moonslav59

I noticed, after, I forgot to add the Peraza signing. That was not a good one. A bunch of the pitchers we threw out there last year we not good, but none were expected to be good. Springs is good, now, with the Rays. LOL, of course!

He may not be saying we will keep getting worse and worse before getting better, anymore. That was his mantra.

We are positioned well. Bloom only signed one player to more than 1 year, and that was Hernandez to just 2 years. Richards and Perez have option years, Renfroe has arb years left and we lose a lot of salary, this winter, with only ERod and Barnes tough to replace (or re-sign). Our highest need areas line up with our highest ranked prospects: OF: Duran (Jimenez) 1B: Casas 2B: Downs (Yorke) SP: Whitlock, Houck, Seabold, Ward (Mata & A Ramirez)

A look back at Bloom's major moves: 5 Years of Verdugo, Jeter Downs (#2 prospect) & Connor Wong($18) for Betts, Price and cash 4+ Years of Nick Pivetta and Connor Seabold (#7 prospect) for Workman, Hembree and cash Signed Garrett Richards (#4)- 1 year plus team option Re-signed Martin Perez- 1 year plus team option Signed Kike Hernandez- 2 years Signed Hunter Renfroe- 1 year contract (2 arb years left) Garrett Whitlock Rule 5 ('20) from Yankees Christian Arroyo off waivers from CLE (3 more arb years) Phillips Valdez off waivers from SEA Signed Hirokazu Sawamura- 2 years plus team option Adam Ottavino & Frank German (#26) for cash Josh Winckowski (#27), Franchy Cordero and 3 PTBNL for Benintendi & cash Signed Marwin Gonzalez- 1 year Jonathan Arauz Rule 5 ('19) Signed Matt Andriese- 1 year plus team option Signed Danny Santana (minor league w Major League or opt out) Signed Kevin Plawecki (one more arb year) Rolando Hernandez (#14) for Springs & Mazza Jeisson Rosario (#20) & Hudson Potts (#21) for M Moreland Jacob Wallace (#29) for Kevin Pillar Brandon Brennan off Waivers from SEA Christian Koss (#41) for Yoan Aybar Zach Bryant for Josh Osich PTBNL for CJ Chatham Tyreque Reed & Kaleb Ort Minor League Rule 5 Draft: #10 Nick Yorke #17 Blaze Jordan #32 Shane Drohan IFA #35 Miguel Bleis

The buck stops with Boone and Cashman. Firing coaches is just for show.

Rays by Age in 2021: OPS 26-30 .718 (1294) 31-35 .755 (262) 35+ n/a (1) ERA 25-30 3.47 (267) 31-35 3.68 (81) 36+ 3.63 (52) Some bright news... SOX OPS 26-30 .716 (1109) 31-35 .803 (379) 36+ n/a (0) ERA 26-30 4.33 (199) 31-35 3.72 (203) 36+ n/a

Hopefully, Bloom will get us to a point like the Rays are at, now. We’ve started building the farm up, and hopefully this draft and IFA cycle will give us a big boost. I think we’ll see our first major free agent additions, this winter, so maybe by next June, we can look at our total system- top to bottom- and smile.

Rays are 15-1 in their last 16!

[/b] Sweeping Toronto in Canada was not easy, but the Mets, O’s and Royals were on the light side. Let’s see what they do in the next few weeks: 4 @ NYY 3 @ TX 5 with WSH & BAL at home, then... 3@ CWS 4@ SEA 3 v BOS

Not me. I hope the Rays sweep or take 3 of 4. A split would be nice for the short term.

Toronto won game 1. Yanks still down 6-0 to the Tigers. Phillies have cut the Rays lead in half (4-2). Go Phillies & Tigers!

