moonslav59

You still don't get it. It's not your theory I disagree with. I actually agree the ST'ing rest was part of the reason for the slow start. I agree that our starters have done better after March & April, but they were so bad, that's not hard to do. It's your point of fact concerning our top starters pitching to their norm after their "rest period" I took issue with, and I stated that time after time. Yes, I added some distracters about how I had expected the rest to maybe help them do better than their norms once they settled in, but they have not. They are heading in the wrong direction, with the exception of Price.

.242 vs LHPs isn't cutting it. It's not much better than his .236 career BA vs lefties. For God's sake! JBJ is just .027 behind Beni after tonight's game! (.778 to .751)

Yes, and the latter makes his trade value high.

I thought I was pretty clear on my points after having to explain it several times from various angles. Sale is clearly not himself. To say he is near his "career norm" or as I prefer to look at his last 2-3 year "norm" is just plain wrong. He is struggling, inconsistent and is no where near what he was like before the injury last summer. Throw out March and April, and he is no where near a Cy Young contender. Price is doing better- no argument here. ERod going deeper into games has been a bright spot, but he's pitching significantly worse than last year. He's entering prime, so one should not compare his numbers now, in prime, to his career numbers as those numbers include early career struggles. Nobody expected him to pitch like he did early in his career. ERod's numbers after his 5th start: 4.40 ERA 1.37 WHIP 5.9 IP/GS The 4.40 ERA is higher than every season in his career, except 2016's 4.71. His career ERA is 4.23, which is close, but pretty far from his 2017-2018 combined 4.01 ERA. His WHIP from 2017-2018 was 1.27. 5.9 IP per GS does outweighs the 5.5 IP/GS over the last 2 years but not by enough to make him near "norm". Porcello is not even up for debate. Add to this the fact that all but Price are trending downwards over their last 3, 5 or 9 starts (any number you chose) only highlights the fact that 3 of our starters are not near any norm.

It's still a dare you chose based on what you think is right. I doubt most baseball people think it takes 5 starts to round into shape, but it's fine that you believe that. Even if it does, had Cora used the starters more in ST'ing would it still have take 5 starts or 4? I still think it is all arbitrary- yours and my chosen dates. Either way, our starters are not pitching to their norm after May 1st or May 11th, so no matter what date we chose, you were wrong. Only Price is doing better than "norm." My point was to counter your statement. I don't know why they are doing worse. I'd have thought the slight extra rest would help them be stronger at a time like this when we need them to go deeper and let up less runs. We are lucky they give us just one of those needs. This all started when the pen was being blamed for just about everything, and some of us pointed out that the starters were not helping and had actually been more responsible for losses than the pen. You said they have been pitching to their norms after the "rest period." I showed that is not the case. I'm not sure what more needs to be said.

Yanks lost- for what's that worth.

We have nobody better, but I'd bat him 9th until he shows some life. I'd think about playing Holt in LF vs lefties. If someone offered a nice return in trade, I'd do it- lower stock and all.

30 games does not approximate the "time delay," so I don't get why you pulled May first out of this air, other than it is a neat and clean date. You made the point that our starters have been at or near norm since May 1st and that May 1st held some sort of special meaning. Neither are true, and they've done even worse after May 11th. I've told you what my point is a number of times, so I'll try to dumb it down: Cora gave our starters a little extra rest in ST'ing with the idea that they would be fresher during the season and have less of a chance of burning out by September and October. I expected them to do as well or better than their 3 year norm as the season progressed. They have not. Since May 11th, 3 of the big 4 have done worse. Since May 1st, 1 has done slightly worse and 2 worse. I'm not sure what else needs explaining. Not only did the rest not help in April, it hasn't helped afterwards either. Maybe it will make up for the first half later this year, but 3 of our top 4 starters are NOT pitching to their norm after just about any date you want to pick. You were wrong.

I'm not usually one to go along with ideas like this, and even though we have no OF'er to take his place, I'm done with Beni.

There isn't even a button- metaphorically or otherwise.

Kelley will be pitcher #25 (counting Nunez)! WOW! That's an awfully big merry-go-round!

It also calls off the dogs screaming for a trade for a top closer, although getting one now couldn't hurt.

Exactly! Here are our starter IP and Runs allowed in reverse order by date: 5.1- 2 0.1- 6 6.0- 6 6.0- 3 6.1- 5 6.0- 5 5.0- 1 (Johnson) 5.0- 4 7.0- 4 5.0- 1 (Price) 7.0- 0 (Porcello) 3.0- 1 (Johnson) 6.0- 2 Sale 7.0- 1 (ERod) 1.1- 6 6.2- 2 (Porcello) 3.0- 4 7.0- 0 (Sale) 5.2- 4 6.0- 1 (Price) 4.0- 4 6.0- 4 1.1- 2 We had a nice little stretch in mid June, but our starters have let us down, recently.

