moonslav59

I'm moving that way, too. Or signing a big bopper 1Bman (Alonso or move Suarez to 1B and play Story/Mayer at 3B.)

I'm not so sure Rafaela is a lock, but it does seem like the trade talk is more about Duran vs Abreu.

I worry a lot about Ceddanne's offense- just don't tell Fred, but this encourages me: Last 3 years hard hit %: 18%>25%>32% K%: 24%>23%>22% BB%: 3.9%>4.2%> 4.4% BB/K: 0.16>0.18>0.20 (Maybe not a fast enough improvement, but steady in all of these areas.) CF Defense: '22+'23> '24 DRS: 12>18 and OAA: 7>17

Selected feel good cherry-picked stats: 1.127 Refsnyder since his return (27 PAs) 1.038 Romy in last 41 PAs(many vs RHPs) .797 '24-'25 in 506 PAs (The new Ref!) .989 Narvaez in last 48 PAs (got some rest after a long slump- .503 in previous 94 PAs) .956 Eaton in last 10 PAs .890 Duran since June 29th (253 PAs) Way better than 2024! .862 Story since June 1st (359 PAs) 28 SBs and 0 CS (record is 30/30) .785 Bregman in last 3 games (15 PAs) .748 Wong in last 13 PAs .706 and 5 gm hit streak in SEPT Sogard (17 PAs)

Fred makes up for all the Rafaela bad offense talk, and then some. The rest of us shy away from encouraging Fred. To me, .690-.740 is likely his range, and GG type CF makes that fine with me. .675 is acceptable. .650ish starts raising my eyebrow. The thing is, I'd always be thinking he was just about to have a hot streak, when I'd suggest we bench him. Right now, he's at... .508 in last 86 PAs (23 gms) .479 in last 124 PAs (33 gms) but... .708 in last 259 PAs (thanks to an .801 47 game stretch at the start.)

Here are some questions that might be answered this winter or next spring: 1. Who gets protected for Rule 5? (Sandlin? Mullins? Bleis? Nobody?) 2. With Perales pitching in winter ball, will he be a MLB option in 2026? 3. Assuming Witherspoon, Phillips and Eyanson start the year at GRE, how soon might the be promoted to POR? 4. With so many pitchers drafted, signed as IFAs and traded for, who gets moved to the pen? (sp.com has Mullins in the AAA pen, Dean & Rogers in the AA pen and Foutch, Finley, Futrell, Cohen & Brooks in the A+ pen.) 5. Assuming Gio bolts and Sandoval is a healthy starter with Bello and Crochet, who gets the next 2 slots? Crawford, Dobbins or Harrison? Fitts, Tolle or Early? (Sleeper picks: Criswell, Perales or Uberstine.) 6. Does Campbell, Jh Garcia or Mayer begin the season at WOO? 7. Who will the top 20 prospects be, this winter? 1. Tolle 2. Arias 3. Early 4. Perales 5. Witherspoon 6. Jh Garcia 7. Clarke 8. Valera 9. Gonzales 10. Fajardo 11. Soto 12. Romero 13. Phillips 14. Eyanson 15. Taylor 16. Godbout 17. Uberstine 18. Paez 19. Mullins 20. Delzine/Cason/Holobetz Others: Cespedes, Ramos, Rivas, Bleis, Sandlin,

LMAO! "Hey, Breggie: you gotta hit over .300 or Toro is taking your place!"

Wong kinda stopped being the black hole on offense, too. He's been at .700 since AUG 5th & .736 since AUG 11th. (.764 since AUG 17.) The blame pie is an interesting idea and probably just as American as apple pie. We have one poster who might say the failures at the deadline is over 50% of the reason. Others disagree on the bigger culprits. It's interesting that our season OPS is .749 and our 14 days OPS is .750. However, we are at .704 for 7 days and .722 for 28 days. Cheery-picked good: .775 last 9 games .763 last 18 games .754 last 20 games and 42 games. The bad: .704 last 6 games .731 last 17 games I think the main reasons our offense has not been that good, this year as a whole (diverging from the topic) is... 1. The Devers trade 2. The Anthony injury 3. The Bregman injury 4. The 2B (.648 OPS) merry-go-round: KC> DHam> Mayer & injury> Rafaela> DHam/Sogard (see below) 5. The Bregman "slump" where he has still hit the ball hard, at times. 6. Duran's regression from 2024 7. The Casas injury 8. The Abreu injury Back to 2B: The interesting thing about 2B, is that Campbell will end the season with the most innings played there: 472 Campbell .658 OPS at 2B (actually better than what came afterwards!) 375 DHam .590 OPS at 2B 207 Romy (needed too much at 1B- see Casas injury) .899 OPS 165 Rafaela .309 when playing 2B 57 Mayer (needed at 3B- see Bregman injury) .826 at 2B 39 Sogard .871 at 2B

Ref is not a crappy hitter, so I'm not sure why you mentioned him. Yes, Eaton, Sogard and DHam are all crappy. Usually only 2 play at once, due to the injuries to Anthony & Abreu. I do think some of the hitters I listed are "crappy." What has Volpe done to prove he's even average? Tell me why Iggy and the Padres catchers aren't 2 crappy hitters. Clement and Straw are crappy. HOU has 3-4 crappy batters. It's not even close, there.

