moonslav59

Doesn't jump out as a big weak area, and this is a team that is "slumping" on offense. 6 over .800 7 over .760

I've mentioned that maybe they are trying to "hide" Mullins from other teams, so as to avoid a Rule 5 selection, this winter, but that seems like an absurd idea. I can't think of any other reason for the 24 year old to not be at WOO. It's not like Drohan and De Leon, two current rotation pieces at Woo, are promising MLB depth needed to stay sharp in a AAA setting in case of emergency. Sandlin was moved to the pen. Tolle was promoted. Fitts, Criswell & others are on the IL. I see no viable reason. Maybe MVP can enlighten us. Soxprospects,com has Mullins projected as the 5th pen arm on WOO for 2026. (They do have Tolle listed for Woo, as well as other starters: Fitts, Early, Uberstine, Drohan & Wehunt with Perales, Coffey and Anderson as "PB Starters.") The pen is ranked as such: Sandlin, Murphy, Guerrero, Moran & Mullins. I hope he is not selected on Rule 5 Day. Maybe we protect him.

For some unknown reason, Fred has chosen to carry the Rafaela Sucks banner down Main Street USA. The early career 10;1 K/BB ratio was historically horrific and worthy of scrutiny and criticism, but the excessiveness of it, even as he has shown marked improvement is hard to understand or even tolerate. Ceddanne has played in 3 MLB seasons and had 80+ PAs in all of them. From that 2023 season to today, here is a list of the highest K% by season: note that Ceddanne places 6th (in '23) 18th (in'24) & 46th (in '25) out of 56 batters that met the 80 PA sample size criteria. His 2025 K rate of 19.4% is actually 11th best out of 56 samples!! He's actually turned that weakness into a strength, but all we hear about is how he K'd on a ball a foot outside the zone. The whole position is absurd. Now, the low BB% is a legit concern, as Rafaela holds 3 of the worst 5 sample seasons out of those 56 batters: 2.6 Rafaela in '24 2.7 Chang in '23 3.4 Arroyo in '23 4.5 Rafaela in '23 and '25 4.9 Toro in '25 11 samples fall between 5.0 and 5.9%, including Story and 2 showings by Yoshida, Wong and Romy. While Ceddanne holds 2 of the worst 3 BB/K rate seasons since 2023, his 0.23 rate in 2025 places him 15th out of 56 samples. That's a vast improvement. Still a weak area, but a 100% improvement over '23-'24's rate (0.10 and 0.14) One could easily say it is no longer a weakness, but just a concerning area of his batting. If you narrow the sample size to 300+ PAs, only 25 Sox players met the criteria. 0.10 Rafaela '24 0.16 Wong '23 0.18 Story '25 0.20 Duvall '23 0.23 Rafaela '25 0.25 Wong '24 0.27 Duran '23 0.28 DHam '24 Okay, he has 2 of the worst 5 slots in 25 who qualify. That's not good, but his '25 rate is not horrific and is better than Story's, who has a similar OPS in 2025. Where is the outrage against Story?

I've hesitated invoking Fred Lynn's name when talking about Anthony, but it's hard not to see the similarity in impacts both have made to the team, almost instantly. Lynn literally broke his back by playing all out to win. I'm not sure Anthony fits that mold, but he quietly does what it takes to get the Sox to a win, and then another and another...

How Soon Is Now?

Good stuff. Break the pitching down further... ERA- 79 RP'ers is 3rd 90 SP'ers is 7th One could argue our strength to weakness continuum is as such: Strongest to Weakest: Pen (2nd fWAR)> Defense (6th by DRS) & Base Running (6th)> Batting (9th OPS+)> SP'ers (11th fWAR) Being top 11 in all 5 areas does show that we are a pretty balanced team with no major weak areas, but I will add this: Our pen is highly influenced by 3 guy: Chapman has been legendary plus Whitlock & Slaten. Our SP'ers have been greatly influenced by 3 guys: Crochet, Bello & Giolito. Our bats have been only have 3 players with over 400 PAs, but there have been 3 clear leaders on offense (350+ PAs) until Anthony crashed the party: Bregman (.880,) Abreu (.811.) and Duran at .776 w 22 SBs. (I'd sub Anthony for Duran.) Our defense saw great improvement at 3 positions: Catcher (Narvaez and improvement by Wong,) SS (Story staying healthy) and 3B (Devers to Bregman has been a stunning flip from worst to near best) One amazing aspect of the big 3's I listed here is that many were not part of the 2024 team: Crochet, Giolito, Chapman, Bregman (O & D), Narvaez, Story (minor part) and now Anthony.

I'm not defending the choice, but the choice was between 2 sucky pitchers. It came down to Hicks having another year of control and being owed money for 2026.

I've never been Wow'd by these high velocity pitchers who have no or just a brief history of success. Guys like DHern come to mind. He has 16K/9 over his first 2 seasons but walked almost 8 per 9. He stuck around for 4 years, before we finally gave up on him.

To some extent, the Sox offense always has to be viewed with the Fenway Park influence factored in. It's not Colorado, but the Sox Home and Away splits are always wide apart. Context is always needed. MLB Avg .246, OBP .316 and SLG .405 Sox: .252, .323, .425 However: Sox on the road: .244, .315, .415 (pretty damn close to average) Home: .261/.332/.436 What's interesting is that the differential by the opponents is not as wide: Opponents vs Sox pitchers: Fenway: .246/.320/.365 Away: .240/.312/.384 (actually a higher away OPS)

I got that same sense.

