moonslav59

All hands on Dalbec! (I was gonna say "Balldeck.")

He's actually only been half bad, lately. .731 last 14 days.

Bobby Dee! Just needed to get out of that 9 slot. Totally unfamiliar with that role.

There's a nice multi-curved crooked number!

Due to side affects of vaccine. Will he miss a start, tomorrow? With Houck shut down, will we go with an opener? (Whitlock or Andriese)

JD in LF, tonight. Speaking of JD, MLBTR reports... J.D. Martinez, OF/DH, Red Sox ($19.375MM player option for 2022): An ugly 2020 season had many wondering whether Martinez was beginning to decline. It seems safe to stop wondering. The first few weeks of the 2021 season have been some of the finest of JDM’s career; offense around the league is down, but he apparently didn’t get the memo, as he’s destroyed opposing pitchers at a .331/.416/.632 clip. His 10 dingers give him a share of the MLB lead. While there were some conflicting reports on the number of opt-outs in his contract at the time of the deal, MLBTR confirmed this week that Martinez has a $19.375MM player option for the 2022 season on his deal, so he’s controlling his own fate, so to speak. If he keeps hitting like this, why wouldn’t he test the market again (or at least parlay his performance into an extension in Boston)?

It's names like his that ends up promoting Dalbec to the 8 slot!

He most likely does. Sometimes, they say things to help with confidence or trade value. I believe he is really high on Duran, but we don't know when he will think he's ML ready. That's the big unknown, right now. It could just be days, as he wants him to play a few games before being called up, or it might be something major he wants him to work through before a call-up.

I still think will be the most common OF alignment: LF: Verdugo/ Cordero or Santana/Marwin CF: Kike RF: Verdugo/ Renfroe This assumes Arroyo is healthy and doing well at 2B.

But, Duran is not playing LF at AAA, so even more time will be needed, if that is the plan.

I'm from Portland: we want to watch rockets launched, too.

29, 27, 28, 29, 34, these days is nearly "iron man."

Exactly. We really don't want Renfroe playing FT, especially against every RHP. We may end up using Kike in the OF, instead of Cordero/Renfroe, but that's assuming Arroyo does not disappoint going forward...

If he does well in 150-300 at AAA, and we have a need in the OF, he'll get another look-see.

Some still don't.

Maybe Yankee starters have been "over perfoming," too, and maybe the Yankee line-up is "legitimately" not all that good.

Here's my stab at the all Sox prospects team (Major in the Minors or Minor in the Majors): C: Ronaldo Hernandez, Connor Wong (Chris Hermann) 1B: Triston Casas, Josh Ockimey (Michael Chavis) 2B: Nick Yorke (Danny Santana) SS: Jeter Downs (Jonatahan Arauz) Matthew Lugo 3B: Hudson Potts (Yairo Munoz) Brainer Bonaci/Blaze Jordan LF: Gilberto Jimenez, Marcus Wilson CF: Jarren Duran RF: Jeisson Rosario, Nick Decker Utility: Jack Lopez SP: (Garrett Whitlock, Tanner Houck), Conner Seabold, Noah Song, Bryan Mata, Thaddeus Ward, Jay Groome, Josh Winckowski, Frank German (Ryan Weber) P: (Eduard Bazardo) Aldo Ramirez, Brayan Bello, Chris Murphy, Jacob Wallace, Durbin Feltman

There's not much difference between AA & AAA, but I agree, Move him up. Casas will move up, too, at some point.

WRONG! He's neither an iron man or injury prone. Is there no gray area for you? Not all 20-24 start seasons are due to injury. Surely, you know this. 2015, he started 8 games at Pawtucket then 21 in BOS. That's 29, not less than 25. 2016, 20 BOS + 7 Pawtucket = 27 and again, not less than 25. 2017, 28 starts in majors (25) and minors (3)= 28. You guessed it- not less than 25. 2018, 27+2=29. 2019, led the league in GS'd with 34. 2020: COVID is not an injury. 2021: 7 starts, already. True, he's missed a few games here and there, and had to rehab in the minors. He missed some time with a knee injury but in all but 2020, he's started 27 or more games since 2015. (5 of his previous 6 seasons.) Look again at Eovaldi vs ERod. Try Taillon, Kluber, Richards, Sevarino and more...

Injury prone? 1 Knee injury a ways back COVID last year (not an injury)

You don't need to be an ace to be a stopper, and ERod is a stopper, if there ever was one. We've won 50 of his last 64 starts. He's a solid #2, but would be an "ace" on half the teams due to the fact that some teams have 2-3 "aces" and there are only 30 in the top 30 top pitchers in MLB.

SS holds the highest value- to us or as trade value. Once he's close to ML ready, then they will look at the big club positional needs, and perhaps move him to 2B. We are actually kinda light on SS depth. If Bogey goes down, we have Marwin and Arauz. At 2B, we have Kike, Arroyo, Marwin, Chavis, Santana and Munoz. Has anyone heard anything about how good he is at SS defense? (You don't have to be all that good to be better than Bogey.)

Yes. Does anyone even look at BA anymore?

For one thing, ERod might not actually face Cole in a head-to-head playoff series, but of course, I'd take Cole. It would not be a slam dunk. ERod finds ways to win. Period. As for other team aces, I don't see the purpose of looking at a 6 week sample size to determine who he's better than. Taking a 2020-2021 sample size is rather small, too, and ERod did not pitch in 2020. Going back to 2018 and including all seasons in-between, here's how pitchers are ranked in various categories. Let's say the top 30 are "aces." Without looking, I'd view ERod as one of the game's best #2 starters and likely better than half the team's #1, but here are some numbers. 2018-2021 (150 pitchers with 170+ IP- that's 5 per team) Wins (more of a team stat, but still...) 47-14 Cole 38-16 Bieber 38-15 Verlander 38-20 Greinke 37-12 ERod 37-20 Nola 37-27 Gonzalez 36-20 Scherzer 36-15 Kershaw 35-13 Morton (Some of these guys are now hurt or extremely aged.) ERA- 49 deGrom 57 Ryu 60 Verlander, Cole 65 Clevinger, Soroka, Gallen, Scherzer 68 Sale 69 Kershaw 70 Bauer, Bieber 71 Snell 73 Buehler 74 Kluber, Means. Plesac, Glasnow 75 Nola, Woodruff 32. ERod 83 (slots as a top #2) xFIP- 59 Sale 63 deGrom, Cole 67 Bieber 43. ERod 90 (slots as a mid #2) WHIP 0.85 Verlander 0.92 deGrom 0.93 Cole 0.97 Sale 86. ERod 1.30 (slots as a low #3) WAR: 14. Sale 9.8 43. ERod 6.3 (not bad missing the 2020 season) It's one thing to say, I'd rather have this starter than that one, but age, contract status, past history and future outlook. If you go by just past performance and weigh the last 2-3 years more heavily, my guess is ERod can be slotted anywhere from #20 to #40 without much argument from me. Erod is a winner, and while using wins is not something I usually do, since run support, park dimensions, luck and strength of opponents play into wins, ERod is unmatched since 2018. 19-4 in 2018 (17 games with 0-4 run support) 26-8 in 2019 (8 games with 0-4 run support) 5-2 in 2021 (2 games with 0-4 run support) 50-14 last 4 years (27 games with 0-4 runs support) 14 Slam dunk better than ERod: deGrom Cole Scherzer Bieber Bauer Nola Morton Sale Kershaw Buehler Snell Gray Strasburg Woodruff I can probably name 14 more that are better. I'd put him around #30-35.

Agreed. Just being the best defender is not reason enough to jump 2 levels to the bigs.