moonslav59

The second option could be Mayer, with DHam- Grissom/Romy (Campbell?) at 2B.

I always thought JBJ had a nice swing. I don't see the comp, except for the great D.

Except the Sox pitching ranks 9th to 12th in xFIP, ERA- and other stats that factor in the poor defense. Now, our stats are highly affected by the early great start to the season, so the staff we have now is not top 12 or even 15.

Yanks lost. MIN getting killed. Another missed opportunity. Time is getting short.

He is still young and has room to improve, even if his plate discipline does not improve or does so just slightly. His defense is off the charts. I'll take .685 and GG CF defense for the next 5 years.

Fitting to end it on a line out. DAMN!

Its up to Devers...

We've hit some hard shots, today. We need some luck, now.

We gotta get to the 9th still down just 1. Top of the order with Duran has to create some late thunder.

Rafaela has been "working" on swinging at out of K zone pitches his whole life. I think he is what he is- sink or swim with it. He seemed to make some sort of adjustment after the poor start to 2024, but now, he has to find a way to adjust to the opponents readjusting. He plays great CF D and has some speed, when he gets on base. I think that should be enough to outweigh a .680-.690 OPS, and besides, .690 is the new .725 in MLB.

Brez did add Slaten and Criswell. He also added a few pitchers who looked pretty good, on paper, but have not been a plus in 2024, most notably Gio, Weissert, I Campbell, Hendriks and Fulmer. They may help in 2025. He also add prospects Sandlin, Fitts, Priester and Judice. I think the jury is still out on his 2024 moves, except to say not much helped, this year and this year only. I like the Dugo-O'Neill switch out: RHB for LHB, while flipping Nick Robertson and Victor Santos for Weissert, Fitts and Judice. I think we got a plus on O and pitching on those two deals combined. I like the Slaten, Sandlin and Priester additions, but it's all speculation. I do admire the attempt to improve the farm pitching, and Brez also drafted more pitchers than we have in a long time. The deadline deals all soured, except for maybe Jansen, and none but maybe the Priester deals will help in 2025 and beyond. I do think Brez tried to make a difference more than Bloom did, but we have to start connecting on some of our bigger deals, and soon!

The DSL Red Sox won the championship, today. They won 6-0, despite walking 7 batters. 4 pitchers combined for a 2 hitter. Justin Gonzalez went 4-5 w a 2B. Fermin went 3-5. Brito 1-1 w 2 BB. Woo lost 6-0. Campbell went 1-3 w BB.

That 2 run 2B is yet another example of a bad fielding mistake, not counted as an error, leading to a flip in the team leading. Ref just coasted back, then had to jump, when it could have been a routine play. (Plus, the ball went off the side of his glove, not the top of it.)

He is 5th on the Sox in PAs. He is 5th on the Sox in RBIs. Does it matter than so many are from solo blasts? RBI per PA: .15 Devers .14 Abreu & Yoshida (EValdez) .13 Rafaela & O'Neil (before today) .12 Refsnyder .11 Duran & Wong .09 DHam

I respect your opinions, Max, and I know sometimes you shoot from the hip or out of anger. I agree that pitching and hitting vastly outrank defense, but a really bad defense can make a difference that good bats and pitching can't overcome. 2024 is proof in the pudding. Offense: 7th in runs scored (just 4 behind 5th place) 4th in OPS with one of MLB's most balanced line-up, in terms of the least amount of batters below .720 or .690. We are 4th in wOBA. Basically, we are top 5. Pitching, when taking away the defensive aspect; 10th in xFIP at 4.03 (just 0.05 from 8th,) 9th in SIERA 3.93 (just 0.03 from 8th.) We are 11th in ERA-, but 17th in ERA. That pretty much tells the story of our run prevention. Our pitching is about 10th, while our defense is about 29th or 30th, and that's why the ERA is 17th, not 9th to 11th. In short, we have a top 5-6 offense and a top 10-11th pitching staff. Why do we have the 14th best record in MLB with those rankings, if defense is not all that important? (Hint: it's not poor baserunning.)

Many injuries seem like bad luck, although some players just seem to be injury prone- maybe due to some physical weakness, poor conditioning, genetics or recklessness. It's hard to know which is which, sometimes. Many predicted injury to Sale, but then some of his seemed fluky. Suddenly, he's Mr. Reliable. A guy like Gio looked pretty durable and dependable, then poof. I will say, I do not think the Sox have had any more "unexpected" injuries than the norm. We've signed guys like Richards, Kluber, Wacha, Hill, Paxton and Hill. We extended Sale, knowing he had something going on. We kept Whitlock starting, while many of us saw the warning signs. One could argue, we got what we paid for and got what was expected, except for maybe Gio. When you look at a team like the Astros, who had 5 homegrown SP'ers, at one point last year, and have seen 4-5 of their top 6 SP'ers out injured all or most of 2024, we can see that we have been woefully outmatched in building reliable and competent pitching staffs, since 2018. To me, it started in 2019, when we failed to replace the departing Kimbrell and Kelly. Teh, we lost Porcello. We lost Sale to injury, almost every year and for almost the whole season. We lost ERod to Covid, Nate to several injuries and never replace Price, either. We got what was expected, IMO.

it's hard to know. I could see one more year of skimping, and maybe it will be more. I've given up expecting more spending, but I will not be surprised if it happens.

