moonslav59

Those are basically my only significant beefs with JF: 1) Too little "fire and desire" 2) Severe lack of fundamentals

It hurt us- not Papi, and we did play Papi at 1B at times, but then we lost Napoli' bat, forced AGon to play RF (yuck!), and benched other fine hitters before them. It's not a major concern, but getting a 1Bman to be our clean-up hitter works better in NL parks.

The Guardians had an .865 DH in Santana last year (.771 in the WS.)

The Guardians won again... broken record. 11-0. Wow! Look at these OPS numbers for their top 10 PA players: .927 Ramirez .905 Chisenhall .875 Encarnacion .860 Jackson .848 Santana .836 Lindor .802 Brantley (.805 Bruce w CLE/ .835 overall) .697 Gomes .695 Kipnis .692 Zimmer While the Sox only have 1 guy below .700 (Leon) out of their top 10 by PAs, we also have nobody over .791. .791 Pedey .788 Beni .777 Betts .764 Moreland .757 HRam .755 JBJ .742 Vaz .722 Bogey .715 Young .634 Leon #11 Nunez .885 (171 PAs w BOS/ .798 overall) #13 Devers .873 (164 PAs)

It shouldn't be all about wins and losses, but I think that's what Max looks at.

We'd get him to DH- not play 1B or OF, but when we're in an NL park, he would not sit every game. That's why I said, we'd have to sit an OF'er (Beni, JBJ, Betts or JD).

Depends on which Hosmer shows up. I do think he's an upgrade from Moreland, but he's really not a 4-5 slot hitter. Hosmer since his rookie year (all 547+ PAs) OPS HR .799 19 .663 14 .801 17 .716 0 .822 18 .761 25 .910 24 (so far) If he hits .910, which certainly could be an outlier, he'd be more than a slight upgrade from Moreland. If he hits .668, .716, or even .761, then no, he wouldn't be that helpful. If we're going by just 2017 numbers, then we might as well just take a flyer on Morrison (.884 36), Duda (.874 29) or Alonso (.858 25) . They might take one year deals and cost much less than Hosmer. Heck, Reynolds has 29 HRs (.858). To me, I want a better gamble than these guys.

He was called up to play 3B in 2013 after just 10 games at third in the minors. His .684 OPS was pretty decent considering the enormous pressure he was under while trying to learn a new position in the midst of a WS run. He went 8 for 27 in the playoffs with 6 BBs. In 2014, he started out as our SS, but then we brought Drew back and he shifted back to 3B. He was at .816 right before starting to play 3B. He was at .815 9 days later, but then he started declining. He dipped to .627 before finishing at .660. It should be noted that Bogey went back to playing SS starting Aug 1. He was at .682 then. As I said, he ended at .660. 2014: .724 as SS .517 as 3Bman 2013: .815 SS .511 3B (but did well in WS) Career: .763 SS .516 3B Yeah, I'd say playing 3B could be considered an influence on his poor career second half numbers.

We've made some great and spectacular plays. We have much better physical skills than most Sox teams I can remember. Even our leaders in bonehead plays have made some very good plays (Beni-HRam). Most players can and do stay focused for just about every second they need to be focused. It's those few breakdowns that lead to mental blunders. I look at our very good to great defenders, and I wonder how highly we'd be ranked with just the average amount of blunders made. (Remember, many blunders are not even labelled errors.)

I agree there are reasons why not all related to JF. Beni has made a lot of bonehead plays (running & fielding) and he's very young. JF has had very little time to work with him. I'm not sure why HRam seems to be making more blunders than the last two. Our 3B coach has made some mistakes. My point was that at least I have tried to separate aggressiveness and even a little over aggressiveness from categorizing them as bone-headed. Maybe not everyone here has done that or even tried to do so. To me, very few plays are borderline boneheaded- over aggressive. Even if you are thrown out by 15-20 feet, maybe taking a chance was called for. HRam's not the only guy running to 3B on a ball hit in front of him. He's not the only guy running the bases with his head down right into an occupied base. He's not the only one forgetting how many outs there are when running or fielding. There's so many screw-ups, I can't even remember all the different ways we've found to mess up- mentally.

