moonslav59

I read this after my most recent post. You said it better than I. The gloom & doomers are farther from reality than we are.

Ever the optimist. Our catchers should hit better than the awful .450 start. Still not good though. There's no reason to have expected a continued .450 OPS from our catchers. Even .600 would be a low expectation, but the difference between .450 and .600 is huge. It makes a big difference.There's no reason to view the recent .722 last 30-day OPS as a fluke. I'll take .650 and be thrilled with our catchers. .722 would be gravy the rest of the way. It's the 11th best 30-day OPS in MLB. It baffles me how so many Sox fans jump on bad short sample size numbers, but won't view positive ones with the same force. Our catchers are not a weak point on this team, even if they hit .600 the rest of the way. It's more likely they hit between .650 and .725, IMO. JBJ is going to hit .700+ . Think you are smoking something on that one. I said .600 and "hopefully .700". JBJ has been streaky his whole career, and almost always has a very hot stretch every season that brings his OPS over .700 or even over .840. Why don't you explain why you think this season will be so much different than others? One could argue those who think JBJ will break the mold are the ones smoking something. Bogey is better this year and if they can keep him in a good spot in the lineup the hope is he won't fade in the second half again this year. Bogey clearly was playing hurt last year. if he stays healthy, IMO, he ends up over .800 easily. Beni does look for real. Glad you agree. Moreland will get his extra base hits but I don't expect him to keep up at his current level. I don't either, but I also expect those players not performing to expectations to do better and make up for those returning to earth. I do think there is a chance Moreland still ends up with a career best season- perhaps ending up over .800 or even .850. Nunez is a pro and will be a solid contributor but Pedey is an unknown. Will he play in a significant number of games. Maybe Holt takes up the slack. I'm not predicting it, but I should be allowed to be hopeful. Devers looks like he will struggle this year. He needs to make adjustments at the plate and to date he has been slow to do so. He may need a threat of being sent down to realize he needs to change. He's made adjustments at every level as he was fast-tracked up the minor league ladder. This one may take more time than others, but I'm confident he will come to life at some point this year. I was very fearful of him having to go through a learning curve during a championship run, and that's why I wanted us to sign Moose, but I never expected or thought demoting him was in the cards. Maybe he ends up in AAA at some point, but I doubt it. Holt is a pro but is always going to be a fill in. That's all we need from him. Swihart shows little sign of contributing. 3 for his last 21. Why the different criteria for him than Vaz, Leon & JBJ, who actually have been contributing to the team over the last month? Yes, at times I am optimistic. I think it's hard not to be, when you consider we have played .677 ball, despite a bunch of missed time with player injuries. We currently have Betts, Pedey, Pom, Thornburg, Smith, Maddox, Poyner and Walden on the DL. Bogey has missed time. Prcie has missed starts. ERod missed starts. Others have missed time and have played hurt. Sure, we may flop again in the playoffs this year, but this is not the same team as last year or the one before. We have the starting pitching. We have the best closer in MLB and a deep pen. Our defense has gotten better. We are near the lead in runs scored. You call this optimism: I call it realism.

Who knows. I think he was over .890 for 11 straight years. I guess we'll never know. It sure seems unfair to him, if he never touched the stuff.

One thing I remember about the Bagwell trade was that many said, "We already have a 3Bman in Boggs," but nobody thought about having Bagwell play 1B. I think we had Quintana there at the time, who was okay, but nothing great. I believe Mo Vaughn came along later, and I suppose he could have DH'd. It was a horrible trade in hindsight, and that's how most people judge trades. (GMs have always been judged that way.) It sure seems that way with Ben's deals and choices.

December 2018 Rule 5 List: Victor Acosta Christopher Acosta Yoan Aybar Roldani Baldwin Trey Ball Juan Barriento Edilson Batista Eduard Bazardo Danny Bethea Jordan Betts Marino Campana Rusney Castillo Michael Chavis Luis Colmenares Eduard Conde Harrison Cooney Jake Cosart Ricardo Cubillan Enmanuel De Jesus Chad De La Guerra Jhonathan Diaz Jerry Downs Nick Duron Junior Espinoza Willis Figueroa Devon Fisher Austin Glorius Daniel Gonzalez Juan Hernandez Darwinzon Hernandez Oscar Hernandez Tyler Hill Dedgar Jimenez Trevor Kelley Trenton Kemp Matt Kent Travis Lakins Marcos Lantigua Adam Lau Deiner Lopez Isaias Lucena Chris Madera Freiberg Marin Danny Mars Kyle Martin Algenis Martinez Tate Matheny Kevin McAvoy Daniel McGrath Samuel Miranda Joseph Monge Jhon Nunez Josh Ockimey Angel Padron Yorvin Pantoja Yankory Pimentel Jordan Procyshen Roniel Raudes Austin Rei Hildemaro Requena Denyi Reyes Eddy Reynoso Jeremy Rivera Jake Romanski Teddy Stankiewicz Kevin Steen Cole Sturgeon Josh Taylor Luke Tendler Josh Tobias Carlos Tovar Kyri Washington Jantzen Witte

