moonslav59

I made no predictions. We all should know almost anything can happen in baseball. Hell, the A's are outplaying many of the higher ranked teams, over the last month or so. Saying things can change, and being called "wrong" for saying that is nothing short of absurd. Nobody is doubting the fact that we turned south at the ASB. Nobody doubts the fact that we cannot make the playoffs, "if we keep playing like this." What is in doubt is where we go from here, and nobody knows where that might be. Nobody. Not knowing the difference between a suggestion and a prediction is something Red will ever understand. It's not worth the effort to even try and shine a light into that vacant brain. Words have different meanings to him, and if you call him out for getting definitions wrong, he call you out for "over-analyzing." Not to mention, the fact that he over-analyzes more than anyone else here, and more often than not, misunderstands the position he is criticizing.

Part of run prevention is defense, and while the numbers may not show it, our defense looks better, to me, than it did in April. Devers ha stabilized. Duran made a big step forward, this year. Smith stabilized 1B. While DHam, Romy and Sogard are no wonders on middle IF D, and Rafaela, too, it has not been god-awful D. Abreu has been inconsistent, and the GG O'Neill has not looked like even a plus. Rafaela in CF would be a great improvement to our D, but lacking a SS and 2Bman makes it tough to do that, right now. The pitching has been a near total collapse. Less than a handful of pitchers have even given us sporadic good games. The majority have been bad to awful in every game for about a month, now. If this continues, all hope is lost. Our only hope is that some of most can turn things around and quickly. There is no evidence this is happening, except for maybe Houck, Jansen and maybe 1-2 others, but baseball is a sport that is very difficult to project. Going by a player's most recent 2-4 weeks to predict the following 4-7 weeks or our remaining hopes, is not something I adhere to. I'm not predicting a turnaround, but I do think it is still possible. The rough starts by Paxton, Garcia and Sims has not helped, but there is no reason to think they all will suck for the rest of the season. Martin's return could help. Slaten & Hendriks, might, too. To me, it will come down to our rotation. They just cannot be this bad, going forward, or we will be toast, real soon. (Some seem to think that is already a certainty.)

Looking "forward," I feel... Less confident than I did in March on: Bello Crawford Bernardino, Weissert, I Campbell About the same: Giolito Whitlock Winckowski Hendriks & Fulmer (although I expect more) More confident: Houck Criswell Slaten Kelly Booser What hurts the "going forward" the most, to me, is how we replace Jansen, Pivetta and Martin, if the budget does not expand. That's more on JH than Brez. (We also need to replace Paxton, Garcia & Sims.) The "return" of Gio, Henriks, Fulmer, Murphy, Slaten will only make a small dent on the needs.

We should have "hit" on more of our moderate expenditures, but I do not think we swung and missed much more than the norm for signings at $5M/1 to $10M/1. You get what you pay for, and that's pretty much what we got. The Kluber & Richards were are largest SP signings between Nate and Gio, and they both bombed, but others gave us about what we should have expected: Wacha R Hill Paxton Perez I & II The pen signings are more mixed: Jansen Martin Barnes extension Strahm Diekman It did kill us that our biggest 3 SP'er signings bombed, bigtime: Giolito, Kluber & Richards. Then, the Sale trade just threw gas of the fire. That's basically our 4 biggest SP'er decisions since the Nate extension. All failed, badly. While that is more on the GM than JH, I still blame JH more than the GMs for the state of our rotation, right now.

I "like it," but do not think it is great. I see improvement beginning, but improvement over being the worst in MLB may still fall far short of what we need. It was good to see us draft more pitchers, this year, and I realize having many pitchers in the 20th to 60th rankings on soxprospects.com is not something to get joyous about, it looks better to me than it did just 1-2 years ago and certainly beyond. Also, while some of our younger pitchers in the bigs are struggling, like Bello, Houck, Crawford, Wink and Slaten, many are having better seasons than homegrown pitchers have had since the Lester-Buch and Masterson days. Again, better than s*** can still be s*****, too, but there were our highest ranked pitchers over the last 15 years: (I only listed pitchers on multiple year lists, once.) 2010: 1. Casey Kelly, 7 Pimental, 11 Doubront, 12. Bowden, 13 Tazawa, 19 Weiland, 20. Fife 2011: 3. Ranaudo, 4 Drake Britton, 14. Workman 2012: 7. Barnes, 14. Alex Wilson, 20 Henry Owens 2013: 4. Allen Webster (trade) 5. Ruby de la Rosa (trade), 12. Brian Johnson 2014: 12. Trey Ball, 15. Stankiewicz 2015: 6. ERod (trade), 10 Kopech, 14. E Escobar (trade) 2016: 3. Espinoza, 10 Lakins, 15 Pat Light 2017: 3 Groome, 8 Raudes, 14 Shawaryn, 15 Cosart, 16 Mata, 19 S Anderson 2018: 4. Houck, 7 DHern, 9 Scherff, 13 Beeks, 15 Thompson 2019: 9 Feltman, 19 D Reyes 2020: 9 Song, 11 TWard, 13 Zeferjahn, 14 Aldo Ramirez (traded for Schwarber), 16 Murphy, 19 Bello 2021: 4 Whitlock, 7 Seabold (trade) 2022: 9 Walter, 11 Wikelman, 12 Winckowski (trade), 16 Crawford 2023: 8 Perales, 13 Drohan, 16 E R-C 2024: 9 Fitts (trade,) 12 Sandlin, 20 Slaten The 2025 Rankings may include: 8-20: Perales, Sandlin, Tolle, E R-C, Dobbins 21-35: Valera, Cason, Early, Paez, Monegro, Mullins, D Reyes, Dean, Wikelman 36-60: Clarke, Tygart, Mata, Carlson, Ingrassia, Penrod, Guerrero, Horn, Gambrell, Rogers, Duffy, Hoppe, Drohan,

