moonslav59

Steve Adams reports... The Brewers will acquire minor league shortstop Yeison Coca from the Red Sox as the player to be named later in the offseason Tyler Thornburg/Travis Shaw trade, according to Evan Drellich of CSN New England (Twitter link). Coca, 18, signed with the Red Sox back on July 2 in 2015 as a 16-year-old and has just one full season of pro ball under his belt. He spent the 2016 campaign with Boston’s affiliate in the Dominican Summer League, hitting .307/.370/.409 with a homer, five doubles, nine triples and 12 stolen bases (in 17 attempts). Baseball America rated Coca as the Red Sox’ No. 25 prospect this offseason, noting that he shows the instincts and defensive aptitude to eventually be an everyday shortstop with above-average bat-to-ball skills and below-average power.

Here's the proof...

Some current team numbers... Pitching according to fangraphs: 16.3 LAD 14.9 BOS 14.7 CLE 13.1 NYY 13.0 CUBS 12.9 WSH 12.5 HOU Batting 17.6 CUBS 17.0 HOU 16.8 LAD 16.1 CLE 15.3 WSH 14.9 TOR 14.7 BOS 14.3 NYY Runs scored 314 WSH 312 HOU 300 COL 294 NYY 284 MIL 283 LAD 283 AZ 277 DET 276 CIN 272 TBR 271 BOS at #11 (just 7 runs from being top 8 and 14 runs from top 5. 4th in OBP at .340 (just .001 from the Yanks) 19th in SLG but on the rise 11th in OPS at .751 6th in Earned Runs allowed at 208 (227 runs allowed is also 6th.) 5th in ERA- at 87 6th in WHIP at 1.23 1st in K/BB at 3.96 Best closer in MLB according to WAR (Kimbrel +1.7 with 2nd place at 1.4) Best starter in MLB according to WAR (Sale at 3.6 with 2nd place at just 2.4) 4th in defense according to fangraphs 5th in UZR/150 10th in DRS 15th in Base Running With all the injuries and "off years", we don't look too bad at the 1/3rd mark.

I'm hopeful he ends up more like 2016, or at least something better than 2015...like his career norm.

Beni is only at 350 career PAs. He's on pace for these numbers after 700 PAs: .278 18 88 .348/435/.782 40 (2B+3B) 18 SB/ 2 CS 2.4 (projected) WAR on BR and fangraphs He's no Fred Lynn, but he did come up a year earlier than Fred.

I've also used the argument that asks anyone to choose one other stat that does a better job at ranking the best to the 10th or 20th best. Put the two lists side-by-side and see which one better measures the best overall players in MLB. WAR always wins- hands down. There might be a difference of opinion between #5 and #6 or even a #3 vs a #6, but the ordering blows away any other single stat. The thought of trying to come up with a single number to judge everything is fraught with challenges and complexities and imperfections, but it's a noble effort and I applaud the efforts to fine tune and improve the methodology and results.

It's not unheard of for catchers to get it all together after age 27-29. There's a lot to learn and improve at the catcher position, and many times hitting takes the back seat.

I couldn't agree more. I'm glad we have Chris Freakin Sale on his club, and I think Papblo is our best chance at geting anything positive out of 3B until Devers is ready.

If you look at recent Red Sox history, you'll find a strong correlation between our starting 4 or 5 all getting over 25 starts and winning championships (or not).

Maybe part of HRam's issue is the loss of Papi's "protection". Maybe another part is his injury. Maybe his up and down career is just at a down point. I think we'll need HRam to be strong by playoff time to have a much better shot at winning it all. Every championship team needs things to go right at the same time and THE RIGHT TIME! With a starting rotation headed by Chris Freakin' Sale, David Price, Rick Porcello and possibly ERod, I like how we might look going into any series against any team in MLB, assuming they are all healthy.

