moonslav59

Our pitching staff is now rivaling the Astros for most days missed due to injury. Current 60 Day Pitchers; Houck Crawford Dobbins Sandoval Slaten (due to return in 2025) Winckowski Hendriks Guerrero Others missed significant time. Key MiLB arms: Perales, Valera & Monegro

Buehler needs to start earning his keep.

It's hard to know if this was all just bad luck or something else. We went through tis with Sale, and traded him at exactly the wrong moment, then lo and behold, he still has had injury issues, again.

Being only 30 gives me hope it can be fixed.

Agreed, and it's not like Brez did not already know Crawford, Sandoval and Hendriks were going to miss a lot of time. He did not know Houck was going to suck and then need TJS, but Bello, Buehler, Dobbins and others were still largely question marks. Hell, Newcomb won the 5 slot out of camp, for god's sake! I don't think a single person liked the trade. That does not mean we might still get something of value from it. The Gio signing went from horrific stupidity to not so bad, anymore. The Story signing still looks pretty bad, but much better, now. I absolutely hated Brez stopping at just the Chapman & Wilson signings to boost the pen, last winter. Now, he looks like a genius for that. (I still wish he did more, but...)

Just because numbers exist that show draft pick X has had an X success rate does not show what the next draft pick X will do. I find it odd that anyone would believe that. Of course, higher picks, in general do better, but baseball is much more random than other sports, and I just don't see the value. Maybe I'm a homer- okay- okay- I'm definitely a homer, but I try hard to be realistic and logical, and I happen to really like these 3 to varying degrees. I think their combined chances look pretty good.

I had heard that, too. I'm a big Jeff Beck fan. Hello Jeff

The funny part about all of this is... Priester has yet to have a 1.0 fWAR season: -0.6 +0.1 +0.9 Last 2 starts: 7.45 ERA/7.98 FIP 2025: 3.48/4.33 is good enough to have been a big help for the Sox, no doubt, but he's not Cy Young, just yet. I 100% wish we did not make the trade, but I like what we got back. Generally, I'm for making 3 for 1 trades, not the reverse. I value quality over quantity, but our farm was graduating a lot of players and this helped address that. We are now set up for another 5 for 1 Crochet type deal, this winter, and this trade helped to set it up to a small degree.

That was a classic. Very fitting for this topic, too.

This isn't like fangraphs analyzing batting and pitching performances and coming up with numbers that assign value to a player's performance, and even those numbers are not predictors of what is to come, despite some correlations and tenancies. Why would draft pick numbers carry so much weight as projectors?

Brez makes the roster decisions, and we do have a few players that would prefer be replaced by somebody better, but IMO, there are much less of those players, now than since 2018, and yes, I'm including 2021's full 26 and 40 man roster. (Our farm + recent graduates is the best it's been since the Betts, Bogey, Devers and others era.) I was all for better upgrades at the deadline, but I'm not gonna roast Brez for sticking to his philosophy of making trades when the asking price is not absurdly high, like at the deadline. Do I wish he did more, yes. Will he redeem himself, if he makes another big trade, this winter? Yes (like getting Ryan for an OF'er plus prospects) We can all moan about our pitching staff, but it is top 5 in the AL, despite missing our #2 SP (Houck,) our #4/5 (Crawford & Sandoval,) and then Dobbins, along with our 2/3 RP (Slaten) and other top 8-10 pen arms (Wink, Guerrero & others.) We all agreed we needed more 1B depth, and then we dealt Meidroth & Gasper, and of course, casas got hurt. Some hoped Campbell or Mayer would fix the middle infield issue, or that DHam could play like the second half of 2024, but sadly, none happened. 2B was once again a giant sore spot on the team, and now we are playing a GG CF'er at 2B. I don't blame Brez for not going 4 deep at 2B, though, and if we didn't need Romy at 1B, he could have been 2Bman #4. I still like Cora, a lot, but not as much as I did after 2021. I'm 100% behind Brez and think he was the right guy for the job. This winter could cement that view, but JH will have a big say in what he can do. It's AUG 19th and we are 3 up in the WC race. That's a big step up, even if it was aided by almost all the other teams declining in strength as much as we got better. For years, I heard, "So what- deal with being in a tough division," now I'm supposed to not factor that into our success. Hmmm.

Yes, I agree. I heard Abreu was hobbled, too, to that also helped get Eaton into the game.

