moonslav59

Hitch, I racked my brain, last winter, trying to find some team, someway, somehow to trade Yoshida, even while eating $10-13M a year or by taking back some big contract- some salary dump types and some just high salaried good players. The closest I think I got was something like Yoshida, Casas and a pitcher for Luis Castillo plus dumps like Haniger and or Garver. Another was Yoshida and ____ for Arenado and or Contreras. I think we may need to eat $14-16M a year of his $18M, so it hardly seems worth it, unless we need the roster slot. Yoshida does have options, if Brez would dare to park him in AAA as insurance at DH. I know, DH depth seems like a waste of a roster spot, but that highlights why he has so little value to other teams, too. On Casas, I think the guy is a career .800+ batter, and he's cheap, so I don't trade him. His trade value is not worth his potential value, and I don't trust Lowe to hold the 1B job. Lowe also is MLB's worst batter vs LHPs, so he'll be platooning with Romy, anyway. (Campbell could play 1B v L and maybe DH or play OF v R, if we trade an OF'er or two.) I can't believe I'm saying this, but I think trading Campbell makes a lot of sense. Jh Garcia might be ahead of him for the RHB OF slot. Lowe & Romy are ahead at 1B, and we even tried Jh Garcia at 1B w Woo, the other day. 2B has Mayer and Romy ahead of Campbell, and as long as DHam is on the roster, Cora may have him ahead of Campbell there, too. (They did call him up over KC, just recently, so Brez seems to feel the same as Cora on 2B choices.) Before long, Arias may face Story to 2B (or Mayer.) In short, I think we trade Duran, Campbell, DHam or Grissom, maybe Yoshida (not Casas) and some of our pitching (Fitts, Criswell, Harrison, Hicks, or even prospects not named Tolle and maybe Valera) for a solid #2 pitcher and maybe a 2Bman and or solid RP'er. This would lessen the amount we need to spend on a FA SP'er, and it would allow us to bring back Bregman and Chapman plus a decent RP'er or 2Bman- maybe.

We needed someone to take over the Devers Yankee Killer role. I think we found him.

I kinda like toast.

I hope they listen to Cora, and I think Brez has good baseball instincts, too. I like the combo, and may be in a minority with that position. It seems several posters think both are "idiots" or worse. On the analytics and platoons, one could argue Cora does not platoon enough, as Duran has been pretty poor vs LHPs just about every season. Who is against batting Romy and Ref vs LHPs? Please, speak up! 1.017 Romy 116 PAs .989 Bregman 99 .905 Refsnyder 112 .773 Narvaez 110 .754 Story 136 .751 Anthony 83 .721 Abreu 64 (Maybe time to see if he can play FT) .704 Rafaela (Pretty even vs L & R) .675 Campbell 74 .570 Duran 181 (most PAs vs LHPs: why?) .398 Wong 32 vs RHPs .897 Bregman .892 Anthony .881 Duran .828 Abreu .739 Mayer .728 Story .724 Narvaez .718 Rafaela .676 Romy (better than Toro) .664 Toro .658 Campbell .650 Yoshida (Why is he still our DH?) .556 DHam (an equal opportunity slumper) .502 Wong

Hell, the fact that he does not have to face a righty is already cutting him some slack to start his career.

The Yankees do have the best offense in MLB, according to multiple metrics and traditional stat categories. They blow all other teams away on the offense component of WAR for everyday players: 92.2 NYY 77.2 LAD 71.0 TOR (BOS is 11th at 29.3, which is aided by their +6,2 baserunning) wRC+ 116 NYY 113 LAD & TOR 111 NYM & AZ (Sox are 12th at 104) They have 19 more homers than LAD and are 66 ahead of the #15 team. (Sox are 12th.) Their OPS is fueled more by SLG (1st) than OBP (4th). OPS: .779 NYY .767 LAD & AZ .764 TOR .752 BOS You'd expect them to lead the majors in runs scored, but they don't. 668 LAD 663 MIL 659 NYY 651 BOS (Thanks, in part, to yesterday's 12-1 win.) I will say this: their numbers on offense are greatly enhanced by just 2-3 players, who most have injury issues and or are getting older. Judge is a beast and has missed some time, this year. He still leads the team in PAs and OPS. Stanton is 10th in PAs on the Yanks and is also over 1.000 for his OPS. Their offense is somewhat unbalanced. I think this is why they do not lead the league in runs. Here are the Yankee players listed in order of most PAs with their OPS: 1.114 Judge 529 PAs .675 Volpe 509 (WOW! 2nd in PAs) .817 Bellinger 508 (He and Rice are the only others over .800.) .760 Goldschmidt 454 .796 Grisham 447 (Certainly been a plus on offense) .821 Rice 414 .799 Chisholm 402 (almost over .800) .713 Dominguez 397 .685 A Wells 363 1.009 Stanton 177 .452 Peraza 170 (almost as many PAs as Stanton) .674 LeMahieu and .631 O Cabrera To be fair, the Yanks do have 6 batters over .760 and 400 PAs. The Sox have just 3 players over 400 PAs and one over .760 (Duran at .779,) but that highlights the more balanced offense, we have and maybe why we are so close to the Yanks in runs scored. Here is our list: .779 Duran 569 PAs .735 Story 521 (seeing him at #2 in PAs is great!) .714 Rafaela 466 (struggling at the plate, of late.) .811 Abreu 395 (due to platoon) .923 Bregman 362 (due to injury) .739 Narvaez (maybe snapped out of funk) .659 Toro 284 (DFA) .664 Campbell 263 (may not play for big club) .846 Anthony 262 (should rise in PA rankings) .838 Romy 240 (playing more and more) .827 Refsnyder 157 (on IL & platoon only) .545 DHam 153, .481 Wong 147 & .643 Yoshida 103 (Lowe is at 1.159 in just 18 PAs) We have 8 players with 150+ PAs and above .735. The Yanks have 7. (Pretty close.)

