moonslav59

You mean "field well." MLB 53 gms at SS 9 gms at 2B Minors 229 at SS 91 at 2B 8 in CF

Agreed, and since we look like a team trying to keep our budget low, getting more prime years out of our younger players over calling them up earlier and starting their "clocks," pre-prime might be a factor as well.

That could very well be the case, but I will add this... Lugo plays LF, now. He will not play 2B for Boston. Valdez and DHam have a lot of improvement to do on D and prove they can hit over the long haul. (So does Grissom.) Yorke was just recently dropped in the prospect rankings, but has been on a 2 week tear in AAA. He is not great on D, either. Romy seems like a career 26 man, utility guy. That leaves the oft-injured Story and highly-regarded prospect, Mayer. There is a good chance Grissom never wins a FT role among all these other options, but I'm not sure the chances are under 50-50. At worst, he might have a 33-40% chance at becoming our starting 2Bman over the next 4 years. (I wont argue, if someone says his chances are 20-25%. 15% might get a reply.)

By all accounts, he was a great guy. He very easily can be considered the best "all around" player of alltime. His defense was second to none, in his era. He won 10 straight GG and 11 total. He had enough speed to lead the league 4 times in row in SBs. He ended his career with 339 of them. He also led the league in triples, 3 times. With the bat, he rarely K'd more than 80 times a season and came pretty close to having more BBs (1468) than Ks (1526 in 12,545 PAs!) He led the league in BA, once and ended with a .301 BA and .384 OBP. Twice he led the league in OBP and 5 times in SLG. His power was enormous. He led the league in HRs 4 times during an era with plenty of HR hitters. He led the league in TBs, 3 times and OPS, 5 times, including once at age 34. He was ROY and then spent almost 2 years in the military. 2 MVPs (12 times a top 6 MVP vote getter) 24 AS He ended up with a .940 career OPS (155 OPS+) Papi retired at age 40 with a 141 OPS+ for some perspective. From age 39-42, he still had an OPS of .846 (136 OPS+) RIP Say Hey!

Interesting concept to cut salary and lessen the return we'd normally get. I'd say it might work, if we could be sure JH would spend the savings, but we can't say that. Probably, only the Dodgers might even consider something like this. Yoshida is owed about $56M, after 2024. At the deadline, it might be around $62M still owed. I don't think any contender would ever play Yoshida, but if they get some real talent with him, maybe taking on much of his contract might be an idea. A lot would depend on how much a team wants 1 or two from Jansen, Pivetta, Martin or O'Neill. I'm wondering how much we'd have to pay a team to take him off our hands for zero return. $47 of the $62M/3.3 yrs left? $52M? How about Wink, Yorke, Yoshida and half what we owe him ($31M) for a far away prospect?

MLB OPS Leaders 18 players are over .850 with 180 ABs and we have 3 of them: 1.115 Judge 1.024 Soto .996 Ohtani .994 Ozuna .986 Kwan .979 Tucker .951 G Henderson .930 Devers .916 Witt .912 O'Neill .906 Harper .905 Freeman .903 Profar .896 Correa .893 Betts .873 Y Alvarez .863 K Marte .850 C Wong

Don't look, now, but O'Neill is over .900 and Rafaela is nearing .690. We can't seem to gain much ground on the teams above us in the WC race. Currently, we are 11th in MLB. -2.0 from MIN, who is tied w TBR at 6-6 in the 9th. -2.5 from KCR (and ATL from the NL) -4.0 from #7 MIL and -4.5 from #6 SEA On the flipside, we are 2 up on #12 STL and 14 teams are between a .452 Win% and .500. (3.5 games seperate STL from #25 TEX & HOU!) Only 8 games seperate 18 teams in MLB #8 ATL and #25 TEX/HOU Only 7 games seperate us from #4 CLE and being 25th by ourselves.