Look again. TWO SEASONS. 2015: June 10th OPS .658 Oct 4th OPS .820 2016: May 9th: .693 May 18th: .726 May 28th: .781 Oct 2nd: .897 (Even his short 2014 season started out slow. He was at .624 on AUG 22 but ended up at .812.) Look, I have no way of knowing if Betts will "ignite" again this year, but he's still young, and many young players continue to improve as they near their prime years. Of course, they don't always follow a neat and tidy bell curve, but there is reason to expect Betts to do better going forward this year. Career: 1st half: .822 2nd half: .887 Best months to worst months over his short career: .959 August .874 September .865 July .839 May .824 June .740 April Pretty close to a clear progression from month to month. (Flip May & June and SEP & AUG.)

Not something to celebrate.

Agreed, but it's more their defense that impresses me.

We're going to sweep the bastahds!

...a bit more than "respectable"!

VTek played a half season at age 26. Yes, he became a plus hitter early in his career, but he did have two sub .730 seasons in his first 4 full seasons (ages 27-30). Leon had been a horrible hitter for most of his career, including the minors, but he has had a few long hot stretches. It took VTek years to get to plus on defense, while Leon has always been a plus defender behind the plate. The two have almost opposite histories.

Nice win today. Good to see Beni come to life.

OPS now .767 and climbing.

...and just like that, his OPS is up to a respectable .755!

Many catcher take a long time to reach their best. VTek was over 31-32 before he became a top catcher. I'm not proclaiming Leon the next VTek, but he's still young enough to get even better.

While I think today could be a big game and maybe a starting point of turning around a s0-s0 season, I never feel like any game is must win, unless it's a near elimination game.

lol!!!

Agreed, although Kelly has yet to let up an HR (24.1 IP this year).

And they miss the obvious reason. Xander might be ninth not because of what he does. But because 8 other shortstops do it better... I admit, I have watch almost no MLB games not involving the Sox over the 50 years I've followed baseball. I have watched some Astros games recently, but no where near the amount of Sox games. That being said, I know I have seen plays made by visiting SSs that I've never seen Bogey make. It's not just one here or there either. It's enough for me to know Bogey is not even close to being the best defensive SS in MLB. I like UZR/150, and I think it is much more accurate than me or any other fan watching mostly just Sox games and looking at Flg% and RF/9 like the old days to try and determine what ranking our defenders should have in the pecking order. Most posters know I was a big Iggy fan and have always highly valued, perhaps too much, SS defense. I was one of those posters suggesting we move and keep Bogey at 3B. Maybe I'm still biased against his defense, but I did admit he progressed more than I thought he would a couple of years ago aafter his decent 2015 defensive season. Now, I'm not so sure about his "progression". I felt he took a slight step backwards last year, on defense, and he hasn't shown any growth this year. The UZR/150 supports my opinion, but we no longer have an Iggy in our system, so I see no reason to move him off SS for the foreseeable future. Right now, Bogey ranks 18th out of 29 in UZR and 15th out of 29 in UZR/150 at barley a plus (+0.7). Look, I'm thrilled to have an average fielding SS who is hitting over .330, but that doesn't mean I'm not disappointed that his defense seemed to stop improving after 2015. Bogey's UZR and UZR/150 at SS since 2014: Year UZR UZR/150 2014 -2.7 -3.7 2015 +1.0 +0.9 2016 -2.9 -2.8 2017 -0.1 +0.7 What gets me most is his range numbers, although they look better this year than past years: 2014: -2.3 2015: -4.6 2016: -3.5 2017: -0.8

I hate losing, too, but I tend to take the "long view". Too many times I've seen the Sox look so awful for short and long stretches, only to then see them turn things around and look like champions for long stretches. Almost all seasons, including championship ones, have ups and downs. Every year we won a ring, there were moments when the fan base was down on the team. I don't understand why it's so hard for some people to remember those times and those turn-arounds and at least try to stop being so jumpy over a couple or handful of bad games. We've had our $30+M pitcher out almost all season, we lost out 5/6 starter (Wright) and have been without our #2 and #3 RP'ers all year. We've dealt with nagging injuries, illnesses, bereavement leaves, and our two best utility guys (Holt & Marco) probably lost for the whole season. Yet, we're currently the top wild card team and just 3 games behind a Yankee team seemingly playing over their heads. I like where we are right now, assuming the injury bug has completed its devastation of our roster. A strong Price and returning ERod, Smith and/or Thornburg should be enough for us to pass the Yanks and keep our distance from other AL East rivals.