moonslav59

He had his best season, with LAD just last year. .854 '21 (4.0 bWAR) .873 '22 (6.7 bWAR) .987 '23 (8.3 bWAR- led league) 4.3 bWAR in '24, which is already better than 2021 with 160 less PAs. I still wish he was with us, even at that hefty cost.

Twinkies lost. Back down to 4 GB. KC is looking for real.

I doubt it, too. I'm just saying, in baseball, tides change, often. I see no signs of a turn around. The SP'ers are doing slightly better than 2-4 weeks ago, but not nearly as well as April-May. The pen has been god-awful, but we all know pen arms are fickle. They can go from good to bad and bad to good on a dime. (Again, I'm not predicting a turn around.)

I don't ignore them. You asked me to show where we lost 15+ games due in part to defense. I listed 15 games, then spoke of more that are not from official "Un Earned" runs. I fully realize our D has made some very nice plays, but the net negative is huge, Max. HUGE! Our OF D is solid. Our corner IF is about the worst in MLB. Wong is rated near the bottom. 2B and SS have been a disaster until Rafaela brought a little stability to SS. Valdez was awful and still has more innings at 2B by about 150. DHam, Romy & Reyes were not good. Sogard is not great. That's 5 positions of awful D or just plain bad. It is what it is. It's not as important as pitching or batting, but that doesn't mean being freakishly bad can't make a difference in 15 games. That's less than 10% of the games.

Anthony 4-5 w BB, 2B & 3B Meidroth 2-3 w 3BB & 2B Campbell 1-4 w BB & HR Teel 1-2 w 2BB & 3RBI Valdez 2-5 w HR Fitts 6IP, 5H, 2ER, 0BB, 6K GRE lost as Paez and Dean pitched poorly. Bleis 3-4 w HR. SAL lost. Rivera 4IP, 1H, 0BB, 8K

Rafaela may not be a net plus on D at SS, but he's the best we got. We also have 4 other OF'ers for 3 slots. I'm fine with Rafaela at SS, for this year.

I'm not worried about our D. Our OF D has been superb, and I've mentioned it, often.

Bernardino has lost the magic he had at the end of last season and start to 2024.

Anthony is 4 for 5 and a homer away from the cycle.

Anthony, Meidroth, Campbell and Teel are a combined 7 for 11, 7 runs, 6 rbi, two 2Bs, two 3Bs and an HR.

On May 1st, we were 3rd in runs allowed. One June 1st, we were 9th. On July 1st, we were 11th. Now we are 26th. Is it impossible to return to the early season form?

Yoshi-Da-Man!

Duran Da Man!

Nice article. Maybe with Teel on the rise, we'll see Wong in a back-up role. I doubt he can win any other positional job on the current team.

Top fWAR Leaders and notables (250+ PAs): 9.6 Judge 9.2 Witt 7.7 Soto 6.7 Gunnar 6.6 Lindor 6.4 Duran 6.2 Ohtani 12. Devers 4.4 16, Matt Chapman 4.0 26. Betts 3.6 58. Abreu & Schwarber 2.7 90. O'Neill 2.1 122. Bogey 1.7 157. JD 1.2 160. Ref 1.1 175. Rafaela 1.0 185. Yoshida 0.9 Pitching (50+ IP) 5.4 Sale 4.8 Skubal 4.1 Webb, Sanchez & Ragans 13. Houck 3.5 87. Crawford 1.5 100. Pivetta 1.3 110. Criswell 1.2 120. Bello 1.1

Sox OPS Rankings (280+ PAs) 7. Devers .940 18. Duran .876 19. O'Neill .875 31. Abreu .833 34. Refsnyder .822 50. Yoshida .800 It's okay to count Abreu and Refsnyder as one, since they basically platoon, but this still looks pretty impressive.

That's for sure.

I found 15 games where taking away the unearned runs, tips the balance to the Sox (9games) or ties (6) the game. Nobody know what might have happened in those games, and I'm not blaming poor D for 100% of the reason we lost those 15 games, but that is not even counting all the missed routine DPs, misjudged fly balls, throw to the wrong base, and other non plays that many other players make- sometimes with ease. No way is defense as important as batting or pitching, but when it forces the already over-worked pitching staff to get more outs than the norm, it ends up breaking down the staff, not to mention the morale of a team. Bases loaded, one out, hard grounder right to our 2Bman: easy double play, but OH NO! The SS double pumps and fails to turn the DP. The inning stays alive for the opps, and the next guy hits an infield single that our 3Bman could not make a pretty normal play on. No errors charged: 2 runs scored. The pitcher is so bummed, he then lets up a granny. This is our Red Sox.

I can see if it is directed towards another poster, but I guess I just don't see something like calling Pablo "fat" causes any board strife. Maybe, I'm missing it.

Gio is more fragile than Chris Frail???

Pablo Sandoval got a lot of grief for being overweight, but I don't see how someone saying he was is all that bad. I guess saying to his face, of he reads the post might not be very good, but I think this is covered by free speech rights. I've been calling "Pablito' (little Pablo in Spanish,) for a long time.

I said a 5% FLG% difference (maybe 99% compared to 94%, but again, errors are subjective and NEAR useless) is 1 per 20 plays, which with BA is .050. A SS gets more plays at SS than PAs at the plater, but I'm not arguing defense is more important than batting. I actually said it WAS NOT! On 15-20 games lost, in part because an error or bad defensive play led to enough runs to flip the score or tie it, is easily 15-20. God, I can think of 5 or 6 just on the failure to turn an easy DP. There were more plays where the OF could have caught the ball, and it went for a single, 2B and a couple times a homer- no error charged. But let's look at just unearned runs scored by the opps, that flipped the score: 9 games lost by differential of just UnEarned Runs 7/30 lost by 4 (5 unearned runs) 3/30 lost by 1 (3 UER) 4/18 lost by 1 (2) 5/15 lost by 1 (3) 4/6 lost by 1 (2) 7/4 lost by 1 (2) 7/20 -1 (2) 7/22 -1 (2) Ties = 6 8/26 lost by 4 (2 UER) 4/16 lost by 3 (3) 5/16 2 (2) 7/5 2 (2) 8/14 2 (2) 8/19 1 (1) 9+6=15, and this is not counting unturned DPs, misjudges fly balls and other defensive mistakes not counted as a error. I amend my statement to claim 20-25 games NOT 15-20 total.

The funny thing is, he had just 1 less start that Sale, last season, and yet we were supposed to overlook that. Also: GS 2019-2023: Paxton 54/ Sale 56.

I know almost every player has a 90%+ fielding %. It does not need to be mentioned. Also, scorer decisions are often arbitrary and just plain wrong. I hate using Flg% to judge anyone. It is near useless. Besides, a 5% difference is 1 error per 20 attempts. That's like turning a .290 hitter into a .240 one (or .330 if really good.) Nobody is claiming defense is more important that batting or pitching, but really good pitching can turn sour when asked to make 4-5 outs in too many innings. And, when some team's get out of a jam with a skillfully turned DP, others let yet another batter come up. Even the best pitching is at a distinct disadvantage needing to get extra outs, too often. I'm not one to blame any loss on one payer or one play, but there are easily 15-20 Red Sox losses that a bad defensive play or two led to the deciding amount of runs to score against us. Sure, better pitching could get us 15-20 more wins, too. More timely hitting, as well. I'm not really worried about our defense, next year, unless Story is out again, and Rafaela is not in CF.

Other expensive arms lost and never replaced was Porcello & Kimbrell. Later, ERod & Nate.