moonslav59

Because he is the constant, it must be his fault? He is actively sabotaging the defense?

The thing is defense is supposed to be the easiest to equate on paper to on the field, and yet this team looks worse than last year's team. Bregman>Devers Story> committee Campbell> EValdez, Grissom & Co. Rafaela FT in CF> 2024 Duran FT in LF> 2024 Narvaez> McGuire

Good correction on 2020. It was still JH & Co's fault.

A very sad day for the Sox and their fans. Too bad Fitts did not get the win. He looked good. Not much can be said about anyone else looking good.

I think Cora is more likely to be promoted to a higher position with the Sox than fired. I find it hard to blame Cora for 2019. 2020 was all on JH & Co. 2021's spending was absurdly low, and the team came very close to making the WS. 2022-2023 was on JH, Bloom and a weak and shallow roster. 2024 was a better roster, but the Gio injury and lack of major additions made it difficult for Cora to do much. To me, 2025 is the first legitimate roster Cora has had since 2018. (2019's was good enough, but too many players were injured and underperformed. I guess some can blame Cora for underpermance and the whole resting the rotation in ST'ing, but I don't.) Could we have done better with the roster we had? It's hard to say. I wouldn't say we underperformed expectations in 2020, 2022, 2023. Maybe 2024. We overperformed in '21. When I look at some of the pens we had in recent years, I think Cora worked miracles. From 2021-2015, our pen is ranked 16th in fWAR. IP in pen only w fWAR 146 Wink 1.1 142 Whit 2.7 112 Schreiber 2.0 104 Sawamura 0.2 99 Jansen 2.5 96 Martin 2.4 95 Brasier 0.5, 94 Benrardino 0.7, 94 Barnes 1.4, 78 Kelly -0.4, 70 Weissert 0.7 2021-2025 the Rotation is ranked 14th in fWAR. The IP leaders & fWARs: 560 Pivetta 6.6 376 Houck 7.2 372 Bello 4.8 355 Crawford 4.4 293 Nate 6.8 (missed about 30% of starts) 157 ERod 3.8 151 Sale 3.1 127 Wacha 1.5, 110 Richards 0.5, 109 Whitlock 1.8, 107 Paxton 1.3, 100 Perez 0.6 One could argue getting a 14th ranked pitching staff from these guys is a sign of plus management.

Cora chose to give Duran the day off vs the lefty and give Abreu a chance to start vs one. Romy and Casas seem like they are a regular platoon, now, despite Casas having decent career splits vs lefties. Casas has looked awful, so far, so I have no issues with this move. Here is the line-up, for today vs the lefty: R Romy 1B L Devers DH R Bregman 3B R Refsnyder LF R Story SS R Campbell 2B L Abreu RF R Narvaez C R Rafaela CF The all lefty bench: L Duran, L Casas, L DHam, L Sabol,

I used to laugh at posters who would claim that the manager needs to have a sit down with a player and tell them to "take more pitches" or not "K so much," like it is that simple. At some point, they players have to make the adjustments. We can be pretty certain, coaches and managers have been working with Rafaela since day one on being more selective at the plate. Nothing seemed to work, and I just can't believe that the answer was in finding the right coach or manager that would have gotten through to him, where others failed. (It's encouraging to see his K:BB ratio improve, this year, but did he get any better?) Posters have often spoke of Devers and his need to change his approach, and I have always questioned that position. Would I like to see him swing less at bad pitches? Of course, but messing with a successful hitters approach is playing with fire. Sometimes, a roster shake up wakes up those demoted in slots. Is now the time to try it? I'd venture to say yes. My guess is Cora will not, today.

Manager shake-ups do seem to work, sometimes. We all remember Morgan magic, although few of us view him as a really good manager. I'm just not si sure the manager is the cause of the silent bats and poor start by our rotation. Over the last few years, it seems like the lack of spending and poor roster construction was the major beef, but certainly the loyalty to Kike at SS and other questionable Cora choices got a lot of playing time on this site. I don't see Cora as the problem, right now, and I'm far from certain a manager change would help (not that you are certain.) I'd rather see a shake up on 26 (promote Anthony or Mayer) or the line-up. I'm skeptical on Hendriks, Bello or Gio giving us a big boost upon their return, but Newcomb & Criswell have let up 19 runs in 17 IP (12 ERs) Errors and poor fielding is still killing us, despite some winter moves that looked promising. These guys are vets. It's hard for me to blame Cora for too many errors made by seasoned vets.

I think one minimal line-up change Cora could try vs RHPs is putting Abreu up 4th and moving Casas to 6th or 7th. Casas looks totally lost. I know others do, too, but they aren't batting clean-up. I'd like to see Campbell batting second, but the modern line-up philosophy points to Devers staying there. The modern theory also minimizes the 3 slot, so maybe Bregman should bat 4th (v LHPs) and 5th (v RHPs.) Maybe I'm grasping at straws, and some studies have shown the line-up construction is not all that impactful, within reason. Adding new players like Anthony, Mayer or Grandal may help, but I'm not sure any of this happens in the next week or two. How would this look? vs RHP L Duran (just have to hope he snaps out of his funk) L Devers R Bregman L Abreu (up 1-2 slots) R Campbell (up 2 slots) L Casas (down 2 slots) R Story (down 2 slots) R Narvaez (hitting okay, so far) R Rafaela (The K rate is down but so is the OPS) vs LHPs L Duran R Bregman R Refsnyder L Devers R Campbell R Story R Romy 1B R Narvaez R Rafaela (or Abreu)

I'd rather have Zavala or Grandal than Sabol. I think once Grandal is ready, Sabol gets DFA'd.

