moonslav59

Agreed, but a 500 point differential with both sample sizes being over 100 is shocking! His career Home-Away splits, greatly affected by this year, show this: Home: .773 (311 PAs) Away: .535 (324 PAs) That's basically just one season's worth of a sample size spread over 3 seasons sandwiched around a season lost to injury. You're right, we shouldn't read too much into these numbers, but they do bear watching closely.

I agree. We'll never know if Pedro was a whiner, because he never did poorly in this town. The one time he did poorly in the playoffs, we ran the manager out of town for leaving him in too long. Remember when Big Papi was struggling for a year and a half or so? Many suggested he be platooned (me) while others called for him to be demoted (rehab) or moved down to 7th or 8th in the line-up. Fans and the media began to question him, his leadership skills, and his "leading by example" for not running out some grounders. Papi started biting back. He complained about losing Manny's protection and his unfair treatment. One could have called him a whiner. Look what happened to Yaz when he declined in productivity. (He was always somewhat of a bitter man, but he got worse as his poor treatment increased. It's not easy for players used to experiencing greatness for a long time to suddenly face adversity. Many do not handle it well. It's understandable. I'm not condoning asinine behavior, but Price is not alone.

It's so much fun destroying a conceited man's ego, isn't it?. Who cares, if it makes our team lose some games while we are enjoying ourselves. Who cares, if future over-confident players won't want to come here anymore. These uppity players need to be shown their place! (Not meant to have any racial connotations here.) Look, I agree that some of these guys' heads are so swollen they can't get their act together, but we are all human- even those making $31M a year and not producing. I'm still cutting the guy a little more slack. Maybe he can learn from this awakening experience. Maybe it will take time for us to recognize a change. I realize people don't change very often, and when they do, it takes time and effort. Just my opinion.

I'm glad the gave Reed a high leverage situation. I think some went too far in criticizing him based on just a tiny and initial sample size. I agree on BM. I feel Workman should pass Barnes and Hembree on the high leverage usage chart. Kimbrel Reed Kelly Workman Barnes Hembree and others

Young has a .975 OPS this month (4th best on the team). I'm not sure what more we can expect from a 4th OF'er who doesn't play everyday. HRam seems to get singled out more often than many, but he's been about in the middle of the pack among all Sox hitters all year. Granted, that's not good for a clean-up hitters, but to me that's more on Farrell for leaving him there when others are hitting better. Here are our numbers by R-L splits vs RHPs (18+ PAs) 1.080 Devers 1.042 Nunez .846 Beni .810 Young (surprise) .788 Betts .777 Moreland .756 Pedey .755 HRam .746 Bogey .710 JBJ .705 Vaz .657 Leon .467 Holt .412 Marrero vs LHPs 1.216 Devers 1.003 Travis .949 Marrero .932 Pedey .889 JBJ (surprising) .830 Vaz .818 HRam .806 Betts .762 Nunez .714 Leon .708 Bogey .641 Moreland .636 Young (shocking) .618 Holt .615 Beni Looking at these numbers, I see a few things that jump out at me: 1) A Marrero-Lin platoon should replace Holt in September as the second SS, 3B, 2B sub off the bench behind Nunez. 2) Sam Travis might be a nice platoon with HRam/Moreland at 1B vs LHPs. 3) HRam is fine at clean-up vs LHPs, but he should be moved down vs RHPs. 4) Why does Holt get to play so much? It's not his D, and it certainly is not his O! 5) I would not expect the big reverse splits by JBJ and Young to continue- just my opinion. 6) As hot as Beni has been, his splits vs LHPs are very worrisome.

That's how I view it as well. I do think Vaz is very close on D with Leon. I do not think Vaz is this good offensively. He's likely to "come down to earth" at some point. They both are strong defensively and are .650 to .700 type hitters.

Vaz's home-away splits are massive. I'm not sure I've ever seen splits so wide: .984 Home (Best on the Sox -out of anyone with 65+ PAs) .482 Away (Worst on the Sox -out of anyone with 10+ PAs) A 502 point split differential might be nearing a record among players with 100+ PAs home and away.

