moonslav59

That would mean they would have had to have foreseen his stock-declining 2020 season ahead of time. Holding onto him for the 2021 season was not likely going to increase his value, as well. I'm not sure getting 5 players and over $3M in budget space can be called a bad deal so early on, but you have already written off all 5 players and cherry-picked, in hindsight, signing Holt and not Kike, but that call is not decided yet, either.

If it were up to me, I'd sign an ace 2 times every 3 years.

Show some lovin' for George: Baseball America rated him as the 17th-best prospect in the California League, right behind Nate Schierholtz and the #2 prospect in the San Diego chain. Kottaras continued his climb in 2006, with a .276/.394/.451 campaign in 78 games for Mobile and a .210/.286/.361 line in 33 games for the Portland Beavers. He hit just .111 against left-handers while with Portland. Baseball America rated him the #14 prospect in the Southern League, between Tyler Lumsden and Alberto Gonzalez. Kottaras also dazzled in the 2006 Futures Game. He started at catcher for the World team, hitting 7th. In the second inning, he doubled against Homer Bailey and scored on a Chin-Lung Hu double for a 1-0 World team lead. By the time he batted again in the 4th, the World trailed 7-2. He did his part, with a 2-run homer off of Philip Hughes to score Wladimir Balentien. Kottaras was replaced by Salomon Manriquez at catcher before he batted again. He finished the day as the World's top player in total bases and runs and tied Balentien for the RBI lead. The World team lost, 8-5...

You guys are 1.5 games behind the last WC slot.

Maybe Ronaldo Hernandez or Wong can do well enough to give us a plus at catcher after Vaz's 2022 season ends his control years with the Sox. Our biggest need areas all have a top prospect or recently graduated prospect in the system, already. That was no accident. CF: 3 Duran, 4 Jimenez, 20 Rosario 2B: 2 Downs, 21 Arauz, 10 Yorke (Arroyo) 1B: Dalbec, 1 Casas C: 13 R Hernandez, 17 Wong

Maybe competitive for a WC slot. Does anyone think having Beni and no Sawamura or Renfroe would have us in first place, right now? Sure, we can hindsight it all and say keep Beni and sign Holt not Kike, like 700 suggested, and have Beni, Sawamura & Renfroe, but even that would not have made a big difference. You are right.

Wow, 20 of our 58 games player have been come from behind wins. 20 of our 35 wins! Yet, so many fans give up on the team in the game threads.

Sounds good. It seems strange that the track record is better with high catcher draft picks than high-ranking catcher prospects with professional baseball experience already under their belt.

soxprospects.com updated their rankings, but they still have not placed Valdez and the other PTBNLs recently acquired. The dropped Whitlock from the prospect list and made him a former prospect. They jumped Brayan Bello from #24 to #9, but hardly anyone else moved much, except by attrition due to Whitlock's removal and Bello's leap. Here are some other minor leaps or falls: Jimenez jumped over Houck from 6 to 4. Ronaldo Hernandez jumped over Groome (13/14). Wong jumped over Blaze (17/18). Rosario (my sleeper pick) jumped over Bazardo (19/20). Arauz jumped Potts (21/22). Winckowski jumped Decker and German from 27 to 24. I expected a higher ranking for Josh. Bradley Blalock jumped from 33 to 26. Drohan from 32 to 27. Howlett from 40 to 33. Wilson from 39 to 34 and Cannon from 42 to 35. German fell from 26 to 29, Wallace from 28 to 30. Zeferjahn from 31 to 42

I guess what I'm thinking about are highly touted catching prospects in the minors that never panned out. Kottaras, Salty, Lava and Swihart all ring a bell?

I've been high on Dalbec for a long time, maybe too high. I've never been overly bothered by high K rates, as long as the hits and walks come often enough. Dalbec's high OBP at nearly every level is what got me excited. His power was never in doubt. He's not really a "kid" anymore. He's older than Devers, but he only has 253 career MLB PAs, and those are spread over 2 seasons. 14 career HRs projects to over 35 in 650 PAs. That's a great start to anyone's career. What is lacking is the BBs and a handful more singles. His career minor league numbers were .263 BA and .362 OBP. If you project those numbers over his 252 PA sample size in the bigs, he's... 8 BBs short 15 hits short That's a very significant drop off, but the sample size is still rather small, and many good to great MLB players struggled out of the gate. That's not to say Dalbec will ever get near .260/.360, but if he can get to.240/.330 and hit 35+ HRs a year, he'll be a keeper. Big "ifs," I know. For a team in the thick of a playoff race, how long can you stick with a struggling player? That and who do we have to replace him?

I'm pretty sure highly-valued catching prospects have to have the worst success rate, so I think that's reason enough to be skeptical.

Not living near Boston leaves me out of the loop, and I'm very slow to the Google everything mentality. My wife often laughs at how often I forget so much information is just a few key strokes away.

