moonslav59

Me too, but it's nice to know what our cushion is. If we make the playoffs, rank the teams you'd like to face first. Here's mine: 1) NYY 2) DET 3) BAL 4) TOR 5) CLE 6) TEX We're 4 games behind Texas, so unless we catch them, it looks like we would face CLE, if we win the division.

How about the AL East? Teams with a winning percent over .535: 4 AL East 2 AL Central 2 NL West 1 AL West 1 NL East 1 NL Central Teams with a winning percent over .549: 3 AL East 1 Everyone else While 4 teams have a better winning percent than the Sox, none of them play in the AL East.

Before today's game, there were 124 AL players with 300+ PAs. Here's how our players rank in key categories: BA 2) Pedey .328 8) Ortiz .316 9) Betts .315 19) Bogey .298 32) Ramirez .285 52) Bradley .272 HR 14) Ortiz 31 15) Betts 30 30) JBJ 23 35) Ram 22 51) Bogey 18 60) Shaw 16 RBI 3) Ortiz 107 4) Betts 101 7) Ramirez 93 27) Bogey 81 28) JBJ 80 40) Shaw 70 46) Pedey 65 OPS 1) Ortiz 1.022 11) Betts .903 17) Pedey .850 19) JBJ .849 23) Ram .841 45) Bogey .800 170 players with 180+ PAs 1) Ortiz 1.022 4) Leon .958 12) Betts .903 17) Young .864 20) Pedey .850 22) J B J .849. 26) Ramirez .841 53) Bogey .800 75) TShaw .770 _____________ .748 AL OPS____ 107) Holt .719

I'm not complaining about HanRam. I'm tickled pink he's doing so well. He's not great on defense, but he's good enough to not be an issue. I was talking next year, in terms of him being moved to DH vs RHPs. It's not a demotion. It's just one adjustment to help minimize the loss of Papi.

20 games to go... BOS +2 over TOR/BAL WC TOR - BAL - DET -2 NYY -2 So, we're up 4 for the last playoff slot.

I'd love to add him to our roster, but he's going to want mega bucks and mega years. Some GM will offer him 5-6 years at $25+M. I don't think we should. My guess is we make a play for Beltran for 2 years. (note: I wouldn't.)

It makes sense to take your weakest defensive player, as long as he can hit, and make him the DH once Papi retires. That would be HanRam. I get the argument that not all players are cut out to be DH's. It's hard to keep focused, and focus is something HanRam seems to struggle with. However, there are other reasons to move HanRam to DH vs RHPs only with Young DH'ing vs lefties.. 1) Moncada is likely to win the 3B job at some point next year, if not on day one. 2) Pablo may surprise us all and win the 3B or 1B job next year. As fat as he is, he's probably still a better fielding 1Bman than HanRam. 3) T Shaw has the best UZR/150 at 1B from 2015-2016, He could play 1B vs RHPs. (Maybe he plays 3B vs LHPs, if he ever learns how to hit them.) So, we could have this at not extra financial cost: ....vs RHPs...vs LHPs DH: Ramirez Young 1B: T, Shaw Ramirez 3B: Moncada Shaw/Moncada Wild Card: Pablo

To me, it's not about the 16-20 record in one-run games, it's more about our recent trend (last 10 games) of losing low-scoring one run games immediately after a blow out win. It kills me!

This would be a fantastic time to buy low on Zimmermann who has gotten rather unlucky this year. Better him than Buchholz. What, like trade Buch and Devers for Zimm?

(2014-2016) Here's how the Sox have done this year against the top 34 SP'ers by WAR (2014-2016) I'm using the larger sample size than just this year, because if we killed a pitcher this year, we might have knocked him out of the top 34- like Greinke): W-L ERA/WHIP Kershaw DNP Kluber 1-1 4.28/1.46 Scherzer DNP CSale 1-1 1.29/0.71 J Arrieta DNP Quintana 1-0 4.73/1.35 Lester DNP Bumgarner 0-0 1.50/0.83 J Cueto DNP Keuchel 0-1 12.00/2.17 Greinke 0-1 48.60/6.00 deGrom DNP Strasburg DNP C Archer 0-4 6.65/1.75 CHamels DNP Carrasco 0-0 7.20/1.60 G Cole DNP______ Vs top 17: 8-3 Tanaka 1-0 2.13/0.79 Verlander 2-0 1.50/0.92 Zimmerman DNP JFernandez DNP GGonzalez DNP CMcHugh 0-1 8.10/2.40 J Lackey DNP Wainwright DNP Syndergaard DNP Samardzjia DNP Pineda 0-2 4.50/1.50 Hendricks DNP B Colon DNP T Ross DNP Richards DNP Salazar 0-1 8.31/2.54 S Gray 0-1 17.18/2.73 Our record vs the best 34: 12-5 I doubt any other team has a better W-L record vs these guys this year.

