moonslav59

Of course, but it's kind of surprising Beni's OPS as a LF'er has been lower than last year's LF crew. 2017 LF crew .760 Beni (443 OPS as LF'er) .699 Young (131) .679 Holt (31) .397 Davis (13) 2016 .759 Holt (222) .779 Young (190) .856 Beni (102) .615 Brentz (58) .739 Swi (51) .200 LaMarre (5) .000 Castillo (3) 1.000 Shaw (1)

I think the DH comments were meant for the end of his contract or if his knee acts up. He'd certainly be our 3Bman from day 1. Devers would probably be fine at 1B.

Yes, I have noticed! It does look funny, especially with his HR trot.

Maybe not much, but that $11M a year has probably restricted spending a little bit, IMO.

I'm not against dumping him, if we can save $10M or so. BTW, I said (if healthy) "a significant chance" not "good chance". To me, 33% chance is significant and that might be worth a $10M gamble, assuming we could trade him and "save" $10M. HRam's career has been very up and down, almost year to year. He's been hurt many of his down years have been while playing hurt. Who expected a 150 point gain from 2015 to 2016 at age 31 and 32? I'm not expecting an improvement, but I do feel he has been playing hurt and could be better next year. HRam's OPS in recent years going backwards from this year: .759 (not horrible) .866 .717 (clearly playing hurt) .817 1.040 (half season due to injury) .759 .712 (missed half the season) .853 .954 (2009)

Preaching to the choir. Many of our shorter deals have done much better: Cody Ross, Adrian Beltre, early Vic and Naps. Many have flopped (Masterson, AJ P...) but the percent of success has clearly been better with short term deals. You'd think all the failure would be enough to deter future mistakes. Even the two "successes", Manny & Lackey, ended up being dumped, and had serious issues along the way. I counted 3 year deals, but they really aren't "long term". In the past, I have posted a list of all the biggest FA signings since the late 90's. Almost all of them were busts, big disappointments or mediocre at best- several right from day 1. Here's a look at just the largest Sox signings since Jose Offerman. 1999: Jose Offerman (4)- Total bust, except for maybe year 1. 2001: Manny (8)- Great signing. Even with the eventful ending, we ended up getting Jason Bay in trade. 2002: Johnny Damon (4): Great signing. 2003: Foulke (3): He had one great year and it helped us win our first long-awaited ring. 2005: Renteria (4): He was not anywhere near what we expected, and ended up essentially paying him $40M for one year when factoring in the trade. Matt Clement (3)- Injury surely played a role in this disappointment, but nevertheless, it was a let down. 2007: Dice-K (6)- Had a couple decent years, but was a bust afterfwards. Julio Lugo (4)- Total bust. JD Drew (5)- Much debate over the value of this signing. 2008: Lowell (Re-sign 3)- Did not end well. 2010: Lackey (5)- 2 bad/2 good/1 traded 2011: Crawford (7)- IMO, the worst Sox signing of all time. Beckett (Re-sign 4)- Big mistake. Lucky we could dump him. 2012: AGon (Re-sign 7)- Traded to LAD in order to dump CC & Beckett. 2013: Vic (3)- One great year 9ring) then kaput.. 2014: Pablo (5)- Easily one of the worst 2 signings in Sox history. HRam (4-5)- Not good. R Castillo (7)- Yuck! 2016: Price (7)- So far, so bad. Porcello (Re-sign 4)- Won a Cy Young, but jury still out. I might have missed a few signings.

Agreed, but waiting for Moustakas ticks one more year off the "window" clock.

As much as I hate to agree, I do.

I like the win-loss column. He has had to deal with some players struggling for lengths of time this year. I do think that when looking at the sheer magnitude of the declines in performance from last year, our win-loss record is good. The acquisition of Sale and fine pitching by Pom, of course, has a lot to do with it. That being said, isn't all those declines a mark against JF? Couldn't one claim he has failed to get the most out of his everyday players? The lack of fundamentals is one thing managers are usually held responsible for- right or wrong. I like what you wrote, but I do think Jf was a little slow adjusting the line-ups, but at least he eventually did. Although this is just one example, it it might not have made much of a difference anyways, to me, starting Holt in the one or two batting slots 8 times this year was sheer insanity. Many were after he had shown he was a sub .600 or even .500 hitter this year.

