moonslav59

It's not like ERA and ERA- are meaningless stats, but I do agree the other stats carry more weight. At least I qualified my point with saying the stats may be viewed as rather "lame." Okay, he wasn't the "ace," but I never said he clearly was. He was doing pretty well, though for 11 starts.

At the risk of sounding like we're a posse, I agree. I do think Whitlock can be a good starter, but we know he does very well in the long relief role, and that role is becoming more and more prominent in today's game.

Agreed. Let's assume Wacha, Hill and Whitlock all look good and close to the same in ST'ing. Which two would you guess fill the 4-5 slots?

That kind of thinking actually makes sense.

All true, but one could argue... ERA 3.09 Perez 3.75 Richards 3.77 Pivetta 4.01 Eovaldi 5.64 ERod ERA- 68 Perez 83 Richards & Pivetta 88 Eovaldi 124 ERod I know ERA is a pretty lame stat, these days, but he did get the job done, despite the less than impressive peripherals. Team record in GS: 9-2 Pivetta 7-4 Perez 7-4 Eovaldi 5-5 ERod 5-6 Richards

If the Nats are the "dark horse," who are the favorites?

Since this seems impossible, maybe it happens!

Does this make Arauz move higher up on the next player to be DFA'd list?

What's his max likely to be? If we look like we will make the playoffs, they may want to "save" 10-20 IP for that. I'm thinking 130-145.

A shot, yes- in ST'ing, but if Wacha and Hill look good and ready, I think we may start Whitlock in the pen.

I'm not seeing any team that will pay Correa near what he wants. The Yanks still look like the most obvious team, but the GM is a bozo.

If we did that, then this trade makes total sense, but somehow I think that's a long shot. Are there others like Corbin that could be traded for? (Salary dumps with upside)

I thinks so, too, but maybe the first choices going into ST'ing are: Eovaldi, Sale, Pivetta, Wacha and Hill. (Wacha might be used in long relief.)

We might have come real close on some signings. Word is, we cam real close to trading for Stallings, but got outbid at the last moment. The rumor that we were a finalist on Baez gives me hope our budget is not set at below the old tax line, but that remains to be seen. There is evidence that indicates we will not be spending large, this year, too. Bloom says we are still looking for pen and RH'd bat additions (probably OF or 2B), so maybe a splash will happen, later. All-in-all, it does appear we have not gotten better, and at the risk of sounding like a Bloom apologist, the optimistic view can be summed up like this: We lost ERod, but ERod was not all that great for us in 2021. We lost Ottavino- same as ERod. The other losses can be viewed as addition by subtraction, but the depends on how well our new additions do. IP/ERA in 2021 158/4.74 ERod 137/4.87 Richards 114/4.74 Perez 62.0/4.21 Ottavino 37.1/6.03 Andriese 25.0/3.60 Robles 24.1/ 3.70 Rios 20.0/4.95 Workman + over 30 IP from various scrubs We can expect more IP from Sale, Brasier and Houck- maybe more from Whitlock, Taylor, DHern, Davis and perhaps Pivetta. Then, we added Wacha, Hill & Paxton. PA/ OPS 572/.816 Renfroe 271/.567 Marwin 168/.957 Schwarber 136/.497 Cordero (the same OPS as JBJ) 127/.597 Santana 82/.549 Chavis 64/.915 Iggy 48/.843 Shaw +over 50 PAs from scrubs We added JBJ and look to add a RH'd bat. The offense looks worse, on paper. The staff looks hard to gauge, based on 2021 numbers.

He actually had a good season before leaving but I agree.

That’s basically what Bloom just said.

MLB.com is comical

Yes, it is a big difference. I didn’t mean to imply they were near identical cases, but even before Nate’s surgery, he only pitched over 155 innings once. He also missed a good chunk of 2019.

1. Kike CF/2B 2. Verdugo LF/RF 3. Bogey SS 4. Devers 3B 5. JD DH 6. Dalbec 1B 7. Arroyo 2B/ JBJ CF-RF 8. JBJ CF-RF/ Duran LF 9. Vazquez C (Plawecki)

Eovaldi Sale Pivetta Wacha Hill Paxton (Seabold, Winckowski, Crawford) Houck Whitlock Barnes Taylor Barnes DHern Sawamura Davis (Valdez, Bacardi, Feltman)

mlbtr on Bloom... “We still would like to add more pitching,” Bloom said. “Short relievers, that’s something we have yet to address in meaningful fashion.” Bloom went on to add that the Sox would continue to be involved in the market for position players, pointing to a right-handed bat as a particular bonus in the wake of the trade that sent Hunter Renfroe to Milwaukee for Jackie Bradley Jr. and two prospects.

I’m just curious about who “proclaimed” it. We’re supposed to have kept our cabal secret,

He probably stole the ideas from the self proclaimed posse.

As bad as Richards and Perez were, and don’t take this as being their apologists, but Perez was arguably our ace after a third of the season, and Richards filled the closer roll nicely through a crucial time in our playoff run. I’m hopeful these guys can do better the R & P, but maybe we can win again even if they don’t. I’m still optimistic about 2022, but I have to admit I hoped for pieces I felt were better choices.

Basically what various posters have said, today.