moonslav59

It was kind of shocking after being so bad for so long, and the fact that just 1 team makes it. It was harder, then. I think the hype was and still is appropriate.

All-in-all, it was a great season. It was fun to watch this team battle back for so many come from behind games, and come from looking down and out to making the playoffs. It was fantastic knocking the Yanks out. Beating the pesky Rays was no easy feat, but we toasted them after the game one loss. We looked poised to beat the Astros, and the wheels came off. I don't see it as a choke, because the Astros had something to do with our demise. There is plenty of blame to go around, but it seemed like it just was not meant to be. (And, I don't even believe in fate.) Great job, Sox! Better luck, next year!

When you just came off 9 losing seasons, it felt special.

Just enact robo umps for balls and strikes, and let's move on. This is a no-brainer. (No offense to those with half brains who are against the idea.)

Well said. I really like the "going forward" aspect of this team most of all.

Nice summary. I'm not sure I have ever seen an off season where just about all our free agents to be are additions by subtractions or close to it. ERod is good, but at $18.5M (QO), there are likely pitchers similar to him that can be signed. Ottavino's numbers were deceivingly good. He can be replaced at $8M. As you pointed out, if JD opts out, we have $22M cleared from the lux tax ($19.4M in actual salary.) A lot depends on what Bloom's winter budget is, what the new tax laws are going to be, and how Bloom spends the budget. It should be pointed out that Bloom swung and missed with a big chunk of his winter signings, last year, and a bigger budget does not mean he'll do better. He actually did worse with his biggest signings and additions: $10M Richards $8M Ottavino $7M x 2 Kike (Great deal) $6M Perez $3M Marwin $3M Andriese $3M Renfroe (Great deal) $2M Santana $1.5M Sawamura (OK deal)

New Jersey is actually a beautiful state, except for one tiny corner. Welcome aboard.

No arguments. They traded Snell. They traded Rich Hill mid season. They lost Yonny Chrinos all year (#3/4 starter) They lost Glasnow (their ace) during the season to TJS. Their closer (Nick Anderson) missed almost the whole year Plus, Beeks (all season), Chris Archer, Springs and others.

Why can't we get guys like him?

They are too good at it to be caught.

Yes, Cashman has 3 of the top 10 guys with high OBP and K%. (See RED on my list)

Were there really that many guys that got on base over 35% and even K'd 25%, let alone 30%? Of the top 50 OBP guys, this year (all over .349), here are the players with K rates over 25%: 34.6% Gallo (45th in OBP) 31.3% O'Neill (41st in OBP) 29.6% Ohtani 28.1% Arozarena 28.0% Tatis 27.1% Stanton 25.5% Moncada 25.4% A Riley 25.2% N Lowe 25.0% Judge None of the top 40 have a K% above 30%.

