moonslav59

More of a higher love for Basabe. I'm still high on Devers. I thought my Hernandez ranking was the most out of line.

He will end up with an OPS in the top 3 Sox. 4th at worst. I'll guess around .845.

It doesn't bother me at all that Buch was upset about being demoted. He has a lot of pride and has done very well as a SP'er over his career-when healthy. Sure, in theory, it would be nice for him to publicly fess up and admit he's been terrible, but I think deep down he knows it, and the team doesn't need him whimpering like a scarred puppy to preserve team chemistry. I still feel Buch will bounce back and be a major factor in our championship run this year. I would not waive him, unless we have a deal in place for a SP'er and we need budget space (unlikely).

Who is Buchholz better than in the pen? I can't think of a single RHRP who he deserves to take the place of. It's not as clear as you make it out to be. Using ERA to judge relief pitchers is flawed. Many come in for just 1-2 outs. Here's the May OPS against vs Sox pitchers: 1.000 Owens .944 Hembree .910 O'Sullivan .835 Uehara .819 Buchholz .777 Porcello .759 Kelly .722 Price .619 Layne .617 Taz .597 Wright .570 Barnes .543 Ross .473 Smith (gone) .451 Kimbrel Last 14 days (pen only): 1.000 Uehara .929 Hembree .901 Buch .742 Kimbrel .721 Layne .647 Taz .522 Ross .347 Barnes

Thanks for the reply. You kind of said what I felt all along- that there really is nobody I have a lot of faith in at this point. It goes along with my whole "too much quantity vs too little quality" position. It's also the reason I brought up Barnes as a possible starter down the road. Totally understand why you did. I think were gonna end up having to go the trade market though unless kelly and/or ERod step up. If one or both do that, then i think we should get another pen arm for the playoffs. We really need both a starter and a reliever, but right now we need a reliever. A starter can wait for the time being. Well, if we end up keeping Buch in the pen, and he does well, he might solve the pen issue. If we end up sending Kelly to the pen, the same might go for him. When I looked at the list of starters we had in the spring, and argued about the lack of quality and the abundance or mediocrity, I never expected to see O'Sullivan at all, and yet there he was. I think this was my ordered list of starters before opening day: 1) Price 2) Porcello 3) ERod (although he was hurt before opening day) 4) Buch 5) Kelly 6) Wright 7) Owens 8) Elias 9) Johnson 10) Escobar 11) Barnes 12) Cuevas I never even had O'Sullivan listed. Now, I can see how some might say, there's an example of why you need quantity, but I disagree. Had we picked up a durable, solid #2 or #3 starter, we'd never have used O'Sullivan. Yeah, even durable pitchers get hurt, but I'm, getting tired of watching guys like Owens, O'Sullivan and Johnson and praying they become the miracle we have hoped for. I always liked Wright, but it's frightening to think he's one of our big 3 now. I still think SP'ing is our biggest weakness.

Thanks for the reply. You kind of said what I felt all along- that there really is nobody I have a lot of faith in at this point. It goes along with my whole "too much quantity vs too little quality" position. It's also the reason I brought up Barnes as a possible starter down the road.

To me, WHIP is a better gauge of RP'er effectiveness than ERA. K/BB rate is also a good tool for measuring RP'er quality. Koji has had way more than one great season when measured by these numbers: Year WHIP K/BB 2010 0.955 11.0 2011 0.723 11.8 2012 0.639 11.5 2013 0.565 12.2 2014 0.917 11.2 2015 0.917 10.5 Fist of all, when viewing Koji's 3 seasons prior to 2013, his trend was indicating a great 2013 season. It doesn't really look like an outlier season. Secondly, Koji's 6 years in a row with a WHIP under 0.920 is fantastic and maybe even unprecedented. I'm not trying to say he was better than Mo, but looking over Mo's numbers, he only had one season with a WHIP below .833 (2008's 0.655). Mo never had more than 4 seasons in a row with a WHIP below 0.950, let alone 0.920. I bring this up only to show perspective- not to claim Koji was better than Mo. Thirdly, Mo had one season with a K/BB rate of 12.83 (2008), but every other season was below 7.50. All but three seasons were below 6.30. Now, with Mo it wasn't about K's, so I'm not trying to belittle Mo. He's clearly the best closer ever. The best RP'er ever. All I'm saying is that Koji's 6 seasons compare with anyone else's. He was not a one year wonder.

Quote Originally Posted by moonslav59 View Post I'd say calling him a "journeyman" before coming to Boston was downplaying his greatness before 2013. Attacking his "durability" could also be viewed as unfair "downplaying", although nobody should be calling him an iron man. Also, Koji has some pretty awesome playoffs numbers as well. He has a 0.875 playoff WHIP and has let up just 3 ERs in 16 IP since his first game in the post season. Papelbon has not been in the playoffs since 2009. He was lights out over his first 25 IP with the Sox. True greatness! No doubt. If it wasn't for 2009, he might be viewed as the best ever in the post season. How many full season does Koji have under his belt as closer? 2? The comparison is silly. I have not ever claimed Uehara is the better closer. I was just responding to the "journeyman" and "durability;ity" comments. When he arrived to Boston, he was not even a closer. In fact in 2013 he was not supposed to be our closer. I remember that they even were in talks to get Papelbon back among others since Bailey and Hanrahan sucked badly. In the meantime they gave a chance to Taz but did not wok out. They also gave a chance to Aceves and did not work either, and then they tried with Koji and the rest is history. Koji was way outstanding and no one in earth saw that coming in 2013. Since then he has not been the same and was expected, he is getting old. This year is older and is not sharp as he used to be. Said that I love what Koji gave us but trying to compare him with one of the best closers of all times is simply unfair and ridiculous just because he had one outstanding year as closer. I don't disagree to a word.

