moonslav59

With Lin and Marrero, our defense at 3B is now pretty good. Our offense there is struggling to get above a .350 OPS over the last month or so.

Me too, although I still teach as a volunteer.

In my opinion, we should keep Devers, Travis and Groome. They all play positions we need or will need very soon. Talk of trading ERod, even for a healthy Gray or "Moose" scares me. I'm fine with trading a non top 3 prospect for something very useful, but I hope we don't go overboard.

News from the farm... Brentz hit 2 HRs. He's at 17 now. Pablo 2 for 4 with a run and an RBI Craig 2 for 6 Chavis played 3B and went 1 for 3 in a rain shortened game. Devers did not play.

I've been to "El Rey del Cabrito" a while back, when we visited some friends and explored the big cave. Excellent food. We lived in Colonia Taxquena for 3.5 years and in El Sifon for 1 year. Both are close to Coyocan.

Do some parents just not bother thinking? (Hint: I know the answer.)

Same place as the other two, we had a guy named Mike Coffey. He was a fork truck driver that was often called over the P.A. system, "My Coffee, please come to Aisle 5." The best was, "My Coffee just had a spill in Aisle 8!" The more humorous among us would call out, "My Coffee just spilled in Aisle 8!"

i arrived in Coyocan, Mexico (just south of Mexico City) Friday. I'm leaving early in the morning on Thursday (to Monterrey). Be back in Sugar Land, TX by Friday evening, unless we get mugged or worse. I lived in Mexico City for 4.5 years (during Bush II's second term).

Before tonight's game: Young vs RHP: .760 vs LHP: .636 Even more bizarre.... JBJ vs RHP: .748 vs LHP: 1.196 It's almost enough to get me to give up on my fixation with splits and suggested platoons. Easy guys, I said "almost"!

A fellow worker of mine was called Anita Humphrey--I need a hump (for) free. Another was, I kid you not, "Harry Butts"--not even "Harold" on the birth certificate! That's worse than A Boy Named Sue.

Yes, and fast forward through commercials. I do that even when I'm at home. I usually try to time it so I'm at real time for the 8th or 9th inning.

He's been a top 10 hitter vs LHPs over the last 2-3 years. This year, he's hitting righties better. Go figure!

I'll watch the games when I get back from Mexico, but it's nice to see so many crooked numbers on the scoreboard!

Beni & probably ERod are both too far away to really project anything- budget wise. You make a good point. I agree on Porcello probably not being re-signed, but he will need to be replaced with someone very good and possibly very very costly. I suppose, if we keep Pom, we can hope for Wright, Johnson and later on Groome to fill his slot for low money, but chances are, we will need to spend big to replace Porcello. We may have to spend pretty big on Pom, if he keeps pitching well this year and next. Losing Pablo & HRam's contracts will help us keep 2 or 3 of Sale, Betts, JBJ and Bogey. If we can somehow keep all 4, I'm not sure we can keep Kimbrel & Pom and stay away from the $20M over the luxury tax where severe non-monetary penalties kick in. Let's go year by year assuming we sign no more non current Sox players long term: After 2017: $6.5M Young $5.5M Moreland $2.0M Abad Let's assume this money pays for arb raises and a one year player like Moreland- perhaps a good utility player that can play 1B/3B/LF. Money all used up with no long term additions or extensions. After 2018: $12M Kimbrel ~$7M Pomeranz (last arb estimate) ~$4.5M Kelly (last arb) ~$2.5M Ross (last arb) Assume Price does not opt out, add raises for option years to Sale (+$6M from where he is now on luxury tax dollar count) and others plus arb raises. It's hard to assume anything even this far out, but let's say we keep Pom, Kimbrel & Kelly. This alone might put us near the $20M over the luxury tax limit depending on how well these two have done in the next 1.5 seasons. Let's say all the arb raises and option year raises are eaten up by the loss of the one year guy we signed the year before, and the little we might have saved by trading a few other non essential players (maybe even Porcello). HRam's vesting option is also a wild card, but let's say we figure out some way to sign Kimbrel & Pom and keep Porcello for his last year. Let's assume we are maybe $15-19M over the luxury tax and avoid any severe penalties in 2019. (This could be a stretch.) After 2019: $22M HRam $21M Porcello $19M Pablo (we buy out his option) ~$18M Bogey (last arb year) $12.5M Sale + Thornburg, Holt & Rutledge This is probably too far away to project, but with the $43M "saved by losing Pablo and HRam, we can pay the arb raises to everyone worthy of keeping and maybe keep Sale & Bogey by also letting Porcello, Thornburg, Holt & Rutledge go. Maybe we have a little to sign a decent SP'er to $10-14M a year...maybe. It will be super tight to keep Bogey, & Sale and stay below $20M over the limit. Bogey might get a $7-10M raise over his last arb year salary. Sale might get a $20M raise per year. After 2020: How do we keep JBJ & Betts, if we are already within just a few million from the maximum luxury tax penalty? It's too far away to project, but it won't be easy. I won't even try, but we might be looking at having to give Betts $12-15M over his last arb salary and JBj $8-10M over his last salary. That's about $20-25M to come up with without having any salary losses to compensate. There's no way we let Betts & JBJ go, so we may have to not sign someone big from the previous years.

