moonslav59

Why have they not moved him to AA?

I think he has trade value, although minimum.

I think the 5 slot is perfect for Devers. My second choice for him would be 4th or 2nd. I'd be fine with... Verdugo Bogey Renfroe JD Devers or Verdugo Bogey Devers JD Renfroe but the 5 slot is very important, and that's a big drop off (Devers to Renfroe).

I'd rank Seabold ahead of Groome, but he's on the IL. Bello is better but farther away. Song cannot play. Houck and Whitlock are already ML ready and tested. Mata and Ward have has TJS. Our minor league pitching is still messed up. BTW, soxprospects.com had Groome ranked 1st in April 2018, 3rd in October '18 and '19, 8th in summer '20 and 12th in Oct '20.He is 14th, now. Part of the reason for that is all the nice additions to the farm, we've made, but several in-system prospects have leap-frogged him over the last 2-3 years.

I agree, and that's one reason I think the two players we can afford to trade, this summer, are Chavis & Groome. We may not get much in return, as other GMs can see whatwe see, but we should be able to get a decent saalry dump or two for those two and still stay under the tax line. I had Ward on that list, too, but the TJS he just under went makes him untradeable. Word is, Ward won't even need protection from Rule 5 due to the surgery.

Having power in the one slot is nice, too, and it worked with Betts. Late in games, with the bottom of the order up, you always have that hope that one for the bottom 3 get on and the lead-off guy can homer to tie it or take the lead.

Just in terms of who gets more PAs.

I'm not doubting a study or two exist, and of course we can find examples that go against any study (Suzuki, Aaron and others come to mind), but it seems like the hulk players spend more time on the IL over their whole careers.

I'm not sure JD is our best hitter. That might be a close race between Bogey & Devers.

I don't think it's about Verdugo not being a good lead-off hitter. I think it's about the 2 slot being more important and "lengthening" the line-up by not putting our top 4 hitters 1-2-3-4. Modern theory states your 4 best hitters should hit something like 2, 5, 4, 1 and the 3 slot should be your 5th best hitter. Old school theory has the 3 slot as one of or the most important slot in the line-up. Maybe the modern theory would see this: Verdugo Bogey Renfroe JD Devers Traditional, this: Verdugo Arroyo/Kike (contact hitter) Bogey Devers JD Renfroe

The #2 slot is supposed to be your best overall hitter, according to modern analytics, so I'm fine with keeping one of our top 4 batting 2nd. The only real choice I see is Arroyo vs Kike at lead off. I don't see a third option, unless and until Duran is called up and proves he can get on base vs ML pitching. Since Kike is probably our second best option, IMO, it's not a horrific choice by Cora to go with the guy with a longer track record in MLB. Arroyo has looked better, this year, but the sample sizes are still too small to use as predictors of what is too come. We talk a lot about the bottom of the order having too many "black holes," and how we can't win without fixing that issue, but look around the whole league: nearly every team, even the best of the best have 2-3 hitters under .700 or even under .650. We also hear about how we can't really hope for anything better from the non top 4 hitters, but I contend that we don't really need greatness- just a return to norm or near norm numbers: Current OPS/ Career OPS (Recent years' OPS) .648/.695 (.795 2019-2020) Vaz 50-150 points .650/.729 (.749 2018-2020) Kike 75-100 points .756/.774 (.776 career before 2021 & .772 '18-'20) Renfroe 25-30 points .656/.749 (.867 minors) Dalbec maybe 50-100 points .501/.678 (.737 career before 2021) Franchy 100-200+ points Let's say all these guys, combined, all get halfway back to their norm or recent norm (before 2021), we'd be talking about OPS gains of... 50 for Vaz 45 for Kike 10 for Renfroe and maybe 50-75 for Dalbec & Cordero, who both had small sample sizes before 2021. I know the whole league is down, and if all these guys did add to their current OPS, maybe the rest of the league would, too, but there is still hope our bottom 4-5 can improve in a significant way without needing any outlier situation. Note: I did not mention Arroyo, as he is doing better than his career norm.

