moonslav59

Maybe someday. Maybe 2022, if Casas explodes his way to the bigs.

Believe it or not, that's him admitting he was wrong.

Sox OPS in the last 10 days: 1.258 Dalbec- Mr. Comeback 1.112 Bogey- Mr. Consistency .977 Devers- Mr. Fun .916 Arroyo- Mr. Full Time Second Baseman .820 Vaz- Mr. Over-worked .796 JD- Mr. Coming back to life .775 Renfroe- Mr. Steady since April .769 Verdugo- Mr. Clutch .587 Kike- Mr. Need you to do something .513 Marwin- Mr. Do-it-all but hit .400 Plawecki- Mr. back-up .368 Santana- Mr. DFA

Scherzer will cost too much in prospects and would mean a $9.5M hit on the tax budget- putting us over. He's not coming to Boston.

I do think our top 5 hitters should include the big 4 + Renfroe, but that would seriously shorten the line-up and put more emphasis on how bad the bottom of the order can be. That being said, one can argue that makes little sense, because putting a weak hitter first, still creates a 4 straight batter funk, be it 6 to 9 or 7 to 1. Going by modern analytics, where your 5th best hitter bats 3rd, this seems like the optimal start to our line-up: 1. Verdugo 2. Bogey (our best hitter) 3. Renfroe (5th best) 4. JD v LHP/Devers v RHP 5. Devers v LHP/ JD v RHP I'd try this for the bottom 4: 6. Dalbec 7. Arroyo 8. Vaz 9. Kike

To me, the Yanks are still the AL team to beat. They've struggled for 70 games. We're still 10 games from the halfway point. They get Sevvy back and will likely make some deadline moves. The Yanks are 5 down in the loss column and 4 down in losses from the WC slot. Anyone who thinks they can't make that up over the last 90 games of the season hasn't been paying attention to the history of playoff races.

That could be the answer, but watching him play 1B gives me doubts about him at 3B. He'd probably have a better arm than Devers, there, but worse range and glove work. Hard to know. I thought the word was, he was a plus defender at 3B.

For good reason, and just because a player's OPS goes up 50 points in June does not mean the stat should be diminished. If we had taken OPS/2 to basically make it an average of OBP and SLG, a 25 point jump might not have caught your eye.

Then the bashing has been misplaced. I'm a huge Cora fan, but keeping Kike at leadoff was worthy of heavy criticism. Kike is hitting 80 points below his career norm, but most of the league is 20-50 below, so in that context, Kike may not deserve even moderate criticism. I was a big supporter of trying Arroyo at lead off, which Cora did a couple times, but even he has not gotten on base all that much in the last week or two, so it's hard to show that position was a sure winner. I think we all kind of believe Renfroe should stay hitting behind the big 4, so leading him off, or putting Verdugo 1st and Renfroe somewhere else in the top 5, may not have helped much, either. That would also create an even worse 6-9 potion of the order. It's not such an easy call for Cora. Sure, in hindsight, we can scream "Anyone is better than Kike or Santana!" and we'd probably be right, but nobody know who will be hot going forward. Look at the Dalbec example. Here is a look at some chosen sample sizes and OBP... (Note Arroyo's OBP in the last week) Last 7 days .316 Vaz (Never heard a sould advocate Vaz leading off) .308 Marwin (We were all in shock when Cora put him leading off) .294 Kike (Better than Arroyo by 63 pts) .231 Arroyo .231 Santana (equal to Arroyo, surprisingly) How about the week before (Yes! to Arroyo!) .391 Vaz .360 Arroyo .310 Kike .136 Marwin .125 Santana The week before last... .385 Arroyo .286 Marwin .278 Vaz .136 Santana .125 Kike May 23-29 .333 Cordero .333 Marwin .300 Santana .211 Kike .143 Arroyo (Cora was supposed to know Arroyo would heat up by this?) May 16-22 .500 Arauz (4 PAs) .444 Chavis (9 PAs) .421 Vaz .381 Kike (Maybe this is why they left him leading off the next week) .333 Santana .250 Cordero .118 Marwin May 9-15 (no winners, this week) .333 Arauz (6 PA) .280 Marwin .250 Chavis .174 Vaz .118 Cordero (Kike & Arroyo on IL) May 2-8 .636 Plawecki .500 Vaz .500 Kike (right before IL) .333 Cordero .321 Marwin .143 Arroyo Is there any rhyme or reason to these trends? If we go by how well someone did the previous week or two, we'd be flipping a coin. Nobody jumps out as having a consistently high OBP. Nobody. .071 Vaz

To the "replacement" mix, is what he meant.

Just win, baby!

He was better on defense in 2019. I had thought he had turned the corner, then, but he looks worse now and did in 2020, too. It's all about the arm. His glove and reflexes are fine. He seems to have good footwork, except maybe to set himself to throw. His DRS shows +1, this year, but his UZR/150 shows a big drop from 2019. That being said, I seem to recall hi starting off 2019 a bit slowly on D, so maybe he can turn things around, again, this year. That's why I think he can still make a case for staying at 3B by showing it over the next 90 games.

