moonslav59

Those career OPS numbers can be deceiving. Betts can certainly stay over .900 or .950. JD has been much better in recent years than .868. His first 3 seasons below .742 should not be part of his profile and expectations. Bogey and Betts battled injuries last year and have early career lower numbers as should be expected. one could argue they should do better than their career numbers as the near and reach prime. Moreland is a tough call. he was doing well last year before the toe injury, but the two season healthy sample sizes are still too short to begin to expect him to even end up over .825 or .850, let alone 1.000. On the other hand, as these guys "come back to earth", couldn't we expect Pedey to improve on Nunez? Devers to find his groove? Beni to continue his rise in OPS? Vaz, Leon or JBJ to return to their career norm? In fact those 3 guys are about as far away from their career norms as Betts, Bogey and JD are from theirs. Could Holt finish above .780? That's 80 above his norm. Could the Yanks see some of their stars have off seasons like just about all of ours did last year? I'm feeling good about our offense going forward. I think it gets better not worse.

I think we stick with JD in the OF more often than not for a while anyways. It might make it harder for JBj to find a groove, but as long as Moreland keeps himself over .900, I have no issues with JBJ sitting. I'll be cringing when balls are hit to the gaps, but the offense is greatly improved with a 1.000 OPS guy over a .550 one.

Maybe, Houston despite some current player slumps.

One more thing: given he was rushed in 2015 but did "admirably well", how could that also hurt his development? He had the best coaches. His confidence level soared. he got to know the staff, some of whom are still here. The part that stunted his growth was the move to LF, but the guy already had over 3700 innings as a catcher. Maybe he "deserved more", but one could argue that was more than a fair enough chance as a catcher.

You can't always believe what management says (like ..."Swi will only catch from now on...". To me, Vaz was going to be the starting catcher in 2016, but he needed a little more time to be "ready". The 6 games to start the season was for that reason, IMO, and not to give him a chance to win the position. He was NOT demoted for doing poorly in 6 games. The Sox had already made up their mind beforehand. He's caught almost 3800 innings since joining the organization. That's enough for them to have a pretty good idea about his skill level and growth curve (or lack of one). I trust they see more than we do, and they see what goes on in practice as well. I'm not saying management never makes mistakes in player evaluations, but I have to think they must feel pretty darn sure of themselves to not be giving him a chance now that are catchers are hitting .445. Maybe his foot injury is part of the reason. Maybe they have known for years he'll never catch for us, but they were giving lip service to his future as a catcher in order to drive up his trade value and/or confidence level. He has worked out as catcher in ST'ing and played an inning this year, so he still probably views himself as a possible catcher option. I gotta say, not playing him there can't be helping his confidence level right now. My guess is, we trade him once Pedey comes back, but maybe we'll throw Nunez on the DL to delay the inevidable. If we're not ever going to play him, then we should just trade him. Cora is big on playing the bench, and he still never plays. That speaks volumes.

To me, Vaz was always going to be the number one. The injury did force Swihart up before his time, but he was still catching.

I'm not sure how much JBJ's defense and the downgrade at the other OF position and upgrade at 1B (assuming Moreland plays instead of JBJ) factors into the equation. I'm a huge JBJ fan and still think he will end up with decent numbers by season's end, but I was okay with the benching and still am.

Of course, I'd rather us not have 2 black holes in our line-up, and I'm not against trying to fix the problems, if it's still there in a month or two. I do not think JBJ and our catchers will continue hitting between .440 and .550 for the rest of the season, so the problem may solve itself at some point, maybe even starting tonight. We can fix the JBJ offense problem by hurting our defense and playing JD or Nunez in the OF. Pedey's return should minimize Nunez's performance to date. That leave just our catchers. I'm not "defending" thier .440 OPS, but I do feel their defense and rapport with our staff makes up for a big chunk of the negative we have gotten on offense. If they're still at .445 on July 31st, one, I'll be surprised and two, I may be convinced we need a change by then.

Well, afterall, he is.... Chris Freakin' Sale!

...and we should have Pedey coming back soon and Bogey rising up the team PA rankings as he returned from time on the DL. Maybe Moreland (over 1.000) squeezes his way into the top 9. Holt's at #11 and has an .834 OPS. Sure, the Yanks have Torres (.865) at #10 and #11 Torreyes at .786, but our hitters have stacked up nicely with the Yanks. Our team OPS are nearly identical.

