moonslav59

There were rumors Nomar was pouting. He was no longer a decent defensive SS. He may have injured himself in a non baseball incident, and the Sox went along with it. He refused to sign the offered extension and was rightfully traded. As it looks, Devers was rightfully traded, too, but the other side has some legit points.

I agree. I think we agree we should not trade top prospects for a rental or two, but marginal prospects for a couple useful pieces might be fine. We disagree on trading from OF strength and depth for a controlled pitcher, but I'd rather we stand pat than trade Duran for a rental or controlled 1Bman.

.700 to .720 encompases the MLB avergae OPS for 2025 (.717.) The 2025 MLB OPS for CF is .695. He might be at .710 and be better than the MLB CF average OPS and be GG caliber on D, and that's not "good enough" for you? Of course, the MLB in CF could go up above .720 going forward. It has been this, the last 5 years: .721 in '21 .688 in '22 .730 in '23 .697 in '24 .695, so far in '25 Of course, I'd like better than .720, and that is your high end, but Rafaela's D and baserunning makes up for his possible mediocre O. He'd be a firm plus, IMO at .705 or .720.

Devers to start at 1B, tonight!

Please, NO! I'd rather bring Sandy Leon back.

I agree. Devers is not toast.

To think we are where we are w/o our #1 SP'er, last year is pretty telling.

Yes, his career is .705 and you expect that to decline to .700 as he nears then enters prime, despite showing significant (yet still much more to go) improvement on K and BB rates. Let's revisit this in 5 years and when his contract expires. I'd predict .740, so I'm not way more optimistic than you are. I think there is a decent chance he hits .775 from 2025 to the end of his contract. I expect you put the odds at that happening as less than 5%. I'd put them at 25-33%.

Exactly, and "eating" half of JD's salary would essentially add the other half to Schwarber's cost. I'd love to have kept Schwarber, and we can argue all day & night about JH coulda, shoulda spent more, but the fact was he would not and did not.

How could we trade JD?

Wow, Annie Anthony and Mary Mayer are doing about the same as Kristina.

You aren't getting any offer close to Painter for Chapman, IMO.

Duran to PHI, Bubic to BOS, Abel & Romero to KCR.

He's really slumped badly. Have his splits vs RHPs been real bad, too, because Romy is not good vs RHPs. Who else plays 1B vs R? Until we get someone, maybe a DFA is not the best idea.

This was rather shocking to me. + Narvaez at C (one of the best in MLB) + Story at SS (replacing below avg D at SS in '24) + Bregman at 3B (replacing the worst in MLB) + a mix at 1B (replacing the worst in MLB) + Rafaela in CF full time + Duran in LF full time 2B remained a mess, but it was horrible in '24. I'm confounded.

I think you are right. 9. Campbell 10. Jh Garcia (esp if we trade Duran or Abreu, this summer.)

I'd offer Chapman $12M/1 with a team option for 2027 at $12M with a $2M buyout. He gets $14M/1 or $24M/2.

Park factors make our hitting look better and pitching look worse than it is. BOS is 10th in wRC+ (105) BOS is 5th in ERA- (but our D allows many runs to score) The Sox are 8th in xFIP. (13th in SIERA)

Long ago, I wondered how Lynn and Rice might have done, had they been opening day players in 1974. At age 19, Rice hit .861 in A+, then he hit .987 in AA+AAA in 1973. He was killing AAA in '74 at .971. At age 21, Lynn hit .863 in AA (first prof level) That was 1973. I can see why he was not jumped to MLB the next April, but he did hit .857 in AAA in 1074. (He also had played college ball at USC beforehand.) I seriously doubt we'd have ruined them, had they joined the club in April 1974. I'm not sure they'd have led us to the playoffs, either.

The one more erb year factor gets my attention. He turns 28, soon, so I'd kick the tires and hope we can extend him for 2-3 more years. The issue is the cost.

I'm guessing BTV does not have Tolle near others more like "untouchable." He will not even have the highest trade value on the team. That being said, IMO nobody is untouchable, but my top trade avoidance players would be: 1. Crochet 2. Anthony 3. Mayer 4. Bello 5. Narvaez 6. Rafaela 7/8 Abreu > Duran due to more years of control 9. Witherspoon 10. Campbell

He has improved, recently, but when you look at his full career- minors and majors- he barely moved the needle, at all, until very recently. He has such a long way to go in this area, that it is probably impossible he can ever get to even a respectable level on K zone discipline. His current career OPS is .705, and he is still very young. If he has a long career, he could decline as he gets past 30-32, but I gotta figure he should have a higher OPS than .700 as he get to peak prime years. It will likely keep him from ever being able to stay near or over .800, even for several seasons. He might get close for one season, maybe this year, but unless he keeps improving as much as he did, this year- over and over again. On another angle, there are a few players who have very high K rates, but still put up very good OPS. Most have much higher BB rates that Rafaela has even come close to doing, so I can understand thinking he'll never get there. I have serious doubts, too. Here are a few High K batters who are over .770 career w BB%. .820 T Story 28.2 K%/ 8.0 BB% .802 Teoscar 29.2%/7.0% .774 Chris Davis 32.9K%/ 9.9% BB% Rafaela is .705 with 24.2% K and 3.4% BB. What's hard to gauge is how real is this year's improvement and can or will it continue. Last year he was at a 26.4% K rate and 2.6 BB rate, which was maybe the worst in the history of MLB. Then... 26.4% to 18.8% K rate from '24 to '25 and 2.6% BB% to 4.5% He's got power, so his SLG can carry him a bit, but he is not likely going to be Teoscar with power. 4.5% BB rate is far behind the 3 players I listed. Looking at the worst BB/K numbers with highest OPS, since 1972, I found.... (Rafaela's is .14 career but .24 in 2025.) .20 Y Diaz .760 .21 S Perez.762 .23 D Dahl .773 .24 T Carpenter .832 (just 1148 PAs) .24 Bo Jackson .784 .24 Teoscar .802 It is a rare thing to see: I admit. I think we have to hope he can improve on 0.24, otherwise he will be one of two guys in over 50 years to hit over .800 and have that bad of a rate.

I doubt any would, but a good one, anyway.

What will his season ending OPS be? Or, what will his OPS be from today to the season end?

I guess my point is that it is hard to get a batter to change that aspect of hitting approach without it affecting his ability to hit good pitches. It usually takes adjusting how you recognize pitches and the twitch time you have, once you decide to swing. If it takes a split second more to decide, it would greatly affect your results.