moonslav59

If you look at the hype factor, the Yankee fans were hyping their players last year as much as Paxton now. They had Lynn and Happ, too. Sonny Gray was viewed as a big addition (by me, too). Is how people feel about Paxton now all that much more rosy than they felt about Lynn & Gray last year? Is Ottavino really an upgrade over Robertson? Maybe Didi never comes back or is not the same upon return? All we hear about is the severity of Pedey and Wright's injuries and Sale's status in the second half of 2018.

Yes, and I've discussed the downsides many times, as well. I did get upset with all the naysayers last summer. All teams go through rough patches, and I guess some people just assume the team can only keep playing like they look in the last 2-3 or 7 games, or whatever. To me, we had a great team on paper day one. That awesome start showed we were great. We had some bumps along the way, but we were always great. The playoffs were proof.

I agree, but the point was made to show that this thread is not always optimistic. Sometimes the team is better than those on this thread, including myself, think they are.

I think I did the same on the poll someone posted, but when I did my projections, I think I said 100 or 102. I guess last year's realistic thread was pessimistic.

I qualified my recent post as being the optimistic view and not the probable view, but none of my suggested upside possibilities were unrealistic. Optimism and realism are not opposites of each other. (Also, I have been critical of many aspects of the Sox over the years. I've been tough on Moreland, Holt, managers, GMs and other players.)

Moon, that’s a homer post if I’ve ever seen one, wow. 1) I said I was giving the optimistic view. 2) Isaid many of what I listed are not probable hopes. 3) We may only need 1/3 to come true. Assuming others stay more or less even Yes, you subtracted Drew Pomeranz. You’re replacing Pomeranz (who ended up as the last guy in your pen) with more Brian Johnson time. Johnson is not good, so this might end up a wash. 1) I doubt Johnson takes all those innings, but if he does he probably won't have an ERA over 6.00. 2) Wright and Velazquez are available. 3) Eovaldi, in theory, should take all of Pom and other scrubs' starts. You guys keep talking about Steven Wright. He had another knee surgery in November. He’s likely to start the year on the DL. He had the same surgery as pedroia. Counting him as death isn’t a great idea. 1) I'm not counting on them. I'm saying they are hopes. 2) Wright was almost ready for the playoffs. 3) I admit both are just hopes and prayers, but they are good if healthy. Pearce has never proven to be anything more than a platoon guy, and now he’s a 36 yr old platoon guy. 1) A 6 month good platoon guy is better than a 2 month one. 2) His numbers vs RHP have been pretty good as he ages. 3) He's better than HRam and gives us better depth, if Moreland gets hurt (again). Eovaldi for a full year will help, assuming he plays the full year. He’s the man of glass with questionable yearly production. You’re expecting the guy from the playoffs. You’ll see him in spurts, but a lot of frustration will accompany him. He's a better hope than Pom, Johnson and Velazquez. Sale and ERod are healthy? Sale wasn’t healthy to end the year with a shoulder problem. How do you know he’s going to be healthy? He missed 10 starts due to the injury and there was no post season resolution. And ERod is likely healthy, but he’s also made of glass. He’s never proven to stay healthy. 1) Sale says he feels great. 2) ERod's injuries are never his arm or shoulder. They have been, more or less, bad luck. 3) We could get 120 more innings from them, but even 50-60 more would be a huge boost. (Johnson stays in the pen.) Nunez looked slow last year. The knee injury from 2017 clearly isn’t fixed. He didn’t have a procedure. You’ll see more of the same. Again, probably, but he looked more nimble at season's end than the rest. Brock Holt is a very solid super sub. If he is your full year starting 2b, his effectiveness will wane. He shouldn't have to be, but I agree. He did look more durable last year. Devers should be better. He’s better than his 2018 showed. You know as well as I do, he very easily could be great. Your 1b platoon got way more than you could have hoped. Moreland played to his career norms. HanRam was good for a month. Pearce hit like JD for two months. Asking for more is greedy. I agree, I pushed it here. We very well may fall short of our 1B OPS of .794 last year, but if we can stick to a straight platoon, and our 1Bmen hit their career splits, we might see this: .780 Moreland vs RHP .852 Pearce vs LHPs That may end up being over .800 combined. Lol, expecting improvement offensively from the C position when they’re not hitters is rosy glasses. 1) Expecting or suggesting what might be with their career norms is "rosy?" 2) Vaz is still pre-prime. Leon may not catch as much, if Vaz stays healthy. 3) Just asking for .650 would be a huge gain. Expecting improvement from JBJ is the same. He’s streaky. Again, I never came close to saying I expect any of this. I even went out of my way to say most are NOT probable. I do think JBJ's chances are 50-50. He's had 2 seasons over .800, and last year he was good+ for about 5 months in a row You guys got a good Price season, a great Sale 2/3 season, career type seasons from JD, Bogey, and Betts. You lost one of the best closers in baseball and a rather reliable setup man and aren’t replacing them. Actual big league depth isn’t there. Outside of Porcelli, every pitcher in your rotation has questions, three of the arm related. While I guess you could say the Sox May improve in fantasy land somewhere, chances are one of your pitchers is gonna miss the year. Your middle of the order won’t be AS devastating. Betts and Bogey missed time. Even if they drop some, but play more, they could add value. You’re in the AL East. The Sox, Yanks and Rays won nearly 300 games. The yanks and rays got better. If you’re not getting better, you fall behind. We can drop some and still beat your ass! (With all due respect.

