moonslav59

Renfroe should be the poster boy for everyone who is bitching about giving Dalbec a long look at 1B. Even the greatest players in MLB history have 100-150 or even longer stretches where they looked anywhere from bad to horrific. Their manager and GM stuck with them. How are we to know, if some player's April and May might be the worst stretch they'll ever have in a long and productive MLB career? If one had to project when a player's longest slump would be, one would probably guess in a players first 100-500 PAs in the league. Does this mean Dalbec needs more time? Who knows? It looks a lot like "Hell NO!" to me, too, and in fact, I'm for calling Chavis up, today and sending Dalbec to AAA to try and work his way back up for another look. I don't want both Dalbec and Chavis on the 2022 roster, if they both remain untested and unknowns. Even keeping one might bug me. We should know more, even if they spend a big chunk of 2021 in AAA, but Dalbec deserved at least 5-7 weeks of near FT play, this spring. Cordero, too. I would not say the same about Santana and Chavis, but both of them got their chances and may still get another or a longer look, before a choice is made. How many times do we hear Sox fans bitching about letting a player go, too early and watching him do very well, elsewhere. Maybe not that much recently, but it happens. I'm totally frustrated with Dalbec. I had hopes for Chavis and Santana, too, and their fuses are just about run out.

I get that, but it's not like they don't want Leiter, either. I doubt any GM uses positional needs as a big factor in determining who they take.

... or even, cough-cough... Marcus Wilson, Chavis or someone like Munoz, who is not even on the 40.

I wish we had one more arb year for Devers.

Not mentioning the needs of the club, does not mean I don't think the exist or don't have merit. My response was geared towards some reasons why the club feels it's not the right time to call upplayers that may or may not even be better than the players they are replacing. I'll attempt to answer your points, one-by-one. Is gaining 1 more year of team control worth possibly (not a sure bet) losing more games? We need time to see what Dalbec, Cordero and others could do. That amount of time was about as long as it the super 2 date, so my answer is no way is it worth losing a year of team control over maybe a few days or a couple weeks more of a questionable replacement player. Dalbec & Santana are dragging us down. Yes, they were and still are. I am for sending both to AAA, ASAP. I would not necessarily replace them both with Duran, Casas or Downs. I'd give Chavis another look, and leave whether a top prospect is ready or not to Bloom & Co. If they don't think any are ready, I don't want them called up. You know, they could do even worse or get hurt or lose confidence or hamper their progression. Being ready means being superior to what we currently have? I could NOT disagree more. Plus, what are you basing the idea that any of these top 3 prospects are superior? Their tiny 2021 sample sizes? If you go by the AAA numbers, then Cordero should be called up. These guy's values are 100% speculative. They deserve a chance now? The team control date has passed, so it's not about money or long term improvements. I am 100% sure it's not about anyone's egos concerning Dalbec and Santana. Dalbec isn't even Bloom's guy, and Santana was a minor league signing, not some big FA commitment. To me, it's about giving them both a significant chance to earn a FT slot. You can't find that out until they get a significant chance, which means more than 2 weeks, and to me, more than 100 PAs. Once they go 120 and fail, it's easy to look back and say, we should not have given Dalbec a long look. I'm sure glad we didn't give up on Renfroe after a few weeks. Management making these players available for the Olympics? I say great on them! Besides, it's a good test for these kids to learn more about them actually being ML ready. Look, if management calls up Duran, today, I'll be thrilled. In no way am I against calling anyone up once they are ML ready. We don't know squat about what these kids need and are working on improving. I trust Bloom & Co. know what they are doing. Can they be off by a few days or weeks? Probably, but for all we know, they could be off by 2-3 weeks in the wrong direction and end up not helping the team or the prospect by calling them up too early. That is a possibility, you know. If one goes by AAA performances, one could argue we sent Cordero down, too early- just before he was about to erupt and prove he belonged in the bigs. He we kept him in Boston, and he hit like he did in AAA, we'd all be saying we were glad they gave him a longer look, and we might have a few more wins, right now. (I'm ot saying Cordero would have hit well, but we don't know if Duran, Casas or Downs will or would have either- based on their AAA numbers, only.) When these guys are ready and not playing in the Olympics, they'll be called up. It sucks they are not ready now, and or the Olympics are this summer, but that's the way it is. If every player hitting well in the minors for 4 weeks deserved a call-up, we'd be seeing dozens of young players being called up and flopping left and right every season.

If we'd have signed Porcello, with the idea he'd be in the rotation, we might not have signed Richards or Perez. ERod was penciled in. Plus, 4.50 at his age might be a bit generous.

It's not just about who may or may not do marginally better or worse than Dalbec and Santana. There are many other factors involve. These are just a select few of them: Super 2 cut off date for adding a year of team conrol The need to fully know what Dalbec and Santana can do- beyond just a 120 PAs sample size The readiness of the prospect to be thrust on the big stage The need for the prospect to work out an important issue in their development on a more appropriate stage. The Olympic commitments.

