moonslav59

LOL! In all fairness, they did count on Anthony remaining healthy- and Abreu, too. For all the talk of an inconsistent offense that bunches all their hits into a handful of games to warp the view of how good their offense is, well... The last few game have seen most of our games fall in the 9-12 hits range. Last 12 games: team hits 10, 12, 8, 10, 7, 12, 10, 10, 9, 12, 4, 10 11 of the 12 games fell between 7 and 12 hits. 10 between 8 and 12 and 9 between 9 and 12. We haven't had more than 12 hits since doing it back to back to start Sept (14 & 18 hits on Sep 1 & 2.) We had 2 hits on 9/12, but we've had between 7 and 12 in 17 of the last 19 games.

Yoshida had options. He could have been assigned to AAA all season long.

He hold a pretty firm grip on the 4 slot in the AL. Once again, the AL East has risen to dominance, so our record is legit. We are tied with the Padres for the 8th best record in MLB. That's very close to top 25%. If you value run differential: 173 MIL 158 NYY 138 CHC 135 LAD 134 PHI 110 BOS That's top 20%. (Cue big blowout wins don't count.) Finally, we got some results for a team on the rise for 2-3 years. Keep it going! One game at a time!

Updated Sox OPS after tonight's big win: .859 Anthony .845 Refsnyder .826 Romy .822 Bregman .794 Abreu .788 Lowe .734 Eaton (All these top 6 batters missed a lot of time- not all by injuries.) .775 Duran .746 Story .728 Narvaez .704 Rafaela .698 Yoshida (These 5 have been so very important, all year, or down the stretch, like Masa. The first 4 have stayed relatively healthy and have over 1/3 of the team's PAs in 2025!) I wrote earlier how Cora worked magic with a pitching staff that should not have done this well, but he also deserves credit for cobbling together a pretty decent offense, despite his boss trading away his #1 bat, his next #1 bat has missed the last month of the season, and his next two best hitters- Bregman and Abreu missed a lot of time, too.

I'm glad to hear you say this, Fred. He had shown some pretty serious improvement from 2023-2024, but some of the numbers he had to improve on were historically awful. It's understandable to have serious doubts, I had them, too. It was the totality and finality of your criticism that seemed over the top and needless. The guy cut way down on his K's from day one of the season. His BB% was and still is horrific, but it no longer is legendary. He nearly doubled the 2024 rate (2.6 to 4.7.) He's still streaky as all hell. Swings at too many balls that are not even close, but he seems to do just well enough to force pitchers to throw some strikes. I was impressed by all his hits to RF, this year, especially over the last week of the year. He also got some big hits, and like last year, more than his fair share of RBIs for so few hits. While 138 RBIs in 2 seasons is not great, for a .245 batter with not a ton of power, it's decent. He's robbed so many hits, this year, including multiple homers, the guy has been a clear plus. He's got about a 3.5 FWAR, this year and about a 7.5 bWAR in 2024-2025 combined. Think what you want about WAR and what is it good for, but they guy is a plus. I hope he improves, too. Maybe he won't, but if he keeps repeating 2025, I'm fine with it.

The fact that our pitching ranks so highly, when we went into the season with a much maligned pen, had our IP leader (Crawford) from 2024 miss the whole season, our '24 ace (Houck) implode and then miss the rest of the season, and then watch #6 Sandoval, #7 Dobbins, #7 Fitts and others miss all or most of the season, but still end up with a decent ranking has to partially Cora's doing. Hell, Slaten missed a bunch of time, and there was talk Hendriks might win the closing job, if age caught up to Chapman. Brez traded away Priester and Newcomb, and still Cora managed to squeeze every last ounce of success out of the whole staff. Give the guy the props he deserves. Hate him for the whole trashcan fiasco. I guess none of us have ever done anything bad in our lives. Hate him for a few moves that didn't work out, too well. Hate him for handling the Devers situation like an enabler, but give the guy some serious credit for pulling this off.

It would be nice to end the season with 90 wins, but we will give some players a rest. I like the way our pitching lines up for a 3 game series. Our three top SP'ers and 2-3 pen arms might pitch 22-24 of the 27 IP that might be needed in the 3 game series. Maybe they pitch 25-27 of them. Then, there is a day off before the next round, and if we win the first 2 games, our 3rd SP'er can start game 1 and our 1-2 SP'ers can pitch game 3 & 4. We may only need our #4 SP'er once before the ALCS.

One of the most repeated criticisms of Cora was pen choices, and yet our pen carried us for much of the season. Many of us, including myself, were highly critical of Brez for signing "just" Chapman & Wilson. What Cora did with this pen was sheer genius. Sorry, but end of debate on this one. Somehow, our pen has the 2nd best fWAR and ERA- in MLB. The rotation gets a lot of credit, but they rank 14th in fWAR and 8th in ERA-.

