moonslav59

Kimmi, I agree with your points, but I will say that I think Vaz has struggled to regain his defensive skills this year. I'm glad his pitch framing is so good, but he's struggled with throwing and pitch blocking more than I expected.

I don't disagree, and like I said, I was not trying to start an argument. I was just trying to show that he's back from missing time and playing. I agree that he is clearly our best projected hitting catcher going forward. I am, however, in no rush to call for him replacing Vaz or Leon, especially while he is still hampered by injury.

We're 7-4 in Pom's starts. It's hard to complain about that. I saw Pom as our 6th starter to start the year, but many felt he was our 4 or 5 starter. A look at his longevity issue: Pom has failed to reach these IP... 2017 (11 starts) 7.1: 11 6.1: 10 5.1: 5 4.2: 4 2016 (10 starts) with the Sox (Team went 5-5) 7.1: 9 6.1: 8 5.1: 5 4.2: 3 Totals with Sox in 21 starts. Pom has failed to reach 7.1 innings in 20 out of 21 Sox starts. He's failed to reach 6.1 IP in 18 of 21 starts. 5.1 IP in 10 of 21 starts. 4.2 IP in one-third of his starts (7 of 21).

They gave Beni the night off too. I guess vs a tough lefty, it might be a good idea. I'd rather sit Beni than JBJ to allow Young to bat against his ex-team mate. I like batting Young 2nd, too. 1. Betts 2. Young 3. Bogey 4. HRam 5. Travis 6. Leon 7. Rutledge (2B) 8. Bradley 9. Marrero (3B) Interesting choice at 6 and 7. Our 6-9 hitters look pretty weak though. I thought Pom vs Tanaka might be our hardest (match-up) battle, so it's nice to start off up one on the Skankees.

I still think somehow-someway we need to get Young into the line-up whenever we face a LHP. He's that good. We've only faced 10 LH'd starters so far our of 57 games. I realize CY's splits are reversed this year, but I don't expect that to continue. If only Young could play 3B!

mymlbdraft has Hiura going at #22 and the Sox taking Evan White 1B Kentucky (6-3 / 177 lbs) http://www.mymlbdraft.com/MLB-Mock-Draft

Seems about right. I hope he keeps this up. One other factor I noticed when looking at our three ring years besides having our top 4 or 5 starters all get 25 starts was having a top closer: Foulke in '04 (71 appearances/ 0.940 WHIP) --playoffs 1 ER in 14 IP (19 Ks) Papelbon in 2007 (13.0 K/9 and 1.85 ERA/0.771 WHIP) -- playoffs 0 ER in 10.2 IP (just 5 hits) Uehara in 2013 (73 appearances & 12.2 K/9, 1.09 ERA and an unheard of WHIP of 0.565!) --playoffs 1 ER in 13.2 IP (ALCS MVP) Just 6 Hits, 0 BB and 16Ks (0.439 WHIP)

A quick look at the future and approaching or reaching "the tax": After 2017, we lose: $6.5M Young $5.5M Moreland $2.0M Abad $14M Total --My hope is we can replace all of these guys with players within our current system (Travis for Moreland, Devers or Swihart for Young, and several contenders for Abad's slot.) The money "saved" will pay for arb raises and leave a cushion for mid-season acquisitions. If we don't spend the money we have this year on a mid-season trade that involves a player under contract into next year, we may be able to sign a significant player (big bat?) this winter, but any long term deal at big money will hamper our ability to keep all our important players without being taxed (and possibly further penalized) heavily. After 2018, we lose: $12M Kimbrel ~$7M Pomeranz (last arb year) ~$3.5M J Kelly (last arb year) ~$2.5M R Ross (last arb year) $25M Total We will need to find replacements for some of these guys. Maybe Wright can replace Pom, Smith for Kimbrel, and Thornburg can take up the slack of losing Kelly and Ross, but the rest of the pen might be weak. The real fun begins after 2019: $22M HRam $20.6M Porcello $19M Pablo $13.5M Sale ~$13.5M Bogey (last arb) ~$5.4M Thornburg $94M Total That's a lot of money. Keeping Bogey and Saleand re-signing Porcello (or the like) is certainly doable, and if Devers and Travis are filling the shoes of HRam and Pablo well enough, we should be okay until the next winter. There's no wiggle room for a mistake.

