moonslav59

ETAs according to soxprospects.com I count 7 players who could hold key roles on the 2023 26 man roster. 2022 3. Bello 9. Winckowski 12. Seabold 17. Wong 2023 2. Casas 6. Mata 7. Walter 11. Murphy 16. E Valdez 30. F German 2024 1. Mayer 4. Yorke 8. Rafaela 15. Ward 21. Lugo 26. W Abreu 28. Binelas 29. Jimenez 2025> 5. Bleis 10. Romero 13. Paulino 14. Anthony 18, Jordan 19. Gonzalez 20. Coffey 22. Hickey 25. Kavadas 24. Perales 27. Bonaci The list looks nicely balanced, assuming our top prospects amount to something special, and we have a lot of interesting talent becoming ML ready by the end of 2023. We also have some very talented players about to be added to the 40 for Rule 5. 10 players- should be ready by 2023 or were already called up. Plus, there is no Noah Song or RHern on this top 30 list- both might contribute, someday.

When you consider some of the pitchers we've had to reach way down on the depth chart to use a s starters and RP'ers, one could say our numbers are better than expected, and ERA ain't everything, I might add. Take Brasier, for example: he's got a 5.20 ERA but one of the team's best FIP's at 3.21. Anyway, check out these IP numbers from guys listed at maybe 15th to 25th on our pre-season depth chart: Many did much better than those who went on the IL or stunk up the place.) IP Pitcher ERA 65 Cutter 4.18 56 Wink 4.69 47 Schreiber 1.91 31 Danish 4.02 25 Robles 5.84 17 Bello 8.47 16 Valdez 4.41 15 Ort 9.00 11 Seabold 11.91 (actually one of the first farm hands called up: oops!) 7 DHern 3 Feliz 2.70 That's about 280 IP or about 27% of all IP'd by Sox pitchers!

I really don't get neglecting OBP. Even the big Story signing neglected OBP. (.340 career, including .307 away from COL.)

The thought, at the time, was to trade him and maybe eat $5-10M of his contract and then sign Schwarber. It would have amounted to paying Schwarber $5-10M more than his contract, but we stuck with JD. One other big thought by many here was signing Suzuki as a big bat and OF help. We hear a lot about how we should have signed Jansen and others, but not many of us are screaming about Suzuki, anymore.

We have a lot of players who we counted on to give us near what they were like last year or over their recent few years. Almost none of them gave us even the same as last year. 2021's team> 2022 (listed by most PAs and IP) .890 Devers .938 (Improved defense, too.) .867 JD M .780 (a massive drop off in RBIs, too.) .777 Dugo .863 Bogey .818 (156 RBI in his last 1300 PAs) .786 Kike .613 (Massive drop off and missed about 100 games) .816 Renfroe/ JBJ replaced at .578 (Horrific hit to the line-up_ .659 Vaz .759 (A very nice 100 point gain, but traded!)>McGuire 1.056 .792 Dalbec .649 (Had a career OPS above .800 going into 2022.) .567 Marwin/ replaced by Story .713 .769 Arroyo .744 (Yes, even Arroyo declined.) .737 Plawecki .469 (Gut punch cliff dive.) .957 Schwarber replaced indirectly by .885 Refsnyder .497 Cordero .660 (got more PAs, too.) .597 Santana replaced indirectly by Pham .819 .578 Duran .661 .549 Chavis (See Marwin replaced by Story) .643 Arauz (See Marwin replaced by Story) .915 Iggy> late season Downs .427 .843 Shaw> Hosmer .584 2021 ERA+> 2022 125 Eovaldi 102 (This hurt, along with injury) 99 ERod> replaced by Wacha 173 103 Pivetta 93 (Innings leader in 2022) 96 Richards replaced by Hill 89 99 Perez replaced by Crawford 101 239 Whitlock 142 (Declined in ERA+, but still did very well.) 133 Houck 134 (About the same) 112 Ottavino> replaced by Schreiber 179 124 Barnes 63 (way less IP, too) 154 Sawamura 133 138 Taylor> replaced by Strahm 119 (injured) 149 Sale 141 (et tu, Sale?) 140 DHern 21 (Massive drop) 81 Valdez 98 78 Andriese> 100 Diekman (traded away) 131 Robles 73 (goner) 128 Rios> replaced by Wink 90 96 Workman> replaced by Danish 106 98 Davis 90 73 Brice> replaced by Ort 48 320 Brasier 82 Hard to make up ground with all this going on...