Fangraphs has it much differently: 0.9 Vaz 0.3 Leon Defense 6.5 Leon 4.9 Vaz Offense -4.8 Vaz -11.5 Leon

I was certain Leon would not even come close to repeating 2016, but what many failed to realize was that the rest of last year's catcher offense was so putrid, that it was hard to imagine Vaz and Leon not improving on those PAs enough to more than offset the expected decline in Leon's 2016 PAs. I projected as light increase in catcher OPS this year based on expecting a vast imporvement on Hanigan, Holaday and Vaz's 2016 numbers. 2016 Catcher OPS: .665 .840 (271 PAs) Leon .584 (169) Vaz .449 (111) Hanigan .454 (34) Holaday .669 (23) Swihart As you can see, Leon's PAs only accounted for under 44% of the team's catcher OPS. As for my projections, I expected Leon to be very close to where he is now, and for Vaz to be between .650 and .700 not sub .600. It's also been great that we've only needed 2 catcher this year. 2017 Catcher OPS: .704 in 473 PAs .725 Vaz (250 PAs) .680 Leon (223 PAs) Our catchers currently rank T16th in catcher WAR at 1.2 with StL 6th in catcher D (+11.4). 17th in catcher ) (-16.3)

Young's been doing well this month. I don't think now is the time to match Vaz with Sale, but before the end of the year, I'd do it, just in case Leon gets hurt right before the playoffs. Let Vaz-Sale build to a comfort level, if we can afford to risk it.

. Maybe. Maybe not. We might have just not signed Moreland and planned on Shaw at 1B (at least vs lefties), or seen him end up there. 3B: Pablito & Co. 1B: HRam vs R/ Shaw vs L DH: HRam vs L/ Young vs R But, certainly the Devers call-up might have been delayed.

Top OPS players on Sox (including two- team players) 1.119 Devers .805 Beni .799 Nunez .792 Betts .767 HRam .756 Moreland .754 JBJ .742 Young .740 Bogey .725 Vaz Interesting notes: None of our top 3 hitters were on the ML team on August 1st, 2016. None of our main 10 hitters are below .725. Five of the ten hitters fall within a .027 range (.740 to .767)

Before next year. Hembree is out of options, and unless we have early pen injury issues, he should not be ahead of Wright and Ross.

I'd trade Price or HRam for AGon, but the Dodgers wouldn't.

It's a joke- just like the original suggested deal- though one may have been unintended.

Yes, indeed! I heard we're in great need of a power bat up 4th. Just sayin'.

Cut him open, Get it over with. Hope for July 2019.

If Devers can handle this pressure, then moving him to clean-up would be like a walk in the park.

I have a new nickname for "Pommy": Granite. Turns batters to stone! Get it? Pommy-granite!

53 pitches in 3 innings.

LMAO! Honestly, Noe is the very best ...player we've DFA'd this year.

Have I ever said how very glad I am we have... Rafael Freakin' Devers!

Deja-vu in reverse: Price, HRam & Castillo for ... (drum roll.....) Adrian Gonzalez ($21.5M for 2018 remaining)

I'm not sure he's "legit" either. MLB 31 IP 1.57 WHIP 4.99 ERA 9.4 K/9 AAA 135 IP 1.16 WHIP (Good but not great) 2.60 ERA 9.9 K/9 He's had a nice strike out rate, and may make it in the bigs, but I'm not s0 sure.

Assuming no trades, here are the possible contenders for pen slots for the 2018 Sox (in rough order of chances at winning a slot opening day): Kimbrel C Smith (2 options) Thornburg (assuming healthy/1 option) Kelly (can refuse minor league assignment) Barnes (2 options) Workman (2 options) Hembree (out of options) S Wright (if healthy & not a starter/out of options) All below have options remaining: R Ross R Scott B Johnson (SP) R Elias (SP) A Maddox B Taylor H Velazquez (SP) Jalen Beeks (SP) Justin Haley (SP) K Martin C Shepherd J Cosart T Lakins T Buttrey B Poyner H Owens (SP) T Ball (SP)