moonslav59

Bobby Dee: Mr. Clutch!

He's the best pitcher we have.

I don't see everything as black and white. I love my wife, but she does things that bug me. It doesn't mean I want a divorce. It's not a contradiction to disagree with someone on a few things but still like the overall job they are doing by a long shot. These guys make dozens of decisions, so not agreeing on a few does not mean I write them off. Also, disagreeing with someone does not always mean I think the other person is necessarily wrong. For one, I know I don't know all the stuff Cora nd Bloom know on every decision. I recognize my opinion may be wrong, and often times, the end results work out fine, despite my suggested alternative choice. There is a lot of gray area in between choices. For example, and this isn't meant to cause a political debate, I'm pro-choice, but I'd never call someone who is anti-abortion wrong. They believe abortion is murder, so I can see their point and can't say they are wrong to think murder is wrong. I don't think I agonize over much. Hell, I think I'm one of the more level-headed posters on this sight. These game threads seem to show way more agonizing than I ever feel or display. More people agonized over me simply scratching my head than my actual head-scratching was, in terms of agonizing. I guess I just see stating one's opinion as not always being meant as "second-guessing." I verbalize what I'm thinking at the time, and have been persuaded several times that my initial thought was or may have been short-sighted or flat out wrong. That doesn't bother me, as much as it seems to bother others. I've been wrong a lot, but when you state as many opinions as I do, being wrong a lot does not mean I've been wrong more than right. I loved the Bloom hiring and felt he's the type of guy we needed for a long rebuild. The rebuild has gone better and more quickly than I ever imagined it could, under the system designed to penalize big spenders and winners. I'm happy to admit I was wrong about the speed it took to rebuild, and I have credited DD for a lot of it- someone I was critical of for dealing away so much of the farm, but also someone I was overall happy with as a GM. Again, I don't see that as being wishy-washy or contradicting. He brought us 3 nice first place finishes and the greatest Sox team, ever. To me, that outweighs the bad. I loved the Cora hiring and still think he's a great manager, who gets the most out of what he's given, and knows his s*** when it comes to in game choices and taking the long view on a 162 game season. I don't pretend I know more or better, but I do have opinions that differ from his. If people view my comments as being overly critical or excessive second-guessing, so be it. Maybe I am a bit hypercritical, at times, but I'm thrilled we have Cora and Bloom as our leaders. In the total scope of this board, I don't see myself as being more of a second-guesser than the average poster- it's just that I post more than most. As a percentage, most of my posts are supportive of Cora, Bloom and the team. I'm usually the optimist and I think I have more patience with slumping players and teams than many here do.

What Cora does works way more than not, so it's hard to complain, too much, for me anyway, but I wonder why, when the numbers don't seem to support it, he's more than willing to keep Eovaldi in games through the third time through a line-up, but not guys like Wacha and Hill, who both had better 2021 and career numbers in 3rd PAs. So far, this year, Big Nate has done fine through 3 PAs, but I wonder if his size and just looking stronger than Wacha plays into the choices a little bit. Again, I'm not complaining about Cora's choices, I just wonder about the thought processes and what other information he sees that supports his choices.

Who? You?

Lugo is 3-5 and Binelas 2-5. Northcut is at 1 for 4. Yorke 1-5 and Jimenez 1-3 w BB. Rafaela doubled with 2 outs in the bottom of the ninth to end up 1-5, and Lugo singled him in to tie it up at 5. Binelas flew out to end the rally.

A lot of our starters on the farm are off to very good starts. It's early, yet, so a lot can happen. ERA/OPS Against pitcher (K:BB) 1.17/.381 Walter (29:0) 1.74/.548 Seabold (23:6) (1.63 ERA after today. OPSA not updated) 2.61/.594 Bello (32:8) 2.62/.551 Murphy (28:11) 3.41/.594 Santos (21:6) 3.60/.638 Groome (19:5) All these guys are in AA or AAA, now.

Hicks lead the team in OBP at .405, but he sucks over 2 ABs?

Yes! The guy with a .540 OPS Against in AAA, which is almost like getting JBJ results from all 9 batters, combined!

Indeed. He's only had more than 21 starts once since 2015.

Didn't he miss a quarter of his starts in 2020? (Like how I did that? 3/12 is 25%.)

That blows away many current Sox OPS. (plus, it must be at about .300, now.) 26 K's in 71 ABs is not too good.

All of 'em, but no time travel was needed, in this case.

I agree. often a second place team is better than 1 or 2 of the division winners, and I suppose a 3rd place team might be from time-to-time, but where's the limit? It's all about money, and these game bring in big TV and gate money, and teams staying in the hunt longer fills up more seat so it's likely here to stay or even get worse, too.

Haven't heard much talk about this guy's "quiet" 9 taters.

I'm not sure why I let MVP talk me off Seabold Mountain, last winter. It's good to see him K 8 in 7 innings, so he's now up to 23 in 27.2 IP on the season with 6 BBs (1 today). His ERA is down to 1.63. It's all so "non magical" how Bloom got these guys.

Huh? Renfroe signed 12/14/20 Beni was traded 2/10/21 I know I've been wrong on my Math quite a bit, lately, but we had Renfroe in the fold before trading Beni. 2020 comes before 2021.

Yes, but we traded Beni after we got Renfroe, and would not have had we not gotten another capable OF'er for the same lux tax cost equivalency. We've already been through all this. Go ahead and say we got Cordero and signed Marwin to replace Beni and got Renfroe to replace JBJ. Either way, Renfroe was a major reason we traded Beni.

It was pretty close. 2021 Renfroe .816 OPS 114 wRC+ -3.1 UZR/150 and -1 DRS(-0.5 dWAR) 2.1 fWAR/2.3 bWAR Beni .766 OPS 102 wRC+ +5.5 UZR/150 & +7 DRS (+0.3 dWAR) 1.8 fWAR/ 2.4 bWAR

Agreed. It's not like 14 inning games were killing baseball. Baseball plays 162 games for a reason. It takes about that many games to take the luck factor out of the equation. Adding the 5th WC team negates some of that. At least MLB is not like the NBA and NHL where more teams make it than don't.

.637 is pretty good, but really, an 11 PA sample size shows me very little. If you look at 2021 and career numbers, Wacha looks okay the 3rd time through, where Nate has been not quite as good. I'd let both go 3 times through, going forward, but of course in game considerations matter, too.

You betta- Wacha- ya- self!

He'd probably still play in a defensive replacement roll, but yes, he seems like the easier choice. Also, as badly as Kike is doing, he's still 100 points higher than JBJ.

Kavadas has 22 BBs in 18 games and a .475 OBP. Nice to see Bello crack the top 100 with BA. Where are our 4 ranked? Gotta love the 32:8 K:BB ratio for Bello, so far (20.2 IP) The BB's are a bit high, but when you K 32 in less than 22 IP, a little forgiveness is understandable. The .594 OPS Agaisnt is pretty awesome, too! Others in AA .381 Brandon Walter (29K: 0 BB) .551 Murphy (28:11) .594 Santos (21:6) .638 Groome (19:5) AAA .540 Winckowski (9:4) Beni who? .548 Seabold (15:5) .601 Keller (17:5) .619 DHern (23:12)

I'm okay with last night. Your points are well-taken. I'm talking about going forward. I just don't see Wacha as being the type of pitcher who has proven he needs to be yanked after 2 times through. In fact, he's one of our better starters in that light.