moonslav59

I think the answer is obvious: 1) He was all we could get for what Bloom was willing to part with. 2) His contract did not put us over the lux tax line. 3) He's a .910 hitter, this year.

Who is calling for the wrong pitches?

I did not pick and choose. I selected all the pitchers with the most IP'd from 2020-2021- the time Plawecki was with the team. If you want, I'll go and do all the even smaller sample size pitchers.

Overall CERA is meaningless, if one catcher catches better pitchers the bulk of his time. CERA can only be used pitcher by pitcher to get the real picture. BTW, I said the results with Plawecki are "mixed," but the results I found of the pitchers with the most IP the last 2 years seem to show a slight advantage to Plawecki, but many sample sizes are small or even tiny.

It's not surprising to end up short of 6 IP in bad starts. He did go 6 in 3 of his last 8 starts and 5.2 to 6.0 in 4 of 8. That's better than just about any other Sox starter in the last 8 games (Eovaldi?). My point was that he is showing more hope than just about any other Sox starter, except maybe Eovaldi.

Nope!

This is the common problem with using CERA like this. Catchers catch different pitchers at higher rates than others, so you have to look at each pitcher individually. Of course, some sample sizes are very small, especially, if one catcher hardly ever catches a certain pitcher, which is often the case. I have done exhaustive studies on this, pitcher by pitcher. Leon blew Vaz away in about 75-80% of the pitchers with large enough sample sizes, both ways, to go by. Before that, all other back up catchers, except Swihart also had better numbers than Vaz. When it happens over and over, it's likely not a fluke. I have not done Plawecki v Vaz in a while, but here it is... Eovaldi: 2021: 2.66 Wong (20 IP), 4.30 Vaz (58 IP),4.72 Plawecki (48 IP) 2020: 0.64 Plawecki (14), Vaz 4.98 (34) Career: 2.66 Wong (20), 3.79 Plawecki (62), 4.30 Vaz (147), 4.53 Leon (44) ERod: 2021: 5.33 Vaz, nobody else has caught him, this year. 2020: n/a Career: 3.78 Hanigan (50), 4.05 Leon (118), 4.24 Vaz (560), 4.44 Swi (75) Pivetta: Career: 3.09 Plawecki (32), 4.48 Vaz (96) Richards: 2021: SSS 3.60 Plawecki (15), 5.48 Vaz (95) Perez: Career 4.14 Vaz (146), SSS Plawecki 9.35 (17) Barnes: Career 3.44 Vaz (196), 3.83 Leon (99), SSS 6.94 Plawecki (12) Looks like mixed results and many lop-sided sample sizes, but still tilts towards the back-ups over Vaz. I don't have time to do every RP'er, and their sample sizes are even smaller.

We've lost 9 of the last 11. Before that, we went 10-9 in the previous 19 games. Before that, we won 8 in a row. What a change from July 2nd to August 8th. (And we thought June was the tough month.)

Team record in starts by pitcher: 14-7 ERod (45-12 in his previous 47 starts) 14-8 Pivetta (2-0 with BOS in 2020) 3-2 Houck (3-0 with BOS in 2020) 12-10 Perez (3-9 w Sox, last year) 11-10 Richards 11-11 Eovaldi (19-14 in previous starts with Sox 2018-2020) Team records: ERod 59-19 in his last 78 BOS starts Houck 6-2 in his career Pivetta 16-8 in his BOS starts Eovaldi 30-25 in his 55 BOS starts Add Sale to the mix (team records) 10-15 in 2019 (some hard luck) 18-9 in 2018 22-10 in 2017______ 50-34 career with BOS

Agreed, and he's really had only 2 bad starts out of his last 8, so it's not really a long shot hope. IP ER last 8 6.0 3 6.0 2 6.0 0 5.0 4 5.2 0 1.0 1 3.1 6 5.0 0

AL Standings 68-44 TBR 66-46 CWS 66-46 HOU 64-48 OAK (T WC1) -2.0 ALW 65-49 BOS (T WC1) -4.0 ALE 61-50 NYY -2.5 WC 60-50 TOR -3.0 WC 59-54 SEA -5.5 WC NL Standings 71-41 SFG 67-45 LAD WC1 (-4.0 NLW) 66-46 MIL 64-49 SDP WC2 (-7.5 NLW) 59-33 PHI (NLE leader) 61-51 CIN -2.5 WC (-5.0 NLC) 57-55 ATL -6.5 WC (-2.0 NLE) 56-55 NYM -7.0 WC (-2.5 NLE) 55-56 STL -8.0 WC

A 5.40 ERA is never adequate ( 3 ER in 5 IP). 6 H + 1 BB = 1.40 WHIP. Yes, as bad as it looks, it's better than his previous starts, but it still sucks. Just because the pen gave up more, doesn't change the fact that Richards should not have even been starting today or his last start or two (or more).

