moonslav59

He may have been thinking more about Schwarber playing over Dalbec at 1B or Verdugo in LF. Nobody else is being "replaced," this year.

I get that, and I never said that either, except on the 2022 thread. I'm just saying his point has merit. he wasn't saying we were arguing for replacing players, just that there would be a trade-off had we done something to improve our D. Now, 700 would have us believe it's mostly Cora's fault for allowing the D to get this bad. He implied bad is on the players- really bad is on the manager (for some reason- not the GM). Maybe, Cora could have done something to improve the focus and confidence, but I'm not sure how you can get Renfroe to catch easy pop ups. Do you bench him after a boo-boo. Are we really supposed to believe Cora isn't talking to players and working on fundamentals? Many of our players just plain suck on D or are solid below average defenders. I'm not sure anyone can do much more than has been tried already. Some players we have can still grow, and players like Devers and Dalbec have shown signs of plus D. Hoping for better consistency is about all we can hope for from those two. Bogey, Renfroe and Vaz are what they are.

I don't. I gave up on them, too, and their sample sizes weren't 350-400- the point where Dalbec turned it around. Santana, at least, had some history. Marwin's was garbage can- enhanced. Cordero's was small and scattered. Let's not forget Renfroe was at .485 on May 1st after 68 PAs. He was still at .619 after 148 PAs- a sample size greater than Santana and Cordero. Also, Santana is at .786 since July 1st (47 PAs). (BTW, in small sample sizes, Marwin is at .717 and Chavis is at .955. after leaving here.)

I think his point was about replacing some of our poor defenders and how that would hurt the offense by maybe more than the gains in defense amounted to. It's a valid point, but my point was more about the team we have now, losing games on defense, and certainly we aare losing more over the past 6 weeks than earlier in the season. That's saying a lot, because we lost more than our share back then, too.

I think Bloom & Cora expected... Mawrin to hit well enough to be a net plus due to his plus defense. Dalbec to learn 1B more quickly and at a higher level by now. Arroyo to stay healthy (maybe not based on history) Devers to improve as he nears prime. Verdugo to be a plus over Beni in LF. Kike to be close to what JBJ gave us in 2019-2020 and more importantly what was expected of JBJ's D in 2021. We were not touching SS or C. The Renfroe choice was clearly O over D, but I doubt they expected 11 errors.

Agreed, but clearly our defense has factored in more losses than any other contender's D. Our offense has factored in more wins. Our pitching is maybe middle of the road among contenders, when factoring in having to face many more batters and Men on base than others due to errors, poor defense and limited range.

Correct, the 3rd in Ks but 21st in K% exposes the fact that opps just get up way more often against us, due to getting on base more often. We aare 30-40 points over the other contenders in BAbip against. That is handing a lot more PAs to the opps on a silver platter- always with men on base. By allowing more PAs by the opps, we also increase the odds of allowing more HRs, BBs, etc... AL Only Currently, we are 5th in BBs but 7th in BB%. Currently, we are 15th in HRs allowed (best in AL). The HR/9 stat can be misleading, if one team faces way more batters per 9 innings. The fact that we lead the AL in least amount of HRs allowed while also leading in PAs against is a big plus to our pitching. PAs Against/HRs allowed 5586/162 BOS 5465/178 5411/166 TBR 5375/169 HOU 5367/166 OAK (big park) 5365/174 NYY 5224/170 Our pitchers have faced 364 more batters than CWS! I'm not saying our pitchers are better, but our defense giving up extra outs while adding baserunners puts a lot of stress on pitchers. Our HR/PA blows everyone away. that's one reason we are just 0.01 behind 5th place in xFIP and 0.07 from 3rd place.

Point well-taken. We could not improve the defense without hurting the offense, unless we spent large or made perfect signing selections. The overall WAR, which factors in Offense and Defense rates Bogey, Devers, Dalbec and Renfroe as not just pluses, but significant pluses. That's one reason, I said it won't be easy improving our defense, this winter. Trading Bogey would be a massive blow to the offense, unless we sign a similar offensive profile who fields better, but unless the overall WAR is better, it's not really a gain, except for factoring what we get back for Bogey. Moving players around keeps the O and may improve the D. We easily could have won 9 more games, had the players we have now, on offense, were average defenders. My point was not about replacing them with net WAR lessers who play better D. It was just explaining how our defense has played a role in many losses... at least 9 games. Maybe 19.

