moonslav59

We have 9 players on the 60 Day IL with maybe Guerrero as one of two who might play in 2025 (est Sept 3rd and maybe Wink Sept 4th.) Houck- out until 2027 Crawford, Dobbins, Sandoval and Wink by opening day. Casas & Mayer by opening day. Perales by opening day, but has yet to pitch in MLB. Hendriks is a FA, after 2025, so bye-bye Liam. 10 & 15 Day ILs: Abreu (Sept 5?) Fitts (Sept 10th?) Criswell (???) Grissom (???)

I'd rather have Garcia at DH vs RHPs than Yoshida, OR rotate an OF'er at DH and have Garcia in the OF vs RHPs. I thought I was clear. Also, Romy is hitting .704 v RHPs, this year. Yoshida is at an unacceptable .619 in 103 PAs. How long a leash do you think he deserves? All of September? 2 more weeks? One week? I'm done with him for 2025. I'd demote him to AAA and call Garcia back up.

I haven't felt like this since Koji. Kimbrel was excellent, but too often he was a drama king. Jansen had some nice stretches, but not at this level.

Neither has Murphy, Moran or I Campbell. The only other choice not on the IL was Harrison- a SP'er. I guess we could have DFA's someone to add Burdi or Sandlin, but neither has done anything to make that a real choice. (Early???)

It will have to come from May or Harrison. I'm not sure Fitts will come off the IL, soon enough. I really do not blame Brez for coming to this, except the Priester trade. We started the season with 11-12 decent options for the rotation, and that did not include Tolle, Wink or Whitlock.

The AL East is still very much up for grabs. NYY has two more games to play and TOR one more, so we have more days off to better plan our starting rotation. 79-59 TOR -- 76-61 NYY -2.5 77-62 BOS -2.5 As the games remaining clock keeps ticking away, TEX, KCR & CLE see their chances growing tougher and tougher. NYY & BOS +3 on SEA (the 3rd WC team) and +5.5 on TEX, +6.0 on KCR and +7.5 on CLE. Ultimately, finishing above the Yanks would be sweet, but getting a top 2 record in the AL means no 3 game series. The way it's set up, if the season ended now, it would be BOS NYY with the winner facing DET and SEA-HOU with the winner facing TOR.

14 Hits 5 BBs 1 HBP 2 Balks 1 SB 1 WP Just 6 runs.

He hit the ball very hard, today. Maybe 2 line outs?

Wilson, Weissert & Chapman got 7 outs: 13 pitches and 13 strikes. The pen threw 30 strikes in 36 pitches. Only 2 Ks, but they got the outs.

Chapman for President!

We've missed a couple opportunities to bust this game open. I hope it's not one of those "what if..." games.

Sox with some super hard hit singles, here... LOL!

Sory with another RBI.

Bregman is a big key to our chance for a 2025 ring.

I like seeing Romy cleanup vs the lefty. Good to see Refsnyder 5th, too. I can see giving Duran the day off vs a lefty. I kinda wish Garcia was here over Eaton, but no biggie. Lowe vs a lefty is an eyebrow raiser. He is MLB's worst batter vs lefties, but with Romy at 2B, there was little choice, except DHam over Lowe, so no loss there.

What team has the third best record since the Devers trade? Hint: Devers used to play for them.

What team has the worst record since the Devers trade? Hint: Devers plays for them.

It's Kelly and Ali Sanchez. He seems as good/meh a choice as any. I guess they want the ability to PH for a catcher once or twice per game. I don't hate the idea.

ND is a top 10 team by season's end and looked like one, last night. MIA is a top 10 team and we almost beat them on their home turf. It was good to see Alabama lose to FLA St. We should be above them in the rankings, anyway. CBS has ND 8th. Fox has us 10th.

The injuries really hurt Lynn's career. It sucks, because most were caused by his all out drive to win and "make the play." I admire that and always felt he'd have put up enormous offensive numbers had he not near-literally broken his back for his team.

