moonslav59

Story did get his K% below 25% w COL for a couple season, but it's been over 30% every year w BOS (30.8>32.7> 30.2, this year) It's the 3.8% BB rate that is very low, out of the gate. His career is 8.2%. Thanks to the .297 BA, his OBP is a decent .330, but there is doubt he can sustain that. Maybe his BA falls but his BB% rises and he can stay near .330. His .465 SLG is close to his last year w COL, and it would be nice if he can finish the full season near or above that. .330/.470 would be very nice.

I thought someone- not you- was saying we need to wait longer to call up Anthony or Mayer. Another question: do we add another year, if we wait until the end of April 2026? (I think not.)

I'm not worried one tiny bit. I'm not sure why you keep framing my opinions that way. I actually think Devers might prefer batting 4th. I have no idea. I was concerned how he would take being moved to DH, but to me, it had to happen. He obviously did not want to DH. There is no disputing that. I hope he asks Cora to get a chance at 1B. Maybe casas handles the DH role better.

I agree on picking a position for Campbell and staying with it. I'd be okay with it being CF, but IMO, we'd need to make an OF'er trade for that to be the best idea, and in reality, two OF'ers traded. LF: Duran, Anthony, Refsnyder, Yoshida CF: Rafaela, Campbell, Duran, Anthony RF: Abreu, Refsnyder, Anthony That's 5 OF'ers, not counting Refsnyder and Yoshida.

High OBP does not always transfer over to MLB. Duran: .366>.325 Abreu: .372>.341 (.388 in AAA) Anthony .401> ????

Is my math so bad that I'm wrong in saying, if a prospect is called up, now, he still gets the extra year, since he cannot reach 172 days on the MLB roster? I thought the season was 187 days, and we've already passed the 15 day mark.

I could see trading one of the top 3, but not two, even if for Skenes, despite his 4 years of control at pre-arb & arb prices. I'd love to have the guy, for sure. I could see giving up Mayer, Abreu, Fitts and Dobbins or Mayer, Duran and a pitcher. I'm not sure PIT wants Abreu or Duran as their arb costs will be on the rise, soon. Would you trade Mayer, Kelly and Wong for O'Hoppe, Tyler Anderson and Reid Detmers?

I agree, and while after the top 3 may look a bit sketchy, we have so many promising prospects, including pitchers, some are bound to jump up, this year. Some are off to good starts- others may jump, later in the season. (Others will not.)

Moving him to DH was the right thing to do. Having Bregman play 3B was the right thing to do. Promoting Campbell and playing him at 2B was the right thing to do, although playing him in CF over Rafaela had some merit. Modern line up philosophy says the best hitter bats second, and Devers has something like 4 of our top 5 OPS seasons over the last 4 seasons, so starting him there made sense. The "new" philosophy also highly values the 4 slot, especially for your power guy, so having Devers bat 4th is not really a demotion, and he has hit there very often in his career. Other than batting 2nd (1660 PAs) 1157 batting 4th 556 hitting 5th 390 6th 319 3rd 144 7-8-9 If he really wants to play in the field, pick up a 1Bman's mitt and take some practice there. Show Cora he is as good as the worst defensive 1Bman in MLB, today (Casas.)

Who sits? Duran or Abreu, if Anthony is in LF or RF and Campbell in CF? There has to be a trade, since they will not bench one of these two, and they are both LHBs, so no platoon works with those two combined.

The easier move is Anthony to LF, Duran to CF and keep Abreu in RF (w Rafaela or Refsnyder as the platoon.) To bring up Mayer, we'd almost have to move Campbell to CF and keep Duran in LF and Abreu/ Ref-Raf in RF- with no Anthony.

No, top 2 teams in each league (4 teams) win 3:1 over bottom 2 teams in each league (4 teams). (It was the 4-5 teams then became the 5-6 teams when they moved from 5 to 6 team making it to the dance.) It's apples to apples. It's the #3 team that is under-represented, and more recently the 3 & 4 teams.

We will remember this.

Well, the rumor was Casas for Castillo, but BOS wanted to include Yoshi. Had the deal not included Yoshi, the savings on the trade would have allowed SEA to sign a good starting pitcher.

There is a lot of turnover at the 4/5 slots in MLB. That's on reason you have to set the IP level to 80-85 to get to the 150 SP'er sample size.

People always talk about the weakest link. He might just be a slow starter. I'd still demote him and promote Grissom.

Dobbins went 6 IP- allowing 4H, 1ER, 2BB, 3K in a 14-1 win. Woo had 13 hits and 7 BB, led by... Anthony and Eaton with 2 hits, including dingers and a BB. Rosier also homered and is at 1.065 in a small sample size. POR won 4-3 Mullins pitched great for GRE.

Why would we carry only 25 players on a 26 man roster? LOL. I won't be surprised if we call up Yoshida before Anthony, and maybe he hits well, but I like Anthony's chances to provide a spark more.

Most of the trades I suggested included some money going to SEA to offset some or all of the cost differential. Others included us getting Castillo plus one or both of Garver & Haniger.

That very well may be part or most of the issue. Others seem to think the shoulder issue is continuing into this season. Maybe it's a little of both, or something else. Maybe it's just a couple of long slumps sandwiched around a 10 game nice streak or the STL series. If you count the 80+ game stretch as one long slump due to one cause, which it might be, it is concerning, but he has had some smaller poor stretches: .703 in first 13 games of '24. .622 in a 17 games stretch in April '23 and .648 in another 28 games stretch in '23. .651 in a 19 game stretch in April '22 and .703 to end the '22 season's last 56 games. ,655 over the first 31 games of the 2020 season.\ .626 over the first 16 games of 2019 and .690 over the first 25 games. None of these streaks equals this one stretched over two seasons, but most of the bad stretches were in April or to end a season. Something to think about. He's between .889 and 1.008 in the months from May to July and .759 to .803 in April, August and Sept over his career.

Hey, harmony: maybe the Sox win, today had we traded Yoshida for Garver and ____.

A rare specific suggestion from you. I disagree, but I can see why someone would want this. Speaking of 34 AB sample sizes (or more,) Devers had been this, before today: .794 in last 80 PAs 5 rbi in his last 5 games (23 PAs) BTW, Devers was at .703 on 4/17/24 and got to .872 by 4/30 and .929 by 5/3, that's how small these sample sizes are. Patience is a virtue. (sometimes)

I was wrong. See how easy that is to mean and say?

I'd say 9-3 of 1-2 slots winning vs 4-5 slots winning is a little more on the side of the anti-crapshoot position than the pro-crapshoot position, but it's not 100% clear. Certainly, there is an element of "crapshoot" involved, but the best teams have a much better chance than a dice roll. Better than twice a dice roll chance.

I wasn't aware of the 34 AB sample size. All the more reason to try Devers 4th and maybe Campbell or Bregman 2nd.