moonslav59

We should begin looking to next year by getting rid of anyone not in next year's plan. It's not a major overhaul by itself. While I am advocating for a reset, this part of my plan is something we should do even if we will not reset next year.

I answered this by mentioning more names than just those 2.

If you think Porcello, Cashner and Moreland will be back next year, I don't know what more to say. That "break up" is happening- like it or not. My position is to hasten the inevitable and improving our outlook next year by improving our knowledge of what we have in our system that may be useful going forward.

Okay- maybe not Shawaryn, although using this year's numbers to bash him when Porcello & Cashner's are equally horrific is not a winning point. On Moreland, once you believe the season is over, as I believe you should, then you might (you don't have to) think giving Chavis, Marco, Travis and maybe even Dalbec and Ockimey more chances to evaluate their value makes good sense.

He must be the only one on the team, then.

1) We have zero chance. Zilch. Nada. 2) I'm not advocating trying to lose. We have the same chance of winning with Johnson, Velazquez, Shawaryn or even Houck as we do with Porcello or Cashner, but we can gain important knowledge by playing the non free agents to be.

So, you given in to the idea that this whole rest day thing was overused?

Is there a reason to keep a young kid down for those 3?

Here's a look at Sale's losing starts: IP Runs Result 3.0 7 lost 12-4 (Not pen's fault) 6.0 1 lost 1-0 (Not pen's fault) 4.0 5 lost 7-5 (Not pen's fault) 5.0 4 lost 8-0 NPF 5.0 2 Lost 7-4 Yes, Pen's fault 7.0 4 lost 5-2 NPF 7.0 2 lost 5-4 YES, pen's fault 6.0 3 lost 4-3 NPF 6.0 4 lost 4-1 NPF 7.0 1 lost 4-3 YES Pen's fault 6.0 5 lost 8-7 NPF 5.2 5 lost 6-3 NPF 4.2 5 lost 11-2 NPF 5.1 6 lost 9-6 NPF 3.2 8 lost 9-2 NPF (Note: To be fair, some NPF might have seen a blown save.) Only 3 of the losses in Sale's starts were the pen's fault. Look at some wins: 5.1 3 won 4-3 (Pen did better) 6.0 2 won 7-2 PDB 5.0 4 won 7-5 PDB 6.2 5 won 7-6 PDB That's four of the 10 wins where the pen did better and only 3 of the 15 losses where the pen did worse. Now, let's look at Price (Sox are 9-12 in his starts): Losses IP Runs Result 6.0 4 lost 7-0 Not Pens Fault 6.0 4 lost 5-4 NPF 6.0 2 lost 6-4 Yes, Pen's Fault 6.0 3 lost 6-4 Yes, more Pen's Fault 0.2 0 lost 4-3 Hard to blame pen with 4 runs allowed in 8.1 IP 6.0 9 lost 7-5 Totally Pen's fault 5.0 1 lost 4-3 Yes, more Pen's Fault (or Bats) 5.0 4 lost 7-4 NPF 4.0 6 lost 11-2 NPF 6.0 3 lost 3-2 NPF (Bats) 4.1 4 lost 6-5 NPF 2.2 7 lost 7-4 NPF Only 4 of his 12 losses can be blamed on the pen. Now, some of the wins: 5.0 2 won 4-3 Pen Did Better 5.0 2 won 12-2 PDB 6.0 1 won 5-1 PDB (or as good) 1.1 6 won 7-6 PDB (saved his ass better) 6.0 3 won 6-3 PDB That's 5 of the 9 wins where the pen did better, but Price pitched well in 3 of them. Let's say 4 losses on the pen and 2 wins on the pen. That's a net gain to Price of 2 wins. We maybe should have been 11-10 in Price's starts with a decent pen.

