moonslav59

Agreed, and replacing your 14th man on the pitching staff is not really a roster shake up, anyway. (Even 12-14.)

Nobody is denying they look awful, right now. Even the best players look awful at times- sometimes even for 50 PA sample sizes like these two have had,so far. It's not about me "seeing something in them" that you are missing, it's just that I will never definitively define a player's value or skillset based on a 50-60 PA sample size right out of the gate, in the cold of April and after a 60 game season,last year. I can understand the loss of faith in Cordero, since his history is so broken into pieces due to injuries, there is not true read on who exactly he is or can be. No doubt, he has skills, but many a player has had all the tools and never progressed past stink, stank, stunk. He might join that crowd, but I'd like to know for sure, before I call up a kid who has barely played CF, even in the minors. I'd be okay with giving Cordero a break, but I'd want to give him another, even longer, look at some point. If you want to know something specifically I see in Cordero, here's a few things: 1. an immense skill set. 2. a career .748 OPS vs RHPs (not great but close to what Duran has done in the minors.) 3. 750 innings in the OF at the ML level and 4,400 in the minors compared to 1480 by Duran. 4. several years of team control at a low cost and our need to find out, if he deserves to stick around. Now, on to Renfroe. Please! This guy is a proven stud vs LHPs, and there is no way in hell, Duran is better than he is vs lefties. I could give a crap about a dinky 60 PA sample where he's played vs righties more than he should have. He's even got an overall career OPS of .767. While.710 vs LHPs might not be all that good for 2021, it's not bad enough to demote him for Marwin or Duran. He's a career .905 hitter vs LHPs! I'll croak if Duran or Marwin can give us that in 2021. I'm not saying Renfroe will,either, but he's shown he can do it at the big league level and can very easily do it again going forward. Is a short 50-60 PA sample size enough to give up on anyone, let alone players who have shown they can succeed in certain situations? If we went by ST'ing we'd have benched JD and others. Other than ST'ing, some low minor league ball and some fall/winter league heroics, what makes anyone so sure Duran is the real deal? The highest level Duran has reach is AA, where he has a .634 OPS. Come on! OK, let's drool over his .998 OPS in 50 games at A+ ball and .878 in just 30 games at single A ball. Okay,okay, his.823 career OPS in the minors is worthy of him getting a good chance,someday, but he just switched positions and significantly altered his hitting approach. That screams of needing more time in the minors, and he hasn't played in a live game since March. I'm not trying to bad moth Duran. I hope the kid does great. I'm pretty sure he'll get a long look in the bigs, maybe even, this year. I just don't see the same urgency you do, and I try hard to refrain from thinking knee-jerk management styles are effective. He only hit .753 in college.

Never fails. Even if we win 20 in a row. first.

I expected better D, but the sample size is small.

I agree and have said very similar things, but this player salary budget includes a lot of deadwood. Others did in the past, too, but I'm not sure if it was ever more than this: $25M Sale (for part of the season, anyway) $16M Price $13.8 Pedey $2.8 Beni That's about $57M out of the $190 spent on player salaries. 30%

How can you be so sure Duran and others are better than what we have? Yes, maybe better than sub .500, but there's no way anyone can expect Cordero, Renfroe and others to keep hitting as poorly as they have in less than this 70-90 PA sample size.

It's been 3 weeks. Anyone deserving a chance will get a long look, this year. Kike is having a hard time, but 3 weeks does not define who he is, and besides, his weakness is not hitting the ball softly. It's just plain hitting it and not walking enough for a leadoff hitter. He's actually 23rd in MLB in XBHs, this year, and has above average power for a 2Bman. He has 60 XBHs in his last 638 ABs.

The ole reverse jinx.

We only have 4 clearly good hitters: Devers, Bogey, JD & Verdugo. Having a non top 4 hitter bat 1st or 3rd helps spread it out to the 5 slot, but yes, our bottom of the order has only promises and wishful thinkings. That being said, look around MLB. Very few teams have 5 or 6 players who can consistently hit .800+. Vaz looked like he might step into that role. His.798 OPS from 2019-2020 looked encouraging, but he has slumped. A Cordero/Renfroe platoon offered some hopes for a combined OPS of over .780, but that is now looking like an extreme longshot. Hernandez has hit near or over .800 a couple times, but is more like a ,730-.760 ki[nd of hitter. Arroyo will not likely end up over .780, let alone .800, but he is the only one showing hope, right now. Dalbec was my best hope, and he did start showing some signs of life, but .800 may be out of reach. Marwin needs trash cans to hit .800.