I think we win, today.

1. L Duran 2. R Refsndyer 3. R O'Neill 4. L Devers (DH) 5. R Romy (3B, kinda sad for a 5 slot batter) 6. R Wong (2B) 7. L Casas 8. R Jansen 9. R Rafaela Bench: L Abreu, L Yoshida, L-R Sogard & Gasper

Our SS position, this year: 2.1 fWAR (20th in MLB) .756 OPS (11th in MLB) -12 OAA (29th in MLB and 1 ahead of WSH) -7 DRS (24th) and -8.5 UZR/150 (26th) Innings at SS: 606 Rafaela (-8 OAA/-4 DRS) 433 DHam (-3 OAA/-3 DRS) 75 Romy (0 OAA/+1 DRS) 68 Story (+1/+2) 19 Sogard (0/-1) 14 Reyes (-2/-2) While Rafaela brought some stability to the SS position, after Story went down, he was not a net plus. DHam is okay at 2B but not SS. Romy & Sogar should be just emergency depth. We need a healthy Story, which would greatly improve our SS and CF defense. We will likely need Mayer to be a force, or count on DHam-Grissom to do well in 2025.

Our 2B position, this year... -2.1 fWAR (30th) .534 OPS (30th) We've seen 11 players at 2B (all for 9 or more innings) 396 EValdez -7 OAA/ -6 DRS 267 DHam +3 OAA/ +8 DRS 186 Grissom -2 OAA/ +1 DRS 102 Westbrook 0/0 83 Romy -2/-2 78 Sogard -1/+1 39 Reyes 0/-1 30 Gasper -1/+1 14 Rafaela 0/0 11 Wong 0/0 9 Short 0/0 Team: -8 OAA (29th in MLB)/ 0 DRS (t 15th) /-2.5 UZR/150 (23rd) Worst offense and bottom 5 defense. You can see why Brez tried to fix the 2B problem. It did not work. DHam turned into our best 2B for 2024, and I think that was a big surprise. He might have been 5th or 6th on our depth chart in March: 1. Grissom 2. EValde 3. Reyes 4. Westbrook 5. Sogard/DHam (We acquired Romy and Short during the season.) What does our 2B situation look like for 2025? Is Story or Mayer and Campbell in the picture? Is a DHam-Romy platoon good enough? (As back-ups, I'd say yes.)

Our team OPS is about 40 points lower vs LHPs, and Skubal is one of the best. Our work is cut out for us, but we often do very well vs the toughest pitchers, and then fall flat ve unknowns or mediocre ones.

Here is how and when we acquired our top prospects and young players on the roster: 1. Anthony (2nd round draft pick 2022: Bloom) 2. Mayer (1st round pick 2021: Bloom) 3. Kyle Teel (1st rd. pick 2023: Bloom) 4. K Campbell (4th rd comp pick: Bloom) 5. Montgomery (1st rd. '24: Brez) 6. Arias (IFA '23: Bloom) 7. Cespedes (IFA '23: Bloom) 8. Bleis (IFA '21: Bloom) 9. Meidroth (4th rd '22: Bloom) 10. Perales (IFA '19 DD) Sandlin & Fitts (Trades '24: Brez) MLB Players (under control in 2025 or beyond, only) Ben: Devers (IFA '13) DD: Duran (draft '18,) Houck (draft '17,) Casas (draft '18,) Bello (IFA '17,) Rafaela (IFA '17,) Crawford (draft '17,) Bloom: Wong (trade '20), Whitlock (Rule 5 '20,) Story (FA '22,) Yoshida (FA '23,) Refsnyder MiFA '22,) DHam, Abreu & Valdez (trades '22,) Wink (trade '21,) Kelly (MiFA '22) Bernardino (Waiver '23,) Sogard (trade '19,) Brez: Giolito (FA '24,) Slaten (Trade for Rule 5 '24,) ICampbell, Weissert, Grissom, Horn, Priester (trades '24,) Romy (waivers '24)

He was the comp pick for losing Bogey to free agency. (There was some criticism of Bloom for going over the tax line, and the comp pick dropping to the 4th round, but it ended up working out okay, for us.) We also drafted Justin Reimer with the Nate comp pick on the very next pick (#133.)

Ideally, we keep the big 4. We see JH open his wallet to sign 2 solid SP'ers and a closer. We call up some kids and trade Abreu, DHam and Fitts or Sandlin for a solid SP'er, but not the ace a package headlined by Anthony could likely get us. SP: FA, FA, Houck, Bello, Gio (Crawford, Criswell, Priester) RP: FA, Hendriks, Slaten, Whitlock, Crawford, Criswell, Kelly, Bernardino/Booser/Weissert/ICampbell C: Wong & Teel 1B: Casas (Devers as back-up) 2B: Story & Campbell SS: Mayer & Story 3B: Devers & Meidroth LF: Duran, Campbell, Ref CF: Rafaela, Duran RF: Anthony, Campbell DH: Yoshida (Casas, Devers, Ref) That looks very impressive, as long as those "FAs" pull their weight, for once.