True. I'm glad the rest of the team is so solid.

I've been accused of being a homer a few times, and I'm usually on the optimistic side with my yearly projections, but I really see a lot of hopeful areas on this team, despite the obvious drop in our pen value on paper this winter. I know it's asking a lot for Betts and JD to even repeat 2018, let alone pick up some of the slack with the expected pen drop off. We might very well need to pick up slack from Kimbrel's bolting to a drop off from Betts and JD and maybe someone else. Maybe none of the things I'm about to list as possible areas to improve are probable, but several could be, and the sheer number of them gives us a better chance that several should occur. The main point is, we don't need all of these to happen. We may not even need half to happen for us to overcome some declines in a few areas. Maybe even a third could be enough. Here it goes: 1) Addition by subtraction. Bye-bye to... Pomeranz 6.08 ERA in 74 IP Kelly (maybe not really fits here) 4.39 in 66 IP Beeks, Scott & Haley (19 ERs in 23 IP) HRam .708 in 195 PAs (More for Pearce) Kinsler .604 in 143 (More for Pedey/Holt/Nunez) 2) Eovaldi and Pearce for 6 months not 2. 3) Sale & ERod stay healthy. This alone could do the trick by giving us 100 more IP combined. 4) Johnson, Velazquez, Hembree, Workman, Thornburg or Smtih finally come of age or return to their brief moments of greatness. 5) Steven Wright. The guy has shown he can pitch like an ace. 6) Pedey. Maybe a long shot, but the there is huge upside potential at 2B. 7) Nunez plays like 2017 not 2018 or Holt continues to build his stamina/dependability. 8) Here' my favorite: Rafael Devers. This kid could bust out in a way nobody can imagine. I'm almost positive, barring an injury, he'll take a major step this season. 9) The 1B platoon offers some hope for a gain over 2018's pretty low numbers. Moreland not having to play hurt could help. Pearce is hard to project, but there is upside desspite his age. 10) Catcher offense. If Vaz and Leon can hit their career OPS, we could see a 100 point gain here. 11) JBJ. He had his longest steady streak of his career (4 months) and a spectacular post season. Is it far-fetched to think he might be able to do it for 6 months. 12) Bogey. He took a huge step up last year at age 25. He has not reached prime yet, so there is reason to hope he could keep improving. 13) Betts and JD are likely to regress, but there is some hope for the same or even better. Betts is still pre-prime and JD is not old. 14) Porcello. Can he give us a season close to his Cy Young year? This is his contract year, and he'll only be 30. 15) Price. Maybe his playoff performance and the loss of that pesty monkey clawing on his back will complete his re-invention as a true pitcher and not a thrower. Maybe. 16) Barnes & Brasier. Both gave lots of reasons for having hopes and promises. 17) The farm. I've been pretty down on our farm, but there is some hope we could get a significant boost from someone- most likely later in the season: Chavis or Dalbec Shawaryn or D Hernandez Poyner, Lakins, Walden, Houck or Feltman 18) Cora. He's not an improvement, but maybe he learned some things from his first season as a manager. 19) Beni. The sky could still be the limit for this kid. Ifq he can improve his offense vs LHPs, he could be top 10 in several categories. 20) Did I forget to say how happy I am we still have... Chris Freakin' Sale!

I hear you, and I'm not trying to prove you wrong. I wish we had a better closer or an extra set-up guy that is solid. I just look at all the teams that have tried to follow the strong pen trend getting eliminated early. I'm not one to claim one way to build a winner should be based on the most recent success story, and the playoffs are small sample sizes, but last winter many here, including myself, felt our pen was the weakest area on the team (not weak but weakest), and we dominated the playoffs despite the fact that our closer, the best in MLB over the last 9 years, was a walking time bomb that never detonated. There are many ways to make it to the dance or win it all. Teams have won with weak starters or weak pens. Weak offenses or weak defenses. Some team win with multiple weak areas have won. Look at the 2015 Royals.Imagine the lack of hope Sox fans would have had going into that season and more importantly, those playoffs. Only 2 of their top 8 SP'er had an ERA below 4.08. 2 of their top 6 were over 4.76. Their pen was dominating and helped lead to the whole idea that a strong pen and defense might be all that is needed. (Wade Davis, Greg Holland, Kelvin HerreraRyan Madson & Franklin Morales) Their offense was not bad, in fact 6 of their top 10 PA players hit over .800, but the other 4 of their top 9 were .706, .640, .614 and .552. Escobar had the second most PAs on the team and had a .614 OPS. We'd be going bonkers if we had a "weakness" like that! (.734 team OPS) Nobody with more than 22 HRs and only 2 guys with 93 or more RBIs.