I see it like this: ERod has tremendous stuff. I'm not really sure, if he lacks control or not. I think he intentionally nibbles the edges of the strike zone in hopes of the hitter swinging at balls outside the strike zone. Most great pitchers do this. ERod just has not mastered it, yet. The "yet" might be wishful thinking on my part. For argument's sake, let's say he suddenly tries to aim just a quarter inch closer to the plate when "nibbling." Sure, hitters might get a few more hits than normally, but he'd likely walk less batters and maybe keep his pitch count down. Who knows if this would make him a better pitcher or not. I'm fine with him continuing like he normally has done when healthy and not hobbled by a bad knee... walks and all... high pitch count and all. He's stayed pretty steady around 3.2 to 3.4 BB/9, but his H/9 has steadily gone down (8.9>8.3>8.3>7.4 this year) We don't need 5 Sales to win it all.

The Yanks have 3 of their top 8 players by PA total with an OPS below .685. Two are below .647 and their 8th place guys is at .557. They have had black holes, too.

The thing is, the Royals didn't even have decent starters in several slots, and they had weak hitting. Imagine if the current Sox had these numbers, and someone said we'd win it all this year.... KC Royals top 9 hitters (265+ PAs) 5 hitters between .809 and .847 (pretty good, but no superman and no 2 guys above .840) .706 .640 .614 .552 Nobody with more than 22 HRs. Two guys with more than 82 RBI. Now, look at their top 6 SP'ers 81+ IP): 3.58 Volquez 4.08 Ventura 6.10 Guthrie 4.35 Duffy 3.18 Young 4.76 Cueto This fits no model for winning championships. It's also hard to call it a fluke, as this team made it to the WS the previous season. The 2014 team had even more startling numbers: No top 9 PA player had an OPS above .783! Only one of their top 15 PA hitters was above .751. Only 2 of the top 12 were above .716!!!! Imagine a Sox team with those numbers! Their starting pitching was much better with 4 of their top 5 starters having an ERA below 3.72.

You can carry 2 black holes, but you need to continue to get superhuman performances from the other 7. Actually, you don't. many championship teams have won with 2 or 3 black holes and not even one superman hitter. You can win with pitching & defense and timely hitting with no superman or even 4-5 very good hitters (see KC). You can win with a balanced 6-7 good hitters and decent pitching.

I get your point. ERod's injury history is almost totally related to his knee. I'm hopeful the surgery will put an end to that chapter in his career. I'm still extremely confident in ERod's continued improvement to the point where he will be a strong #2 type with the potential of being an ace at times. Maybe I'm just a homer.

Ben did draft Kopech and sign Espinoza. Both helped net us SSale & Pom.

True, but within the context and flow of the conversation, it seemed like that was what he was suggesting. My apologies, if that was not his intent.

I took it as sarcasm. If it wasn't, it's a tragic comedy.

Mookie and JD are playing unreal ball. What a duo!

Nope. Our pitching is "in trouble." I can't remember who said that recently.

Good ole Wiki... Swihart attended V. Sue Cleveland High School in Rio Rancho, New Mexico, where he competed in basketball, baseball, and football. Playing mainly as a shortstop, he had a .602 batting average (56-for-93) with 17 doubles, five triples, five home runs, 41 runs batted in (RBIs) and 58 runs scored in 28 games as a senior. As a pitcher, Swihart's fastball could reach 85 miles per hour (137 km/h) before he began high school, and was up to 98 miles per hour (158 km/h) by the time he was a junior. However, it was during his junior season that Swihart quit pitching because he preferred to hit, and it was also during his junior season when Swihart first began playing catcher. Swihart played for USA Baseball's 18-Under National Team in 2010 and led his team with a .448 average, earning Louisville Slugger All-American honors. For Team USA, Swihart played first base and left field.[1] He played in the 2010 Aflac All-American High School Baseball Classic. Off of the baseball field, Swihart had a 4.0 GPA.[1] He committed to attend the University of Texas at Austin on a college baseball scholarship.[3] His best friend is Alex Bregman, who plays for the Houston Astros, with whom he grew up playing travel ball.

Must be pretty horrible.

Your idea of fairness is warped.

What's a "few games?" 5, 10, 25? What does he need to do to extend the look? What if he hits okay or better, but our staff looks worse? How will we know, if any decline in pitching is attributable to Swihart?

Why? A) Because Sox management felt he would never be able to improve enough to be our catcher. Because we needed a LF'er and Sox management still felt Swihart could develop as a catcher, but chose current need over the long run. If it was B, I think we'd have seen Swihart catch more last year and in spring training this year. The words "fair chance" are not so easy to define and aply to this situation. I happen to feel that the Sox giving Swihart a chance to try and win a job at another position was as fair as they could and should have been. IMO, he was never going to develop into a capable catcher, This is Swihart's 7th season in professional baseball. He's caught over 2,900 innings on the farm and 750+ at the ML level. 3,714 innings + 49 in winterball. I think Sox management has had a significant defensive sample size to judge what's fair or not when it comes to continuing or ending his development chances as a catcher. IMO, they have made the right choice. Our slumping catchers does not make Swihart any better on defense.