moonslav59

Again, why not respond to the point we actually made: DD traded an extreme amount of prospects- whether they ended up being good or not is a separate issue that nobody is disagree with you on.

Just like that, Schwarber now leads the team in OPS at 1.167.

Don't believe all the bad press. 2020 (.772 OPS Against) .644 AUG .910 SEP (one bad month) 2019 (.624 season) .634 AUG .641 SEP 2018 (.509 season) .638 AUG .542 SEP 2017 (.786 season) .771 AUG (one not so great month) .674 SEP While there has been some drop offs later in the season, all but 2 of these 8 months listed were very respectable. Career (.677 overall) .632 AUG .704 SEP (Combined pretty close to .677)

The Yanks play tomorrow- the day before our doubleheader with them. We have Monday and Thursday off, this week and then Monday off next week. (Time for other teams to catch up on our total games played.) I'm guessing we go with these starters: 8/16 off 8/17 @NYY Eovaldi (+1 day rest) 8/17 @NYY Houck 8/18 @NYY Pivetta 8/19 off 8/20 TEX Sale (+1 day rest) 8/21 TEX ERod (+1) 8/22 TEX Eovaldi 8/23 off 8/24 MIN Houck (+2) 8/25 MIN Pivetta (+1) 8/26 MIN Sale (+1) then 7 straight road games (3@ CLE & 4 @TBR) with no days off from 8/24 to 9/9- 16 straight games.

ROBO Umps- yesterday, already!

Team fWAR Numbers American League Position Players: 24.7 HOU 19.5 CWS 19.4 TBR 19.2 TOR 18.9 OAK 18.3 BOS 14.1 MIN 13.5 NYY Pitching 18.1 CWS 15.9 NYY 14.4 BOS 14.1 TBR 13.9 OAK 11.5 HOU 11.0 SEA 10. TOR 7.6 Add the two: 37.6 CWS 36.2 HOU 33.5 TBR 32.8 OAK 32.7 BOS 30.4 NYY 26.8 TOR 19.7 SEA Sox By Position: 1st SS 1st 3B 2nd CF 3rd DH 4th 2B 4th SP 5th RP 8th LF 8th RF 11th C 14th 1B

Sox fWAR Rankings (50+ PAs) 4. Devers 4.6 8. Bogey 4.5 36. Kike 3.2 48. JD 2.9 98. Verdugo 1.8 108. Schwarber 1.7 117. Renfroe 1.6 150. Arroyo 1.3 0.4 Plawecki 0.2 Vazquez -0.1 Dalbec -0.3 Duran -0.4 Chavis -0.4 Santana -0.5 Marwin -0.7 Cordero Starting Pitching ( 154 pitchers w 50+ IP) 4. Eovaldi 4.1 34. ERod 2.5 55. Pivetta 1.9 117. Perez 0.5 124. Richards 0.4 RP'ers (264 with 20+ IP) 6. Barnes 1.6 13. Ottavino 1.3 24. Whitlock 1.1 49. Taylor 0.7 198. Y Rios 0.0 206. DHer -0.1 224. Valdez -0.1 226. Workman -0.1 227. Andriese -0.2 241. Robles -0.3 253. Sawamura -0.4

Breaking him in slowly, it seems.

Booby Dee is back to his old self. DFA him! Bring up Munoz!

Throw strikes Eduardo!

J- Da- Man

Another "earned run" not so earned.

Those damn walks get us everytime!

So, couldn't those plans and pre-season views be attributed to the last vestiges of the "cliff?"

Groome may start coming around, soon, but to still binge at A ball at age 22 has to be viewed as an overall letdown, despite the injuries. I would also add that Casas has to hit better than .768 in AA to get a shot at playing a hitter's position like 1B in 2022. Downs is seeing his stock fall, but I think he can still turn things around. I like what I have seen from Wong, so we may see more of him. I think Bello may rise more quickly that we think. Seabold should see significant time with the big club in 2022- maybe even this September. I also like Winckowski, but he has been struggling, of late. Chris Murphy may rise and contribute in '22. Ronald Hernandez, Munoz, Crawford, Bazardo and Arauz can be role players. Getting great input from Whitlock, Houck and Duran lessens the need to have serious impact prospects for 2022, but it would be nice to get something good from somebody.

