moonslav59

I didn't see any clearly better option, either.

Try something!

He's next to go on the IL.

Bello should maybe be called "Below."

DHam was very good at 2B defense, too, but his look at SS and 3B were kinda scary with the Sox. He is +16 DRS at 2B in just 695 innings.

I do agree that Ceddanne could be a damn good defender at 2B or SS or even 3B, if allowed to play there FT for a long enough while. I do know he's a great defensive CF'er, or at least I thought I knew. I'm not sure what to think of his recent fielding slump in CF. I'm not sure moving Ceddanne just to accommodate Duran and Masa having a FT slot is worth the time and effort to get Ceddanne to where he needs to be at for a FT infield slot. I like your theory on playing the top 9 bats, and right now Ceddanne is top 9. Hell, he's been top 4-6 for a couple years. I'm just not so sure his offense is that good to focus all this attention on finding another slot for him. Of course, if Durbin stays under .500 and Story & Mayer stay under .600, he'd be a major upgrade on offense playing in the infield. A few times, this past winter, I suggested we trade Ceddanne and not Duran or Abreu, so our offense would be better off, but he's currently outhitting Duran, and Abreu's OPS is falling to near Ceddanne's number. It's hard to be optimistic about this offense, but I do think it's better than 25th to 30th. I thought it would easily be top 20. I even suggested we might end up near 10-12, before the season started, but so many players are doing way worse than even the most pessimistic fans thought could happen. I know- I know: small sample sizes. We're 15% through the season, so when does small become not so small?

Thanks. I mentioned keeping Cheng ready to fill in, if needed, but not as meaning he's blocking Arias. If Gasper is still over .900 by June, does he get a call?

Some selected player OPS to start 2026... .335 Refsnyder .341 Carson Williams (I'm not sure anyone mentioned him, last winter, but he's a SS.) .436 Bohm .503 Stott .508 Keashchall .516 Ozuna .522 Rengifo .532 Polanco .538 Rooker .549 J Naylor .556 Chisholm .568 E Tovar .583 McLain .584 Bichette .587 Devers .601 Matthews .622 Okamoto .624 Vientos .629 Semien ______________________ .653 Torres .664 W Castro .679 Moncada .687 Adames .693 Paredes .694 KMarte .698 O'Neill .699 Alonso, Hoskins & K Tucker .703 J Baez .704 Bregman .710 Betts, Meidroth .713 Arenado .719 Swanson .726 R Lewis .731 Teoscar H ____________________ I'm not trying to bust anybody for suggesting some of the names above: I suggested several of them, but choosing correctly is not easy as a GM. Some of the next names were suggested several times, too... .761 Josh Bell .765 Seager .789 Andujar .810 Neto .823 T Gray .836 M Shaw .847 Schwarber .849 Kurtz __________________ .852 Harper .871 Hoerner .886 HS Kim .888 Jeffers .899 B Lowe .915 Yandy Diaz .930 O'Hearn .955 Donovan .975 CJ Abram .981 Max Muncy .990 Dom Smith ___________________ 1.010 Wood 1.054 C Vazquez 1.647 Rushing

We shoulda and coulda given up enough to get KMarte or Neto. Even Paredes or Hoerner would have been better than Durbin/IKF. Donovan and BLowe were options, too. To be fair, so were E Suarez and Polanco, who I mentioned, but have sucked, so far. The great Pete Alonso is now at .700.

I'm just clowning around. I do prefer Mayer at SS and Ceddanne at 2B, if we make such a move. I was fine with getting Schwarber. I wanted a big bat and viewed Contreras as a good get but should not be counted as the big bat we needed.

Running back the same line-up, tonight.

I fixed it for you.

I'm not ready to call the season over, but I'm about as far away from "optimistic" as I've been since 2020, so that says a lot.

I fixed it for you. (We all knew Ceddanne's CF defense was going to implode, this year.)

MVP, do you see Arias going to AAA mid season? I'm not sure it's much of a bigger challenge for Arias, and we want to keep Cheng ready, in case Story gets hurt, but I'd like to see how Arias does against older/better pitchers.

Yes, but unless you felt we were a 10-12 team in these areas to begin with, and they play like a 10-12 for the rest of the season, they won't finish 14th. We have played over 15% of the season. That is a SSS, but a lot of "making up" has to occur.

When it warms up, other teams will homer more, too, but we played a lot more games in the cold, so far, so maybe... We are 29th in ISO & HRs. We are 13 HRs away from #14. We are 30th in SLG and doubt we get to 14th. (.055 away)

Thanks for this breakdown. Very nice.

the 11th ranking is legit, but when you have so many pre-arb players and some who have been locked up but have low alary now, I find it to be misleading. It's still legit, though. Other teams have numbers influenced by heavy deferments, but that does not show up here, so that would tweak some numbers, too. I always go by the tax number as it represents the true AAV cost. https://www.spotrac.com/mlb/tax It's interesting to note we were 5th in spending in in 2021 at $187M. Now, we are at $193M and in 11th.

Which significant stats might we finish above #15? Maybe Runs, as playing half the games in Fenway might help. We are 26th at 92 and 20 runs behind #14. That can be made up rather quickly. wRC+ 29th at 78 (14th is 101) OPS 29th at .636 (.001 from 30th & .078 from 14th) wOBA 28th at .293 (14th is at .322)

2 of our top 3 prospects (Early & Tolle) look like they will graduate, soon. The other one, Arias, might be in the bigs earlier than anyone expected. Our non 1Bmen infielders have sucked, so far, so the need is already present. Our AAA prospects do not look very helpful, despite a few good numbers here: .939 Gasper .903 Cheng (slumping) .883 Capra (not on 40) .814 Sogard .739 Eaton .723 Campbell .708 Romero (not on 40) .536 Seigler

We are not middle third in spending. We are 6th.... just one away from your call for being top 5 in spending. Granted, moving to 5th would mean spending $25M more. While I agree we should spend more and don't want to sound like I'm defending JH, facts are facts: We were 11th in spending in 2024 at $220M. We are 6th now at $267. Here are the top 6 teams in 2026 spending and their percent increase in spending since 2024: 1. LAD +18% (353>416) Lost of hidden deferred money 2. NYM + 9.6% (348>381) 3. NYY +6.6% (316>337) 4. PHI +20% (264 #7 to 314) 5. TOR +24% (234 #10 to 291 6. BOS +21% (220 #11 to 267) It will be interesting to see if the uptick in spending increases, but it appears that how we spend the money seems like a bigger issue than not spending enough.

But the "bounce back" might be to hit mid tier the rest of the way and still end up at #15 or lower, at best- maybe.

It would have been nicer if these guts just made a sincere attempt at adding a second bat.

There is no quick fix. Firing Cor might light a fire under a few players, but the lack of power issue will not go away, even with one big trade. (Trades like what we need never happen in APR-May.)