Woo took it on the chin, tonight, losing 16-4. Yorke went 0-5 and Lugo 0-4 w 3Ks Meidroth was 1-4 with his usual BB. Abreu 0-4 in rehab Alvarez homered and Kavadas, Sogard and Gasper all had 2 hits. POR won 12-11. Campbell is just going absolutely nutty: 3-3 w a HR and BB & HBP Teel & Mayer went 3-5 Jordan had a 3-run triple Anthony 0-5 GRE lost 1-0 as Early pitched well 5IP of 1 hit/2BB no runs allowed ball.. C Coffey sucks: no HR and only 2-4 SAL won 2-1 as Rodriguez "Cruzed" through 5 (2H, 1 BB 0ER) Brannon 3-4 (up to .819) Anderson 2-4 FCL won 5-4 Arias 3-4 w BB Cespy 1-5

If it was a 1 year of Sale for 1 year of Grissom, maybe, but Grissom has a long time to redeem himself (or maybe a short time to prove he's a flop.)

If O'Neill keeps hitting like this, he should fetch a decent prospect. If he's part of a package deal, it could get interesting. I do think Pivetta & Jansen have the highest trade value, as of now. If Martin puts together 6 weeks of elite pitching, he could, too. It's starting to look more and more like maybe we don't sell, but who knows?

Ref has another year of control, unlike O'Neill, and one of our weakest areas is lack of RH'd bats. I don't see us trading one of MLB's best RH'd bats (Ref) over the last 2-3 seasons, combined. Only 17 batters in all of MLB have more PAs and a better OPS v LHPs than Ref since 2022. That's a 3 year period of over 280 PAs.

Anything can happen, but our bench has been our savior, so far, and with players coming back (Abreu, Grissom- who may need to earn another shot in AAA and I Campbel & later, Hendriks. It might take 2-3 OF injuries for Anthony to be the guy called up. If Wong or McGuire gets hurt, I think Heineman is the guy we promote. We have 3 middle infielders who have been doing pretty well: DHam, Romy and EValdez. Westbrook may be replaced by Grissom, and maybe even Yorke is above Mayer on the ML Ready AAA list. We also have Alvarez & Sogard. One way I could see these guys called up, if if we have a major firesale and teardown, where 4-5 roster slots open up on the 40. We all know the FAs to be: Jansen, O'Neill, Martin, Pivetta, Anderson, DSmith and Keller. Maybe we decide to trade Wink and McGuire or some surprise guys Brez and or Cora has soured on. I just think the odds are low we see any of the big 3 in 2024. I would not be surprised if we wait until mis 2025 or even SEPT '25 to see even one.

I'm talking frozen buttah- hard as iron! LOL

Time will tell, and we should know more in 6 weeks.

A very nice win. To be honest, I kinda felt like it was going to be a loss. O'Neill has been buttah.

That was very deflating.

How many errors are just simple dropped balls or flubs as they go to throw?

Yoshi Whahhh?

The way this year is going, we might be in the exact same place as now.

Before the year began, I thought our offense would be okay (top 10-12,) but I was not all that confident. As you pointed out, some good bats had departed, and most were replaced by question marks. It's too early to grade Brez, and I think the Sale trade is being used to grade him more poorly than he deserves, but such is life as a GM.

I'd love to see all our big 3 up as soon as possible. The day we call them up will be a happy one for me. I trust Sox brass to know when that day is.

It took VTek until about 30 years old to be known for his defense. He was 26, when he first saw significant action and 27 for his first .800+ OPS season. I think, with catchers, the age of reaching maturity is maybe more like 27-29 than 24-27.

Agreed. I am just speaking to the no point in keeping Dalbec just for 3B depth.

I think timetables for catchers are different. On D, Mayer and Anthony are already ML ready. I have no idea how they view Teel on D, but I guess DH could be an option vs RHPs, at least. Beating out O'Neill and Ref vs LHPs would not be easy..

Its got to the point where I'm not surprised, anymore. Sad, but true.