moonslav59

Vaz has almost caught Leon in PAs. He's the hot hand right now, but I suspect Leon will get hot again at some point this year. Hopefully, Vaz will not slump too badly, but we all know he can't keep up at a .344 BA all year. Leon (109 PA) .235 4 15 (.284/.392/.677) Vaz (102 PA) .344 0 11 (.373/.458/.831) Leon has had some clutch hits this year and still has more RBIs per PA than Vaz. Vaz has been struggling on defense, so far this year. Hopefully, he can get back to where he was before the injury. I'm happy continuing a 50-50 split, at least until one shows he deserves more time.

I wonder how long it's been since Beni has had a slump like this. Maybe never?

Then, they switch to the "old balls" when the Sox are up to bat.

Yeah, I posted something similar. Only Bogey and Vaz have improved over last year. It kind of reminds me of the arguments that ook place after 2013, when just about everyone had "up years". It's not a common thing for just about everyone to have an up or down season all at the same time. I'm betting we won't see it this year. Here's what I came up with a couple days ago... Only Bogey and Vaz are having better OPS seasons than last year. I don't expect that to continue. 2016>2017 .845>.670 SLeon -.175 .835>.712 Beni -.123 .850>.734 Young -.116 .866>.749 HRam -.115 .897> .809 Betts -.098 .825>.749 Pedey -.076 .835>.763 J.B.Jr -.072 (Note: Papi 1.021 > Moreland .828 is -.193) Do we really expect all these guys to continue having big drop-off years all at the same time? The plusses: .585>.845 Vaz +.340 .802>.845 Bogey +.043 (Note: Shaw .726 to Pablo .718 is just -.008)

I think Beni is going to be fine, but I think it might help to move him down in the line up for a while. Maybe when Pedey comes back, we can drop him to 6 or 7.

Chris Freakin' Sale + David Freakin' Price 2017 World Series Championship (Assuming they both continue being "Freakin' great)

Lots of "ifs" here, but if ERod or Porcello can finish the season pitching like an ace or a top #2, and Price and sale pitch like aces, I'm not sure we'll need a top 6 offense to make a strong run at a ring. Add a productive CSmith or Thronburg, and we could be right up there with the other faves.

The funny thing is, before the two losses to the O's, people seemed optimistic about the direction of the team. Just a puny two game sample size seems to change everything.

Based on how things are going at this point in time, and things can change quickly, I'd make the following moves when these players return (assuming they do return): Pedey > Marrero (maybe Travis) ERod > Workman (Johnson may be called up for a start and replacing Workman, then BJ will be replaced by ERod.) C Smith> Boyer (maybe Abad) Thornburg > Abad (maybe Scott) B Holt> whoever was not sent down when Pedey returned (Marrero or Travis) Hernandez and Wright are out all year, but what's the timetable on Robbie Ross?

I'd guess Marrero or Travis would go down- not the out-of-options Ruledge.

I expected the offense to be worse. However, I still expected top 5 or 6 in runs. I expected slightly better defense: it has been worse. I expected way better pitching. The injuries to Wright, Price and Thornburg is part of the problem, but we should have expected some injuries.

Our .753 catcher OPS places us 10th in MLB. It's over 70 points better than last year. While many figured Leon would never be able to repeat 2016, they failed to account for a probable improvement from Vaz and an easy chance to improve on Hanigan and Holaday's putrid 2016 offense.

This is the time of the year that Betts usually ignites.

I can't say I expected every Sox player to improve, but it wouldn't have surprised me to see Betts improve slightly on 2016....maybe .325 33 120. It's still not too late to see him out hit 2016. Betts had an .800 OPS on May 30th last year. I will say, I expected the aggregate total from Betts, Bogey & JBJ to improve. I expected Beni and a full season from Young to improve on our LF numbers from 2016. I expected our catchers to hit about the same, as we lost Hanigan and Holaday's horrific numbers, and I expected Vaz to improve. I figured the combination of HRam & Pedey could come close to staying the same, but even if they declined some, I figured Pablo/Hernandez/Rutledge would outhit last year's 3B numbers enough to even the vets out. I did not expect Moreland to come close to Papi's output, but I felt a Moreland-Young platoon would give us an OPS of at least .800. (Now that HRam is the permanent DH, Young is squeezed. He's been one of MLB's best hitters vs LHPs over the last 2-3 years combined. I still like this line-up, and I think they will end up doing well this year, but I think I may have underestimated just how good some other teams' offenses are. I live outside of Houston, and the Astros look frightening!