They've discussed the goal for the next 15 games with Breggie? Hmmm....

Romy has been okay vs RHPs, this year, and he's better off-handed than many other Sox and league players, this year, too. The teams you listed as not having 2 crappy hitters is debatable: NYY: Volpe .661 (3rd on team in PAs) + Catchers Wells .715 & Escarra .629 LAD: Conforto .621 (6th in PAs) & Edman .675 (9th) 10th and below suck. SDP: Arraez is at .702 (3rd), Bogey .717 (4th), Iggy .563 (8th) and Diaz .600 (9th) His back-up is at .572. TOR: Clement .715 (3rd) Gimenez .609 (8th) Sraw .676 (9th) DET: You have a point with them (Baez .682 and 8th) It's bad 10-13th. HOU: has 5 batters in their top 8 below .740, 4 below .710 and 2 below .675. Our bottom of the order is one of the best in MLB. While injuries have forced more bad batters into our line-up, other teams have injuries, too. Team rank by batting slot: 9th: 2nd at .740 (.644) +96 8th: 25th at .615 (.657) -42 7th: 6th at .731 (.684) +47 6th: 6th at .746 (.694) +52 5th: 4th at .782 (.722) +60 4th: 30th at .668 (Our biggest slot weakness) .762 MLB (-94) 3rd: 6th at .835 (.784) +51 2nd: 10th at .794 (.763) +31 1st: 4th at .813 (.753) +60 In terms of rankings, our bottom 4 outperform our top 4.

True, but the Yanks do have some 2025 history of bad stretches: 2-7 to start AUG, including losing 5 in a row. 3-7 mid July 0-6 June 30-July 5 0-6 mid June 6-16 (two June stretches combined with some in-between) 2-6 end of April One stretch like these, and TEX is right back in it.

Starting Skubal game 1 of the playoffs is a big advantage, but getting that first round bye pretty much sets that up, anyway, so yes, there is no need to sit Skubal vs the Sox. The first round playoff teams are the ones looking at their rotation set-up going into the playoffs. (Worst div team + 3 WC teams) The worst division team will probably be SEA or HOU.

Agreed, and SEA playing the LAD in the final 3 games might not see their best team.

We would likely get in going 5-10, too.

Very true. We may also see DHam PR then come in to play defense in the late innings.

Pivetta had some very nice 15-25 start stretches over almost every season with the Sox. He just never did it for 32-33 starts. I think Fenway brought down his numbers: 4.66 ERA at home ('21-'24) 4.34 FIP 4.02 ERA away with a 4.06 FIP He blew all others away in IP from 21-24, so his fWAR numbers should be higher than others but here they are. 8.1 Houck (414 IP) 7.7 Pivetta (623) 6.8 Nate (293) 4.8 Bello (377) 4.7 Crawford (392) 4.3 Whitlock (243) ERA- (200+ IP) 78 Whitlock 85 Houck 86 Nate 100 Pivetta and Wink 103 Bello 107 Crawford xFIP 3.42 Whitlock 3.47 Nate 3.66 Houck 3.92 Bello & Pivetta 4.20 Wink 4.36 Crawford

Nice laydown. I'd add: if RA does not return, maybe WA might be just enough of a boost to the O to get us farther into the playoffs. (He was our HR leader before going on the IL.)

With all the injuries plus the loss of Devers, I think our bench and depth have done better than expected and better than most teams might have done. (Devers, Casas, Anthony, Abreu & Mayer.) In the last 10 games (6-4) we've scored 1 run twice. The other run totals have been 5, 6, 11, 5, 7, 7, 6 and 4. That's 8 games with 4 or more scored and 7 with 5 or more. One could argue it's not the offense's fault we didn't go 7-3. The 6 and 4 record was a team event.

No, but if we are doing close to the norm, it may not be as bad as it seems. Of course, a top 3-5 OPS team should also be top 3-5 OPS Late & Close, and we are not. Yes, it is still an issue. I'm one that believes "clutch" is not a repeatable skill, so I'm not sure what can be done about it.

Agreed, and the A's are not a pushover, either. (DET & HOU play them.)

I'm very confident we make the payoffs and have at least a 50-50 chance of advancing each round. Our top 3 SP'ers compare well with every AL playoff team. Our top 2 RP'ers do, too. If Slaten can get to form, maybe our top 3 RP'ers are the best in the AL. Our defense is improved from 2024 and from the first 2-3 months of 2025. Our baserunning makes too many bonehead plays or non plays, but are still a clear plus. Our offense is the big dice roll. On paper, it is top 6 to 10 in most categories, but they can go into long slumps.

Good point. Every stat is "relative." I'm usually the one pointing that out! Thanks.

Harrison did okay, yesterday. Maybe we do end up with something good from the Devers trade, beyond salary relief.

I never expected he'd get one, and I really liked the guy and felt he was underrated.