moonslav59

It's no love fest for Porcello. This looks pretty scary, too, don't you think? Last 4 starts: IP ER 5.1 3 5.1 3 2.0 5 4.0 6 Total 16.2 IP 17 ER (9.00+ ERA) 24 H 7 BB Those were Fister's numbers. Should I claim you guys are on a Fister love fest? FYI, Porcello's last 4 starts: 22 IP 11 ERs (4.50 ERA) 21 H 9 BB Not great but better than Doug F's numbers. Plus, the guy did win the Cy Young last year. I think there's a better chance he somehow comes up with a gem than Fister.

Now is not the time to rag on anyone, but overall JF is not a part of the reason we won, except for how he handled the staff, which is no minor thing, I might add. It's my opinion just like it's your opinion. We had some tough injuries to overcome but not anything abnormal. 7 out of 7 of our top returning regular everyday players declined and you count this as a plus for JF? He got us to win despite "weak hitting". Like it couldn't possibly be any of his fault we hit so poorly and inconsistently. My "no fire" comment was made a while back. I have seen more fire the last month or longer. I still don't see as much enthusiasm as other teams or past winning Sox teams, but I clearly have said several times that "fire" is not needed to win a ring. I know, you weren't talking to me in your whole post, but I, for one, have not been critical of his every move. I was a big Tito fan until he lost control. I hardly ever criticized anything Tito did. I was the last to call for Bobby V's firing. I'm not the type of poster that habitually criticizes managerial decisions. I have my own line-up philosophy, but I've always been careful to say I don't claim to know more than any manager we've had. Heck, I even defended Grady Little for leaving Pedro in. I could be way off base, but I projected a 100 win team. Our bats were shockingly inconsistent and weak. Our fundamentals were off-the-charts awful. Our pitching and defense carried us. Aggressiveness helped. JF deserves credit for squeezing the most out of a pen I felt was out "weakest-not weak- link" going into the year. Our starters did well in the absence of Price and Wright, but Porcello bombed out badly. We clinched tonight. Let's be happy and enjoy the hard fight we won. Let's hope we keep on winning series after series and bring home a ring this fall.

I'm not happy with the choice. He's better than Fister. We may have to bring Price in early.

Holt only played because Pedey couldn't. It wasn't some swamee move by JF. That was Holt's best game all year. I've been really hard on him all year. I'm glad he has looked good recently. I've given up on Young (maybe the last one to do so). I'm not too high on davis right now, except as a PR'er (for Pedey, HRam, Moreland or Leon). That makes Holt a strong candidate to make the playoff roster as our 4th OF'er and depth man. I never thought I'd be saying that. I'm not going to say anything bad about JF on a night like tonight. The team won the division and the crap shoot begins soon. I'm happy I'll be at the first two playoff games in Houston. Go SOX!!!!

Pom is not really a hard thrower. They all look different enough to be the best 3 we can put out there. Fister is my 5th choice behind #4 Porcello.

I go with... 1. Sale 2. Pom (day off) 3. ERod 4. Porcello (up 2-1/ Sale (down 2-1) (day off) 5. Sale or Pom Fister is not even on my first series roster. My 7 man pen is... Kimbrel Price Smith Reed Kelly Barnes leaning Workman, but maybe Maddox or Scott

Our post season pen... Kimbrel Price Smith Reed Kelly Barnes one from: Workman/Maddox/Scott/Fister/Hembree/Abad Assuming we go with 11 pitchers (4 starters & 7 RP'ers). 4 starters: Sale, Pom, ERod & Porcello

The Astros hit righties as well as lefties, so we should go with out best. OPS vs LHPs: .821 vs RHPs: .827 Their RH's batters hit righties better: vs RHP as RHB: .851 vs LHP as RHB: .844 Is almost dead even, so I don't think we should change anything based on how well the Astros do vs lefties or righties.

The Yanks got closer than I expected, but I'm glad we can save Sale for game 1. Pom looks primed for game 2. Game 3 will be at home: Erod or Porcello? I'd go ERod. Maybe Price can give us 2-3 innings, if needed. Maybe by the World Seried, he can go 3-4 innings.

Interesting.

Yes. I was there for all of them.

Not only Price. We lost Wright. Thornburg & Ross. Others for shorter times. However, I wouldn't say this season had more injuries than the norm.

The addition of Price to our pen has turned ours into a top pen as well. (They had pretty good numbers before Price.) Plus, since the start of the year, we have added Workman, Reed and Smith as well.

We finished in last place... 5 times in row (8th out of 8 teams) 1926-1930 (Last in 7 our of 8 and 8 out of 10) --Carrigan was the manager for 3 straight --L Fohl for 2 straight

I'd much rather face the Astros than the Guardians. I like our pen with Price and Kimbrel as the anchors.

