moonslav59

Agreed. I mentioned from the start, I'd have had Yoshida in the line-up over Eaton (Ref in RF.) I still really like Cora as our manager and Brez as our GM or whatever he's called.

Did anybody else notice how Judge kind of slow walked to the ball Sogard legged into a 2B? Go back and look. What a bum! (LOL)

He has paid us back. Can we call it even, yet?

That was our biggest advantage going into this series. In many categories and metrics our pen was the best, and NY's was mediocre, at best, despite adding Bedinar. Gotta thank Boone for taking Fried out, but I do wonder how many more jams Fried could get himself out of. I think he was on his 9th life.

Well said. Nobody is perfect. I think being a "player's manager" has some drawbacks, but the players often will put it all on the line for a guy like that. Cora's reluctance to have "the talk" with Devers might have been able to smooth the whole thing over, but we'll never know, now. It's in the past, already. Let's hope JH allows Brez to spend the money saved in that trade, and he makes the right choices with the next contracts he hands out. A nice playoff showing would go a long way in helping us get over losing our best bat since Mookie.

5.2 IP 1 Hit but 5 BB 1 ER and only 3 Ks Earlier in the season, he pitched back-to-back starts vs the Sox: 5IP, 3H, 5ER, 3BB, 4K 5IP, 7H, 3ER, 2BB, 4K (+1 unearned run allowed) All 3 games: 5.74 ERA (2 HRs, 11 hits, 10BB & 3 HBP in 15.2 IP)

I've said it many times, I hope they never fire Boone or Cashman. Those two are the Sox best friends.

Exactly! And just because some moves did not work, it doesn't mean they were bad ones. I tend to shy away from in game manager bashing, because they know more of the facts and information that we do, and I'm not talking sabermetrics and splits. I have had disagreements on general aspects of Cora's choices, but they are minor compared to how well I think he does. IMO, he did a masterful job, this year. He made some mistakes and has even admitted some, but we are all human. At least, I think we are.

You know for sure, if Chapman gave it up in the 9th, we'd still be hearing about what an idiot Cora was for brining him in outside his comfort zone role. It's only a good move, because it worked, right? We should think about that. Most of what Cora does works. It's not all sabermetrics and computer generated decisions. He follows his gut, a lot. When the season started, most of us thought the pen was a rag-tag group. After losing over a hundred starts from our best starters, more pressure was put on the pen, and they nearly always came through- all year long. Again tonight. Cora has also had to tweak the line-up so many time, it's not even funny. By mid June, he'd already lost his .820 OPS 1Bman, his biggest bat in the Devers trade and the wonder prospect Campbell playing into a demotion. Later, he lost Bregman, Anthony, Mayer, Abreu and others. Only 3 batters qualified with enough PAs, this year and none of them hit over .780. Who expected these batters would get these amounts of PAs? 446 Narvaez (5th in team PAs) 341 Romy (7th most PAs on the team!) 284 Toro (10th) 263 Campbell (11th) 194 DHam (14th) 136 Mayer (16th) 119 Lowe 104 Sogard and 90 Eaton. That's about 2,000 PAs (about 1/3 of the total)

Getting 7 and 2/3 from Crochet was HUGE!!!!

All games are decided by the run differential.

He still found a way to get Yoshida into the game at just the right time. Bregman is such a force. These guys like Sogard, Narvaez and Eaton have done just enough, all year long. Kudos to Cora and Brez and of course the players from the top to the bottom of the 40 man roster, which was more like a 60 man roster.

How about stealing bases and scoring a big insurance run? Old?

All I can say is, "Wow!" Fantastic win! (Okay, I said more...)

I really can't see blaming Cora for doing poorly with bad rosters from 2020 to 2024. The 2021 was unexpected and partially due to his good managing skills. I do think he tends to stick with certain players, too long, but some ended up coming through- like Story and Yoshida, this year and all the way back to Dalbec cin 2021. On playing guys like Toro and DHam, this year, we did not really have many other options, but I do share this concern with you.

Of course it never happened, but the point is just produce and who cares about K rates? I realize a high K rate probably means a player can't produce like this, but Casas has hit more than his hsare of HRs and walks more than most, so the Ks are okay by me. Can he keep it up? I don't know, but hit .820 with 30Hrs in 650 PAs, and I call him a keeper.

I'd have had Yoshida DH and Ref in RF.

Yup. Some blamed Cora for allowing the Devers situation to get out of control and his failure to demand Devers play where they needed him and to shut up and play. I will say, I have questions about this. Still, I really like Cora and Brez.

Apparently he had discomfort a while ago and kept pitching.

I still think I'm fine with a player having a 50% K rate, if he hits 30+ HRs and has an OBP over .350.

I would not take him over the guys you mentioned- only maybe Kelly. I guess they won't put Gio on the IL, so Murph's out for 15 days, I guess. No big deal. Kelly is about the same risk.

That is aggravating, but he produces. It's a by-product of having a high BB%, to some extent. He hits enough HRs for me to get over that.

Our pen was way better than theirs, despite their Bednar addition vs our Matz addition. (We also got Slaten back.)

Agreed. Winning the first two would be nice. We better be "all in" this winter, especially in light of the quiet trade deadline, and some clear needs going into 2026, as well as some clear logjams of talent. We have a lot of pre-arb and early arb players on the roster, as well as low cost, up front, young players locked up for many years. Even our one big eyesore contract (Masa) kinda improved his value in September. Hicks is overpaid, but not a huge contract. In my opinion, we should concentrate of getting fewer high quality players over one or two more players at lower quality. We could accomplish this by making 1-2 big trades and 1-2 big singings, totally 3-4 major additions. I'm not against adding some low cost depth players we'd stash in AAA, like Eaton, Toro and others like this year, but no more adding 5-6 barely better than average outlook additions. If I had to add 3: 1. Big RHB (3B, 1B, 2B, DH) Bregman does not count as a big bat, but he could be #3. 2. Solid #2 SP'er 3. 3B, 2B, 1B (see #1 and get another position from his) If I got 4: 1. BIG RHB (3B, 1B) 2. Solid #2 SP'er 3. 2B 4. 1B or 3B (see #1)

That's a big spike. It was an exciting team to watch. Lots of drama and more happy endings helps.