Past performance of certain draft slots are not projection tools. I'm sure research will find something like pick #79 do better than pick #59. It's pretty random, especially after the top 10-15 picks, IMO. The Sox have done very well with picks 20-60 and beyond- even better than their 1-20 picks, in many cases. On my chosen percents of 18, 17, 16, they were likely too high, but even 3 chances at 10-15% gives a team a good chance at one guy reaching a 1.0 fWAR in a season.

I really like Mayer and think he can be a plus-plus player. All I said was he has not proven he can hit in the bigs, so far. You disagree with that? BTW, we all thought Campbell could hit, too, and so sis soxprospects.com. Maybe he still will, but he has to prove it, first.

Sox picks lower than #33 in recent drafts, with many still TBD... 2.1 Anthony '25 0.9 Dobbins '25 Others from before... Crawford was a 16th rounder in '17 Duran was an 18th rounder in '18 DHam was an 8th rounder and Slaten a 3rd rounder in '19

Past production projections worked great with him.

It kinda sucked to still see Toro in the line-up, and then adding Eaton about knocked me off my chair.

What makes you think past production from and example like the #33 picks is a projection tool?

The AL lacks any runaway team, this year, and even the ones at the top have serious flaws, or they are playing poorly, of late- or both. HOU has lost 4 of 5, have been shut our in 3 of the last 4 games and have scored 10 runs in their last 6 games. They have been dealing with major injuries, all year. That is catching up to them. 7th in fWAR everyday players SEA is 13-12 in their last 25, and their pitching has not been what it used to be (10th if AL Pitching fWAR) NYY have gone 5-1 v MIN & STL, but are still 19-23 over the last 42 games. Their pitching has let up 4 or more runs in 9 of the last 10 games (3 in the other.) 8th in fWAR pitching in AL DET has been pretty steady and is 7-2 in its last 9 games- mostly vs weaker teams. TOR is close to DET, but they have gone 10-12 in their last 22. They have the 3rd worst fWAR Pitching in the AL. CLE sold at the deadline, then have gone 10-6. KCR has gone 26-15 since May 31st and have won 6 of 7. I'm just not seeing an AL team, on paper or by record, that clearly looks like they significantly outmatch us. Everyday player fWAR: 25.8 TOR 24.5 NYY 20.4 BOS (significant drop from top 2) 19.9 DET 19.4 SEA 16.9 ATH 15.5 HOU 11. CLE 9.7 12. KCR 9.2 OPS: NYY, TOR, ATH, BOS, DET, SEA, HOU, 12th KCR, 14th CLE DRS: TEX, TBR, BOS, TOR, CLE, NYY, DET, KCR, SEA, HOU (top 10) Pitching: 15.9 HOU 14.6 KCR 14.5 MIN 14.1 TEX 13.2 BOS 12.7 DET 8. NYY 11.2 9. CLE 10.7 10. SEA 10.1 13. TOR 8.2 BOS is the only team in the top 5 for Pitching and everyday players, DET is closest at #3 and #6.

I hope next year's goal is to go into the second threshold area. I believe it when I see it.

Agreed. I'm not sure he ever gets a look-see with the Sox. He may be part of a package deal, this winter.

Maybe. The urgent order of business is getting Bregman to come back, even if on a 4 year deal. With Mayer's health in constant flux, we have nothing else for 3B. I think we will let 1B and 2B slide, again. I'm not happy about it, but they will probably think we have enough to work with: 1B: Casas, Lowe, Romy/Toro, Campbell and now JH Garcia playing 1B w Woo. 2B: Mayer, Romy, DHam, Grissom with Mayer or Arias pushing Story to 2B, someday. By "going all in," one choice could be to bring Bragman & Chapman back while adding Alonso & a trade for a SP'er like Ryan. The Gio triggered option is probably the second key, along with hos all our injured pitchers are progressing. Knowing Brez & Co, they will put too much faith in these post-rehab pitchers.

His defense will improve what we've had at 1B for years. I hope he can regain some of his decent O. He just turned 30, so there is some hope.

"Set you off" was a poor choice of words. I apologize. You did respond to my post, where I was implying you were off topic, and I should not have done that, either.

We are over the tax line, despite dumping Devers. Yes, we are still around 10-12, so that is "mid," but I'm wondering if JH goes all-in, this winter. (I'm not expecting it.)