moonslav59

One game never tells the whole story. Never. If you think we are as mismanaged as the CWS, we are farther apart than I originally thought. We've made a ton of mistakes, no doubt- from top to bottom. I'm going to give this new management team a chance to show, if they can be good, bad or in between- just like I have all our GMs on day one. Of course, if JH never opens his wallet, again, it might not matter how good Brez & Co. are, but that is the great unknown. We did just see a $313M contract kick in, this year. We did just see the largest salary given to a pitcher (Gio) since Sale. This is the third time our player payroll has dipped 2 years in a row under JH ('04>'06 and '07>'09 were the others.) It happened twice in his first decade and once in the most recent decade ('22>'24) 2014 was our lowest end of year payroll since 2009 (cots.) Since then, our end of year payroll has gone... up up down '17 (-$11M) up down '19 (-$2M) up up down '23 (-14M) down '24 (est about $11M as we stand, now) I'm not defending JH or predicting future spending, but anyone who firmly believes this is an entrenched pattern has no evidence to support that position, just as there is no evidence to prove he will spend bigly again, anytime soon or ever again. Nobody knows. The optimist in me says he will see (maybe in '25 or '26) that the core/foundation has improved to a place where we have a significant window of opportunity, and will open his wallet, even if just briefly or maybe without any super mega deals, to help push us over the top and to possible glory. The pessimist says don't ever count on JH to spend heavily, again, especially on pitching. The realist say, we can't possibly know what JH will do.

Nothing surprised me. The only thing that raised aqn eyebrow was the 1 in 20 and 30 comment.

Easy, in hindsight. He could have also signed Stroman, Flaherty, Imanaga or Seth Lugo, instead of Gio. I was not a big fan of Gio, but he did look like a better gamble (and more expensive) than the Kluber, Richards, Perez I, Perez II, Wacah and Hill gambles.

I guy mof his stature should know how to talk.

Talk about a mismanaged team...

I thought of that, too, but then throwin in the 20:1 made me think he felt even 30:1 was for real "odds."

I did, but thought more likely Sept '25 at the earliest. No issue with thinking 2025.

It's not even 1 in 100. These guys really overestimate how good the current team is. I get the talk about fans not valuing the future, but 20 to 30 to 1 is way off base.

Assuming no roster additions and the loss of Pivetta, Jansen, Martin, Anderson, O'Neill, Cooper & Smith, this might be the 2025 26 and 40 man roster: 26 SP: Houck, Gio, Bello, Crawford, Whitlock/Criswell/Fitts RP: Hendriks, Slaten, Bernardino, Weissert, Fulmer, Wink, 2 from Whit/Cris/Fitts C: Wong & McGuire (Teel?) 1B: Casas 2B: Grissom & DHam SS: Story & Romy (Mayer?) 3B: Devers LF: Duran (CF) CF: Rafaela (SS/2B) (Anthony?) RF: Abreu (CF/LF) (Anthony? DH: Yoshida & Refsnyder (LF/RF) The 40 (14 in the minors) SP: Perales, Wikelman, Bastardo (Rule 5) RP: I Campbell, Kelly, Booser, Guerrero (Rule 5) or (Mata/Uwasawa/Horn?) C: Teel (?not rule 5) or Jh. Garcia (Rule 5) or Heineman 1B/3B: Dalbec or Kavadas (Rule 5) IF: Mayer (not Rule 5) & Yorke (Rule 5) OF: Anthony (not Rule 5) & Castro and or Lugo (both Rule 5)

Yes, Whitlock showed he deserved a shot, too. 4 GS and 0-2 ERs allowed in all 4 1.96 ERA 3.30 FIP Pivetta, too. 2 GS before IL 11 IP and 1 ER (8hits, 1 BB, 13K) 0.82 ERA/2.23 FIP Crawford was sub 2.70 until start 9 1.75 ERA/2.81 FIP after start 7 0.42/2.15 after start 4. Bello was our least effective pitcher, but was considered our #1 going into day 1.

Great points. Speaking of age 22... Sox top prospects by ages: 18: Cespedes 6, Arias 21 19: Zanetello 8, Jo Garcia 18 20: Anthony 1, Bleis 5 (missed time), E R-C 16 21: Mayer 2, Perales 4, K Campbell 10, Castor 12, Paulino 14 22: Teel 3, Meidroth 11, Lugo 13, Wikelman 15, Yorke 17 23: Sandlin 9 24: Fitts 7 Looks like a pretty good mix. RED= ML Ready or should be by 2025.

They seem to not drop some guys as much as others, for some reason. Lugo had just one bad year after rising to #14. Guys like Castro, Paulino and Jordan seem to drop more slowly.

