moonslav59

...and those who did not want Iggy as our SS, were so happy to repeatedly point out the error he made in that series- ignoring all the plays he made no Red Sox SS could have made those years.

Exactly. The statement was based on who might be the next guy, but some posters just don't get it.

Mata made a nice stride in his rehab, despite walking 3 in 4 IP. 1 Hit 0 ER 8 Ks Northcut with a 3-run dinger (21st)

I still think Sale is a fierce competitor, and I will never write him off, until he retires are sucks for a few years. I've given up hoping for a great return, too, but if anyone can do it, it would be Sale.

The whole "Story Land" saying shows your sentiments from the beginnings of his struggles. Nobody is denying he has struggled mightily for the vast majority of games. Maybe, you just need to "get over it."

The guy made a valid point on a reason why we lost. You've never done that? When someone else does it, they are "making an excuse," but when you do it, it's just "stating my opinion," I'm not sure what Pivetta going against a scrub has to do with today's game. Does Max have to qualify his point, so as not to get thrashed?

It's you that needs to get over it. Max made a good point about facing their ace and a good pitcher overall. Call it an excuse, if you want, but why go off like Max was crying to the Comish? He actually ended his post with "Stuff happens. It's called baseball," and you act like he can't accept the loss.

I'm not complaining. I like the trend we are on. We've had our share of luck over the last month, so losses like this are expected.

You do seem to revel in it.

How about COPSA? OPS Against by Catcher: Vaz .596 Pivetta 278 PAs Against .716 Whitlock 183 .813 Hill 169 .694 Wacha 131 .501 Houck 123 .807 Eovaldi RP'ers .616 Davis 69 .634 Sawamura 69 .843 Diekman 66 .672 Robles 65 .637 Strahm 56 Ahead by .009 .810 Barnes 55 .492 Schreiber 53 .898 Brasier 53 .606 Valdez .846 Crawford 37 .436 Danish 33 1.167 Winckowski 18 Plawecki .693 Eovaldi 208 .378 Wacha 82 .865 Houck 50 .487 Hill 36 .513 Winckowski 20 .077 Whitlock 13 N/A Pivetta 0 RP'ers .773 Danish .761 Brasier 40 .669 Crawford 38 .628 Diekman 36 .550 Davis 35 .762 Barnes 21 .170 Schreiber 18 .646 Strahm 16 .414 Sawamura 15 .856 Robles 10 .400 Valdez 5

Again, if you take away everyone's best 7 game stretch, Story still is among the team's rbi per PA leaders. He's also been a big plus on D, but yes, the K's and lack of hits are frustrating and worrisome. He was not come close to reaching expectations as he nears the 1/12th point of his contract.

17 men LOB with our 3-6 batters. Only 2 rbi.

Those errors are extremely frustrating. Just when he seems to be showing improvement, he goes through a few weeks of silly errors.

I'm not high on Plawecki. My beef is with Vaz's steady record of getting less from our starters than his back-up does. It's been the same since Leon, and maybe before (Hanigan). Swihart was the one catcher who got worse, but the sample sizes were very small. (Salty was no pitcher whisperer, either.) I've also been very open about the fact that RP'ers seem to be more 50-50. Here are the Sox IP Leaders since 2014 (200+ IP): Porcello 4.19 w Leon 4.96 w Vaz (3.95 w Hanigan) ERod 4.05 Leon 4.18 Vaz (3.78 Hanigan) Price 2.96 v Leon 4.27 w Vaz (0.00 w Hanigan but only 9 IP) Sale 2.79 Leon 4.12 Vaz Buch 2.83 VMart 3.01 Leon 3.95 Salty 4.44 Vaz (5.12 w VTek) Eovaldi 2.99 Plawecki 4,53 Leon 4.55 Vaz (4.85 Salty) Barnes 3.83 Leon 3.96 Vaz (4.50 Swihart, 5.93 Hanigan, 6.23 Plawecki in 17 IP) Kelly 3.23 Vaz 4.63 Leon 4.83 Hanigan Wright 2.94 Hanigan 3.49 Vaz (4.06 Swihart) Pomeranz 3.32 Holiday 3.92 Vaz 6.02 Leon Workman 3.04 Vaz 3.83 Leon 4.03 AJP Hembree 3.42 Leon 4.26 Vaz (2.15 Swihart) Pivetta 2.87 Plawecki 4.24 Vaz Early returns show Wacha and Hill do better w/o Vaz, but Houck & Whitlock do better with Vaz. Out of the top 13 pitchers by IP, Vaz has gotten the best from the number 8 (Kelly) and number 11 (Workman).

My samples have always shown, pitcher by pitcher, that the majority of pitchers do better with Plawecki or Leon than Vaz. Many of the sample sizes are small and or unbalanced, but they show the same thing every year and over careers. This year's is no different. It shows 5 of our top IP pitchers doing better with Plawecki than Vaz. Only Houck has done better with Vaz, and Pivetta has no IP with Plawecki. The career numbers I listed, here, show 4 of the top 6 with better CERAs with Plawecki. Show me how my numbers never show this. I'll wait.

