moonslav59

Fluke.

How about... Travis, Beeks & Lakins? (Maybe add Maddox) or Ockimey, Holt, Beeks & Lakins? (Maybe add Maddox)

Price is on the DL, and ERod has looked shaky. You just don't pass on a chance to get a guy like Gray. Look at the Dodgers: they just acquired Darvish and they were already stacked deep with starters- though some are injured like us. You nver stop looking for cheap ways to bolster your rotation. We can always trade away a starter, if we end up with too many.

Hispanics can also have African roots.

Wow, we're down to making rash decisions based on one game sample sizes now. Holt has sucked all year. The injury can be used as an excuse, but no way do I ever bench Beni for Holt, except maybe vs LHPs, but then I'd still use Young or Nunez instead of Holt. Once Pedey returns, Holt should hardly ever play.

You're right, sorry. 4 of 6 with 140 or more vs 2 of 4 with 140 or less.

Although the modern playoff schedule has less days off than before, there are still more days off than during the season. This shortens the staff to the point where only 3-4 starters are needed, and a team's top 2-3 RP'ers are used at a higher percent than normal. I like how our top 6-7 pitchers stack up against any AL team: SP1 Sale (the best ace this year) SP2 Price (the highest priced #2 in MLB history) SP3 Pom (steady Drew) SP4 Porcello (2.79 ERA in his last 4 starts and last year's cy Young winner) RP1 Kimbrel (MLB's best closer this year) RP2 A Redd (Could be one of the best set-up men in MLB) RP3 C Smith if healthy- Joe Kelly if not The Guardians have a nice top 2 starters: Kluber 2.90 Carrasco 3.58 but get sketchy after that... Tomlin 5.38 Bauer 5.25 (Salazar 4.63/Clevinger 3.68) Their pen is deeper and can allow Tito to yank starters earlier: Cody Miller 2.74 A Miller 1.52 B Shaw 2.90 N Goody 2.29 Z McAllister 2.11 D Otero 3.57 The Astros are battling more injuries than we are. Their staff is highly questionable: Keuchel 1.94 (has only 12 starts) M Fiers 3.71 (leadss the team in IP at 112) McCullers 3.92 (on the DL) C Morton 3.77 (LOL!) Peacock 2.62 (LOL!) K Giles 3.11 Devenski 2.85 Feliz 5.04, Sipp 6.47 or just added Liriano? The Yanks are hard to gauge since adding Gray, Garcia, Robertson & Kahnle to the staff, but they look pretty good: Severino 2.98 Pineda 4.39 (on DL) Tanaka 5.09 Sabathia 3.66/Montgomery 4.15 Chapman 2.97 Warren 2.06 Betances 2.61 Robertson & Kahnle It should be an interesting AL playoffs.

He's been a God send, but we shouldn't keep expecting him to be this great the rest of the year. Hopefully Nunez and Devers have lit a fire under the other players' asses.

I'll believe in Smith when I see him, but I do think we have the makings for a strong pen. Kimbrel is the best closer this year- period. Reed has to adjust to the set-up role, but of he pitches like he did with the Mets, we'll have one of the best 8th inning guys in MLB. To me, the biggest gain is the fact that now we have Kelly (when he returns) and maybe Smith to pitch the 7th and help out in the 8th here and there, AND Barnes and Hembree are now very good 6th/7th inning RP'ers. Abad remains a very good LOOGY. Having Workman, Scott and other available in reserve is also a very good thing/

Pedey's played in over 140 games in 5 of his last 6 seasons. He played in 140 games or more in 2 of 4 before that. It looks to me like he's playing more as he ages.

Also, Moreland has been playing (if you want to call it that) hurt for a long time.

We have 16 guys listed as 6-3 or taller- all pitchers! Moreland, HRam and Young are listed as 6-2. Bogey, Swihart and Marrero as 6-1- everyone else is 6-0 or shorter.

Well, we just traded for 6-4 Addison Reed. Too bad he's not a clean-up hitter.

Gray was well worth the risk of the three guys you gave up. He may not work out, but he's a proven ace who has shown signs he's returning to form. DD should have tried hard to beat the Yankees' offer. If we ended up with a glut of starters next year, we could always trade one for good prospects or trade one as part of a bigger package for a cost-controlled big bat..

Reports are that DD didn't even inquire about SP'ing. How do you not even ask about Sonny Gray? The guy has 3 playoff cycles of team control at a low cost. Criminal negligence.

I always thought it meant "Suck your thumb!"

Last place does suck, especially when we were expected to compete those seasons. However, going 30+ years with no rings sucked more. I remember saying I'd take 10 last place finishes for just one ring. After the first one, I didn't feel that way anymore. Yeah, the seasons were exciting coming so close year after year, but those winters were long and painful listening to yankee fans saying "Ring scoreboard chump!" There was also one pretty bad stretch back when the division was 7 teams. We finished 5th, 5th, 3rd, 6th, 4th and 5th in a 5 year stretch from 1980 to 1985. We followed that last 5th place season with a 7th game loss to the Mets in '86. To me, that loss hurt more than the previous 5 years of futility. Funny, we went 78-84 in 1987 then won the division again in 1988. Later, we finished 7th out of 7, then 5th and 4th from '92-'94 and again followed that with a 1st place finish. The 8 straight second place finishes from '98 to '05 were exciting, but that ring in '04 was so incredible, it washed away years and years of pain and frustration. I'm not sure I'd call 2006, 2010 and 2011 all that exciting, but they surely were more fun than finishing in last place. Finishing 5th out 5 in 3 of 4 years stung badly, but that 2013 win after what happened in Boston that year really did wash away all the 3 years of pain for me. That was special.

