moonslav59

Chris Freakin Sale will be sweetness in the clubhouse and will be lifted on the shoulders of his teammates this October.

Wright has pitched well for quite some time. In 94 IP from 2014-2015, Wright had a 3.75 ERA with BOS (1.27 WHIP) His minor league numbers were between impressive and good: 2012: 2.54 (1.26) in AA & AAA 2013: 3.46 (1.44) in AAA 2014: 3.42 (1.14) in AA & AAA 2015: 5.37 (1.35) in 8 starts at AAA

JBJ's .868 OPS from the 6 slot was pretty good as well. It's hard to know if being in the 9 slot when he had his hottest streak was because he was in the nine slot or just plain luck. I like JBJ in the top 6 vs RHPs. Ninth is fine vs LHPs.

I get it. His career was a long stretch of sporadic play with tiny sample sizes spread out over many years. Together they showed a very weak hitter, and I'm not going to deny he may still prove to continue being a very weak hitter. That's why I'm glad we have Vaz and Swi to fall back on or platoon with Leon. I will add that Leon has had a couple of hot stretches throughout his minor league career: 2012 (231 PAs) .856 OPS 2013 (142 PAs in the Venezuelan League) .938 OPS So, in 3 of his last 5 seasons, he's seen a hot streak. His .692 OPS in 193 PAs in AAA in 2014 was not god-awful either

1st half WAR 2.5 Pomeranz (15th in MLB) 2.1 Wright (25th in MLB)

He played his first game on June 7th. 6 weeks later, his OPS was 1.133. It was at 1.091 on August 18th (4 weeks later) He was still at .988 on September 3rd after a 5 for 11 streak. That's about 14 weeks of near 1.000 OPS ball. Yes, he went .539 in his last 85 PAs, but he was at .976 in 198 previous PAs. I'm not sure why a players last 4 weeks are weighted so heavily by some. I certainly get the idea that Leon is not going to end up with an .800 plus OPS this year, and he may very well end up at .600 or even worse, but there's a also a good chance he's near .725, and with his superior defense (to Swihart's), it's no wonder to me, he's making the opening day roster and starting game one.

I like our chances BETTER with Sale pitching twice in every playoff series. Our top 3 stacks up pretty well with any other MLB team. Here's how fangraphs projects top 3 starters by WAR: BOS 13.1 (Sale 5.5, Porcello 3.8 & Price 3.8) They also have Pomeranz at 2.3 LAD 13.0 (Kershaw 7.4, Hill 2.8 & Maeda 2.8) Nobody else over 1.5 WSH 13.0 (Scherzer 5.7, Strasburg 4.4 & Gonzalez 2.9) Joe Ross at 2.5 and Roark at 1.9 CLE 13.0: (Kluber 5.2, Carrasco 4.4 & Salazar 3.4) Nobody else over 1.7 NYM 12.7 (Syndergaard 5.6, deGrom 3.9 & Matz 3.2) They also have Harvey at 2.7 SFG 12.5 (Bumgarner 5.1, Cueto 4.3 & Samardzija 3.1) M Moore at 2.3 Cubs 11.9 (Lester 4.5, Arrieta 4.1 & Hendricks 3.3) Lackey at 2.9 I think saying "maybe" top 3 is justifiable.

Yes, top 2-3 in the AL and maybe top 3 in al MLB (assuming good health for all teams)

Offense: We shall see with JBJ and Leon being the most suspect Even if JBJ and Leon hit .225, our offense will be top 5. Rotation: Very good through 3, still questionable until injuries play out Our top 3 is excellent- perhaps best in all MLB. Did I mention we acquired Chris Freakin' Sale! Our 4-6 starters compare favorably to just about every other MLB club, except maybe 4 or 5 teams. Defense: Should be improved in the outfield, Sandoval and Mooreland should hold their own or better. Moreland is a big gain over HanRam. Beni should be a big gain over our 2016 group of LF'ers. 3B may be slightly worse, depending on Pablo's skill level. SS should improve. Decent Speed: Yes in the outfield, average or slightly below in the infield and very slow at catcher. Not slower at catcher than most teams. Faster at DH than 2016. Pen: Last years returnees are average with the new guys yet to show more positive results To me, this area is more questionable than JBJ or Leon and Vaz/Swi. Bench: Do we keep Marco up? do we keep Holt and Rutledge? Vasquez at catcher for now? State tuned It's a solid bench, and with Marco, Swi, Selsky and others in AAA, we are good and deep on our bench.