I'd say calling him a "journeyman" before coming to Boston was downplaying his greatness before 2013. Attacking his "durability" could also be viewed as unfair "downplaying", although nobody should be calling him an iron man. Also, Koji has some pretty awesome playoffs numbers as well. He has a 0.875 playoff WHIP and has let up just 3 ERs in 16 IP since his first game in the post season. Papelbon has not been in the playoffs since 2009. He was lights out over his first 25 IP with the Sox. True greatness! No doubt. If it wasn't for 2009, he might be viewed as the best ever in the post season.

Who would you say gets the next chance? Johnson? Cuevas? Elias? Wilkerson? Owens? I'm not arguing to put Barnes in front of these guys, but just that we should keep the thought on the table. BTW, are we supposed to be impressed by 2 BB in his last 1.2 IP, 2 BB in his last 2.2 IP or 3BB in his last 3 IP? I will note that he has not let up a hit in his last 3 IP.

Koji has been pretty much a one IP reliever since 2010. His IP numbers have been as follows: 44 65 36 74 64 40 19 so far this year (on pace for about 60) Here are the IP totals since 2010 by some notable closers/top set-up men: 411 Papelbon 391 KRod 368 Kimbrel 359 Jenson 343 Uehara 327 Chapman 303 Soriano

I think his age frightened many GMs and lowered his trade and market value. It certainly was not his numbers.

Koji was a journeyman middle reliever until he found it in 2013. If playing for two teams from 2009 to 2012 makes him a "journeyman", then maybe I'm misunderstanding the term. The term also has the connotation of mediocrity or worse. Uehara's history before coming to the Sox was far from mediocre. From 2010 to 2012, Uehara pitched in 145 innings and had the following numbers: 11.36 K/9 (9th out of 93 RP'ers with 140 IP+) 1.06 BB/9 (Best in MLB by 0.30!!!) 2.53 xFIP (4th in MLB) 55 ERA- (6th in MLB) 0.77 WHIP (Best in MLB) 10.76 K/BB (2nd place was Betancourt at 7.82) Fact is, Koji was fantastic for 3 seasons before Boston. Since 2010, there are 155 relief pitchers with over 200 IP. Here's how some of the top RP'ers rate: Uehara Kimbrel Papelbon Chapman WHIP 0.79 0.92 1.06 1.01 ERA- 52 45 68 56 k/BB 8.9 4.3 4.5 3.6 WAR 9.3 13.6 9.0 11.9 xFIP 2.60 1.98 3.27 2.17 Trying to downplay Koji's accomplishments is bizarre. .

The White Sox are reportedly going hard for Jamie Shields. Depending on how much the Padres are willing to pay towards his remaining deal, it may not cost much to get him in terms of prospects. Getting Shields and paying his whole contract would put a big squeeze on our future budget. He's getting older by the day. But, he is a quality starter.

Welcome aboard!

My top Sox prospect list: 1) Moncada 2) Benintendi 3) Espinoza 4) Basabe (my sleeper pick last spring) 5) Devers 6) Kopech 7) Travis 8) T Ball 9) Hernandez 10) Dubon/Chavis

I'm the same. I hardly ever argue about umpiring, but this is absurd. It's time for automated balls and strike calls.

I'm not sure I want him starting as of right now. I only mentioned him as an option that I have not heard discussed.

Recently, he has 5 BBs in 5.2 innings.

He has not had good control this year. His BB/9 rate is 4.9 and he's walked 4 batters in his last 5.1 innings.

Rico was a great one, but just 7 seasons with over 500 PAs makes it tough to think of him as a HOF'er.

While Barnes has some nice numbers this year, his WHIP has remained over 1.40- driven mostly by his scary BB/9 rate. One could argue that he's been lucky as a RP'er, so I don't think trying to stretch him out if a big danger. Barnes had 77 starts in the minors compared to just 13 RP'er outings. He had 22 starts in 2014 and his best WHIP rate in advanced professional ball (1.292). He had 7 starts in 2015 (AAA and MLB). I'm not saying now is the time, but maybe at some point...

Welcome notin! I always felt you were the best poster at BDC.

If our SP'ing continues to struggle, what about the idea of moving Barnes back to that role? I know he's doing great out of the pen, but still...

I'm all for keeping as much of our youth as possible, but the fact is we have bottlenecks at several positions and too many expensive vets that are near impossible to jettison. Eventually someone will go. To maximize return, it will (or should) be someone with a high stock value. I caught a lot of grief for suggesting we offer Swihart due to the fact that we had Vazquez, and Swihart's highest value is as a catcher, and catcher's are in very high demand in MLB. I see Moncada and Benintendi making the chance Devers ever wins a FT slot as being very hard to happen, even if we somehow are able to get rid of Sandoval and Shaw fizzles out by the time he's ML ready. That's also assuming Travis and Hernandez never do well enough to win a key role on the team. If Moncada wins an OF slot, then where does Benintendi play? More likely, Moncada will have to play in the IF. To me, our best package might start with Swihart and Devers, even though Devers' stock might have slipped this season a little bit. To me, those two headliners net us way more than a rental- even a great one. If we add other nice pieces like Owens, Johnson and/or Kopech, the return should be even better.