moonslav59

Still no word on the Thaiss decision. Mayer announced as starting 2Bman with platoon possibilities. Campbell sent down.

So how many players do we have left to get to 26?

Not an easy start, but not real bad, either.

The season opens soon: 3/26: @ CIN 3/27: OFF 3/28: @ CIN 3/29: @ CIN 3/30: @ HOU 3/31: @ HOU 4/1: @ HOU 4/2: OFF 3 vs SDP at BOS 3 vs MIL at BOS Day Off

One theory is that there are more RHPs and RHBs, so they are more accustomed to facing "the wrong handed" pitchers. Most of the best RHBs have more even splits than the best LHBs, and I guess it's true overall, too.

It's hard keeping my RA expectations in check, and I'm not sure why I should. I guess to prevent a letdown? I just can't see this not working out very well for the Sox. Not bad for a 79th pick in that draft.

One thing that really stands out while looking at the Sox system is the rather large core of young players and very promising prospects. While much of the value is speculative or "potential," it's pretty amazing, to me. We do have a few key players past prime or near the end of their prime years, but the vast majority are pre-prime or entering peak prime, now. 38 Chapman, 36 Sonny Gray, 36 Coulombe. 33 Story & 33 Contreras 32 Yoshida, 31 Weissert, 30 Suarez & IKF Peak: 26 Crochet/Abreu/Durbin/Casas, 27 Narvaez, 28 Slaten, 29 Duran/Whitlock/Crawford/Sandoval Pre-Prime: 23 Early/Mayer/Tolle, Campbell 25 Rafaela I count at least 12 high quality players in the age 23 to 29 range. (Suarez is 30.) I did not list prospects like Arias, Witherspoon and others, of which some are nationally ranked.

fangraphs projects these AL total fWAR finishes: 47.9 TOR 47.3 NYY 46.9 SEA 46.0 BOS 44.9 DET & BAL 40.8 HOU, 39.8 TEX, 39.0 TBR, 38.5 KCR 37.3 ATH, 36.7 MN, 34.8 CLE, 29.4 LAA, 27.5 CWS The project our.... SP'ers at #1 in all of MLB at 18.0 Pen at #5 (4.2) second to TBR in AL. 2nd in LF at 3.6 w Anthony at 399 PAs & Duran w 252 in LF. 6th in RF (3.2) w Abreu at 511 PAs. 8th in CF (3.7) w Rafaela at 602 PAs. 12th at 1B (2.6) 13th at DH (1.7) w 266 Duran, 161 Masa, 105 Anthony, 84 Contreras, 42 Casas 16th at 3B (2.7) w Durbin 546 They have us sucking at... 2B (26th) at 1.9 (Mayer, Romy, IKF) SS (26th) at 2.4 (Story)

Well, Cole finally pitched an inning. I'm not sure how much of the Yankee success will tied to his recovery, and how well Rodon recovers might also make a big difference, but to me the number one fear of the Yanks is an injury to Judge.

I know Tolle has potential, but to me, Early is our #1 prospect. They guy gets it done- over and over, again.

That's what was put in his deal. He wants to be on a MLB team on opening day, and must have felt he could beat out Wong. You think $1.3M is too much? It does seem a little high, but not unrealistic.

I think the top 5-6 AL teams are not far from each other. They all have strong areas and weaker ones. I like our chances as much as anyone else's.

Bello looked good!

Yup. I'm glad his nitch was found.

Yup. I'm glad his nitch was found.

No surprises on those roster moves. The day to decide on Thaiss is tomorrow, right?

He had a decent season in '79, then hit .812 in 1980 (in only 105 games.) It's not easy to quit when you are still going better than most or almost all of the players on your team. In '79, only Lynn and Rice had more PAs and a higher OPS. Out of the top 9 batters by PAs, Yaz's .796 placed him 5th, but nobody 10th or lower had a higher OPS. In '80, 4 of the top 9 batters had a higher OPS than Yaz: Rice, Evans, Lynn and Fisk. Yaz had the 5th best OPS out of the top 12 batters by PAs. Knowing what we know, now, he should have retired after 1980... for sure.

Yes, and the word was Whitlock wanted a shot at starting, and he'd been one through the Yankee system. I wasn't against the idea, at the time. but it turned out to ba a bad choice.

