moonslav59

Pitchers pitch him differently than at Fenway. I was against signing Ellsbury "for even half of what the Yanks signed him for". He was something like our 6th or 7th best OPS guy the year before the signing.

The players certainly are to blame, but ultimately the manager has to take some flack for all the mental blunders and mistakes. Even when winning, this team seems to make at least 2 mental mistakes per game.

Brentz has 6 HRs in the last 10 games (36 ABs). 27 HRs in last 87 games(319 ABs)

Brentz and Barfield with HRs tonight (Friday). This is getting unbelievable.

Maybe all the studies are wrong. Maybe I totally underestimated how much Papi's positive influence on just about every hitter returning from 2016, but I really felt it was reasonable to expect the combined productivity of 22-28 year old players to improve in 2017. Since even our older players were all 32 or under, I expected the remaining players to improve slightly. Add to that a full season from Beni, and I think it was very reasonable to at least expect equal production (as a whole) from everyone else not named Ortiz. (Note: 2016 LF OPS: .759/ Beni's 2017 OPS: .784) Nobody expected Moreland with more PAs by Young to replace Papi's production, but if the other 8 positions just did as well as 2016, we'd be 10-15 games up right now and on pace for 100 wins. I know, "if, if, IF!", but on paper, the 2017 plan looked sound. DD even left enough budget space (by trading Buch) to make some in-season moves, and the ones he made have looked pretty good, so far. Injuries happen to every team, but we lost our $31M starter. We lost our 5th starter (Wright). We lost our #2 RP'er (Thornburg) who was supposed to cover for our real #2 RP'er (Smith) until he came back. We even lost our most consistent RP'er from 2015-2016) for most of the season (Robbie Ross). Our Cy Young winner has pitched like a #5. Our #3 starter has been injured or rehabbing for a while (ERod), and yet despite all that has "gone wrong", we're still winning more than 2016's team at this point. Thank God (and DD) we got Chris freakin' Sale! I'm still very optimistic about this team. Devers and Nunez have added that missing spark. If just some of all these things that have gone wrong start to right themselves, watch out!

I don't care if you believe in a "window" or not, but just look at the next 2 year time period where we have just about every key player under team control, but we have no big bat at 1B or DH. Chances are we will have to "live with" HRam at one position. Most here think our biggest weakness or the thing that might "put us over the top" is to add a big bat- most likely at 1B or DH. I don't see how we'd be helping our offense by getting a big bat at 1B and then going from a top 5 offensive SS to a bottom tier one. We might end up gaining slightly on offense, and if we improve greatly on SS defense, our overall team might be better, but we will not be solving the problem most feel we have: offense. Like I said, I'd love to have a great defensive SS. I get my biggest thrill watching a great defensive play- not a grand slam. I've always been a huge supporter of defense up the middle. If I think the team can get better by trading Bogey, I'd be all for it. I just don't see how trading Bogey and then trying to make up for the loss on offense by then acquiring an even better 1Bman than we could have gotten without trading Bogey to more than make-up for the loss is a flawed plan. Improving defense if fine by me. I think we can win without a great offense. We're winning now with great pitching and fielding and slightly better than an average offense. I can't see moving Bogey to 3B and Devers to 1B. I can't see moving a weak powered Bogey to 1B and bringing up Lin or signing Cozart is a good plan. Could signing Moustakas and moving Devers to 1B or just signing Duda be enough, and would it be possible financially under our "internal" budget limit? I'm not sure these questions are easily answered by any of us.

I think it's easy to "stock" the SS position with a cheap plus defender, but we'd lose a lot on offense in an era where offense is exploding and the SS position is becoming a much better offensive position than when I first started following baseball. I actually don't think Bogey is "fine" on defense and never did. I thought I saw some growth on defense a couple years back, but it seems he's leveled off. Some numbers even show regression. I'd love to have a top defensive SS on this team. To me, it doesn't matter, if he can hit real well at all, but if he wasn't "black hole" I'd be very happy. Right now, I don't see that guy in our system. We went a long time before Bogey trying to find a SS who could give us stability for a long period. Bogey's okay on D, but he's been a pretty big plus on offense, when compared to other SSs. On an offense trying to adjust to the loss of Bogey, I'm not sure we are at the time to consider intentionally downgrading our offense at any position. In an off year, Bogey is still the 9th best offensive SS in MLB (fangraphs) and is tied for 8th in SS WAR. Last year, he was 6th in SS WAR and 4th in Offense at SS. He was 2nd in WAR in 2015 and was the best offesnive SS in MLB. I don't think Bogey is just incrementally better than the average SS in MLB. I hope his 1.5 year decline is not a thing to expect to continue, but it is worrisome, especially the no defensive growth part. 2015-2017 SS WAR (34 with 1000+ PAs) 14.0 Lindor 13.9 Seager 12.2 Correa 11.2 Crawford 11.2 Bogey 10.9 Simmons #10 Segura 7.3 #15 Semien5.1 #20 Flores 3.4 #25 Miller 2.7 #30 A Escobar 1.4 Bogey has been 4th in SS offense at 30.4, and then there is a big drop off to #5 Nunez (18.8). The 17th SS (mean) is Simmons at -4.4. That's a huge loss in comparative SS offense, if we were to trade Bogey. Now, some of these numbers are cumulative in nature, so here's some other SS data from 2015-2017 (34 SSs with 1000+ PAs) Bogey ranks... 3rd in OBP at .351 (the mean is .317.) 11th in SLG at .427 (just above the mean of .413) 5th in OPS at .778 (The mean is .728) 7th wRC+ at 107 (The mean is 97) FYI Bogey places at #17 in UZR/150 at -1.3 during the same time period. (41 player sample size: SSs with 1000+ innings) In short, I would not overpay to keep Bogey here like I would for Betts, Sale and JBJ, but i wouldn't look to trade him this winter just so we could afford a better 1Bman.

