moonslav59

Narvaez is one of baseball's best hitting catcher's this year. DHam is a sub and the 13/14th player on the 13 everyday roster. We have the best balanced line-up in MLB, if you look at most of our top 10 batters by PAs being over .740, .720, .700 or whatever mid level range you want to pick. DHam is 12th in PAs, and due to Mayer's injury and KC's demotion and our #7 guy traded (Devers,) #8 DFAd (Toro) and our #10 demoted (KC) he is playing more, but hey why not use the last few week sample size you bash Rafaela with and apply it to DHam? Don't look now, but he's hitting like did, last summer. Active players and their OPS (League avg is about .719.) .777 Duran 581 PAs .737 Story 533 (leader in RBI) .709 Rafaela 478 "Oh the Horror!" .811 Abreu 395 .906 Bregman 374 .727 Narvaez 367 (not a black hole) .850 Anthony 274 (should lead the team in PAs from now on) .830 Romy 244 (another guy you think is bad) .573 DHam 161 (.735 since June 19th & over 1.000 since July .827 Refsnyder 157 .503 Wong 136 (hardly play 30th.)ed & .761 since July 20th) We are the one team in MLB without a black hole, and you use that as a reason to say we can't afford a guy just below the league average in our line-up.

We just passed HOU in the standings. We now have the 3rd best record in the AL. TOR is just 4 up on us, and DET is up 5. Run Diff in the AL +110 NYY +106 BOS +93 DET +63 TEX +59 TOR +39 TBR, +25 SEA, +14 HOU

I hope Gio comes back. We need Bregman & CHapman back.

I didn't consider Chapman as a QO candidate, but I suppose he could be. I think he'd take a $15M contract with a second year option at $12M and a $3M buy out. Essentially $18M/1 or $30M/2.

And have a nice stadium, now!

This team is 4 GB the division lead in late August, and we have fans that want to speculate on Rafaela falling to .700 and magically turn into a sucky player on that precise AB. I'd normally laugh, but Fred is serious. This is what he focuses on, everyday.

When you play near GG defense at a key position like CF, and run the bases pretty well, hitting about 20 points below the league norm is not a weak spot.

Yanks won, but... TOR lost HOU is losing in the 9th (6-1 to COL) SEA is losing 5-0 to SDP in the 4th DET is losing to ATH 3-0 in 3rd We can gain on a few teams ahead of us, with some luck.

He's been huge, this year

When you see teams play this badly, you wonder are we really this good, or did everyone else just get real bad, suddenly?

The Sox come to HOU at the end of March, so I'm kind of excited. They usually come in August, just as we are starting school.

Great to not have to use Chap.

Damn! This is FUN! Damn FUN!

Damn, now Rafaela needs to go 0 for 55 to get to .650.

I almost predicted Fred would slam Rafaela. I mean what were the odds?!?!?

How bad were you, when you can have an .812 streak over 8 games, then hit a homer to bring your OPS up to .560?

He's about o for 40 from .650 to .675.

Last night, I was typing "DHam is going to homer, this AB," but he made an out before I could click send.

East Side Story!

Didn't know what thread to put this, but Nate is out for the season with a Rotator Cuff Injury.

https://www.mlb.com/schedule/2026-04-09

The Sox begin the season at Cincy (MAR 26,) then go to HOU. Their home opener is vs SDP followed by MIL. They have 3 west coast road trips: June (SEA & COL) July (LAA, CWS, NYM up to all star break) & later in July- up to the deadline (ATH, LAD.) Our only homestand longer than 7 games is right after the all star break and before a west coast trip (TBR, BAL, TOR.) They end the season at home v CLE & CHC. Most of the Sept games are non-divisional games. Nothing really jumps out at me as being wild.

Just play the worst batter vs LHPs fulltime at 1B, or what? Jh Garcia v L at 1B? Call up Campbell Sept 1st to be our platoon 1bman? I do see great value in Rafaela in CF over 2B, but we'd need to talk Cora into benching Yoshida, so we can play all OF'ers.

I think MIN would prefer Abreu and his pre-arb status, too. I'm about 50-50. Since Duran has sucked vs LHPs, this year, I no longer see Abreu being a platoon bat as any worse than Duran batting worse than Abreu vs lefties. Duran is a better baserunner, but Abreu has more power. Abreu is very good at RF defense, something very valuable in Fenway and other parks. Duran seems to have peaked on D in 2024 and should probably play LF with CF as his back-up slot. Duran costs more in the next 3 arbs, as Abreu has one more pre-arb season. Duran adds an excitement not many other players can provide. I'd give the edge to Abreu, and so would MIN, IMO.

I think it's a strict platoon, except when Rafaela plays 2B. Romy bats only against LHPs, and since Lowe is MLB's worst batter vs lefties, I think Romy plays 1B v L and DHam will play 2B v R. Rafaela will play 2B vs some righties and all lefties. Having JH Garcia fills the platoon role w Abreu, until Ref returns.