Bogey's gotten worse and worse on defense over the years. I'm not sure a manager could do anything about that, and maybe JF has tried. I'm not really holding JF responsible for 9 out 10 of our returning players doing worse or much worse than last year, but I suppose he might be partially to blame. To me, wins and losses do matter when evaluating a manager's skill, but it's not the only thing. I do think JF has, and I've given him credit for this, gotten the most out of the pen anyone could expect. I have no issues with how he handles the rotation or the staff as a whole. I rarely criticize his in-game decisions like many do, but to me, JF's ture value is that he's a great pitching coach trying to manage a whole team. He has not gotten the most out of his everyday players, he has not stressed the fundamentals of defense and base running- maybe because he doesn't even know them himself. After all, he barely knows the actual rules of the game. Yes, we lost Papi, but he was never known for defense or base running skills, yet we got worse in many areas of defense and running fundamentals after Papi left. I'm fine, if you don't think those negative aspects of JF's portfolio isn't enough to want him gone, but to me, you seem to not even think those issues exist, and if they do, it's not JF's fault in any way, because we are in first place. Just for argument's sake, do you think it's possible that a manager can turn a 95 to 100 win team into a 90 win team? If yes, do you think that manager should be brought back year after year just because the team keeps winning despite his negative influence? I realize it's hard to quantify "negative influence" and what the net value is for a manager other than wins and losses, but that doesn't mean he can't have a negative influence despite the team winning and winning- not that the Sox have been doing that every year under JF's watch.

Pedey will, too.

Yes, let's give credit to JF for what Beni, Betts and Bogey have done this year. (Note: all have done worse than last year at ages normally seeing improvement.)

Sox definitely got a 'surge' from adding Devers, Nunez and Reed at trade deadline. Having Devers for full year next year at 3B should equate to raising our 3B production out of near bottom in majors next year. To me, that's our best hope along with getting bounce back years from some of our players that declined this year. Something similar to what Beni I assume has done in LF. Weird thing is, our LF OPS (.733) is worse than last year's (.759) despite Beni going FT. (Beni is .757 as a LF'er this year.) I do think next year's LF OPS should be way better than .733. Add that to 3B and maybe improve at 1B, and that might be enough. Fully recovered Carson Smith should do at leat as well as Reed, if not better. Plus it'll be full year's production. Maybe Thornburg gives us aded depth in 2nd half of 2018. That's the big hope. Our pen did very well this year and could get much better without needing to spend anything. What's becoming clearer is as with starting pitching, a team needs 10 starters to fill 9 positions. Super sub is a must and it ain't Brock Holt. It will be tough to replace Nunez, unless it is Nunez. What to do with Fister? Do we offer him a two year, say $15M deal or just hope Wright returns 100% for 2018? Any starting pitching options in minors that did not make appearance in 2017? I'd like to have Nunez back, but not if his cost prohibits us from fixing the 1B problem. We need a big hitter next year, and it's not going to be an OF'er, unless we DH him (JD Martinez?). Will DD simply keep his fingers crossed and hope for Betts and Xanders' bats to return to 2016 level? (I think he'll settle for simple 'tweak' if win the whole thing, otherwise he'll make big splash.) We may try to do what TB did last winter and catch lightening in a bottle (Morrison's 2017 outlier season). One year fix or bridge to better FAs in 2019.

Maybe Lackey, even with the lost and putrid 2 years? I get what you're saying and agree that most large and long FAs are busts or serious under-performers. We all know, we will dip into the big FA signing again, so when I say, "sign Moustakas", I'm saying it in the context of that. Just like Price: I was against signing him but knew we were going to sign a big pitcher, so I agreed he was the best of the ones available.

Also, a weak Septemeber means we played a stronger earlier part of the season, so being this far in first place after playing the hardest part of the schedule should mean we could be better than the record indicates.

I doubt Machado plays anywhere but 3B, unless injuries force him to 1B. If we ever got Machado, Devers would go to 1B, IMO. That's two years away, though. I'm not happy with a one year fix at 1B, and I do not think Hosmer solves any of our major issues.

OK, we keep HRam and force a $22M payment...like how the Astors got DET to pay $16M. I thought Cincy and MIA wouldnt mind having HRam instead of just $22M.

Make that 11-5!

Watching the Rangers-Yankee game. Texas now up 9-5!

Mata moved from 16th to 5th on soxprospects.com (before this game). Once Devers graduates, he could move to #1 or 2.

Go Rangers!

No way. I wasn't counting HRam as a positive for the team we trade him to. He was meant as a "salary offset". With the salaries Votto and GS have and their ages as the contracts wind down, I think you are overvaluing their trade value. Beni (plus others) might be needed but not Betts and Beni.

Forcing Bobby V might have been the beginning of the beginning of the end.

Hopefully we won't be down 2-1 for game 4 of the playoffs, which should be ERod or Porcello's start.

Good thing Reed didn't step in it.