It looked like a no brainer to many of us, but Brez saw the light that Bloom was shading.

Also, Narvaez, Chapman and Matz.

It's like some were just too locked into a gloom closet that they refused to believe a big enough improvement had been made. In some ways, I think the 2024 was actually better that their re cord indicated. The Devers injury was crippling, but then again, we dumped him, this year, so that kinda evens that up from 2024. The other big plus was the 2024 Gio signing, which made Brez and the team look worse than it was, too. We didn't see that coming for '25. He pretty much just made up for the loss of Houck. Wilson and Matz helped, as did some no name pen arms that held their ground, well. Romy & Ref were huge! Raflopperela was too.

Sorry, but that seems silly, to me. We get lucky, tonight, and that saves a guy's job.

We've both been strong Cora and Brez supporters, Max. Thanks for holding firm to your convictions.

Cause the magic # was one!

Brez should be fired for signing the old, washed up Chappy, and trading the catcher of the future for Crochet!

What a season!

Ceddanne Raflopperela!

Thanks. I went back and edited.

Scary Harry. Get the feeling we'll need many runs, tongiht!

How about Yoshida at .982 the last 9 games? He's also at a nearly acceptable .725 since the end of July (40 games.) .741 last 23 games. Once Anthony got hurt, we had few options at DH, but had he never got hurt, I wonder if Yoshida would even had been given a shot to do this. "How long a leash?" I asked many many times.

If I had to guess, I'd say we clinch tonight with a 7-2 win. HOU ends up passing DET for the last WC slot. CLE wins the ALC, despite being sellers at the deadline. Their GM will not be fired for not doing more at the deadline. The playoffs go like this: 5. BOS wins 2-1 v 4. NYY> BOS 3-1 over SEA 3. CLE wins 2-1 v 6. HOU> TOR 3-1 over CLE BOS 4-2 over TOR ________________ 4, CHC wins 2-1 v 5. NYM> CHC 3-2 over PHI 3. LAD wins 2-1 v 6. SDP> MIL>3-2 over LAD CHC 4-2 over MIL ________________ CHC 4-3 over BOS

If we ever go to a 16 team playoff format (8 per league,) perhaps after an expansion to 32 teams, I'd prefer we go back to a 154 game schedule. Keep the seasons ending before snowfall. Imagine a league of 8 four team divisions. (I doubt we go with 4 eight team divisions.) ALE: BOS, NYY, BAL, TOR ALN: CLE, DET, CWS, MN ALS: TBR, TEX, HOU. KCR ALW: SEA, SAC, LAA, LV ___________________ NLE: NYY, PHI, WSH, PIT NLS: ATL, MIA, NC*, STL NLN: CIN, CHC, MIL, COL SFG, LAD, SDP, AZ __________________ I'd prefer a total realignment and 8 team divisions: East: BOS, NYY, NYM, PHI, BAL, WSH, TOR, BUF** South: NC, ATL, TBR, MIA STL, KCR, TEX, HOU North: PIT, CIN, CLE, DET, CWS, CHC, MIL, MIN West: SEA, SFG, SAC**, LAA, LAD, SDP, AZ, COL

That silly response makes no sense. Even if they wanted him in the OF, especially when Devers was planted at DH, why not let him keep the hit tool fresh, while working on building up the arm for OF clearance? It's not like he can only build up arm strength during game times. There are 24 hours in a day. Once Devers was traded, and Anthony was booming, it looked clear that we didn't need Masa in the OF. They could have played him at DH in AAA starting in mid June. Maybe he'd have been hitting like this back in late July or early August.

I've agreed with your point. I just don't think 2025 was "weaker" than 2023 or 2024. He's ended the season rather poorly, but not with any longer or weaker stretch than previous seasons, so explain why it's "weaker." That's the only point I'm contesting- not the broader point.

I think we will thank Bregman for helping out our young players, setting an example on what leadership looks like, agreeing to differ much of his 2025 pay and then we say good bye. My guess is the top Sox guys see Mayer as our 3Bman going forward. The main issue with that is no real plan B, if and when he gets hurt. Story? Then who plays SS? I'm not sure I'll be very happy, if we go into 2026 with our infield plan as such: 1B: Casas (Romy) 2B: Romy (Mayer/DHam) SS: Story (Mayer/Romy) 3B Mayer (Story/Eaton) But, I suppose, if we bolster the rotation and pen and add a big bat at DH (Schwarber) or OF (Tucker) I might get over it. Actually, if we get Schwarber, I'd DH Casas.