moonslav59

True. It's all about comparative analysis. Shaw's D at 3B is slightly below average. Hill's is about average, so even taking a hit on defense at 3B by playing Moncada over these two may not be significant enough to weigh down the expected gain on offense.

Totally agree. I'll add that he's a deceptively very good base runner. I think he will have 30 HR power by 2017 or 2018. I'm okay with slumps, as long as he has the red hot stretches to go with them.

We could trade for one, but here's the list of FAs: John Axford Joaquin Benoit Jonathan Broxton Buddy Carlyle Brett Cecil Santiago Casilla Aroldis Chapman Jesse Chavez Tim Collins Aaron Crow Wade Davis * Michael Dunn Dana Eveland Neftali Feliz Jason Grilli * Luke Hochevar Greg Holland J.P. Howell Kenley Jansen Casey Janssen Kevin Jepsen Brandon League Boone Logan Javier Lopez Brian Matusz Mark Melancon Joe Nathan Josh Outman Yusmeiro Petit Cesar Ramos Francisco Rodriguez * Sergio Romo Marc Rzepczynski Fernando Salas Sergio Santos Joe Smith Craig Stammen Drew Storen Josh Tomlin Jordan Walden * Brad Ziegler I'm no expert on other teams' RP'ers, b ut there are probably more good ones here than who I highlighted in bold.

HanRam at DH vs RHPs/Young vs LHPs. HanRam at 1B vs LHPs. Shaw at 1B vs RHPs. Pablo as the wild card at DH or 1B. Swihart probably has a better chance at playing 1B than Holt. Sam Travis may not be ready by opening day.

Umm, I actually said UZR/150 shows him as a plus at some positions. In my opiniuon, he's not an above average fielder anywhere, except maybe 2B. Making most of the plays is something the worst fielder in MLB does easily, so that's not saying much. I will agree on the term "serviceable", and I'm not ragging on Holt because of this game. I have said this before today on other sites. When you have a DH only on your 25 man roster, a guy like Holt helps a lot. Even if he doesn't play, having him on the bench gives the manager flexibility to PH or sub others. With Papi gone, Beni pushing Young to the 4th OF'er slot, and Moncada putting the squeeze on the corner IF slots next year, I don't see Holt's value as being as high as it has been. Since Moncada can play 2B, I don't see Holt's value there as high anymore. I've always been high on Hernandez, so I'm not bashing Holt at SS as much as I'm propping up Marco. Swihart is the real wild card when it comes to our utility slot. There are big advantages having him as the last everyday player. Having a guy who can be the 3rd catcher makes PH'ing and PR'ing for a catcher easier. If he can learn to play 1B and proves he can be "serviceable" in LF, he may squeeze out Holt. The presence of Hernandez and marrero with Dubon on the horizon makes the SS position deep enough. I think one of Swihart or Holt gets traded.

There's a reason Holt only has 21 starts at SS over the last 3 years. Besides, I think Hernandez might be as good or better on offense than Holt, and he's way better on defense. Marrero could be behind Holt as might Rutledge, but soon Dubon will pass him. Either way, even if you count Holt as our number 2 guy at SS, he's not that much better than Hernandez.

LOL, nice pitching by ERod too!

Once Papi's gone, Holt's versatility value is diminished. He'll be our 6th string OF'er behind the 3 B's, Young and Swihart. He'll be the 5th of 6th string 1Bman. He'll be the 4th or 5th string 3bman behind Moncada, Shaw, Hernandez, Pablo and maybe Rutledge. He'll be the 3rd or 4th string SS behind Bogey, Hernandez, Marrero and maybe Rutledge. His best position is 2B and Pedey has that covered with Moncada clearly better as his back-up than Holt. I might even prefer Hernandez at 2B over Holt. So, he's not even going to be the #2 guy at any position. He may not even be a #3, except at one of our strongest positions- 2B.

The Clemente comp is a good one.

It wasn't the stat line that made me think of Vlad. I looked that up afterwards. It's the swing, the quick wrists, the line drive hits. I was actually surprised to see the stat line that close.

I'm taking away the positives: ERod is back! We need him with Wright in question. I'm not worried about the offense at all.

I hate to react to just one play or one game, or even one week or month, but I've been saying for years that Holt just is not that good on defense at most of the positions he plays. Yeah, versatility is nice, but only if you're capable. To me, Holt is probably a plus at 2B, but he rarely gets to play there on this team. I'm not sure he's "plus" anywhere else, although his small sample size UXR/150s show he is here and there.

