moonslav59

On the surface that looks like we average about 11th or 12th, but... The Rays just passed us today for 2nd in the AL in run differnetial: +141 NYY +83 TBR +80 BOS +75 DET +35 CWS +1 CLE 4 NL teams have better run diffs than BOS, so we are 3rd in the AL and 7th in MLB. The numbers are far better post June 24th,

We outhit the Rays 6-4 and tied in BBs (2 each) and lost by 4.

Not quite the pins and needles at '67.

Largest gains, counting attrition: +32+++ Brown (NR to start season) +31 Brown +24 Primera +15 Cespedes +10 Delzine Largest losses -42+ Rivas -23 Ramos -13 Soto -12 Phillips

The final game was cancelled. The farm season is over. We some nice growth by a few players, several graduations, and several prospects traded. BOY Prospect Rankings: 1. Tolle- graduated 2. Arias (now #1) 3. Early- traded for Mead 4. Witherspoon & 6 Eyanson- traded for AR & Gutierrez #14 5. Valera (now #4) 7. Phillips (now #15 ) 8. Gonzales (now # 2) 9. Soto (now # 17 ) 10. Bennett- graduated 11. Godbout (now # 5) 12. Romero (now #22 ) 13. Uberstine - traded for Eli White 14. Holobetz (now #9 ) 15. Azocar- traded for AR w/ #5 & #7 16. Castro (now #34 ) 17. Ramos (now #31 ) 18. Rivas (now #NR ) 19. Samaniego- graduated 20. Wehunt (now #13 ) 21-30: Bastardo >18, Taylor >NR, Delzine>6, Mullins>23, Monegro>24, Silverio>32, Brito>33, Ziehl<21, GeRod>26, Watson (DFA) When you consider we graduated or traded away these picks, other gains and losses may be by attrition. 1-3-4-6-10-14-15-19-30 Soxprospects.com's current top prospects and moves up or down: 1. Arias (+1 as #1 Tolle graduated) 2. Gonzales (+6, despite losing 4 between 1 & 8) 3. Primera (+33, despite losing 9) 4. Valera (+1, but lost 3) 5. Godbout (+6, despite losing 5 6. Delzine (+17, despite losing 7) 7. Hull & #8 Schaffner, #11 Mataczynski, #12 Shelar & #30 LaFavor drafted this year 10. Cespedes (+24, despite losing 9) 13. Wehunt (+7 but lost 8) 14, Gutierrez (added in AR trade) 15. Phillips (-7 and lost 7) 16. Paez (reacquired) 17. Soto (lost 8 while losing 8) 18. Bastardo (+8, but lost 8) 19. Winnay (was NR) 20. Brown (+40 and lost 9)

Or a 37 year old plumber.

I'm done with Duran. The only reason I'm okay with him starting vs RHPs only is because Rafaela, Yoshida and White are on the IL.

Houck has not pitched in a long time, and his 4 rehab games is barely half of a ST'ing sample size. You'd be confident calling him up, pitching 1-2 games in MLB as a RP'er then placing him on the playoff roster?

MLB projects Chapman will return for the last series of the season. Wit the luck of the Sox, that is doubtful. I'm not sure we want his first game back to be in the playoffs, but we may not have many other choices. Other injury outlooks: Contreras: The bruised knuckle seems to be heeling, so i think he can return in time to find the groove before the away series in NYC. Rafaela: "Team is hopeful he will return for the final series." Hmmm..... Houck: He's pitched 4 games from the pen, and may technically be ready to return, and bringing him up could be in the cards, but we can't count on him in the playoffs, even if he looks good in a game or two after his call up. Guerrero: MLB.com says he may return for the final season series, but we'll see. Oviedo: He pitched okay on Sept 17 and might get a look today with Woo, but I doubt he gets the MLB call and put his odds at making any playoff roster near zero%. Seigler: a long shot. Crochet: He's still only throwing pen sessions, so no way he'll be back, IMO. Also no chancers: Mead, Yoshida, Slaten, Crawford, White, Casas, Kelly & Rivera,

I have a lot of confidence in Tolle. He seems like he has the perfect attitude for a pitcher. I also think Gray will do fine under the pressure of an away game in NYC. I'm not sure why I have less confidence in Suarez, since he has a pretty impressive playoff history and a 43 IP sample size. 1.48 ERA 1.055 WHIP (3.02 FIP) 3.4 K:BB 0.6 HR/9 The more I think about it, the more I like our top 3 to advance us to the next round after the Yanks. Our top 4-5 pen guys are on their game, right now. Our bats have hit a snag, and we've seen bone head plays popping up again, but I think we'll be fine. Anthony is back, and surprisingly Story is hitting like he did over the second half of 2025. As bad as Story started off in 2025, he ended up leading the team in HRs (by 3) RBIs (by 12) and SBs (by 7 and with only one late season CS.) e had an .839 OPS over his last 96 games (404 PAs)- his best long stretch with the Sox. He's hit .847 since his return in 2026 (72 PAs) and .904 in his last 31 PAs. I'm not predicting Story is going to lead us to a ring, but he is offering some veteran leadership to a team that was doing pretty damn good before he came back. We've seen some slippage from Contreras, Abreu, AR and to a lesser extent Durbin & Sogard. The loss of Rafaela hurt the O and D, but some others have picked up the slack and the return of Contreras and Rafaela could offer the big boost we need to advance beyond New York.

When is Chapman going to be available?

Only 6 batters have over 350 PAs, and Capra beats them all out in OPS (.776 to KC's .763 & Ward's .738.) Castro .722 NO Romero .680 NO Eaton .748 NO The top 7 pitchers by IP (52+) all have ERAs over 4.63. Gamboa is at 3.38 in 51 IP and Wehunt at 3.47 in 47 IP... NOPE. I think Capra wins by default. He had a good year but not great.

