moonslav59

Iguess the coaching at Portland may be better suited for bringing along Devers' defense, and with devers staying at Portland, I can see why they don't move Chavis up to Portland. I'd just like to see, maybe for selfish reasons, how Devers and Chavis hit at a higher level. If the plan is to bring Devers up in September, or earlier if there is an injury, then why not let him face some older pitchers closer in skill level to MLB pitching?

Agreed. I suppose one of Betts or HRam could "get going" along with JBJ having one of his torrid stretches, or maybe Pedey or Beni catching on fire. We could also just see everyone stepping it up just a little bit all at the same time. Something has to change for the good.

It looks like our best and most likely trading chip this summer would be Vaz, Leon or Swihart. Vaz probably would bring the best return, but that doesn't mean that's who gets traded. I really don't want us to trade Devers, Travis or Groome. Those three represent our best three best chances at substantially filling future key roles at a low cost, thereby allowing us to keep as many of our younger stars (and Chris Sale) as possible.

I think they have wanted Vaz at catcher all along. In that light, both moves make total sense and does not appear to be "panic" in nature. Saying Swihart is now only a catcher seems to go against that idea, but I think things have changed. I'm no longer so sure Sox management is sold on Vaz as "the guy". I get the sense Vaz was in some sort of psuedo-dog house last year and to start this year. They may also have returned Blake to catcher-only duty to raise his trade value or to make it possible to trade Vaz or Leon for something we need.

According to Baseball Reference: 2.5 Sale 2.3 Betts 1.7 JBJ 1.7 Kimbrel 1.3 Bogey 1.3 ERod 1.2 Moreland 1.1 Kelly 0.8 Pomeranz 0.6 Beni 0.5 Johnson 0.4 Pedey & Barnes 0.3 Travis 0.2 HRam, Abad & Marco 0.1 Porcello, Hembree, Workman, Boyer,Vaz, Leon, d'Arnaud 0.0 Price -0.1 Young & Ross -0.2 Marrero & Rutledge -0.5 Kendrick -0.9 Pablo

Moreland has been a bright spot in the line-up that seems to be underperforming. According to fangraphs, here are our current leaders in WAR: 3.6 Sale 2.2 Betts 2.2 Bogey 1.9 Kimbrel 1.2 Porcello 1.1 JBJ 1.1 Moreland 1.0 Pomeranz 0.8 ERod 0.7 Hembree 0.6 Beni 0.6 Pedey 0.4 Kelly 0.4 Vaz 0.3 Barnes 0.3 Scott 0.1 Leon 0.1 Johnson 0.1 Kendrick 0.0 HRam 0.0 Ross 0.0 Abad & Boyer -0.1 Price -0.2 Young -0.4 Pablo

We've had some nice comeback wins this year. We've had a few late game heroics. We can't seem to put together anything long-lasting. Maybe last night's win will spark something substantial.

Good points. I'm hopeful he turns things around very quickly.

I'm not so sure a consistent player wins more games for you than one who bunches up his hits. Of course a player who goes 5 for 5 in 16-2 blow outs only would have less value.

It's hard to break the paradigm. Every year we won a ring, we had at least one big hitter- big in size and power & production. We do have little and mid-sized guys with power, and probably 7-9 guys that can hit 10+ HRs given enough PAs, but we need to start winning some games with our defense, with smarter base running, with timely hitting, continued strong pen help and the return to at least partial glory by Price and Porcello. We can afford to go out and trade for a power rental at the deadline (or before if available), but other than 3B, I don't see a position for one. How many big and burly 40 HR 3Bmen are available? Could we make a three team trade and give up Moreland to one team and Vaz to another and get a big 1Bman? Is that enough to give up for a 2 month rental with big impact poser?

I got tickets to the Astros series. I'm glad they finally lost. Keuchel is out, so we may catch a break there.

I'm sure they have their reasons, but I can't think of any.

Same with after a two game winning streak or a two game losing streak. Of course, I get upset over a win or two, and I feel better after a win or two, but I don't even have to try to keep myself from letting emotions based on teenie tiny sample sizes to cloud my beliefs and opinions. I truly believe we have a very good team- pitching, offense and defense. I thought our weakest link was our pen, and they've done a fine job so far. Now, have I ever felt good about a Sox team in the past and been wrong? Hell, yes. I've been horribly wrong, at times. I know I could be wrong about this year. I didn't think we had a winning team in 2013, and was wrong from that side of the spectrum, too. Again, it's a 162 game season, and the season is followed by a largely crap-shoot playoff system. There are times during every season that each team looks bad or good. Some look really good and/or really bad at times too, even the teams that end up winning it all. I realize the season sample size is growing every day, and the offense continues to sputter and fizzle, but I firmly believe this offense is much better than it has shown to be so far. I hope I'm not wrong this time.

Maybe a couple!

LOL, or win the hot dog eating contest.

Big HR for JBJ. Big hits by Bogey and Moreland, too. The pen was strong. Let's get a winning streak going!

Yes, or get someone to distract them by doing something even more outlandish.

For sure. It's been a strange season for our offense.

Pretty close. 2016: 6.0 IP/GS 2017: 5.9 IP/GS

We saw the same thing last year when scoring way more runs.

It's not much of a "shake-up", except for maybe HRam in the 6 slot. Quite frankly, I don't get it. Beni is arguable in a slump more than HRam, but for some reason Beni always seems to be in the top 5 slots. 28 day OPS: .946 JBJ .854 Moreland .804 Bogey .756 HRam .745 Pedey .662 Vaz .656 Betts .592 Beni 14 Days... .968 JBJ .828 Moreland .697 HRam .683 Bogey .679 Beni .598 Betts Only in the 7 day sample does Beni shine, but so does HRam: 1.271 Beni .911 HRam .782 Moreland .649 Bogey .566 JBJ .558 Betts

I get the point, but you're gambling on that situation happening. 1) It might not happen often. 2) If it does happen here and there, does it outweigh all the other ABs the lefty got earlier in the game with more men on base? 3) Both JBJ and Young are hitting lefties better than righties this year. If all things are pretty much even, then I'd go with the L-R-L-R concept.

Since the Sox have never won a ring in my lifetime without a big bat (or two), it's hard to imagine how we could do it without one. Maybe we can't. I will say that I feel Betts will be near 30 Hrs and 110+ RBIs by the end of the season. If he's not, we may still sneak into the playoffs, and if (maybe a big if) we can cobble together 3 hot starters by playoff time, we'll have a good chance to make it to the WS. I realize there are a lot of "ifs" here, but in the past our "ifs" were always about pitching. Now, the tables have seemingly turned. I'm not without serious concerns about this team, but I still think our offense will (or should) come around. Here are the Sox numbers over the last 365 days: .894 Ramirez (34 HRs 102 RBIs) .865 M Betts (26 Hrs 101 RBIs) .790 Pedroia (10 69) .783 Benintendi (10 45 in 315 ABs) .780 Bogaerts (17 75) .774 S Leon (11 50 in 361 ABs) .759 Bradley (24 73) .738 Young .718 Vazquez These are pretty good numbers. No doubt, losing Papi hurts and will continue to hurt, but we have some pretty good hitters on this team. Except for Bogey, they just happen to not be hitting well so far this year.

My point is that the future (the rest of the season) might be brighter than the past with Mookie. He's a notorious slow starter, so I expect him to do better, and as you point out, then the Sox will too.

I've never been a big proponent of needing to have a lefty-righty-lefty line-up to avoid late inning RP'er switches. Put your best guys up first. Get them more ABs. Plus, out of those 4 straight righties, most hit righties pretty well, and Pedey is about even on his splits over his career.