I've mentioned this point over and over. The downturn was much shorter than I expected and some of the reasons for that have to do with DD's draft picks and acquisitions that exceeded my expectations. Some also has to go to Bloom for moving very quickly to build the farm from bottom 3 to maybe bottom 15 to 18, as well as improving the 40 man roster. Let's not forget that the whole reset and decision to not go over, this year was Henry's not DD's, but the team budget and roster left by DD was a major factor in those choices by Henry. All the complaints about not doing enough at the deadline are part of the effects left behind by DD, too. All we hear is Bloom bashing on the deadline, and certainly he could have or might have done more, but his focus has been on rebuilding the farm, and to me, rightly so. I can't help but think much of that is on DD not Bloom.

Indeed!

I'm not trying to make any veiled point here, but here are some interesting numbers: 2021 Numbers by selected ex-Sox players: .899 Betts .695 Beni .753 Moncada .545 JBJ .606 Pillar .735 Moreland .699 Margot .646 Dubon 3.60 (55 IP) Price 2.53 (46 IP) Kopech 6.16 (19) Mazza 3.43 (45) Springs 5.40 (42) Hembree DNP Buttrey DNP Beeks

I agree. There should be a great need and much discussion before any exceptions occur.

We may also see more fall league play than normal.

Plawecki has been great depth at catcher. If we stick to just a 3 man bench, and Schwarber plays 1B most of the time, our bench will be Duran, Dalbec and Plawecki. If we go to 13 pitchers and 4 bench players, I'd be fine with Munoz over Cordero. Once Arroyo returns to health, we don't need Cordero's depth in the OF, as Kike plays CF. We don't need Cordero at 1B, since Schwarber and Dalbec should cover that. It would come down to Munoz > Arauz, IMO.

A million thanks to Bob!

I'm fine with that opinion, and don't disagree. That does not negate the fact that an extreme amount of prospects were traded in a very short window, the farm he left was worse than the one he inherited, and the farm & budget left behind contributed greatly to 2020 and the pre-season hopes to 2021. Of course, there were other factors, like Henry tightening the purse strings and COVID hitting MLB hard. Again, I'm happy we hired DD and greatly enjoyed the unprecedented 3 division wins, the fantastic 2018 season and WS win, and felt he created a window longer than the 3.5 years it turned out to be. What I feel is lacking among some of the DD worshippers is the admission that his strategy and philosophy was a major factor in what happened at the end of 2019, the whole 2020 season and the state of our current farm and budget. It's something he did nearly every place he went, so it's not like it was some kind of fluke we fell off a cliff. We can argue about just how bad the cliff was or is, and how much Bloom had to do with the quick turn-around and how much DD has to do with this year's success. (He has a significant role in it, IMO.) Yes, the paper rankings can be wrong, but I'd rather have a top 10 farm than a bottom 10 farm and certainly top 3 vs bottom 3. Why is it so hard for some to at least give some slight lip service to one downfall of DD'd reign? They sure have an easy time blasting Ben and Bloom over certain downfalls of their record as GMs.

...and Sale would have been gone long before the extension. JD would never have been signed. Eovaldi, too. No Bogey.

Just as showing player X has great numbers in the clutch proves it's a sustainable skill. Nobody can prove anything on this, and maybe that's why the argument will never be put to rest. We can, however, show that randomly generated stat lines for sample sizes as large as playoff samples mirror almost exactly, the actual results in reality. Some skew high, some skew low, most skew near the player's regular season OPS when factoring in batting vs slightly better pitching.