I've only been to Hadlock Field ("Delta Dental Park.") I love it.

Maybe other back-up catchers have even worse negative numbers. Maybe our back up catcher sucks, but if he sucks by less than other teams we gain. My main reply would be CERA numbers don't count in WAR.

Other teams: OPS & OPS w RISP .764 & .791 LAD +27 .744 & .801 MIL +57 .732 & .779 TBR +47 .722 & .727 BOS +5 .721 & .753 NYY +32 High Leverage .831 PHI .796 CHC .792 NYY 6th LAD .773 16th MIL .710 20th TBR .692 21st BOS .691

The problem seems to be other teams do it even better than we do.

ERAs Last 30 Days 2.70 Suarez (30 IP) 2.74 Tolle (23 IP) 2.96 Gray (24.1 IP) 3.75 Bello (24.0 IP) _________________ 1.25 Chapman + Whitlock + Weissert + Gamboa + Olds (36.1 IP combined) ___________________ These 9 pitchers combined for 137.2 IP and an ERA of 2.55. (2.30 w/o Bello)

According to fangraphs, the Sox bat .248 with RISP, which is 18th. Their .727 OPS w RISP is 22nd. Overall, the Sox bat .246, which is worse but ranks 12tn, and have a .722 (also worse) OPS, but that places 11th.

While true, there are waysreak the season into smaller chunks and find other winning stretches, like 9-6 in the last 15. Keep on winning at a 3-2 pace, and we can advance and advance...

It's not meant to be a MLB stadium. The A's play in a similar park. This begs the question, what is the current worst MLB stadium? Angels Stadium? Comerica Park? Rogers Centre? Rate Field? Nationals Park? Kauffman Stadium?

I'm kinda okay with Wong as a back-up, one out of five game catchers, but we can do better. Getting good catchers is not easy or cheap. It's often hit or miss. Things seem to change quickly, too. I was very happy with Narvaez, until I suddenly wasn't. Bloom has made a lot of somewhat minor moves to improve the farm catching outlook, but most are too far away to help in 2027 and maybe even 2028. Primera IFA 2024 (ETA 2029/2030) Luke Heyman Trade 2025 (ETA 2029) Hudson White Drafted 2024 (ETA 2028/2029) Ronny Hernandez Trade 2025 (ETA 2028- maybe 1B/DH) Adonys Guzman Trade 2025 (ETA 2030) Jorge Rodriguez IFA 2024 (ETA 20230) Inherited Catchers: Jo Garcia IFA 2022 (2027/2028) Geraldo Rodrigues IFA 2023 (ETA 2028/2029) Kleyver Salazar IFA 2023 (ETA 2029/2030) If Wong is not back in 2027, we'd need to add one. Nate Baez and Garcia are long shots.

ERA- since July 1st (not counting today) 18 Whitlock 28 Olds 30 Gamboa 41 Chapman 51 Slaten 55 Weissert 58 Bello 69 ray 76 Miller 77 Tolle 79 Guerrero 82 Moran 89 Suarez 94 Bennett 117 Sandoval 122 Burggos

Sox vs RHPs: (2024-2026 added) .919 Gasper (.766) .878 Contreras (.824) .875 White (35 ABs) .790 Rutschman (.682) .784 Seigler (.677) .765 Anthony (.842) .748 Abreu (.791) .746 Rafaela (.717) .743 Yoshida (.777) .733 Sogard (.680) .727 IKF (.701) .721 Durbin (.717) .624 Duran (.798) .624 Wong (.641) .616 Monasterio (.630) .611 Story (.718) .517 Romy (30 PAs) .637 '24-'26 __________________________________ v LHPs 1.203 Jones (.867) .981 Contreras (.912) .871 Abreu (.762) .801 Rafaela (.694) .798 Monasterio (.743) .774 Yoshida (.591) .766 Sogard (.774) .737 Durbin (.728) .732 Wong (.775) ,705 Story (.707) .631 Duran (.633) .618 Romy (.892) .596 Anthony (.703) .550 Seigler (.592) .459 IKF (.548) .382 White (23 ABs) .720 .247 Gasper (23) .393 .154 Rutschman (26) .755 ____________________ Some conclusions: Should never start vs RHPs: Romy, Monasterio, Wong LHPs: Gasper, Duran and maybe Seigler. Should start vs RHPs: Contreras, Gapser, Abreu, Anthony, Rutschman, Rafaela (Yoshida, White & Sogard) LHPs: Contreras, Jones, Abreu, Rafaela, Durbin, Romy, Monasterio (Story, Sogard & Wong) Suggested platoon possibilities: DH: Gasper-Jones/Romy (but we have Yoshida and Duran) 2B: Sogard-Monasterio/Romy (but we have Mead) C: AR & Wong

OPS by new Team Players (300+ PAs) .905 Contreras .867 Alonso .851 Mead .819 B Lowe .811 Murakami .808 Liam Hicks .805 Bregman .781 O'Hearn .777 N Lowe .774 Okamoto .774 Arraez I may have missed some... Pitchers & Batters fWAR 5.5 Cease 5.1 Bregman 4.6 BLowe 4.4 Alonso 4.2 Arraez 4.1 Contreras 3.7 R Suarez 3.2 Gray 3.1 Okamoto 3.0 Durbin 2.9 D May 2.8 L Hicks 2.7 N Martinez 2.6 Lambert 2.6 Arenado 2.5 Murakami

Double + Triple = 0 Runs Hmmmm....