moonslav59

Yes, and although his last 2 years of the deal were spent in LA, we had Jay Bay in his place via the trade. (BTW, we got Workman as comp for losing JBay.)

Exactly. The list of failures is about as long as the successes: Offerman, Lugo, Dice-K, the Penny/Smoltz combo, Crawford, Masterson, the 2nd Napoli signing, Pablo, HRam. Some might say JD Drew, Dempster, Jenks ($6M), and some even called the Price signing a disaster.

You are right, but with so many other players starting off slow, it was hard to blame JBJ. Many players slump almost every year- not like JBJ, for the most part-- but when you slump to start the season, that OPS jumps out at you every time you look at the stats. If a player started out at 1.000 after 6 weeks and decline to .659, he wouldn't be getting as much attention as the guy who started out in the .300s and .400s before rising to .669. Personally, I'd rather have a plyer that gets hot at the end of the year, and JBJ's heroics in last year's playoffs were memorable, than someone who fizzles out at season's end. I've been a big JBJ defender, no doubt, but his start was putrid. It certainly cost us more than one game. It is not my intention to sugar coat his slumps or get us to forget them: they are horrible, too long and too often. He's my favorite Sox player, but I would not be crushed, if the traded him this coming winter.

It's been hit and miss. No rings without Manny, Papi, Victorino, Napoli, Foulke, Damon, Price or JD

JBJ is now over .650 after being under .450 in mud May. This shows how just a small sample size can change everything. It also shows how small the sample size was by May 20th. Nobody will argue that .450 is acceptable or that 6 weeks is not a long slump, but JBJ is helping us now- in many ways.

What an exhausting game to watch. We let up 9 hits, 9 walks and 3 HBPs, but we somehow held on. A win is a win, but it's hard to get too pumped up after this one.

Casas and Duran are ranked highly.

Weber got shelled in AAA 1.1 IP 6 ER (6H & 2 BB) Wright: 3 IP 0 ER (2H & 0 BB) Thornburg 1.2 IP 1 ER (0H & 3 BB) De la Guerra with a grand slam (5th HR) Gorkys Hernandez 2 for 4 & a BB Rusney 4 for 4 with a 2B ________________________ In AA Houck 6 IP 1 ER (6H & 0 BB and 6Ks) Duran 1 for 3 with a BB Dalbec 0-2 with an rbi _____________________ A Shugart 5.2 IP 0 ER (4H & 0 BB and 6 Ks) 1.64 ERA Tendler 5h tater

Maybe Shawaryn can surprise us. Feltman has been disappointing. It would be an immense boost if one from Chatham, Chavis, Dalbec or Ockimey do better than just "decent" next year.

Would you take JBJ, Duran, DHern, Houk and Chatham for Santana, EE + Cash? What if Casas was subbed for one of the prospects above?

We'd still have a good team without JD and Porcello, but probably not "highly" competitive, unless Bogey, Devers, Betts and Beni all equal their best seasons all at once, AND some of our farm hands step up and play decent ball... not great but just decent. Oh, and everyone stay healthy... LOL!

The Rays & Guardians lost, as of course did the Rangers. One more big game vs Texas, then we play 3 at BAL and 3 at MN. After a much needed day off, we come back home for 3 v TOR and 3 v CWS . Then 2 days off as we go to London fo 2 v NYY.

It was a nice run by the Bruins. They played tough all playoffs, except maybe this game. Get 'em next year!

Agreed, but if the rest of the players play like 2018 with maybe Devers, Vaz and Bogey playing a little more like 2019, we should still be pretty, highly competitive. Here's a look at a possible 2020 roster (assuming JD stays and Porcello, Moreland, Pearce, Nunez, and Thorburg bolt via free agency): Luxury Tax Dollars SP (~$83M) 25.6 Sale 31.0 Price 17.0 Eovaldi ~8.0 ERod (3rd arb out of 4) 0.6 B Johnson 0.6 Velazquez RP (~$12.6M) ~4.5 Barnes (2nd or 3 arbs) ~2.5 Workman (3 of 3 arbs) 0.6 Walden ~2.5 Hembree (2nd or 3 arbs) ~0.6 ________ (JBJ traded for cheap but solid RP'er) 0.6 Brasier ~1.0 Wright (3 of 3 arbs) C (~$4.5M) 4.5 Vaz 0.6 Centeno or Leon (possible massive pay cut?) 1B (~$1.2M) 0.6 Chavis 0.6 Dalbec or Ockimey (Chavis) 2B (~$19.3) ~4.0 Holt 0.6 Chatham ~0.9 Marco Hernandez 13.8 Pedroia 3B (~0.6M) 0.6 Devers (last pre-arb year) (Dalbec) SS $22 Bogey LF (~$6M) ~6.0 Beni(1st of 3 arbs) CF (~$0.6M) 0.6 G Hernandez RF (~$27M) ~27.0 Betts DH ($22M) 22.0 Martinez $203M Total ~$15M Player benefits ~$2M 15 pre-arb players on 40 man roster (minors) $220M Total $208M is the luxury tax for 2020. We could stay under by more by saying good bye to JD, getting Pedey to retire or trading salary. (I was wrong about being able to reset by just trading JBJ, in an earlier post.)

The 'Stros are stingy with their prospects, but I'm sure they'd rather have EE than MM. Remember, they get BRIAN Freakin' JOHNSON, too! (LOL)

Yes indeed! I fully agree!

It's pretty hard to keep up an almost steady daily rise in your OPS, but JBJ is doing a good job trying to do just that. If he gets just 1 hit, he almost alwayd gets a BB or HBP with it, of the hit is a 2B or HR. Big run scored today. Big hit in 9th-- too bad no rbi with Marco on 2B.

Just watched the last 4 innings. I thought we had found a new way to lose (thanks to Vaz's throw), but we finally got a key....errr... walk! Big win!

I see the same thing you do. It's like 2017, when I called it "lack of fire and desire."

Just a couple plays made (calls called, hits hit) and it's a whole new ballgame.

I'm not saying we win last night with JBJ. Last night was not the major example of my argument. It was the Rays game, where we sat Bogey, Beni & Devers, but you never know in a game like last night. The improved defense alone might have made kit very close. Remember, every time a play is not made by the defense, another batter (plus) gets another PA. Also, once we got down big, we changed our pitching choices and did not PH anyone. It's not about one game. It's about the philosophy that when the chips are down and we need everyone to pick up the slack, our manager is choosing to give our hottest players days off. It's the wrong signal to send. Whether it meant a loss turned into a win or not is just part of the issue.

I would not be happy going into 2020 with just these players trying to win a right-side IF position: 1B: Chavis, Dalbec, Ockimey (JD?) 2B: Chavis, Chatham, Holt (assuming we re-sign him cheaply) If we can do this, we may have some money to spend on replacing Porcello and adding a solid pen arm, but we'd have to trade JBJ to have enough money to not be total cheapies.

Good points. I still think the Sox are very close to last year's team on paper, but we just can't string together our efforts. Our pen is worse, and with Eovaldi on the shelf, so is our rotation from 2018. I don't think good pen arms are as expensive as we might think, but I'm sure DD is looking and probably waiting for the prices to fall as we near the deadline and teams realize they are sellers. The problem is, by waiting until the end of July, we may be sellers, too.

True, but it's not much longer than a flight to the left coast and our players do get more rest than playing.

Maybe they view a healthy Moreland as being better than the slumping YG. Maybe not.