moonslav59

The theory is sound- just not for Yankee & Fenway Parks.

When you have one side of your park with short fences and the other with long ones, the pitchers can pitch in ways that make it difficult to hit HRs. They force hitter to hit where the park is long.

That has nothing to do with your point made. You claimed we are where we are because our 4 & 5 starters pitched like garbage, and we could have won enough to compete had we had other starters. To improve on 28-25, we'd have had to win at a much higher rate than 28-25, which would have meant acquiring way better than just decent 4-5 slot pitchers. We could not have afford 2 pitchers that much better, but that was not even what the debate was about. It was about why we are where we are in the standings. On that, it seems to me, is simple: Our starters sucked, except for ERod, and our pen sucked. If blame is to be placed on the 1-2 starters vs the 4-5 starters, clearly the 1-2 starters pitched better than the 4-5, but we lost way more than with the 4-5 starters. This isn't about contracts or expectations or who we had to ride with or not. It's about Sale & Price not doing what they needed to do. Had they just gone 50-50, we'd be 6 games better and just 1.5 games behind the WC slot. Had they gone 27-19, we'd have the second best record in the AL and be ahead in the WC with home field in our favor. I doubt we'd have done much better than 28-25 from our 4-5 slots. After all, we tried with Cashner and ended up doing much worse.

Down 12 from our 1&2 slot starters is about the same as the amount of more blown saves we have as compared to 2018.

I have to disagree. While our 4 and 5 slot have been garbage, our 4 and 5 slots don't have a horrible W-L record. Had they pitched better, we'd likely not have gained as many wins as the 1+2 slot differentials. The 1 (Sale) and 2 (Price starters have killed us more than 4+5, despite having better ERAs. Record in Starts: 1) 10-15 Sale 2) 9-12 Price 19-27 Total 1 & 2 slots 3) 17-7 ERod 4) 14-10 Porcello 5) We got Cashner to solve the 5 slot issues. He tilted the W-L record from plus to minus. 5-3 Velazquez 1-5 Cashner 3-2 Johnson 3-1 Eovaldi 2-1 Weber 0-2 Josh Smith 0-1 DHernandez 13-10 before Cashner 14-15 after Casher 28-25 Total 4 & 5 Slots

The first Stephen Drew one, yes. The second one, no.

Well, not quite everything. Imagine if Devers, Workman and Vaz played like this, last year.

Porcello is facing the same fate as JD Drew. As for Lugo, remember softlaw (the clown from that other site). He used to argue Lugo was the "wire to wire SS on a championship team" and was a good signing.

Some poster suggested we trade Beni. Nobody said for "peanuts" or suggested a trade that looked like peanuts.

You guys don't have a high wall in your short RF. Park dimensions don't take into account the height of walls. The Left-Center Field wall is high, too, and the CF wall is higher than probably everyone else's, too.

Great story. Devers is the real deal.

Why would we?

Or dominant in a game, then one inning- poof! (Like last game.)

When we signed Dan Duquette, I thought the same thing. If this guy was able to build winners with the Expos, despite having a small budget, what would he do with the Sox? He did end up building the foundation for Theo, but I expected better.

Would be massive.

Yes, and the question might be, why did the changed ball hurt our staff more than others? We have a high K rate. I can understand Porcello, since he always let up a lot of HRs and fly balls, but why the whole staff? The whole league has seen a higher ERA, but we've jumped way more than the norm. There has to be other factors.

Very true, but had the top 3 starters, who had just 9 starts with 4 or more runs allowed last year and 31 this year in way less games, had, instead, 20 of those bad starts, we'd still be in the division race and leading the WC race.

I think so, too, but the lack of options is a drag.

You don't trade 4 years of a 22 y/o to rebuild. You trade for guys like that. Only teams looking to be bad for 2-3 years and then good 3-4 years later think like that, and even that is a rare trade by them.

They have not been "lead your team to the playoffs" good. You are right, none have been bad enough to ever say, "drop them fro the starting 5," but your point I responded to implied that the 4-5 slots and pen were the main reasons we dropped so far in the standings and with our record. To me, all but ERod (and Workman in the pen) are responsible for what happened.

Although JBJ is my favorite player, I've already said I expect him to be traded or non tendered this winter- reset or not. Personally, it makes sense to me, BUT I want us to find another top defensive CF'er who costs less. I don't know about Lagares, but his UZR/150 is bad-- I think.

Good points, but I think the rotation issues go beyond just the last 2 spots in the rotation. Sale's ERA more than doubled. He's allowed 5+ runs 8 times and 4+ runs 13 times out of 25 starts. Last year, he let up 4 runs once and 6 runs once. All his other starts were 0-3 runs allowed. (Runs not ERS!) 2 out of 27 vs 13 out of 25. Price's ERA jumped about 80 points. He's let up 5 or more runs 3 times and 4 or more 7 times in 21 starts. Last year, the same but in 30 starts not 21. 7 out of 30 vs 7 out of 21. ERod has lasted longer in games, but his ERA jumper 50 points. He has 6 games with 5+ runs allowed and 11 with 4 or more out of 24 starts. Last year, he had 6 starts with 5+ runs (all with exactly 5) and NONE with 4 runs allowed out of 27 starts. 6 out of 27 vs 11 out of 24. When you have your 4-5 slots sucking badly and your 1-3 slots dropping significantly from last year, it's hard for any manager to manage wins. 2019: 31 out of 70 starts with 4 or more runs allowed. 2018: 9 out of 84

The amount of balls hit to CF did not drop enough to make an organizational change in philosophy. Plus, having great D up the middle should be a top priority for any team in any park. Fenway makes it even more important to have great D in CF and RF.

A look at the L-R splits this year: vs RHPs- Impressive! 1.021 Devers .939 Marco .937 Bogey .932 Betts .894 Moreland .840 Holt .826 JD .821 Beni .774 Chavis .762 JBJ .750 Vaz .700 Travis .543 Leon vs LHPs: Not bad at all! 1.345 JD (God-like) .902 Vaz .891 Bogey .849 Travis .832 Beni (Who was the clown that said to platoon him?) .778 Devers .751 Betts .742 Chavis .718 Marco .610 JBJ .606 Leon .596 Holt .385 Moreland

I thought, for sure, Devers would get the day off, after all, 6 hits is so tiring!