moonslav59

All players play through injuries, and Pedey did very well, when playing hurt. Hurray! You were right about Pedey getting hurt at the time of the signing. Good for you.

At the time, I thought it was a good deal for the team. It's hard to arm-chair this one, for me. His contract will hurt the luxury tax the next few years, but at least it's not $22M or more.

Hope is one thing. Expecting is a big leap.

The world is full of pitchers who had brief moments of glory early in their career only to flame out or end with a serious injury. Maybe I'm being a pessimist, but usually I'm accused of being too optimistic. Waiting it out for a larger sample size before getting all gah gah about some pitcher doing well for 2, 7 or 13 games out of the gate is just not my cup of tea, especially when they were never that dominating in the minors. I admit, I fell for Owens. I fell for Espinoza and was pissed we traded him. My high hopes clouded my better judgement, but at least those guys showed serious flashes of brilliance in the minors. Johnson and Gabbard did not do poorly on the farm, but they never did anything to make me think they could be very special. I know we're just talking about Johnson as nothing more than maybe a decent or excellent 5th starter, but I'm choosing to suggest we don't pencil him in as our best bet for the 5 slot. I'm not even so sure about signing Eovaldi or the like and relying on Johnson to be our #6 guy, but certainly we could do worse or much worse like many teams' #6 guy. I like Johnson. It seems like he's gotten over his emotional issues and might be able to improve some more, but I don't think he will continue having a key role with this team, if he can't improve upon his WHIP being over 1.43 all the time.

When we extended Pedey in the middle of 2013, he had virtually no injury history. Now, one could argue he plays the game hard and maybe a bit recklessly, and injuries were bound to happen, but at the time of the signing, Pedey hardly missed any time due to injury, except in 2010 (75 games played) and a tiny amount in 2012. 139 games 2007 ROY 157 games 2008 MVP 154 games 2009 (.819 OPS) 75 in 2010 159 in 2011 (.861) 141 in 2012 (.797) 160 in 2013 (led league in PAs with 724) He's only played in over 135 games once since 2013 (ages 30-34).

I don't disagree, and I know it is not impossible to find talent without glitzy prospects. DD has done a fine job getting us key players like Nunez, Eovaldi and Pearce mid season for scraps, but there is no doubt the key to our recent success is the in house infusion of young stars we drafted and signed internationally. Betts, Bogey, JBJ, Beni, Devers, Barnes and ERod (through a salary dump trade) have been essential to our championship roster construction. To me, it is nearly impossible to construct teams like this without some major youth infusion every couple or three years. We added Beni and Devers not too long ago, and they have been a big help. Who are our next Beni or Devers? I suppose we can hope for 20 more Brasiers, Eovaldis, Pearces and Nunezs, but I'm not sure how realistic that is. Our best hope is that maybe Henry okays spending $250M in 2019 and $270 in 2020 and on and on...

My point was that the trend seems to be to reverse the traditional home park advantage teams used to build upon. The Yanks used to load up on left-handed hitters and pitchers, and we used to load up on big right handed hitters and avoid LHPs like the plague. Teams adjusted to that and started flipping the splits. We now have 4 lefty starters, counting Johnson. The Yanks & Astros are built to hit lefties better than righties. I'm not against signing a lefty, if he's better than the righty option, but all things being equal, a righty fits into our rotation better and matches up with our biggest contenders. Seeing how well a pretty much journeyman big righty, Eovaldi, did for us in the playoffs vs righty-stacked line-ups opened my eyes a little bit. I know the split differentials are not vast, but mixing up your starters, be it lefties with righties, knucklers with fastballs or whatever, IMO, is always a good idea, if possible.

There does seem to be a snake-bitten aspect to our recent picks and international signings. Worst of all was the death of Daniel Flores, the promising young catcher.

It's not a big deal, but expecting us to rebuild the farm with such low picks and low international draft pools is not going to be easy, and eventually we will need some infusion of top youth talent and the low cost they bring to the budget. If we haven't been able to rebuild while having the 12th, 24th and 26th picks in the last 3 drafts, why expect better from #40?

I just watched a documentary on Moon and saw footage of him passing out. They were injecting him with speed in the foot and holding him up as he played on. They couldn't get the needle in, because he kept banging the bass drum. Those were the day, eh?

the last pick of round 1 is 30th. We will pick 40th due to the penalty for going over by $40M. That's 10 below the last pick of the round.

The Yanks' splits moved .065 from 2017. The Astros moved .080. Am I missing something?

10 picks later than last pick.

Wow! Who is next? CC?

It's what The Who used to blow out every concert.

Juan Pena Phil Dumatrait Anastacio Martinez Abe Alvarez Casey Kelly Michael Bowden Craig Hansen Bryce Cox Nick Hagadone Stormy Pimental Anthony Ranaudo Allen Webster Rubby de la Rosa Henry Owens Trey Ball I'm sure I missed some...

LOL. I loved Nava, and he did have a couple very good years. I've been high on many young players who actually put up decent numbers for extended times. I was high on Devers from day one. He kept doing well at every level the promoted him to. Guys like Johnson and Gabbard come along all the time. Some make it: most don't. I guess reality seems cold sometimes, but there's no way I'm planning on Johnson for anything significant next year. To me, he looks like a better pitcher than Gabbard was over his whole history with Boston and their farm, but he's still kind of a long shot to being a top 5 starter in MLB.

I'm not really sure why Clemson is ahead of ND. Who have they beaten that is any good? They squeaked by Texas A & M and Syracuse. We killed Syracuse and beat Michigan, N"Western, Stanford, VA Tech and Wake & Fla ST who aren't total patsies.

He got to AAA in 2012. He was still there last year.

My guess is they sign Machado or Harper and another pitcher like Corbin, Keuchel or Happ. They will also probably add a solid RP'er.

You need to read up on statistics and reread the chapter on sample sizes. I have watched just about every pitch of every Sox game for over 2 decades. I remember Gabbard well. I was very encouraged by those 7 starts in 2007. I had hopes he might be a diamond in the rough, but in no way was I convinced of anything based on 7 starts. To think his quick demise was based on poor infield defense behind him in Texas is really pushing it. Frankly, with all due respect, I think this position is border line absurd. The chances Gabbard would have gone on to become a good pitcher had he stayed in Boston will never been known for sure, but my guess is, he would have flopped with us, too (based on what actually happened after the trade).

Yes, the Yanks will be very good. They will add another SP'er and replace some lost pen arms, but the rotation I see now, is not scary. Their line-up is and will be, especially if they add Harper or Machado and Didi returns to form. The Yanks worry me, but not their current rotation.

Gabbard did not "do a lot" of anything. He barely pitched enough to determine anything- one way or another. He showed some promise with us over a very limited sample size. He never pitched over 56 innings with Texas and his peripherals with Boston were never all that good, except for the 7 starts in 2007. His time in Texas was similar to his numbers in BOS in 2006. Take away those seven starts with Boston in 2007 and there's nothing there to love. WHIP 1.59 2006 1.12 2007 with BOS in 7 starts and 41 IP 1.72 2007-2008 TEX in 29 starts and 96 IP

Normally, I agree, but when you look at the Yanks and Astros line-ups, having a righty looks essential. Yankees .800 vs LHPs .773 vs RHPs (In 2017, their splits were flipped .757 to .795) Astros: .803 vs LHPs .733 vs RHPs (In 2017, their splits were flipped as well .814 to .824) Granted, I'd rather get a great LH'd starter than a mediocre RH'd starter, but I wouldn't call Happ "great."

Or, he just never was as good as we thought he was or might be.