moonslav59

DHam dinger time!

Had a feeling after the first walk of the game, and some pitches being way outside, it was Bello's times up.

Bello's ERA just dipped below 3.00. WOW!

His numbers are amazing. He's Rule 5, this year. I doubt they are holding him back to avoid his selection odds going too high, but I share your curiosity. He's top 10 on the farm in IP, but take a gander at the OPS Against numbers: .531 Fajardo 65 IP FCL/A- (18 years old) .550 Mullins 87 IP A+/AA (24 years old) .556 Rivera 73 IP A+/AA (22) .590 Tolle 92 IP 3 teams (22) .597 Aita 196 IP A-/A+ (22) .609 Early AA/AAA (22) He's older than all these guys.

He was an uberman.

Marl Belanger played 18 seasons and also won 8 GGs. His career .580 OPS did not stop him from receiving MVP votes in 3 seasons. The O's won the WS in 1970 with Belanger batting .562.

exactly, and he had to go back pretty often, because he was so shallow.

With platoon guy Abreu on the IL, this would have been a day to give Duran a breather and RHB Jh Garcia another shot, but watch Duran go off, tonight!

Every team in MLB would love to have KC and his contract. Nobody wants Yoshida at 30% of his contract. One is plus value- one is negative. BTW, BTV still has KC valued highly (40.4,) For reference, Duran is 64.4, Rafaela 42.6. Mayer 51.2, Abreu 37.4 and Arias 22.2. Both Yoshida and Story are over 30 negative.

The ultimate question on what level Rafaela's batting has to reach to warrant benching him comes down to weighing does the bat replacing his bat more than make up for the drop in defensive and baserunning value by taking away Rafaela from the starting 9. Vs LHPs, it's a no brainer. Abreu is already platooned and some wonder whether Duran should be. Abreu: .607 career and .721, this year. (GG RF defense) Duran: .610 career and .568 this year. (Best runner of the 3) Rafaela: .646 career and .693 this year. (GG type D and good runner) Vs. RHPs: Anthony, Duran & Abreu all are ranked higher than Rafaela. Now, let's look at 2B and DH, which can also involve 1B, if Romy plays 1B v L and not 2B, where Rafaela, DHam and Romy are choices. DH can be used by an OF'er, so Yoshida comes into the choice. IMO, I already determined Rafaela starts vs LHPs in the OF, but not vs RHPs, unless an OF'er DHs. Let's look at the vs RHP splits: Rafaela: .683 career and .715, this year (He's better vs RHPs, so far.) DHam: .660 career and .587 in 2015. (Plus on defense at 2B, better baserunner than Rafaela.) At 2B: DHam is a close call vs Rafaela at 2B v Righties. Romy is not really a realistic choice vs RHPs, especially vs Rafaela at 2B, but his numbers vs LHPs make him a great platoon with DHam at 2B or Lowe at 1B. (Lowe is MLB's worst batter v LHPs, this year.) I won't even list Romy's numbers vs RHPs. Count him out. Yoshida is a legitimate contender for playing time vs RHPs, based on his career numbers, but not so much by 2025 numbers. .793 career and .643, this year. So, it's Rafaela in CF vs LHPs and Yoshida vs Rafaela v RHPs. Career: Yoshida .793 v Rafaela .683, but 2025: Rafaela .715 v Yoshida .643. Seems like a close call to me- looking at only the offense. If you value recency and baserunning, Rafaela is the guy. If you value Career it's Yoshida by a little. Now, factor in defense, baserunning and allowing an OF'er to rest while DH'ing to the equation, and it's Rafaela v RHPs. Now, how low can Rafaela go vs RHPs to flip the choice to Yoshida? That's not an easy question, because we are basing it on what we think Yoshida will be doing, if Rafaela is free-falling his OPS into the .500 to .650 range. Do we choose a .700 Yoshida over a .600 Rafaela?(.650 v .550 and so on...) How about ,650 vs .600? To me, I'd choose Rafaela over Yoshida up to 100 points and maybe beyond. His D and his running make a difference. A big difference. I think I've said all I can about Rafaela, and it has already been way to much. There should not even be a need to defend his playing time or whether his overall value is plus vs "suck."

DHam gave us a decent half season in 2024 (.740 OPS w 29 SBs in a 79 game stretch.) He We just need a few good weeks from him, this year.

Rafaela's fWAR ranks him top 60 in MLB, this year. I can understand people not liking or trusting WAR much, but can it really be that far off. 2 players from each 30 teams makes 60. How can a guy who is top 60 "suck?" Hell, top 120 or 150 don't suck. Maybe 120 to 180 are okay or barely above bad, but even they don't suck.

It can some, but I doubt 2 bad plays means 2 DRS lost, let alone an 8-10 drop. He was at +10 in 540 innings from 2023-2024. He's at -1 in more than double the innings, this year. If you prorate the '23-'24 numbers, he'd be at +20, meaning he dropped 21 DRS.

Even if you go by his fWAR (1.0) in 2024, he was ranked 210th in MLB. That is bottom 7th tier out of 9 players per team. He's still a starter in MLB. I get how you want better than a bottom 7/9ths player to have a winning team, but many teams win with starters worse than that. Combine 2024 and 2025 and his 3.9 fWAR ranks 107th. If you say there are 270 players counted as starters in MLB, he's better than the median guy at 3.4. That's the median! That's not "He sucks category" or even close!

