moonslav59

Extending Houck would be great. I'd be fine with a Crawford one, too. Maybe Slaten is worth a gamble, at such an inexperienced point in his career.

Well, apparently JH swore no pitchers over 30 to long term contracts then signed Price to a mega deal. I'm not sure he ever said these words. JH also okay'd the extension to Nate for ages 29, 30, 31 and 32 and Sale to ages 31, 32, 33, 34 and 35. Now, since then, there has been nothing close to a long term deal for any FA pitcher that was even rumored to be offered. Bello's 6 year deal is it ($55M.)

Agreed. Some trades are pending a grade: Dugo for Fitts, Weissert & Judice (The Dugo part is about done and was not good for NYY) Urias for I Campbell (Urias has not done well.) Schreiber for Sandlin (Schreiber did okay and has another year of control) Robertson & Santos for O'Neill seems to have worked for us, but the trade is over on our end in a week- not theirs. The deadline deals sucked. The Sale deal sucked, despite Grissom still have 4 years to go.

Many wanted us to do more or better at the deadline, but I don't recall a single poster saying the Zef trade was bad, until after LG imploded.

I'd be interested in Abel or Painter for Abreu, DHam and Wikelman.

Add 4 what ifs to other teams, too, and maybe not.

The Season Stats: AAA: 1.062 Gasper, .982 Anthony, .897 Campbell (70 ABs), .838 Meidroth, .835 Sogard, .816 Dalbec, .776 EValdez, .758 Grissom, .736 Hickey, .717 Teel (102 ABs) AA: 1.045 Campbell, .861 Gasper, .856 Anthony, .852 Teel, .850 Mayer, .815 Ehrhard (68 AB) .800 Romero (70 AB), .693 Jordan, .504 Castro A+: .998 Jh Garcia, .976 Campbell, .845 B Gonzalez, .817 Romero, .812 Castro, .677 Riemer, .584 Bleis A-: 1.063 Jo Garcia (52 AB), .882 Jh Garcia (89), .746 Bleis, .710 Arias, .684 Yuten FCL: 1.055 Arias, 1.015 Cespedes, .904 F Jimenez, .869 Riemer, .834 Asencio, .733 Nunez

I don't think so. If he's healthy for ST'ing, he'll be in the mix. It will be interesting to see how they construct their 40 man roster and how many of the 5 top prospects- all non Rule 5 players will be on it. IMO, only those on the opening day 26 will be on the 40. Anthony, Campbell, Mayer, Meidroth & Teel. The team control years may be a big part of the equation for some or all. I think Teel will not start on the 26 or 40. Only an injury or trade of a corner IF'er would give Meidroth a shot for opening day. The other 3 are in the serious opening day roster mix, IMO.

The key is knowing a lie when you hear it. I'd say the vast majority of Sox fans know they are lying and think 3 years in a row hovering around or just below .500 is proof of the lies or "sham."

It looks that way. 8 teams are on pace for 90 wins: 6 are NL teams (maybe BAL joins the club of 9.) 3 Teams are around a .550 winning %. (BAL, ATL, HOU) One could say 11 good teams. 13 teams are between about .470 and .530 (Call these the mediocre ones.) 5 teams are bad (.365 to .445) 3 in NL 1 team is historically horrific (CWS at .231.) Call it 6 bad teams. (3 AL-3NL) One could include PIT & TOR at .468 and TEX at .474 to say there are 9 bad teams, 10 mediocre teams and 11 good teams.

They "developed" him in 6 weeks and 14 IP?

It took me a while to realize this. I've always wanted him and Whitlock in the pen. Now, it's just Whit.

Nobody thinks .500 is acceptable. We are all pissed, but we don't have to build strawmen to make a point.

Man, I sure wish we still had the ZEF-A-Beast!

Ohtani hit is 53rd HR and stole his 54th and 55th bases of the season. A 55-55 season looks possible. 60-60 would be a miracle.

The Braves may miss the playoffs, so it does appear that good teams can be left out under this playoff format. They are 85-71 and 2 GB AZ and the NYM. The Braves do play the Mets, next, so they have a chance. They finish with the KCR. The Mets finish at MIL. AZ finishes at home vs SFG and SDP. Since the NYM and ATL play each other, if AZ wins out, they are in.

We won our 78th game of the season, so we can't have a worse record than 2022 and 2023. I'm not sure what the "magic number" is, but I'm sure it ain't a pretty one. We still have 3 teams ahead of us and are tied with the Rays for the 9th and 10th best record in the AL (or 6th worst.) We are 2 behind SEA with 6 to go. 3 behind MIN, who we needed to sweep. 4 behind KCR and DET. The fat lady is still singing loudly, but it would be nice to finish over .500, which would mean we'd have to go 4-2. We play 3 at TOR- day off- and 3 vs TBR, so there is a chance we could go 0-6 and finish in last or tied for last, depending on how TOR finishes. 3rd place and 82-80 would be nice, but it kinda rings hollow after we had a hopeful stretch back before the ASB.

