moonslav59

I always thought it meant "Suck your thumb!"

Last place does suck, especially when we were expected to compete those seasons. However, going 30+ years with no rings sucked more. I remember saying I'd take 10 last place finishes for just one ring. After the first one, I didn't feel that way anymore. Yeah, the seasons were exciting coming so close year after year, but those winters were long and painful listening to yankee fans saying "Ring scoreboard chump!" There was also one pretty bad stretch back when the division was 7 teams. We finished 5th, 5th, 3rd, 6th, 4th and 5th in a 5 year stretch from 1980 to 1985. We followed that last 5th place season with a 7th game loss to the Mets in '86. To me, that loss hurt more than the previous 5 years of futility. Funny, we went 78-84 in 1987 then won the division again in 1988. Later, we finished 7th out of 7, then 5th and 4th from '92-'94 and again followed that with a 1st place finish. The 8 straight second place finishes from '98 to '05 were exciting, but that ring in '04 was so incredible, it washed away years and years of pain and frustration. I'm not sure I'd call 2006, 2010 and 2011 all that exciting, but they surely were more fun than finishing in last place. Finishing 5th out 5 in 3 of 4 years stung badly, but that 2013 win after what happened in Boston that year really did wash away all the 3 years of pain for me. That was special.

Devers looks like a natural at the plate. It's hard to imagine he was hitting just .779 in over 540 PAs at A+ ball last summer and .773 the year before at single A Greenville. That's over 1050 PAs from 2015-2016 with an OPS no higher than .780! Gotta love this kid! He's taken off like a rocket!

Many teams have won without power, without a good rotation and/or without scoring a lot of runs. If the Sox had the stats the Royals had the years they went far, this board would be going bananas.

Reed may give up a lot of fly balls, but that doesn't mean a whole lot will be HRs, even with the move to 50% of his games at Fenway. Plus, his FB% is pretty close to Kimbrel and Hembree's. Look at LD% 24.5% Kelly (20.6 FB%) 21.3% Barnes (24.6 FB%) 19.1% Kimbrel (41.2 FB%) 18.6% Hembree (43.4 FB%) 17.8% A Reed (43.8 FB%) To me, a big stat for RP'ers is K/BB: 11.43 Kimbrel 3rd in MLB among RP'ers with 40+ IP 8.00 A Reed (6th in MLB) 4.73 Hembree (16th) 2.59 Barnes (64th out of 102) (Kelly is at 1.63) I'll take Reed over a healthy Kelly, Barnes or Hembree any day of the week.To me, what's going to be best about this trade is that now Kelly, Barnes and Hembree will now be our 6th and 7th inning RPe'rs. Another important RP'er stat: WHIP 0.60 Kimbrel (1st) 1.12 Reed (38th) 1.18 Barnes (45th) 1.39 Hembree (83rd)

David Ortiz was third on the team in PAs in 2015 and had a great season (.913 OPS). How come no other starter had an OPS over .797, except Betts at .820 (which is about where Mookie is this year without Papi BTW)? .717 HRam .693 Napoli .658 Pablo With all the "fastballs these guys get to see", why the rotten protection numbers? Only Betts had a higher OPS (.820) than .797 out of the other top 10 PA guys. How about 2014? None of our other top 11 PA players had an OPS over .719, except Napoli at .789. Papi's 2013 OPS of .959 was not much better than 2015, but was he really the reason Salty hit .804? Was he the reason 9 of the other top 11 PA hitters all had an OPS above .771? And that 5 guys were over .800? How come the magic only works some years? Papi had a better OPS in 2012, so how come the rest of the team fizzled with his great "protection"? Salty .742 Ellsbury .682 7 of the other top 11 PA players that year had an OPS below .742 and 5 were below .705. Yeah, AGon hit .812, but that was below expectations. Only Cody Ross' .807 was better than we hoped it would be. I just don't see the correlation, and all the studies I've heard of say line-up protection is a myth. Certainly having Papi bat 4th instead of Moreland will lead to many more runs, but I doubt it has anything more than a minimal impact on the players around him. 2012, 2014 and 2015 are good examples.