Devers looks like a natural at the plate. It's hard to imagine he was hitting just .779 in over 540 PAs at A+ ball last summer and .773 the year before at single A Greenville. That's over 1050 PAs from 2015-2016 with an OPS no higher than .780! Gotta love this kid! He's taken off like a rocket!

Many teams have won without power, without a good rotation and/or without scoring a lot of runs. If the Sox had the stats the Royals had the years they went far, this board would be going bananas.

Reed may give up a lot of fly balls, but that doesn't mean a whole lot will be HRs, even with the move to 50% of his games at Fenway. Plus, his FB% is pretty close to Kimbrel and Hembree's. Look at LD% 24.5% Kelly (20.6 FB%) 21.3% Barnes (24.6 FB%) 19.1% Kimbrel (41.2 FB%) 18.6% Hembree (43.4 FB%) 17.8% A Reed (43.8 FB%) To me, a big stat for RP'ers is K/BB: 11.43 Kimbrel 3rd in MLB among RP'ers with 40+ IP 8.00 A Reed (6th in MLB) 4.73 Hembree (16th) 2.59 Barnes (64th out of 102) (Kelly is at 1.63) I'll take Reed over a healthy Kelly, Barnes or Hembree any day of the week.To me, what's going to be best about this trade is that now Kelly, Barnes and Hembree will now be our 6th and 7th inning RPe'rs. Another important RP'er stat: WHIP 0.60 Kimbrel (1st) 1.12 Reed (38th) 1.18 Barnes (45th) 1.39 Hembree (83rd)

David Ortiz was third on the team in PAs in 2015 and had a great season (.913 OPS). How come no other starter had an OPS over .797, except Betts at .820 (which is about where Mookie is this year without Papi BTW)? .717 HRam .693 Napoli .658 Pablo With all the "fastballs these guys get to see", why the rotten protection numbers? Only Betts had a higher OPS (.820) than .797 out of the other top 10 PA guys. How about 2014? None of our other top 11 PA players had an OPS over .719, except Napoli at .789. Papi's 2013 OPS of .959 was not much better than 2015, but was he really the reason Salty hit .804? Was he the reason 9 of the other top 11 PA hitters all had an OPS above .771? And that 5 guys were over .800? How come the magic only works some years? Papi had a better OPS in 2012, so how come the rest of the team fizzled with his great "protection"? Salty .742 Ellsbury .682 7 of the other top 11 PA players that year had an OPS below .742 and 5 were below .705. Yeah, AGon hit .812, but that was below expectations. Only Cody Ross' .807 was better than we hoped it would be. I just don't see the correlation, and all the studies I've heard of say line-up protection is a myth. Certainly having Papi bat 4th instead of Moreland will lead to many more runs, but I doubt it has anything more than a minimal impact on the players around him. 2012, 2014 and 2015 are good examples.

None of our 8 top PA players this year are below .732. All 8 are within .075 of each other. (I counted Nunez in the 8.) Our next 3 (9-11th in PAs) are within .047 of each other (between .672 and .719). I'm not sure any other team has all of their top 11 PAs players over .672, but I'm not sure there are many teams without one top 11 player over .806 either.

Good to see Vaz put a couple of good games together. I almost choked when I saw Holt bat 2nd. This JF loyalty crap has to stop soon. Then, Holt gets on base 3 of 5 times! Go figure! His OPS is now over .500. Top Sox OPS 1.231 Devers (27 PAs) .806 Betts .791 Pedey .790 Nunez (2 teams) .777 HRam .775 JBJ .775 Travis (50 PAs) .748 Beni .747 Bogey .739 Lin (59 PAs) .732 Moreland .719 Young .684 Leon .672 Vaz .628 Marco (60) .622 Pablo (108) .576 Marrero (166) .558 Rutledge (118) .506 Holt (63) Looking to next year, if we can replace these numbers with Devers at 3B and a new big bat at 1B/DH, maybe our offense will return to top 3 status... PAs OPS Player to be replaced 3B PAs only 142 .617 Marrero (.576 at all positions) 97 .603 Pablo (.622 overall) 64 .607 Rutledge (.558 overall) 30 .278 Holt (.506 overall) 27 .556 Hernandez 9.628 overall) Replace with... Devers (a healthy Hernandez & Lin) DH/1B 380 .734 Moreland at 1B (.732 overall) 47 .774 Young at DH (.710 overall) Replace with a good FA and Travis (.775)

Darren Feakin' Bragg!

Maybe, but VTek played a long time and had some good WAR years. Lowe gave us 8 years.