I realize with budget constraints you have to do what you have to do, but I've always hated trying to build up the rotation from the bottom by searching to upgrade your 4 or 5 slot guy. I hated the Masterson & Dempster signings. Also, neither was all that cheap. I know it's easier said than done, and we've failed a few times trying to rebuild from the top, but that has always been my preferred method. Pedro Schilling Beckett Dice-K Lackey Porcello (more like a 3 paid like a 2) Price Sale

I said "much" power. Maybe my later statement about 2016 was a bit of hyperbole. I suppose 21 HRs sandwiched around 7 and 8 could be viewed as some power, but a .152 ISO is not someone you think of as "power hitter" or someone suited for the 3-5 slots on a competitive team. There's no doubt in my mind he was better suited for the 1-2 slot than the 3 slot- just as Betts is better suited for the 2-5 slots than #1. At least JF's choices at 4 and 5 (HRam and Moreland) were much more difficult, in that we really had nobody much better, except MAYBE JBJ, when he was hot or Devers/Nunez now.

By any standard, we had better choices than Bogey as our 3-5 hitters and not many better choices than Bogey as our 1-2 hitter.

Agree 100%. I love aggressive base running. It is NOT stupid or bone-headed. That being said, I've never seen so much boneheadedness on the paths and field than this year.

Okay, he has one and only one clue, but he's that one clue from being totally clueless.

If you look back to my posts in April and May, my main reason for moving Bogey from 3 to 1 or 2 was because of his high OBP. The low SLG was secondary, but still very important. Once he started slumping (injured) , 1-2-3-4-5 and maybe even 6 should have been off limits. I get that not many Sox players have shown a lot of power, but that's no excuse to put your high OBP-lowest SLG guy up 3rd instead of 1 or 2 for the first 3 months of the year..

I stand by my statement. He's never shown much power. His 2016 .446 SLG and .152 ISO do not show power at all, let alone "much" power. It took JF 3 months to see what was going on....and not just with Bogey either.

Yeah, 3 is probably his next stop.

This was one area I felt the Sox would struggle with going forward, and one reason I feel there will be a "cliff" in 3-4 years. After these signings and word that the Sox are "in" on that two-way player from Korea is giving me reason to have hope I'll be wrong.

No.

Ahem, Bogey was hot early and should have batted 1 or 2 then. He's never showed much power, and is our worst power hitter out of anyone in consideration for the 3-6 slots, unless you count Pedey. ISO .215 Nunez (JF has him leading off now) .213 Devers (JF rarely bats him higher than 6th) .188 HRam .184 Moreland .174 Betts (had him leading off a lot) .165 JBJ (loves to bat him 8th or 9th) .158 Beni .155 Young (yup, better than Bogey) .128 Bogey (a horrible ISO number for anyone batting 3-6!) .126 Leon .114 Vaz .106 Pedey .104 Marrero SLG Bogey ranks 10th at .398 with only Young, Leon and Marrero below him. The only reason Bogey's OPS is half way decent is because of his OBP, especially early in the year. 1st half OBP .383 Pedey .363 JBJ .359 Bogey .357 Beni .351 Betts 5 guys were better or within .002 of Bogey's SLG first half: .490 JBJ (batted 8/9 almost the whole time) .490 Betts .447 Bogey .446 Beni .445 Moreland .445 HRam (All 5 had better ISO in the first half- most by over 40 points.)

Philosophically, I don't believe "protection" is a significant factor in any circumstance. I provided the 2013 to 2014 numbers to ask those who feel it is a significant to explain why it can happen with Papi of without Papi. Plus, I've never heard any argument that "protection" is extended to all 8 other hitters in a line-up. I get the team spirit and team leadership aspect of the game and Papi's influence extending beyond line-up protection, but again, this would not explain 2014's numbers' drop.

I like Martinez most as a clean-up hitter, but it creates 2 big problems: 1. HRam is forced to play 1B, or we add a 1Bman & bench our current HR hitter to add JD. 2. When we play in NL parks, one of our 4 OF'er has to sit.

Then expect the same anemic offense next year.

lol!!!