My responses to oldtimer: Nice job. Catchers: We pick up the club option on Vazquez. I don't see possible replacements on the market. Whether we stick with Plawecki (he is okay) or try moving R. Hernandez as a backup is okay with me. We should try and draft a young catcher, while keeping Wong in the minors but on the 40 man. Manny Pena (34) might be a nice replacement for Plawecki. Watching Maldanado really makes me think we might do better with a staff friendly starting catcher. Infield: We keep Devers and he plays 3rd. I agree that he needs to accept coaching regarding plate discipline and overswinging to further improve his value. Please stop chewing tobacco for your own health considerations. I'm not sure I try to mess with Devers' approach. Sometimes, it seems better to have varying approaches by your line-up. Agree on the tobacco and staying at 3B. More work on footwork and throwing is his biggest need. We also keep Bogaerts at short. Both he and Devers have had defensive shortcomings, but 2022 is not the year to move either. The opt out worries me. I see Arroyo as a very competent defensive 2nd baseman. He can hit enough to be FT but if we could find better, he would make an excellent utility infielder. I'm not sure he can play 150 games, so maybe he should be viewed as utility. (Sign Iggy or go big with a SS/2B like Baez or Semien?) The use of Schwaber at 1st should end except in an emergency, in the event we choose to sign him. He seemed to improve a lot over just a month. It took Dalbec a couple years to get close to respectability at 1B. Dalbec has shortcomings defensively but he is better than Schwaber. Dalbec was not trusted during the championship series due to his tendency to strike out. We could look at the FA market and try to pick up Brandon belt and trade Dalbec, or do the same but keep him as a utility player. Casas being in the wings should be a consideration. I'm not sure about Dalbec's trade value, but I'd listen to offers. I like Casas, but like Duran, you can never plan on instant help from a prospect. I would cut Shaw loose while keeping Arauz and Potts in the minors and on the 40 man. Shaw is a FA. I think Potts is going to be DFA'd. Arauz is a bubble DFA/trade. Outfielders: We had two very solid outfielders in Kike and Verdugo and should build on them. Agreed. Renfroe is okay but his strikeout rate leaves me looking for alternatives. It's not the Ks that bother me. I'd take 100 over just 1 GIDP. His arm saved his D from being pretty bad. He might be best used as a platoon. Signing a FA like Starling Marte for CF and moving Kike to right would significantly improve our outfield. Bringing Duran up for utility and trying to further develop Rosario would give us flexibility. I would trade Renfroe for whatever he would bring. Our DH can be an emergency outfielder. I'm not sure we have the finances or assets to make major improvements to our OF. It's not really close to be our weakest area, but it is not deep and has isues, agreed. BP: Starting with who I would not renew on our staff. Perez, Richards, Davis, Ottavino. That creates a pool of money for Bloom to go after iglasias, who I view as the best high leverage reliever on the market. I see Barnes (risk until proven otherwise), Brasier, D,Hern, Robles, Sawamura, Taylor, Whitlock in the pen, leaving room for one of our minor league prospects to make the grade. Robles is a FA. Davis is not. SP: Eovaldi is a lock. Don't overuse him. Sale showed himself to be coming on. Pivetta is a quality 3rd starter. With Houck, he needs to develop a 3rd and possibly 4th pitch to really make the grade. He also needs to cut down on non-competitive pitches (throw strikes) to last more innings. To me, starters should be left in until they show signs of fatiguing. In theory, that sounds great, but when you look at the massive disparities between the numbers of pitchers with great stats 1st and 2nd time through a line-up and then getting shelled the 3rd time through, I have to change my way of thinking and go with the times- like it or not. Our staff in 2021 .743 1st time through the line up .715 2nd time .900 3rd time (Perez was our best .673, followed by Eovaldi .780, Sale .819, Richards .924, Pivetta 1.011, ERod 1.016 & Houck 1.489) I am ambivalent on a QO to E-Rod. We could do worse. Seabold lurks in the minors as a possible starter. If we lose E-Rod we will need to sign a FA starter or try to trade pieces for one. Gausman? I worry about paying large and long for guys like Gausman, Stroman and R Ray.

Sox HR Leaders Reg Season + Playoffs 43 Devers 31 Renfroe 31 JD 26 Bogey 25 Dalbec 25 Kike 16 Schwarber (35 WSH + BOS)

Here were the final Sox post season OPS numbers: 1.260 Kike 1.135 JD 1.029 Devers .835 Verdugo .833 Bogey .718 Schwarber .709 Vaz .632 Arroyo .576 Renfroe .536 Plawecki .400 Shaw .000 Dalbec & Santana ERA (Listed in order of most IP) 4.79 Eovaldi 20.2 IP 2.63 Pivetta 13.2 4.97 ERod 12.2 5.23 Houck 10.1 8.00 Sale 9.0 2.16 Whitlock 8.1 5.06 Robles 5.1 9.00 Brasier 9.00 2.25 Ottavino 4.0 2.25 Taylor 4.0 WHIP 0.68 Houck 0.72 Whitlock 0.75 Ottavino 0.95 ERod 1.00 Taylor 1.02 Pivetta 1.16 Eovaldi 1.50 Robles 1.78 Sale 2.00 Brasier

MLB.com's list of top 25 FAs: 1. Correa 2. Seager 3. Bryant 4. Scherzer (no mention of dead arm) 5. Story 6. Semien 7. R Ray 8. Baez 9. Freeman 10. Gausman 11. Stroman 12. S Marte 13. Castellanos 14. Schwarber 15. Rodon 16. Syndergaard (Hmmm?) 17. Verlander 18. Kershaw 19. JD Martinez 20. Conforto 21. Belt 22. C Taylor 23. Rizzo 24. N Cruz 25. R Iglesias

True. They hadn't had a winning season since 1957 and lost 100 games in 1965. That 1967 season set off a pretty long run of near uninterrupted winning seasons. The strike season of 1981 was the first, and we never had two losing seasons in a row, until 2014-2015.

