moonslav59

That's not the point I addressed. You listed the "strongest offensive line-up." Is it? BTW, I had Campbell and maybe others at 2B, NOT Rafela.

We had a guy with that name a few years back. He must mean Justin Gonzales (with an "s" not a "z.")

Is Rafaela a better batter than Campbell or even a DHam-Romy platoon? (2B Campbell or DHam, Romy, 3B Bregman, DH Devers, LF Yoshida/Ref, CF Duran)

The second base position has been a total mess for 2 years, and the previous 3-4 years were not all that good, either. As bad as the position has hit, we couldn't even use an all glove-no hit guy at 2nd, and the D sucked even worse than the O. DHam and Romy played okay from June to August, and their fWARs were actually very nice, combined, but they look better as bench pieces or as a short term solution to handle an injury or two. I do think just DHam, Romy & Grissom offer more hope than we've seen in 2 years, but that's not enough. The hope was Campbell could win the job, at some point, this year. It still is. I really hope we don't see a lot of Bregman at 2B, despite the fact that he'd be an instant fix to a long-going problem, but we'd still have the issues at 3B, and with the Devers' should squawking, it looks like Bregman will start the year at 3B. We roll the dice again.

Bregman would like that, too.

Agree on Hickey. He might be a career AAAA player.

If he hits real well, just near average defense will be good enough. Even slightly below average defense at 2B would be an improvement over our 5 year defense at 2B. 27th in OAA at -20 (30th '23-'24 at -23) 22nd UZR/150 at -1.1 (23rd '23-'24) 13th DRS at +5 (24th from '23-'23 at -11)

Yup. I'm sure every player works on their D, at times- some more than others. Sometimes you hear about extra work: sometimes you don't. I do know one thing: Casas does not seem to be benefiting from it. (IMO, of course.)

I have a thick book with all my concert ticket stubs glued to pages. I used to go to 8-10 a year, but now maybe 3-5. I usually go to 2 Sox games at Houston and try to go to one Fenway game a year, but missed last year and 3 years ago.

Gotta like Crochet's outing.

I agree, and although I'm not scouring the net to find articles about how he's been working on his defense over any past winter or summer, I don't recall a single thing about him doing so.

I have not seen enough to have an opinion. sosprospects.com has this... Looks most comfortable at second base, where he played in college. At short and third, shows solid athleticism and range, but is a little unorthodox with his movements Potential average defensive profile with the versatility to adequately play at least three positions. Arm: Average arm. Passable on the left side of the infield, but best suited for second base.

Yup. Even with DHam and Romy finishing out the season taking most of the work, 2B was still not really a plus. DHam's fWAR was nice and Romy killed LHPs, but we have to do better. My point was they were better than what we had earlier in the year and better than most of those in the previous 5 years, save Story, Kike and maybe Rafaela in his limited time at 2B. As depth, Campbell, DHam, Romy and maybe Grissom look better than we had, last year. The question is, who starts. and can they at least be as good as DHam-Romy were after June 1st, 2024? I think 2B looks better on paper than last year, especially if Bregman plays some, there, but paper means little to you. Projections mean little to you. I guess you'd be just as okay with reyes and EVadlez coming back, since on paper is of little or no use.

From what I remember hearing, shoulder surgery was not an option, but I feel the same way. WTH?

I'm not Cora, but I'm guessing maybe this could be a way he can get 150 games played. Maybe, he will show this plan is not workable, and Cora learns that now and not during the regular season.

I'd rather have good projections than bad ones, but yes, we need to see it work on the field. Our 2B was way better after we stopped playing EValdez & Reyes there, so your example is not beefing up your point. The depth at SP and 2B and even SS with rafaela, kept us in the race,

Because he needs more improvement there, maybe? There is no way we have Campbell on the Opening Day roster unless he plays near FT, so maybe Cora's plan is to get him 150 games at 2B AND LF. Who knows?

We need action, not talk. At least we took action on improving our defensive catching strategy. We took action on adding a real defensive 3Bman. I'm not sure a long talk with Casas would be enough.

Of course, it will be determined on the field, but the idea is to build up the best team you can, on paper, and hope the "paper" translates to "on the field." Yes, much of the depth I spoke of are question marks, and that is precisely what I was saying. If one question mark is a let down, we have hope the next on the depth chart will do fine. We haven't even had that on paper for a long time. Better on paper than not at all. No team, other than BOS has 6 SP'ers with a projected fWAR of 1.2 or higher. Not many teams have a guy like Criswell 7th or 8th on the depth chart. Could he suck in 2025? Sure, but I'd rather have him than almost every other team's 7th through 10th SP'er depth. (Criswell, Fitts, priester & Dobbins.) I'm not even counting on 1 start from Whitlc=ock or Wink, and I hope we don't see one, unless it is as an opener. In short, we have a lot of question marks, but we have a lot of promise in those that are on our depth chart, and at some positions that goes 3-4 deep. One reason I mentioned Story as the first big question is that we don't really go 3-4 deep, there. It's Mayer and then a big drop off, and Mayer may not do well, year one. I don't want Rafaela at SS in 2025. DHam and Grissom suck on D at SS. That leaves Romy or Campbell, if Mayer falters or gets hurt.

Good point. He has to be the # question.

Every team needs "things to go right" to have a good year. It seems we more questions than answers, but what I like about our predicament is that we have so many options that if a few key things go wrong, we have other players that could go off and have better seasons that the ones having negative issues. The number one question, to me is Story, and I'm not sure Mayer is the best depth guy on the team, but he does have enormous potential to be really good- perhaps even better than Story in 2025, even if Trevor is healthy. Campbell offers another gigantic promise to fix the 2B issue that actually started looking okay over the second half of 2024. DHam and Romy are okay as a platoon, and Grissom is still clinging onto the hopes he showed a few years back. Our OF was a big plus in 2024-both on O and D, and that was with Yoshida & Ref DH'ing, alot, and Rafalela playing more SS than CF. Add Anthony to the mix, and we can afford to have one major let-down and still be okay, if not better. Narvaez does not offer great hope at fixing our issues at C, but he does show promise on defense, and his bat was not awful on the farm (some pop and OBP numbers.) Our rotation is as deep as I think I have ever seen, and that is assuming Whitlock (1.96 in '24) and Winck (2.42 as a SP in '24) start zero games. Crochet, Houck, Buehler, Gio, Bello, Crawford, Fitts, Criswell, Priester and maybe Dobbins offers tremendous depth. The pen has nothing but depth, although mostly mediocre or with faint hopes of upticks, resurgences, regaining past glory or just plain finally getting their act together. I count 14-17 RP'ers with some level of actual promise or skillset. I think 92 wins is very doable. 100 would need a confluence of career years or near-sos. With so many players nearing or in prime, maybe that's not such a long shot.

There are some things to learn at 1B that are way different than 3B, but he could learn it in a few weeks, before trying it in a game. Ideally, ST'ing would have been the best place, so maybe next winter/spring would be best. The other issue that jumps out at me is just how awful Casas is at 1B. Devers could be 2nd worst in MLB, and we'd still see improved D at 1B. He should DH, to start the year, and see how that goes. If he's itching to be on the field during the opps half innings, then grab a 1Bman's mitt and see how you (and Cora) like what you see.

You saw the goofy face, right? I knew you were jivin'

He hasn't pitched in ST'ing, but his rehab has been right on target.

Thus Spoke Trollathustra. 🤣