Good one. What more can a manager say? It's what he is doing and saying to the players that may have some effect, and on that front, it's hard to know. I'm not sure how much Cora had to do with the coaching changes, but he probably was okay with them. The players need to take ownership and play better. That is a truth. A manager cannot force players to play better. That's not to say they have no influence, but they can only do so much. It may be close to the time for a line-up or roster shake-up, but Cora seems to be slower on this than many want him to be. Is it out of excessive loyalty, patience or something else? Are Anthony, Mayer, Romy or Grandal the answers?

It's still way too early to know much, but sometimes you get a sense of what a team is and will be, by this time or by early to mid May. I'm not getting good vibes from this team, so far. The improvements on paper have largely not shown up on the field or box scores. We do have 4 of our top 7 SP'ers on the IL, but we knew about a few and planned for it, this time, but still... The offense has been a big issue, but the defense was supposed to be vastly improved (from worst to middle pack.) The pen was the scariest, on paper, and they have done okay. You'd think playing the CWS would be a great time to "put it all together," but instead we lay an rotten egg.

They called up Sabol due to Wong's injury, but yes, they worry about the offense from Narvaez.

While Casas has looked horrific, I'm far from giving up on him. I do not see him taking Dalbec's path.

Good signing. It can't hurt.

Anthony was about the only bright spot in yesterday's Woo game (9-2 loss.) He went 3-4 w 2 DBLs. Mayer & Grissom went 0-8. POR lost 4-3 in 10. Sandlin went 4 IP, 2 H, 1ER, 3BB, 6K. The O had just 4 hits and 3BBs, and K'd 13 times. The lower level teams were rained out.

How is this for a line-up adjustment? L Duran L Devers R Bregman L Abreu v R/ R Campbell v L L Casas v R/ R Refnsyder v L R Campbell v R/ Story v L R Story v R/Romy v L R Narvaez R Rafaela

Sox line-up: L Duran L Devers R Bregman L Casas R Story L Abreu R Campbell L Sabol R Rafaela

Would Grissom & Mullins or Wehunt make enough sense?

I don't want to jinx Newcomb, but here are the OPS of the line-up he faces, tonight: .474 Vargas .423 Robert Jr .750 Slater .455 Vaughn .593 Sosa .554 Taylor .--- Meidroth (first game) .--- Narvaez (first game) .232 Ama

Cora has patience. That can be a virtue. I'm not sure 14 games shows Cora cannot make major changes. I think th Campbell roster move showed he's willing to adjust his thinking. Deciding to play campbell in CF not LF was an "on-the-fly" change in plans based on Campbell's comfort zone in CF over LF, despite Duran being the better defensive CF'er. I think Campbell may bump Story down a notch, soon, but putti ng more pressure on Campbell could be a worry, too. (I'd put Abreu in front of Story, vs LHPs, but the lefty-righty-lefty thing is often desired.) Also, there was a time, and this is all during a pretty small 14 games sample size, that Story seemed to be showing signs of life with his bat. I'm a guy who like to "ride the hot hand" as much as anyone, but I also do not give up on someone over 3-5 games. Here is a look at some selected shorter sample sizes of Story's 2025 season: Game 1-5: .321 OPS Game 6-14: .833 I'm kinda glad Cora did not overreact over his first 5 game "slump." While his current .687 OPS is bad, he's got about 4 guys ahead of him and 4 worse than him. He's not the guy I look at first. (His arm troubles worry me more than his bat, at this point.)

Matt Moore Released.

Notables on the fWAR list for 2025: 1.3 C Carroll 1.2 Judge & Tucker 1.1 K Paris 1.0 Abreu 0.9 Bassitt, H Greene & Skenes 0.7 Campbell (T11th) Nate, Webb & J Luzardo 0.6 Betts (T 24th) B Singer, H Bro& L Gilbert 0.5 Arenado (T38th) Crochet, Cease, Heaney & C Holmes 0.4 Soto (T 57th) & C Martin 0.3 Teoscar (T80th) DeJong, Sale, Newcomb, Romy, Bregman & Devers 0.2 O'Neill, Vladdy, S Murphy, Narvaez, Rafaela, Skubal, Whitlock, Weissert, Kelly, Alcantara, Wacha & Lugo 0.1 Bogey 0.0 Duran -0.1 Y Alvarez -0.2 Luis Robert -0.3 Casas, Semien, T Bibee -0.4 W Adames -0.5 Renfroe & N Cortes -0.6 Wilson Contreras

You guessed #15. I guessed #21. SP's placed him #17 (behind Paez and ahead of Soto.) Priester had graduated from prospect status. Narvaez bumped from the top 20.

We are almost 1/11th of the way through the season, and here are our WAR leaders (fWAR+bWAR/2) : 1.0 Abreu 0.7 Campbell 0.5 Crochet 0.4 Devers & Chapman 0.3 Bregman, Romy, Narvaez & Rafaela 0.2 Story, Weissert, Bernardino & Newcomb 0.1 Duran, Kelly, Dobbins, Buehler, Refsnyder & Wink 0.0 Slaten & Houck______________________ -0.1 Wong & Criswell -0.2 DHam -0.3 Casas