moonslav59

Ummm, Duran is better. Rafaela is better on D and bats RH'd Refsnyder bats RH'd and is one of our best hitters. We have Anthony LHB and Campbell RHB for the future (to replace O'Neill). L-R Splits v RHP .919 Duran .815 Abreu .790 Ref .766 O'Neill .683 Rafaela v LHPs 1.076 O'Neill .898 Ref .732 Rafaela .694 Duran .449 Abreu Abreu is a strongside platoon with the 4th best OF OPS on the team: .870 O'Neill .847 Duran .839 Refsnyder .798 Abreu .696 Rafaela (Best OF defender and RHB)

Brad Keller, Trey Wingenter and Alex Speas are all on the 40. We could add any of these to the 40, if we wanted to call them up: Zach Penrod .593 OPSA (AA/AAA) Lucas Luetge .630 in 36 IP AAA Ryan Zeferjahn .634 in AA/AAA Chase Shugart .685 in AAA 50 IP Jason Alexander .719 at AAA- most IP on the farm Luis Guerrero .716 Grant Gambrell .741

We'd need 2 RHBs, then, so why not trade Abreu for a real good one with 2+ years of control?

I do agree pens are very important, but with good games from Houck and Crawford, we probably win 1 or 2 more. With better offense, we could have won 1-2 more of these last 4. With a bad pen, instead of a horrible one, we might win 1 of the 4.

He's been really impressive. The issues are his defense and whether MLB pitchers wont be afraid to challenge him with strikes. He wont walk in the bigs, unless he can hit.

Bloom missed a lot on the gems from the rough, which was supposed to be a strength. Arroyo did okay for a bit. Ref Iggy Pillar DHam Abreu Wong Schreiber Whitlock Hill Wink Strahm He also missed on the timing for Springs and Martin Perez

How about thinking we are sick of counting on pitchers that are always hurt?

Any 4 game losing streak shows some players looking real bad. The weird thing is, we coulda won 3, and yet we look totally lost, right? Does that make sense?

If he never swings a bat until winter, how long does it take to regain what was lost?

Agreed on JBJ-Renfroe. I just said the trade looks a little better. I still like Wink over Beni. Beni fWAR 1.4 2.2 Okay, Wink only has 1.3 fWAR, so far. (1.9 bWAR, but I think he will match Beni or pass him.)

If he's not ready until September, it might depend on how we look, then.

Criswell vs another Lefty (Blach.) Time for a turnaround.

MLBTR reported... “It will be a while” before Triston Casas is ready for a minor league rehab assignment, Red Sox manager Alex Cora told the Boston Globe’s Julian McWilliams and other reporters on Friday. Casas hasn’t played since April 20 due to a rib fracture and torn rib cartilage, and he is already well beyond even the broad 3-to-9 week timeframe Casas initially floated three months ago, though the first baseman noted that the nature of the injury led to a lot of fluidity. In yesterday’s update, Cora said Casas was taking soft toss swings and is hitting off a tee, but is still dealing with some nagging discomfort in his side. Until that discomfort entirely subsides, Casas and the Sox can’t really move forward with any kind of concrete plan for even a steadier ramp-up, let alone any minor league rehab work. Cora did say that Casas would play again in 2024, but “we don’t know yet” when a return was feasible.

MLBTR on Sox interest in Rengifo... https://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2024/07/red-sox-interested-in-luis-rengifo.html

MLBTR... https://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2024/07/red-sox-trade-rumors-dodgers-james-paxton.html

Mata has further elbow inflammation and will not be activated any time soon. I Campbell returns to the IL.