Or, they can do it and not replace (in kind) Porcello and/or Sale.

The question is, who do you sit? Beni seems to be breaking out of his funk. JBJ is clearly doing much better and has inexplicably been hitting lefties was better than righties so far this year. I can see giving Moreland a day off for Travis, but HRam as a DH only is squeezing Young and our lefthanded-hitting OF'ers.

harmony does not re-aggravate me at all. He's yet to aggravate me in the first place.

The post said he is injured. I was pointing out that he is back from injury now. I wasn't trying to make an argument. You were right: his numbers are low in part because he has been out hurt.

Kimbrel for President!

123 pitches by Pom to just get through 5 IP. Kimbrel goes 30 pitches! We're lucky to get out of this game with a "W". Big win!

...but what about the 8 pitch AB he had?

Blake has 2 RBIs last night.

Other freaky splits... JBJ hitting 1.221 vs LHPs and .656 vs RHPs HRam hitting .809 vs RHPs and .553 vs LHPs Bogey's hitting RHPs (.862) better than LHPs (.787). 2017 splits... vs RHPs (20+ PAs): .862 Bogey .824 Vaz .822 Moreland .813 Pablo .811 Betts .809 HRam .787 Young .768 Beni .763 Pedey .656 JBJ .612 Hernandez .611 Rutledge .590 Leon .297 Marrero vs LHPs (12+ PAs) 1.389 Marrero 1.367 Travis 1.221 JBJ .867 Vaz .819 Leon .803 Betts .787 Bogey .721 Moreland .692 Beni .665 Hernandez .652 Pedey .605 Young .553 HRam .438 Rutledge .358 Sandy (PLEASE PLATOON HERE!!!!!)

Amazing, huh? He'salso started 16 vs RHPs and all 10 vs LHPs.

He's started all 10, but I think some were as the DH, when HRam was hurt or playing 1B. I could be wrong.

Well, Chris Young is one of MLB's best hitters vs LHP'ers, and he's on the bench due to HRam's DH only cautiousness.

Exactly! As of today, the 15th best team catcher OPS is .699. The middle tier (11-20) goes down to .678. That's average these days. Leon and Vaz are not "back-up quality". They are both worthy of starter labels.

With HRam as a DH only player, I'm not sure how we'd make it work, but I'd certainly let Papi know, he's welcome back anytime!

I don't either, but I think we could improve on last year's OPS due to Hanigan and Holaday no longer being on the roster. (Our catcher OPS last year was .665.)

We're a much younger team now, too. Boyer is our oldest at 35. Pedey, HRaam and Young are 33.

Leon could certainly revert to his sub .600 days, but I'm thinking he's just about as likely to be in the .675 to .725 range for the next 2-3 years. That would place him close to the middle of the pack with starting catchers. He's probably going to remain a plus on defense for those 2-3 years, so there's a good chance he will be close to average at least until Vaz and/or Swi mature. I'm not one to put much stock in sample sizes like 397 PAs, but since 2016, there are 32 catchers with over 350 PAs. Leon places 12th in catcher WAR at 2.7. That's pretty impressive, when you figure most catchers in front of him have over 640 PAs. He places 9th out of 32 in catcher OPS at .787. Cherry-picking sample sizes? Busted! Let's go to 2015-2017 and the 38 catchers with over 500 PAs:22nd in catcher OPS at .703. He's ranked 23rd in catcher WAR at 2.2. 525 PAs is certainly "back-up" numbers, but I don't get the need to disparage Sandy. He's doing a fine job as our starter, platoon or back-up. It may not continue, but the decent sample size is growing as he makes his way through his prime years.