moonslav59

The Price deal might have been a failure, but it did lead to a ring in 2018. Maybe we win without him- maybe not. I'm not saying it was a good deal, but the time did come after we spent.

Lopez pitched 5 seasons with MIA before being traded with 2 years remaining, which is more than the 1.5 you set. Cease pitched 5 seasons with the CWS and was traded with 2 years remaining. It's not as rare as it might seem. There are also many examples of trading for an established and somewhat young SP'er and extending them- sometimes at a little less than FA market money, which might someday appeal to JH & Co. The Sox have a long history of trading for an ace and extending them. Every ring we have this century was shortly after acquiring an ace-type pitcher or two. It could happen, again, but I am not going to predict or expect it.

Big sweep. Group effort.

Luis Tiant was the greatest baserunner the Sox have ever had.

I love speed, but oppo hits and HRs with men on base is pretty damn good, too!

Lopez had 2 full seasons on arbs. Cease had 2 seasons left Castillo had 1.3 seasons left. It does happen, as do extensions. We traded for Pedro & extended. Schilling and extended. Beckett and extended. Sale & extended. Porcello & extended. Nate & extended.

Even our outs look nice.

Ref is killing RH'ers, this year. He's earned a FT job. (DH and LF when Rafaela plays SS)

How about Luis Castillo, Pablo Lopez, Dylan Cease and Burnes?

They can't even all get together and agree on the same lies.

We paid $17M and got a bum in Grissom, so what would be expected by paying the full contract?

Within 8 years or so, we also got Sale, ERod, Nate, Kimbrell & Porcello by trade. And, lessers like Kelly, Ottavino, Pom, Wright & Hembree.

The FO said a lot of things.

The best rotation ERA- since at least 1967: 64 BOS 2024 and PHI 2024 (in progress) 70 LAD 2022 71 CHC '16, CLE '20 72 LAD '21 73 ATL '98, LAD '19, CIN '20, ATL '97 SOX Best 2024 (64) 2002 (77) Pedro 2.26, Lowe 2.58, Wake 2.81, Burkett 4.53, Castillo 5.07, Fossum 3.46 1990 (81) Clemens 1.93, Boddicker 3.36, 3.38 Bolton, 3.97 Kiecker, 4.00 Harris 1999 (82) Pedro 2.07, Saberhagen 2.95, 4.12 Rapp, Rose 4.87, Portugal 5.51 1993 (84) Sele 2.74, 3.26 Darwin, 3.14 Viola, 4.46 Clemens, Dopson 4.97, Quantrill 3.91 2018 (85) Sale 2.11, Price 3.58, ERod 3.82, Nate 3.33, Porcello 4.28, Johnson 4.17 1986 (86) Clemens 2.48, Hurst 2.99, 3.78 Boyd, 3.80 Seaver, Nipper 5.38 1978 (87) Eckersley 2.99, Tiant 3.31, Lee 3.46, Wright 3.57, Torrez 3.96 (notin has a good point) 1992 (88) 2017, 1979, 2008 (89) 1973, 2000, 2007 (90) 2004, 1995 (91) 2013, 1998, 1994 (92) I like the 2002 and 1986 rotations, a lot. To me, 2018 was the best. The 2004 one was great, but Wake was at 4.87 that year, and Lowe was at 5.42. Best fWAR rotations: 1990 (20.6) 2002 (19.9) 1999 (19.7) 2004 (18.2) 1992 (18.1) 2003 (17.7)

Nothing but players...LOL.

There was a good chance Grissom would have more value in 2024 than Sale. While I do think the trade was more about 5 years tan 2024, there was a significant chance Grissom would out fWAR Sale in '24... maybe even 50-50.

Grissom is your McGuire for 2024.

