moonslav59

He had a decent season in '79, then hit .812 in 1980 (in only 105 games.) It's not easy to quit when you are still going better than most or almost all of the players on your team. In '79, only Lynn and Rice had more PAs and a higher OPS. Out of the top 9 batters by PAs, Yaz's .796 placed him 5th, but nobody 10th or lower had a higher OPS. In '80, 4 of the top 9 batters had a higher OPS than Yaz: Rice, Evans, Lynn and Fisk. Yaz had the 5th best OPS out of the top 12 batters by PAs. Knowing what we know, now, he should have retired after 1980... for sure.

Yes, and the word was Whitlock wanted a shot at starting, and he'd been one through the Yankee system. I wasn't against the idea, at the time. but it turned out to ba a bad choice.

I agree. The major issue with Whitlock was when they messed with his role. You and others pointed out, at the time that this was a huge mistake, and it was. As a strict set-up man, he has been amazingly effective. 2025: 30 save situations 24 Holds (just 13% of IH runners scored) 1 Save 4 Blown saves 2021: 22 Save situations 15 Holds (25% of IH runners scored) 2 saves 3 Blown Saves

I hope this is sarcasm. For just one rebuttal: Career First batter: .185 BA/ .242 OBP/.305 SLG Men on Base: .230/.300/..366 Late & Close: .199/.256/.310 High Leverage: .198/.265/.326 He might be the best set-up man the Sox have ever had.

Great summary. I've never been one to support a 6 man rotation, but with the depth of starters we have, this may be the exception. The other idea would be to selectively choose one to move to the pen and give it some quality mid to high leverage innings. We will likely need pen help, too. If everyone stays healthy (little chance) we may have Crawford and Sandoval to take some bulk but meaningful pen innings, and I struggle to imagine using Early or Tolle in pen roles, but if the other 5 are doing very well as starters, that may be what happens. Perhaps, we end up moving Oviedo or Bello to pen roles, but again, this is going on the longshot assumption everyone stays healthy. It's hard not to view our top 9 SP'ers as one of the best and deepest 9 this team has ever seen. Crochet, Sanchez, Gray, Bello, Oviedo Crawford, Sandoval Early, Tolle

MLB.com places the Sox at #9. 1. LAD: have 27% odds to win the World Series, which is a wildly high number, higher than the next three teams combined. On the other hand, that’s also 73% odds of not winning the World Series. 2. SEA: This is the best team they’ve had since 2001, no question. Now they’ve got that proverbial sea monkey off their proverbial sea backs 3. CHC: It's very uncomfortable picking this team this high. 4. NYM: The Mets waved goodbye to longtime fan favorites Pete Alonso and Brandon Nimmo, and then they didn’t get Kyle Tucker. Say what you will about the Mets, but when they pivot, they pivot hard: Just like that, Bo Bichette, Freddy Peralta and Luis Robert were all here, suddenly, and the Mets' roster made a lot more sense. 5. NYY: The Yankees are not a perfect team. There are some clear flaws. They also still have Aaron Judge and return most of a 94-win team, which, again, is really good, with the promise of Cole’s return. 6. PHI: this rotation is the class of the division and, more to the point, as potentially terrifying in the postseason as ever. 7. TOR: I fully believe this team is going to be really, really good. I mostly just wonder if the power of friendship culture that was so obvious early last season can work again with some notable ins and outs on the roster. 8. DET: I don’t think they’re the eighth-best team in baseball over a whole season. But in a short series? Against those guys? No thanks. 9. BOS: It’s good strategy to pick three teams from the same beastly AL East in the first nine picks, right? Right? Surely that doesn’t narrow my odds of finding teams to win it all? So there’s that, but there’s also this: The Red Sox may have the best rotation in baseball, Roman Anthony was already everyone’s “massive superstar turn incoming” pick even before his World Baseball Classic power show, and Garrett Whitlock / Aroldis Chapman are up there for “best 1-2 bullpen duos in the game.” Sure, I don’t love their infield either, for the most part. But when your biggest problem just might be, “We have too many good outfielders and we don’t know how we’ll find playing time for all of them,” well, that’s hardly a problem at all. 10. BAL, 11 KCR, 12 ATL, 13. MIL, 14 SFG, 15. PIT

Yaz must not have been very good vs LHPs for a pretty long time for that final number to be where it was. It wasn't just the end of his career, that perhaps went on for too long. As you can see, he wasn't very good vs LHPs until 1967, too. He had 6 pretty bad split years to start his career. 1961: .728/.699 1962: .862/.742 1963: .937/.739 1964: .864/.693 1965: 1.037/.646 1966: .854/.584 ________________ 1967: 1.081/.897 1968: .978/.773 (The year of the pitcher) 1969: .979/.648 1970: 1.133/.857 1971: .825/.636 1972: .793/.662 1973: .929/.697 (3 years in a row of pretty bad.) 1974: .887/.792 (looks like blip) 1975: .846/.579 1976: .840/.666 1977: .937/.708 1978: .801/.756 1979: .869/.551 1980: .852/.593 His last 3 seasons were rather small sample sizes: .781/.292>> .800/.722>>.793/.518

It's one of the great mysteries of the game.