You make plans based on the best information you have, but sometimes it just doesn't work out. Who would have/ could have foreseen the near complete decline of every returning vet from 2021? Only Devers and Vaz did better, and Houck has been about the same. The rest all went down- some by a massive amount.

The one SS I really hope we avoid going large and long on is Correa. He's always hurt, and when he's healthy, he is often under .800. .806 2020-2022 .807 2018-2022 He's been at .790 or lower in 3 of the last 5 seasons and under .729, twice. Pass. I like Swanson, but only if he comes in significantly lower than Bogey and Turner.

It's early, but here are some small sample size numbers from the rookie leagues: DSL Red .940 Frank Aastacio (68 ABs) .857 Axel james (85) .855 Ronny Ramirez (67) .734 Freili Encarnacion (121- 3 HRs) DSL Blue 1.146 Anger Romero (12 ABs- love the name!) .889 Amando Sierra (171- 5 HRs) .791 Jose Mendez (115) .776 Kelvin Diaz (5 HRs) FCL (Overall) .959 Lyonell James (90) .896 Miguel Bleis (153- 5 HRs leads team) .880 Johnfrank Salazar (101) .838 Daniel McElveny (64) .804 Alan Castro (99- 3HRs)

Good suggestions. Just stating something, without prefacing it with "I think..." often comes across as a statement of fact rather than opinion.

So, this might be okay? LF: Pham/Duran platoon CF: Nimmo RF: Verdugo 4th/5th OF'er: Refsnyder Since none are suited to DH, do we really want to carry 5 OF'ers out of our 13 positional players? 2 catchers 2 1B/DH Hosmer & Casas or Dalbec 2B SS 3B That leaves just 1 utility IF slot and our back-up 1Bman at DH. I'm still thinking one of our LF is their best position OF'ers should be traded, and it should not be a RH'd one like Pham or Refsnyder. I guess we can stash Duran or Ref at AA to prolong the choice, but why look for better options?

Yes. There are a few 17 & 18 year olds in the Rookie leagues, but when Devers was hitting .773 in A_ and .779 in A+ ball, he was mostly facing 20-23 year olds- some even older, none younger. Here are some comps, I pulled up... Devers Age 17: .858 Gulf .984 DOSL Age 18: .773 GRE A- (.689 in winter ball) Age 19: .779 at SAL A+ (.579 winter ball) Bogaerts 17 .819 DOSL Rk 18 .834 A- 19 .883 A+ .948 AA 20 .909 AA .822 AAA 50 PAs in BOS in 2013 (.684) Moncada 17 .762 Cuban League 18 .771 Cuban League 19 none 20 .817 A- 21 .923 A+ .910 AA (.829 Fall league) 20 PAs in BOS .513 Traded 22 .823 AAA .750 MLB 22 Bleis .751 DOSL in 136 PAs .896 in FCL in 167 PAs, so far

He did do very well in the rookie leagues at 17, but then he did not do all that great at A and A+ ball when 18 & 19. He busted out at age 20 at AA (.944) and AAA (1.047) before joing the Sox later in the 2017 season, where he hit .820. Age 17: .858 Gulf .984 DOSL Age 18: .773 GRE A- (.689 in winter ball) Age 19: .779 at SAL A+ (.579 winter ball) We've had plenty of players with much better numbers than these, but not so many at these ages.

