moonslav59

Several times, I have ragged on a player, only to see him go on to have a great game. I'm not superstitious at all, but I'm hopeful DF proves me terribly wrong (again).

Sometimes a change can create a spark or create a general sense that everyone has to "prove themselves" all over again for the new skipper to notice them, approve of them, or want to play them more. On a team with basically every position set with a FT starter, this means less. I do agree that a manager makes little impact, but I do feel that if a manager highly stresses the fundamentals of the game from the first day of spring training to the last out of the season, not only can an observable difference be made, but the attitude changes as well. We're not going to fire the team like we did in 2014. We are likely to add a couple key pieces (DH and corner IF'er), but I'd try to find a manager that can demand focus and perhaps spark us to do better than we expected, instead of worse. Terry did that in 2013. He also had us playing very well for just about his whole term, except at the very end, when control appeared to be lost.

They didn't even start ERod in game 3. That's what they think of him. Doug - FRAKIN'- Fister?!?!?!? Man-O-man!

"Grit" includes determination and working extra hard to get better at something. Of course, working harder, practicing longer and sticktoitiveness is going to make anyone better at anything they do. I think that has been proven. When people study harder and longer they generally do better. When you practice shooting foul shots more, you improve your percentage, and on and on...

As much as I felt Ben deserved a 5 year term to let his plan play out, I feel the same towards DD. Like you, I disagreed with emptying the farm to such a large extent, and I felt we'd have made the playoffs with ben at the helm the last two years. That is what some posters seem to only want- at least that's what I thought they wanted. Now that we are on the brink of being knocked out early and decisively, it seems just being competitive was not enough. I can see the argument that DD built this team for a 3-4 year window for rings- not just making the playoffs, and our post season performance has been a let down, but the guy deserves at least 4 years to play out. One could argue DD deserves less time than Ben, since his plan was for immediate results, while Ben's was for the longer haul, but not just 2 years.

$12.5M 2014 (was going to make $10M) 609 PAs .712 OPS/ 4.1 WAR $12.5M 2015 (had $11M option with $500K buyout) 425 PAs .797 OPS/ 2.6 WAR $13M 2016 698 PAs .825 OPS/ 5.4 WAR $15M 2017 463 PAs .760 OPS/ 1.9 WAR $16M 2018 $15M 2019 $13M 2020 $12M 2021 fangraphs value: 2014: $31.3M 2015: $20.7M 2016: $42.8M 2017: $15.4M Even though we probably agree these numbers are inflated, he still has clearly earned the money, so far, and then some.

And, still is.

$15M is not a whole lot of money even for an aging Pedey. He makes $12M his last year. By then, that may be the minimum pay. He's been worth ever penny and then some. The breakdowns hurt- no doubt, but I thought the extension was a steal (for us).

I'm not ready to start calling... Chris Freakin' Sale .... Freakin' Chris Sale

I'm not blaming JF for the Sale and Pom meltdowns. ERod and Porcello are both better than Fister, and have been over their last 5 starts as well.

Not even close.

A lot depends on how much Henry is willing to spend this winter with the luxury tax reset and all. If he allows DD to sign JD Martinez, Duda and Nunez. We could squeeze HRam out of his vesting option for 2019 and greatly improve our chances not just for 2018 but beyond as well-- assuming they don't flop. 1. Bogey SS 2. Betts RF 3. Beni LF 4. Martinez DH/1B 5. Duda-Nunez 1B/DH 6. Devers-Nunez 3B 7. Pedey-Nunez 2B 8. JBJ CF 9. Vaz C Bench: Leon, (Nunez), HRam, Hernandez SP: Sale, Price, Pom, ERod, Porcello, Wright RP: Kimbrel, Smith, Kelly, Barnes, Thornburg, Workman, Hembree AAA: Holt (?), Travis, Lin, Marrero, Barfield, Castillo, Mars Johnson, Velazquez, Beeks, Haley, Elias, Owens Maddox, Scott, Ross, Taylor, Martin, Buttrey, Cosart

Hopefully his shoulder(s) will improve. Maybe he can play some 1B. I think the idea might be to eat the money and platoon him at 1B/DH...maybe with Duda at 1B with JD Martinez brought in to DH. The problem is, what if JD becomes the next HRam. Is there another easier position to improve besides 1B then DH?

The "down year" will lessen the arb costs, and they can trade Bogey later for something very useful.