I can see the reason for hoping he can put it all together, and we are just days away from a 14 man staff, so it will be easier to "hide" Hicks in low leverage situations, but I'm not optimistic. I think his 2026 leash will be short. If he and Buehler had swapped years of control, I think we'd have DFA Hicks, not Buehler.

He might have a late career resurgence, but we could not wait for that.

I get that. Dalbec never came close to his first 2 seasons: 33 Hrs in 545 PAs and an .819 OPS Casas did hit 42 HRs over his first 840 PAs of his career, and many players add power as they age. Even if you add in his piss poor 2025 numbers, his career 162 game average is 29 HRs and an .800 OPS (952 PAs) Of course, playing even 140 games has been the problem. He had an .838 OPS from '23-'24 in 745 PAs. His injury might be career threatening. He may never approach those numbers again, but then again, he might.

Bregman had a long slump in 2024, and many here in HOU felt the doubts about his decline were the reason they let him slip away. He ended last year and began this year as hot as ever. The injury seems like an easy excuse, as he hit .938 before and .798 afterwards. (I might add that .798 is a pretty decent "slump.") His slump is actually just 7 games long, since after his injury to AUG 22nd, he has a .925 OPS. A perfect example how one can choose stat samples to support excuses that may not be true. Abreu's injury has hurt our offense. The guy was our HR leader. Story got red hot for a long spell, but he has leveled off around the .730 mark for a while, now. (Most of August) Narvaez ran out of steam, it seems, but Wong has turned it around. Rafaela's slump has been bombarded at us for weeks by a certain poster, but he's had a good stretch since June. While we say Bregman is slumping (7 games) nobody is saying Rafaela is taking off, when he's hit .862 in 7 games. Anthony has been carrying our offense for a few weeks. Duran started slow and has settled into the .740 to .790 range for almost every day since early June. Not great, but not bad,,, and gasp... pretty consistent in a sea of inconsistency.

True, as well as different defense, park quirks and just plain luck- good or bad. When you face a bad pitcher and score one rin, do you suck, or did you have the unfortunate luck of facing a guy pitching the best game of his life? That's just one example. I like the balanced nature of our line-up and think it should lead to more consistency, but it seems to not be true, this year. I do miss the power tandems like Papi and Manny or JD & Betts. I'd like to see improvements made, this winter. I don't mean my constant harping on the need for a solid #2 pitcher (or two) to imply I think our offense is all set. It's not, and we do continue to see the same two positions hurt us, year after year: 1B and 2B. (Story righted the ship at SS, after a few Bogey-less years hurt us, too.) Even when you look at those two positions, you can see why Brez & Co. chose to do little to "fix" the problems. At 1B, Casas has shown he can hit .800 to .850 with maybe 30 HR possibilities. At 2B, almost everyone thinks Mayer could be a plus, if he just stayed healthy. Health is also the major concern with Casas. We also cam off a second half of 2024 with DHam looking poised to be a 2.0+ fWAR 2Bman who plays plus D and can steal 50 bases, if he gets on base enough times. Romy has met the promise some saw, last year as the next Sox lefty killer, once Ref retires. His ability to play 1B and 2B offered the depth and platoon options that helped create the decision to not add at 1B and 2B, last winter. (Campbell was also the rising star that was so "athletic that he just needed time to learn 2B.") I'm not defending Brez & Co. for those choices. 1B & 2B have been failures, once again. The Lowe addition has helped for a bit, but Toro helped for a bit, too, and then he didn't. I'd love to see us add Alonso and keep Casas as a DH hopeful and emergency 1B solution- maybe as a platoon w Romy, although Casas has decent splits v lefties. Mayer remains both the 2B "solution: and the 2B "problem," because he can't stay healthy, and we don't fill the slot as we wait for him to get health. That happened with Casas, too. Before that, we waited too long for Dalbec to regain what he showed over his first 500 career PAs. Yes, every team shows inconsistencies. It's part of the game. Every team has weak or weaker areas, some unforeseen, some that develop out of nowhere and some that are easily predicted.

I'm not saying our offense has been great, and the inconsistency is frustrating, but we've lost many games due to poor defense, poor starting pitchers and poor pen games. I'm not sure one jumps out more than the others. Take a look at Houck, Newcomb, May, Fitts and Buehler's ERAs. All over 4.43 in 50 starts! We've lost no games 1-0. We've lost 3 games 2-1 (none 2-0) We've lost 6 games 3-2 (none 3-1 or 3-0) That's not a ton of great pitching games blown by the offense. (Maybe these 9?) We've lost 12 games when scoring 5 or more runs, including a 10-9 loss. That's on the staff and defense.

I didn't post top 4 or 5. I was referring to the posters who keep begging the Sox for more runs, thinking this offense is capable of that. They are capable- just sporadically. Nobody knows when they can or can't, although one believes he knows.

Yanks and Stros passed us, tonight.

I don't know 1. I think we're about 6-10, and I'm the "optimistic one."

Yup, but we have lost 11-12 games when scoring 5 or more runs.

Mullins, too. Does he ever have a bad game?

Name names. Who here thinks it's top 4-5?

The game looked so promising, early on. Tough loss. Tougher when watching TOR losing big.

The guy is 3 for 4. You are losing the last thread of cred.

Tolle hadn't pitched 80 pitches since June. His pitch counts before tonight: 53 64 64 69 64 72 71 63