moonslav59

He was very hot with SF before the trade (.998 in July and .948 in June). He started slow, so his overall SFG OPS was just .752 OPS. Ride the wave!

I guessed Holt, but what's to "decide" there.

I'm willing to ride the Nunez wagon for as long as possible, but let's not get carried away. I agree that Nunez and Devers should bat in the top 5 slots until (or if they ever) they slow down. Beni is hot. Betts needs to stay top 5 no matter what. It's hard to judge Pedey now, but he was doing great before the DL.

Heard our old friend Daniel Nava is on the trading block. He's back to raking RHPs: .926 OPS in 142 PAs vs righties. (As always, he sucks vs lefties --.564 in 56 PAs.)

Guardians acquire Jay Bruce for for single A LHP'er Ryder Ryan (4.79 ERA).

Moving Betts to the 3/4 slot adds another element.

You forgot JBJ and Betts. Last 14 days (before tonight) .496 HRam(.680 in last 28 days) .546 JBJ (.532 in last 28 days) .612 Betts (.662 in last 28 days) .639 Holt (.526 in last 28) .658 Bogey (.509 in last 28 days) Moreland has actually heated up: .968 in last 14 days

Current OPS leaders on the Sox (players 2 team OPS listed) 200+ PAs unless listed: .949 Devers (53 PAs) .819 Nunez .801 Betts .784 Beni .784 Pedey .775 Travis (50 PAs) .767 HRam .760 JBJ .760 Young .748 Moreland .743 Bogey .739 Lin (59 PAs) .701 Vaz .682 Leon .628 Hernandez (60 PAs) .622 Pablito (108 PAs) .576 Marrero (166 PAs) .558 Rutledge (118 PAs) .523 Holt (75 PAs)

We were going to get the 7th, 10th,14th and 17th off (3 days in 8 days and 4 in 11 days), but we have the Guardians make-up game on the 14th. Very strange scheduling. We also had the 2nd off (5 days off in 16 days scheduled). Starting Friday: 3 @ NYY 1 vs CLE 2 vs StL day off 3 vs NYY 4 @ CLE Then, a week later we're at NYY for 4 more.

The new limit is $197M (up 8M), so add $19.9M and we're at just under $216M. We lose $6.5M Young $5.5M Moreland $2M Abad $14M Total That's about $30M from 2017 to 2018 before counting raises. I know the arb raises and option upticks will eat a lot of space, but I think we'll have enough for one big signing. The problem is, I don't think we'll want to sign anyone for more than a year or two, so we may not get who we want or need.

Keep the wins coming!

One of the best players in MLB today is Altuve. Some teams dismissed him out of hand due to his size.

I usually don't even visit the game threads due to too much game decision bashing. (I also watch games on tape delay most of the time.) I agree on in-game decisions and JF, but even then, I never get a sense that he out thinks the opponent's manager. My issues are not about in game choices. It's with preparation, motivation and slow adjustments like waiting to move slumping players out of key batting order slots. I know many of these decisions do not amount to much in terms of runs created, but I'd like to get a sense that our manager is doing his best to maximize our chances of winning- not necessarily game by game, but over the full season. I've been a little more encouraged by the recent line-up changes, so maybe tigers can change their stripes overnight. I'm trying to optimistic, but the continual mental mistakes are killing me! Even the old Sox of the 70's to 90's weren't this bad on fundamentals, and they were pretty bad.

Agreed, but not in an obnoxious way...like smashing water coolers when things go wrong. To think some questioned his attitude and clubhouse affect!

It seemed to work great for the Sox pitchers after Wake. (I wish I could reproduce the study I made years ago on games after Wake vs the same opponents.)

Agree, and Vaz has been great with other pitchers (like Pom). Looking at the numbers below, it's obvious we are going with a near total pitcher-caddy system. I've always been a huge believer in how much a catcher influences a pitcher's success or not. The old CERA arguments got out of hand as many used the numbers inappropriately. CERA should not be used to compare catcher across the league or from different teams and different years. That being said, here are the Sox CERA numbers: (Note: some small sample sizes here due to the personal caddy nature of our catcher usage.) CERA (IP) Leon vs Vaz 2.19 (156)/ 13.50 (5.1) with Sale [Note: 3.02 w Flowers (552), 2.51 w AJP (226), 3.53 Avila (112)]P 4.59(139)/ 7.11 (6.1) with Porcello [Career: 4.09 (273) Leon, 4.55 (113 Swihart), 3.86 (100) Vaz, 4.17 Avila (578), 4.32 (296) Laird, 5.38 (82) Holaday] 13.50 (4)/ 3.01 (117) with Pomeranz [Career: 3.01 (117) Vaz, 7.12 Leon (24), 3.32 (41) Holaday, 1.99 (131) Norris, 5.73 (71) Rosario] 4.55 (87)/ 4.55 (87), Hanigan 3.78 (50), 4.08 (71) Swihart w ERod (career only) 3.23 (109)/ 4.30 (163) w Price career only [2.85 (473) Molina, 3.06 (191) Jaso, 3.61 (162) Shoppach, 3.09 (128) Navarro] 1.74 (21)/ 4.32 (33) w Barnes [Career: 4.32 (60) Leon, 3.30 (60) Vaz, 4.50 (30) Swihart, 5.93 (27) Swi] 2.16 (25)/ 4.38 (25) w Hembree [Career: 3.69 (46) Leon, 3.71 (51) Vaz, 1.83 (20) Hanigan, 1.20 (15) Swi] 1.64 (22)/ 1.35 (27) w Kimbrel [Career: 2.38 (42) Leon, 1.62 (44) Vaz, 1.82 (158) McCann, 2.06 (48) Gattis, 2.01 (45) Norris, 0.00 (41) D Ross!!!] Career Only: Kelly 2.67 (27) Leon, 2.62 (55) Vaz, 2.81 (176) Molina, 4.83 (91) Hanigan, 4.44 (77) T Cruz, 5.10 (60) Swihart, 3.94 (32) D Ross Abad 6.23 Leon (17), 2.59 (24) Vaz, 4.22 (43) Castro, 2.75 (36) Suzuki, 2.06 (35) Norris, 3.03 (30) Vogt

