moonslav59

Again, and I've said this many times, Our pen has been a plus to date, but going forward, it is by far our biggest area of need. WE NEED TO ACQUIRE AT LEAST ONE SOLID RP'ER... and YESTERDAY! That has been my position since the beginning of the off season.

You only need 4 starters in the playoffs. We have 4- not counting Eovaldi.

Steven Wright Nearing Activation By Connor Byrne | June 22, 2019 at 9:26pm CDT It’s “expected” the Red Sox will activate right-handed knuckleballer Steven Wright on Tuesday, Chris Cotillo of MassLive.com writes. Wright’s at the end of an 80-game suspension for performance-enhancing drug use. The Red Sox will need to clear a 40-man roster spot for Wright upon his return. The 34-year-old Wright, a one-time All-Star, has mostly worked as a starter dating back to his 2013 debut. He has logged a 4.00 ERA/4.45 FIP with 6.91 K/9 and 3.18 BB/9 in 263 innings out of Boston’s rotation. Although the Red Sox may now need a starter after Chris Sale, David Price, Rick Porcello and Eduardo Rodriguez, it won’t be Wright. They’ll likely use him as a reliever, per Cotillo, as Wright’s also coming back from 2018 left knee surgery. The Red Sox’s bullpen ranks an impressive fourth in the majors in ERA, fifth in FIP and ninth in K/BB ratio, but Wright still may be able to help the unit. Neither left-handed hitters nor righties have enjoyed a ton of success at Wright’s expense. Lefties have hit .237/.316/.359 off Wright, while righties have posted a .252/.321/.407 line against him.

I would, but it's not my money. The Nats can do better.

Updated tally after today's loss to the pen: Starters 16-22 (-6) Relievers 25-14 (+11)

Any one of the 4. It might depend on how the end of the season lines up.

I'd throw in Johnson (& Thornburg). Henry would have to be okay with paying mega taxes for a while.

Except to bump everyone down a notch and drop our horrendous 7th-8th RP from the 25 man roster. (I'd like to see us get 2 solid RP'ers.)

No, but DD can!

Yes, and I said "like yesterday" weeks ago.

The reverse of last night.

I don't look at it that way. I look at it from the perspective that the owner is trying to avoid paying taxes. Judging whether he should or not is a totally different debate. Once it is pretty much established that our owner is NOT totally opening his wallet to pay players, then I look at the budget with a magnifying glass knowing our budget has limits.

I don't think they intended to go over. The whole system is complicared, and I think they made a mistake. They got Toronto to pay for part of Pearce's deal, I believe in an effort to stay under the max line.

Well said. Sale is still hitting mid 90's at times.

That's what we said about AGon. I remember predicting he'd hit 50+.

This is reminding me of Gedman's outlier season.

They will hit a lull at some point, and we will need to pounce. Maybe London will be the start of their fall.

Man, the Astros are in free fall. The Yanks are hot.

Based on just tonight? Team record: 26-26 w Vaz 14-11 w Leon (Not that this is the best way to judge value, but when you look at how much better Sale and Price do with Leon, I'm fine with letting letting Leon catch Sale every game. PH for him, if needed, especially since Vaz does very well with our pen. I'd even let Leon catch Price every other start. That gives Vaz 7 starts out of 10. That gives him the rest he needs.

Fantastic win! We finally had Sale's back. Marco with the huge HBP. Vaz, of all people, with the BIG HR! Chalk this win up as more to the pen than to the SP'er. Updated game by game running tally by my analysis: Starters 16-22 (Net: -6) Relievers 26-13 (Net: +13)

When you total every dollar we are paying for our pen, Thornburg's contract represented a pretty big chunk of it. Maybe it's a personal bias I have against him, but I thought we should have given up on him last winter. Yes, it's not a majot amount of money, but when we only have $5-6M in budget space, adding $1.75M could end up making a big difference in who we can get.

We'll be "in it." My guess is we look for 1-2 decent pitchers who have some salary dump dimension to them, but who do not cost enough that their pro-rated deals put us over the max line. I look back to the Addison Reed and Nathan Eovaldi type deals as ones we may try to look for.

Nunez has hit at .758 in his last 17 games (since May 26th). Maybe he's snapping out of his funk. Ithers since May 26th: 1.056 Bogey .977 JBJ .929 Holt .918 JD .823 Devers .782 Beni .760 Betts .758 Nunez .750 Marco .683 Vaz .648 Chavis .623 Leon

What word would you have used for the 2018 trade deadline Eovaldi? Sometimes getting a pitcher who has not been doing all that good works out like a charm.

$1.75M in July is equal to paying a pro-rated $5.2M contract.