I agree. The major issue with Whitlock was when they messed with his role. You and others pointed out, at the time that this was a huge mistake, and it was. As a strict set-up man, he has been amazingly effective. 2025: 30 save situations 24 Holds (just 13% of IH runners scored) 1 Save 4 Blown saves 2021: 22 Save situations 15 Holds (25% of IH runners scored) 2 saves 3 Blown Saves

I hope this is sarcasm. For just one rebuttal: Career First batter: .185 BA/ .242 OBP/.305 SLG Men on Base: .230/.300/..366 Late & Close: .199/.256/.310 High Leverage: .198/.265/.326 He might be the best set-up man the Sox have ever had.

Great summary. I've never been one to support a 6 man rotation, but with the depth of starters we have, this may be the exception. The other idea would be to selectively choose one to move to the pen and give it some quality mid to high leverage innings. We will likely need pen help, too. If everyone stays healthy (little chance) we may have Crawford and Sandoval to take some bulk but meaningful pen innings, and I struggle to imagine using Early or Tolle in pen roles, but if the other 5 are doing very well as starters, that may be what happens. Perhaps, we end up moving Oviedo or Bello to pen roles, but again, this is going on the longshot assumption everyone stays healthy. It's hard not to view our top 9 SP'ers as one of the best and deepest 9 this team has ever seen. Crochet, Sanchez, Gray, Bello, Oviedo Crawford, Sandoval Early, Tolle

MLB.com places the Sox at #9. 1. LAD: have 27% odds to win the World Series, which is a wildly high number, higher than the next three teams combined. On the other hand, that’s also 73% odds of not winning the World Series. 2. SEA: This is the best team they’ve had since 2001, no question. Now they’ve got that proverbial sea monkey off their proverbial sea backs 3. CHC: It's very uncomfortable picking this team this high. 4. NYM: The Mets waved goodbye to longtime fan favorites Pete Alonso and Brandon Nimmo, and then they didn’t get Kyle Tucker. Say what you will about the Mets, but when they pivot, they pivot hard: Just like that, Bo Bichette, Freddy Peralta and Luis Robert were all here, suddenly, and the Mets' roster made a lot more sense. 5. NYY: The Yankees are not a perfect team. There are some clear flaws. They also still have Aaron Judge and return most of a 94-win team, which, again, is really good, with the promise of Cole’s return. 6. PHI: this rotation is the class of the division and, more to the point, as potentially terrifying in the postseason as ever. 7. TOR: I fully believe this team is going to be really, really good. I mostly just wonder if the power of friendship culture that was so obvious early last season can work again with some notable ins and outs on the roster. 8. DET: I don’t think they’re the eighth-best team in baseball over a whole season. But in a short series? Against those guys? No thanks. 9. BOS: It’s good strategy to pick three teams from the same beastly AL East in the first nine picks, right? Right? Surely that doesn’t narrow my odds of finding teams to win it all? So there’s that, but there’s also this: The Red Sox may have the best rotation in baseball, Roman Anthony was already everyone’s “massive superstar turn incoming” pick even before his World Baseball Classic power show, and Garrett Whitlock / Aroldis Chapman are up there for “best 1-2 bullpen duos in the game.” Sure, I don’t love their infield either, for the most part. But when your biggest problem just might be, “We have too many good outfielders and we don’t know how we’ll find playing time for all of them,” well, that’s hardly a problem at all. 10. BAL, 11 KCR, 12 ATL, 13. MIL, 14 SFG, 15. PIT

Yaz must not have been very good vs LHPs for a pretty long time for that final number to be where it was. It wasn't just the end of his career, that perhaps went on for too long. As you can see, he wasn't very good vs LHPs until 1967, too. He had 6 pretty bad split years to start his career. 1961: .728/.699 1962: .862/.742 1963: .937/.739 1964: .864/.693 1965: 1.037/.646 1966: .854/.584 ________________ 1967: 1.081/.897 1968: .978/.773 (The year of the pitcher) 1969: .979/.648 1970: 1.133/.857 1971: .825/.636 1972: .793/.662 1973: .929/.697 (3 years in a row of pretty bad.) 1974: .887/.792 (looks like blip) 1975: .846/.579 1976: .840/.666 1977: .937/.708 1978: .801/.756 1979: .869/.551 1980: .852/.593 His last 3 seasons were rather small sample sizes: .781/.292>> .800/.722>>.793/.518

It's one of the great mysteries of the game.

Very well said. Early knows how to to get guys out. He seems to have supreme confidence in himself, but not in a cocky way. We we certainly will need a 6th starter, probably sooner than we want, and I feel very secure knowing Early could be the first one up.