moonslav59

It's interesting to see the numbers for our pitching staff. .654 OPS Against Pen (4.15 ERA) .738 OPS Against Starters (3.76) I know we can never all agree on anything, but to me these were out top 5 SP'ers going into the season (not counting Sandoval) .567 Crochet 2.04 in 12 GS .920 Houck 8.04 in 9 .702 Buehler 3.95 in 8 ,795 Bello 3.83 in 8 .799 Giolito 5.27 in 5 GS or N/A Crawford Our depth has not done all that badly, except Newcomb's last start or two: .603 Fitts 2.70 in 4 .765 Dobbins 4.21 in 7 ,836 Newcomb in 5 I realize rbis is a stat many do not value all that highly, myself included, but here are the numbers as we just passed the 1/3 mark to the season and approach 40%: 50 Devers (leads leasgue) 35 Bregman 34 Duran 29 Abreu 21 Story, 20 Rafaela, 17 Narvaez, 16 KC, 11 Ref

This pretty much says it all. (I will say, his bat is not worse than our 2B batters have been. He's at .639 and the 2B crew is at .622. Mayer at SS and Rafaela at 2B could be a boost to the offense, as well.)

I'm not giving up, just yet, but I don't see this team going anywhere but near .500, this season. It's very sad, because it did look like we made some significant improvements to high need areas, last winter. It looked like we had decent SP'er depth, improved defense and about the same offense, which was not bad, last year. Out pen was a known area of continued need, but that is the one area that seems easier to address mid season. OH well. I know many want heads to roll, but I find it hard to be hyper critical towards those that made deals I agreed with.

To me, Zanetello is zilch, until he shows me otherwise.

The tale of the 1 IP Openers, tonight... Penrod pitched another 1 inning scoreless in an opener role. Anthony 1-4 w BB & 2B. GRE is up 9-6 in the 6th, as Chris Murphy opened with 1 scoreless inning, too. Anderson is 3-3 and YRod has 4 rbi on 2 hits Song pitched a 1 IP scoreless opener, as SAL won game 1. The second game is scoreless after 4 with Ehrlicher going 2.2 scoreless. Little solace, when the big club is stinking up the city.

Cora has used Devers in the 4 slot (more often than the 2 slot in '24,) but I'm not sure he'll move him, this year. Without Bregman, maybe some tinkering is needed. I could see: L Duran L/R Abreu/Ref L Mayer L Devers L Anthony R Narvaez

You've said this over and over, and I wonder if you truly believe there was no chance Casas would turn his season around, as he had before. I'd much rather have a healthy Casas, right now, than a guy like Toro on a likely lucky streak.

I didn't even know Rafaela, when I liked JBJ so much.

Including me.

Seems this way, now. I agree. I still think we can turn it around, but I'm not seeing any spark. Losing Bregman doesn't help.

A perfect post.

I think we expected to get nothing. Maybe this will pay the uber fare for an Anthony call-up.

Hickey is really heating up. He does play 1B, now, and could be an emergency 3rd catcher, but at age 25, you wonder if this is for real. He homered, tonight and is up to .777, after a pretty bad start. Anthony hit his 8th homer, but I guess he has to wait for an injury or trade to ever get the call. Eaton homered, too. Grissom went 2-4 w a 2B & BB. Jordan homered (.900) in the POR loss, and Romero walked 4 times (.820.) Wehunt K'd 9 in 6 IP (0BB, 4 hits & 2 ER.) GRE & SAL rained out and the FCL Sox lost 2 games 5-1 and 6-1. Buchanan Speaking & Writing Speak and write in complete sentences, all the time. Create situations where students prsent using complete sentences.

Yup, and the Narvaez one, too, in all likelihood. Maybe Weissert improves some and helps us for years to come, too.

Nice to see Fitts come back with a decent showing. Hopefully, we can inch up the pitch count and he can step into the 3 slot role. I never expected him to be one of our best hopes for that slot, but baseball is a funny game like that.

I agree.

Sox DFA'd Newcomb and reinstated Penrod from the 60 Day IL, sending him to Woo. 17 hits and 5 BBs in his last 13.1 IP gets you a ticket outta town. The A's sent cash to BOS to acquire Newcomb.

Maybe the best defensive Sox CF'er in the 5 decades I've been watching.

Manage to finish .500, again.

We all used to talk about what players are better than others, and many times it came down to, "This guy is a little better hitter, while that guy is a little better fielder, baserunner, or whatever...." or "one guy has more power, while the other walks more." It was always hard to quantify the different aspects of the game. WAR attempts to answer those questions, but it is no debate ender. They do attempt to take out the "subjectivity" as much as possible and base their values on scientific research that tries to quantify how much each event leads to a scored or allowed. I think they do a pretty good job, but there are flaws and some major variances between bWAR and fWAR that make us shake our heads and ask just how accurate they are. I like to look at this simple way: compile several lists of players by season, last 3 years, 5 years, 10 years using BA, HRs, Fldg %, OBP, SLG, OPS, wRC+ or whatever single stat or data point you wish and compare it to the top WAR players and ask yourself, which single list best orders the players by overall value? I think the answer is pretty clear, to me.

I didn't expect Abreu to be traded, but at least I make specific suggestions, instead of vague statements that no matter what happens, you claim "I was right." You throw crap at Sox management all the time, but rarely give specific ideas. "Get a 1Bman." Like they grow on trees. "Bloom is over his head." "Devers will never move off 3B." (Oh, yes, you did make one specific statement.)

I must have suggested dozens of Abreu trades, last winter. He seemed like the obvious choice. I love CF defense and Rafaela looks as good or better than any Sox CF'er i've seen, and that is saying a lot (JBJ, Lynn, Miller and several more.) I'm not sure I'd use Rafaela's splits vs LHPs as a selling point. It's .616 career. His .270 May BA might be nice, but that's him on a hot streak, and his May OPS is .607, while the "cold" Abreu is at .674. In short, I'd rather have Abreu's bat vs R plus L over Rafaela vs R plus L, and Abreu won the GG award, so it's not like Rafaela blows Abreu's D to pieces. I like our OF, as is. Ref with Abreu makes for a top 3-4 RF in MLB. I also like Anthony and don't want to trade him, unless there is another Crochet with extension out there, and even then... We have some big need areas. We could use an ace and a couple very good RP'ers. We can also use a 1Bman, but no way would I trade Anthony, Duran and maybe even Abreu for a 1Bman,. Maybe Abreu or Rafaela for a young, proven 1Bman with 3-4+ years of inexpensive control, and even then... It's not an easy situation, but normally, when a team has glaring weaknesses and some major plus depth areas, some sort of deal materializes. We should not trade top players for July rentals, IMO, and that is usually what you can get in July. The best time to make a serious move may be this winter, but that seems like a waste of "window" season where we check of one year of Crochet control with little chance for a ring. If we trust Mayer to be the real deal, we could trade a middle infielder, but we're not talking some great return for DHam, Romy, Grissom or Story. Campbell could get a nice haul, but trading him or Mayer seems drastic. I'm not sure Arias has the value to splash us into the deep end of the playoff pool. (He might be the best of the lot, too!)

Did you post to the wrong person, again?

No, it's funny that you got my position wrong again.

Yes, we know: suspects are just suspects until they prove they are not, and they never deserve to get a chance to be tested, unless a key injury opens a slot. Got it.