Seems right, but probably not Skenes for another year or two. I think Ryan is about the best we can get via winter trade. Anthony and Tolle are not going to be in any suggested offer by me, but I'll listen on others. If I gave up Duran or Abreu plus Campbell, I think I might want somebody else added, but I might say yes. They probably want a pitcher or two. Keller is the guy PIT would trade, due to his salary and age. I'd be thrilled to get Ryan and Keller. Abreu, Clarke and Sandlin for Ryan. Campbell, Mullins & Yoshida (+$10M, making his cost $26M/2) for Keller (owed $55M/3)

Yes, one can slice and dice to make almost any point. I'm fine with .702 for a GG type CF with some baserunning value added. So, to me, I'd just count 3/27 to 7/18 at .793 for a proper sample breakdown. .793 in 345 PAs .491 in 133 PAs I am concerned that this is the second season he has slumped near the end of the season. Last year, he was at .477 over his final 95 PAs. I'm not trying to make him out to be a plus on offense. He's streaky- kinds like JBJ was. He K's too much and walks too little. He has poor plate discipline. I don't think anyone denies these facts. The facts are also that the league OPS has fallen, while his has improved. The norm is not about .720 and he is at .709. If he ends up ayt .690, I'll worry more about next year, but I'd still have him firmly pencilled in as my FT CF'er for all of 2026.

Not for a SS. Story has had over 500 chances, this year. 2 plays does not move him from a DRS or +10-15 to zero.

I'm assuming this is a hypothetica question based on our current roster and situation. For a GG type CF'er with baserunning skills? Maybe .650 to .675, but it depends on who else is an option to play CF and OF. Abreu is on the IL, but let's assume all are healthy and hitting about what they are, now. I would not bench a .600 Rafaela, so Yoshida can DH, instead of Duran/Anthony. This could be what the choice boils down to. If we still had Devers as our DH and 1B and 2B issues solved, and it came down to 3 OF slots and Duran, Anthony, Abreu and Rafaela to choose from, I'd platoon a .600 Rafaela with Duran or Abreu, but never play him over Anthony, unless he was over .850 (and Anthony would pay over Duran and Abreu). Vs RHPs, I would not start Rafaela over Duran or Abreu, unless he was over .775 or maybe more. I'd use him as a late inning defense for Duran. Rafaela has very close L-R splits, this year and career. (Career, he actually hits RHPs better.) The way Yoshida is hitting, I may never bench Rafaela, even if he hits .500 the rest of the season. If Yoshida gets back to his .790 norm, then maybe .600-.625? It's notan easy call.

Out of 17 players with 100+ PAs, 9 have a higher OPS+ than Rafaela (one is Devers) and 6 have worse. Even if your focus is 90-95% on offense, which is questionable, there are others to pick on, more often.

Nobody is saying he is a plus on offense. And again, you focus on recent numbers by a cherry-picked date that only is chosen to aid your point. You call Wong and DHam blackholes, but they have good to great OPS since the same date you picked for Rafaela. Please explain why the criteria changes so easily? Rafaela is at .773 since May 27th. It's a larger sample size, but select chosen recency matters more for him than DHam, Wong, Lowe and others, apparently.

We have-- more games won by this date since 2021. I think we all agree the roster looks way better than the one he was handed. If you don't want to bow, then tip your hat.

When 1 is cancelled, we all are!

One interesting fact about this 2025 team is just how much the depth has carried us in many cases. We saw some failures, like Toro, after a nice start and DHam, until recently, as well as Newcomb and a few others on the staff, but have a look-see: Narvaez was the back-up catcher to start the season: he is 7th in catcher fWAR at 2.6! Toro did okay at 1B for a couple weeks, then was really bad- Lowe seems to have righted the ship. KC was the opening day 2Bman. Mayer looked okay, but then got hurt. DHam has been awful, until recently. Mayer did well, when Bregman got hurt. Our DH's have not taken up the slack left by the Devers trade. Our OF depth has been off the charts (Anthony, namely.) Houck was our #2, Crawford maybe the #5, Dobbins the #10 or so, and Sandoval was supposed to be our 4/5 by August. Gio missed some time. We've done okay with SP'er dpeth, but traded away Priester. Our pen depth has been sketchy, but even if you take away Chapman & Whitlock, the rest of the pen has a better ERS than our starters, as a whole.

It's hard to know if Rafaela will continue improving on his K rate and BB rate. If he stays as he is, it will be hard for him to improve on a .710 OPS- not impossible, but hard. Consider this: of the top 15 batters on the Sox by PAs, 12 have a higher K% than Rafaela's 19.2%, but him striking out is apparently killing the team. (8 players are nearly 5% higher or more.) He does blow most away in his low BB%: 4.6 Rafaela 4.9 Toro (DFA'd) 5.3 Story 5.7 Romy 6.2 DHam (Yoshida is 4.4 and #16 in PAs) Last year, the gap was a lot wider: 2.6 Rafaela 5.6 Romy 5.7 Wong 6.1 Grissom 6.4 Yoshida

Solving the middle infield problems and depth issues would go a long way towards reaching that worthy goal. Easing the OF logjam could also force the need to not take Rafaela out of te OF, because the options to replace him are worse than the choices at 2B or SS.