Well said, Kimmi. I think we make a small move or two at the deadline. We have about $4-5M to add to the budget without getting taxed, and I think we look for a salary dump player or two that won't demand a very promising prospect in return. We probably already have a good idea on who will not be part of the 2022 forty man roster (like maybe Chavis, Ward or Groome) and trading them in July won't really be sacrificing any of our future growth. Adding Sale, Houck, Brasier, Bazardo and maybe even Ort, Duran, Gonsalves or Wilson may be the biggest boosts we get in the next coming month or two.

As of now, I agree, but the choice should be made when it is determined Casas in ML ready. If that is opening day 2022 (doubtful), I'd go with Devers, although keeping him at 3B might have more merit. If it's opening day 2023, Devers last year of control, the choice might be different, and again, we might just keep Devers at 3B, if Casas is raking, rather than trade either one.

If that means the rest of 2021, I totally agree. If he doesn't show improvement on defense by the end of the year, I think we have to seriously consider moving him to 1B. I think he can and will be a plus on defense at 1B. Now, who plays 3B?

True, in the sense of numerical leaps, but since it is two stats added together, the large jumps are the result of two moderate jumps added together, and if you go by percent improvement like you used during the .200 vs .300 BA players argument, the percent rise of his OPS equaled the percent rise of his OBP and SLG. (They both went up about 25 points or about 8%.) Going by your position on the BA debate, Dalbec's SLG went up 8.8% (35/397), his OBP went up 6.0% (15/252) and his OPS went up 7.7%. It looks like SLG can fluctuate more than OPS using your own methodology..

I'm not sure why that stat has not caught on.

We can agree to disagree on Vaz being a plus behind the plate. He does frame pitches very well and has a decent arm. That certainly helps, but I don't think he gets the most out of our staff. I know I might be in the minority on that, but there is ample evidence to support my position. You say Marwin is a bench guy, which he is, but he has more PAs than Dalbec, so he should be dissected as much as Dalbec has. I have expected Dalbec to show better defense, and he has, recently, but he has not been a plus on defense, this year. I'm not saying Dalbec should not have been criticized or even criticized harshly. Hell, I wanted him demoted. My point is more about the others being treated less harshly. I did not mention Kike in this post, because he has been bashed pretty harshly, too. While he has been a high usage utility guy his whole career, I think we signed him thinking he'd get over 550 PAs- more or as much as we expected from Dalbec, this year.

Actually, it's more about smaller sample sizes vs larger sample sizes. We like to think 70 game sample sizes are pretty big, and they certainly are significant, but many players need much longer sample sizes for their true value to be realized in stats. This is not to say .699 or higher is who Dalbec really is. He could drop back down to below .650 and end his career there. I have to admit, as much as I harp about sample sizes, I felt Dalbec needed some time in AAA to work out his issues. It makes me wonder about Cordero and Chavis. Did we send them down, too soon? (Both did very well in AAA- not that this means anything significant.) Santana seems like a different case, but who knows if he will heat up starting in his next game. I have to think he's near a DFA.

That's a ways away, and the answer may be clearer by then- injury, one pitcher really struggling (ERod?). I doubt we stay with 6 for long. We also have the long all star break coming up, soon..

Not yet. He's certainly "on the radar," but I think he's earned a longer chance to turn things around. I could see us calling up Houck and putting ERod on the IL to give him a rest, and to see, if maybe he just needs to gain some strength back. I'd but Andriese, Rios & Workman ahead of ERod on my pitcher replacement list. Santana stands alone on the everyday player list, which probably should included Marwin in second, but it won't.

All true. One would expect much better health from a DH only.

Mid June! It's not looking like a seller's deadline for the Sox.

Feels nice, especially after the missed opportunities, last night, and everyone else losing. The A's now have the best AL record by 1/2 game over us & CWS. TBR & HOU are 1/2 game behind us. It looks like a battle between the 5 teams teams like the Yanks and Guardians still in the mix.

Vaz is like second in catcher innings on D. Plawecki is not a bad sub. Yes, rest Vaz more. As for what Bloom saw in Kike, we needed to cover our bases at 2B and CF. Kike can play both. That was one major factor. I think we felt the need at 2B was greater, and as it turned out, almost every free agent choice at 2B has sucked, bigtime. That's no excuse, but other choices cost more and did worse. Of course, there are some that cost less that are doing better, but not many can play CF, too. Kike was a very good player for the Dodgers, you know, the team that won it all. He was 6th on the team in innings played in 2019 and 2020 for the Dodgers. In 2018, the year they faced us in the WS, he was 4 innings away from being 4th on the team in innings played. You can't be a chump and play that much for 3 straight years on a team like LA. (He also has a .758 OPS in 142 playoff PAs.) It's not like the guy has been this bad his whole career. He had a .737 OPS in 4 years with LA and is just 29. We signed him to play 2B, CF and maybe hit between .700-.750. I'm fine with blaming Bloom for choosing Kike, but I'm not sure it was really that much of a head-scratcher. The $7M seemed higher than most expected, and he had shown some decline in OPS over the 2 previous seasons, but at his age, there was no reason to expect continued and steeper decline, and besides, he's not even 25% into his contract, so he may end up proving us all wrong by the end of 2022.