None of our 8 top PA players this year are below .732. All 8 are within .075 of each other. (I counted Nunez in the 8.) Our next 3 (9-11th in PAs) are within .047 of each other (between .672 and .719). I'm not sure any other team has all of their top 11 PAs players over .672, but I'm not sure there are many teams without one top 11 player over .806 either.

Good to see Vaz put a couple of good games together. I almost choked when I saw Holt bat 2nd. This JF loyalty crap has to stop soon. Then, Holt gets on base 3 of 5 times! Go figure! His OPS is now over .500. Top Sox OPS 1.231 Devers (27 PAs) .806 Betts .791 Pedey .790 Nunez (2 teams) .777 HRam .775 JBJ .775 Travis (50 PAs) .748 Beni .747 Bogey .739 Lin (59 PAs) .732 Moreland .719 Young .684 Leon .672 Vaz .628 Marco (60) .622 Pablo (108) .576 Marrero (166) .558 Rutledge (118) .506 Holt (63) Looking to next year, if we can replace these numbers with Devers at 3B and a new big bat at 1B/DH, maybe our offense will return to top 3 status... PAs OPS Player to be replaced 3B PAs only 142 .617 Marrero (.576 at all positions) 97 .603 Pablo (.622 overall) 64 .607 Rutledge (.558 overall) 30 .278 Holt (.506 overall) 27 .556 Hernandez 9.628 overall) Replace with... Devers (a healthy Hernandez & Lin) DH/1B 380 .734 Moreland at 1B (.732 overall) 47 .774 Young at DH (.710 overall) Replace with a good FA and Travis (.775)

Darren Feakin' Bragg!

Maybe, but VTek played a long time and had some good WAR years. Lowe gave us 8 years.

Technically yes, but I think they got Nunez more as a DH and back-up for the injured Bogey, the lefty-challenged Beni and coverage at 2B, if Pedey got hurt (and he did).

I suffered through over 30 years of near misses and stinky seasons. I'll take 3 rings and 3 last place finishes every 13 years over 30 straight years of futility. (Not that those are the only two choices.)

Devers da man!

Lack of fundamentals, even by our great fielders, is a sign of poor management and preparation. This along with what I feel is a lack of fire and desire, makes me feel like JF should go before the season ends.

I'm glad we got Nunez and finally called up Devers. It's hard to know how well Devers would have done, if he was called up earlier. One has to think better than what we had before, but it's hard for me to criticize the decision. Maybe we called him up at exactly the right time, and that's why he is doing so well. We'll never know. I'm still shaking my head at the Yanks getting 3 playoff cycles from Sonny Gray for a couple of injured arms and another non-top prospect.

Nunez gives us a chance to cover for Pedey's injury, give Bogey a rest at SS, sit Beni vs tough lefties and maybe sit Moreland more than he would like to sit. Devers could provide the spark we have been missing. If he keeps hitting, maybe the vets will catch on fire, too. For some reason, I'm not too confident Bogey will regain his form this season. I think he needs a 10 day DL stint once Pedey returns. Moreland may never come close to his start numbers. Yes, we need Betts to get hot.

With the injuries to the prospects the Yanks traded for Gray, it's hard try and figure out what an equal or better Sox package would have had to have been. Hard to imagine getting Gray without giving up Groome, Mata or Chavis. I'm not sure Travis, Dalbec, Beeks & Lakins would have been enough.

Agreed, and if Devers and Nunez can keep contributing, we might be looking good come playoff time.

Agreed.

I know we need a big bat more than a SP'er, but with what the Yanks paid for Gray and his 2.3 years of team control, we missed out on a great chance at improving our chances for the next 3 playoff cycles. I've never been a DD fan, but I've wanted to give him a chance. I'm not happy after today.