Our 3-6 hitters LOB: 4 JD 3 Bogey 5 Verdugo 3 Story They are 3 for 12 with 1 rbi.

Yes, a very easy call. The Rays were not one of the teams I was talking about when saying the A's have won more games than many higher and much higher spending teams and would have been more fun to watch over those years, until now. I just made a simple point about wins per dollar spent. I never implied that was the most important measuring stick or that it had anything to do with TV Viewership or how crappy a market they play in. Hell, the A's didn't even sell out their WS games in the 70's. Neither did the Pirates.

I'm hopeful both will see their WAR numbers soar over the remainder of the season. I do think Bogey may want more than what he's worth, but all that really matters in the end is how much one GM is willing to pay vs what Bloom & Henry will agree to pay. That number may be closer to Story's contract than Correa's or Seager's.

I'm not usually one to harp on rbi's, but yes, Bogey needs to start producing in those situations more often.

Seems like one of those snakebite games. Too many men LOB. Too many missed opportunities. The game's not over, yet. We need the pen to hold down the fort.

Good one, and that was one reason I scratched my head at giving up so much, and spending so much of a limited winter spending budget on JBJ. (I'm hoping the prospects straighten me out, but until they show me their value, I'm still scratching my head until the final judgment day arrives.)

The Sox will never be a bottom 5 team spender. I'm not sure why you and otehrs keep thinking because we hired Bloom, we will become the A's or rays. Did LA become the Rays, when they hired a former Ray? Has the Astros become the Rays after they hired a Ray? To me, we are not the Dodgers, but I think the Astros model is the one Henry hopes Bloom can create. A strong farm that provides Tucker, when Springer bolts, provides Pena when Correa bolts and young talent like Alvarez and Framber Valdez to supplement a few big contracts like Verlander, Altuve & Bregman. Yes, stay tuned, but not for an A's replay.

I was the one saying I'd offer Betts $400M/14. I'm the one posting incessantly "Devers Forevers!" Of course, I want to keep as many stars as possible, but I'm a realist and recognize it's almost always an either or situation. Some, here, seem to think the solution is for Henry to open his wallet, because he can. The reality is he doesn't always do so, and the GMs are bashed when he closes his wallet and praised when he opens it, assuming they spend it well. (DD did: Ben did not.) To me, it really sucked losing Betts. To me, he was the face of the franchise and a top 3 player in MLB. I thought we could make his salary work, if we lowered the AAV by making it a 14+ year deal, thereby allowing us to fill out the rest of the roster with a good supporting cast. Looking at the budgets Henry has handed down since that trade, makes me think my assumptions were wrong, and trading Betts was a forced condition of Bloom's tenure as GM. I'm fine with heated debates about what better we might have gotten for him, but trading him was forced- like it or not. In theory, we could have traded Betts after 2018 and gotten a better return, but Henry and most of us felt the winning window was still open for 2019 and possibly a little longer. I'm not "for" trading Bogey or losing hom for a comp pick, but if a restrictive budget is continually handed to our GM, it's not always a no-brainer to spend 1/7th of your player payroll on 1-3 players at a time. Maybe, if we got the farm to the point where we could count on near constant infusions of low-cost but highly productive players, we could construct a fine supporting cast built around 2-3 $28-30+M/yr players on the roster. To me, at the point we got to after 2019, trading Betts seems like it was forced, and getting 5 years of Verdugo and a couple prospects seems reasonable at best and not all that bad, at worst, when you consider it was just one season of Betts. (He wasn't coming back, whether we wished it or not.) Now, we are at the crossroads on Bogey and soon with Devers, too. (JD and Big Nate to a lesser extent.) If Bloom can build a winning team without some or all of these guys, I'll be okay with it, but that won't be easy, and i won't be fun losing our beloved stars. I don't know about others, but I really enjoyed the 2021 season, despite not having Betts on the roster, and there were a lot of exciting players not named Bogey or JD. (Note: I did not say Devers. To me, he is a must re-sign.) I doubt we trade Bogey, and maybe even if we are 5 down at the deadline, but I'll be more apset losing him for a comp pick than a bunch of prospects or a ML player like Verdugo. Once again, context is needed but not always factored in by some. An argument can be made that these guys should have been traded earlier, if we knew all along they'd be walking, and keeping fans happy is actually hurting our chances at pro-longed winning.

Most wins since 1998 2269 NYY 2129 LAD 2128 BOS 2127 STL 2104 ATL 2033 OAK 2022 SFG 2009 ANA 2003 CLE I guess wins only count for some posters, when it fits their narrative.

I'm not saying it's fun being an A's fan, but they have had some winning teams and exciting players over Beane's tenure- more than many teams. We hear the same drivel about the Rays.