What 2 days can do to a player's numbers. Looking at last 7 days OPS, we have 10 players over .830, 8 over .950 and 7 over 1.010! 5 players are over 1.200!, including Westbrook with just 8 PAs. Last 28 Days 1.221 Valdez (22 PAs) 1.002 Devers .872 Duran .858 Ref .856 Abreu .844 DHam (WOW!) OPS Against, Last 28 days: .374 Bernardino (thanks Bloom) .475 Houck (amazing for a SP) .561 Pivetta (please, stay healthy) .623 Jansen (back on track) .661 Kelly & Booser .693 Anderson .706 Martin .733 Slaten .780 Bello .787 Crawford .802 Criswell .881 Weissert Last 2 games: 23 runs scored vs 2 Allowed 40 Hits 8 BB 7 2Bs 1 3B 6 HRs

He'd have taken Criswell's slot, for sure, but it's hard to know. They did start him 5th, so that makes it look like he was 5th on the list. Criswell's first start was our 15th game (Pivetta to IL,) so in theory, Houck might have missed 2 starts.

Indeed. This is not rocket science, and players make jumps and falls, often at unpredictable times in their development. It's expected to have some big misses. I think soxpropsects does a very good job with most of their rankings and projections. When you read the summations, they are often hyperconservative.

That was a stinker, and soxprospects.com missed on all of them. 17 pick Yorke: ranked 3rd in fall '21 and spring '22 (17th now) 89th Jordan: ranked 7th in fall of '21 & 10th spring '22 (19th now) 118th Wu-Yelland: 3 IP in '24 148th Drohan: ranked 6th in summer of '23 (gone from system)

They really liked Lugo, a while back, but then soured, perhaps too quickly. Maybe his massive fall in the rankings was a bigger WOW than this massive jump. They must have saw something to rank him #14 at the end of 2022. He's basically back to where they had him, before his stumble in '23 at AA. He did do pretty badly in 2023, so it's not like it was all undeserving, but 50th?

99 games to go, and we've seen about what many expected: too many holes to overcome, but quite a few bright spots, perhaps more than many expected. The emergence of Houck has been astounding. The big question is about sustainability and durability. Crawford has come down to earth, as his earlier work was not supported by some metrics. He still looks like a decent 3-4 SP'er, going forward. Criswell seems to be mostly smoke & mirrors, but who knows? Maybe he will be our next Pivetta- a decent 3-5 SP'er. Pivetta has looked fine, and it's too b ad his control ends, this winter. Our pen has really stepped up, especially with Martin not coming close to matching 2023, and Jansen struggling while still getting the job done. Hats off to Bernardino, Slaten and Weissert, most of all, but others have done well, most of the time. Bello has been a disappointment, but hopefully he finds a groove and pitches like a 2-3, the rest of the way. On, O & D... Devers is on his way to a career best season, while the league wide offense has taken a hit. His D has even improved over the last 30 or so games. Duran is proving 2023 was no fluke. Good to know. Abreu & Rafaela have done fine, in their first full years in the bigs. Refsnyder has blasted into space. Not sure he can keep this up, especially vs RHPs, but hell- ride the hot hand for all it's worth. Our catchers have met my highest expectations for 2024- even beyond them. The staff's improvement since the departure of Vaz has been noticeable. The Casas injury has hurt us badly. Dalbec sucked. The Cooper-DSmith combo has fallen way short of what we needed at 1B. His return is greatly needed. The middle IF has been atrocious- both on O and D. Romy, Valdez & DHam have been an improvement over Reyes, Short, Grissom and the earlier version of EValdez, but it is still a weak spot. Grissom might be our best hope for an in-season turn-around, but who is counting on that? Yoshida has been virtually and in reality- non existent. With Ref & O'Neill doing well, we don't need his return. Overall, I see more good players than bad, but not enough great players to bring glory to 2024.

I couldn't find the post you were responding to, but yes, those numbers match w Rafaela.

Sox Rankings by fangraphs: 2nd Pitching 9.5 fWAR (2nd xFIP, 3rd ERA-) 3rd SP 6.7/3rd RP 2.8 14th Offense +5.8 (9th in runs scored, 7th OPS, 12th wRC+) 19th Defense -11.7 (20th OAA, 11th DRS, 17th UZR/150) Everyday + Pitchers fWAR totals 23.8 PHI 11.5+12.3 22.8 LAD 15.5 +7.3 22.1 NYY 15.5 +6.6 20.1 BAL 12.3+7.8 17.8 MIL 13.2+4.6 17.0 BOS 7.5+9.5 16.9 KCR 9.5+7.4 16.8 SDP 10.2+ 6.4 15.9 ATL 8.9+7.0 15.2 CLE 9.2+6.0 14.5 ARI 10.1+4.4 13.8 MIN 8.7+5.1 12.4 SEA 4.9+7.5

Who is this about?

Agreed. I still have hopes in Bleis & Cespedes, but Perales has shined.

I think it is more about how unimpressive those he jumped over are.

Agreed, and the improvement DHam and Romy brought to the middle infield is evidence enough on how a stable MI is essential to winning.

Not only can they not enjoy the good parts of this team, they mock and criticize those who are enjoying some of the fun things we've seen among all the not so fun things.