The Workman & Hembree for Pivetta deal worked out well, but nobody minded us being sellers in 2020. The Beni nondeadline trade for Franchy and Gambrell did not look all that great, but then Wink did pretty well, and Beni has largely sucked and been overpaid. The other nondeadline trade of Renfroe for JBJ, looks a little better now that DHam is doing pretty well. The Betts nondeadline trade has always sucked, and when Jeter Downs s*** the bed, it looked even worse. Now that Wong is doing well, it still sucks, but at least we got something out of that trade (Verdugo, too, and now what we got for Dugo: Fitts & Weissert.) Grading trades early is natural, but no grade is complete until all teh terms of control are finished.

At the time, I looked at the Vaz for Abreu and Valdez, plus the Diekman dump for McGuire, together, as a big plus and still do. McGuire was supposed to be very good on D and with the staff. He did very well at the end of 2022, but has not lived up to my hopes.

Many viewed it as a sign of giving up and sending the wrong message to the team, going forward.

It's easy find "what ifs" on FA signings, but we could have gotten Flaherty, instead of Gio and saved $10M over two years, which might have helped JH accept keeping Sale's contract. For $7M more, we could have had Sale & Flaherty over Gio. For no extra money, we could have had Sale and Fedde over Gio.

LOL, my timeline was a tad off on Devers. LOL.

Certainly, neglecting the rotation, especially after we knew Gio was toast, was the big blunder. (The Sale trade, to me, is only a blunder in hindsight, but let's not go there, again.) We knew guys like Houck, Whitlock, Crawford and Bello could not be counted on for 175+ IP, and only Pivetta offered some hope for that total. Criswell and Anderson? LOL! It would have been way cheaper signing a 4/5 SP'ers than trying to trade for one, now, and it would have lessened the strain on the current rotation and pen by having someone eat 80-110 IP, up to now. Somewhat amazingly many SP signings, even ten or more low to mid range ones, have produced, so far this season. Upper-Mid Range: $25M x 3 Sonny Gray (2.7 fWAR, 15th in MLB and better than Crawford) Mid Level $13M x 4 Imanaga (2.5 fWAR (19th in MLB $15M x 3 Seth Lugo (3.2 fWAR is 9th) $18M x 2 Stroman (0.0 fWAR but 110 more IP than Gio) $16M x 2 Wacha (2.0 fWAR, 33rd in MLB- ahead of Crawford) $14M x 2 Manaea (1.3 fWAR, 67th and just below Pivetta) $14M x 1 Flaherty (2.3 fWAR, 23rd in MLB- ahead of Crawford) $13M x 1 Severino (1.2 fWAR $13M x 1 Gibson (1.2 fWAR) $11M x 1 L Lynn (0.9 fWAR- same as Criswell) Low/Mid Level: $8M x 2 Fedde (2.6 fWAR, 17th and tied with Burnes) $7M x 1 Paxton (0.3 and 89 IP) $4.5 x 1 Lorenzen (1.7 fWAR and 97 IP)

The thing about Bogey at 3B, and I think maybe 2B was best for him, was that he was only given 10 games at 3B in the minors, before his call-up. SS and 3B are not similar positions to play, and more time is needed to adjust from SS to 3B. No doubt, Bogey struggled at 3B, and I think it also affected his batting, out of the gate, which was a big thing to do to a rookie being called up during a high pressure situational promotion. An eventual Bogey 3B, Iggy SS, Pedey 2B and Devers 1B idea looked pretty good, on paper, to me, back in those days. The Drew rental was a pretty good idea, too, and the results of that 2013 deadline move worked out well. (Note: no other deadline trades were made by the Sox in 2013.) The Jacobs for Thornton deal in mid July did not work out, too well, but it was a good try.

Even Houck and Crawford slipped, badly. We need a stopper, and quickly.

I think there was something about Iggy that rubbed the Sox brass the wrong way, although the next regime did bring him back (for nothing in return, I might add.) I was very high on Iggy, but I felt Peavy was a good return. He was not a rental, either. He has another year of control, and eventually we traded him for Hembree and Escobar. (Later, Hembree was traded with Workman for Pivetta.) Perhaps, the worst part of that trade was us also giving up Montas.