moonslav59

Thornburg was told to stop his long throw rehab, so there's no time table. There's also no diagnosis yet either. Strange. I'm not sure even Holt knows when he can start rehab. Carson Smith is supposed to start pitching in the minors soon. Maybe 30 days to MLB.

When's ERod due back?

Despite the 0 for 6 night last night, Betts has seen his OPS go up 53 points in 3 days (.807 to .860). He has now passed Bogey and is just is less than 20 points from Moreland.

Pablito now on base in 4 of last 5 PAs.

This is why they brought up Velazquez.

Pablito now on base in 3 of his last 4 PAs. Teenie tiny sample size, but he's playing for his life right now.

I was always pretty good at math, except for my Calculus experience mentioned earlier, but I never considered myself a math guy. Percentages and probabilities fascinate me, so I guess I've got some "geek" in me. I've played the game for years. I played softball for many more years. I get the "human element", but winning comes down to production--production that is usually measurable and quantifiable by numbers and metrics. I've been on losing teams that gel together and winning teams that scrape and grate but win. I'll take winning any day of the week.

I just don't see much fire. It's just a gut feeling.

Moreland needs a day off, but I thought HRam was done with 1B for the year. Pablito better start hitting very soon, or he'll be toast.

Pablito starting at 3B tonight.

Exactly.

Pablo is starting tonight. Is this his last straw?

Looks that way. Pablo lives another day. For what though? If they won't play him, then they should just DFA him and get it over with.

I guess Pablo lives another day.

It looks that way... ...unless he starts hitting immediately, and I mean for longer than getting on base in 2 of his last 3 PAs.

Lack of fundamentals. No fire. I'm usually the last to call for a manager's or GM's removal. Nothing about any particular moves. I stay away from game-to-game criticisms, but I wanted Farrell gone for a long time. Recent winning doesn't change anything.

As expected, nothing really jumps out from the 11-20th rounds.

We could see this next year, assuming (big assumption here) that Pablo shows some life with the bat over the rest of this season: 1B: 450 PAs HRam (vs mostly RHPs) 300 PAs Travis (vs all LHPs and some RHPs) DH: 450 PAs Pablo (vs almost all RHPs) 200 PAs HRam (vs almost all LHPs) 3B: 600 PAs Devers 100 PAs Pablo/Marco/Holt/Rutledge/Marrero 650 PAs from HRam is probably too much to expect, so Travis could take up what HRam can't give us. If Pablo is gone, we might have to pick up a cheap corner IF'er or corner IF/OF FA over the winter or try to get by with this... 1B: 550 PAs Travis 150 PAs HRam (NL parks and a few other games) DH: 500 PAs HRam 200 PAs others (Swihart/Devers/FA?) 3B: 550 PAs Devers 150 PAs others

Agreed on both points. I will say that Pablo could possibly become a very expensive platoon DH next year, assuming Moreland bolts for a bigger contract and HRam can play some 1B next year. Pablo's defense may not need to be a consideration after this year. I do think Devers may end up being an option at 1B longterm, but Travis might have something to do with that consideration. I've never been a big Pablo fan, but before I cut that kind of contract loose, I want to be sure we have a better option in place, and that he is truly toast. He got himself in pretty good shape over the winter. His defense looks awful despite that feat, but maybe he needs a little more adjustment time. I'm not confident his defense will ever get close to acceptable, so I think the only longterm place for him on this team is as a DH vs RHPs. $19M a year for that is sick, but it may be better than paying him to play for someone else and needing to find a DH for cheap..

I think we may go for something not too costly: maybe Frazier or Plouffe, assuming Sox management will not call up Devers by August 1st.

The pen has surprised me. I knew we had a lot of promising arms, but with Thornburg and Ross out, I'm impressed with how well this pen has come through so far this year.

I don't think his injury has ever been diagnosed. They don't know what is wrong. He was just told to stop his long throw rehab therapy. He's probably done for the year. Carson Smith should start his rehab pitching in the minors soon. He may be 30 days away.

When you take out the base-running aspect of Offensive WAR, fangraphs has these numbers for Sox batting: 8.5 Moreland 6.2 Bogey 4.6 Betts 2.4 Travis 1.4 JBJ 1.1 Vazquez 0.8 Beni 0.6 Pedey -0.2 HRam -1.4 Young & Holt -2.7 Marco -3.5 Rutledge -4.6 Pablo -6.8 Leo -8.5 Marrero As for how our hitters have done "when it counts" so far this year, many sample sizes are tiny, are as follows: Late & Close OPS (12+ PAs): .927 Bogey .917 Rutledge .837 Moreland .833 Betts .796 Pedey .713 JBJ .703 beni .696 Leon .693 HRam .667 Vaz .619 Young .516 Pablo .432 Marco High Leverage (11+ PAs) 1.148 Moreland .901 Marrero .879 Pedey .844 Betts .822 JBJ .797 Bogey .792 Pablo .788 Leon .666 Rutledge .532 Beni .527 Vaz .425 Holt .367 Young .364 Marco

Wow, glad to find another domer in our midsts. I have only been back to the campus once since I graduated, and that was in 1985. We probably played baseball against each other, but you would not remember me, ex cept for maybe a defensive play here or there. I think my batting average was about .220 with me maybe being generous with a couple reach on errors counted as hits. I could never hit a curveball.

Fangraphs has Bogey ranked 17th (+2.6) out of 27 in DWAR. I think that is pretty close to where I think he should be, based on my observations of Bogey and opposing SSs over this season and my lifetime. WAR rewards longevity, and Bogey has missed very little time this year, so I value UZR/150 more, in terms of ranking a defenders comparative skill level. I also like to use larger sample sizes than 2-3 months. I think these UZR/150 numbers accurately reflect Bogey's rankings, particularly the larger sample sizes: UZR/150 15-17: 17th out of 36 at -0.7 (15th out of 36 with 1,000+ innings at +14.8 DWAR) 16-17: 18th out of 29 at -1.9 (17th out of 29 at 6.8 DWAR) 2017: 14th out of 27 (+0.7) I'm not the biggest DRS fan, but here it is: DRS 15-17: 34th out of 36 (-19) 16-17:28th out of 29 (-18) 2017: 26th out of 27 (-8) Both of these metrics show Bogey was better in 2015 than 2016-2017 combined. I agree with that assessment, despite Bogey's several fine plays made recently. I'd rank Bogey somewhere between 16 and 24 out of the top 30 innings guys at SS, based on my observations (which do not have a valid sample size of opposing SSs.)