Soxprospects.com did a pretty major shuffle... https://soxprospects.com/index.html Big Movers: 3>1 Casas 10>2 Mata 13>4 Duran 17>7 Gilberto Jimenez 38>11 Thaddeus Ward NR>12 Cameron Cannon NR>13 Noah Song NR>15 Matthew Lugo NR>20 Ryan Zeferjahn NR>23 Marcus Wilson 51>26 Eduard Bazardo 48>29 Aldo Ramirez NR>30 Chris Murphy NR>31 Brock Bell 56>33 Ryan Fitgerald NR>34 Feliz Cepeda On the downswing... 5>2 DHernandez 8>5 T Houck 7>10 Antoni Florez 12>16 N Decker 9>17 D Feltman 14>18 Danny Diaz 15>21 Shawaryn 18>27 Alex Scherff 23>28 Lakins 19>35 Denyi Reyes 26>37 Y Aybar 22>38 P Castellanos 27>39 J Ockimey 20>40 Z Schellenger

We could cut Porcello, Moreland & Cashner and call up 3 Owings, and I could care less.

Depends. If we sign just the highest priced FAs, we will likely get right back to where we are now, soon afterwards. Maybe we try and sign mid level FAs to shorter term deals. I'm also hoping 2 years in a row with draft picks in the top 20-24 might help rebuild the farm for after 2023 or so.

The season is over, so it doesn't matter.

Anybody is better, even Moreland.

I say we should sign zero FA's, unless they are near min cost. Reset the tax and go for broke in 2021 or 2022 (hopefully, with Betts still on board).

Clearly the pen was a major reason for our huge downswing, particularly the blown saves. (The pen has pitched many very good games that led to wins despite very poor starter numbers.) The 5 slot has pitched very poorly, but were 13-10 in their starts before DD addressed the problem by trading for Cashner. It's hard to say that was a major reason we lost way more games, this year, when our 5 slot was 13-10 (due mainly to massive run support). Had our 5th starter had a 4.00 or 4.50 ERA, about the best one can expect, I doubt it would make a big difference. We are 14-10 in Porcello starts. Had we been 17-7 (10 games over .500), we'd be just a little closer. I know you recognize the top 2 starters have not done as well as we expected or wished, and I get your point about "having to ride with them" no matter what. I agree on that 100%, but it seems like you have an aversion to mentioning them as a primary reason for the spot we are in now. We are currently 19-27 in their starts. Sure, several of their losses have been due to pen meltdowns and blown saves, but clearly most are due to their own meltdowns. Here's a look at Sale's losing starts: IP Runs Result 3.0 7 lost 12-4 (Not pen's fault) 6.0 1 lost 1-0 (Not pen's fault) 4.0 5 lost 7-5 (Not pen's fault) 5.0 4 lost 8-0 NPF 5.0 2 Lost 7-4 Yes, Pen's fault 7.0 4 lost 5-2 NPF 7.0 2 lost 5-4 YES, pen's fault 6.0 3 lost 4-3 NPF 6.0 4 lost 4-1 NPF 7.0 1 lost 4-3 YES Pen's fault 6.0 5 lost 8-7 NPF 5.2 5 lost 6-3 NPF 4.2 5 lost 11-2 NPF 5.1 6 lost 9-6 NPF 3.2 8 lost 9-2 NPF (Note: To be fair, some NPF might have seen a blown save.) Only 3 of the losses in Sale's starts were the pen's fault. Look at some wins: 5.1 3 won 4-3 (Pen did better) 6.0 2 won 7-2 PDB 5.0 4 won 7-5 PDB 6.2 5 won 7-6 PDB That's four of the 10 wins where the pen did better and only 3 of the 15 losses where the pen did worse. We have to face the facts. Sale has been a big part of our situation. Price, too.

I was mostly responding to this part of your post. I thought I was clear, but I'll work on being more specific. Porcello has enjoyed great run support. If he pitched to his career norm of a 4.25 ERA, he would probably be 10 games over .500 like he was last year.

Yes, it wasn't meant to take the blame away from our pitching. Clearly pitching is, by far, the major reason for the massive drop in wins, this year. I'm just saying, many other teams have not-so-good to bad pitching, too, and they still find ways to win. Less blown saves. Less 5 run games by starters.

