moonslav59

To me, Betts, JD and Bogey are our best 3 hitters. I don't care, if they are all righties; they should bat 1-2-3 in some way. Beni has not earned a top 4 slot. Small or large sample size. His .350 career OBP is very good, but Bogey has come on strong and still has a career .340 OBP despite some bad stretches that were likely injury-related.

My bad. Sorry, Max.

We have 5 guys over .355- six, if you count Holt.

I thought he meant 29th worst catcher offense. Hasn't he been ranting about that for weeks? or, was that Nay-Sayer Natick?

What about the offensive sense of the word? (Actually, the bat that would replace JBJ would be Moreland's, and JMart's glove would replace JBJ's.)

I was trying to show three things: 1) We have seven players in the top 150 in SLG% on our team. (150/30 teams would give you 5 per team. We have been better, despite our putrid slugging 2017 season.) 2) Some players we passed on, like Moose, have been top sluggers. 3) JMart is pretty damn awesome. I included top OBP players, because I can. (nah-nah) I think OBP is more important than SLG, and we have 7 in the top 130. I did not intend to make a point about JBJ being in these top lists, but it apparently ticked off those who tend to look more closely at the what have you done lately numbers.

We got... 2017: Addison Reed for Stephen Nogosek, Gerson Bautista and Jamie Callahan. 2016: Brad Ziegler for Jose Almonte and Luis Alejandro Basabe I agree, we have a lot of pen arms to go through before deciding we need to trade for one. Kimbrel, Smith, Kelly and a healthy Thornburg all look like 8th and 9th inning guys. Velazquez, Barnes, Hembree may work out as 5-7 inning guys, but if not, we still could try any of these guys before making a trade: Johnson (may be out of chances real soon) Wright (a real wild card) Poyner (has looked good) Maddox (looked good last year) Scott Workman Buttrey That's 14 guys for 7 slots. Also, maybe Beeks or Walden.

Oh, and for those all gah-gah over the Yankees offense and all freaking out about all our black holes at the bottom of our order, consider this: PAs Yankee 2018 OPS 165 Gardner .627 (3rd most PAs on team!) 114 Walker .539 (7th most PAs) 103 A Hicks .687 (8th most) Plus, #6 Andujar is at .745 and#5 Sanchez is at .769. None of our top 5 PA guys are below .739, and our #6 guy, Nunez, could be replaced soon by Pedey. 141 Nunez .637 (#6) 125 JBJ .528 (#7 Benched) 106 Vaz .463 (#8) Our #1 guy, Beni is at .740 and our #3 guy, Devers is at .739. Devers has been moved down in the line-up, and Beni may be soon. Betts (1.201) and Bogey (.933) missed some time and should move up in PA rankings. JDM is #2 in PAs and is at 1.004. We may see our #10 guy, Moreland at 1.009, become a top 9 PA guy soon

I'd have moved Beni down a while ago. I've always felt like Bogey is a natural 2 hitter- maybe lead-off, but Cora seems set on Betts up first. Maybe watching Springer in Houston has locked some philosophies in his mind. With this in mind, maybe Cora could try this for a few games: 1) Betts 2) Bogey 3) JDM 4) Moreland (at least for now) 5) HRam 6) Beni 7) Devers 8) Nunez-Pedey 9) Vaz-Leon

We have a few million to spend and still stay under the $40M penalty line. If we can get to the trade deadline, we only pay a pro-rated share of about 30-33% of an aquired player's salary. We should be able to pick up a very good RP'er or two good ones, if needed. By then, we should know more about Thornburg & Smith, Barnes & Noble (Hembree), Wright, Velazquez & Johnson and guys like Poyner, Workman, Scott, Maddox & Buttrey.

Here's another example: In 2009, Tito benched VTek in favor of a known better hitting catcher (VMart) for every playoff game and we got swept. Our SP'ers allow these runs per IP: 3 in 6.0 Lester (4 BB & 4H) 4 in 6.2 Beckett (1BB & 5H) 2 ER in 5.0 Buchholz (1BB & 6H) Totals: 7 ER in 17.2 IP by our starters (3.56), but the pen brought us to 16 ER in 25 IP overall (5.76 ERA). Note: Swihart is not known to be a better hitter than anybody.