Of course a K bothers me in situations you mentioned, and maybe a little more than a weak pop up to the infield or short OF or a ground out that fails to score the run. Yes, putting the ball in play sometimes advances a runner, but give me a .390+ OBP and .390+ SLG, and I'll take a 100% of all outs as Ks.

I understand why they are playing him. I agree he still has .770+ potential, and in this league, that's 50 points above average. It could just be rust, but why wasn't he DHing with WOO all summer? We still have never gotten an answer to that mystery. We are in the race, now. There can be no pulling punches. I've listed all of the long stretches of slumps Cora has allowed to continue, this year. Some, such as Story's and Rafaela's have paid off. (Maybe Wong will be the 3rd example as he has begun showing life, after a long death-like stretch.) With Abreu out, the pressure on playing all 4 OF'ers was lifted, and the need to play Rafaela at 2B further lessened the bottleneck, but when Abreu returns, I don't care if Yoshida hits .770 or even .800: there is no place for him in the starting line-up, even versus RHPs. I guess one could argue for playing Rafaela at 2B FT, so Anthony, Duran & Abreu-Refsnyder can all play everyday, but I have to think that weakening of our defense is counter to putting our best team on the field and in the line-up. I'd rather DH an OF'er- mostly Duran, and play DHam-Romy at 2B than keep Yoshida at DH. If that means DFA'ing him, okay, but I'd keep him in the system at Woo for the reasons you mentioned. If he can ever get back to .770+, he could have value in 2026. Let him prove it in Woo, first. We can't afford to rehab him on the big club during a pennant chase. Plus, he can play FT at Woo and not platoon.

I could be wrong, but these three things seem to be the biggest criticisms of Breslow's choices made (not in any order)... 1. Deadline deals being underwhelming. (This year: Matz and May. Last year: Garcia, Sims, Jansen, Priester & Paxton) 2, The Sale + cash for Grissom trade. 3. The Buehler signing. 4. The Priester trade (The Giolito signing was top 4, but there is not much criticism, recently on this one.) On #1: I like the idea of saving major deals for the winter, when gross overpays are not usually needed. On #2: It's been beaten to death, but I still maintain there was logic to unloading a player injured for 4+ years for a promising solution to our 5+ year 2B issue.) On #3: While his cost was double that of Kluber's and Richards, he seemed like a better gamble, at the time. On #4: the trade looks bad, now, but our end is TBD. Maybe Holobetz emerges as a good pitcher. Maybe YRod improves. So, 4 bad in hindsight and the Gio signing kinda breaking even. I guess I could count the Hendriks deal as #5, since it was $10M, so okay five bad -in-hindsight deals. I'll put Sandoval in the TBD category. Now, the good to great: 1. Crochet trade. 2. Crochet extension, 3. Chapman signing. 4. Chapman extension. 5. Bregman signing. 6. Narvaez trade. 7. Slaten trade (Rule 5.) 8. Romy off waivers 9. Lowe off waivers 10. Tolle drafted & Promoted quickly 11. Fitts & Weissert for Verdugo 12. Tyler O'Neill for Robertson & Santos 13, Criswell signing Pretty good & TBD: 2024 & 2025 Drafts look very good on paper (see Tolle at #10.) IFA signings are too early to grade. Fajardo & Sandlin Trades In short, the 26 man roster is light years better than 2020, 2022, 2023 and 2024, and I'd argue better than 2021. The 40 man, including all those on the 60 Day IL is way better and deeper than any roster since 2018 or 2019. The farm, before the 7 promotions in 2025 was better than any farm in a long time, and arguably better than the one DD used to make so many great trades with. One could argue we should be bowing to Breslow, not him taking a bow.

This post seems to be evidence that it's more Breslow's fault when Yoshida does or does not play. He could pull the plug on Cora's choice, anytime he wants. Brez must be okay with Yoshida as the platoon DH, right now.

Too bad we didn't call Anthony up within the first two weeks of the season: we'd be looking at gaining a draft pick through the PPI clause.