This isn't the first time this sort of thing has happened this year. It reminds me of the old days before the rings. We can't keep doing this. We should have swept these clowns. We outscoed them 27-5. Earler this year we... Outscored the Rays 12-9 and split 2-2. Outscored the Tigers 21-18 and split 2-2. Outscored the Dodgers 14-11 and lost 2 of 3. Outscored the Angels 14-12 and split 2-2. Outscored the twins 31-22 and split 2-2. I know this happens, but these are just the series since July 21st, and there are no reverse examples where we get outscored but win or tie a series.

Vladamir Guerrero before his legs gave way. I am not seeing that at all. Vlad did have a gun, although it was sometimes erratic. He stole 37 and 40 bases when his legs were good. He had 35-45 HR power. His career line: .318/.379/.553/.931 Mookie this year: .319/.359/.560/.919 Mookies' not as big as Vlad was, but he still reminds me of the way he hit line drives all over the place.

We really do have a lot of ML competition as well as guys like Sam Travis very close to pushing for a ML roster slot. We are very deep at infield utility. We may be a little short in OF depth. Assuming some players may try a new position to better their chances at making the 25 man roster, here is a look at the competition at our positions: C: Leon, Vazquez, Swihart, Holaday, Hanigan (option probably turned down), Butler, Romanski 1B: HanRAm, Shaw, Swihart, Pablo, Holt, Travis (Craig) 2B: Pedroia, Moncada, Holt, Hernandez, Rutledge, Marrero 3B: Moncada, Shaw, Pablo, Hernandez, Rutledge, Holt, Marrero SS: Bogearts, Hernandez, Holt, Rutledge, Marrero, Dubon 2018? LF: Beninetndi, Young, Swihart, Holt, Brentz, (Castillo/Craig), Basabe 2018? CF: JBJ, (Beni/Betts), Young, Holt (Castillo) RF: Betts, (Beni), Young, Holt, Swihart (Castillo/Craig) DH: Hanram, Young, Pablo, Swihart, Leon (C Marrero/J Witte) I count 18-19 serious contenders for the 13-14 slots available on opening day.

Robby Scott pitched 78 inning with Pawtucket. He had a 2.54 ERA and a fantastic 0.91 WHIP. He also had 73 Ks and only 14 BBs. His OPS against was a spectacular .608. At Portland in 2015, he pitched 43.2 innings and had a 2.06 ERA and 1.03 WHIP (.553 OPS against). He just turned 27. Here's what soxprospects said about him: Undrafted free agent out of Florida State. Pitched minimally out of the bullpen for FSU after transferring from Broward Community College Filled out frame, strong lower half. Simple, controlled delivery. Throws from a 3/4 arm slot. Fastball sits 86-88 mph with heavy arm-side run. Able to take a little off the pitch when he wants to get more movement. Secondary offerings include a curveball and changeup. 11-5 curveball works 71-73 mph with long, two-plane break. Strong feel for the pitch.Strong feel for average-to-better 79-81 mph straight changeup that shows late drop. Large reverse platoon splits due to the effectiveness of his changeup vs. right-handed hitters. Ceiling of a low-leverage inning left-handed reliever.

Agreed, but it's all relative. I think the offer to Pedey was insulting. He didn't.

All big signings are gambles. The biggest signings in MLB have largely been failures or have fallen well short of expectations across the board. We missed on Castillo but my have hit pay dirt with Moncada. We missed with Crawford and Pablo and come up short with HanRam. We may have hit with Price. What has risen above all these signings was the massive build up of top quality prospects that have not only strengthened our current roster, but also allowed us to acquire top players by trading some of them. Betts Bogaerts Bradley Moncada Beninetndi Devers Groome Kopech Dubon Dalbec Basabe S Travis Hernandez Johnson Prospects and young players traded away: Margot Guerra L Allen Basabe P Light W Rijo Longer ago... de la Rosa & Webster (for Miley who morphed into Smith) Ranaudo (for R Ross) Doubront (for Marco Hernandez) Middlebrooks (for Hanigan) Iggy (for Peavy who morphed into Hembree) Lars Anderson (for Steven Wright) Rizzo & Kelly (for AGon) Reddick (for Bailey)

Agreed. I think what some people are forgetting is that Lester had mentioned he'd be willing to take a "hometown discount". When you look at the deal Pedey took as a "hometown discount", one might think in this context, the original offer to Lester was not as absurd as it looked on the surface. I'm not defending the offer. It clearly was a low ball offer. Too low to not be viewed as disrespectful. Where I think they went wrong, and I'm only speculating, is that they should have quickly followed up their initial offer with something much more appealing. Maybe even that would have been too late, as the first offer left its mark. Does anyone doubt that Lester would have accepted the Sox final offer (when Lester was in free agency) day one? That then begs the next question: had we signed Lester, would Price be here now? And also, if we had signed Lester, would we have signed both Pablo and HanRam?