I expected Bogey to improve. Most players continue to improve until they reach age 28 to 31 or so. I also expected Betts and JBJ to improve for the same reasons. Injuries and decline can be an issue for guys like HRam, Pablo & Pedey, and their ages indicate they are not on the upswing, but all are sill within their prime window and could also reasonably be at the age where they could have had a career best season. I am expecting a significant improvement over our first 53 games. There's still more than two-thirds of the season remaining. Warm weather. Plaayers settling in and adjusting to the loss of the "great protector" (Papi). I may be overly optimistic, but I think, based on seasonal trends, age bell curves and despite the recent two game sample size, the fact that our OPS has been over .800 the last 4 weeks- a sign of improvement. (It was under .740 prior to the last 4 weeks.)

Maybe not "career norms" as guys like JBJ and Bogey have career numbers hampered by poor early seasons in their short careers, but expecting some of our hitters to just do as well as 2016 is not a stretch, especially when you look at several hitters on the up side of the bell curve of prime hitting (Betts/Bogey/Beni/Vaz) and others still within their prime years (JBJ, HRam/Pedey/Pablo/Young/Leon). We really have no hitters over 33 years old. There is no reason to expect a massive decline from 2016 to 2017 from the remaining players. The loss of Papi's "protection" can only account for so much.

I never even implied "scorched earth", but top 5 or 6 is very reasonable.

I wasn't expecting to outscore our opponents by 100 runs this year but I was expecting better than middle of the pack offense. I thought we'd be in the top 2-3. We're just 19 runs from top 5 with about 2/3 a season to go. I also expected that with the additions to our pitching staff that the staff's ERA would be significantly better this year, but it's not. If we can keep our rotation healthy and have just one of CSmith or Thornburg return at top form, I think our end of season staff will be as strong as ever. That could be too big of an if, but it's certainly possible. I certainly did not expect that our defense would be as porous as it's been, even though most of those errors have been at 3B. We're currently 3 games back and IMO we've pissed away enough games with our errors at 3B to make up those three games. I thought our defense would be slightly improved this year: + at 1B, C and LF maybe a better year at SS - at 3B. Our defense has looked awful.

We have a few historically mid-late season hitters on this team, such as Betts & JBJ. I think we have been fortunate that Moreland & our catchers have hit well, so far, and maybe expecting them to continue is too much to ask. Them dropping might out weigh the expected improvement from Betts & JBJ and possibly others like Beni, Pablo and Young. Pedey & HRam's health is crucial to any turn-around this offense might have. So far, it looks like some other teams have juggernaut offenses. the Astros look frightening! However, I still think our offense is much better than "middle-of-the-pack". I'll be shocked, if we don't finish in the top 10 in runs scored, and I still think we'll finish top 5 or 6. Yeah, it hurts losing Papi. It's hard to imagine a way for us to win without a big slugger (or two). We haven't done it in my lifetime, but other teams have. Maybe we're locked into a mindset that just can't imagine any other way to win than by having super-stud hitters. However, Red Sox history is cluttered with "lost seasons" full of top hitting teams. The only times we ever seemed to win was when we had two stud pitchers: Pedro-Schilling, Schilling-Beckett and Lester-Lackey. Now we have 3: Sale-Price-Porcello. Maybe that's not going to be enough, but I think we should keep our minds open to the idea that there are other ways of winning rings. We're only 4 runs away from top 10 right now and 19 runs away from top 5. We have some very good hitter. Out of the 322 hitters with 300+ PAs from 2016 to 2017, here's how we stand: We lost the second best OPS guy in Papi at 1.021. #24 Betts .876 #46 HRam .840 #66 JBJ .821 #81 Bogey .812 #86 Young .810 #89 Pedey .809 While I'd rather see more hitters in the top 30 or top 10, itt's pretty nice having 6 guys in the top 90. With 30 teams in the league, the average is 3 per team. We also have Leon at #102 (.795) which is 10th best among catchers with 300+ PAs. Beni is at #170 (.755) and Moreland is at #180 (.751). I think there is good reason to be optimistic. I get the argument that Papi probably helped hitters around him in the line up do better, but I still think some of our good hitters will turn things around. Only Bogey and Vaz are having better OPS seasons than last year. I don't expect that to continue. 2016>2017 .845>.670 SLeon -.175 .835>.712 Beni -.123 .850>.734 Young -.116 .866>.749 HRam -.115 .897> .809 Betts -.098 .825>.749 Pedey -.076 .835>.763 J.B.Jr -.072 (Note: Papi 1.021 > Moreland .828 is -.193) Do we really expect all these guys to continue having big drop-off years all at the same time? The plusses: .585>.845 Vaz +.340 .802>.845 Bogey +.043 (Note: Shaw .726 to Pablo .718 is just -.008) Maybe I'm being too optimistic, but I see plenty of room for significant improvement by several players on this team. I expect improvement. I could be wrong, but I don't think we need massive improvements on our offense, if our rotation can stay healthy, and we get back a powerful C Smith or Thornburg by playoff time.

