moonslav59

Brez has not had a big signing, yet, unless you count Gio. The thing about spending $20-25M on good FAs is that you rarely get that for 1-2 years. JH may not approve a 3-6 year deal at that AAV. That dooms us to 1-2 year lower level FAs like Gio.

That's how I see it. Replacing the 2024 Jansen and Pivetta may not be easy. Finding another O'Neill at $6M and a '24 Martin at $8M should not be hard. At minimum, I see us needing a solid SP ($20-25M), a closer ($10-15M) and a RHB ($5-15M.) That should be able to be done, well, with $40-60M. We could add a second solid SP'er or middle IF'er for $20M and get 4 solid players for $80M. Even if we get nothing from Mayer, Anthony and Teel, we should be much better. The problem is, JH might not even want to spend $20-50M.

It also looks like our worries about depth and ML ready minor league depth were surprisingly wrong. We lost our apparent #1 SP for the full year, Whitlock for almost the full year, and others for starts here and there, yet our rotation, despite recent issues, is still ranked very highly in almost every category. Our pen has seen Jansen struggle, early as well as Martin and his recent IL stint. I Campbell was supposed to be nice depth, and he has yet to do anything good. The pen has been a clear strength. The loss of Casas has hurt, and no good replacement has been found. It took some trial and error (literally and figuratively) to find the middle infield that has not killed us. We went through EValdez I, Reyes, Short, Grissom and a poor start by DHam to finally seem okay with DHam, EValdez II, Westbrook & Romy. Many saw Refsnyder as expendable, last winter. He leads all of our OF in OPS. Rafaela and Abreu have done fine. Even players we have yet to use from the farm have been getting closer and closer to ML ready. The fact that a roster of a lot of Woo North players on it is still at .500 is a testament to out depth. That being said, if we never get healthy, .500 might be where we stay for longer than any of us want, except Randy, who wants us to bottom out, first.

Certainly, it is quite possible DHam will be a career .625-.675 hitter, and with his sub defense, his MLB career might be very short. I get that. However, he has hit pretty well in the minors (.801 in AAA '23) and is an excellent baserunner and base stealer. He also has some pop in his bat, which might help him stick around, longer.

Best Sox Pitching Staffs since 2016 by the numbers: ERA 3.43 2024 3.73 2017 3.75 2018 4.00 2016 4.27 2021 xFIP 3.62 2024 3.91 2017 3.92 2018 4.07 2021 4.11 2022 ERA- 82 2017 83 2024 84 2018 91 2016 93 2021 97 2019 SIERA 3.55 2024 3.72 2018 3.77 2017 3.98 2022 4.00 2021 Rotation Only ERA- 81 2024 85 2018 89 2017 96 2016 98 2021 (All of the .500+ seasons since 2014)

The 2019 Rotation (look at the names!) 3.81 ERod 34 GS 4.28 Price 22 4.40 Sale 25 5.52 Porcello 32 5.99 Eovaldi 12 5.43 Velazquez 8 6.02 Johnson 7 6.20 Cashner 6 7.36 Chacin 5 2018 WS Champs: 2.11 Sale 27 3.58 Price 30 3.82 ERod 23 4.17 Johnson 13 4.28 Porcello 33 3.33 Nate 11 6.08 Pom 11 3.18 Velazquez 8

Current Staff ERAs 1.91 Houck 3.47 Crawford 3.88 Pivetta 4.13 Criswell 4.78 Bello 20-40 IP 0.99 Bernardino 1.02 WHIP 2.14 Z Kelly 1.14 2.76 Slaten 0.98 2.83 Weissert 1.15 2.91 Jansen 1.20 3.33 Wink (AAA, now) 1.56 3.51 Booser 1.09 4.22 Martin (IL) 1.08 4.29 Anderson 1.15

We had a 7 game stretch in April between +2 and +4 over .500. We got to +2 on April 14th. We were +2 to +3 from April 20-25, then +2 to +4 from April 27-May 8th. From May 7 to today, we've never been more than +2 or -2 from .500 +2 three times (5/12, 5/14 & 5/22) -2 once (5/18) From May 8 to today, we have been very close to .500. You can't get much closer to .500 than this.