Fair point. BTW, I just asked a question. True the tone was harsh, but I didn't know why he was on the bench after having several days off the last 2 weeks. I may not notice how some of my critical posts come off, but I do think I try not to make it so biting or personal. Everyone knows I am a huge Cora and Bloom fan, so when I ask about JD's 2 days off a week plan, I think some context is needed. I have also been known to start a statement with, "I've never been a big fans of ____," so being overly critical of posters seemingly hating on one of our players can be seen as hypocritical. I get how, in the heat of the moment, some fans like to severely berate a Sox player for coming up short of making a key blunder, but the level and frequency it happens on game threads often becomes too much for me to handle. Maybe, I'm being hyper sensitive of have a warped sense of what a true fan should act like. I get mad, too- sometimes boiling mad when, for example, we load the bases with no outs and come up empty, but the level of vitriol has been overwhelming, of late. Even after we pull out win after win, and we hear some mea culpas and kind words after the game, the next game it's right back to square one. It does get slightly better after 3 wins in a row, but it doesn't take much to go extreme bashing again. This team is wildly exceeding expectations, but you'd never know it reading a lot of the posts in the game threads. Cora and Bloom are both bumbling idiots, yet we are 35-23 instead of 28-30. Just about every player has been singled out to be benched, demoted, traded or outright cut loose. For some posters, we'd have nobody left on our roster. How can a real Sox fan want nearly every player gone?

I don't think Sox management felt like 2021 was going to be a competitive season, so in a sense, they were just trading 1 year of Beni- a year he might be making $8-10M. Yes, cost and control years were both big factors, in my opinion, too.

Good points, as always. I'm sure I'd be happy getting one of the HS SS's, but I much prefer college picks. I try to take the longer look, but on this, I find it hard to do. I want Bloom to take who he thinks is the best player, regardless of position or HS/College, but in my heart, I hope it ends up being a college player. It seems nearly certain one of these three will be available, and I hope we get one: Leiter Davis Rocker I'm no draft expert. I'm just going by what I read.

That is a wonderful thing, but as bad as they have been, they are just 1.5 off the last WC slot. They have cap space for a deadline trade or two.

I think his going against the team's recommended workout regime was the final straw. I think his defense was not what they expected. He made his share of base-running blunder but was not really a bad runner. His offense was sporadic and streaky. He looks like he'd be better than Cordero, but if we kept him, we might not have signed Renfroe and even if we did, he'd be taking away Kike or Arroyo's PAs. Let's stop pretending that would be a huge difference maker. Yes, Beni>>>Cordero. No, Beni >>> Kike/Arroyo. Beni >Kike/Arroyo offensive, yes, but not >>>. He's only been marginally better, this year and had just one more arb year left. .782 Beni (.788 career) .731 Arroyo (.664 career, but .723 after his rookie 2017 season) .669 Kike (.732 career)

I'd like to see us try Arroyo at lead off. I know he's not a great leadoff-type hitter, but he's been getting on base more than anyone else not named Verdugo, Bogey, JD or Devers. I know, I know, you ask "but what about his .283 OBP career before this year?" I have no answer for that, and I'm usually the one saying don't make big decisions based on 90to 100 PAs or even 200-350, but when you look at all the other options, it's slim pickings. This team used to highly value OBP. I think that's one reason Dalbec was given a long look at 1B, this year. He had a very nice OBP in the minors, but so far, it has not transferred. Santana has very good speed, but it's not worth much on home run trots or with a .220 OBP, like he has in this tiny sample size of a season for him. His career mark is .298, so I think it's fair to say, he's far from being an ideal lead-off hitter. Kike was given a chance and maybe can win it back, but his .283 OBP, this year was not cutting it. While his .310 career mark is better than Santana's and others, it was .296 from 2019-2020- which is worse than Santana's last 2 years. Renfroe's power is needed in the 6 slot, and his .306 OBP, this season is not all that great either. Other players' career OBP and 2021's: .333 Arauz (in AAA and only 90 PA sample size) .400, this year in 10 PAs .315 Marwin (in a horrific slump, all year) .291, this year .312 Plawecki (doesn't play everyday) .310, this year .307 Vaz (.293, this year) .293 Arroyo (.326, this year) .289 Dalbec (.248 this year) .285 Franchy (AAA) Going just by the OBP numbers and weighting 2021 numbers equally with career numbers, it looks like we have 2 choices: A. Arroyo B. Vaz/Plawecki I vote A. .302 Chavis

He's pitched twice for the Sox, this year, and already we know he never can and never could pitch a clean inning.

No, I'm not, and being critical is not a bad thing. Bashing & hating is another thing. BTW, was there a reason JD got another day off?

Stallings is a pretty good catcher and has 3 years of team control left after this year. I just had this trade accepted on BTV: Rolando Hernandez, Chavis, Ward & Groome to PIT for Adam Frazier and Richard Rodriguez After this year, Frazier has one more year of control- Rodrigues two. It would have accepted the trade without Ward or Groome, but I don't think PIT makes this deal with even both.

MLB.com updated their mock draft: 1.Mayer to Pitt 2. Davis to TX 3. Leiter to DET 4. Lawlar to BOS 5. House to BAL 6. Rocker to AZ

Well, sometimes players are drafted and don't sign and go or return to college, instead. I guess it's not an exact science. Remember Mark Appel?

AL Standings 37-23 TBR 35-23 BOS WC 35-23 CWS 35-25 OAK 31-25 CLE tied for last WC 32-26 HOU tied for last WC 30-26 TOR -1.0 WC 31-28 NYY -1.5 29-27 KCR -2.0 NL 37-21 SFG 36-23 SDP WC 34-24 LAD WC 32-26 CHI 32-26 MIL -2.0 WC 27-23 NYM 31-28 STL -3.5 WC (-1.5 NL Central) 27-29 ATL & CIN -6.0 WC (-3.0 NL East) 27-30 PHI -6.5 WC (-3.5 NLE) All three top teams are from the NLW, which means both Wild Cards would come from the same division.