moonslav59

Well, there you go. Once in what 15 seasons?

I admit. I still treasure my sports memories more than anything else- even family and travel adventures. (Just don't tell my current wife I said this!) LOL

I was a very aggressive player who always went all out. I was a bit of a hothead, at times, but the weed mellowed me out. I was a little overweight in HS, but dropped 30 pounds my freshman year and somehow I got way better at everything. I'm not trying to brag, but I figured I was pretty good when I once asked to be subbed out in that championship b-ball game and the guy on the bench said, "Are you crazy? I'm not going in for YOU!"

The glove was really beat up and looked useless, but I hate defending her. She knew it had sentimental value and I'd never have done anything like that to her.

I'm not sure there has ever been a team with above average offense at all 9 positions, but I can see wanting that as a goal. I think SS, Catcher and CF are positions where defense matters so much, that average or slightly below average is not a bad thing, if the D is near GG quality. Baserunning can add some value, too. To me, Story, Narvaez and Rafaela all fit the near GG label. Story and Rafaela are plus base runners, so being near average or even a little worse is fine, as long as the other slots have no black holes, To me, a black hole is below .650 for a below average defender and .600 for an average one. .700 is no longer a black hole. This season the cut off for 270 players (9 players x 30 teams) is 250 PAs. Number 135 is at .733, and this excludes att subs and replacement level players that play a lot. The 5th best player (4 better and 4 worse on each team) ranges from .720 to .740, but of course there are positional variances. The 6th best batter's range is .702 to .720. 7th best:.677 to .702 8th best: .649 to .677 9th best is .542 to .648 with 10 under .600. Maybe our differences are based on semantics. What "sucks" for you is an average player. For me, it's a bottom 1/3 or 1/4th batter- relative to others.

My ex threw out my glove, but it's not like I was ever going to play again, at that point.

I improved a lot after high school, but going to Notre Dame made it impossible to ever come close to making a team. They did have a very competitive interhall league, including football with pads and basketball that included all state players left and right, including some foot ball players. My hall won the Football championship my freshman year (I played WR and DB) and my senior year (I was the QB.) We won the B-ball championship my freshman year and I led the team in scoring in the championship game. (The highlight of my sports career.) At baseball, we were not good. My only shining moments were on defense. I remember making an ungodly throw to home plate in the bottom of the ninth (1 run game), just in time to nail the runner, but the catcher dropped it. Such is life. Another time, I was in CF and a ball wa s*** over my head and to my right. I turned and ran to the exact spot and turned just in time to see the ball like right next to me, and I stabbed my glove out in a downward motion and somehow caught it on the down swoop. I'm still not sure how that was humanly possible. I played a lot of basketball and baseball after college, but after I blew out my knee, it was softball only. I used to watch all sports and dabbled in fantasy football, but now I watch only baseball, a lot.

I sucked at hitting but was very good on D and baserunning. I walked enough to help me stay a starter. I've always loved defense, so maybe I'm biased.

It stems from my OCD, but numbers don't crowd my enjoyment of the game on a personal level. I played the game, a lot. Later, I played softball for many years, which is not the same, but some of the basics apply to both. I love the game. I was much better at basketball and football, but my love is baseball.

It's kinda early to know, but he has been out, too much. Slaten finished 2nd in RP IP in '24 w 55. I'm not sure Paxton ever finished 2nd in IP on any team in any season.

Fangraphs says 16 runs saved and 16 Outs Above Average in just 907 innings. He might be at 20 had he played CF full time. If you count those as RBIs, he'd be second on the team in RBIs. If you counted them as runs scored, he'd be our runs leader by a lot.

But he has changed it, and is just 24. When the league OPS is about .719, why would .720 w GG defense and plus baserunning be the cut off or called a "black hole." I was a JBJ fan, so I guess we'll never come to a compromise, but average offense, great D and plus running is not a bad thing. I get the idea of wanting more than mediocre or slightly above mediocre, but I just do not think Rafaela is even close to our weakest link. At 24, I also see a chance to get better, as most players do as they reach 25-29. I also see the whole league moving towards higher K rates, lower OBPs and not-so-great D or running skills. There should be some context. I guess WAR does not carry much weight with you, but even if you think it is flawed and gives too much value to defense and running, you have to think it is very wrong to not notice how he ranks with other Sox players and MLB CF'ers. His WAR would be even higher, if they kept him in CF every game played. He has the 3rd best fWAR in MLB in CF. He's -0.7 at 2B. Do the math. You ask how low I would go, and I'd say .650 to .675, as long as the league OPS stays around .720. BTW, MLB CF'ers have a .682 OPS, this year. There are 29 CF'ers with 180+ PAs in CF. The 15th highest OPS is .720. You think average sucks. It may not be great, but it doesn't suck, when your D is great at a difficult position. (BTW, Rafaela is batting .790 as a CF'er, but I'm going to claim he will hit that as a FT CF'er.) 7 of the top 30 OF'ers by PAs are batting under .675. There is some context.