The Guardians have a very comparable team. A couple other AL teams could challenge hard as well. ' Nobody has a lock on anything, but it sure is nice to have Chris Freakin' Sale!

We have a top 3 offense- maybe the best. We have a top 2-3 rotation in the AL- maybe top 3 in all MLB. We have improved defense. We have decent speed. Our pen looks to be at least average but could be much better than that. We're dealing with a few injuries, but we have a top 10 bench.

I don't care about any other team. We have Chris Freakin' Sale!

Last year the Sox placed 18th in catcher OPS at .681. .672 does not scare me, when the guy catching knows what he's doing with the staff and on defense.

We have the cap room to go out and get a starter once all the dust settles with Price and Pom. Let's wait and see how things shake out and what our true high need area is. I still think it will end up being the bullpen- not our rotation.

Most teams need 2-3 more decent SP'ers. It really doesn't matter that much to me that we need one. Did I fail to mention... We have Chris Freakin' Sale!!!

We have a pretty good 6th starter (if healthy), but I really don't think we had better 6, 7, and 8 starters last year or 2015.

I am not even coming close to suggesting moving Bogey to 3B to start the season or for any time in the near future, unless we acquire a whiz gloved SS (not likely). I was just responding to the comment about him being a "very good" SS (I assume you meant defensively).

Nothing is definite abour Pablo, but I actually like your line-up. I'm more "wait and see" with Beni vs LHPs before sticking him in a top 3 slot. I hear the "consistency" and "comfort" arguments, but my guess is Beni will be thrilled to be anywhere in the top 6.

Pretty amazing to be able to still be able to put that 4 out there with a $30M pitcher on the DL.

I saw a lot of defensive improvement from 2014 to 2015, and his UZR/150 went from -3.7 to +0.9. I was very happy that it appeared he was going to become a plus defender over the long run. However, last year he looked ho-hum. He wasn't bad, but it seemed to me, he looked like he took a baby step backwards. His UZR/150 went down to -2.8. He Defensive Runs Saved went from -9 to -1 to -10 over the last 3 seasons. Inside Edge shows that although he made more "unlikely plays" than ever before (29%), his "likely plays" made went from 89% to 64% over the last 2 years. There's still plenty of time to turn it back around and get better on defense, but I doubt he ever gets to top 6 or 7. With his bat, top 15 would be good enough. The whole moving Bogey argument is moot right now, because we have no clearly better defensive SS other than Marrero, and he does not belong on the 25 man roster, let alone starting everyday. If we acquired a decent hitting and great fielding SS, then let's talk. Marco is not a plus defender at SS and neither is Holt.

True enough, but it seems like the younger generation of good hitting SSs is growing. More of the better hitting 3Bmen are getting older (Beltre, Donaldson, Turner...). Except for Asrubal Cabrera, the top 9 SSs in OPS are under 28.

Yup, and I'm hopeful when we spend that money saved, people will like who we got better than Buch.

Word was he adjusted his back in 2015. That's the year he had an incredible hot streak. Maybe he's gotten away from what worked and needs further adjustment or tinkering, but it's just ST'ing and it's a tiny sample size.

True, but if his SS defense is not a plus, and his 3B defense could eventually be a plus, it might tip the balance. I used to be a strong advocate for moving Bogey to 3B, but that was when we had better defensive options at SS, and scouts were talking about Bogey's likelihood of not sticking at SS. Bogey improved on his defense enough for me to drop my crusade, but I think he took a baby step backwards last year, so I'm still open to the idea, but first we need to have a clearly better defensive SS. BTW, league SSs had an OPS only about 50 points worse than the average league 3Bmen. It's not like the old days anymore.

Context. Both Bogey and JBJ are on the rise, so counting their career numbers may overemphasize their slower starts to their career, while Pablo has been on one of MLB's most constant and sharp declines. Over the last 2 years, JBJ has a .348 OBP vs RHP and Bogey .339. I agree with not putting Bogey in the top 4 or 5 vs RHPs, and I don't think putting Pablo up 2nd is a bad idea. I just think we can do better. Pablo has a .341 OBP since 2012 but .314 since 2015. I still think Beni-Pedey are best 1-2 vs RHPs.