There are probably several other smart baseball people who think Whitlock should remain in the pen as a long man, and maybe a few that want him as a 1 inning closer. IMO, more people see him as being best used as a starter, since that is where the best pitchers, capable of going long innings, are going to give the most value, due mostly to getting 80-100 more IP than a traditional closer gets and maybe 40-80 over most long man RP'ers. Eck is a smart guy, and I like him, and he is a fair point to bring up, but my guess is, the vast majority of GMs and managers would try to put Whitlock in the rotation, based on his ability to go long innings and a skillset that is conducive to starting (and relieving).

Even wins and losses in games started can be deceiving, but here's a look: 10-4 Wacha 5-4 Whitlock 6-5 Wink 9-9 Eovaldi 2-2 Houck 11-12 Pivetta 4-5 Crawford 1-2 Davis 0-2 Sale 0-3 Davis

...Or, had he had better starter depth, Houck and Whitlock could have remained in the pen, all year. The pen has been doing fine, since both joined it. -Had Crawford pitched this well, the first time up, and been used as a SP'er- not RP'er early on, maybe we would not have needed Houck and Whitlock in the pen, so much. -Had Wink been called up before Seabold... -Had Wacha, Hill and Nate all gotten hurt at the same time... -Has Sale or Paxton actually helped, late season,... It took a lot to go wrong, for this mess to have occured. Add to this the fact that every single returning vet, except Houck, who stayed about even, declined from 2021 to 2022. That's awfully hard to overcome.

There are many very knowledgeable baseball people who think Whitlock would be best used as a SP'er. Many of the best baseball minds disagree on a few things.

Better put than I tried to say. Trades are made, every year. We lost a good player in Vaz, but like you said, we got better, overall. If players were hanging their heads over the Vaz loss, maybe we need bigger changes than I imagine we do.

He's a FA, so we'll have to outbid the other teams or offer hima QO, which would probably take.

Yes, and to add to this, the Yanks made a few high profile moves at the deadline to give the team the impression they cared. I thought thatw as supposed to motivate a team. LOL.

Agreed. I was going to bring up the "I'm the shortstop" thing again, but I caught so much grief over it, that I chose not to do it. It did seem like Bogey stepped up his defensive game, this year, and I'm not attributing that to the Story acquisition, but his offense certainly took a hit, particularly with his power and hitting when it counted most. The whole "team leadership" thing is hard to quantify, but I do think it is real, but my point has been, recently, that if someone is to be praised as a team leader, and his team seems to be lacking focus, making mental mistakes over and over and seemingly just going through the motions, shouldn't those leadership skills be called into question just like a slumping player's offensive skills are questioned? When Vaz was traded, where were Bogey and JD taking up the slack and directing the team to stay focused and concentrate on the improvements made to the team, and the fact that the WC was still in reach? Maybe they tried their best. Who knows what was said and done. I don't trust media reporting, but teh team did lose focus. That's not only on Cora, but it's also on the clubhouse leaders, too.

Indeed, and again, I'm not against the idea.

True, but the late Story signing took the heat off needing a big RH'd bat. It was only the injury to our only RH'd OF bat, Kike, that exposed the weak link. Ref ended up filling in very well, after he was called up and until he got hurt, but yes, nobody saw him as a viable OF option back in March.

I also think the plan is to have him start, next season, perhaps with no innings restrictions. I'm not against the idea, but he's been so great in the multiple inning, high leverage relief role. If Houck comes back and looks assuring as the closer, I'd be more inclined to support moving Whitlock to the rotation. As of now, I'd like to see us add a solid #1/2 type, give Wacha a QO for the #2 slot, hope Sale or Paxton are healthy (not both) for the 3 slot, and then hand the #4 slot to Pivetta. The 5 slot can be filled by the best of Crawford, Winckowski, Bello, Mata and others. (The others add depth to the farm or pen.)

Like we have with Story- the actual RH'd bat we did sign that likely convinced Bloom that Kike was the only RH'd bat we needed in the OF to start the season off. Also, why no love (or credit) for Refsnyder?

soxprospects says "late 2024," but I think earlier is entirely possible.