The worst part about having only a 36% chance at making the playoffs is that 7 teams have a better chance. It sucks that two of those teams, HOU & SEA, currently have worse records than we do. It is very easy to be cynical. They give us ample reason to go down that road, and there are no signs of a turnaround in spending in sight. The rebuilt farm offers some hope, but it's hard to imagine us coming close to a ring, without some major expenditures directed towards our pitching staff- either with spending or trading farm capital. With no sign of that coming, it's hard to build up hope.

Not a good weekend, so far. Gotta pull out tomorrow's game. KCR and MIN both won, so we are... -2.5 from KCR (-1 in loss column) -3.5 from MIN (-3 losses) -6.5 from NYY (-5 losses)

POR no hit through 5 and scores 10 in the 6th! Campbell, Binelas and Sikes homered. Ehrhard 1-3 w 2BB

It should have been 4 plus.

Jh. Garcia went 3-3 w 2 rbi and a 2B. Ehrhard also went 3-3. POR is being no hit through 5. (Campbell w 2 BBs)

It is possible it fixes itself, and/or Martin, Hendriks and Slaten give us a boost. Things can turn North just as they turned South. (I'm not predicting it will, but it can.)

Injury Report per MLB.com: RHP Liam Hendriks inching closer to rehab assignment For the second time this week, Hendriks threw live batting practice, this time on Saturday at Fenway Park against teammates Enmanuel Valdez and Romy Gonzalez. The righty, who is coming back from Tommy John surgery, threw 20 pitches and was pleased with his progression. Hendriks will throw a third live batting practice on either Tuesday or Wednesday, and there's a chance that will be the last one before he starts a Minor League rehab assignment. The plan is for Hendriks to be back with the Red Sox at some point in September. RHP Brayan Bello placed on paternity leave list; LHP Cam Booser recalled from Triple-A Worcester. Bello was placed on the paternity list prior to Friday's game against the Astros, but he is expected to be activated in time for his next scheduled start on Monday night against the Rangers. RHP Justin Slaten (right elbow inflammation) Expected return: Mid-August. A key setup man for the Red Sox, Slaten has thrown out to 105 feet during long toss and should progress to mound work in the coming week, according to manager Alex Cora. Slaten owns a 3.38 ERA with 45 strikeouts over 42 2/3 innings this season with Boston. He has been on the IL since July 12. OF Tyler O'Neill (leg infection/illness) Expected return: Aug. 14 or thereabouts. O'Neill was placed on the injured list on Aug. 7 (retroactive to Aug. 4) due to a left leg infection. Before that, he had an an illness and it's unclear if the two things are related. At this point, the Red Sox are still hopeful O'Neill can return at the 10-day mark, which is the Aug. 14 finale of the current homestand against the Rangers. 1B Triston Casas (torn cartilage in left rib cage) Expected return: Aug. 15 at earliest. Casas continued his Minor League rehab assignment with Triple-A Worcester on Aug. 10. Red Sox manager Alex Cora said he would speak with the slugger about his progress after that game. Cora said he doesn't expect Casas back during the current homestand, which ends on Aug. 14 against the Rangers. Casas should be back at some point during the road trip that starts in Baltimore (Aug. 15-18) and continues in Houston (Aug. 19-21). His 20-day rehab assignment expires on Aug. 20. “Right now, it's up to him," Cora said on Aug. 9. "He's healthy. Like I said, he's been taking grounders for a long time. I think the baseball part of it, the physical part of it, he's ready to go. Now the timing part of it, he'll let us know. He's been hitting the ball hard. Obviously, you know, he's coming through this injury. We knew it was going to take time.

