moonslav59

Are you suggesting Dalbec may be moved to LF, when Casas gets the call?

That's what makes this question tricky. The worse a player is, the less he plays. The absolute worst player to play for the Sox might have less than 10 PAs, and nobody hear of him.

JBJ will be given every opportunity to be a FT OF'er. I think Bloom & Cora expect him to win and keep the FT job, but he may sit vs LHPs more often than many FT players.

No, but RBIs are made possible by players ahead of you, and if you get more opportunities, you usually get more RBIs. Renfroe: 572 PAs in 2021 633 PAs in 2019+2020 RISP: 160 PAs and 66 RBI in 2021 145 PAs and 42 RBI in 2019-2020 combined

No, but 2020 was short.

With no OF additions, ee may end up with... vs RHPs LF: Duran CF: JBJ RF: Verdugo vs LHPs LF: Verdugo or Duran CF: Kike/JBJ RF: JBJ/Kike or Verdugo

A couple prospects were included in the deal. It could be they were a significant reason for the deal. Bloom also might have felt Renfroe is not as good as many feel he is.

Probably not, but he did have 86 RBI in his previous 562 ABs.

I would not bet on any of those 3 "what ifs," but JBJ will be given a chance to hit, Arroyo will be given a chance to play and Duran will be given a shot, if he can hit. (Yes, perhaps a big if.) My guess is Kike will end up playing at 2B, CF or even RF depending on the answers to these what ifs. Personally, I want Kike in CF as much as possible, but I realize it may not happen, especially with so many moving parts, including the possibility we add a solid OF/er by opening day.

Sox players with 3 or more years of team control: SP: Sale(3/4), Pivetta(3), Paxton (1/2/3), Winckoski, Seabold, Crawford, Mata, Groome Bello, Mata, Song, Ward, Gonzalez, Murphy RP: Houck, Whitlock, Barnes (3), Taylor, Davis, DHern, Sawamura, Valdez, Bazardo Walter C: R Hernandez, Wong Hickey, Cottam 1B: Dalbec Casas 2B: Arroyo(3), Arauz Yorke 3B: Potts Binelas, Jordan SS: Bogaerts (1 or 4/5), Downs Mayer,Hamilton, Bonaci, Lugo OF: Verdugo(3), Duran, Rosario Jimenez, Bleis, McDonough, Rafaela

Agreed. While I talk of trading him, a lot, I never suggest trading him for peanuts. I think he has a lot of potential value and think several GMs agree. His defense still scares me, but I like Verdugo in RF, so if we can "hide" his defense in LF, and he can hit well, then we found a solution.

I don't disagree. I do think they got JBJ to play FT-most likely CF, but maybe a little RF. It may end up evolving into a platoon or 4th OF'er role, if things go South with JBJ (Can't go much further South than his 2021.) I also agree with notin, if we sign Suzuki, Kike will be penciled in as the FT 2B, barring injury or some complete meltdown by JBJ and Duran. This all does not have to be something I agree with. I can state what I think should happen, and that's what I did. I like Kike in CF. I also like Arroyo at 2B, knowing full well his health issues may prevent that from happening. On a 2021 team that showed horrific defense, most of the season, it makes little sense to move our best defender off the position he defends better than he does 2B. This also does not mean I'm bashing Bloom and Cora. I know they know more about baseball than I do. I respect and admire both of them, but on this issue, I disagree. Even if JBJ hits well enough to play FT, we still have a serious OF issue, unless Duran shows some life. Kike may still end up in the OF, unless we add a solid OF'er.

If we sign Suzuki, then much of the OF problems go away, assuming he plays well, but it would make the JBJ trade even less understandable, since JBJ and Duran both hit left-handed, and a L-R platoon would make more sense. Maybe trading Duran is in the works, then it would/could be a L-R platoon between Kike and JBJ in CF and a R-R platoon at 2B between Kike and Arroyo.

Had we gotten a RH'd hitting superb defender, the Duran platoon (not in CF) would have been possible. You keep skirting around the point I made. There are RH'd hitting CF'er who can defend well. I get the idea about wanting Kike at 2B not CF, but they guy can play CF very well, and playing him there vs RHPs would work well for our overall defense. I seriously doubt a major reason we got JBJ was to prevent Kike from playing in the OF. We might very well see an OF of Kike, JBJ and Verdugo more often than you think. (BTW, many poo-poo'd my comments, last winter, about playing Kike more in CF than 2B. How did that work out?)

Since I've been following the Sox in 1972, here are the worst Sox OPS of players with 600+ PAs: .567 Ed Romero .572 Jackie Gutierrez .603 Doug Griffin .603 Tony Pena .622 Sandy Leon .631 Kevin Romine .635 Luis Rivera 400+ PAs .556 Mario Guerrero 300+ PAs .494 Marc Sullivan 250+ .494 Sullivan .545 Kevin Cash .556 Guerrero .556 Tony Clark .565 Lavarnway & Blackwell .567 Marwin Gonzalez .556 Guerrero .565 Lavarnway 130+ PAs .432 Allen Craig .494 Sullivan .497 Franchy Cordero .519 Bob Heise .523 Mike Brumley 100+ (others not listed) ,444 John Flaherty .463 Mark Lemke .480 Mark Whiten .503 Stan Papi Worst ERA (150+ IP) 6.07 V Eshelman 5.87 Jeff Suppan 5.73 Brian Rose 5.67 Steve Avery 5.57 Mike Brown 5.51 Mark Portugal 5.43 Mike Smithson 5.09 Matt Clement Other names (120+ IP) 5.70 Ramon Martinez 5.61 Brad Penny 5.36 Allen Ripley 80+ IP 6.25 Allen Webster 6.12 Eric Hetzel 5.79 Joe Sambito 5.73 Ramiro Mendoza 5.65 Aaron Cook 5.61 Zane Smith 5.54 Ryan Weber 5.53 Lenny DiNardo 5.48 Tim Lollar

No. That would not be needed. vs RHP LF Duran CF Kike RF Verdugo vs LHP LF: RH'd OF'er acquired instead of JBJ CF: Kike RF: Verdugo If the RH'd bat could hit RHPs, too, Kike could play some 2B.

It would have made more sense had we traded for a RH'd JBJ.

...or not.

That's how I took it.

I'm not arguing he's the worst, but it's not absurd to think he belongs on a list of biggest letdowns and waste of salary.

Yes, data that shows he was a big let down on expectations and even bigger letdown on WAR per dollar. Maybe not "the worst," but in those contexts, not a wild opinion.

Like no thread ever goes off on tangents. It seemed like a dumb question. The worst player ever is probably someone we never heard of. It seemed better to name the worst player in terms of wasting money, failing to meet higher expectations than others or both. Castillo fit both categories.

Oooooo. Whoopdee freakin' dooo!

the context was per dollar. Try to keep up.

There is no rule about going off on tangents from original questions.