moonslav59

It now looks like Durbin is too. (5 for his last 12.)

Sonny Gray is now 6-1. The team is 7-3 in his starts. The Sox are 17-30 (.362 winning %) in games he does not start.

For the love of God and everything that's holy, IKF is nearing .800!

How many times has Duran gotten up with a big need for a hit, recently? Now, he homers! I'm not blaming the season on Durran, but this is a microcosm of the whole season.

I've agreed that the big mistake was not adding a big second bat. Note: I did not view Bregman or Bichette as a big bat at all.

Pretty funny how it's become the IKF & Durbin show, of late.

... and I guess it doesn't matter that we traded Meirdroth for Crochet and not KC. Speaking of green, I'm not sure why everything has to be all black or white. If you dislike Brez, the claim has to be that every move he's made has been bad.

According to Steve the Ump, the Sox payroll as compared to the #15 team since 1998: +15M '98 +25M '99 +19M '00 +46M '01 +47M '02 ______________ JH ERA begins +29M '03 Theo begins +61M '04 +53M '05 +48M '06 +56M '07 +53M '08 +41M '09 +78M '10 +74M '11 +85M '12 Ben Begins +60M '13 +55M '14 +72M '15 +67M '16 DD Begins +59M '17 +94M '18 +81M '19 +21M '20 COVID short season (Bloom Begins) +55M '21 +51M '22 +11M '23 +12M '24 Brez Begins +34M '25 +69M

These Slaten defenders really..... LOL

Someone can dislike JH and his choices and still give the facts.

I'd trade anyone and everyone not part of the 2028 team and go for a quick turn-around rebuild. Keep the framework of young players in place and hope the grow into plus players by 2028. Forget about 2026 for sure. I know nobody wants to write off 2027, because there could be a chance we add enough (keep Chapman and other '27 players) and try to compete, but I don't see JH spending what that would take. We might get something from Houck, Crawford, Romy and Casas in 2027, but I'm done counting on that kind of value. Just shoot for 2028. Every move and choice should be with 2028 and beyond in mind. I'm sure we could work out some sort of plan where 2027 comes into play, but you asked what I would do. The 2028 core: C: ______, Narvaez as the #2 (Jo Garcia/Heyman) 1B Contreras (last control year), Romy (J Gonzales) 2B ______/Mayer/Romy (Romero/Godbout) SS Arias or Mayer (Monasterio) 3B ______/Mayer/Durbin (Seigler) LF Anthony/Duran (Castro) CF Rafaela (Azocar) RF Abreu (YRod) DH Duran/Anthony (Cespedes/Casas/Campbell/Brannon) SP Crochet/Suarez/Tolle/Early/______ (Bennett/Eyanson/Witherspoon/Phillips/Paez) RP ______, _______, Slaten, Crawford, Bello, Moran, Samaniego, Weissert (Kelly/Bastardo/Watson/Holobetz/Uberstine/Wehunt/Mullins)

Pretty much sums it up.

I think expectations were .640 to .680ish and very good defense at a few positions.

He did struggle early, so the Sox fans on Ole Red's corner were probably talkin some bad Sh** about his defense slipping.

Here is a position by position look at the Sox player in 2026. I'm going by 100+ PAs sample sizes (31 players) for Catchers and 120+ PAs (around 30-40 players) for the others. Catcher: Narvaez is 16th in fWAR and 20th in OPS. (-1 DRS) By the numbers only maybe C-/D+ 1B: Contreras is 5th in fWAR and 5th in OPS. (4th in DRS) I'd say A- due to top 5 on O & D. 2B: Mayer is 24th and 26th. (11th in DRS) I'd say D. 3B: Durbin is 21st and 27th. (4th in DRS) His D does not save him from a D-. SS: Story is 28th and 26th. (26th in DRS) Gotta say F. LF: Duran is 12th and 16th. (12th in DRS & Anthony 4th in DRS.) Duran gets a C based on #s. CF: Rafaela is 6th and 12th. (moved up to 3rd in DRA & OAA) Ceddanne gets an A-. RF: Abreu is 5th and 11th. (1st in DRA at 12, which is double the 3rd guy!) A for sure. DH: Anthony & Yoshida do not have enough PAs, but would be near the bottom. Grade: F

I don't hear the IKF bashing anymore. I wish we could say the same about Durbin. 3 for his last 8 is not even a drop in the bucket as .479 to .505 is hardly Wow-worthy.

