moonslav59

If you threw your best pitch everytime there was two strikes, the batter would know what's coming and gain the advantage. Mixing it up is needed to keep batters off balance and hopefully, guessing wrongly.

No stats came close to capturing everything, so yes, all stats were and still are bad, in the sense that none are very close to being perfect. WAR is an attempt to do better than what we had before. It's not perfect. It's not close to perfect, but in my opinion, it's closer to perfect than it is to the next closest single stat- for what that is worth.

Exactly. Probably just about everyone (except Vaz) would have been doing better without JD, but he surely has helped some (maybe most) do better than if he wasn't here.

GG quality RF'ers who play Fenway like they were born there are very hard to find. Why mess with a great thing? To me, it's harder to find a top RF'er than 2Bman.

There's more of the season to go, but if you had to list our highest priority this coming winter, what positions would they be? Free Agents to be: Kimbrel Kelly Eovaldi Pearce Kinsler Pomeranz The list above indicated the pen is priority number one, particularly a closer. I'd probably go something like this: 1. Closer 2. Set-up man 3. 2B 4. Bat vs LHP 5. Starter depth 6. 3B defense 7. Catcher offense 8. OF depth

Ockimey K/AB: 33% 2014 Rookie 39% 2015 A (short) 32% 2016 A 32% 2017 A+/AA 36% 2018 AA/AAA He's going in the wrong direction this year.

Ks would be okay, if he could keep up the .350+ OBP, but it usually doesn't work out that way with these high K prospects. Here's a position by position look at how long are starters are under team control and the in-house prospects that could possibly become an in-house solution to the possible departures. After... 2018 2B- Kinsler --- (Pedey/Holt/Nunez/Hernandez/Quiroz) 1B/DH- Pearce --- (Chavis/Dalbec/Ockimey/Travis) 2019 DH- JD Martinez (opt out) --- (Chavis/Dalbec/Ockimey/Travis) SS- Bogaerts --- (Holt/Chatham) 1B- Moreland --- (Chavis/Dalbec/Ockimey/Travis/Casas) Utility- Holt & Utility- Nunez --- (Hernandez, Quiroz/Chatham) 2020 RF- Betts ---(Decker/Duran/Brannen) CF- JBJ --- (Decker/Duran/Brannen) C- Leon --- (Swihart) 2021 2B- Pedroia (may retire before this) ---Utility- Nunez C- Vazquez (option for 2022) --- (Swihart)

Holt actually hits LHPs better than RHPs. I'd have put Bogey up 2nd, despite him not doing all that great recently. (Watch Holt bust out, now!) GO SOX!!!!

Yes. Perhaps Marco Hernandez or Quiroz can surprise us and keep us from having to use precious resources to acquire a quality 2Bman from outside the system.

I might be a little over excited about Kinsler, but his defense alone makes him an upgrade over anything we have right now.

Sounds about right, assuming no emergency situations develop before then.

Agreed, but with Pedey, Nunez and Holt all under control next year and maybe Marco Hernandez finally getting healthy, I could see DD spending our limited funds elsewhere. We also have Quiroz, Lin and maybe Kinsler is invited back.

I hope we keep him this winter, too.

Agreed. I always thought last year was a fluke, with so many players dipping from 2016. I expected a bounce back from everyone but Vaz. I do think JD has helped some of our players do better than otherwise, but I think they'd have improved on their own.

I've actually been impressed with one area of Rafael's defense. His range has been plus. He also has a strong arm, but it needs a lot of work with accuracy. He has 20 errors this year, and the next guy has 14. He's played less innings than seven 3Bmen, so it's even worse than it looks. I did anticipate a learning curve with his defense, and we can see we're in the midst of it now. I did, however, expect his bat to outweigh the negative on defense. I knew he might struggle, at times, but I didn't expect a .721 OPS in August. .721 is not bad at all for someone his age, and I'm not complaining. I think he'll turn into a great ML hitter real soon. My position now is that his bat is really not making up for his inaccurate arm, but overall, I'd say he is not a negative. He does have a +0.8 WAR, which indicates, he's a plus. I know when you're trying to win a ring, you look to your weaker areas, but weaker does not mean weak. I think 2B has been our weakest position so far, and hopefully Kinsler's return will fix that. His return might also allow Holt and Nunez to play 3B more often. It was never an ideal situation, but I think Devers has been okay.

Best Sox winning % in the last 60 year (1958) and the manager: .711 Cora 2018, so far .607 Zimmer 1978 .605 Francoma 2004 .602 Zimmer 1977 .599 Farrell 2013 (Thanks Ben) .597 Kennedy 1995 .594 Johnson 1975 .593 Francoma 2007 .590 McNamara 1986 .586 Francoma 2009 .586 Francoma 2008 .586 Francoma 2003 .580 Williams 1999 .574 Farrell 2017 .574 Farrell 2016 .574 Little 2002 .569 Zimmer 1979 .568 Williams 1998 .568 Dick Williams 1967

We've only won 100 games once since 1916! (104 wins in 1946) We've only won 99 games once (1978's 2nd place finish) 98 wins just once (2004) 97 wins twice (1977 & 2013) 96 three times (1948, 1949 & 2007)

I updated the winning % but forgot the win addition.

Pen OPS against the last 28 days... .400 Cuevas (5 PAs) .638 Barnes .669 Kelly .693 Velazquez (includes 1 start) .731 Thornburg .820 Pom (includes some starts) .827 Hembree .938 Kimbrel 1.057 Workman

SP'er ERA in the last 28 days... 0.00 Sale (3 GS) 1.03 Price (4) 2.04 Eovaldi (3) 3.42 Johnson (4) 3.69 Porcello (5) 4.15 Pom (3- plus 2 RP'er games)

Best winning % in MLB history.... .763 Cubs 1906 .741 Pirates 1902 .726 White Stockings 1886 .724 Pirates 1909 .721 Guardians 1954 (111-43) 154 game schedule .716 Mariners 2001 (116-46) 162 game schedule .714 Yankess 1927 (110-44) .711 Red Sox 2018 (Currently 86-35: on pace for 115 wins)

Give him some PEDs and find out!

...and Betts who is helping Betts, beni-Beni, Moreland-Moreland...

Yup, they "rested" for Leon and Porcello and Holt last night, and look what happened.

It was nice seeing him keep the BBs down last night. That looks to be his biggest concern area.