moonslav59

Trade him.

Another missed chance.

... by just a lil'.

UN- BE- Effin- Leavable!

That would fit into the season mojo trend.

At worst, a sac fly.

Beni has been nothing short of a major disappointment.

Not a good way to start the second half of the season.

Poor location by Porcello.

Chavis needs to make that catch. Porcello needs to buckle down!

My second half projections: First half/ Second half 44-38/ 52-28 OPS 2018 Player 2019 .924 Bogey .900 .897 Devers .875 .893 JD M .925 .859 Moreland .750 .838 Betts .950 .801 Vaz .725 .800 Holt .725 .798 Beni .850 .785 Chavis .725 .714 JBJ .775 .571 Nunez .725 .564 Leon .550 .503 Pearce .750 Pitchers (listed by most first half IP) ERA first Pitcher second 3.82 Sale 2.80 4.52 Porcello 4.20 4.87 ERod 3.75 3.36 Price 3.25 2.72 Walden 3.00 5.59 Velazquez 4.50 1.70 Workman 2.20 4.19 Barnes 3.00 4.24 Brewer 4.25 3.34 Brasier 3.25 2.52 Hembree 3.25 6.00 Eovaldi 4.00 6.43 Johnson 4.75 0.00 Wright 3.50

No doubt! Chris Freakin' Sale has moved towards Freakin' Chris Sale! That being said, his run support has been low (3.78) and 11 of his 17 starts has seen 4 or less runs scored in support. The team is 6-11 in his starts, including these loses: 1-0 at OAK (6 IP 1 ER) 7-4 v DET (5 IP 2 ER) 5-4 v COL (7 IP 2 ER) 4-3 (6 IP 2 ER) 4-3 (7 IP 0 ER) Sale has 3 games where he allowed 5 or more runs. He has 4 games letting up 4 ERs. That's 7 out of 17, which is way too much.

Last night on the farm.... AAA Lin 3-4 Brentz with 15th HR Srurgeon 3-5 The pen bailed Stanki out (sound familar?) Mejia 2 IP 1 H 0 ER 0 BB 4 Ks AA Reyes pitched a good game *8 IP 4 H 3 ER 0 BB), but Cosart blew the save in the 9th. (Sound familiar?) Matheny with his 6th HR. Duran 2 for 5 Chatham 1-4 BB Dalbec 0-4 BB A Scherff 4 IP 6H 2 ER 1BB 3K

To me, Wright is our best in-house option for making an impact on our pen.

I meant that, on paper, our hitting, pitching and defense have improved (over the last 41 games) to be top 3 in the AL. We "should be" winning more than we have been. We "should be" contenders. We just need to start playing like I know we can and how the numbers show they can play.

Moreland does this every year. He does great for a month or two then gets hurt and or declines sharply for the last few months. Yes, we may not have had the HRs he hit early this year to win games, but we'd have someone- maybe a good pen arm- instead. I still think we overpaid Moreland. Many very good 1Bmen signed for much less.

I caught a lot of grief at the time and at the start of the 2018 season, but I think the bigger overpay between Moreland and Pearce was Moreland due to it being 2 years and his history of injuries and second half flame outs. I was okay with the Pearce signing. I knew the Eovaldi signing was a gamble, but I was fine with bringing him back. It wasn't about the playoff heroics, although that did reveal how much these two meant to the team and clubhouse. We probably could have gotten Moreland for $9M/2 and Pearce for $4.5M/1 tops. That would have saved us $4M on the budget and allowed us to sign a RP'er and have a little left over for a summer pick-up. Hindsight is 20-20,I know.

Yes. And keeping our draft from falling 10 slots. And, getting a better pitcher or being to afford 2 instead of 1.

I agree. Moreland was likely enough, although he does get hurt a lot and did get hurt again this year. Had we known Chavis would be this good, the Pearce non-signing would have been easier. As it was, we had nobody to back up 1B, except unproven Chavis and the fragile Holt. I do agree though, getting a pen arm instead of Pearce would have been better, but I had guys like Cody Allen in mind, so that might have failed, too.