Another tough loss. We need to start having some "tough wins."

Agreed. Let's hope we have more memorable big hits vs the Yanks, later on, this year.

I'd guess Priester > all those traded combined.

As bad as we all thought the staff would be, nobody thought 6.10 bad. I do not project we finish the season with a 6.10 ERA. 5.10, maybe, and that would probably leave us out of the dance. 4.60 seems possible and might be enough to squeak us in, assuming our O keeps going strong. I'm not sure this staff is capable of pitching 4.10 or better, over the last 7 weeks, but we do have some new additions and returning IL players on or about to be on the 13 man staff. Houck, Jansen and Wink are showing signs of doing better. It's not impossible to imagine a staff that can finish somewhere between 4.10 and 4.60. Maybe not probable, I agree, but certainly not out of the question. Nobody expected the staff to be under 3.00 in April, either. Weird things happen in baseball, all the time.

I'm not sure we turn it around or not. My "optimism" is based more on looking around and seeing how badly everyone else is playing, too, than any evidence that the Sox might be capable of doing better. If we everyone keeps playing like they did from June 30th to today, we're in. I'm just surprised you think it's delusional to think we can do it.

1. Duran .860 (.933 v R) 1.091 last 4 weeks 2. Abreu .843 (.900 v R) .983 last 4 weeks 3. Yoshida .754 (.810 v R) .847 4. Devers .976 (1.112 v R) 1.072 5. Jansen .703 (1.000 v R w Sox) 1.143 6. Smith .714 (.715 v R) .891 7. Sogard .787 (1.000 v R) .787 8. Rafaela .708 (.706 v R) .716 9. DHam .712 (.734 v R) .646

The Sox are not alone in the philosophy, so in many ways, the whole league watches and waits. I like our pitching in the lower levels, but I realize I'm a homer on our prospects.

Best AL records since June 30th: 19-13 MIN 19-14 HOU 18-14 BOS, OAK & KCR 17-15 TBR & TEX 18-16 DET 15-16 NYY 16-18 BAL & TOR 14-18 SEA 15-20 CLE 4-29 CWS (2-2 v BOS and 2-27 vs everyone else) Other than the CWS, the standings are almost upside down since June 30th.

July + AUG 18-13 MIN 18-14 HOU 17-14 BOS 17-14 KCR 16-17 BAL 14-16 NYY 14-17 SEA 15-19 CLE June+July+August 35-22 HOU 32-24 BOS 33-25 MIN 33-29 BAL 29-29 KCR & SEA 29-30 CLE 28-29 NYY Nobody is playing like they are a lock for the playoffs, and this is the main reason nobody should count the Sox out.

It seems that the DHam-Romy platoon at 2B was doing rather nicely, but out of nowhere Sogard is taking away their playing time. Granted, DHam was slumping, and Romy is pretty much a straight platoon bat, who has been playing 1B vs LHPs, so Sogard playing more makes sense, but still... OPS last 14 days 1.256 Romy 1.143 Jansen 1.106 Abreu 1.021 O'Neill (IL) 1.020 Devers .921 Ref .913 Yoshida .865 Duran .835 Smith .791 Rafaela .787 Sogard .680 DHam .668 Wong Last 28 days: 1.022 Romy .787 Sogard .646 DHam

I had hoped for more than Paxton, Garcia and Sims. Once again, I think we have over relied on returning pitchers from the IL. (Slaten, Martin, Hendriks...) I certainly will blame another missed playoffs on the lack of pitching. It is clear. Last winter, I advocated signing 3 solid SP'ers and we signed a questionable Giolito and hardly any depth (Criswell & Chase Anderson.) The trading away of Sale came back to bite our ass. Brez may have chosen "a lane," but not full throttle. BTW, we did add a prospect in Priester. I'm not happy with the choices we made with our staff, last winter or during the season. I will say, I was not for selling, this year, and I still think we have a better shot at the playoffs than we did in '22 or '23. (Both of those seasons I wanted us to sell.)

We have a better record than the Astros, and I won't cry about divisional strength, but these Astros have had more and worse injuries than we have, and they are in first place in the ALW. No Tucker for over 3 months. No Verlander and a big chunk or the rest of the rotation has been out for most of the year. GS'd: 10 Verlander 7 Javier 5 France 0 McCullers Jr 0 Luis Garcia 0 Jose Urquidy With all this gone, they are still 59-55.

It would make sense if there was a (secret) 5 year plan in place starting in 2020. (Not saying it is, and for all I know, it could be a 6 year plan or no plan of ever spending bigly again.)