moonslav59

He wasn't known for his D, but that play he made at SS was as good as any Bogey has made in his career.

Makes sense, and in about a week, we'll know a little more, too. I wish AAA had started already, so players like Santana, Duran, Munoz, Puello, Bazardo, Houck, Seabold and others would be seeing live action.

The Yanks lost, today and have lost 7 of the last 11. (Yes, they won 4 in a row before today, but still.)

I totally agree, but if Cordero goes on just an .800 stretch for 150 PAs, the demotion talk will cease. The guy has hit well, in the past, for longer stretches than 46 PAs. He just might be able to do it again.

YES! .553 after those 3 PAs.

Batting Odor 4th tells a big story.

Lately, yes, despite his one BB, today.

Yanks lose. TBR and TOR hanging around .500.

Nice game: 5 runs on 5 hits- kinda feel like that loss we had where we let up 7 runs on 3 hits. Good to see us walking more (7 BBs, today). ERod is back. Barnes is Buttah! 5 RBIs- one from each batter slotted 4-8.

The Jackie Bradley Jr. story may be an extreme example of how sticking with a struggling player can work out for the best, and his elite defense made the slumps more palatable, but check out some of his long stretches of futility followed by enormous successful stretches: He came up to MLB with much more hype than Duran has, now. He hit .548 (OPS) in his first two seasons (530 PAs- not 55!). There were many fans screaming for his benching, demotion or worse. Then, on topmof all that, he started the 2015 season hitting .426 through his first 71 PAs (not 55!). He finished the 2015 season hitting .980 over his last 184 PAs bringing his season OPS to .832. What an example of a manager sticking with a struggling player. It wasn't over for JBJ: more tests were to come, and maybe that first example led to a longer leash for JBJ than normally afforded to anyone, but again, his great defense helped enormously. He started the next season off hitting .586 over his first 59 PAs- about the same as Cordero & Renfroe, this year. He then hit 1.191 over his next 144 PAs. The 2016 season did not start off as badly. (.610 after 65 PAs, but still pretty bad.) Later, he had one of the most memorable hot streaks in Sox history. 1.368 in 95 PAs. He had a .976 OPS on June 25th but had a .720 finish to the season (349 PAs). Again, in 2017, he started out slowly- hitting .537 in his first 84 PAs. He followed that up with a 1.026 stretch over his next 171 PAs but ended the season at .726 due to a long .596 stretch over his last 210 PAs. 2018 saw Jackie at .502 as late as May 19th! (142 PAs). He finished the season hitting a very respectable .793 over his final 393 PAs. In 2019, he was still below .400 on April 27th (88 PAs) He was at .553 on May 28th. He then hit 1.060 over his next 118 PAs and finished the season at .738. He was at .520 in 2020 after 62 PAs, but followed that with a .937 stretch over his last 155 PAs, and signed a big contract to boot.

How long to stick with a struggling player is one of the hardest choices a manager has to make. Sticking with players through long slumps does work out many times, and it does build strong relationships between players and their managers, when the manager "never lost faith." When is enough, enough? I'd say the leash is getting shorter and shorter on Cordero and Renfroe. I do think limiting their ABs vs off-handed pitchers would help put them in positions to succeed more often, build their confidence and maybe even get them to a point where you can leave them in games after an off-handed RP'er is brought in. With a limited bench, due to the 14 pitcher choice, it's harder to PH often.

More evidence on why I'm not a GM. I ranted and raved about Taillon and thought the Yanks got a steal on that trade. (Jury still out,but...)

We can't let this one get away. To have any chance, this year, we have to win a bunch of games like this one.

There is some truth to this, but in some ways, he reminds me of the good parts of Manny's mental make-up: the total inability to let any failure, even very embarrassing ones, affect your next AB.

The Devers part makes one wonder...

Amazing!

You'd think the guy who dug up this fact would have the decency to mention the 1906 pitcher.

No doubt, but he'd have quieted the bring Duran up now fan club. (I'm not sure why that club is bothering me so much.)

Bloom left about $4.5M on the spending budget, which is more than it looks like, because trading for saalry dumps at the deadline means just paying 1/3 of their contracts. We don't have to trade top or even moderate prospects to get decent players that are overpaid and on teams looking to save millions. Would it kill our future by trading Chavis or even Ward or Groome? Who knows, maybe we can even do a deal like Ottavino, where we take on a big contract and add to the farm at the same time, while giving up nothing. Had we made the Ottavino deal at the deadline, we'd only be on the hook for $3.5M of his $10M deal, and we'd still be under the tax line by $1M, which might allow us to add another smaller piece..

We had about 8-10 big holes in our 26 man roster to fill, last winter, as well as one of the worst bottom of the 40 man rosters I have seen since pre- Dan Duquette. All this with a limited spending budget hampered by $57M being spent on players who are either not with the Sox, now (Price, Pedey & Beni),or on the 60 day IL (Sale). I think he has done pretty well considering the budget, and it's also too early to judge one way or the other.

Exactly, and the other positions he rolled the dice on are: 1B: Dalbec (Marwin/Chavis/Casas) - also,another position where trading for one is very cheap at the deadline. 2B: where we have 6 guys to shuffle through to find one that is decent, and we may have struck gold on the second choice: Kike Arroyo Marwin Arauz Downs Munoz Bloom is not dumb.

I was pining for Marisnick, mostly for his D. He's hitting over .900.

Many have sucked, including Ozuna.

Houck and Whitlock will reach their innings pitched limits for this year, unless they start pitching too poorly to earn them. It's not a bad idea to spread out those innings by placing them in the situations they are most likely to succeed and possibly having some innings left for the end of the season and maybe even a playoff series or two. BTW, Whitlock is just 1/3 of an inning from leading the Sox pen in IP, this season: 11.2 Andriese 11.1 Whitlock 11.0 Barnes Houck will get his chance, for sure, but we really needed to see what Richards, Pivetta and Perez could give us, and 3-4 starts each is not really enough to pull the plug on anyone, especially when all 3 of them have shown signs of being decent to good. Yes, Cordero and Renfroe have obviously been playing very poorly, but again, it's not even the end of the first month. Do you really think plugs should be pulled over sample sizes under 50 PAs? Just look at some of some recent Sox players extended slumps. JBJ is the classic example, but look at JD's 60 game sample size,last year. I could find dozens and dozens of cases where pulling the plug would have been an awful idea. The second part is for whom? If Duran was hitting .875 in AAA after a month or tow and was showing he was okay on defense, maybe, but the kid isn't even playing live ball, right now, and hasn't since ST'ing. When Duran is ready, he'll get his shot. If Cordero & Renfore keep playing like this for another 3-4 weeks, which to me is not likely, then maybe we look elsewhere, and my bte is they give Marwin the first chance to win the LF role, then maybe Chavis or Puello. Again, I'm not down on Duran, but it is very likely not "his time" this early in the season.

No doubt, your bats will heat up, barring major injuries, which is no given. Your success will boil down to pitching- like just about every other team in the history of baseball. So far, some of your pitchers have done very well, especially in your pen, beyond your big- named relievers. Your starters, beyond Cole, will make or break your season. There are many question marks, but on paper, the Yanks should win the division and probably end up 10 games or more up on the Sox. I would not bet against that happening, but the games have to be played. I'm glad April has started out like this, with many divisions looking near upside down on predictions. It should help the season be more exciting, at least for a few more weeks,anyway.