Very well said. Early knows how to to get guys out. He seems to have supreme confidence in himself, but not in a cocky way. We we certainly will need a 6th starter, probably sooner than we want, and I feel very secure knowing Early could be the first one up.

Early sure looks like the real deal.

Maybe do a poll with several choices, like... 96+ 93-95 90-92 87-89 84-86

Wow- just one week to go.

I think this has to be part of a rise in our rankings, but we also have a lot of potential in guys like Phillips, Gonzalez, Godbout, Valera, Eyanson and some others. Another help could come from our big four moving up further, but if they end up graduating, it won't help the farm rankings. Maybe someone from Bennett, Romero, Holobetz or the like figure something out and move up sharply.

True. We have 3 prospects in the top 10 that have yet to play an inning in the minors. That's just one element of the potential volatility of the rankings. There are several others that just played a few games or are at the DSL and FCL levels who have enormous ranges of outcomes. Many may not show signs of greatness, this season, but may still end up rising high in the rankings, and many will never amount to a top 30 placement. I'm no expert on prospects, but I think we have a lot of talent, and many prospects are likely to show it, this summer. I'm very excited about our farm and think we will see a pretty good system ranking by the end of 2026, despite just graduating Anthony, Mayer, KC and Narvaez.

Never hurts to have minor league depth added.

I almost mentioned Mullins. I was never very high on Uberstine, but watching him pitch in ST'ing has made me think he might have a shot. I don't know enough about Taylor to make a projection. I've always been higher on Jh Garcia than most, so I guess I just feel better about his chances than most. You made good points about the others I see dropping, and saying "below 30" might have been too harsh. We have a lot of prospects with talent and some have not even played much, or at all, so there is room for a lot of movement.

I was 14 and fully enjoyed watching Cha-Cha hit line shots all over Fenway. That was a joyful time.

Hey we once had Orlando Cepeda as our DH!

Very true. Here are few career splits of some Red Sox greats: .891/.692 Yaz .898/.761 Boggs .981/.817 Papi RHBs .974/1.060 Manny .875/.898 Betts .836/.903 Rice

He's close.

We still have over 2 X the amount of players that will make the opening day 26 man roster in ST'ing, right now. Many are just biding time and trying to make an impression for a possible later call-up or to catch on with another team. I think almost all the 26 slots are known. The biggest bubble guys are Rule 5 man Watson and Matt Thaiss, who has an upward mobility clause that kicks in 5 days before opening day. Injuries may shift some things around, of course.

Here's my list on Sox prospects I think will rise the most in the rankings during the 2026 season: Jo Garcia 23> top 10 Delzine 20> 11 Azocar 18> 12 Silverio 43>25

Here is my list of Sox propsects I project will drop the farthest in the rankings over the 2026 season: (soxprospects,com's rankings) 16 Bleis to below 30 17 Cespedes to below 30 19 Castro to below 30 12 Romero to 20th Just my gut feelings.

We've really had a carousel of crud at 2B for way too long. There is no sugar coating this. They knew it: we knew it. They didn't even try to pretend Enmanuel Valdez was the second coming. I'f finding it hard to believe people actually think the higher ups had faith in KC's defense at 2B. They may have had hopes and prayers, but no way did they have confidence in his defense. IMO, they hoped he could hit well enough to stick. They hoped the same with E Valdez. Others they tried at 2B had little hope on O or D. I hope they find a suitable landing spot for him, but I'm still betting on DH as his best fit, but that brings us to the bigger issue: right now Duran, Masa and Casas are lined up to be the primary DH. If he proves he can play LF, he's got Anthony & Duran ahead of him. If somehow he miraculously learns how to play 2B, we'd have room for him, due to the Romy and Mayer injuries, but even at 2B, he might be looking at a platoon role, at best, and in his stage of development, that's the last thing he needs- riding the bench 7 of 10 games.

ST'ing OPS 1.807 Duran 1.563 Contreras 1.262 Delay 1.189 Gasper 1.168 Story 1.106 Durbin 1.027 Rafaela .982 Eaton .955 IKF .910 Ward .872 Monasterio .840 Narvaez .819 McDonough .792 Castro .775 Mayer