moonslav59

A brief history of our #4/5 slot acquisitions: (Note: sometimes acquiring #5/6 types is essential to building rotation depth at a low budget cost, and I included #6 types in my list, but my main focus is on those we acquired as a number 4 or 5. Ones that were expected to give us 15-20 starts, at least.) Fister 0-2 6.14 Velazquez 1-1 5.27 Kendrick 0-2 12.96 O'Sullivan 2-0 6.75 R Elias 0-1 12.91 Pomeranz 11-9 4.07 (Could have been viewed as a #3/4 type) Joe Kelly 4-0 5.18 (as a starter in 2016) Masterson 4-2 5.61 Rich Hill 2-1 1.55 Wade Miley 11-11 4.46 (Maybe expected to be our #3/4 type) Jake Peavy 1-9 4.72 (2014) Doubront 2-4 6.07 (2014) Webster 5-3 5.03 de la Rosa 4-8 4.43 Joe Kelly 10-6 4.82 (as a starter in 2015) Dempster 8-9 4.57 Doubront 11-6 4.32 Peavy 4-1 4.04 (2013) Webster 1-2 8.60 Doubront 11-10 4.86 (2012) A Cook 4-11 5.65 (D Bard and F Morales used as starters in 2012) A Miller 6-3 5.54 (primarily as a SP'er in 2011) E Bedard 1-2 4.03 K Weiland 0-3 7.66 (2011--Not an acquisition) B Penny 7-8 5.61 J Smoltz 2-5 8.33 (Hated these two signings) P Byrd 1-3 5.82 (2009) P Byrd 4-2 4.78 (2008) B Colon 4-2 3.92 This is a pretty complete list of the last 10 years. A few worked out well, a few worked out okay or "as expected", but many many more totally flamed out.

I get the attitude thing, but I don't recall anyone not being happy that he retired instead of forcing the Sox to may his second year. He wasn't a bad #5. He actually did fine as a #5. He had the chance to pitch like a #4 or maybe even a #3, but I didn't think he was going to get better as he aged and moved from the NL central to the AL east.

CC is from the Houston area. He always had a legendary workout regime year round. He was in tremendous shape- all the time. This, however, has nothing to do with hitting lefties. Sadly, he also lost his ability to hit righties quickly while with us. His OBP was never consistently high enough to be viewed as a lead off hitter for a big hitting team like the Sox. His power was never good enough to bat 3rd either. I remember many who disliked the trade did so because they felt signing CC meant we'd lose Elsbury to free agency later. That didn't concern me, because I was never for re-signing JE at anywhere neaar what he was expected to make.

6 in a row and 8 out of 9 before tonight. Now, we play 12 against division foes. It's time to put some space between us and our rivals. 4 @ TBR (All Star Break) 4 vs NYY 4 vs TOR followed by a 6 game west coast swing. Don't let up! Kick some butt!

I'm kind of concerned about Scott, Boyer and Abad. Even Hembree and Barnes are a bit unreliable more than I'd wish. We have hope that Ross or Carson Smith will return, and maybe someone from the farm can fill in, if someone fails or gets hurt: Workman, Taylor, Maddox or even Johnson returning from his injury to the pen. We may even try to find this year's Ziegler.

At least the Yanks lost.

a Moreland is playing hurt and noticeably declining. He should be no higher than 5th and should probably be platooned with Travis as I believe he is now.

My position is that the money could be spent better elsewhere. Do some of these signings ever reap rewards as pitchers do better than expected? Yes, but far more crash and burn.

I think Pablo's days are numbered, perhaps to July 16th. How well Moreland is doing might have something to do with our willingness to send Travis down just to prolong the release of Pablo. If we're not going to play Pablo after July 16th, then just set him free.

I think most teams put their best hitter 3rd, so if the guy up 4th is getting more RBIs, part of that has to do with the guy up third getting on base a lot- maybe with a lot of dbls thereby giving the #4 guy more oportunties than if you flipped them, but I think it's safe to surmise from just these numbers that 4 is better than 3 for Betts.

I liked Werth more, but I felt the overpay for him was way too much as well. Other FA signings that winter besides CC's $142M/7: Not many reached expectations (no surprise, since that happens every year) $126M/7 Werth $120M/5 C Lee $80M/5 Beltre $56M A Dunn $50M/4 VMart $38M/3 Konerko $35M/3 R Soriano $33M/3 T Lily $21M/3 Uribe (We could have gotten Beltre and VMart for less than CC.)

RBIs by batting slot in MLB: 2015 4th 2949 3rd 2760 5th 2566 2nd 2222 6th 2158 7th 1956 1st 1870 8th 1748 9th 1421 2016 4th 3052 3rd 2964 5th 2640 6th 2337 2nd 2257 7th 2015 1st 1996 8th 1976 9th 1511

The whole team was in a slump during the small sample size when Betts batted third. The whole team is in stride now as Betts bats first in this small sample size. I'd trust the studies done on thousands of innings over a couple 40 game sample sizes.

There's always Marrero.

We hardly ever go with 13 pitchers. When ERod returns, I think Fister goes down. He's not a RP'er. Boyer is out of options, so he'd have to be exposed to waivers.

He had made a few in that time frame. One could argue that after the Nomar trade, most of his big trades and signings failed to meet expectations. The farm remained pretty strong though throughout his tenure, but even that was at its best from 2003 to 2006.