Henry's willingness to spend big has been a significant factor in our success. I'll never second guess his spending philosophy. We've been over or near the luxury tax every year he's been at the helm. I do think he cares about our spending, even if it just for image sake. He probably doesn't want to be viewed as a winner just because he could out spend everyone else. It' likely more fulfilling to win as the 3rd to 6th highest paid team, but I'm just projecting my thought here. The history is that we stay near the limit and have some sort of priority to avoid paying high luxury taxes. We finished in last place in 3 out of 4 years. If spending was not a factor, we'd have signed more than just Price. I'm operating under the assumption that we will stay near the limit, until I see otherwise. I do think re-setting the tax this year will allow us to go over by a significant amount in 2018 and maybe even 2019, but I seriously doubt we go over the second penalty limit ($237M next year). I agree that going from the 28th to 38th pick is not a big factor, but that would be on top of a major tax once we reach the 50% level of taxation I think we can field a very highly competitive team over the next two years by just going over the luxury tax limit by $19.9M and no more. Once we reach 2020, we'll likely be at the 50% tax bracket with some big financial decisions to be made. With a much more difficult system for rich teams to rebuild their farms, I'm guessing we hit some hard times by 2021. If Henry didn't go nutty after 3 last place finishes, I doubt he will after a nice 4 year stretch (2016-2019).

True. Good time to have a career year. He has had a decent OPS+ recently, and that will play into a nice payday as well 2015: 107 OPS+ 2016: 103 2017: 115 (98 w SFG/ 224 w BOS)

It's a sign of cluelessness. I think he might be worse than I think, because I am usually one to blame the manager for much of anything. When we made him the new manager, I thought he'd be good. This isn't some personal vendetta I've held towards him. I never get a feeling that JF has contributed to a win. Maybe my way of looking at team management has changed recently, but I don't think so. This team is severely lacking in fundamentals. There's no end in sight. It's almost like we are making more mental mistakes as the year goes on. I get that the manager hardly matters as you imply, and that's why I say we are winning despite JF. We've had big injuries this year. I don't really even blame JF for just about every batter doing worse than last year, but I suppose it could be his lack of action, or lack of pro-activity, or his choice of coaches. We've been winning anyways. I just don't see any of our winning being attributed to JF's brilliance.

Our players can't even keep track of how many outs there are. That's just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to mistakes in fundamentals this team has demonstrated. It's a reflection of poor management. True, you don't fire a manager during a hot streak, but the recent winning stretch doesn't change the underlying fact that this team, even when winning is showing a strikingly high level of mental mistakes. I don't give credit to JF for the great play by Devers and Nunez. I'm glad he moved both up quickly in the line-up, so maybe he's finally smelling the coffee a little bit, but win or lose, JF is not a good manager. I wouldn't can him now. I'm not sure who is out there right now, but if we go on to lose 6 or 7 in a row, the dump JF posters will come out again. Should these decisions really be affected by a 7 game winning or losing streak? JF is not a good manager. In my opinion, it's crystal clear. Even winning a ring this year will not change my opinion, but it will mean JF will be back next year (and maybe longer).