I'm not going to say that history has a way of repeating itself, but for those who choose to judge this team based on just its last 19 games (9-10 record), you might want to look this over: 2004 Red Sox Champions 16-14 in May 11-14 in June 14-12 in July That's 3 straight months of .500 ball. We had one stretch where we went 16-17. An overlapping stretch saw us go 11-17! That was from May 31st to July 2nd. Shortly after that, we had a 5 game winning streak followed by a 3-8 stretch. We also lost 5 of 7 in September. We swept the World Series! Year after year, teams hit hard times. It's totally natural and should be expected. Why it always seems so shocking to some always surprises me. Too many knee-jerk reactions based on what people saw in just one game, one week or even one or 2 months. Baseball is a 162 game season for a reason. It's not like basketball or football where the better team almost always wins. To me, that's one part of the game that makes it great. To others, it seems it's just a source of frustration that turns to negativity, sometime brutal, personal and unrelenting. I'm not asking people to change their personalities or outlooks, but I can't help but feel like it gets pretty ridiculous at times. Want another example? How about 2007? We went 37-37 from May 11th to July 31st. That's nearly half a season of .500 ball. We swept the World Series. We took four of six in the 2013 World Series, despite going 15-16 from April 30th to May 31st. Again, a longer stretch of struggles than the one we are going through now. in 2013, we lost 6 of 9 near the end of July, We lost 6 of 8 in August and ended the season going 5-6. I remember there were nay-sayers in all those seasons, and I can understand feeling like the team does not look like a champion at various times of the season. I get it. That's natural, too. Then, there are the teams in history that seem to do everything right just about all season long, then lose in the playoffs. I won't even go there other than to say that in-season judgements are often not true in October (Dodgers 2017). My point is that it seems futile to try and definitively judge a team based on 20, 30 or even 60 game sample size, at times. Baseball is a "long look" sport that seems to spook the "Now, Now, Now generation". Sit back, chill out and enjoy the season. It's going to be a great one!

It's amazing how two people can see exactly the opposite thing.

Certainly as a high leverage RP'er, the odds go down.

Johnson might have just passed Hembee as the most likely out-of-options pitcher to be DFA'd. Too bad he never really got a long look as a starter this year. Maybe RP'ing is just not his thing.

Me, too. Worst case scenario, he makes a big error to eliminate us. Imagine how that might affect a 20 year-old. He seems to have enough of the "right stuff" to not let it get him too far down, if it happens.

This wasn't about JBJ.

I do no doubt he can develop into a plus defender. My concern is his learning curve occurring during a year like this.

I'm verklempt!

fangraphs... (230 players with 800+ PAs) 2016-2018 SLG% .612 JDM .596 Trout .587 Judge 8. Stanton .555 16. Moustakas .525 17. Betts .524 70. HRam .469 107. Moreland .448 131. Bogey .435 140. JBJ .430 146. Pedey .426 OBP .442 Trout .440 Votto .409 Judge .404 Freeman 18. JDM .377 23. Pedey .373 37. Betts .362 63. Bogey .350 64. Beni .350 83. HRam .344 128. JBJ .330

If Thornburg, Smith or someone else becomes great by playoff time, we'll have a great chance. With so many players capable of becoming a solid 8th inning/back-up closer, I like our odds.

He settled on KC, because there were no other bidders. I agree, there was no way of knowing, but at the time of the Moreland signing, there were plenty of options available. There was very little risk, we'd be denied a capable 1Bman or 3Bman. It's hard to be critical of the Moreland signing. He's doing fantastic! (BTW, Moose is at .291 10 28 in 159 PAs. Moose has done better, so far, but the 3B defense might have been improved.)

Before last year started, I felt our pen was our greatest weakness (though not weak). They proved me wrong. I felt with Smith and Thornburg coming back, and full seasons from Workman and Maddox, along with Barnes, Hembree & Kelly being more "seasoned", our pen would be at least as good as last year. I'm not sure what to think now, but we look shaky in that area, to say the least. Time will tell. We have a little budget space for the deadline, and RP'ers with pro-rated contracts should be available, if needed.

The Yanks have a very formidable team. To me, this is the best Sox team, on paper, since maybe 2007. With budget issues, it might be our best for the next 4-6 years. This is it, baby!

I guess, if we think Moreland is vastly better than Moose, Duda, Morrison and others, then maybe, but there was absolutely no rush to sign a 1Bman. It was the one position saturated with capable players. Now, as it turns out, Moreland is doing great, so the signing looks good, but Moose and Squirrel are doing very well, too... and for less money and/or years. Listed in order of RBIs. All with 120+ PAs, except MM... .191 6 26 Santana .298 10 25 M Adams .298 5 24 HRam .218 8 21 Alonso .325 6 19 Moreland (in just 80 PA!) .271 7 19 J Abreu .242 4 18 Duda .178 4 13 Morrison .263 5 12 The Hose