moonslav59

Can anyone truthfully say they've seen any defensive improvement over last year?

Some minor league numbers: .348 4 18 Dubon (.922 OPS) .299 5 20 Basabe (1.017) .244 5 18 Guerra (.807) 0-1 3.00 Kopech (1.17 WHIP- 38k/30 ip) MLB .263 6 15 Moncada (.868) .217 1 7 Margot (.496)

So, if Bogey & JBJ make $4M more (combined) than my projections, we'll have about $10M to spend or $32M, if HRam does not vest. Unless we lose HRam, we probably can't sign Pom or Kimbrel. I guess we could trade JBJ or some other big contract to free up enough to keep one.

Sale was great, today. Nice win. Too bad the Yanks rallied to pull out the win after being down 4-0 in the 8th.

I totally agree, we aren't moving Devers off 3B, but this could be how we might line things up, assuming we trade the prospects gotten by trading Pom and prospects for Machado. 1. Betts RF 2. Machado 3B 3. HRam/Moreland 1B 4. JMart LF 5. Bogey SS 6. Devers DH 7. Beni CF 8. Pedey/Nunez 2B 9. Vaz

2019 in $'s 31 Price 22 JDM 22 HRam (vest) 21 Porcello (last control year) 14 Pedey 13 Sale 7 Moreland 4 Nunez 5 Vaz______ ~140 Total under contract ARBs Estimated 17 Betts (2nd of 3rd: $10.5 this year) 12 Bogaerts (3 of 3: 7.1) 8 JBJ (3 of 4: 6.1) 4 ERod (2 of 4: 2.4) 2 Thornburg (3 of 3: 2) 1 Smith (2 of 3: .8) 1 Wright (2 of 3: 1.1) 1 Barnes (1 of 3) 1 Hembree (1 of 3)____ ~$47M Arb players Expendable: 2.5 Holt (3 of 3: 2.2) 2.0 Leon (3 of 4: 2.0) 1.0 Swihart (1 of 4) FA 12.5 Kimbrel 8.5 Pom 3.8 Kelly That's about $187M on 18 players. Add about $13M for the other 22 players and we're at about $200M for 40 players (no Holt, Leon or Swihart. No Pom, Kimbrel or Kelly. Add $14M for player benefits and $18M for Pablito, and we;re at $232M. The 2019 threshold will be $206M. That puts us over by about $26M by my calculations. If we want to go right up to $40M line, we'll have close to $14M to spend on keeping 1 from Pom, Kimbrel or Kelly. It does look like we can't keep Kimbrel or Pom as long as HRam vests. We can keep Kelly, Holt, Leon and Swihart, and maybe add a $3M player. That's it. If HRam does not vest, we'll have close to $36M to spend. With that money we might be able to keep Pom & Kimbrel and certainly Kelly and one from Pom/Kimbrel.

Not "everyone", but your point is well taken.

The heavy penalty is at $40M over the limit, so one could argue that being just under is pretty close to "reckless" already. We are just under that number now. I could see us staying $35-39M below the max penalty line through the "window" period. That is still not going to be enough to keep everybody important. HRam's option is going to prevent us from keeping Pom or Kimbrel, and the next year will bring similar choices. I do feel going over the $40M mark would be a bit reckless and would give our team the reputation as being the "New Yankees or Dodgers".

He's also our "enforcer."

Moreland's got his OPS over 1.000 now! I'm not supersticious, but I'm afraid to stop bashing him out of fear he may slump.

Of course, the way Moreland is playing, he deserves to stay playing. I was looking at what might might be going on when Pedey returns. Maybe Nunez is still sub .700 when that happens, and my scenario looks back burnerish.

Great to see Beni come to life. He needs to be consistent. HRam keeps getting big RBIs. Kimbrel is buttah. ERod fell apart, Keep winning!

Well said. Let me as you this hypothetical question. Assuming Pedey comes back to near top form and can play 6 of 7 games at 2B with plus defense. Is playing Nunez in LF, Beni in CF and keeping JMart at DH a respectable option? Nunez has decent OF defensive metrics. Pedey improves the IF defense which partially offsets the loss of defense in the OG. I'm not saying I'm for the idea, right now, but if JBJ is hovering around .500 by June, I may be open to at least doing this at times.

Since both Pom and Kimbrel are FAs after this year, what about trading both for prospects to flip for Machado & Bleier?

It's early, still, but if he keeps going like this, I agree.