Throwing in the towel. The Taylor towel.

Time to bust out a crooked number!

Eovaldi has shown great control, so far this year. 27 Ks 4 BBs in 27.2 innings and counting. It's the hits that are hurting him. (Only one of his 4 BBs scored.)

Where do you find the stats for things like this? Or, did you read it somewhere?

The first 3 games of 2021 exposed out horrific defense. It hasn't miraculously improved since then. It will cost us more games to come.

I still think he belongs in Fenway's RF. On the road, maybe CF is best. Kike has good defensive metrics in CF, but his sample size is scattered over many small stints. Maybe this... Fenway & parks with shorter LF's: Cordero/Renfroe LF, Kike CF, Verdugo RF Parks with shorter RF's: Verdugo LF, Kike CF, Renfroe/Cordero RF As long as Arroyo keeps hitting, 2B should be his FT position. That squeezes Kike to the OF, where we just happen to have two struggling, platoon-type players. It's really this simple. (Marwin can be worked into the equation easily enough, too.)

Anyone know the record for opening a season with X amount of Ks before their first BB? 40 is pretty amazing.

I thought that should be the plan all along, but that means Hernandez or Marwin plays OF. Arroyo has kind of forced the issue to fruition. Thanks, Christian!

Agreed, and despite him looking lost on D a couple times, he's much more experience than Duran in the OF. This season was designed to find the answers on a number of Sox player and to determine who fits into our longer term plans. Sending Cordero down, and yes he and Renfroe both have remaining options, does not answer his question. He and other deserve a longer look. I get how it seems like we might be destroying our chances, this year, by playing struggling young players, too long, but there's a good chance they will turn it around, like Dalbec is, or that the kid we call up will struggleor even do worse. Duran, Houck and others will get their chance, this year. Others, like Downs, Casas, Seabold and others may have to wait longer or may get just a brief showing, this year, especially if we keep winning, and the player "blocking" their path is doing well. Remember, Arroyo & Cordero are both still young enough to have room to improve and grow. Let's find out what they can give us before rolling the dice on Duran and Downs. It wasn't long ago, someone was suggesting we send Dalbec down.

That's how I see it, or to prepare for an injury or COVID event. I kind of expected more innings/pitches than 2.1/41, last night. Every one of our starters still have a question mark next to their name. Houck may not be enough starter depth, by himself, and he's on an innings limit, this year, too.

Exactly! That's what it seems like, right?

Beni and dynasty should not be used in the same sentence. Had we kept everyone from the 2018 team, we'd suck. Betts cannot carry a bunch of aging, over-priced players by himself. Only Betts and Kimbrel are doing well out of the 2021 gate. Do you still pine for Price, Kelly, Porcello, Moreland, Nunez, JBJ, Leon, Hembree, Pomeranz and ...

Not if you had signed Simmons.

I feel the same way about Alex Vee. He's already special and just approaching prime.

Sometimes you can get a decent player who is paid a lot and will be a FA in 2 months for pretty cheap- certainly not Scherzer, but we'll have $4.5M to "play with" in adding pro-rated contracts via trades. I seriously doubt we trade good young talent for anybody at the deadline. This year is more about bridging to 2022 and beyond. We won't trade anyone that is viewed as part of future Sox teams. We might trade a Chavis or someone we give up on- maybe a Groome or Ward type, but if we are giving up on someone, I doubt another GM covets him.

Henry does not totally ignore the lower lux tax line. He has a long history of re-setting the tax, even when it looked like we might be one or two costly players away from being even more serious contenders. We stayed under in 2003 and re-set in 2008, stayed under in 2009, reset in 2012, stayed under in 2013 & 2014, reset in 2017 and again in 2020. Since the 2004-2007 run of paying a lux tax, we have never gone more than 2 years in a row, so yes, he avoids the big 3rd year tax bigtime, but he never even goes slightly over year 3, which wouldn't be a big tax. I remember that 2012-2014 period, where we went 3 straight years without paying any taxes. Ben's budget was very limited compared to other GMs, but we still managed to win a ring in 2013. Many fans were upset we didn't spend more (and more).