Good to see the Rays lose to a losing team, although it took extra innings. The Sox have a 100 games to go. That's a little over 60% of the season left to play. We all knew the month of June's schedule was challenging, and July's is not much easier. Sweeping the Yanks was great, but now we are streaking in the wrong direction, again. It seems like we should expect it. This team was built to maybe contend for a WC slot as we bridged our way to an almost brand new roster by 2022 and 2023. The farm has been greatly improved- much more quickly than this poster imagined. Yes, it took trading Betts and some short term contracts at least year's deadline, but we have come a long way and now look at a high position in every round of the upcoming draft. The 40 man roster depth reached new lows, last summer, but now, instead of 14-16 names of players that could be DFA'd and nobody would blink an eye, we have 4-6. We have that many rule 5 players to protect, next winter, so the roster depth improvement should be very significant. The final piece is free agency. While nobody knows the spending limits that will be placed on Bloom, this coming winter, it's not a stretch to think he may be given the green light to surpass the tax line and maybe even nudge up close to the $20M second line. That would give Bloom an enormous winter wallet, and only a few roster spots to fill and replace our own free agents-to-be. Maybe, we even will have to make a 3 for 1 deal to make room for some of these free agents, a far cry from the 1 for 5 Beni deal. Some of our own free agents will be very difficult to replace, but we have looked pretty good, despite having Sale on the IL and ERod struggling more often than not. This past winter, it looked like replacing ERod with someone better would be very hard. It doesn't really change the fact that we need another top SP'er, just because losing ERod does not look like such a big deal anymore, but it is a little encouraging to see our 3, 4 & 5 starters show a lot of promise for 2022. Barnes will be hard to replace. Ottavino to a lesser extent. Marwin and Santana may end up being additions by subtractions, or at the very worst, easy to replace or re-sign. The team option years on Richards, Perez and Vaz look like no-brainer, team friendly choices to make. Andriese's option may not be taken. Whitlock, Renfroe, Kike and Sawamura will be back. JD has an opt out. Some big questions remain, and we have some big needs in 2022. One good thing is that 3 of our biggest needs have near ML ready, top 100 prospects waiting in the wings: CF: Duran 1B: Casas 2B: Downs We may also get help from Houck, Seabold and others from the farm. This leaves these big holes to be filled by FAs: SP Closer Solid Set-up 2nd Tier: OF 2B 1B Pitching depth C of the future

That doesn't make them any bigger. Was the sample size a good indicator of JD's decline in skill sets?

I get it. I often wonder, if it's worth a shot, too. As a teen, I sometimes wondered why Dwight Evans was called up at an earlier age than Lynn and Rice. I wondered what 1974 might have looked like had we called the two up and traded away Tommy Harper and Juan Beniquez (not Bernie Carbo) for pitching.

Weren't you a strong advocate on not drafting by need or what positions you already have well-stocked in your system?

Do these stats point to just how bad our defense is? 1st BAbip against at .324 (next team at .308) We have the 4th lowest Hard Hit% against in MLB. 4th FIP- at 86 (1st in AL in FIP) 3rd best HR/FB at 9.7% Maybe it's more about our defense than our pitching, this year.

Small sample size?

I'm no draft expert, but I say college: Rocker. I'm now hoping we get Leiter or Davis. (That wish might change in the next hour.)

I don't see him making it to 4, but I'd be dumbfounded, if we pass on him.

Fast arrival is hardly even the norm for the best of the very best. None of our prospects are even near that category.

Betting on baseball has to be one of the most absurd things to do.

A team without Verlander!

Before tonight's game our pitching was... ALL MLB T 8th in ERA- at 90 4th FIP- at 86 (1st in AL in FIP) 3rd best HR/FB at 9.7% 1st BAbip at .324 (next team at .308)- nice D, huh? (We have the 4th lowest Hard Hit% against in MLB, yet the highest BAbip.) 22nd in WHIP (11th in AL in WHIP at 1.35.) -fangraphs

Need Erod to be the stopper. I'm not feeling very confident.

This team is going all streaky, now. Jekyll & Hyde.

The Astros pen has been giving away games all year. I guess no gift to us.

Lots of line outs by Devers over the last few days. Really could have used a hit, there.

On the farm, tonight... Worcester 12-5 Cordero & Chavis both 3 for 4. Chavis with a HR/Cordero a 2B. Wilson 2 for 5 with his 8th HR. Mieses with a HR. Portland 5-4 Meneses with a 2-run 2B Duran 0-3

It wouldn't surprise me, if teams were still stealing signs. The Astros lost 2 draft picks, so maybe they are not one of them.