Just throw it down the middle with 3 balls.

We've had a few wins like this loss over the season. We will have more to come. Sale is going to jolt this team back into the thick of it. (I only wish he'd been called up 1 start earlier, at least.)

The walk to the 9 hitter with Springer on deck was unforgivable.

It is, but they have a lot of good players under control for 2022 and beyond.

The thing is, they don't give 'em up a year too early. They give them up at exactly the right time, time after time. Sometimes the pitchers are young and doing very well, other times near 30 but still looking prime. Age Pitcher Results (ERA+ before and after trade) 28 Snell (129 career TBR> 72 SDP in 2021 at age 28) 27 Odorizzi (108 w TBR '15-'17> 107 MN age 28-29> 82 last 2 yrs) 29 Archer (107 career TBR> 86 PIT at age 29-30) 25 Kazmir (114 career TBR> 77 LAA ages 25-27 + 94 at age 28 CLE) 27 Moore (100 career TBR> 82 SFG ages 27-28, 70 TEX age 29) I do wonder why they never traded Alex Cobb. Shields broke the mold: 107 w TBR (traded at age 30) 127 w KCR (2 years after trade) 84 next 4 years and 28 Price (122 career TBR>Det 136 age 29 for 1 yr-2 months, 118 BOS)

I agree. Not even close. My top 30 1. Mayer 2. Duran 3. Houck 4. Casas 5. Bello 6. Jimenez 7. Downs 8. Yorke 9. Seabold 10. Song 11. Jordan 12. Winckowski 13. Murphy 14. Mata 15. Wong 16. Groome 17. Bonaci 18. Wilkelman 19. Crawford 20. Howlett 21. Lugo 22. Bleis 23. Hickey 24. McDonough 25. Cannon 26. Bazardo 27. Rosario 28. Ro Hernandez 29. Paulino 30. Arauz/Lira/Potts/Drohan

And, conversely, they trade away pitchers just before they implode.

I'm pretty certain we are under the tax line. If we cut Marwin and he clears waivers and is picked up by someone at min wage cost, we save that min wage cost, but that cost would be cancelled out by adding Munoz at min wage cost. We'd break even. If someone took Marwin, or Richards, or Perez at cost, we'd save a significant amount. (Bloom will not DFA Marwin. He may DFA Santana, Andriese or Richards, and long shot Perez.)

I'm thrilled the Yanks decided to weaken their farm for a pipe dream. (The Gallo trade was better for them.) If they get lucky enough to make the playoffs, they'll be bounced pronto.

soxprospects.com has its new rankings with the draftees included: 1. Casas 21 2. Mayer 18 3. Duran 24 4. Downs 23 (passed by Duran) 5. Houck 25 (soon to be a post prospect) 6. Jimenez 21 7. Bello 22 (up 17 slots!) 8. Yorke 19 (up 2 slots) 9. Seabold 25 (down 2 slots) 10. Groome 22 (up 3) 11. Mata 22 12. Song 24 13. Jordan 18 (up 4 slots) 14. Winckowski 23 (up 13 slots) 15. Bonaci 19 16. Murphy 23 (up 7 slots) 17. Ward 24 (down 9 slots) 18. Lugo 20 (down 3) 19. Wong 25 20. Wilkelman Gonzalez 19 (up 28 slots!) 21. Ro Hernandez 23 (down 7) 22. Arauz 23 23. Bleis17 (up 12) 24. McDonough 25. Howlett (up 15) 26. Hickey 27. Crawford 25 (not ranked last time!) 28. Decker 21 29. Paulino 19 (NR) 30. Cannon 23 (up 12) 31. Bazardo 25 (down 12) 32. Lira 17 (NR) 33. Rosario 21 (down 13) 34. Vaughn 19 (up 20) 35. Wu-Yellan 22 (up18) 36. Blalock 20 37. Drohan 22 (down 5) 38. Potts (down 17) 39. Fitzgerald 27 (NR) 40. Feltman 24 (down 10) 41-45. Walter, Lopez, Rafaela, Castellanos, V Santos 46-50. Perales, Liu, Kavadas, German, Gambrell 51-55. F Valdez, Granberg, de la Rosa, Adames, Koss 56-60. Mieses, T Reed, Groshans, Davis, Cruz I'm no expert on prospects, but it looks like our 11-45 prospects have improved greatly. Young ML level players: 24: Devers 25: Verdugo, Whitlock 26: Arroyo, Dalbec, Cordero

...and to a lesser extent, Arroyo, Brasier and maybe some others.

Would that have put us over the top?

I don't mean to pry, but whose groin did Schwarber tug?