Agreed: Pom for prospects to flip for Machado would be great, but we'd have to add Groome and maybe more.

He's still making base running blunders as well. One could somewhat overlook those last year, but not with a .712 hitter.

Right now, we could play Moreland over JBJ and improve the offense (and defense at 1B)- not my idea of a good move. If we do plan on upgrading at 3B, we'd trade JBJ. One wonders what we could get for Pom & JBJ. With those prospects plus maybe a couple more from our farm, maybe we could get something very special, but who? I would not do this for a half season wonder like Machado.

Price's contract is going to make it hard to spend $65M+ on 2 players. That's about 30% of the payroll budget on just 2 players! Still, we have to keep Betts.

Most innings played on defense in 2018: 278 Devers 262 JBJ 247 Beni 246 Nunez 229 Betts 205 Vaz 150 Moreland 149 Bogey (was on DL) 141 HRam 129 JMart 123 Holt (on DL) 96 Lin 89 Leon 2 of our top 4 innings player are awful on defense, so far. Once Pedey returns, that may change. JMart is currently not in the top 8 innings players and neither is HRam. 2017 1389 Betts 1319 Beni 1310 Bogey 1204 Bradley (The killer Bs held the top 4 slots) 1171 Moreland 834 Pedey 773 Vaz 699 Leon (big change at the C position distribution) 508 Devers 471 marrero 363 Young 356 Holt 294 Nunez 253 Rutledge 214 Pablo 156 Lin 151 Hernandez 146 HRam 140 Travis 83 R Davis

I'm not so sure anone else can "get uo to speed" all that quickly. The catcher-pitcher dynamic is not something to mess with. If, and this might be a big if, Leon is the reason Porcello becomes Cy Young material again this year, then he could bat .000 the rest of the way and still be worth it.

If Joe keeps doing what he's been doing keeping him is a no-brainer. He found his stride ever since he plunked Austin.... Actually, he found his stride right after game 1. 12 straight games with no ERs allowed. 13 IP 6 Hits 1 BB 13 Ks That's a WHIP of .538-- better than Uehara's record shattering .565 WHIP in 2013. Granted, the sample size is small, but he's been on a great roll.

Very true. Last year, JBJ was involved in 310 plays in 132 games, which is about 2.34 per game or 7 every 3 games. For argument's sake, let's say one of those 7 plays would fall for a single or double had we had JMart in LF and Beni in CF all last year. Last year he got just over 6 hits every 7 games played. If you made it 7 hits, his BA would have gone up by about 140 points. If some were doubles, his SLG would go up by more. That would have turned his .245 BA into .385. Maybe my math is wrong, but nobody would complain about a .385 hitter thaat was average or slightly below average on defense. If you give JBJ one play every 4 games, then his BA could be converted to .315 by adding just 70 points.

Yes, JBJ's hot streaks have carried his OPS in a few seasons moree than other players' hot streaks do theirs, but the guy had a pretty long stretch of being over .800. I guess I take issue with the comment about him having to "suddenly become a hitter," when he already has been one for extended times, streaks not with standing. For most players, if you took away their best 3 streaks over their last 3 seasons, their numbers would suffer greatlly. Certainly, JBJ's more than others, but my point is that most players rely on a few hot streaks to bring their numbers up to normalcy or greatness. Here are JBJ's recent monthly OPS numbers. I know they can be a bit deceiving as some hot streaks overlapped 2 months and made both look good, but here they are: 1.163 Aug '15 .604 SEP '15 .807 APR '16 1.175 May '16 .805 June '16 .839 July '16 (4 in a row and 5 of 6 at .800+) .651 AUG '16 .731 SEP '16 (not that bad) .596 APR '17 (his first truly horrible month in 9 months) .808 May '17 1.009 June '17 (at this point, 7 of 11 months over .800 and 2 of the 4 below .800 being over .650) .596 July .770 AUG (decent) .517 SEP .600 APR '18 3 of his last 4 months have been putrid. No doubt, this is very concerning, but let's not pretend that JBJ has not shown he can hit for long stretches despite those stretches being largely carried just a few isolated and all-too-short hot streaks. I still have faith he can find that stride again and get his offense back to respectability, and perhaps even more. Certainly, I worry about him being sub .600 for 3 of his last 4 months, but to me, he deserves a much longer look that it appears some hear might not be willing to give him.

Me, too. I'd go long past June 1st to even think about benching him.