Marco and Holt are better, but some of their WAR is from other positions. -0.1 Marco -0.2 Holt -0.3 Marrero -0.5 Pablo -0.5 Rutledge fangraphs has this for 3B only: 0.0 T-W Lin (3 PA/11 innings)) -0.1 Marco (60 PA/72 innings -0.1 Selsky (9 PA/3.2 innings) -0.3 Marrero (104 PA/230 innings) -0.5 Rutledge (118 PA/139 innings) -0.5 Pablo (108 PA/213 innings)

He should just bunt almost every time.

I agree 1000%. How many times is a guy like this available? We're talking about... Chris Freakin' Sale !

Pablo could allow 1 hit per game and count the OPS per game and still come out better, assuming he continues having a .325 OPS advantage. Maybe he does allow one hit (or makes an error) per game over Marrero's defense.

I have a question: does a HBP count towards your OBP? If not, why not?

His next slump, we'll see it again. To me, I'd rather keep these players (in order) assuming their contract demands or a matching offer isn't $40M x 8 years plus. The "Sign Em Six" 1. Sale 2. Betts 3A. Bradley 3B. Beni 5. Bogey 6. ERod

JBJ is almost as high in OPS as Moreland, and since he started off so slowly, I'd say he's our "scariest" right now. Our OF has an .803 OPS. I expected better, but that's not bad. Perhaps, the best part about our OF is that we have only used 10 PAs from people not named Betts, Beni, Bradley, or Young, and Young only has 111 PAs as an OF'er. Highest OPS over the last 28 days (35+ PAs): .973 JBJ .869 Moreland .865 Beni (Why move him way down to make way for JBJ?) .806 Leon .772 Bogey .763 Betts (Not bad for a "slumping player") .699 HRam .649 Pedey (Getting a free pass?) .584 Pablo .468 Rut .465 Vaz (uh-oh) .258 Marrero (and people are okay with this but bash Pablo at .580+?)

I've been volunteering at a nearby public middle school teaching ESL. I've seen some crazy spellings... DeWain Dewane Tohmas Sarha Jimmee I can't remember all of them. Two had their last names spelled wrong on their birth certificates, but we had to use the official spelling on the transcripts. My wife's name is Maria Lorena. On her birth certificate, get this, they abbreviated her first name! It says, "Ma. Lorena _________". She's had to get official documents signed by a notary to say that Ma. = Maria. It's a crazy world.

Wow, I just mentioned JBJ needs to be moved up, since he now has our highest OPS this year. Who was the guy who wanted us to trade him ASAP? I can't remember.

We can probably win with just one from Price, Porcello or ERod pitching like a solid #2 the rest of the season. If 2 pitch that well, we'll win the east by 5 or more.

We might be able to keep Betts, Beni and JBJ or Bogey, but not all 4 B's. Even to keep 3, we would probably not be able to replace Porcello with a $20M pitcher. We sure as hell have to keep Sale (as it looks right now). Pom will be a FA too, so Sale, ERod, Wright, _______, _________ scares the bejesus out of me.