moonslav59

What a great game! I watched it at a friends house, and we are going to tonight's game. If we lose, I may never go to another one, again. I'm the opposite of Thunder magic.

Yoshida and Toro have hit ahead of Abreu several times, recently- not everyday.

I maintain that one of the biggest plusses of our ring year rotations was the lack of major injuries. 2004: All 5 SP'ers had 29-33 starts and 178+ IP. The ERAs were not impressive, but they showed up, every 5th day. 2007: 3 SP'ers had 30-32 GS, Schilling had 24, Tavarez 23 and Lester 12. Again, no really great ERAs and some pretty bad ones, but 6 starters had 152 GS. 2013: 4 SP'ers had 27-33 GS. Buch (16 GS) got hurt and the deadline addition, Peavy got 10 GS. 2018: 3 SP'ers had 27-33 GS, but wow: Sale, Price & Porcello. ERod had 23 and we picked up Nate at the deadline to add 11 more. (Johnson & PomPom had 24, combined.) This year, 4 of our top 7-8 SP'er have missed all or almost all of 2025: Houck, Crawford, Sandoval & Dobbins. We do have 18-24 GS from 4 SP'ers, and 3 have ERAs between 2.48 & 3.77. I think that beats all other ring season top 3 SP'er combined ERAs by the top 3. Dobbins had 11, Houck 9 & Newcomb 5.

Mighta won ROY, had he been called up much earlier.

Don't change a thing, Roman!

In 2024: .728 when swung at 1st pitch (1895 PAs) 31% .746 took 1st pitch (4297 PAs) 69% 2025: .747 when swung (1453) 31% .759 when took (3197) 69%

Opinions not facts.

I think the hope is you need about 3.5 SP'ers for the playoff format, and we may get by with just 3. We gotta get there, first, and that's where we need to cobble together a decent 4-5 combo from Buehler, May, Criswell, Harrison & Fitts. Not all of these 5 will get starts, unless there are injuries or abject failures.

In some ways the May trade was like the Paxton trade: same team, same injury MO, same chances at success (and failure.) Paxton lasted 2+ starts, before renewing what he did best: going on the IL. James did not pitch all that poorly in those 2+ starts, but he failed to give us what we needed. Maybe, this one time, we will get some return on trade. (Luis Garcia and Lucas Sims looked better to me than Matz did, at the time of those trades, but let's hope we do better, this time on this one, too.)

The position player situation is more known. I hesitate to use the word "certain," but we have so many key players locked up for 3+ years, along with depth at several positions. Bregman and Refsnyder are the only one year control guys, but I really think Bregman loves Boston and will return. He's the key, IMO. 1B is open, but to me, it's one of the easier positions to fill, and we still have Casas and maybe Campbell of some converted other position player to step in. Romy looks damn good, too. Yoshida is the next guy w 2 yrs, and that's better he's not 3+. For once, we have the catcher position locked up. Mayer's health is the next big key, as it could finally solve our 2B issue (Mayer or Story at 2B.) Duran 3 years and Story 2-3 years. Romy, Wong & Casas, too Abreu 4 years! DHam, too 5 years Narvaez & Mayer 6 years Rafaela 8 years Campbell 9 Anthony That's a solid 9-10 not counting Bregman or Ref, now Yoshida & Toro. Arias, Garcia, Gonzales, Taylor & Soto look very promising. That's not the same as 20 pitchers, but the MLB core looks stronger and has longer control. There is also Romero, Bleis, Cespedes, Azocar & Gadbout, plus more about to jump the rankings. I'm very pleased.

Maybe. We'll never know. I used to wonder what might have happened if we called up Lynn & Rice earlier. Anthony and Mayer looked ready, day one. KC was debatable, but it's hard to get these things right, and just because a player does very well or badly, doesn't mean it was the right or wrong call- it could just be luck.

The hindsight crowd is gonna love this thread.

Too bad you don't get it.

IMO, all 3 should have started day one, even if we had to make winter trades to allow for it. After a couple weeks, Brez looked like a genius, then the wheels came off the KC wagon. It's not an exact science. There is an element of a dice roll in many choices mades, including the Sale trade. Brez rolled the dice that Sale would do what he did for 5 straight years, but he is apparently an idiot for not knowing Sale was about to about face. I'm not one to put much into ST'ing numbers. Duran and Abreu had lower ST numbers than KC, so there is that. I'm not gonna roast Brez for giving KC a look. He doesn't deserve a trophy for it, but I'm glad to see our GM trying some new stuff, including the novel idea of trying to build pitchers from your own system! Wowza!

That's where the quantity comes in handy. It's not enough to just have quality, anymore. Crochet 6 years through prime. Bello 5 years through prime. Crawford 3 arbs left. Wink & Kelly, too Bernardino 4 arbs left. Pre arb: Slaten, Dobbins, Criswell, Weissert, Harrison, Fitts, Murphy, I Campbell & Moran. That's just the 40 man roster. Tolle, Witherspoon, Valera, Clarke, Perales Early, Sandlin, Phillips, Eyanson, Fajardo Paez, Delzine, Aita, Rivera, Holobetz, Travieso Uberstine, Mullins, Wehunt, Monegro, McShane That's over 20 in the minors.

Still seeing Yoshida & Toro ahead of Abreu in the line-up. Maybe Toro hits another dinger to shut me up.

I don't see any shame in what Brez tried. I have no idea how KC will do, if called up. I'm pretty sure of what Toro will do in the next 7-8 weeks.

I've never been for censorship or banning, but I'm having second thoughts. This is beyond absurd.

Toro has a long record of sucktitude. No 16 game sample size of greatness in one year changes that. I'll go with the unknown.

Just because it's all we have does not mean every small sample size is the sue bet indicator of what is to come. Double Duh!

Yes. You don't get rankings like that based on just two guys, for sure. I can see not counting Slaten, since he is rehabbing, but we have some decent numbers from other RP'ers not named Chapman & Whitlock. OPS Against & PAs Against: .403 Chapman 171 .556 Whitlock 227 .298 Matz 14 .465 Slaten 90 (IL) .530 Guerrero 72 (IL) .566 Bernardino (Demoted) .622 Wink (IL) .649 Burdi (DFA to STL) .654 Weissert 209 - 2nd most PAs against as a RP. .692 Hendriks (IL) .694 Wilson 148- 5th most PAs against If Slaten can come back and look good, I think he, Weissert, Wilson & Bernardino are a pretty solid "next 3," and maybe Matz can be one of the few deadline pitching additions to work out for us since Robles in 2021 and Nate in 2018. We currently have Hicks and I Campbell on the 26, but we may see Bernardino back and Sandlin get a shot from the pen

So, "we know" that players always repeat what they just did in tiny sample sizes for the rest of their career. Got it. BTW, Toro & Campbell have the exact same amount of PAs, this year, and guess who has the better OBP. There is no way to know who will do better going forward. We do know Toro has basically sucked his whole career. His career OPS was lower before this year than Campbell's first 263 PAs in MLB. His OPS, this year has been horrific, except for a 16 game stretch. Once could say the same about Campbell's short stretch that padded his 2025 numbers, too, but saying we know what these guys would do is just not true.

Maybe by a half inch?

Meidroth at .650 might have been a better option, assuming the CWS would have taken a different, but not crucial, prospect, instead. Just call up Campbell and cut the cord.

I'm still amazed that 7 of our top 9 prospects are pitchers. Talk about a pendulum! 20 of our top 33 are, too.