You are still being as arbitrary with your sample size choice as I. Equalizing the time in ST'ing to the start of the ML season sounds fine, but holds no more special significance than my chosen May 11th date. We played a minor league game on 30 days (I did not count days with 2 games.) Most of the top 4-5 starters got 2-3 starts. By April 30th, most had 4-5 starts as we had played 30 games by 4/30/19. It's not an equal sample size.It's just an equal calendar time. My splits are meant to show "what have you done for us lately?" I showed 14 days, 28 days and from May 11th. All of those sample sizes show the staff doing worse than the end of April to mid May and worse than these pitcher's recent 3 year "norms", except for Price. It doesn't seem too hard to understand the significance of using various recent sample sizes to counter the statement that our pitchers "are doing as well as their norms". The "are" means present tense and can be any variety of most recent sample sizes to choose from. May first is a viable choice, but it is no better than May 11th or 22nd. The more recent you make the sample size (as long as it is large enough) the more in the present tense you get. Our starters, other than Price who is not giving us the IP we need are doing worse in the past 2, 4 or 7 weeks than their 3 year norms. If you count May 1 to now, 3 of the 4 are doing worse- not as bad as later sample sizes but still worse. Throwing out March and April still show them as doing worse. Can they turn it around to the point where their 5/1 to October numbers match or exceed their "norm," but so far they have not done so.

"Quite simple?" Because you say it is. What makes May 1st any more magical than May 11th or April 26th? Again, May 1st is NOT a month. We played 4 games in March. How is the fact that our SP'ers did well from May 1st to the 10th more meaningful than how they have done since May 11th, or the past 28 days or 14 days? The rest should be making these guys stronger at the mid season point, and yet they have been doing worse than the end of April and early May. Sure,most of our top 4 starter numbers might end up close to their recent numbers after throwing out April, but the idea of resting them in ST'ing was that they'd do better when we needed them. Yes, they have done better than April & March, but they are not giving us anything extra recently and as far back as mid May. Yes, it's good to see ERod going 1/3 or 2/3 more innings per start, but he pitched better last year, so that's a wash at best, IMO. Price is better. Sale was doing better before his recent slump. Porcello is a mess.

Right. He's not even throwing now, is he?

How is May 11th any less relevant than May 1st? You arbitrarily chose a number based on the neatness of a month's ending, despite the fact that we played 4 games in March. That being said, here are the May1>> numbers: ERA Pitcher IP/GS 2.78 Sale (6.48) 3.19 Price (4.70) 4.16 ERod (5.72) 4.86 Porcello (6.09) ERA 2016-2018 2.56 Sale (0.22 lower than above sample) 3.81 Price (0.62 higher) 3.99 Porcello (0.87 lower) 4.22 ERod (0.08 lower) The starter numbers look better from May 1st than from May 11th, but that just emphasizes the fact that they are doing worse more recently, when they should and need to be doing better. That was my point. Last 28 days shows the trend going the wrong way: 2.73 Sale (5GS) 4.60 ERod (5) 4.91 Price (4) 5.88 Porcello (5) Last 14 days (Only Porcello had a start in London): 3.00 Price (1) 5.30 ERod (3) 6.55 Sale (2) 15.63 Porcello (2)

Exactly, and the whole "restgate" thing should have put our starters in a position to go deeper than normal to help "pick-up" the struggling pen. The opposite has been true. 3 of out top 4 starters are doing much worse than their 3 year numbers since May 11th.

To those who thought the budget was near limitless, what say you now?

He's the only Sox 5+ slot pitcher with a decent ERA is his 2 starts.

Records of our 5+ starters: GS Pitcher (Team record in starts) Run support (ERA as starter) 7 Velazquez (4-3) 4.87 (6.41) 4 Eovaldi (3-1) 5.86 (6.00) 3 Weber (2-1) 8.00 (7.94) 2 Smith (0-2) 1.50 (9.82) 2 Johnson (1-1) 7.11 (1.13) 1 DHern (0-1) 9.00 (9.00) Look at those ERAs! We are 10-9 in these 19 games despite the ERA. We've actually got lucky in these starts as we tend to score more when they pitch.

If he stays, we may need 3.

The other big area we used to stock up the farm was comp picks for losing high level players to free agency. That system has been changed, as well, and we no longer are able to get good prospects with supplemental picks- plus there used to be several "hard to sign" prospects that dropped into that range for high spending teams to scoop up. Not any more. Here we are.

Players did do radio & newspaper ads and actually go to businesses to drum up crowds and consumers.

...and Wright throws one of the hardest knuckleballs ever thrown. I'd stick with Johnson until he shows he can't do it. Use Wright and Velazquez in all to often needed long relief roles. I'm not sure about Walden's usage going forward. Maybe only pitch him in low leverage situations to see if he can snap out of this funk. Barnes may need a 10 day IL stint. He needs to be watched closely and not used in high leverage until he shows improvement. We could really use Hembree, but I fear he is done for 2019. Brewer has done well, of late, so I ride the hot arm for as long as we can. He's my second set-up man to Workman. Brasier looks to be doing better, but he needs to be moved up slowly. Closer: Eovaldi Top Set-up: Workman & Brewer 7th inning: Brasier & ______(trade acquisition) 5th & 6th: Wright, Velazquez Scrub duty (for now): Barnes or Walden (maybe Smith)