moonslav59

Yes. Unless, we find a middle infielder, but maybe Story fills that role. As everyone knows, I'm big on L-R splits and platoons, but we have a lot of reverse splits going on with this team. We do look pretty bad vs LHPs. 2024 splits: .717 v RHPs (.411 SLG w 38 HRs in 1237 PAs)) .698 v LHPs (.362 SLG w just 7 HRs in 443 PAs) More remarkable: .744 when a RHP starts .623 when a LHP starts. I think we will put our hopes on Rafaela, Story and Grissom to improve on these splits for 2025. Ref has a very surprising reverse split, this year: .726 v L 1.139 v R (leads team, and his 37 PAs is 6th on the team)

I have not given up, either, and I expected about a .500 team for 2024. Before the year started, I mentioned how we had so many "what if" players, and how that might not be as bad as it looked, because we did not need all of them to come true, at the same time. Obviously, a few things not only did not go right, but they went into the toilet with season ending injuries to Gio and Story and a near season ending injury to Casas. Those were 3 of the 3 biggest what ifs to start the winter/spring hopes list. Others have struggled out of the gate in one or more areas (O and/or D.) As much as losing Gio, Pivetta, Whitlock and a few other pitchers, here and there, our staff has almost all been good to great "what ifs." Our catchers have come through in mighty fashion. Devers looks a little better on D and is over .900, but needs more timely hits. Our OF has been spectacular, especially Abreu, Duran, O'Neill and Refsnyder. Big misses at 1B, 2B and SS have hurt us, and one could imagine 2B and SS being better over the next 3/4ths of the season, but maybe some standout player(s) take a dip to counter that. Overall, I'm liking what our future looks like, more now than last year or up to March/April. To me, that makes watching losses, this year, a little easier to handle. Plus, there are some exciting younger players to watch, this season.

We expected losing. Accepting it as what it is, is harder, but that seems to be happening, too- to varying degrees with each of us.

We'd likely try to find the next Renfroe/Duvall/O'Neill over paying an OF'er over $10M, let alone a QO. More likely, we just roll the dice with what we have coming back: LF: Duran, Refsnyder, Yoshida CF: Rafaela, Duran (Anthony) RF: Abreu (Anthony) If Anthony comes through, we can even handle an injury or two. As well as our staff is doing, now, I'd still invest in pitching and maybe middle infield, again.

Yes, Kike's first deal was for 2 years, and JBJ had an option with a huge buy out for year 2. My bad. Pillar did not stay for all of 2020.

I guess Story would get an F, because he is not coming back- same with Gio.

.680 OPS after 277 MLB PAs

'24 O'Neill (jury still out) '23 Duvall '22 JBJ (BUST) '21 Kike & Renfroe '20 Pillar

44 games and right at .500. That's about what many of us expected for the season, but how we got here was a little surprising- a lot in some cases. 4 Game Report Card: A+ The rotation (2.62 ERA, 1.07 WHIP and a .623 OPS Against) Wong (Only O'Neill and Devers have more PAs and a better OPS than his .900 line.) A O'Neill and Refsnyder (would be A+ had they not been hurt. .964 Ref and .924 O'Neill) Duran (He has had a nice all around start to '24. Good D, 21 XGHs, 9 SBs and a decent .784 OPS) A- The pen (.620 OPS Against is actually better than our rotation! 1.17 WHIP is not bad) Devers (.902 OPS and better D maybe should place him at A, but untimely hitting & key errors have hurt.) Abreu (His D has looked better than I expected and the .830 OPS is solid.) B+ (Big gap between A- and C) B None B- McGuire (His O has dipped, of late (.663 OPS,) but his defense and staff-handling has been superb.) C+ None C Rafaela (Tough to grade this highly with a .595 OPS and so many errors, but he has made a lot of plays nobody else makes, and he leads the team in RBI.) C- D+ Base running (due to several costly blunders) D Our defense (better than the F of 2023) D- Cooper (He could easily be an F with his .584 OPS, but when you compare him to Smith & Dalbec...) F Henry (no explanation needed) D Smith (.450) and Dalbec (.377) have really hurt the team over 100 PAs. DHam (.563,) Valdez (.452,) and Reyes (.451) have hurt as much as our 1Bmen, and they have 216 PAs! INC Casas (.857 was a good start, and his D looked better, but missing 2-3+ months will hurt like HELL!) Yoshida (.736 was okay, but all those ground outs to 2B are getting annoying.) Grissom (starting off like an F, despite decent defense in his SSS) Romy (He has looked good on D and has some key hits in his short time on the field.) Breslow (too early to tell but starting out like an A to A-) Cora (too early to tell but has looked decent, B+ to Pitcher score card: (I'm factoring in what was expected to a certain degree) with OPS Against listed A+ Houck .542 Crawford .579 Bernardino .400 A Slaten .476 A- B+ Weissert .659 B Criswell .671 (Maybe an A- based on expectations and a B- without) B- Bello .658 (He did better in the second half, last year) Booser .594 Anderson .604 C+ Jansen .542 OPS Against is awesome but too many let downs (too many BBs) C Martin .664 (Turning things around, after a bad start to year) C- Winckowski (Could be INC or D+) D+ D D- F Joely Campbell (could be INC) Jacques INC Pivetta .763 Whitlock .616 Kelly .470 Uwasawa .464

He has looked weak and off balance. Maybe this is sort of his ST'ing, but 41 PAs is a pretty small sample size. He does need to start showing something, at some point, soon. He has looked better on D than most of what we've seen over the past 2-3 years.

Most likely, yes. We've done okay with one year OF'ers: O'Neill, Duvall, Renfroe...

We are losing too many winnable games like this one. We need to turn it around quickly.

More Romy magic?

Have fun! I love watching the Sox at away parks.

It was in 2023, too.

I think trading JD would have meant paying part of his deal. Having Schwarber would certainly have been nice, but I still think spending on good pitching is the way I would do some what if hindsight ideas.

How many times are these guys tested? I'm not saying I know he's been clean his whole life, but who knows for sure, otherwise?

O'Neill sitting. No Wong at DH.

You've been waiting a while for him to have a 10 day slump.

Yes, almost anyone would be better than Franchy/Arroyo at 1B for that long stretch. It seemed obvious in '22, we needed to shift the plan, but sometimes giving a struggling player a longer look works... like Bobby D was given in '21. In 2021, our "problem" was not 1B in 2021, especially after mid May. We stuck with Dalbec and it worked. The plan in '22 did not. Bobby D was on a pretty long warm to hot streak in 2021, which was maybe one reason we stuck with him for so long in '22: .867 May 13 to end of season .916 June 10 to end of season .988 July 21 to end of season 1.087 after August 5th It's easy to think all choices that fail were bad choices. It is not really that simple.

We repeatedly asked who should have been signed for $10M, instead, and go nothing, as usual.

Criswell goes tonight, as we try to split with the Rays. No O'Neill. Cooper and Smith both playing, instead of Wong at DH. Refsnyder starting against a RH'er, as he has done very well, so far, this year vs them.

Don't forget the same person who complain when strength of schedule is mentioned, then poo-poo our record due to playing an easy schedule to start the season.

I did not like the Gio signing, but in terms of durability, yes. He seemed like as durable as you can get.

Yes, a healthy balance of both is best, but the quantity thing hasn't worked very well for over a decade. (One could argue we lacked quantity, too, unless you're talking quantity of mediocrity or worse.)