Unearned Runs (remember, many runs are scored due to poor defense not called errors) 74 BOS 69 DET 66 MIN 63 NYY 58 LAA 57 SEA 57 TBR 55 TOR 52 TEX 52 CWS 46 KCR 44 HOU 42 CLE 41 BAL BAbip .323 BOS .307 LAA .306 BAL .300 KCR .291 SEA .290 DET .289 OAK .288 TBR .287 MIN & TEX .284 TOR .283 CWS .282 CLE .279 NYY .274 HOU RED= Contenders

Yes. People complain about our starters not going long enough, but several times, they could have gone an extra inning or more, had they not needed to get 4-5 outs some innings. The pen has had to be used more often, too. It affects the team more than just counting unearned or runs scored by poor D.

GIDP 18 JD 12 Vaz 10 Verdugo 10 Devers 8 Bogey 6 Renfroe 5 Marwin 4 Plawecki 3 Kike 3 Dalbec

SOX HR Leaders 34 Devers 27 Renfroe 26 JD 22 Dalbec 21 Bogey 17 Kike 13 Verdugo Total Bases (PAs) 282 (597) Devers 269 (576) JD 242 (538) Bogey 230 (512) Renfroe 216 (559) Verdugo 201 (515) Kike 186 (411) Dalbec TB/PA .472 Devers .467 JD .453 Dalbec .450 Bogey .449 Renfroe .390 Kike .386 Verdugo

Better at DH: JD Schwarber Probably better at DH: Renfroe Dalbec Maybe: Devers Bogey

The kid has really turned things around. He should be a testament to those posters who keep believing players almost always repeat what they have done in their prior 20, 50, 200 or 500 PAs. His career numbers- project to this over 650 PAs... .246 33 115 .817 OPS (112 OPS+) Not bad for any player's first 500 PAs in MLB. His minor league numbers per 650 PAs .261 32 102 .867 OPS The major difference has been his OBP: .308 MLB .362 MiLB SLG .509 MLB .505 MiLB

It seems like at least half our losses since the start of August could be blamed on the defense as a major factor. We were not plus before that, either.

They also show -6 DRS and -56 career DRS. His +1.9 UZR/150 is second best of his career. His career UZR/150 is +0.3.

It's simple: with average D, we'd probably have about 9 more wins and be tied with the Rays. I'm sure they have lost some games due to defense, but they have won some, too- many more than us. DRS has the Rays at +56, and the Sox at -6. That's a 62 run swing on defense. UZR: TBR 7.7/ BOS -0.6 Maybe we'd be 1-2 games behind- maybe with some luck or plus D, we'd be division leaders.

I thought of that. Apparently, they value Renfroe's arm. Verdugo's career RF numbers: (627 innings) -0.3 UZR/150 (better than Renfroe's) +1.3 ARM 0.0 RngR -1.3 ErrR +3 DRS

We'd be tied with the Rays with just average D, IMO.

He lacks range, too. Little speed, slow breaks, but it seems like he usually takes the right route, but yes, dropping easy fly outs is not good. What's the Sox record for errors by a RF'er? Here are his fangraph ratings in RF: 0 DRS (thanks to his arm) -1.2 UZR/150 +2.1 ARM -1.0 RngR -1.7 ErrR Career +13 DRS -0.5 UZR/150 +7.3 ARM -1.6 RngR -6.1 ErrR He only has 41 innings in CF Career, he's a plus in LF: (954 innings) -1 DRS 1.1 UZR/150 He must be close.

I remember well. I disagreed, then, and they figured it out, later.

Agreed. What I meant by surprised was, before ST'ing started, I thought he'd play LF with Verdugo in RF and Kike in CF. His arm surprised me, too, but his overall D sucks.

We even added a defensive 1Bman a few times. Mientkiewicz was the most well know.

I think Bloom's hands were tied at SS, C and 3B. It also looked like Dalbec was going to get a long look at 1B. As fans, we did not see what was coming in the OF and 2B. Many felt Kike was signed for 2B and an emergency OF'er. Many felt Verdugo would play CF or RF- Maybe Renfroe-Cordero platoon in LF or all 3 playing everyday, and Duran joining mid season. (Marwin in the OF, too.) Renfroe in RF surprised me.

I thought the plan was some sort of platoon between Renfroe, Verdugo and Cordero in the corners and Kike in CF with Arroyo at 2B.