Vladamir Guerrero before his legs gave way.

I seem to remember the talk with the Guardians about Carrasco or Salazar last winter also centered around JBJ, and that was before JBJ's solid 2016 season! It's clear other GMs value JBJ highly. It's hard to understand why so many posters have ridden the fence on this kid. I guess some read into pro-longed slumps more than what it is.

Agreed. Just a healthy Smith next year would be like a major acquisition. If we can add another 2 solid pen arms, we could make major gains in our weakest link. I have not been a big Shaw supporter, but I'm not sure we can afford to trade him, unless we sign a corner IF'er. To me, why not just sign a RP'er instead of trading Shaw. Moncada is not sure bet at 3B, although I'm counting on him to be our FT'er next year. HanRam is so up and down, I would not project as good year from him next year. he could be better: he could be much worse. Pablo is the biggest question mark on the team next year. Sam Travis is returning from serious injury and should not be counted on as anything more than system depth in 2017. Holt is not a viable long term option at 3B or 1B. I like Hernandez at 3B, but not as a FT solution, until we know more about him. Swihart could learn to play 1B or could DH some next year. I see Young as our DH vs LHPs next year, except for days he is covering for an injured or resting OF'er. None of these guys give me a 100% solid feeling next year. Probably Moncada and HanRam and Young vs LHPs only come closest, but with the DH position open, there's still areas where Shaw could be a big asset to us. I realize we need to give value to get value, but I think we could get more for Swihart than Shaw, and we wouldn't notice his departure as much as Shaw's, in 2017 anyway.

I never bought into the idea that our team was going to have numerous "black holes" in our line up this year. I thought maybe Vazquez might hover around .600 or .650, but with all the depth I figured the cream would rise to the top and we'd be a solid offensive team from top to bottom, kind of like we were last year, especially towards the end. The park certainly makes a difference, but we are still have the best road OPS (.770) in the AL. It's not as dominating as our home OPS (.867), but we are still the best never the less. What I feel really drives this line up is the balance. It drives me crazy when posters complain about the bottom of our line up, but the reality is other teams have horrible bottom of the orders--much much worse than ours, and it's the comparative production numbers that matter. For example, how can a 9th slot batter with a .600 OPS be killing us, if every other team has a .550 OPS ninth hitter? Here's where our order slots rank in MLB: Slot: OPS Rank 1st: .899 1st 2nd: 796 12th 3rd: .888 7th 4th: .952 1st 5th: .777 13th 6th: .821 3rd 7th: .778 3rd 8th: .653 20th 9th: .796 1st (next team is at .716) If you look at the 6 through 9 slots, our bottom 4 are much better than any other team in MLB, despite the 8 slot. OPS vs RHPs: .824 1st in MLB OPS vs LHPs: .810 2nd in MLB to AZ OPS 2nd half: .798 2nd to COL OPS 1st half: .833 1st Up and down, sideways to sideways, we are solid everywhere on offense. Even our bench has been amazing: Leon .988 Moncada .929 Beni .850 Young .817 Hernandez .780 Shaw .759 Rutledge .733 Swihart .720 Holt .713 These 9 subs would be better than most team's in MLB on offense! This is why we are number 1 on offense.

I've been one of Buch's biggest supporters over the years, but I'm with Kingface on this one. I'm done with the hopes and prayers- often dashed. We can spend the money on more durable, stable and consistent pitchers. If we determine other teams would pay the $13.5M, which I think someone would for just a 1 year gamble, then take the option and trade him for the best we can get, even if it's just a good single A player. I wouldn't be upset, if we keep him, but the $13M ($13.5M option - $0.5M buyout) would be a big chunk of our winter spending budget.

Yes, the hitting will get tougher when we face better pitching, but having the best offense will help. One of weaknesses has been hitting on the road vs home. These past two games will narrow that gap. I'm actually more excited about our starting pitching over the last month or two. We're at or near the top in the AL in most meaningful categories. If our pen can get its act together, we should be the AL faves.