Gotta agree. Nunez should scare nobody.

It looks like our catchers are going to hit muc better than their .450 start. JBJ may end up over .600-- hopefully .700+. Bogey is looking like he should be .800+- maybe even .850+. Beni looks for real, and tyhis gives us 3 guys that should end up over .900. We need to keep Moreland hitting or hope Nunez, Pedey, Devers and others take up the slack. We just need health to be on our side.

...and JD.

Plus, once we add him, there's no getting him off the luxury tax budget again. We'd go over the $40M penalty this year, and the penalties are rather stiff. He's stuck in purgatory. There's no way around it.

You're right. My bad. We don't have what it would take to pry him from the Reds.

Man-O-Man JD is just killing it! This line-up had loss written all over it. Okay, okay, we were just playing the White Sox, but still: nice win!

It's like saying pitcher A has a 5.75 ERA every last 2 starts of July. He sucks.

I'm not saying Cincy would do the deal, but 2 months of Scooter for 14 months of JBJ does have something going for it.

Vaz & JBJ 3 for 7 with an HR. Swihart is 2 for his last 21. I wonder if SF would take Swihart for Pablo (currently at .787). Just kidding!

Too bad natick was "done with" JBJ, the HR doesn't count.

Looks like this homework assignment proves past performances in small sample sizes prove nothing.

Man, Nunez, Travis & Devers 4-5-6 must scare thehell out of the CWS!

Is there a homework assignment embedded in this post?

Yup. Of course the majority of pitchers do better vs weaker teams.

cots has us at just over $38.3M over the limit. That leaves less than $1.7M to spend on an acquisition. A pro-rated contract of about $4.5M could be traded for on July 31st. That's it, unless we shed salary somehow. If someone signs HRam, we will gain about $0.7M or so. We could trade... (not saying I want to)... Not pro-rated numbers $10.5M Pom (rental) $6.1M JBJ (2 arbs left) $4M Nunez ($4M next year) $2.2M Holt $2M Thornburg $2M Leon $1.4M Vaz ($13.5M/3 afterwards)

Yes, I heard the injury (back?) argument a few times, and I'm fine with blaming it on that, but the fact is he was not worth any where near the $40M we paid him for 2005. Somehow, I feel like if Ben had made this deal, he'd be blamed for it, and the injury argument wouldn't count as much. Afterall, HRam was hurt a lot, Pablo had some injuries and is at .787 with SF right now, and Price has been hurt (DD's guy).

Small sample size numbers that are spread out are not good indicators of what is to come. Even the guy you mentioned, Beckett, who was on his way towards becoming MLB's greatest playoff starting pitcher in history, sucked in his last 4 starts (twice the sample size as Porcello's with the Sox).

On Sale.... Career Opps' OPS against: .626 Late & Close: .556 High Leverage .610 Med Leverage .605 low Leverage .664 Men on base: .622 2 outs, RISP: .583 Tie game: .610 Within 1 run: .602 The only thing that bothers me about Sale is this... OPS against by month .549 May .592 June .628 July .645 Aug .750 Sept ERA under 2.28 April, May, June & July 3.22 AUG 3.78 SEP Currently, Sale is tied for the ML lead in games started (14) and is 3rd in IP (89). I see no indication of the team limiting his IP of GS'd, except for pushing his start back a game this week by starting Beeks.

Exactly, like why do you think they are called good pitchers to begin with? Could it be that they get batters to make outs more than lesser pitchers? Gee, it's remarkable! On a side note, just from my own observations, it seems like our hitters do better than most vs the good pitchers and struggle with rookies and unknowns more than we should. (No stats to back this up.)

Isn't that true for just about all pitchers?