It should be our top priority with trying to lock up Sale the second priority.

HRam's OBP is still much better vs LHPs (.359) than RHPs (.332). I'm just glad Betts, Beni and Nunez are in the top 3 or 4.

I love seeing Betts up 2nd or 4th. I'm thinking Young is going to have a big game against his old team.

Nunez, Devers and Beni have carried us through this streak.

Actually, the Rays did a great job tying up Longoria early. They didn't do so well with Matt Moore, but they did lock him up early and wisely traded him just in time.

Of course, but we'd lose his offense within the "window". I'm not against the idea, but we are supposedly concentrating on improving the offense for the last 2 years of the window while staying within certain "internal" spending limits. Replacing Bogey with Lin/Marrero and then upgrading 1B probably leaves us even on offense.

We could, but trading Bogey will not save us a lot of money next year, so it wouldn't help us a whole lot financially. The cost savings would be much larger in Bogey's last arb year and/or by not re-signing him. We could just let him walk, get a comp pick, and used the money saved to help pay for Sale, Betts, Pom & JBJ.

I've always valued SS defense more than most, and I was one who supported the Bogey to 3B/Iggy at SS idea, so I agree that Bogey seems to be the most expendable out of our players who will be seeing their sharp arb raises coming up.

True, but I'm glad we signed him. His defense alone has made him a high plus for the team. He may decline quickly or start getting hurt even more often, but as of now, I'm glad he'e here.

Bottom line: Overall, Beni is doing better than the composite 2016 Sox LF'er, and much better than 2015's (HRam).

His contract will amount to a great deal for the Sox, even if he gives us .725 and plus D in 120+ games/year the rest of the way.

I agree- HRam will be a FT starter next year. 1B or DH is the only question. Nunez will be expensive and would likely keep us from getting a big bat at 1B. I'm not sold on Lin. I don't think we need power from our utility IF'er. We need a "real" 1Bman.

1) Even if Pedey gives us .725 ball the rest of the way with plus D, his home-town discount contract will have been worth it. 2) Betts is the best defensive OF'er in the world. I don't want him at 2B. 3) Moncada would suck on D no matter where we put him. 4) We have Chris Freakin' Sale!

Maybe, but to me, they pretty accurate.

I have one... YOU! LOL. Thanks. I went back and corrected it. 665>695 C +40 807>738 1B -69 825>773 2B -52 686>640 3B -46 784>720 SS -64 759>749 LF -10 851>790 CF -61 886>811 RF -75 1.045>794 DH -251 It looks like the catching position is the only everyday position I may come close to on my pre-season projections. I knew Leon would come back to earth, but so would Vaz, and losing Hanigan and Holaday's sub .500 OPS was hard not to be able to improve upon.

Thanks. I was curious about our AL Championship chancess: 30.1% Houston 28.0 % CLE 26.6% BOS 7.3 % NYY 2.3% TBR 1.7% SEA 1.3% KCR NL 37.0% LAD 23.3% Cub 22.8% WSH 7.6% AZ 4.5% StL 4.0% COL to win WS: 18.6 LAD 16.6 HOU 16.2 CLW 14.8 BOS 11.1% Cubs 10.3 WSH 3.3 NYY 2.8 AZ 1.8 StL 1.2 C OL 1.0 Rays

What page is that on? Just curious.

Moncada with the game winning hit as the guys we swept went on to sweep the Astros. We sweep the Rays, and they beat the Guardians tonight. The Jays beat the Yanks, too. As we have looked better and better, other AL top-contending teams have looked worse and worse.