moonslav59

Salem pulled out a win in 10. Encarnacion homered. GRE is 10-10 in the 10th: Arias doubled & homered (2-4 w BB) Bleis 3-4 w BB (up to .851) Zanetello 2-3 w 2BB POR lost 8-2, but Wehunt pitched okay. Jordan had 2 hits. (HR)

They shoulda handed him a 1Bman's mitt in ST'ing (or years ago, as I suggested often.) Romy hits lefties, very well, so he's fine at 1B v LHPs. I'm not sure Grissom is the guy we want at 1B vs RHPs, but we will probably try it. There doesn't seem to be anyone else that looks like a 1Bman to make room for Anthony and or Mayer.

Roll 'em, roll 'em, roll 'em. Through the streams are swollen Keep them doggies rollin' RAWHIDE!

Okay, call me "giddy" (this time, only)... DEVERS FOREVERS, baby!

Little did he know steroids would revive Clemens' career.

Maybe Criswell was just not meant for the pen, as witnessed in 2014, and tonight with WOO. 6 IP, 4H 1ER 1BB 8K

Not every team "can." There are only so many bargain deals out there.

Yes, losing Burnes was bad, but they also lost Santander. I wasn't buying the Yankee Soto replacement talk. They also lost Torres. The Dugo/Rizzo losses were additions by subtractions, but I did not have much faith in Goldschmidt. Rice has been surprising and a bit unexpected. I expected us to finish ahead of TOR and TBR and be close to NYY. I thought we could pass HOU & BAL, but the O's have so much young talent nearing prime. (I think we do, too.) DET & KCR are hard to predict. Basically, no AL team jumps out as dominating, so that is why my hopes were up, this season- more than out of what I saw was an improved roster on paper, over the '24 Sox team. We lost O'Neal, but we are already talking about a logjam in the OF blocking Anthony. We lost Pivetta, a guy no MLB rushed to sign. We added Crochet, Buehler and essentially Gio. We lost McGuire/Jansen and added Narvaez. The biggest losses were K Jansen and a not as great in '24 Martin, but added only Chapman and essentially Hendriks. I saw this as our weak link and the only area we got worse, on paper, but with so much pitching depth, perhaps only mediocre, I felt we might cobble together 8 arms (some starters) to form an okay pen. Better O Better D Better rotation and starter depth Worse pen. Plaus teams that were ahead of us in '24, mostly getting worse or breaking even- on paper.

I thought the O's got worse, but not this bad. The Yanks looked worse on paper, before the Cole injury. HOU looks worse on paper. I felt SEA and DET and maybe KCR would be about the same- pretty good.

I thought we'd end up with closer to 90 wins- more out of how bad I felt the rest of the AL is than us being way better than last year. I do think we look better on paper, but paper does not win games.

Part of the reason, yes. We tend to look at all the winnable games we lost and think we could be 4-5 over .500, but we've won a few games, maybe we didn't deserve to win, too. Right now, we are on pace for being 5 games over .500, which can't happen, unless a game is not played, so we are on pace for 83 to 84 wins

OPS Against: 1.280 Fulmer (13 PAs) .967 Criswell (27) .944 Hendriks (14) .819 Stock (9) .795 Kelly (45) .705 Wilson (37) .622 Wink (52) .621 Whitlock (73) .608 Weissert (53) .562 Slaten (47) .519 Bernardino (47) .513 Chapman (45) .154 Guerrero (13) SPers: .896 Bello .834 Houck .823 Newcomb .758 Giolito .719 Buehler .707 Dobbins .614 Fitts .500 Crochet

But hey, we haven't been swept... yet.

I agree, and I do think no clear position hurts a player's rankings. I'm just saying, being a horrible defensive player, but having a known position should hurt, too. I've been high on Cespedes from day one- perhaps I was way off.

Founded and Losted

Cespedes may end up dropping, but he's 2 years younger than Bleis. Being a poor defender hurts, but it didn't bother the rise of Devers, although he did stick to one position.

We are at the 20% mark of the season and these would be the project fWAR totals of our current players (5 x current fWAR) 8.0 Bregman (10.0 bWAR) 7.0 Abreu (8.0) 6.5 Crochet (6.0) 6.0 Campbell (5.5) 3.5 Newcomb (-1.0) 3.0 Duran (2.0) 2.5 Devers (3.5) & Rafaela (4.5) 2.0 Story (3.5) & Narvaez (4.0) 1.5 Buehler (0.5), Whitlock (2.0), Chapman (2.5), Dobbins (1.0) & Refsnyder 2.5 (plays 30% of games) 1.0 Weissert (1.0), Fitts 91.5), Wilson (0.0)& Romy 1.5 (1/3 games)

Good to know. I knew he was young, but not that much younger than those he pitches to.

Certainly, there are not many good vibes about this team after 33 games. We are 20% through the season, and the A's have a better record. Six other teams do, too. We are just 2 games ahead of the 10th ranked team in the AL and the bottom 3rd tier. Another season of mediocrity would really suck, but so far, there are no signs of expecting much better. In the next 12 games, we play two teams ahead of us (#1 DET and #7 KCR) & two teams below us (#9 TEX and #12 MN.) We need to put together a stretch where we show more promise and consistency.

The pen worries seem to be well-founded.

In the Devers case, the SSS are not "the only ones we have. With Casas, his history is riddled with sporadic playing time, surrounding periods of being on the IL, but overall, he's done pretty well, when he plays, until this April. He's had other bad streaks, and the Dalbec worries have some merit. Dalbec had about an .800 OPS after his first 550 PAs, while casas does after 950. Both are kind of small sample sizes. Casas has about 50 points on Dalbec with OBP, but Dalbec was about 50 higher on SLG. Casas has 250 Ks in 950, while Dalbec had about 200 in 550. The recency factor of a players last 40, 60 or the almighty 80 does matter, but when you see that Devers was on pace for his career best OPS in 2024 as late as September 1st, 2025, I think the "80 game" sample size has to be taken with a grain of salt. He has a .689 OPS since 9/1/25 in 51 games (225 PAs) He hit .709 in August in 24 games and 110 PAs. He was at .791 from 8/1/25 to 8/25. I just can't believe this two sample sizes, combined is what should be the most important numbers. If you want to get technical, Devers' poor sample size is just 54 games long: 8/26 to today at .657. (Not really the full 80.) Casas is a whole other story.

Yup, except the SSS April Devers numbers are not so bad.

I'm not hanging my hat on "injury." I have said over and over, I don't know if Devers will bounce back or not. Casas has less of a history to think he is better than this. I do know Devers has been a streaking hitter and was on pace for his career best season, last year before getting hurt. I believe it is rare but not totally uncommon for a long standing good hitter to just fall of a cliff and stay there before age 30. I'd bet he is better than his last 80 game sample size, but I'm not hanging my hat on it. I have no idea on Casas. His longer sample sizes are not big and are scattered between times lost by injury. 80 games might be more significant than 160 or 40, but he did okay to end 2024.

I don't know a single person who hangs their hat on any one given sample size length, including me. You keep saying "I never claimed," but you use the same number over and over and never justify it, except to say it's roughly half a season. That's not a justification. It's just another way of saying 80 games. I don't think 3 years ago matters much, either, but two might, especially if the recent sample szie might be tainted by injury or some out of character slump or red hot streak that means little in determining who the player is or will be.

Why not answer the actual question. Isn't 40 games "how they are performing," too? 90 games? 120? 160? Why 80? Is 80 based on some scientific study that show it is more meaningful?