I was so tired, one morning, that when I got to my office door, I tried to unlock it with my car key auto unlock button!

You keep saying "The pen lost games." Sure, the blown saves contributed to the loss, but many times they blew games that the starter had already let up 4 or 5 runs in 3-6 IP. The pen actually let up less runs per inning, but the blown save is blamed for the loss. On Porcello, it's hard to calculate 10 wins over .500, because the pen numbers would have changed had he not been pulled as early. He's at 14-10, now, so he'd have to be 17-7. The numbers support 3 or 4 more wins (see below), but changing 3 losses to wins would barely change our standing position. (It would change much more, if we look at Sale's starts and losses one-by-one.) Here are Porcello losses: IP ER Result 2.2 4 Lost 10-8 (Likely a win, but we may still have lost this one despite scoring 8 runs.) 4.2 7 Lost 15-8 (Probably would have lost had he gone 6 IP with 3 ERs- 4.50 ERA) 4.0 3 Lost 9-5 (Probably still a loss.) 7.0 2 Lost 4-3 (Would have lost by more.) 4.2 5 Lost 5-4 (Probably a win.) 6.0 4 Lost 5-1 (Still a loss.) Then, the complete meltdown: 6.0 5 Lost 7-5 (50-50 chance) 0.1 6 Lost 17-13 (Hard to know, say 50-50) 5.2 6 Lost 8-5 (Likely a win.) 5.0 5 Lost 12-4 (Likely still a loss) Porcello won a lot of games despite pitching poorly or awful. I see one game where had he let up 3 ERs in 6.2 IP, instead of 2 (like he did), we might have lost, since we won that game 4-3. That means the net gains of wins might be 2-4 games. Think about how many games the pen won or held a win for Porcello (and others) or the team. Here are some of Porcello's wins: IP Runs Result: 6.0 3 Won 7-3 (Pen 3.0 IP 0 ERs) 6.2 4 Won 9-5 (Pen 2.1 IP 1 ER- better ERA than Porcello) 6.2 5 Won 12-5 (Pen 2.1 IP 0 ER) 5.2 6 Won 10-6 (Pen 3.1 IP 0 ER) 5.0 6 Won 17-6 (Pen 4.0 IP 0 ER) 6.0 3 Won 19-3 (Pen 3.0 IP 0 ER) (Yes, with these many runs scored in support, it is unlikely we'd have lost many of these games had the pen done worse, but the fact is, they did better than Rick in 6 of the 14 wins.)

I expected 2-3 Cashner type deals that would keep us under the max line, and hoped 1-2 would worked out well enough to put us over the hump. It is a mystery that $2-3M was too much to spend. At this point, I doubt it would have mattered, but it just seems strange we didn't try. It also makes me wonder about our spending priorities going forward. I'm hoping we look to reset next year in hopes that we can make a strong bid for Betts after 2020. (Maybe we even trade him and sign him back.) I'm afraid, if we spend big next winter, the hole will just get deeper, and the timeline to our return to glory stretched out by more than just the one year wasted on one last gasp effort with this broken team.

HRs Allowed 25 Porcello (27 last year) 24 Sale (11) 22 ERod (16) 15 Price (25)

You must feel so proud!

MN has none of its top 5 IP pitchers below 3.29 and 3 are over 4.15. While that's not horrible, it looks like they have two number 2's and 3 number 4's. HOU has 4 of its top 8 pitchers by IP worse than 4.13 with 3 over 4.73. Wade Miley is their 3rd best pitcher (3.11). ATL has the second best NL record and has 2 of its top 5 IP pitchers over 6.19! The next 2 are over 4.05.

Look at the Yankee ERAs of their top IP pitchers (listed in order of IP): Even some winning teams have serious issues with their pitching staff. All Yankee pitchers with 48+ IP are listed 4.64 Tanaka 5.40 Happ 3.96 German 4.40 Paxton 4.78 Sabathia 4.33 Cessa 1.70 Ottavino 2.17 Britton 2.92 Kahnle 4.41 Cortes 5.59 Green