moonslav59

What AL team is significantly better than the Sox? Records since June 30th: 17-7 BOS 18-8 TOR 15-8 TEX (losing tonight) 14-10 SEA (losing tonight) & KCR 14-11 BAL 13-12 CLE 12-11 OAK DET, HOU, NYY & TBR all with losing records.

Toro has hit .592 in the last 4 weeks. He has had his chances at the big level, before. It makes sense to me to figure he is back to his norm, now. While I agree DH has sucked, once Rafaela returns to CF, we will have an OF'er to DH over Yoshida. Rafaelas' return to CF happens when Mayer returns to 2B and fixes that problem. He's hit mid .700's since his first 9 games in MLB. To me, 1B vs RHPs is our biggest positional weakness. Refsnyder is "off his feed?" .833 last 14 days .771 last 28 days .812 in 2026 (.914 v LHPs, which is why he is on the 26.)

Looks pretty good. I'd go... 1. Tolle (1 SPs) 2. Garcia (5th) 3. Arias (2nd) 4. Perales (3rd) 5. Clarke (6th) 6. Witherspoon (4th) 7. Valera (7th) 8. Soto (12th) 9. Ju Gonzales (14th) 10. Early (8th) 11. Jo Garcia (39) 12. Romero 11 13. Phillips 15 14. Eyanson 16 15. Tibbs 10 16. Sandlin 9 17. Delzine 27 18. Bleis 13 19. Cespedes 17 20. Fajardo 20

Grissom stays hot (2-4.) My man, Jo Garcia homered for GRE and Arias & Bleis both had 2 hits. Ehrlicher went 4 IP, 4H, 1 ER, 1BB, 5K in the other game.

We are at that point.

Texas and SEA are both losing, and the Sox are now just 5 GB the Jays and 1 behind NYY.

My guess is Acala gets demoted and Harrison gets his shot at the rotation.

How about the O's sweeping the Jays? 1. Are the O's making a move? 2. Are the Jays making a move?

I feel the same way. I dislike being hypocritical, but I often criticize posters for overreacting on relatively small sample size. The thing about Duran is that his really good sample size is actually pretty damn large: 2023-2025 (not counting tonight) .812 OPS 162 game avg: .279 17 75 (33 SB) 78 XBhs

Maybe if Mayer was a Ranger, you'd expect better. .752 last 29 PAs .730 after his first 9 games (101 PAs) Not "tearing the cover off," yes, but doing well enough to make 2B a plus position.

Crawford & Sandoval: out all year. Houck, Dobbins, Giolito: missed time. Slaten, Wink & Hendriks out. Guerrero, Kelly & Burdi out. True, the big 3 have stayed healthy and Chapman & Wilson, too, untill very recently, but Houck was supposed to be "big 3" and Crawford a solid #4/5 or long man. The Dobbins injury created the need for depth upon depth. Now, we need 2 SP'ers and maybe a closer for Chapman and still need a set-up man for Slaten. The Astros blow us and everyone else away with pitching injuries and pitching depth.

"Pythagoras" vs run differential- same difference. Just rehashing the same argument in different language.

People love to bad mouth Cora, but when you look at the names of our pen guys vs the results, I think the numbers speak volumes. I was hoping that our starter depth would end up helping the pen, but with so many on the IL or out for the season and Fitts, Criswell and Houck struggling, our rotational depth is all gone. We had this winter outlook: Crochet Houck (imploded, IL and now struggling to come back.) Buehler (ouch) Crawford (out for season) Giolito (missed some early starts) Bello Dobbins (on IL, now) Fitts (ouch) Priester (traded April 7) Sandoval (an August hopeful's season dashed) Criswell, Wink, Whitlock (starter/pen types) Then came Newcomb out of the blue. Fulmer, Drohan, Murphy (longshots to begin with) Now, we have 3: Crochet, Giolito & Bello

I doubt we trade for a rental 2Bman, unless they think Mayer will be out for more than another 2-3+ weeks. I do share the concern over our offense, but when I look at place to make a major improvement, I'm seeing 1B v RHP and back-up catcher. Together, maybe they add up to 1 FT player's playing time. Since Bello is doing very well with Wong, I wonder about the importance of upgrading catcher offense, perhaps at the expense of Bello's success. 1B platoon rentals should not be very costly, even for a very good batter vs righties. I'm all for a move like that, assuming they are not giving Campbell another look. The next slot could be DH, if Mayer does not return, soon. No way can we continue with Yoshida at sub .600 for much longer. If Mayer returns, and Rafaela returns to CF, we can rotate the DH with our OF'ers and maybe Ref/Romy vs L. That could be another area we could upgrade, pending Mayer's ETA. IMO, we need a solid SP'er. Buehler and Fitts are not cutting it, and I still worry about Gio & Bello, some. Chapman's back trouble is very worrisome. Getting a solid pen arm can't hurt, either. Let's hope we have better luck than we did with Lucas Sims & Luis Garcia in 2024.

When is the last time deGrom pitched 30 starts and then playoff games? He hasn't had over 21 since 2019. I'm not saying he or some other older pitcher in their rotation will get hurt, but the odds seem kinda high, to me. You seem very optimistic the Rangers will be better, but don't afford the Sox the same chance. This is not the same Sox team as we've had in recent seasons. We've had some major additions and subtractions, but also many younger players with some ML experience nearing or entering prime. We have very few players post prime. I'm thinking that expecting a younger to peak prime dominated team might have a better chance at improving than one with declining and aging players like Texas. Maybe "experience" will work in their favor, down the stretch. Maybe not. Texas has half of their top 12 PA everyday players at 31 years old or more. Their top 3 IP pitchers are 35 or older. 6 of their top 8 RP'ers by IP are 31 or older. Four are 33 or older. If we had a team this old, we'd be hearing about all the worries.