As a side note, this year Mookie Betts and Chris Sale are the only Red Sox players who have posted a higher fWAR than Seattle catcher Mike Zunino. Nobody projected that.

JF is the greatest manager in Sox history. No Sox manager has ever won 3 division titles. 2 in a row, even! Sign him to a lifetime contract.

The DH & 3B RBI argument may be flawed, but clearly the downturn by HRam added to the Moreland-Papi comp has to be viewed as a major factor in the offensive downturn.

Yet, we have a better record than last year.

Only Pedey, HRam and Young are on the wrong side of prime, and even they are just barely past peak prime. Age 32 and 33 usually does not show steep decline. I think injuries have been a factor with Pedey and HRam. We have one of the youngest Sox teams in a long time. If we look at prime as being between 27-32, HRam, Pedey and Young were all just 1 year post-prime when the season began. Moreland just turned 32. Nunez just turned 30. Holt turned 29 this year. The rest are 28 or younger. 28: Leon 27: JBJ & Marrero 26: none 25: Betts, Bogey, Swihart 24: Travis 23: Beni 20: Devers As you can see, the core five of this team (Betts, JBJ, Bogey, Beni & Devers) is actually pre-prime or at the very start of prime. Our catchers are far from post-prime. That makes 6 of the 8 positions looking young with 1B opening up this winter. Only 2B and DH will surely be post-prime next season. Young & Davis will be gone. HRam might have just one year left. Pedey could be transitioned to DH. Even Pedey at 34 and 35 is not like he's 39 to 40. He could still have an .825+ season or two left in him.

Yes, nobody expected Leon to repeat 2016, but we also lost two sub .500 catchers in Hanigan and Holiday, and most expected Vaz to improve on 2016, and he did. Overall, I think expecting about the same overall catching OPS was called for, and that's what we got. Yes, we should not have expected Pedey to repeat 2016, when he's been under .800 in his other 3 recent years. Yes, HRam has been inconsistent and playing injured for many recent years. Moreland has been the Moreland of old. While expecting HRam, Pedey or Moreland to do very well or great might not have been expected, I still feel the chances all 3 did not do as well as they could have done is slightly against the odds. Now, to take those odds and couple them with the fact that every young- up and coming- player has declined from 2016-- all at once-- is surprising at least and shocking at most. These are players on the upward curve or expected growth. Sure, there is the possibility that all had outlier seasons last year, and this year was a just a return to their norm. Yeah, maybe there is no simple explanation. Papi's departure and lack of his team leadership and positive affects on other players has to be part of the answer, but it is doubtful it is all of it. I disagree on you JBJ call. While he did have an unbelievably slow start to his career, he had gone over 900 PAs with an OPS over .830 right before the start of 2017. He's right at the start of his prime. He's down 100 points from his previous 900 PAs. He has not been "like this for years", unless you truly think he is more like the rookie JBJ than the 2015-2016 JBJ. Betts and Bogey, as you pointed out, should not have had years like this. Beni's sample size was too small last year to have any expectations of improvement. I've mentioned this before, but I think it is worth repeating: looking singularly at any returning Sox player, nothing looks shocking, except maybe Betts. One could expect that we might see decline from 3 or 4 of these 6 returning players: HRam, Pedey, Bogey, JBJ, Beni and Betts. It was highly improbable for all 6 to decline, and shocking to me anyways, how much they all declined. Last 3 years.... .717>.866>.749 HRam (-117/+32) .832>.835>.731 JBJ (-104/-101) .820>.897>.795 Betts (-102/-25) .797>.825>.760 Pedey (-65/-37) .776>.802>.745 Bogey (-57/-21) n/a>.835>.778 Beni (-57/ n/a) As you can see, all but HRam are down from their 2015 seasons as well. To me, this is shocking and unexplainable. The other positions: Catcher .646> .665> .695 (The only position with returning players that improved) 3B .693> .686> .676 (Pablo out- Devers in) DH .855> 1.045> .748 (No Papi- replaced by Moreland at 1B & HRam to DH) To me, the drop of by virtually everyone but Vaz is totally unexplainable and shocking by just how much many decline by. We're not talking 10-15 points. We're talking all 6 players going down by 57 or more points. 3 of the 6 by over 100!

The problem is that the teams ahead of us and in the playoffs have top 5 pitching, too.

HRam with the big hit...at the wrong time.

HRam had a chance to redeem himself. Nope!

My point was maybe we don't lose his last start, if we rested him. 2-0 is better than 2-1 or 1-2.