moonslav59

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.

Part of that has to do with the HR craze. I heard a talk with Gary Sheffield on the radio, the other day, and he said he doesn't watch baseball anymore- not even highlights or a single pitch.. Everyone swings for the fences and strikeouts are no longer viewed as a fault. He mentioned a season he played with SD, and how he only K'd 40 times in 618 PAs, and how that was dwarfed by Tony Gwynn's 16 Ks in 569 PAs.

Actually, my list was not in order from most "major" to least "major."

The Sox have gone 2-3 years staying under the tax line several times. It's not always just about hitting reset and going right back into heavy spending. It's about timing the heavy spending, so you will reset again at just the right time. Henry has never hit the third year tax year mega high rate, so the idea is to plan your team's spending future, so you can go for it all during year 1 or 2 of heavy spending. I think they rightly concluded that heavy spending this year would give us less of a chance of winning than heavy spending 3 years from now, In other words, had we spent big, this year, we'd be resetting for the 2023 season. Who here thinks we have a better foundation this year than we likely will in 2023? (Remember, we have $57M of dead money on this year's budget, if we count Sale, who likely will not be in top form by October.) We obviously have budget constraints, this year. One can argue we shouldn't, but it sure looks like we do.

This is a great exercise in reading comprehension, concerning getting distracted by one comment and not fully paying attention to what follows.

No doubt 2018 was super special. What a team! What a record! It does seem odd that so many players from that team declined so quickly in performance and/or health. JD, Bogey and Betts are about the only ones still chugging along. The fact is, had we tried to keep even 90% of that team intact, our budget would be much higher than now, and we'd be no better. As far as I know, only Betts and Kimbrel are having good seasons, right now.

Sarcasm is often lost in print.

Must be nice watching your team on fire.

You are comical, at times. You and your velo obsessions. Nobody said the guys I listed were studs, but they aren't sub .550 batters either. I guess somehow that's worse that your studs hitting sub .600 or .550. Nice to see you all excited about climbing out of the cellar, today.

It's easy to think this Sox team has been playing over its head and will come crashing down to earth in due time. I'm not denying that won't happen or can't happen, but it's not like anyone can say "everything has been going right" for us. We have a lot of players under performing against their career or most recent numbers. Renfroe: .767 career > .512 now Cordero .737 career before 2021> .545 now Plawecki .655 career & .708 ('17-'20)> .471 now Marwin: .729 career & .771 ('17-'20)> .680 now Vaz: .798 ('19-'20) > .701 now Kike: .749 ('18-'20)> .721 now Yes, we have 5 guys hitting at or above their norms, but this is not like 2013, so far.

Here's a look at how well some of the players that could have been signed, this past winter, to play 2B, LF & CF: 2B (Arroyo.852) .926 Brad Miller .863 Jed Lowrie .841 Adam Frazier (trade talk) .755 J Villar .748 K Wong .721 Kike .698 T La Stella .692 Marwin .682 M Semien .667 Joe Panik .575 R Odor (DFA deal) .569 Cesar Hernandez .459 J Schoop OF .905 Marisnick (.608 Beni) .608 JBJ .573 Rosario .568 Ozuna .545 Cordero .512 Renfroe .498 Joc Pederson

Odor is actually not stinking up the place, anymore. He's leading you guys, recently. Scary, huh? The guy has 3 HRs in his last 19 ABs.

They might, and I would not bet against Beni v Cordero, but the deal was much more than just those two. (I know you weren't saying anything more than just having Beni vs Franchy in a platoon for 2021.)

IF defense OF defense C game calling/staff handling SP3 SP4 SP5 RP6 RP7 RP8 RP9 LF/CF Budget restraints

Maybe defensively, a little bit, but we did also save some cap space and have 3 PTBNLs to get. Also, Beni is hitting .636 v RHPs, this year and has an over OPS of .546 in his last 123 PAs ('19-'20). Franchi is at .673 his last 108 PAs ('18-'20). He's not off to a good start v RHPs, so far this year (.535), but he hit over .800 against them, last year. I'll still take Franchy, the $2.5M saved, this year (likely even more next year) and the 3 PTBNLs over Beni.

If GMs made big roster moves based on 46 PA sample size, we'd have nobody left. Now, is Cordero a "major concern?" Hell, yes. Is Renfroe? Not vs LHPs, he's not. Maybe we should have benched Devers after a .626 start in 26 PAs. Dalbec was at .508 after 37 PAs. Had we benched him, we'd have missed his 1.111 OPS in his next 20 PAs. Had we benched JBJ after every 45 PA slump, he'd barely have played for us, at all.

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%