I agree, and my point about him almost always coming into the game in a clean inning when many other closers he is compared to do not only strengthens his already dominant ERA. Kimbrel seems to thrive on higher pressure situations- most of which he creates himself. I'm fine with using ERA as a major factor when comparing great RP'ers, but to me OPS against, WHIP and K/BB ratios are also important indicators of a pitchers dominance and effectiveness. Kimbrel has a spectacular ERA and OPS against. His WHIP is excellent as well, but Koji was better in that area, and he blows Kimbrel away in K's to BBs. I'm not trying to claim Koji is better. The longevity argument alone seals the argument, IMO, in CK's favor. Koji was dominating in his own way, and 7 years is a pretty good run. Kimbrel is better- no doubt here.

Yes, but that shows up an his IR%. My point is about coming into an inning with 1 or 2 outs and getting the huge benefit to your ERA, if you do it often.

SP'er never come into a game or inning with 1-2 outs already on the board. That's a huge difference in ERA. If a starter leaves with 1 out or 2 outs, his runners can still score and count against him. When a RP'er comes in with 1 or 2 outs, it makes it a lot harder for him to let up a run. It's like they are playing an inning with just 1 out needed to get from the opps.

Yeah, maybe we should have not spent so much on making every other position so good. It would be nice to have a stronger pen, but our pen is not weak. It would be nice to have a great defensive catcher that gets the most out of our staff AND can hit, but our catching position is not weak. It would be nice to have a 2Bman we can count on, but with 3 of them, our 2B position does not appear to be weak. Our 3B position was very weak last year, but nobody talks about not spending there. We'll make do with what we have, and we have a solid team that is better than everyone else, despite our issues in the pen. We have a solid rotation with decent starter depth, especially if Wright is well. I'm super pumped about our chances. If the pen ends up blowing our chances this year, then that would suck, and many here could be vindicated, but I'm still waiting for someone to say where DD should have skimped or traded someone away, so we could get a closer? Beni? Porcello? Okay, one could argue for not signing Eovaldi and letting Wright, Johnson and Velazquez fight over the 5 slot. We could actually let Eovaldi close. I'm not sure the Pearce signing would have helped us upgrade the pen as much as some here seem to want.I guess we could pin our hopes on oft-injured Moreland and Chavis at a position most teams rake. I love this team. I think the whole great pen movement has peaked. Maybe DD is ahead of the curve. Or not.

That's been my point all along. The vast majority of players never get that big payday the big FAs get, and in theory, if the big FAs hot less, maybe there'd be more money to spend on mid-range contracts. Make the arb years start earlier for those who never have long enough careers to get even one nice arb salary year. More players get multiple arb year salaries. Spread the wealth to more players, and you'd think the majority of players would vote for the deal, even if their total piece of the pie doesn't get bigger or much bigger.

Or, a RP'er comes in with 2 outs, loads the bases and gets one out for a 0.00 ERA. Another RP'er comes in with no outs and loads the bases. He has to get 3 outs to get a 0.00 ERA while the other guys just one. Guys like Kimbrel almost always come in for clean innings, but other RP'ers hardly ever do.

98 wins and a maxed out playoff run to another championship would be just as nice. Doing it without Kimbrel might make it seem sweeter.

and runs, apparently. Mybe just GWRBI should count.

OPS against is a better stat than WHIP, and I think both WHIP and OPS against are better than ERA for RP'ers who often come in for partial innings.

I realize that and have said it. Who wants to risk a learning curve when we may need every win to win the division? What if Swihart never gets as good? Swihart did have a chance years ago and did not show he got better when he caught some pitchers a lot.

By and large, they do get better performances, but many sample sizes are very small. To get a RP'ers PAs sample size large enough, you have to go career, and maybe one catcher caught the guy more his rookie year, when he sucked. Here's Barnes... OPS against/ERA (PAs) Barnes .643/3.72 with Vaz (363) .676/3.80 with Leon (303) .861/5.02 Swihart (169) and Hembree .740/3.52 Leon (365) .843/4.20 Vaz (329) .579/1.82 Swihart (97) Is this sample size big enough? Kimbrel .495/1.95 Vaz (332) .499/1.95 Leon (306) .813/16.62 Swi (25 is certainly not enough) These are our 3 most used RP'ers over the last 3 years. Am I missing something>?

Yes, and I posted RP'er numbers. I don't want Leon catching Porcello. I don't want Vaz catching Sale & Price. Do I have to specifically come out and bash them for anyone to see it is a form of criticism on Vaz & Swihart when I say I want only Leon to catch Sale & price?

Yes, which would be and is captured by SLG% and its influence on OPS against. .448 ATL (.208 SLG) .569 SDP .514 BOS (.267 SLG)

There are different levels of comfort and discomfort. I didn't think it needed to be said.

I criticize catchers that do badly with certain pitchers all the time.

Not as much as a starter you catch and only catch all season long. Plus, Leon and Vaz do better with most RP'ers than Swihart does. It's just not as stark.