moonslav59

I'm sure HanRam would not enjoy batting 7th, 8th or even being benched vs RHPs, but he's pretty low vs righties. Of course a factor to weigh is whether the guy you replace HanRam with is significantly better to make the shift or platoon, so that it will outweigh the downside of a pouting HanRam or overall comfort level of several players. I'm not tsalking about benching HanRam vs RHPs, because some guy is 4 for 7 vs RHPs over the last week.

Some posters say you shouldn't move players around in a line-up. They yearn for consistency. Almost every time I come up with a separate line-up vs lefties and righties, someone says "you can't juggle players" or something to that effect.

How about that Young has the 4th best OPS in MLB vs LHPs over the last 1.6 years? He needs to start vs all lefties. How about some bad splits by HanRam vs RHPs, and yet we keep hitting him 4th or 5th vs righties. There's more than this.

I get the whole BAbip argument and don't disagree that Leon's numbers are inflated by some luck factors, however, there is also other reasons his BAbip numbers are so high, such as.... Sox team leaders in LD% 26.0% Leon 25.8% Young 25.4% Vaz 25.1% Holt 23.9% Pedey 23.0% Papi 20.1% Shaw 19 HanRam, Betts & Bogey 17 JBJ Hard hit: 45% Ortiz 40 % Young 38% Leon 37% JBJ 36 HanRam 35 Betts & Shaw 33 Pedey 30 Bogey 23 Holt Now, can Leon keep hitting the ball this hard for a much larger sample size? Probably not, so if that goes down and the luck goes down, then he may fall a lot, but if he just drops a little in hard-hitting, with a big drop in BAbip, he should still do well.

Leon now has more PAs than Young this year. He's 27 away from Vazquez for 9th most on the team. The sample size is growing. His OPS is not really shrinking all that much. He could go 0 for his next 37 and still have a SLG% of .457, which would place him 4th (still above HanRam, Bogey and Pedey!)

Young has actually done better vs RHPs (.734 OPS) than in the past, but I agree. 12 starts out of 33 vs RHPs is about 10 more than it should be IN THEORY, but look below... Interesting to note: When Young starts vs a LHP: .877 OPS When Young starts vs a RHP: .830 OPS Other choices when they start vs a RHP: Beni .911 Swihart: .720 Holt: .714 Brentz: .438 It's hard to criticize Farrell on this one. Overall vs RHPs: .813 Beni .770 Holt .734 Young .629 Swihart .579 Brentz

...but sometimes it seems like others ignore glaring numbers.

August 18, 2004: Tim Wakefield got the win vs Toronto going 8 IP allowing just 2 ERs. August 19, 1921: Ty Cobb collects his 3,000th hit vs the Sox. 2005: Sox release Mark Bellhorn.

Young was fine, primarily a platoon guy for LF, but he's been on the DL for along time. When he returns, what do you to bet Benintendi stays in LF? Good question, Max. Young has the 4th best OPS vs LHPs in all of MLB over the past two years combined. YOUNG MUST START vs LHPS! So, who sits? Papi might need some rest vs LHPs. Beni, Betts and JBJ could sit vs some lefties. Let's say we face 10 LHPs once Young returns, we could sit these guys... Papi 3-4 games Beni 3-4 games JBJ 1-2 games Betts 1-2 games We'd have a hell of a PH'er on the bench those games.

I totally get why they chose to make this type of deal over doing nothing or going blockbuster big for Sale. Pomeranz is a good pitcher at a low cost for 2 more years after this. I'm not against trading top prospects, even though it seems like I am, since I've hated all our recent trades. I wanted to get an ace-type SP'ers for a package, but now that we've spent some top resources on a high paid closer and a 3 slot SP'er, I'm not sure I can be for trading several top prospects for an ace, because our farm would be left almost totally empty. I'm not trying to be overly critical of Sox management, because I have no idea what it would have taken to get an ace. If I knew, maybe I'd be fine with these trades as alternatives. I'm arguing more about theory, because nobody here really knows what all the choices were. In theory, I think we could have gotten a much better SP'er than Pomeranz for Espi, Margot, Guerra and then maybe adding Swihart or Devers. I know that's a steep price to pay, but to me, it's easier to find a closer and by getting a number 1, our current 2 (Porcello) would be our #3. Wright would be our 4, and ERod would be our 5, we wouldn't need a #3. I'm fine with people disagreeing and debating the what ifs and the theories of here and now value vs speculative value. Looking back on the Beckket/Lowell for HanRam/A Sanchez trade, one can argue from both sides of that trade pretty easily.

Well, the Sox did make one huge effort to build the rotation from the top last winter in signing Price. I think they did own up to their Kelly and Buch choices by booting them out of the rotation. The staff is looking real good right now, despite having Wright on the DL and ERod leaving his last start early with Hammy issues. Funny thing is, a week ago, some posters seemed ready to throw in the towel.

Big win for Price and the Sox. Nice time to put together a streak. Leon is getting to the point where it doesn't look like a "flash in the pan". Nice to see Holt hit in August. We hardly noticed HanRam and others have gotten a day(s) off recently. The day off seems to have really helped JBJ, but it could just be coincidence, I suppose. He's 5 for his last 17 with 3Hrs and a 2B and 8 RBI in 4 games. Only Beni went hitless, but he had a BB in just 3 PAs.