Someone said the reason Jf had Holt bat second the other day was so others could stay in their comfort zone by remaining in their normal batting slot. The line-ups have been jumbled all year. Hardly anyone has stayed in the same slot. That's not my issue. I'm not big on the philosophy that batters do better when they know what slot they will bat in all year long. The line-up issues I have problems with is that the players he has kept in slots the longest didn't belong there. He kept Moreland batting 4th and 5th when the whole world could see he was struggling. What was that based on? 6-8 weeks of hot hitting? Moreland's whole career screamed of being a platoon batter for the 7-8 slot, yet JF kept him FT way too long and batting 4th or 5th way, way, way too long. I have issues with Betts batting first when he sees so few RBI opportunities and our team has such a lack of power, but at least Betts gets more PAs. Injuries and slumps have played a role in some changes, but here's a look at our batting slots: GS'd 1st 81 Betts 18 Pedey 9 Bogey 4 Holt (WTF!) 1 Nunez 2nd (Some studies show best overall hitter goes here) 50 Beni 49 Pedey 4 Nunez & Young 3 Holt (WTF!) 1 JBJ & Rutledge (WTF!) 3rd 60 Bogey (stayed here too long as he slumped) 26 Betts 13 Pedey 8 Beni 4 Nunez 1 JBJ & Young 4th 50 HRam 40 Moreland 17 Beni 1 Beni & Nunez 5th 32 HRam 28 Moreland 15 JBJ 12 Beni & Young 5 Devers 4 Bogey 3 Travis 2 Pablo 6th 27 JBJ 22 Bogey 16 Moreland 13 Young 9 Beni 8 HRam 5 Pedey & Travis 3 Rutledge 2 Devers 1 Selsky, Leon, Vaz 7th 35 JBJ 14 Rutledge 12 Pablo 11 leon & Vaz 9 Young 8 Moreland 4 Travis 3 Bogey 2 Holt & Marrero 1 Marco & Beni 8th 32 Vaz 30 Leon 12 Pablo 10 JBJ 7 Rutledge 5 Young & Marrero 4 Lin 3 Marco 2 Moreland & Holt 1 Devers 9th 36 Marrero 14 Vaz & Marco 13 Leon 10 Lin 8 Holt 5 JBJ 4 Devers 1 Rutledge 2 ERod, 1 5 other pitchers Looking at some individual players: Moreland: 40 GS up 4th .725 OPS 28 GS up 5th .733 That's 68 games out of our 113 games! More than half of our games with a career .754 OPS guy and 99+ OPS+ (2017 OPS: .754 and 97 OPS+) 16 GS up 6th .818 10 GS up 7th and 8th Sorry, but this is, at best, borderline insanity. I get that he carried us for much of the first 3 months. He was one of the few players that over-performed to start the year, but he started returning to career form around June 27th. Moreland hit 4th for 6 days in a row in early July and 11 games out of 15 games from july 4th to 21st. JF moved him to 5th, 6th or 7th starting on the 23rd. That's almost a month of foot-dragging due to apparent loyalty or "rewards program" based on previous (perhaps outlier) success. JBJ has been hot and cold this year, but his OPS is about equal to HRam's and better than Moreland and Bogey's. 35 GS up 7th .792 27 GS up 6th .868 15 GS up 5th .480 10 GS up 8th .888 5 GS up 9th .650 (despite "protection" from Betts, I might add) I don't get batting JBJ 8th or 9th, when he's been a top 5 or 6 hitter this year. (At one point he had our 2nd best OPS but was not moved up.) Bogaerts 60 GS up 3rd .785 (with very little power) 22 GS up 6th 9 GS up 1st .839 (seemed like a good slot for a high OBP low SLG guy) 4 GS up 5th .450 3 GS up 7th .385 (finally moved down during slump) 1 GS up 2nd .250 He had an OPS above .840 for much of the end of May and remained over .800 all June, but then he had started slumping in June. JF waited until July 17th to move Bogey down, and even then he put him 5th. He's just about our worst power guy. Moving Betts to lead-off has already been beaten to death. This isn't Monday morning quarterbacking on my part. I've been saying this from the start.

The glove must add 4-6 inches, but I doubt that ball was 11.8 ft.

Chris Sale is the 8th wonder of the world, but he is not invincible. More to the point, you want him pitching on short rest when the available evidence says he gets better with an extra day of rest. When you get to the playoffs and reach certain critical points, sometimes you have to look at more than just Sale's numbers on certain day's rest. You have to look at possibilities of us being eliminated with Sale never pitching again and is Sale on 3 or 4 days rest better than Porcello, ERod or Price on 4 or 5 days rest, and do we really need this game right now. By the way, here are Sale's numbers with various days rest: 4 days rest (69 GS) 32-24 3.05/1.066 WHIP 5 days rest (77 GS) 40-19 3.23/1.019 Sale actually does better with 4 vs 5 days off. Note: 6+ days off (24 GS) 12-7 1.88/ 0.978

Pedro was a pretty good fielder and was a true "gamer", but he was too short to make that play. ESPN said that ball was 11.8 ft high.

My guess is, if we want to keep this current team mostly together and highly competitive, we will be going over the luxury tax in 2018, 2019 and 2020. We may be close to that $20M level of penalty by 2019 or 2020 due to heavy arb raises and trying to keep Kimbrel, Pom and Sale. Can we sustain all these penalties? Sure, if Henry wishes to, but if we reach the secondary penalty levels, our already low draft picks could be even lower, and rebuilding becomes that much more difficult.