Yes, and clearly our best chance to improve could come from improving the worst of our positions. Devers offers us hope at 3B, although his defense has a long way to go. Luckily, he doesn't have to do all that great to improve on what we had there this year on D. 1B and DH offer our best area to improve. Those are usually the easiest positions to upgrade without spending too much, but this year's FA class is weak on 1Bman. I'd love to see us seriously upgrade both. We might also need to get someone who can cover for Pedey, if needed. I think we will not deal with significant pitching upgrades this winter.

Also need to realize that the Sox CAN pay all these players to stay if they want. $31M Price through '22 $22M HRam through '19 $21M Porcello through '19 $19M Pablo through '19 $14M Pedey through '21 $12M Castillo through '19 Assuming you don't mean Pablo, HRam, Porcello & Castillo, we have $45M in Price in Pedey for forever and a day. So, we extend... After 2018 (estimates) $30M+ Sale $18M+ Pomeranz $18M+ Kimbrel ??? J Kelly ??? R Ross After 2019 $18M+ Bogey ??? Thornburg ??? B Holt After 2020 $25M+ Betts $15M+ JBJ ??? Vazquez ??? Smith ??? Wright My head is spinning trying to add all this up! ??? Leon

I'm pre-ripping JF for starting Fister game 3. ERod is better. Even Porcello is better. This is not the last straw. That straw came months or years ago.

Well said. Hopefully, our defense can get even better next year, some of our players improve on offense and a couple key additions will be enough to put us over the top. (BTW, I have not given up on this year despite being an eye witness to the last two losses.

I still think HRam can get healthy for next year and possibly repeat 2016 or better. I'm not betting on it by any means. Unless we acquire 3 or more big bats, I don't see HRam taking a roster spot away from anyone who screams they deserve it. We will not get anything for HRam with that contract, we might as well see how he looks next year before doing something that drastic. I'd like to see us sign JD Martinez and a one-year 1Bman (Duda? Morrison? _____???)

This is one of my biggest beefs with the Sox (and Farrell). I get the philosophy of driving up pitch counts, but we have to be less predictable.

Yes, ultimately, runs scored is the proper measurement of overall offensive ranking. We actually finished 10th in runs scored. We finished 5th in runs allowed. That's not bad when you consider that our top 8 returning players by 2016 PAs declined- many by over 100 points in OPS and we lost Price, Wright, Smith and Ross for most of the season and Thornburg for all of it.

These 5 players will cost us this: 2018: $120M ($106M luxury) 2019: $120M ($106M luxury) or $98M ($84M) if HRam's option does not vest 2020: $64M ($45M) 2021: $46M ($45M) 2022: $32M ($31M)

He played in 12 different playoff series over 5 different seasons. He won a series MVP twice: 1993 NLCS and 2001 WS. He only had 4 series with an ERA above 2.69. three over 3.51 and 2 over 5.39. That's pretty darn amazing! 19 starts. 133 IP. 2.23 ERA 0.968 WHIP To me, he is one of the few players who meet the criteria of doing significantly better than his regular season level (the "rise to the occasion" factor"). His 133 IP might be a large enough sample size for some (or most) people, but I'm not in that group. Certainly, he had many "clutch performances", but I just don't feel we can prove or even come close to proving he consistently "rose to the occasion. To me, we should see it in his regular season numbers as well, and we don't. This is a much larger sample size, too. Career over all OPS against: .673 (an amazing number) and 8.6 K/9. Late & Close (1592 PAs): .702 OPS High Leverage (2163 PAs): .701 OPS While these numbers are very good, they do NOT show he "rose to the occasion". My criteria would be that a player must do significantly better than his career numbers in late & close/high leverage situations as well as playoff opportunities AND have large enough sample sizes. He must also be pretty darn consistently better, and I think we can say Schill was in the playoffs. I think Curt's regular season numbers are pretty close or above a significant sample size designation, and 133 IP in the playoffs are pretty high, but I just don't feel he's proven he's "clutch". I don't think anyone has, and to me, that strengthens my resolve that there is no such thing as a "clutch player" - just clutch moments and performances that happen more with some players than others just like regular non clutch moments and performances show.

Yes, and defense. Team WAR Rankings 1st in fielding 4th in pitching 10th in base running 22nd in batting 5th overall.

I've always thought I have been close to as realistic as any Sox fan can be. I know I have some "homer" in me, but I have recently been wondering, if I did over-value just about all our players this spring. I thought Chris Sale was going to lead us to the promise land. I wasn't aware of apparent end of season endurance issues with him. I'm still optimistic about this year, despite my down moment yesterday, and I'm hopeful next year will be even better as I believe Henry will open up his wallet to fix the missing clean-up hitter issue.