That was a very tough loss to swallow. Let's hope it doesn't dim the drive to win.

3 outs away from being tied with the Yanks for the top WC slot. (A win puts us 5.5 behind TOR for the best record in the AL.)

In theory, yes, but being athletic does not mean you can play certain positions well. He looked so bad at 2B, it's hard to imagine such a massive improvement being made. Perhaps he can play the OF, but we already are overloaded there.

One team that is coming on strong and may keep the Sox from making the playoffs or advancing is the Rangers. When posters speak of the 2-3, maybe 4 holes the Sox have, take a look at their holes: Ranger OPS listed in order of most PAs, this season (150+ PAs): .661 Semien .674 Ad Garcia .767 Josh Smith .728 Langford .867 Seager .679 Jung .629 Helm .659 Burger .669 Higgy .729 Carter .492 Joc Pederson (and we thought DHam was bad.) Their rotation looks solid, but many of their top starters have long histories of injury and or are getting older. 2.28 deGrom 118 IP (37 y/o) 3.78 Corbin 105 IP (35) 1.50 Nate 96 IP (35) 4.09 Leiter 92 (25) 2.34 Mahle 77 (30) 5.73 Rocker 60 (25) They have a decent pen: 4.11 Luke Jackson (closer) 35 IP 2.98 Latz 54, 2.17 Milner 50, 3.02 Armstrong 48, 3.69 Webb 46, 2.68 Garcia 40 Their closer looks weak, but let's say they have no holes but him on the staff, and nobody gets hurt. I'd say they still have these positional weak areas: .513 DH <.857 Sox but no Devers .655 2B <.669 Sox .679 RF <<<.813 Sox .683 3B <<<.816 Sox .685 C > .667 Sox (less Wong, recently) .704 1B > .685 Sox .706 CF < .767 Sox Meh: .737 LF (Sox .803) and .751 SS (.690 Sox) I'll compare the Mariners and other contenders, later.

I know a guy who knows a guy...

I'm not expecting a Joe Ryan or Keller. I'm not even expecting a Cease or M Kelly type. My point is that I think we'd be significant contenders if we added a Ryan, a solid RP'er and a decent LH'd 1Bman to platoon with Romy. I agree on what you think Brez will do. He may step it up, slightly. While Paxton, Danny Jansen, Luis Garcia and Lucas Sims might not have worked out real well, they were fairly decent attempts at striking gold (or maybe bronze.) Brez traded far away hopefuls: Moises Bolivar, Y Vargas, Bautista & Ovis Portes and Rule 5/borderline prospects like M Lugo, Paulino, Coffey, Kavadas, Zeferjahn, He also traded Yorke for Quinn Priester- sort of a sideways move. That's 10 prospects traded in just a week. Yorke was ranked 12th, Lugo 13th, Paulino 15th (overrated) Coffey 28th and falling and Portes 29th, perhaps rising. The rest were below 30th. If we traded the same ranked players, it might be: 12 Romero (Sandlin is 11th/Early 10th) 13 Bleis 16 Cespedes (15th is J Gonzales) 28th Ehrhard 29th Hector Ramos This year, I could see us trading #4 Arias or #6 Jh Garcia, but I would not bet on it. Maybe... 7 Tibbs 10 Early 11 Sandlin 12 Romero, 13 Bleis 16 Cespedes, 17 Paez, 19 Jordan, 21 Uberstine 23 Mullins, 24 Castro, 25 Wehunt, 31 Monegro I'm not sure trading away Rule 5 guys with no chance of being selected makes them more likely to be traded.

The Sox are likely talking to many teams about a SP'er, pen arm and an inexpensive short term 1B fix.

Earlier, this year, almost everyone felt the Sox were not close to the Yanks, in terms of being a top competitor. Now, it looks the the Jays and a couple NL teams look too hard to beat. I'm not going to claim going 3-3 vs those two NL teams proves anything, but adding 2 key pieces would certainly put us close enough to have a legit chance. Granted, those two teams may also add 1-2 key pieces, as well. While I do not think we should sell out the majority of the farm to go for it in 2025 (with mostly rentals,) I do think we can make a couple strategic moves without killing our future and make a serious run in '25.

You don't trade 3 years of Duran for 2 months of a struggling, but very good SP'er. The top 30 prospect does make a huge difference, but we have a top 10 catcher, already. I hope it was just hyperbole when suggesting Brez pack his bags for saying no. Trading Duran (plus others) for Joe Ryan or Mitch Keller makes way more sense. 2 month pitchers do not.

I don't want to trade Duran: we need to trade an OF'er. It should not be Anthony, but I'd trade him for the right piece. It probably shouldn't be Rafaela, due to his defense and flexibility, plus the longer team control at a reasonable cost. That leaves GG RF'er and team HR leader Abreu vs Duran. Nobody wants to hand Duran away. Nobody thinks he's not a very good or even great offensive weapon. Some like the idea of selling high not low. Some see his defense as the worst of the 4. Some worry about his emotional instability or whatever you want to call it. Some see his splits vs LHPs as just marginally better than Abreu's, especially of late. JH Garcia offers a very promising look at OF depth and a Yoshida-Ref platoon in LF offers and emergency depth plan. It's not an easy choice to make, but Rafaela should be playing CF and Anthony needs to play everyday. Those are the two foundational aspects of our loaded OF, as of now and probably for many years to come.