moonslav59

That's how I view it as well. I do think Vaz is very close on D with Leon. I do not think Vaz is this good offensively. He's likely to "come down to earth" at some point. They both are strong defensively and are .650 to .700 type hitters.

Vaz's home-away splits are massive. I'm not sure I've ever seen splits so wide: .984 Home (Best on the Sox -out of anyone with 65+ PAs) .482 Away (Worst on the Sox -out of anyone with 10+ PAs) A 502 point split differential might be nearing a record among players with 100+ PAs home and away.

Fangraphs has it much differently: 0.9 Vaz 0.3 Leon Defense 6.5 Leon 4.9 Vaz Offense -4.8 Vaz -11.5 Leon

I was certain Leon would not even come close to repeating 2016, but what many failed to realize was that the rest of last year's catcher offense was so putrid, that it was hard to imagine Vaz and Leon not improving on those PAs enough to more than offset the expected decline in Leon's 2016 PAs. I projected as light increase in catcher OPS this year based on expecting a vast imporvement on Hanigan, Holaday and Vaz's 2016 numbers. 2016 Catcher OPS: .665 .840 (271 PAs) Leon .584 (169) Vaz .449 (111) Hanigan .454 (34) Holaday .669 (23) Swihart As you can see, Leon's PAs only accounted for under 44% of the team's catcher OPS. As for my projections, I expected Leon to be very close to where he is now, and for Vaz to be between .650 and .700 not sub .600. It's also been great that we've only needed 2 catcher this year. 2017 Catcher OPS: .704 in 473 PAs .725 Vaz (250 PAs) .680 Leon (223 PAs) Our catchers currently rank T16th in catcher WAR at 1.2 with StL 6th in catcher D (+11.4). 17th in catcher ) (-16.3)

Young's been doing well this month. I don't think now is the time to match Vaz with Sale, but before the end of the year, I'd do it, just in case Leon gets hurt right before the playoffs. Let Vaz-Sale build to a comfort level, if we can afford to risk it.

. Maybe. Maybe not. We might have just not signed Moreland and planned on Shaw at 1B (at least vs lefties), or seen him end up there. 3B: Pablito & Co. 1B: HRam vs R/ Shaw vs L DH: HRam vs L/ Young vs R But, certainly the Devers call-up might have been delayed.

Top OPS players on Sox (including two- team players) 1.119 Devers .805 Beni .799 Nunez .792 Betts .767 HRam .756 Moreland .754 JBJ .742 Young .740 Bogey .725 Vaz Interesting notes: None of our top 3 hitters were on the ML team on August 1st, 2016. None of our main 10 hitters are below .725. Five of the ten hitters fall within a .027 range (.740 to .767)

Before next year. Hembree is out of options, and unless we have early pen injury issues, he should not be ahead of Wright and Ross.

I'd trade Price or HRam for AGon, but the Dodgers wouldn't.

It's a joke- just like the original suggested deal- though one may have been unintended.

Yes, indeed! I heard we're in great need of a power bat up 4th. Just sayin'.

Cut him open, Get it over with. Hope for July 2019.

If Devers can handle this pressure, then moving him to clean-up would be like a walk in the park.

I have a new nickname for "Pommy": Granite. Turns batters to stone! Get it? Pommy-granite!

53 pitches in 3 innings.

LMAO! Honestly, Noe is the very best ...player we've DFA'd this year.

Have I ever said how very glad I am we have... Rafael Freakin' Devers!

Deja-vu in reverse: Price, HRam & Castillo for ... (drum roll.....) Adrian Gonzalez ($21.5M for 2018 remaining)

I'm not sure he's "legit" either. MLB 31 IP 1.57 WHIP 4.99 ERA 9.4 K/9 AAA 135 IP 1.16 WHIP (Good but not great) 2.60 ERA 9.9 K/9 He's had a nice strike out rate, and may make it in the bigs, but I'm not s0 sure.

Assuming no trades, here are the possible contenders for pen slots for the 2018 Sox (in rough order of chances at winning a slot opening day): Kimbrel C Smith (2 options) Thornburg (assuming healthy/1 option) Kelly (can refuse minor league assignment) Barnes (2 options) Workman (2 options) Hembree (out of options) S Wright (if healthy & not a starter/out of options) All below have options remaining: R Ross R Scott B Johnson (SP) R Elias (SP) A Maddox B Taylor H Velazquez (SP) Jalen Beeks (SP) Justin Haley (SP) K Martin C Shepherd J Cosart T Lakins T Buttrey B Poyner H Owens (SP) T Ball (SP)

If he needs it, go ahead and get it over with quickly and jump the return date up.

I think it you look back at the history of the playoffs, since the WC was started, and I haven't looked, teams "near .500 who are still "in it" at the end of August are sometimes more in a divisional race than a WC race. For example, the Pirates are 5.5 back of the Cubs and have a record of 58-63. They are 9 back in the wild card. However, the Royals and Twins are hanging around the .500 mark and are 6 games or less behind the Guardians for the Central Division play off berth but only a game behind the Angels for the last WC berth.

I am convinced Ben was going to trade some of those prospects- probably several of the ones DD traded away. There's no way any one knows whether the team "identified" those they were going to trade and keep. I'm sure every organization has a priority of who they'd prefer to keep, and it may differ from one GM to the next or between Ben and a GM looking to make a trade. On Henry vs DD's "commitment, you are probably right, but I'm sure DD's philosophy and input helps steer Henry in a significant way, even if it's Henry steering DD in a more influential way.

I can understand if you disagree, but really? You can't even "understand" why someone would give at least partial credit to Ben for giving DD the pieces needed to trade for Kimbrel and Sale? Manuel Margot - Ben signed him as an Int'l FA for just $800K Javier Guerra- Ben signed him as an Int'l FA for $250K Carlos Asuaje- Ben drafted him in the 11h round 2013 Logan Allen- Ben drafted him in the 8th round 2015 Yoan Moncada- Ben signed him as an Int'l FA for $31.5M Michael Kopech- Ben drafted him in the 1st round 2014 Luis Basabe- Ben signed him as an Int'l FA for $450K Victor Diaz- Ben signed him as an Int'l FA If DD had drafted or signed these guys AND then traded him, I'd give him 100% of the credit. If Thornburg sucks and Travis Shaw and Dubon go on to have great careers, I'll blame DD 100%. I won't blame Ben. If Shaw and Dubon did horribly and Thornburg did great, I'd give DD almost all of the credit for dumping over-rated prospects for something useful. It's the nature of GM evaluation.

Ben quickly identified Betts, Bogey and JBj as keepers, aggressively promoted them, and watched them thrive- all while many fans and posters wanted us to trade them for "premium quality stuff" like Cole Hamels & Ryan Howard. Nobody here advocated keeping all our kids and never making legitimate upgrading deals. Some are fine with all the deals made, but realize we sacrificed some of the extended future by making all those deals in a short period of time. Some love the deals and think there's nothing to worry about concerning the future or that it is futile to worry. Some think it's fine to try and put a winning team out there this year but to try and balance that commitment with an equal commitment towards 2020 and beyond- or at least close to equal. Some might be in between or somewhere outside the categories I mentioned.