Yes, Shawaryn can be the next Beeks or Buttrey. That would suck, but I'd rather trade him than Casas, Duran, DHern, Houck or Mata. The idea was to try and increase the amount on our spending budget, so we can now afford a better "salary dump" type pitcher in a trade involving maybe Dalbec and Johnson. The higher the salary pitcher we get, the less we have to return in trade (in theory- assuming equal performance level pitchers interested in).

What we get back in the trade is inconsequential. It is the $1M added to the luxury tax budget that has returned value. Maybe we get a far away decent A level player in return.

I was at the opening day game in Tampa that year. We blew the game in the 9th. I know you were talking about the start of the year, but over the whole season, we saw this: Sv- BS 16-3 Kim 9-3 Lyon 3-2 Fox 2-4 Timlin 1-0 Wakefield 1-0 B Arroyo 1-0 R Person 1-1 Embree 1-1 J Shiell 0-1 R Rupe 0-1 Sauerbeck 0-1 Seanez 0-2 Williamson Team: 36 saves 21 blown saves As for the closer by committee to start the year, here's what I uncovered: To start the 2003 season (first 41 games) gm1. BS Loss Fox 2. BS Howry (Win Lyon) 3. Save Fox 6. Loss Fox (no BS) 9. Save Fox 10. Win Timlin (no save) 12. Save Wakefield (April 13) 13. BS Win Timlin 14. Save Lyon (Win Fox) 18. Win Timlin 20. Save Fox 23. Save Fox 25. BS Fox/ Save Shiell 28. Save Lyon (Win Shiell) 29. BS Loss Mendoza (May 2nd) 31. Loss Timlin (No BS) 32. Loss Lyon (No BS) 34. Save Lyon 36. Save Lyon 38. Save Lyon 41. Loss Embree (No BS)

Nice post. I've never liked the strategy of quantity over quality although depth has it's virtues, even if it is just mediocre or slightly better than replacement level. I realize much of the times our scrubs have pitched, it has been in blow-outs or low leverage situations, but we've had too many starts by nobodies, and too many meaningful IP'd by guys who have no business being on the mound in those games. Had we added one to to decent to good RP'ers, we wouldn't have seen so many scrubs rotated through the 25 man roster in hopes one gets lucky. I don't blame DD for not spending on SP'er depth. Johnson and Velazquez (plus DHern) looked like decent 6th starters last winter. Too bad we ended up with this: GS Starter ERA as starter 7 Velazquez 6.41 (just 19.2 IP) 4 Eovaldi 6.00 (21 IP) 3 Weber 7.94 (just 11.1 IP) 2 Johnson 1.13 (just 8 IP) 2 Smith 9.82 (just 7.1 IP) 1 DHern 9.00 (just 3 IP) The low IP per start is enough to kill a pen. 19 starts/ 70.1 IP. That's like 3.2 IP per start (49.1 IP in 15 starts not counting Eovaldi) In some ways, worse than this is the pen numbers: High leverage PAs: 37 Brewer 23 Velazquez 11 Taylor 10 Lakins 10 Smith 9 Johnson 9 Weber 7 Shawaryn 6 DHern 4 Poyner 2 Thornburg 128 PAs Total (91 not counting Brewer) Had we had another RP'er equal to Barnes' 80 PAs in high leverage situations, maybe we'd not have 16 blown saves. Late & Close PAs (OPS) 118 Barnes .678 92 Workman .505 79 Brasier .812 59 Walden .610 31 Brewer .833 27 Hembree .388 19 Velazquez .871 15 Taylor .205 14 Sale .500 14 Lakins 1.481 13 Porcello 1.135 11 ERod 1.600 6 Smith .333 5 Johnson 1.800 4 Thornburg .000 4 Price .750 2 Poyner 4.000

I used to think this, but I no longer trust Barnes as our closer. I'd prefer to keep him and Workman as 8th inning set-up guys. I think we need a solid closer- maybe not Wil Smith great but very solid.

Yes, and more importantly, $1M off the luxury tax budget. I think teams have dumped salary along with a decent prospect in the past. I'm not sure the Sox have done it. The NBA does it all the time, but theirs is a harder cap.