My wording was directed at a poster who said something to the effect that Moncada was a "freak" and there was no way for anyone to know it until just a few days ago. It was not meant as "chest thumping", as he called it. I never pretend to know more than Sox management, but I will disagree with them at times. It turned out the timetable I suggested- not demanded and not claimed with some sort of special insight turned out to be almost exactly what happened, and the poster in question still went on to call my position "silly", and my position was really pretty general and tame. All I said was that I felt they should start giving Moncada some reps at 3B during practice sooner rather than later. I never said they must move him to 3B soon. I never said I knew anything others didn't know. I was going off things I read about Moncada being extremely talented (a freak if you wish) and was getting close to ML ready with the bat. As to respecting other knowledgeable posters, it was not I who called someone's position "silly" and "ridicules", especially after it ended up becoming reality within days. I do respect everyone here. There are not the obvious clowns & trolls there were at BDC. I've been wrong so many times in my opinions that for you to act like I'm trying to create a persona of being better or more insightful than others here is so far from the truth, it's not even funny. I often admit I'm wrong. I'm opinionated and some times, not purposely, come across as being abrasive, because I seldom use the words "I think..." or "In my opinion..." , instead I just state my opinion and it sounds like I'm saying like it is fact. I don't mean to be like that. I'm not joking when I say that I truly believe I admited I was wrong more than every other poster on BDC combined. With over 50,000 posts there, being as opinionated as I am, and giving my opinion hundreds of more times than most others, of course I have been wrong a lot. When I am, I have no problem admitting it. It's not my MO to brag about being right, but I will defend myself when someone calls me "silly" for thinking saying Moncada was too good to follow traditional protocol timeline guides.

I agree. I didn;t mean to imply you felt different. I was just adding onto your post.

Yes, and if he does well, his role will increase in importance, and his stock will rise.

We won't be making the playoffs with PomPom in the rotation from 2019-2024 either. You guys act like I don't get why we did it. I actually like PomPom, and when we got him, I showed how his 2016 numbers in 2016 looked a lot like those of a 1-2 slot pitcher. I get that 100% of Espi's value was speculative to highly speculative and Pomeranz's was only slightly speculative. I'm glad we got 2.4 years of cost controlled years and I mentioned how that will help us in other ways beyond just what Pom does for us. Our roster is much better with him on it. That doesn't mean I have to like the trade. I keep getting the feeling you guys think if I just understood why we made the deal, I'd agree it was a good deal. I get the deal. I like Pomeranz. I'm not pretending to be smarter than DD. I just hate the deal... a lot.

Holt's best position is probably 2B. Moncada was probably closest to a ML call-up at 2B than anywhere else. You position had and still has a lot of merit. People think of Pedey as the "heart and soul" of the Sox, but I'm not sure about all that. I'm always open to trading anybody, if the return is greater.

Silly was calling us wrong,even after the move was made. Silly was just now noticing Moncada is a "freak" and might warrant tweaking protocol.. I've admitted I was wrong more times than anyone else probably many combined both here and on BDC. I don't feel I was beating my chest or patting myself on the back. I even said I was surprised Moncada started at 3B so quickly after starting reps at 3B. I stand corrected on your position on "protocol". I must have confused you with someone else. Sorry.

We traded potential talent for developed talent in a year when we had every chance to make the playoffs and teams do that ALL the frigging time. I get why they did it. Telling me why they did it doesn't help me to like the deal anymore than I did. Espinosa is not THAT special. He may be. He may not. He was "special" enough to be rated higher than any other Sox pitcher his age has been for as long as I can remember. I realize the value was highly speculative. I don't need to be preached on how many fail. I, personally, think he was THAT SPECIAL, but I like the way you have already set up your covering up that it was still a good deal, even if Espi turns into the next Pedro. I'm not projecting Pedro greatness for Espi, but his ceiling was and still is pretty damn high. I know Pom Pom is much more of a known commodity and less speculative, despite the fact that his sample size of goodness was only based on about 16 starts. I'm not projecting failure for Pomeranz. I think he will help our staff for 3 playoff cycles. I'm glad we didn't get a rental 5th starter type. I'm glad is salary is low. That will help us rebuild this winter when we try to make up for the loss of Papi, Uehara and Tazawa. Again, it's not about Pomeranz to me; it's about Espinoza. I'm a patient kind of guy. I would have loved to have waited for 3-9 years to see who he becomes. Note: the Sox talent evaluators and developers have changed over time, so assuming no quality Sox pitching prospect can ever turn into a great pitcher may be based on faulty assumptions.

I'll be happy to admit I was wrong, but if Espi becomes the next Pedro...

One bright spot- Owens pitched his first game with 1 BB this year. Maybe he's turned the corner.

It's still going to hurt, but if you look at how we're doing now as Papi has been in a little funk, hopefully we can recover from the loss.

Tied for the first wild card, but your point is well-taken. I thought this team was a top AL contender on paper last winter- not so much out of how good we looked, but how many holes other AL teams had compared to ours. Just 5-6 days ago, some here were ready to write this team off, saying things like, "This is not a playoff team!" Now, we look like the best team in the AL. (just kidding)

It has been pretty sick out there. Too bad Young got hurt. He was OK. Here are our LF UZR/150 rankings over recent sampler sizes: 2016: 24th (-6.6) 15-16: 22nd (4.5- would have been much worse had HanRam stayed healthy) 14-16: 20th (-2.2) 13-16: 22nd (-4.3)

...insisting on getting Shaw extensive practice at 3B in the Spring rather than coddling Sandoval... It was a good choice, and HanRam made it easier by looking pretty ngood at 1B pretty much right out of the gate.