There was also concern that even if he was able to stay healthy for a full season, how close could he come to the great Sale of 2018 and before? He had 25 starts in 2019 and 20 in 2023. Between, he had 11 in 3 total seasons. That's 56 in 5 seasons, or about 11 per season. 2019-2023: 4.16 ERA (114 ERA+) 3.56 FIP/1.14 WHIP This is pretty good, but not close to vintage Sale. 2010-2018: 2.89 ERA (144 ERA+) 2.86 FIP/1.03 WHIP Even better from 2014-2018: 2.89 (145 ERA+) 2.69/0.99 Surely, I'd take the 2019-2023 Sale for 28-33 starts in 2024, if I knew he'd have given us even that. I'm not sure I'd take that over the promise of 5 years of Grissom, but it was a close call, even assuming he'd go 28-33 starts. The fact that he is doing great, and Grissom is sucking doesn't change the ideas of the past winter. It was a tough trade to make. I disliked it, at first. I like it less now, than I did on opening day, but this deal's grade is still in the solid "incomplete" category.

That is the issue, not that no teams are offering them in trade. We had several chances to make better offers, and we have a strong enough farm to propose top offers.

Here is why I mention it: before the trade, most of the talk about Sale was about the burden his extension has been on our restricted budget, and how we could not count on him for anywhere near a full season of pitching. There were also doubts about what level of performance we might get from the aging SP'er, even if he was able to give us 28-33 starts. I'm not saying anyone is re-writing history, by now complaining about trading him away, but I do think the rosy view of the 2024 Sale is a lot different from what it has been for the last 3-4 years. I get that this is no revisionist posting, as many disliked the trade at the time. I did, too, initially. I do think there was obvious merit to the trade, as were looking down the road, perhaps beyond 2024, and Sale was not in our long term plans. I bet a poll would have shown most posters would have predicted we would not take the 2025 Sale option, had we done one, last winter. Now, the view has changes, for obvious reasons. Our team had the 30th fWAR at 2B from 2022 to 2023. There were strong reasons to make this trade, beyond just fattening JH's wallet.

Weren't you the one implying Criswell was lucky due to his much higher FIP than ERA? Yes, we all know some of our SP'ers have been much luckier than others, when it comes to W-Ls and team W-Ls. That tends to even out over the long run, but not always over a season.

I hadn't read that. Hopefully, he joins the program. I liked seeing he had no BBs, last night.

The team is now 6-1 in Criswell starts. His ERA remains below 3.00, despite some metrics saying he may be getting lucky. The run support and better pen, when he starts has been lucky, but this guy is getting the job done. Our staff has a 33% GS rate, which is below the 39% league average, but I'm pretty sure we have more nearmisses than almost anyone else. Some say the 3ER in 6IP choice of stats is flawed, and it does seem like a 4.50 ERA is not "quality,"but I feel like going 5 IP allowing 2 ERs is more "quality," especially these days. Hell, 4 IP w 1 ER allowed is better, too. Using this as a criteria, here are the Sox staff numbers: 4 IP 0-1 ERs 5 IP 0-2 ERs 7 IP 0-3 ERS 9 IP 0-4 ERS QS/GS Traditional/ Pitcher/ Modified QS 8/10 Houck 8/10 (add a 5.1, 1ER, subtract 6IP, 3 ER) 5/10 Crawford 8/10 (subtracting one 6IP, 3ER) 2/5 Pivetta 4/5 1/7 Bello 5/7 0/4 Whitlock 4/4 0/7 Criswell 5/7 (one game was 4 IP, 2 ER) You may disagree with my formula, and that's fine, but it's pretty amazing that these 6 SP'ers have these many modified QSs: 34/43 or 79%! If you count the 2 actual QS (6 IP/ 3ER) I took away, we'd be at 36/43 or 84% of our starts have been quality or good starts. Some of the remaining starts were not all that bad, too.

That was my point, when I said nobody was talking a further extension of Sale. Many were still yapping about the failure of the last one.

This year's injury was about as freakish as a bike accident, and it did happen as a result of lack of hustle and grit. I don't know what to think about Story. His book with the Sox is still full of blank pages. I'm not sure what to think about Whitlock, Gio and Hendriks, either. It's like the Yankee injury bug has mutated.