The next part has begun: http://www.talksox.com/forum/threads/18323-A-Realistic-View-at-2017-Part-III

Time for Part III. Here's the link to Part II: http://www.talksox.com/forum/threads/18094-A-Realistic-View-at-2017-Part-II Looks like we aren't getting the big bat many wanted, unless we do it via the waiver wire. We did pick up Addison Reed for Nogosek, Callahan & Bautista. He's a solid RP'er who gives us a nice secondary closer and a set-up man with a nice K rate (9.5 career/8.8 in 2017). If we can get Kelly and/or Smith back and pitching well, our pen might remain a plus to end the season. I haven't heard who the Sox are sending down to AAA, but my guess is it will be Maddox. Here's the 25 man roster going forward: 5 SPers: Sale Pomeranz Price (replaces Fister) Porcello Rodriguez 7 RPers: Kimbrel A Reed C Smith (replaces Boyer) Barnes Hembree Workman Kelly (replaces Abad) 2 C: Vazquez Leon 1B: Ramirez (DH) Moreland 2B: Pedroia Holt (UT) 3B: Devers Nunez (DH/SS/LF) SS: Bogaerts LF: Benintendi Young (DH) CF: Bradley RF: Betts Possible 2017 additions from the farm or DL: SP: Velazquez, B Johnson (DL), Justin Haley, Jalen Beeks, Roenis Elias RP: Robby Scott, Ben Taylor (DL), Edgar Olmos, Kyle Martin, Noe Ramirez C: Dan Butler, Swihart (DL) 1B: Sam Travis IF: Marrero & Lin OF: Brentz (not on 40 man roster), Selsky, Castillo (not on 40 man roster) Looks like the Yankees are our key competition for the AL East and the Astros and Guardians are looking better than us so far. The Yanks just added Gray & Garcia, so we have our work cut out for us. I still like our rotation, when healthy and having Kimbrel and Addison gives us a very nice 4 starters/2 RP'ers playoff group. We have to make the playoffs first, and right now we're 1/2 game behind in the AL East and 1.5 up on the Royals for the home field in the WC game. We are 4 up on the Rays for the last playoff slot. Here's the rest of our schedule: Home: 31 (60% winning) Away: 25 (48%) 10 NYY (3H/7A) 9 TOR (6H/3A) 8 TBR (6H/2A) 6 BAL (3H/3A) 7 CLE (3H/4A) 4 CWS 4 HOU (to end the season) 3 OAK 3 @ CIN 2 STL If we can go 8-4 in the 12 games vs CWS, Oak, Cin & StL, 6-3 vs TOR and 4-2 vs BAL, then maybe we can get by going near .500 in our 29 games vs NYY, TBR, CLE & Hou. Let's see. I'm actually pretty optimistic about this season despite our recent swoon.

I'd kick the tires pretty hard on Sonny Gray. Seems like prices are lower than I expected for some of these recent trades, although Gray is not a rental. Keeping the Yanks from getting him might be an added plus.

Nogosek, Bautista & Callahan Some talent there, but not as much as I expected it would take to get Reed. I like the deal. Any news on a big bat, or are we all done?

Mid-term Needs Assessment Not brain surgery skills needed, just good eyesight. C. A. No help needed Could use some offense, but I'm okay with our catchers. I don't give them an A with an OPS below .675. 1B C Old and un-reliable This is where we can upgrade this winter. 2b B-getting old He's looking very good. He may age better than we thought. SS C badley over rated His D id a C- or D: his offense is a B- to C this year, but may end up around A-/B+ 3B A Set for a long time (2 rookies) I hope you're not relying on Lin or Marrero here. LF B One OK for future, one too old CF A no help needed here RF A no help needed here DH: HRam should be the FT DH next year as we sign a new 1Bman SP B DL a problem I'd like to see us get Sonny Gray. RP A to D help needed We need a rental. Our hopes for the future are tied to Smith/Thornburg.