I had Jh Garcia higher, but maybe he wanted to take some pressure off him. Cora went with a RRL-RRL-RRR pattern. Watch Eaton be the hero and shut us both up.

Here are the WAR leaders on the Sox (avg bWAR & fWAR- rounding up) 5.3 Crochet (5.2, 5.3) 3.8 Bregman (4.1, 3.5) 3.4 Duran (3.7, 3.1) 3.3 Rafaela (3.6, 2.9) 3.0 Story (3.3, 2.6) 3.0 Abreu (3.3, 2.7) 2.9 Narvaez (3.0, 2.7) 2.5 Chapman (2.9, 2.0) 2.5 Anthony (2.6, 2.3) 1.9 Bello (2.3, 1.5) 1.5 Whitlock (1.4, 1.5) 1.2 Giolito (1.1, 1.3) 1.1 Romy (1.1, 1.1) 1.0 Refsnyder (1.2, 0.8) 0.6 Wilson (0.4, 0.6) 0.5 Weissert (0.6, 0.3)

Agreed, but look at the Sox player's OPS vs RHPs: 1.285 Lowe 1B .897 Bregman 3B .892 Anthony OF .881 Duran OF .828 Abreu OF .728 Story SS .718 Rafaela 2B v RHPs, but he could play CF and DH an OF'er, but then we have Romy or DHam at 2B. .676 Romy 2B or DH? (see Rafaela) .650 Yoshida DH .646 Refsnyder DH/OF (should not start v R) ,556 DHam 2B only The only real options to benching Yoshida vs RHPs involves 2B (Rafaela, DHam/Romy) or the OF (Rafaela to CF and an OF;er to DH) or just DH Romy and go with Rafaela at 2B, because we won't bench a LHB OF'er vs a R. So, it's basically... Yoshida .650 v Romy .676 at DH v R or Yoshida v DHam .556 (better D at 2B and CF w an OF'er at DH.) There is no clearly better batter vs RHPs to take his place. On paper, Romy looks better, but... last 14 days: 1.350 DHam .520 Yoshida .456 Romy .422 Rafaela Last 28 days .812 DHam .778 Romy .677 Yoshida .518 Rafaela If you go by recent O, alone, maybe Yoshida> Rafaela, w DHam at 2B or maybe Romy at DH..)

MIA beat TOR. BAL beat HOU. KCR just beat DET, so all 3 teams ahead of us have lost. KCR are the closest to ousting a WC leader, so winning tonight will help us stay the same with them, and push the NYY closer to elimination. AL Records, with the Sox-Yanks still to go: 78-54 DET 76-55 TOR 72-59 HOU 71-59 BOS (We can tie HOU with a win.) 69-60 NYY (Can be tied with SEA with a loss and SEA win.) 69-61 SEA (up 2-1 early) 67-64 KCR (-2.5 from SEA and NYY before their games are completed.) 64-64 CLE (losing 4-0 in the 6th)

Agreed, and if he was hitting his career .795 mark, there would be little talk against him, this year. I get that the guy was hurt. I don't fault him for that or his slow recovery/rehab or whatever it was/is, but we need better than .650 from the DH slot, when hitting has become one of our weaker (no weak) areas. It's nothing personal. I was worse with Toro.

Maybe he can hit 25/25. He'd be our 4th to do that! Top Sox SB/HR seasons 39/32 Ellsbury '11 34/21 Duran '24 30/32 Betts '18 27/20 Burks '87 26/31 Betts '17 26/24 Betts '16 26/21 Pedroia '11 23/40 Yaz '70 22/25 Jensen '54 and 20/27 in '59 22/30 Nomar '97 20/27 Valentin '95 22/20 Story '25 20-20 Beni in '17 My favorite childhood player was Tommy Harper, who once hit 31 homers and stole 38 bases for the Brewers before being traded to the Sox. He stole 25, 54 (led league in '73), 28 and 26 in his 4 seasons, but never topped 17 HRs, those years or 18 in any other career seasons.

