moonslav59

It does seem like having JD and Schwarber, at a very high financial cost, without playing them both FT doesn't make sense, so how do they both play while keeping Dalbec, Verdugo, Renfroe and Kike full time? The only way is to play Kike at 2B nearly FT, which makes our D worse than it already is. (I never said trade Devers.) If we bring back Schwarber and JD, it does make some sense to trade an OF'er or Dalbec to make room. That is not saying I want to do that, however.

If anyone, that blame or praise would be on Bloom, unless Cora botches who he calls into big games. Cora still has a ways to go to prove he's the best of all time, but he's off to a winning start.

So, maybe the typical closer can go 1 IP in half the games, tops. That's 81 IP in 81 appearances, which is more than almost all closers give. Many games, they are not needed. Other times, you need them 4-5 games in a row, but they can only give you 3 out or 4 of 5. A two inning guy that can give you 2 innings twice every 5 games would be giving you 4 IP every 5 games or 145 IP/season. He may be brought in in the 5th or 6th inning and maybe not finish (close), of he could be used for the 8th and 9th. I think the two inning guy, even if they can only go 4 IP every 6 games gives you 108 IP a year, and you can plan on his usage more than with a typical closer.

I hope he starts and Houck closes or is the top set up guy, but if we add some solid starters, having Houck and Whitlock in the pen would be very nice, too.

I caught a lot of flack for calling him the best Sox manager, ever. It was not meant to show any disrespect towards Tito, but the guy is a great manager.

Exactly! I’m one of his biggest fans.

...and look how limiting their starter IP'd has helped them stay healthy!

Maybe we can see some gains by replacing these numbers: OPS/ PAs Players .567/271 Marwin .497/136 Cordero .597/127 Santana .549/82 Chavis ERA/IP Pitcher 5.00/142 ERod (QO?) 4.57/130 Richards (Option) 4.79/109 Perez (Option) 6.03/37.1 Andriese 4.95/20.0 Workman 6.59/13.2 Brice

Going with 13-14 pitchers all year helps. We've used 37 different pitchers, this year, including a few everyday players. 29 pitchers with 3+ IP. 23 pitchers with 5+ IP. 20 with 13+ IP 15 with 30+

Players with .800+ OPS/ .775+ OPS 6/6 HOU 5/7 BOS 4/5 TOR 2/2 TBR 2/2 NYY 1/3 CWS 1/2 SEA 1/1 OAK

Updated Sox OPS: 1.022 Iggy .933 Shaw .884 Devers .878 Bogey .867 JD M .863 Schwarber .819 Renfroe .804 Dalbec .793 Verdugo .782 Kike .776 Arroyo .704 Plawecki .668 Vaz .643 Arauz .597 Santana .578 Duran .567 Marwin .549 Chavis .497 Cordero XBH 71 Devers (616 PAs) 68 JD M (593) 60 Renfroe (531) 57 Bogey (557) 54 Kike (532) 48 Dalbec (428) 45 Verdugo (570) 27 Vaz (468) 18 Arroyo (175) We may end up with 7 players with 50+ XBHs.

It's like 75-85 pitches is the new 95-105.

We could both be wrong! There's a first time for everything, right?

There is a real chance the Yanks finish with the 8th best record in the AL. 7 teams better and 7 teams worse. The Yanks play the toughest schedule to end the season: 3 v TBR, 3 v TOR and 3 v BOS (3 v TEX). 6. 83-67 NYY 7. 82-67 OAK 8. 80-69 SEA

That is a much simple way to put it, and I'm not sure using Houck and Whitlock for 3 IP, at a time, every 3-5 days works better than using then 1-2 innings 3 out of 5 days.

He was saying Schwarber is not a fit, because JD is not opting out and he does not fit at 1B. He's not saying get rid of 3 players.

Iggy at 2B has been a big plus. It also forces Kike to CF. Dalbec has improved immensely in just the past 4-6 weeks. Bogey missed time with Covid, but seems to be the same steady, below average defender. (Iggy has played some SS, too.) Devers was a mess, but the last few days has looked better. Am I wrong on any of this? Motter, Lopez, Schwarber, Santana and others playing in the infield have hurt our D more than helped.

We are 67-52 (.563) in games Kike starts. The team has a .570 winning %. He started 72 games in CF. He started 42 games at 2B. I count the team at 19-19 when Kike plays 2B. 4-2 when he plays both in the same game. 2-3 when he plays SS 42-28 in CF.