It does seem like there is a strong correlation between having a healthy rotation and winning a lot and winning championships. Plus, of course, how good the rotation is matters a lot, too. Games started: 2003:95-67 (only 10+ starts listed) 33 Lowe 33 Wake 30 Burkett 29 Pedro 14 Fossum/10 Suppan 2004: 98-64 Championship 33 Pedro 33 Lowe 32 Schilling 32 Wakefield 32 Arroyo 2005:95-67 (No more Pedro era begins) 33 Wake 32 Arroyo 32 Clement 30 Wells 16 W Miller/11 Schilling 2006: 86-76 33 Beckett 31 Schilling 23 Wake 15 Lester 12 Clement/10 Snyder 2007: 101-61 (The Beckett era's 2nd year) 32 Dice K 31 Wake 30 Beckett 24 Schilling 23 Tavarez/11 Lester 2008: 95-67 (The Lester era begins) 33 Lester 30 Wake 29 Dice-K 27 Beckett 15 Buch (9 Masterson/8 P Byrd) 2009:95-67 32 Lester 32 Beckett 24 Penny 21 Wake 16 Buch/12 Dice-K (8 Smoltz) 2010:89-73 (4.40 ERA or higher with 4 of these 6) 33 Lackey 32 Lester 28 Buch 25 Dice-K 21 Beckett/19 Wake 2011: 94-68 31 Lester 30 Beckett 28 Lackey (6.41 ERA) 23 Wake 14 Buch/12 A Miller (8 Bedard & 7 Dice K) 2012: 74-88 (Year of CC, Beckett, AGon Purge) (Note: no starter ERA below 4.56!) 33 Lester (4.82) 29 Buch (4.56) 29 Doubront (4.86) 21 Beckett (5.23) 18 A Cook (5.65)/11 Dice-K (8.28)/10 Bard (6.22) 2013: 97-65 Championship (Note: No starter ERA above 4.57- the exact opposite of 2012!) 33 Lester 29 Lackey (healthy) 29 Dempster 27 Doubront 16 Buch/10 Peavy 2014:72-90 (The Great Rotation Purge season) 28 Buch (5.24) 21 Lester- traded 21 Lackey- traded 20 Peavy- traded 10 Doubront- traded 18 de la Rosa/15 Workman/11 Webster/10 J Kelly (7 Ranaudo) 2015: 78-84 32 W Miley 28 Porcello (4.92 but wins Cy Young the next year) 25 Kelly 21 ERod 18 Buch/11 Owens (Yes! Buck Owens!) (9 by Wright & Masterson) 2016:93-69 (The Price era begins and all 5 starters start 20+ games.) 35 Price 33 Porcello (3.15) 24 Wright 21 Buch 20 ERod/13 Pom 2017:29-24 (on pace for 89-73) The Chris Sale Era begins. 11 Sale 11 Porcello 10 ERod (on DL now) 1 Price 5 Wright (Done for year.) 10 Pom 2 Johnson/2 Kendrick/1 Velazquez Having a great rotation, especially with the top 3 or 4 slots is important, but it seems like equally important is how healthy the rotation is bot in terms of GS'd and starts made while injured (Lackey/Buch) or healthy.

Moreland has a 1.098 OPS over the last two weeks. We should ride his horse until he shows he can't be ridden anymore. Shaw will get his chance someday. With HRam looking as fragile as an egg, it might be sooner rather than later. Pablo's going to get a good look. He didn't look any fatter to me, but it's hard to tell. Marrero is not the answer for 3B, even as a place setter for Devers. We just need Pablo to just be halfway decent. I'm not worried about this team, yet. Hopefully some returning players from the DL will lift us to a prolonged winning period.

Two games ago, people were talking like we were looking good. It's a long season. It's just two games. Our bats will come alive... and then some. Take two deep breaths.

Soxprospects.com released their June rankings. 1-20: http://www.soxprospects.com/index.html 21-60: http://www.soxprospects.com/moreprospects.htm With Beni now a graduated prospect, here's a list of players who moved up more than 1 slot: +6 Ockimey (10>4) +6 Lakins (12>6) +4 Chavis (11>7) +4 Johnson (13>9) +3 Mata (16>13) +2 Chatham (11>7) +21 J Tobias (47>26) +17 A Maddox (40>23) +15 D Mars (44>29) +14 Callahan (33>19) +10 A Tavarez (28>18) +8 J Beeks (23>15) +7 D Hernandez (21>14) +6 Nogosek (26>20) Who moved down? -8 R Raudes (8>16) -3 Dalbec (5>8) -1 Longhi (9>10) -13 Cosart (15>28) -9 Ysla (18>27) -8 Bautista (22>30)

Big bummer. I hope he's not out long.

Plus, it's not like we have anyone else to play 3B right now that is a clear overall plus.