BTW, wasn't it you who first opined that Holt was part of the reason we signed Pablo in the first place?

I had high hopes for Marco Hernandez, and I felt this could have been his opportunity to show what he could do. I had Marco and Rutledge ahead of Holt on the 3B depth chart. I think DD felt that having 3 possible subs for Pablo was enough. Although none were great, the idea that one would be decent enough was not far-fetched. It's hard to plan for your top four 3Bmen all getting hurt at the same time.

Aces and #2's are always hard to find, especially through trades. but they do happen. Greinke was traded before the 2011 season. Gio Gonzalez was traded before 2012 season. Many others worked out okay or did not work out very well; AJ Burnett, Shields, Dickey, Jimenez, and I'm sure there are others I am forgetting. I realize that sometimes the cost of getting a 1 or 2 is way too high, and all that is left is to try and upgrade your 4/5 slot, but in my opinion, every effort should be made to avoid these types of situations.

Crawford had horrible splits with TB, splits that would qualify as a platoon player with a hitting team like Sox. When we signed him, I called him a "glorified platoon player...that woulkd cripple our team's budget for 7 years..." His splits vs LHPs in 9 years with the Rays were... .315/.382/.697 (88 wRC+ and .308 wOBA) (He had the 18th best wRC+ out of 19 Rays'players with 230+ PAs in tha time period.) Yes, he had just had his highest OPS season before coming here at .351, but in the 9 seasons with the Rays, he only had an OPS over .800 four times. There was no reason to think that would change. He had speed. His defense appeared good with the Rays. I'm not saying I foresaw the steep decline he had with us, but there were extreme warning signs.

...Which leaves the problem of what to do when one hitter qualifies for two - or even three - of those spots? And isn't that where we are with Mookie? Not really. If you don't count Lin, and you shouldn't, Betts places 4th in OBP. Although he is just .005 from 2nd, there is no compelling reason to have him lead off, especially when your current 3rd slot hitter (Bogey) is our 5th best SLG % guy! To move Bogey or Pedey to lead off seems obvious, if one can overlook Bogey's recent slump. OBP Leaders .385 Pedey .366 JBJ .362 Bogey .361 Beni .361 Betts .356 Moreland .349 HRam .349 Travis .347 Young .323 Vaz/.291 Leon It's the slugging that is the most compelling argument to move Betts to the 4 slot (or 3 slot for tradionalists): .500 Betts (should bat 4th) .494 JBJ (should bat 5th) .465 Beni (ON THE RISE) .464 Moreland (dipping)' .448 Bogey .445 HRam (on the rise) .396 Young .390 Leon/.383 Vaz .385 Travis .379 Pedey What sticks out is Pedey's lack of slugging and us only having two guys with a SLG over .465. By the numbers.... 1) Pedey 2) Bogey 3) Beni v R/HRam v L 4) Betts 5) JBJ 6) HRam v R/Young v L 7) Moreland v R/Travis v L 8) Vaz v R/Leon v L 9) Lin v R/Marrero v L We're looking at 4 platoons! C, 3B, 1B and LF! Let's look at the small sample size 2017 L-R splits: vs RHP OBP Player SLG .369 Bogey .461 .365 Beni .492 .363 Pedey .367 .362 Betts .498 .357 Moreland .498 .349 Young .458 (varies widely from his career split norm) .343 HRam .450 .341 JBJ .450 (varies widely from his career norm splits) .331 Vaz .362 .204 Marrero .172 vs LHPs .500 Pedey .457 .483 Travis .520 .452 JBJ .648 (big change from career splits) .385 Marrero .750 .377 HRam .419 .353 Betts .508 .346 Moreland .279 .344 Young .283 (WOW! What a chance from his career norm!) .340 Beni .310 .328 Bogey .389 (Maybe move Bogey down vs LH'd starters?) .283 Leon .386 .280 Vaz .500

Amazing how Lin wasn't even on the radar at 3B to start the season. This might have been the opening day 3B depth chart: 1) Panda 2) Rutledge 3) Holt 4) Hernandez 5) Marrero 6) Dominguez 7) Devers (by AUG or SEP-maybe) 8) M Miller 9) J Witte 10) Lin

We are 4th in OBP (.344) just .001 from 3rd and .002 from 2nd. The Astros are .007 ahead of us. We hvae made the top tier in SLG % at #14 (.425). We are .002 from 12th place and .007 from top 10. We are 10th in OPS. We are 3rd in pitching WAR, 3rd in ERA- at 83 and 6th in WHIP at 1.25 (just 0.03 from 2nd). We are #1 in K/BB at 3.63. Only 5 other teams are over 2.95.

We are now 9th in runs scored. We are just... 2 runs from 8th (MIL) 4 runs from 7th (TEX) 10 runs from 6th (COL) We are 18 runs from 5th. I'm back believing we can finish top 5 in scoring this year. I had given up hope earlier. Heck, even the 2 runs needed to catch the Yanks for 3rd seems doable at this pace! (My apologies to Kimmi for jumping off the bandwagon of two so early.)

Let the miracle continue. I will say that even if Lin is still over .900 at the deadline, I'm not putting all my eggs in his (or Marrero and his) basket. Unless Sox management views Devers' MLB arrival in 2017, I'm thinking we need to make a trade for a 3Bman and maybe a RP'er as well.