I'm not going to take the time to study how other top contending teams do against the very best pitchers in MLB, but here are the best pitchers in MLB by WAR from 2014 to 2016 (I'm using a larger sample size than this year, because if we killed a pitcher this year, we might have knocked him out of the top 30- like Greinke): W-L ERA/WHIP Kershaw DNP Kluber 1-1 4.28/1.46 Scherzer DNP CSale 1-1 1.29/0.71 J Arrieta DNP Quintana 1-0 4.73/1.35 Lester DNP Bumgarner 0-0 1.50/0.83 J Cueto DNP Keuchel 0-1 12.00/2.17 Greinke 0-1 48.60/6.00 deGrom DNP Strasburg DNP C Archer 0-4 6.65/1.75 CHamels DNP Carrasco 0-0 7.20/1.60 G Cole DNP______ Vs top 17: 8-3 Tanaka 1-0 2.13/0.79 Verlander 2-0 1.50/0.92 Zimmerman DNP JFernandez DNP GGonzalez DNP CMcHugh 0-1 8.10/2.40 J Lackey DNP Wainwright DNP Syndergaard DNP Samardzjia DNP Pineda 0-2 4.50/1.50 Hendricks DNP B Colon DNP T Ross DNP Richards DNP Salazar 0-1 8.31/2.54 S Gray 0-1 17.18/2.73 Our record vs the best 34: 12-5 I doubt any other team has a better W-L record vs these guys this year.

true, it's a 1.02 to 1.03 correlation. Not much to consider a big deal.

BOS +1.0 on TOR TOR +1.0 (1st WC) BAL 0.0 (2nd WC) DET -1.0 NYY -1.0 - won 7 in a row HOU -2.5 SEA -3.5 KCR -4.0

We have problems scoring against good pitching... We've beaten some big named pitchers. We seem to lose to unknowns and middle of the roaders.

We're 16-20 in one run losses, and my bet is most are in games with us scoring 3 or less runs. We've lost 4 by 1 run in our last 10 games, so before that we were at .500. 2-3 1-2 0-1 3-4 Our last 1 run win was August 23rd 2-1. My point was that we seem to lose by one run in low scoring games immediately after winning in a blow out. Listed in reverse order... Win 13-3 then - Lose 3-2 Win 16-2 & 11-2 then Lose 1-0 & 2-1 Win 9-4 then lose 4-3 Those were our last 4. Here's more over the season: Win 8-1 then lose 4-3 Win 16-2 then lose 3-2 Win 11-7 & 13-2 then lose 2-1 (July 20th). That's 7 times since July 20th. The last time before that was May 12th: win 11-1 then lose 7-6. Win 7-3 then lose 3-2. Opening: win 6-2 then lose 7-6. It wasn't a pattern for us until late July. I'm not sure how other contenders have one in 1-run games..

FAs to be: Ortiz Uehara Tazawa Ziegler Hill Options: Buchholz ($13.5M or $500K buyout) Hanigan ($3.75M or $800K) Let's just assume Buchholz and Hanigan are not back next year. Here is what we would be looking at for the 25 and 40 man roster: SP: Price, Porcello, Pomeranz, Wright, ERod, Kelly RP: Kimbrel, _____, Smith, ____, Ross, Barnes, Abad C: Leon, Vazquez DH/1B: Ramirez 1B/3B: Shaw 2B: Pedroia 3B: Moncada SS: Bogaerts LF: Benintendi LF/DH: Young LF/C/1B?: Swihart CF: Bradley RF: Betts Utility: Holt Wild card: Sandoval (Holt or Swihart could be traded, or Swihart could start in AAA) That's 26 players. The other 14: SP: Johnson, Owens, Elias RP: Hembree, Scott, Workman, N Ramirez, W Jerez C: Romanski, Holaday (no options) 1B: J Witte (rule 5) SS/3B/2B: Hernandez SS/2B/3B: Marrero 3B/2B: Rutledge OF: Brentz (Dubon, Basabe not rule 5) I think we keep Rutledge. He has 2 options remaining. I think Brentz might be gone, but we are short on OF depth.