The minor league season ended with a 7-4 loss by Woo. They were up 4-1 going into the bottom of the 9th and got the first 2 men out. Then... BB and a RE by Bobby Dee at SS, another BB, a bloop hits single, another BB and then the walk off granny by Darick Hall. 6 Unearned runs on 2 hits and 3 BBs. Anthony went 0-3 w a BB. (ended AAA at .982.) Bobby Dee had 3 hits and ended at .816. Meidroth 2-4 (.837) Woo ended up 79-71.

Not even at DH? How about LF Soto, CF Duran, RF Anthony and trade Abreu and Rafaela for a pitcher. (Note: I am not for spending a penny on any position player, except a small amount on a 1 year back-up catcher to bridge to Teel or a RHB, assuming we trade a LHB or two.

My point was that nobody is totally off limits, if a team offers more value in return. I exaggerated the return to make a point, but why would you refuse any deal that gives back just slightly more value than we give, especially if that value is in an area of greater need than the Sox OF?

I don't love the guy and hate what has happened the last 2 years and the Betts mess 4 years ago. I've gone through many worse stretches than this as a Sox fan and never hated the owner or GM. JH did a ton for this team. I don't see it as resting on past glories. Am I pissed at what's going on, recently? Hell, yes! But I don't hate the guy who brought a joy to my life I thought I might never experience. When we won the second ring, I was like, "Lord, take me now!" Two more rings followed, and now we have seen a 6 year stretch with one playoff stint and maybe 2-3 seasons where we started the year thinking the team was good enough to compete. I don't see this as the end of the world. This is not even close to being as bad as the sell off of the mid to late 70's team. The 30+ years I followed the Sox as much, if not more than any Sox fan in the world, of constant disappointment and despair. A few gut-wrenching heartbreak endings to seasons. I'll take the last 2 decades of the previous 3 decades any day of the week. Now, this is not giving JH a get out of jail free card. My appreciation can be outweighed, at some point. To me, it is not now. It might not even be after 2025, if it looks like we are still on the right track. If we had a farm like we did in 2019, I might be at that point now, but we don't. I'm cutting him some slack. I'm not happy doing it. I don't want him thinking I will be, if we have another near .500 season, either. Maybe it just takes more than this to rise to what some are calling "hate."

One thing that went okay for the Sox, this year was our middle IF depth. While it's easy to point to the poor defense by Rafaela and DHam at SS and EValdez at 2B, DHam played good D at 2B and was not bad at SS. The offense depth did better than expected. Romy is at a .747 OPS, right now, which beats the MLB average OPS of .721. DHam slipped to .698 but stole 33 bases in 98 games played. E Valdez struggled badly, early in the season but hit .813 after June 1st. These numbers are not great, but certainly better than expected.

Agreed. I'm not sure how good the number 12 team is, and teams do improve and get worse as time goes by, but I'd agree that ND does not belong in the top 12, right now. I'm not sure if 15 is too high or just right, but I would not say it is too low

If you look at the MLB OPS over the last 20 years, you'll see a couple very distinct periods of low numbers: .720 in 2011 (5th worst) .724 in 2012 (7th worst) .714 in 2013 (4th worst) .700 in 2014 (worst) .721 in 2015 (6th worst) and .706 in 2022 (2nd worst) ,734 in 2023 (11th worst of mid range) .712 in 2024 (3rd worst) Two of the worst 3 years have been within the last 3 years. Looking at 2024 individual OPS numbers, the sample size needs to be 300 PAs or more to reach 270 batters (30 teams x 9 batters.) The number 135 batter has an OPS of .720. The bottom third line begins at .690.. The bottom 9th is below .650. When I see numbers this low, I can't help but think about Rafaela and his .670 OPS. This places him around #200 to 210 out of 270. That is firmly in the lower end of the 7th of 9 tiers. Devers, & O'Neill are top 1/9th Duran, Ref and Abreu are 2nd 9th Yoshida & Wong are 3rd 9th (That's 7 players in the top 3rd tier.) DHam in the 6th 9th Rafaela in the 7th 9th If you look at just OBP: Ref & Devers top 1/9th Yoshida, Duran and O'Neill 2/9th Wong in 3/9th (6 in top 3rd) Abreu 4/9th DHam 6/9th Rafaela bottom 9th

Yes, there is a major flaw or two with OPS, but there is with K rate by itself, too. I've always said something like 3 x OBP + 2 x SLG/ 5 would be much more telling. Anyway you look at it, the "contrived" OPS number is more telling than any traditional stand alone stat.