Good Analysis. I don't think you have the $15-$16M for David Price. I knew I was forgetting something big. I have sign and trade for both Richards and Perez. That will offset David Price money. They are team options, not really "signings," but we can't lose ERod, Richards and Perez all at once. I know you feel we can improve on all 3, but Richards & Perez both have reasonable option year costs, and we need to keep good contracts, so we can afford to spend where needed. Plus, I don't see how we can afford to sign 1-3 pitchers, hope Sale/Whitlock/Houck fill the other slot(s) and also add 2-3 solid pen arms on the budget we have. It's not impossible, but we'd have to be right on nearly every signing. I'm also going over the tax line significantly for 2022 for adding the second 'ace' type. I think we go $10-19.9M over the first tax line. We've always agreed that in order to strengthen starting rotation is to get #1 type and slot everyone else one spot below. We can't afford to do that every year, but this winter seems like perfect timing, except for the fact that there is no clear cut solid ace at a reasonable age. Still, we should do it. I'm assuming Sale is coming back to his old self. Or, 90%. I'm assuming CF, 1B and 2B will be filled internally. Then we should leave a few million for an in-season addition, since it is likely all three will be a plus all year. I'm clearing out everyone so we can have 2 #1 types. This is probably the best plan. Even Barnes has priced himself out of a return. We clear out some of the money issue for 2023 when Price money goes away, Eovaldi's $17M is gone and replaced internally and JD's $22M is gone and replaced internally. One of those can be used to extend Devers. I'm sure we can replace Eovaldi, but replacing JD's bat with who? Casas? That's a huge what if? We'll always be competitive with healthy Sale, Verlander and Syndergaard. That's a group that can win a playoff series. All three are big ifs. In system answers are too. I like our system, but we have to plan on some of tehse guys not working out. The good part is, we have multiple options at every position, although the OF options look thin. 1B: Dalbec/Chavis, Casas 2B: Arroyo/Kike, Downs OF: (Verdugo & Renfroe) Kike/Cordero, Duran Farther down the road: Potts/Jordan, Yorke/Lugo, Jimenez/Rosario, F Valdez Pitching, as always, is a bit sketchier: Whilock & Houck and then what? Seabold & a bunch of TJ surgery hopefuls (Mata, Ward & Groome), a Song and a prayer (Bello?) Farther down the road: Aldo Ramirez Then, there is the catching position, a slot with very few obvious plus players out there- let alone available: Ronaldo Hernandez, Wong, Herrmann, Kole Cottam? We still have some high need areas, and some we don't even know about yet. This was supposed to be the year we got some answers by being able to determine, once-and-for-all, if guys like Chavis, Dalbec, Cordero, Arroyo and others could cut it or not. Winning so much has actually hurt our ability to throw players out there to see who can stick.

He certainly looks like a keeper! We have 3 more arb years to go, too! That being said, it was Mookie Betts we traded, so getting something very good should have been expected. If Downs can give us anything, maybe even via another trade, it would be hard to view this trade as a loss.

Has there ever been a valid study on length of career and late career production by body type?

That and think about all the non error reach on bases due to poor defense or lack of great defense we see from other teams more often.

AL Records 43-25 TBR 42-25 CWS 41-27 BOS #1 WC 41-27 OAK 38-28 HOU -2.0 from #1 WC 36-28 CLE -1.0 from #2 WC 34-32 NYY -4.0 33-32 TOR -4.5 33-33 LAA -5.0 NL 41-25 SFG 40-26 LAD #1 WC 34-25 NYM 38-29 Cubs 38-29 MIL T #2 WC and Central div 38-31 SDP -1.0 from #2 WC 34-31 CIN -3.0 34-33 STL -4.0 32-32 PHI -4.5

soxprospects.com Players of the Week 6/8-6/13 Michael Chavis, 1B, Worcester 5 G, 19 AB, 9 H, 3 HR, 5 R, 10 RBI, 3 BB, 4 K, .474/.522/1.000 Chavis was one of several Worcester players to beat up on the Syracuse Mets pitching staff, and he capped off the week with a promotion to Boston. Since being sent down to Worcester on May 24, Chavis has hit .275/.338/.420 in 17 games with a strikeout rate just north of 27 percent. Since May 1 Boston's first basemen have hit just .158/.218/.386, and Chavis has a chance to get significant at-bats if he can keep this recent hot streak going.

Keeping the mojo risin' (I hope). Time for Richards to turn things around. The bats seem to be doing fine. The defense is showing cracks, again. Sweeping anyone is never easy, even a 2 game series. Go Sox!

On the farm... Clean sweep to go with the big club win. Worcester won 10-1 and are now 24-13. Cordero 3 for 3 with 2 BB and 3 doubles and 3 rbi. Ockimey homered and walked twice. Arauz 3 for 4 with 4 rbi Duran, Downs and Wong with 2 hits, each Espinal went 5 IP, 3 H, 3 BB, 7 K and 1 ER Pen went 4 with 2H, 0 BB and 5 K - 0 ER Portland won 9-4 and are 21-16. Rosario 3 for 5 with a 2B and 4 rbi Casas 1 for 5 with a 3B German 5 IP, 6H, 2BB, 5K and 2 ER Greenville won 9-3 and are 20-17, Esplin 3-4 w 2B and BB Cannon 2-5 Brannen 2-3 Groome 4.1, 3H, 4BB, 7K, o ER Salem won 6-2 and are 20-17. Jimenez 2-5 Rafaela 0-0 with 4BB Northcut 1-3 with 3 rbi

I did not mean to imply the commissioner was right in doing what he did, especially the timing of the push to stop a long-standing practice. He obviously panicked over the bad press he's been getting for turning baseball back to 1968, and over-reacted by trying to do something to reverse his earlier blunder(s). What a mess he's caused, when all we needed was an enforced pitch clock. If he wanted to anything radical, maybe robo umps.

I took a class as an elective. I remember one thing that teacher said- word for word, which is something I can't say about many HS teachers: "Don't let school interfere with your education."

I responded to your 2022 post. Not sure if you saw it.

True, but many places have happy hour meal specials for non senior citizens, at least here in Texas, they do.

Barnes on the year: 108 PAs against 16 Hits, including that last chopper to 3B 7 BB 52 Ks out of 92 outs made!

Rays lose 3-0.