JH is under no obligation to sell to someone committed to winning more than he has been. I know Fred and others think he's a lying sleazebag who does not care about winning, but take a look around at 20 other MLB ownership groups.

We all know spending is everything, and the beef over JH's spending is legit, but over all he's spent more than most teams every year. He's spent more than 2/3 maybe all but 1-2 years. He's spent more than 3/4 over half the seasons he's been at the top. The next guy may or may not come close to this. On his choices of who will run the show, it's a much bigger mixed bag, and the way he handles the transitions has been a clear disaster. The guy has many faults. He may have gotten lucky with Epstein (9 seasons) and DD (4 seasons.) Manny feel the ring under Ben's watch was lucky, but overall he's had a decent to great leader for about half his time with the Sox. Maybe the next owner could do that well or better- maybe not. The disfunction since 2019 has been well documented and discussed, and making the playoffs twice in those 7 years has been little solace to Sox Nation. For many of us older fans, 7 years pales to the decades upon decades of incompetent leadership and uncaring to even racist owners, but it just seemed like those years it was more fun to watch. Maybe it was our youth, or maybe it's just more fun watching teams mash and lose vs teams that can't hit their way out of a wet paper bag. Our .411 winning % is dangerously close to 2020's .400. When you consider how bad the rest of the AL is, it makes it worse than 2020. To me, what makes this worse is that I felt like we were getting better and had a decent foundation of young players and promising prospects. We seemed like we were just 3-4 key pieces away from being serious contenders. Looking at Contreras, Suarez and Gray, it seems like those were better winter additions than we've seen in a very long time and at least since pre-2019. It seems baffling that we got this much worse. Many of the suggestions we all had over the winter wouldn't have mattered, either. It seems obvious, now, that the "foundation" was not as good as we thought, and we needed more than we thought we did. It wasn't Cora. It wasn't Devers. It was much more. Every team has injuries, and living here near Houston, I am witness to an Astros team that blows everyone else away on that front, and yet they keep winning more than us while also losing its best players to free agency year-after-year. Rolling the dice on new ownership clearly appeals to the vast majority of Sox fans, but doing so vs no doing so both seem like losing or highly suspect choices to me.

Eyanson leads all of the minors (30+ IP) in xFIP at 2.38. Other top Sox: 3.27 Bennett 3.67 D Brown 3.77 Halligan & Ziehl 3.84 Mullins

Sox Farm OPS Leaders (100+ PAs) 1.070 Arias AA (12 HRs) 1.020 Brannon AA (7 HRs in 92 ABs) .947 Cespedes A+ (10 HRs) .947 Gasper AAA (Now in MLB) .935 Mason White A+ (9 HRs in 132 ABs) .910 Godbout A+ .891 Azocar A>A+ .883 Seigler AAA .871 Sogard AAA .859 Gonxales A+ .853 Ferguson AA>AAA .851 YRod A+ (10 HRs) .832 Winnay A+ .822 Eaton AAA .819 Heyman A>A+ .817 Baez AA .809 Tucker A>A+ .803 Encarnacion A+ .802 Jo Garcia (8 HRs in 98 ABs)

Arias has the 5th best OPS in all of the minors (160+ PAs.) No top 13 batter is as young as he is, and the next 20 year old at AA is ranked 140 at .876. With so many pitchers getting all the farm hype, recently, it's nice to see a SS who can hit get some attention.

That's how I see it. Until the next buyer is known, to just unconditionally say "SELL" seems short-sighted.

The Sox have the 6th best 1B fWAR, and Contreras is 4th or 5th in OPS and 4th or 5th on defense. That's not C+. Rafaela in CF is better than you think.

Cause it's the only way Mellow Bello can pitch wel

Romero hit his 3rd HR of the season as Woo won. Castro & Eaton had 2 hits. POR lost in 10. Arias & Bleis had 2 hits and Rose had 3. Baez homered. GRE lost 13-8. M White his his 9th dinger and GRod added one, also. They both had 2 hits. Azocar went 1-5 but is still over 1.000 since his promotion. Heyman K'd 4 times while going 0-5. SAL lost 9-3. Not much good happened.