The piggy back starter idea interests me, but I'm not sure how practical it is. Let's say you have 4 guys who fit the bill perfectly: Houck, Whitlock, Richards and Pivetta. Do they just pitch 3-4 innings every 5 days? Do you use them in short relief on their "throwing days?" In theory, it might work best for them to pitch 3-4 innings every 4 days, but that would mess up the 5 day starter routines. Can a pitcher thrive under this routine: 3 IP rest 1 IP rest 3 IP... Over 160 games, the pitcher would have 40 three inning games and 40 one inning games for 160 IP. Let's say you have 4 guys that follow this pattern: it would line up like this with 4 IP everyday from 2 players out of the 4. 20 games cycle with 3 five day starters 3-1-0-0 +5 (9) 0-0-3-1 +5 (9) 1-3-0 0 (4) 0-0-1-3 +5 (9) 3-1-0-0 (4) 0-0-3-1 +5 (9) 1-3-0 0 +5 (9) 0-0-1-3 (4) 3-1-0-0 +5 (9) 0-0-3-1 (4) 1-3-0 0 +5 (9) 0-0-1-3 +5 (9) 3-1-0-0 (4) 0-0-3-1 +5 (9) 1-3-0 0 (4) 0-0-1-3 +5 (9) 3-1-0-0 +5 (9) 0-0-3-1 (4) 1-3-0 0 +5 (9) 0-0-1-3 (4) Of course these numbers would not come out perfectly, as pitchers might get yanked early when doing poorly or left in longer when doing well, but if it works out something like this, we are talking about 3 starters (5 IP x 33 starts= 165) and 4 pitchers with 160 IP (see above). That leaves 5 IP needed from the pen in 3 of every 5 games (days). If we have 6 pen arms, that's 15 IP/ 6 pitchers every 5 days.

I think ERod would take the QO in hopes of resetting his value with a nice 2022 season.

The $1.5M buy out makes taking the $10M on the table more and more likely with every nice game Richards gives us. $8.5M is about what we are giving Barnes, so the same for one year of Richards seems probable, at this point in time.

Cole has been their one steady guy. Yankee fans suck.

Knee jerk reactions often prove wrong.

Agreed. That's how the team has to look at it, but fans can look ahead without messing up any chances of winning the next game. Nice time to start streaking, though, right? Not long ago, the Yanks looked unbeatable, and it looked like we had no chance at holding them off, then they slumped worse than we ever have. Then, the Jays looked unbeatable. They are still playing well, but they look beatable, now. Here are some looks at recent ups and downs by the contenders: Sox: 2-10 4-1 1-4 5-1 0-3 4-0 2-6 5-0 Jays 2-6 9-1 7-12 12-1 3-2 Yanks 1-7 9-3 1-3 10-2 2-2 13-0 2-11 4-1 1-3 The only patterns I see are that ups are followed by downs and vice versa. BTW, we are now tied with the CWS for the 3rd best AL record! (3 games behind HOU for 2nd best)

I don't disagree with much, here. I will say Bloom's pace of building was slowed by spending limits that DD did not have, until 2019. I do see at least 2 major additions being made, this winter- maybe 3 if ERod bolts. All should be pitching, but Bloom may surprise with an everyday player addition via tradeor free agency designed to improve defense without killing the O. These big choices with the staff will be dictated by our role choices for Houck and Whitlock. The secondary issue is the QO or no QO for ERod. If I had to guess, we may make Whitlock the 3 or 4 starter and Houck the closer or #1 set-up man (replacing Ottavino). They could also place both in the pen or in the rotation. Here's how I see it: No ERod 1. Sale 2. ______ 3. Eovaldi 4. Whitlock 5. Pivetta 6. Seabold/Bello 1. Houck 2. _______ 3. Barnes 4. Richards 5. Taylor 6. DHern 7. Sawamura 8. Valdez/Rioz/Davis/Brasier/Bazardo/Feltman With ERod 1. Sale 2. Eovaldi 3. _______ 4. ERod 5. Pivetta 6. Seabold/Bello 1. Houck 2. Whitlock 3. ________ 4. Barnes 5. Taylor (No Richards option) 6. 6. DHern 7. Sawamura 8. Valdez/Rioz/Davis/Brasier/Bazardo/Feltman What's the time table of offering and accepting QOs and when to accept or buy out options? My thought is that if ERod is given and accepts a QO, we may say no to the Richard's option. If we say good bye to ERod, we may be more likely to keep Richards and his contract.