Those numbers included Saturday's game.

He has 50 IP. WAR is helped by 70-80 IP for RP'ers.

No problem. We've had some great closers in the Henry era.

DET beat KCR to add another game to the WC lead. CLE is getting drilled 10-0, and BAL had tied up HOU 7-7 in the 6th. I'm hoping we can pass HOU, as I see SEA as the likely ALW winner, this year.

POR won 8-2, as they try to reach .500 (57-59.) Mullins never gets much cred. He's got a 2.30 ERA and pitched okay, today. Cooper Adames pitched 1 hit shutout ball in 3 relief innings (0.55 ERA.) Liendo & Castro each had 2 hits. SAL won game one 2-0 as Gartrell and Klinader let up only 5 hits and 3BB over 7 IP (8Ks.) Drohan got drilled w GRE, as they are on their way to a loss. YRod, Martin & Mussett with 2 hits, each.

Read somewhere the Sox are considering adding Tolle to the 40 and calling him up.

TOR scored 1 in the 10th, 11th and 12th to squeak by MIA 7-6. DET is up 3-2 on KCR in the 7th. HOU is up 5-2 on BAL early on. TEX is up 3-0 on CLE in the 3rd. We gained on NYY, but we may not on the others.

Sox players on the 60 Day IL and 2026: Houck will miss all of 2026. Sandoval, Crawford & Dobbins should be ready on or near opening day. Guerrero should be ready. (Slaten should pitch this year.) Casas should be ready. Mayer is not on the 60, and he should be ready by opening day.

WOO won. Uberstine pitched okay. Moran & Kelly- no so much. Campbell, Hickey & Sogard had 2 hits, each. Zavala homered.

How much will JH allow Brez to spend, this winter? We just dumped the Devers deal and are losing the $21M Buehler deal and maybe $18M for Giolito, Add $12M for Chapman and a few $million here and there, and one would think it should be "spending time." Extensions given to Crochet and some kids will kick in, and some arbs might add some cost, but what will it be, JH? The Bregman decision is the key. What we do with Chapman & the closer role is right up there, too. Here is a quick look at the 2026 Lux Tax Budget: 28.3 Crochet 23.3 Story 19.3 Giolito (140 IP trigger option) 18.0 Yoshida 16.3 Anthony ~11.0 N Lowe arb 10.3 Hicks 9.2 Bello 9.1 Sandoval 8,0 Duran (option) 7.5 Campbell 6.2 Rafaela 4.7 Whitlock ~4.0 Houck arb ~3.3 Crawford arb ~5.0 Wong+ Bernardino+ Casas + Romy arbs $185M +$6M others and pree-arb pool= $191M +$18M player benefits $209M before any additions. First Tax line is $244M. That leaves $35M AAV for Bregman & Chapman, so it looks like we need to go up to the second line just to keep those two ($55M). If we let Lowe walk, we'd have $45M to $65M to spend. If we can somehow dump some of Yoshida or Hicks' money, maybe we can pull it off.

He might make $10-12M in arb. That could tighten up what we can do at other positions, but it seems worth it.

Not many teams can match our top 3 SP'ers and top 2 RP'ers: 2.38 Crochet 3.07 Bello 3.72 Giolito 1.08 Chapman 2.72 Whitlock

Because Ref and Abreu are on the IL and we needed a big RHB. Lowe is MLB's worst batter vs lefties. Fried had been struggling for quite a few starts. It's hard to project he'd be back in form.

Story hardly played, but a close call. OPS improvements: 210 Bichette (330 more PAs) 165 Bregman (180 less PAs) same Story (410 more PAs)

August OPS: 1.158 Lowe .967 DHam .919 Bregman .879 Roman .872 Story .832 Abreu (IL) .698 Romy .690 Ref (IL) .687 Duran .658 Yoshida .634 Narvaez .613 Wong .517 Rafaela

Had I said Story would be 7th in the AL in RBI on August 23rd, back in March, April and May, I'd be called crazy. Nice turn-around Trevor!

Sox are now 4.5 from TOR, who I feel is due for a tough stretch, soon. Sox up 1.5 on NYY & SEA up 4.5 on the WC outsider KCR & 5.5 on CLE. The Sox are 0.5 GB the 8th best record in MLB (HOU) and 3rd best in the AL.

Sweetness!

and PR'er. That's more value than Toro gave us. Maybe he can heat up, like he did for a long stretch in the summer of '24.