Back on that old website, I once started a thread about the Rays, in response to an annoying poster who kept claiming they "wilt in the dog days of summer." They never did. Here we are, again. After trading away Snell, and a key injuries to Yonny Chirinos (4th starter) and Nick Anderson (closer), many felt the Rays would be lucky to finish over .500 in 2021, let alone compete for a playoff slot, yet here we are. They also traded away their starting SS a few weeks ago, Wlly Adames. It can't be smoke and mirrors, since these guys do it nearly every year. They play solid defense, run the bases well, and do all the things stats don't capture very well. They have a strong manager, coaching staff and GM. They develop young pitchers very well, and seem to have a knack for knowing just the right time to trade some of their best players right before the decline or even fall off the face of the earth. They also seem to know who to acquire right before they go on to have career years or resurgences. If you look at the traditional ways we look at player stats, you'll see they have a deep and solid pen, this year, and their starters have done very well. Their hitting does not look all that great, but the whole league is in a funk over this new ball crap. Here's a look at the Rays' numbers: OPS (in order of most PAs, this season and 85+): .778 Arozarena .836 Meadows .697 B Lowe .686 Y Diaz .662 Margot .894 Wendle .625 WAdams (traded) .851 Zunino .642 Phillips .593 Brousseau .545 Kiermaier .750 Mejia .462 Tsutsugo As you can see, there is nothing here that looks like a first place team. 3 guys over .800 and just 2 others over .700. They don't have as many sub .600 players as some other teams, but nothing jumps out here. Now, the pitching, which does look like a first place team's numbers: (Listed by most IP and 10+ IP) ERA- Pitcher- WHIP 2.57 Glasnow 0.929 4.26 Yarrough 1.211 3.63 Rich Hill 1.019 2.88 Fleming 1.057 4.59 M Wacha 1.200 3.29 McClanahan 1.134 3.47 J Springs 1.029 2.31 Thompson 1.029 1.17 Kittredge 0.826 3.20 D Castillo 1.119 1.69 Stickland 1.250 4.02 C McHugh 1.404 3.60 L Patino 1.067 (10 day IL) 4.50 T Richards 1.000 8.49 C Mazza 1.714 (Cady Reed, Chris Archer, Caz Roe are on the 60 day IL with Chirionos) Team numbers and rankings: Offense Runs: 264 (4th) BOS is 2nd with 267 OBP: .318 (10th) BOS is 7th at .321 SLG: .398 (13th) BOS is first at .447 OPS: .717 (12th) BOS is first at .769 Fielding: DEF (fangraphs): 2.1 (11th) BOS is 15h at -0.1) UZR/150: 4.7 (9th) BOS is 7th at 5.2 DRS: 28 (2nd in MLB) BOS is 20th at +3. Pitching: WAR: 5.5 (10th) BOS is 4th at 8.0 ERA-: 88 (7th) BOS is 8th at 90 xFIP-: 92 (7th) BOS is 10th at 95 WHIP: 1.12 (4th) BOS is 20th at 1.32 Saves: 16 (8 BS) tied with BOS at 4th. BOS has 7 BS All-in-all, it looks like the Rays are here to stay. How much depth do they have? Can they handle another major injury? We will be facing them, soon, and we better bring our A game.

6-0 Tigers. King knocked our of game.

I usually go to 2 games with 2 sets of friends and wives, but since the wives are sitting out this series, I’m combing groups for one game. I hope it doesn’t turn into the sienfield episode of mixing the two worlds.

Detroit up 2-0 already!

Not this year, no, but both had resumes to project as 6/7 starters before the year began, and if had to choose one, I’d have taken Garcia based mostly on age and past numbers at levels with younger age comps to Houck.

JD with ANOTHER game off? I’m also not sure going with two Cfers and no 2Bman is a great plan.

I’m going to Tuesday night’s game.

He’s 2 years younger than Houck, who had a 4.5o ERA in AAA with a 1.464WHIP. Look how gah gah many Sox were after a 17 IP sample size in the bigs last year. We’d have been high on Garcia to start this season, too, if he were ours.

Our pen is not overworked. Our starters have gone 5+ nearly every start. We carried 9 RPers almost all season. We had 7 inning double headers. New rules have eliminated the 14 inning games and most of the 11 and 12 inning games, too. We just had 2 days off in 5 days, and had a rain shortened game. If anything, one could argue some pitchers are at risk of getting rusty.

But look at the opportunities the Astros have been giving their opps lately, especially their pen.

If this guy were on the Sox, we’d have had high hopes for him, and he’d have been our 6/7 starter, too. He pitched well, last year in double the sample size Houck had and with much better minor league numbers. 3.46 ERA and 1.167 WHIP Houck: 4.14 and 1.421

Consistency makes the pitcher, catcher and batter’s job so much easier. It would also makes the home plate umps job much easier. It’s “time” was actually years ago, but there’s no excuse going forward.

These next two months will be very difficult. I’m loving this. It’s a long season, and we’re almost a third of the way through it.

Players who may help us later this year: Sale Brasier Houck Duran Chavis Aráuz Bazardo Seabold Brennan Cordero (yes, maybe back again) (*not on 40 man.) Casas *Downs *Workman *McCarthy *Ort *Weber Long shots (*not on 40 now) *Muñoz Wong *Herrmann Wilson *Lopez *Ockimey *Puello or Getty’s *Winckowski, Walden, Brice, Gossett