moonslav59

I can see not extending Abreu. Age 30 is nice enough. We have so many everyday players controlled for a long time, plus up and coming prospects, that focusing more on pitching makes sense. Extending Anthony, Mayer and maybe Houck & Whitlock by a year or two might be a better idea.

We will likely see Navarro and Abreu start game 2. Yanks lost, today, so the current standings: 6-3 NYY 5-4 BOS 5-5 TOR 4-4 TBR (tied in 9th w TEX) 4-6 BAL

Let's see what Dobbins can do. He did not look good in his first WOO start.

I thought Abreu to age 30, but close enough. (Does he have 4 arb years?)

Updated OPS Leaders: 1.714 Romy (7 PAs) 1.645 Abreu 1.267 Refsnyder (6 PAs) 1.210 Campbell 1.038 Navarro (13 PAs) .769 Bregman .732 Story .627 Devers (was at .174 after 5 games and .398 after 7 games!)

Abreu comes through!

Gotta like how the bottom of the order came through and set it up for D & D.

Lets go 5 and 4!!!

Chapman walks the #9 batter. Geesh!

Good eye!!! Let's go, Bregman!

No place to put Devers- gotta pitch to him, here.

The Romy-DHam platoon looked good, today.

Well hit ball by KC. To bad for an out.

Nice walk by Story. Need a crooked number, here!

Salem is now 3-0, after a 6-5 win, today. Arias continues to lead the way. His OPS went down over 100 points by going just 1 for 3 w a BB. Yuten went 2-4 w a 2B. Early pitched well for POR, but they are down 1-0 in the 5th. (3.2 IP, 0H, 0ER, 2BB, 7Ks) Ravelo's error led to the UnER. Woo is up 2-1 in the 6th as Bello went 3.1 (4H, 1ER, 1BB, 4K.) Maybe he will be called up, soon. (1 more AAA start?)

Agreed. Duran's team control ends about the time he reaches post-prime.

I guess Whitlock is human, afterall.

Well deserved awards. I was expecting Bell to me mentioned, but these three earned it.

Rarer than a no hitter.

Even if Abreu ends up being a career platoon OF'er, he can be a great asset. Tremendous defense and an .800+ OPS vs RHPs is extremely valuable. Since we have so many LH'd OF'er, we may think Abreu is just "duplicated value," but even with Anthony in the OF, Abreu is not crowding out anyone else. Once Refsnyder retires, can use Rafaela as a platoon with Abreu or give Campbell some OF ABs vs lefties. JH Garcia may be an option, before too long, as well. Our OF look well set up for many years to come. We may end up even trading someone, but Abreu is looking more and more like a keeper. (This from the poster who must have suggested a dozen possible Abreu trades, over the winter.)

Great post. I started having serious doubts about JH being all in, ever again, but I think he sees a pretty wide open window, right now. We have a healthy mix of kids & vets. We have many key players under control for a long time, and those that are not seem like they can be replaced without a need to spend more money than the cost, now. The Sp'er depth behind Crochet is about as deep as I have ever seen since I started following the Sox in the early 70's. We may not have the best 3 or 4 or even 5 in the past 50 years, but they look pretty good. I mentioned the lack of spending on SP'ing and notin pointed out the lack of trades for top ones overlapped the low spending. The Crochet trade and extension is the centerpiece of the turnaround, but it is not the whole story. The Gio signing was the biggest contract handed out to a SP'er by the Sox, since the Sale extension and Nate re-signing in 2019. While he may not turn out to be a plus, it was a significant investment marker. The Buehler $21M AAV was the biggest since Sale (until Crochet's topped it.) The trades for Fitts, Priester and Sandlin were further signs of a renewed focus on obtaining young pitchers to make up for the lack of them in our farm system. The Criswell, Fulmer, Slaten, Weissert, I Campbell and other moves shows the desire to deepen the depth of the rotation and pen. Some of the names on the list I am about to show are longshots, and some will not make it as plus pitchers for the big club. Some may argue having a deep quantity of mediocrity is not a winning strategy, but I will argue that mediocrity in depth is better than crappy depth, and we look pretty good, in terms of quality with out top 6-8 SP'ers and 4-5 RP'ers. SP: Crochet, Houck, Buehler, Bello, Giolito, Crawford ML Ready: Fitts, Newcomb, Priester, Criswell, Fulmer, Winckowski, Dobbins, Drohan, Stock Prospects: Perales, Valera, Sandlin, Early, Tolle, Paez, Clarke, D Reyes, Cason, Wehunt, Monegro, Aita,, Mullins, Delzine, Tygart, Ingrassia RP: Chapman, Whitlock, Slaten, Hendriks, Wilson Bernardino, Kelly, Weissert, (SP'ers from above) Guerrero, I Campbell, Penrod 2nd tier: Mata, Moore, Harris, Adanes, Burdi, Adams, de Leon Prospects: Fajardo, Y Cruz, Hoppe, Olds (SP'ers)

Dobbins promoted as the 27th man in today's day-night doubleheader.

Jh Garcia continued the BB brigade (1-3 w 2 BB.) Ravelo went 2-5. Sandlin got the win (5IP , 3H, 2ER, 3BB, 3K.) SAL won 4-2, as Arias stayed hot, going 3-4. Cespedes and Encarnacion both went 2-4. Tygardt & Ehrlicher split the first 5 innings, allowing just 1 H and 0 ER (3BB/6K) Sansone finished the game, going 3.1 with 1 ER allowed. WOO lost 10-6. Fulmer K'd 8 of the 10 outs he got but walked 3. A Grissom error added 2 UNER to the 2 ERs he allowed. Webb got drilled. Mayer went 2-5 and Eaton homered (2-3 w BB.) GRE scored 2 in the 1st off 4 hits, then were no hit the rest of the game in a 3-2 loss. Valrea went 3.2 w 3H, 2ER, 3BB and 7Ks. Ingrassia went 4.1, 2H, 1ER, 0BB & 8Ks, for an excellent day. The staff K'd 17 batters.

He failed with his biggest bat additions, so the risk of failing on signing bigger FA pitchers doesn't really help his case. Jansen, Martin, Wacha, Whitlock and Wink is about it for pitching- the last two were by trade or Rule 5. I'm not so sure it was a lack of guts, but it could have been. I think the upper brass did not want him trading any top prospects for anybody. In 4 years, the highest prospect traded was #9 Aldo Ramirez for Schwarber- another DH type, and to boot, just 2 months of control. I agree, that trading for pitching is the best method, and when all you draft and sign as IFAs are everyday players, then trading some for pitching should have happened more often with Bloom. We agree on that. It's not like he spent nothing on pitching: he spent more on Jansen than any 2 SP'ers combined. He spent more on Jansen, Martin and the Barnes extension than all his top SP'er signings, combined: 10 Richards, 10 Kluber, 10 Paxton, 7 Wacha, 6 Perez I, 5 Perez II & Hill. The money spent on bats, not even counting the Devers extension blew the money spent on SP'ers away, and yes, the lack of any major trade for an ace doomed us to last place for too many seasons.

Fansided says likely 7 pm start time.