Ok, fess up, where are the guys who wanted Jordan Zimmerman? (I confess I wanted Anibal Sanchez a couple years or so back.)

We do pretty well when we face very good pitchers. I think we'll score 5+ tomorrow. Let's hope Buch & Co. can keep them under 5.

Sorry, I meant it as a joke.

Meet next year's DH.

...his lack of durability is offset by his huge upside. I agree, but let it be for another team. I want durability.

Another low-scoring one run loss after a blow-out. I hate this pattern we've seemed to latched onto. It's never a 10-9 loss after a 12-0 win.

Well, people here are willing to "shell out" $13M for Buch as our 5/6 starter. I can see having doubts about Wright and ERod, and maybe even Pomeranz, but it's still a solid 5 man rotation. I'm certainly concerned about our 6th starter being Kelly/Johnson/Elias/Owens/O'Sullivan, but it's not worth $13M to me to make that concern go away. I could see trading Buch and Swihart or Buch and Holt or Buch and Devers for a solid and more reliable starter, but then what? We put Wright or ERod in the pen? I guess that's doable. My philosophy is to rebuild the rotation from the top not the middle or bottom. I'm not sure Buch and Swihart would get us an ace type or solid #2 pitcher. Mayeb we go all out and get Sale or Quintana, and the Buch question is solved. We take his option and trade him for the best we can get, then we go with Wright or ERod as out long man/spot starter. That's something that makes more sense to me. Would you trade ERod for Buch and Devers? Would you trade Wright for Buch and Devers? If no, then how are we going to get someone who beats out ERod and Wright for those two? It seems silly to trade Buch and Devers to upgrade our 6th starter. If you would make one or both of the deals above, how much of an upgrade would you expect from the guy we get back? Give a name of the type of pitcher you think we could get for Buch and Devers. I can't think of many rebuilding teams that would want Buch and his $13M contract. I can't think of any contenders that would give us a better starter than Buch, if they want to win now- Devers would not help them now. It's like a catch -22. Maybe, we could get a pitcher in return who is paid more than Buch, so that would add motivation to the other team. I'm looking at a winter spending budget of about $30-35M. Someone else thinks it might be closer to $40M. This is not counting Buch's option of $13.5M or a $500K buyout. We may want to try and find a short term big bat solution at DH, 1B, 3B or LF. We tried to trade for Beltran, so I'm thinking maybe we go after him. He may want a 2-3 year deal, and we may want 1-2. Some here want Encarnacion, but I think he'll ask for and get 5-6 years somewhere. With Moncada, Beni and Devers on the team, I'm not sure a long term deal for a DH type is the right move. Reagardless, we may spend on something offensively. Then there is the pen. I see this for next year: RP1 Kimbrel RP2 _______ RP3 Smith RP4 _______ RP5 Ross RP6 Kelly RP7 Barnes/Hembree/Abad/Elias Now, I realize 2 solid RPer's or 1 solid RP'er and 2 decent ones will not cost $30M. but with Buch's $13M added in, we may not be able to do everything we want and still stay below the now 50% luxury tax.

Some more amazing 2nd half numbers: OPS against from our pen: .143 Uehara (14 PAs) .486 Kimbrel (49) .500 Scott (4) .513 Ross (85) .654 Ziegler (86) .656 Kelly (27) .666 Abad (53) (.616 Buch in relief and as a starter)

Yeah, Erod has 8 BB in his last 17.1 IP, but the huge upside is that he's only allowed 5 Hits in that same time frame for an 0.750 WHIP! I'll take it! Let's hope this staff stays in top form from here on out. I mean look at these starter numbers! I'm not sure, if we've ever had a 4 week stretch like this: 5-0 1.85 Price (.504 OPS against) 5-0 2.53 Porcello (.518) 2-1 2.05 Buchholz (.669) includes some relief 0-1 2.60 Rodriguez (.367) WOW! 2-2 2.90 Pomeranz (.682) All 5 starters below 2.90! ALL FIVE HAVE BEEN DOMINANT!!! The longer sanple size (2nd half) keeps improving: 9-1 2.57 Porcello (.540) 6-2 3.07 Price (.688) 1-3 2.73 ERod (.582) 3-1 2.95 Buch (.616) includes some relief 2-4 3.97 Pom (.762) Simply amazing!