2024 Rookies fWAR Top 40 2.1 Yamo, Joey Ortiz, C Cowser 1.9 Imanaga 1.9 L Gil Top 70 Pitching/Top 140 Everyday 1.6 Abreu 1.4 M Busch & Jacob Young 1.3 G Stone 1.2 Ben Brown, Mason Miller, Jared Jones, Masyn Winn 1.1 J Slaten 1.0 D Hamilton, M Parker & Case Smith 0.9 Skenes in just 6 GS

The influx of good to great young players does not appear to have slowed, and with all the new foreign players on most of the leader boards, it's hard to think MLB is getting watered down. This year, alone, we have seen Imanaga, Yamo and a few others bringing serious game to MLB. The ALE has gotten worse, and there seems to be a lot of parity between the top 5 and worst 5 in MLB, but that does not mean MLB is worse or better than before. The middle 20 teams are currently within 10 games of each other. More amazingly, the worst of the middle teams are: 21. WSH 2019 WS CHamps 22. AZ was in WS, last fall 23. TBR .530+ winning % *6 wins) for six straight years (99 wins in '23) 24. HOU WS winner in '22 & reached ALCS 7 straight seasons! 25. NYM top spending team in MLB

He's a decent fielder, too, with a chance to get even better, despite turning 25, soon. 5 more years of control, at reasonable contractual costs is not something to think lightly about, under the current budget situation we have. I agree that Hamilton is just a bench guy, as of now, but his sample size is starting to get large enough, where I'm expecting him to hit well. Maybe pitchers will find a weak point, and he will not be able to adjust. His defense is not good, and that might be too kind on that. I also agree that Grissom has not earned the starting 2B job, and the way DHam is playing, maybe not even the back-up 2B/SS job, either. He needs to start proving himself. I'm not counting on Yoshida for anything, but I'm not at or near the DFA him point. If he can DH with Ref, and we can still find ways to play Ref, even vs RHPs, until he stops hitting them, fine. I do think we are strong and deep in the OF, especially if Anthony comes through, so if we need to trade to upgrade our rotation or middle IF, or even a RHB, trading an OF'er makes some sense. Ideally, we find a taker for Yoshida, even if we pay a hefty chunk of his deal. That gives Ref a a place to play and maybe give some rest to an OF'er or two, every now and then. For 2024, Ref and O'Neill could DH, but both are RHBs. 2025 OF LF: Duran, Refsnyder (Lugo) CF: Rafaela, Duran, Anthony RF: Abreu, Refsnyder, Anthony Would the OF look all that bad, if we traded any one of these guys?

DHam's sample size is starting to get large enough to not ignore. He's almost even with Refsnyder in PAs. He's 6th on the team in OPS, unless you count Casas. Updated OPS leaders: .928 Devers .871 Refsnyder .857 Casas .852 O'Neill .840 Wong .829 Abreu .820 DHam .794 Duran .726 Yoshida .651 Romy .641 Smith .620 Westbrook .607 Rafaela .603 McGuire .439 Dalbec .367 Grissom

Some thought after 2014 and 2015, we hit rock bottom, and that's why DD was hired. We won 149 games, those two years. We've won 156, the last 2 years, which is pretty close, and in both sets of 2 years, we finished last. I'm not sure where I'm going with this, but this feels like the bottom. I think we'll start to see better records, soon, whether spending picks up or not, so I doubt you get your wish.

Famous last words, but maybe the extend them both. We may see HOU dump Verlander and maybe even Bregman.

Our starting SS (Story) and 2Bman (Grissom) are on the IL. Westbrook has started 2 games, this year and once since June 4th.

Then why are they shopping Vlad and Bichette?

.348 OBP before tonight. .863 OPS

On Base Sentage

We should have never doubted the power of .500 with this team!

Bobby Dee time!

This team does have a scrappiness quality to it. I called it heart and soul earlier, this year, and I’m not sure that’s the right words for it, but I will say, there have been many enjoyable things to watch with this team. I know, I know, it’s all due to low expectations, and some think we shout pout and cry and boycott our beloved Sox in hopes of waking up a billionaire and holding him ransom. Chuckle, chuckle. Like that’s gonna work.

DHam might end up redeeming the JBJ trade, at this rate!

Most 4-5s are between 4.50 and 5.75

Yup. The signings are as bad as the budget cuts

He has looked pretty good on O.