much of that time? How much does the farm giving us only Houck from mid 2017 to mid 2022 compare in effect on the team record and our budget? Of the top of my head, I might say ... 40% lower production and injuries to our carry over stars 40% virtually no farm input for 5 years (3.5 in Bloom's era) 20% Blooms signings (I did not mention Bloom's additions of Wink, Schreiber, Refsnyder and others at less than $3M/yr and his farm building or his budget improvements.) This is his record just as much as the losing W-L record since 2021.

Bonehead choice- maybe 2-3 times, this year, out of thousands made. Not a bonehead manager. I'd feel better, if Cora determined he wants to give ____ a day off, next week and then choose the pitcher who is toughest for ____ to hit. I think I remember, in at least one case, the day after the day off saw a correct-handed pitcher going for the opps.

True, but he might end up costing $55M/4 not $10M/1, so that is major.

But he has a horrible stretch, last August and likely in other years, too, as well as red hot streaks every season.

I wasn't talking about this last Devers rest day, although it was before a day off. He sat 2 players before a day off and vs a wrong-handed pitcher, at least twice, this year. Don't ask me to prove it, please.

Yes, last in FLG% and just .006 from 15th, .007 from 10th, .009 from 5th and .010 from best. Here is a more advanced metric look, which (except for UZR/150) also shows we have gotten worse but are not "the worst": Fangraphs DRS (a cumulative number, but ranking is not) 18th in '21 (+4) 23rd in '22 (-4) 25th in '23 (-19) UZR/150 11th in '21 (+1.4) 23rd in '22 (-2.5) 6th in '23 (+3.7- don't ask me how.) D Measure (a cumulative number) 23rd in '21 (-20.6) 26th in '22 (-21.5 27th in '23 (-10.5)

I'd bet Cora is the only manager that routinely gives players a day off on both criteria: Before or after a team day off AND vs the wrong-handed SP'er. It is really a bonehead choice to make. I think I remember it happening twice, this year with respectable batters, but it probably happened more.