One could also "guess" his streaky up and down season might have 1 or 2 more up streaks left in 2025, if one were inclined to project his MO going forward, and not just his last 10 games or what he did to end the last seasons. He's young and in excellent shape. I do not think he is wearing down. I do agree that his lack of plate discipline, although improving slightly will lead to continued slumps, but the kid has proven, over and over, that he can have some nice stretches of hitting well. He's even had some pretty long hitting stretches, but of course, one could use a microscope and find mini slumps within those "long stretches:" 2023: He started the season at .917 after 17 games and was still at .799 after 23. He sucked for the last 10 games, but his good stretch was longer than the bad one, despite both being tiny samples. 2024: .566 after his first 32 games, then .747 for the next 93 games, before ending at .477 the last 27 games. One could cherry pick the other way and say he ended the season with a .624 OPS over 61 games, but that long good stretch would still be about the same sample size. (.770 in 60 games) 2025: has been a roller coaster that could very well define who he is, and not the :guess that he will always end every season in a long slump. He was at .467 after 13 games, then .772 for 62 games, then .707 over the last 50 games, including .400 over his last 10 games. However, take away thos 10 games from the previous sample size and that .707 stretch turns into something okay: ,783. The best long stretch I could come up with via cherry picking is: .803 in 50 games from 6/11 to 8/11. Hell, throw out just his first 5 games and last 10, and you have a 109 game stretch of .766 batting. Why do you insist on defining him by smaller sample sizes of futility? Why should we expect futility, when his whole career has smashed the norms for high K/ low BB players? Also, he has improved, even if slightly. 2023-24: K% 27.1 (7th worst on Sox) and BB % 2.9 (worst w Arroyo at 3.4 & Romy & Wong at 5.6) 2025: K% 18.7 (3rd best on the team!!!) and BB% 4.7 (still worst but a 41% improvement over 2.9%. Toro is 2nd at 4.9 with Story at 5.2 and Romy at 5.4.) Rafaela has closed the gap on his weakest areas: High K/Low BB rates. He may or not continue to improve, but you seem to always assume the worst. His OBP improved from .275 over his first 660 PAs in MLB to .294 in 466 PAs, this year. His SLG improved from .389 to .420. His OPS+ from 84 to 96. He's still not at 100, but he's just 24.

Anthony is better on D than Duran, so I'd flip those two. If Rafaela is at 2B, maybe Duran is better in CF than Anthony, but we could also use Jh Garcia in CF v L, which is when DHam sits at 2B, anyway.

Anything to lessen the injury risk for Casas is good. Plus, he's the worst defensive 1Bman in MLB, so why try so hard to keep him there? We should have started the season with Casas at DH and Devers at 1B, but that's water under the bridge. Casas would probably have still got hurt.

I bet we still see Yoshida DH vs RHPs, even after ABreu & Ref return. Ref only bats vs LHPs, so he has no place in the DH v RHP discussion. I doubt Cora begins platooning Duran, as he has the most PAs vs lefties on the team. Cora let that happen. It will be: DH: Yoshida v R/ Ref v L C: Narvaez and Wong (w Bello) 1B: Lowe v R/Romy v L 2B: Rafaela FT (Maybe DHam v some RHPs) SS: Story FT 3B: Bregman FT LF: Anthony FT (Garcia when he needs a rest, only) CF: Duran FT (Maybe Garcia vs some LHPs) RF: Abreu v R/Garcia v L (if he's not demoted when Abreu & Ref return) I'd prefer Duran DH v R and Ref v L, with a rest given at DH to other OF'ers , here and there. Id go with Anthony in LF, Rafaela/Garcia in CF and Abreu/Garcia in RF. Rafaela could play 2B, if garcia shows he can hit, otherwise go with DHam at 2B v R and Rafaela only v L.

It's still a mystery why he wasn't DHing at Woo for a long time. Then, maybe he doesn't need this rahab/adjustment time on the big club.

If he does come around vs RHPs, he's still only .795 career on that split. That's better than many Sox players and nobody jumps out as being a clear better choice. It ain't Wong or DHam. Romy might be better, but he's kinda slumping, too and can play 2B v RHPs, although Rafaela allows all the LHB OF'ers to play OF, if he's at 2B. I guess Eaton is the only other option vs LHPs, so I can see choosing Yoshida nd hoping he can climb near .795, again. If we want to keep all OF'er playing FT, I do think Jh Garcia as an option to oust Yoshida from the line-up as we rotate OF'ers through the DH slot, daily. Anthony, Duran and Abreu, when healthy, all should start every game vs RHPs. Garcia and Rafaela would be the ones squeezing Yoshida from his line-up slot.

Well said. I do think defense is easier to judge over smaller sample sizes, and I did not like what I saw from KC at 2B.