Will this cause the Dodgers to go out and spend even more?

It's kind of surprising to me how OBP kind of fell out of favor. It was all the rage, not long ago- along with driving up pitch counts on SP'ers. I would not be so harsh on Dalbec. He has not even reached 550 career PAs, yet. While I agree he needs to improve on it, a .308 career MLB OBP is not such a bad start. Also, his minor league OBP was .362, so I'm hoping he can get it over .325 or .330, soon. If you project his 545 MLB PAs to 650, this would be Dalbec's first MLB season: .243 40 122 (.819 OPS) There is hope we can improve on what we got from our utility players and young players that struggled out of the gate. .207 Chavis (82 PAs) .237 Cordero (136 PAs) .241 Duran (112) .252 Santana (127) .274 Arauz (75) I have not given up on him yet .281 Marwin (271- way too many PAs before giving upon him) That's like 800 PAs of futility. Too bad we didn't have Iggy and Shaw earlier.

Put the invisible earpiece in the homeplate umps ear, and the calls can be made just as now, with no delays- no replays- no fuss. Consistent and correct calls are the goals of every ump, every manager, every batter, every pitcher and should be wanted by every fan, too. I'm not sure why they should care if the call is always right, just because the call is whispered into the umps ear.

Three Things First 1. The first big news we will likely be hearing is JD's opt out choice. He has to choose shortly after the WS ends. He'll make $19.35M in 2022, if he chooses to stay. He won't get that per year, if he opts out, but this might be his best and last chance to get a multiple year deal with more guaranteed money overall. For the longest time, I thought he would not opt out, but now I think it is close to 50-50. The chances of an NL DH won't be known when he chooses, but that may be a factor. He's on the backside of his career, but the guy can still rake, and his work ethic is something that rubs off on teammates. I never really felt like 2020 was long enough to make a judgement on JD's decline, and I think 2021 seemed more in line with the expected decline of a hitter as he goes beyond 31 and 32 years old. Plenty of players have shown they can keep pretty steady after 32-33 years old, and one might think JD would be one of them, but it's hard to tell. If we just throw out 2020, his decline looks slow but not too steep: 1.066 2017 1.031 2018 .939 in 2019 .867 in 2021 One might expect something like .800 in 2022. That'spretty good, but not really all that great for a DH making over $19M. I've been on record as preferring Schwarber to JD, if he opts out or if we can trade him with some cash, if he doesn't, but I'm not sure trading him is really a realistic option. 2. To offer ERod a QO or not? This is both the team's choice to offer, and ERod's choice to accept or not. I've been a big ERod supporter over the years, because he's a winner, but the whole COVID complications thing is still worrisome. He struggled out of the gate, but did much better over his last 17 starts and then in the playoffs. No other Sox starter got hit so hard by the defense, at least in terms of BAbip (.364 vs .301 career before 2021.) Personally, I'd offer him the QO, but I would not be all that upset, if he said no. We'd get a comp pick and have the $18.5M to spend on another pitcher(s). I have no idea if we'll offer the QO, or if ERod accepts or decline. 3. The $7M Vaz option seems like a no brainer, and I am near certain we give it to Vaz. I'm not so certain we keep or trade him, but I'm likely in a minority. Watching Maldy go something like 2 of 40 but lead his broken staff to success after success makes me think we can do better. The other options, Richards and Perez are no brainer "NOs!" Further moves depend on these three situations.

That's not even close to what I envision. I've already explained how you wouldn't even notice.

First, a shot at 4-5 innings.

Toronto has already claimed they will be spending more. (Siemien and R Ray are bot FAs, so they need to- just to stay even,)

Isn't the fact that they sucked before and weren't too go afterwards make that season even more special or "impossible?"