moonslav59

No Devers No Casas No O'Neill No Story No Grissom No Gio No Pivetta No Whitlock Jansen & Martin not pitching nearly as well as 2023, and not needed, today. Yoshida out of the line-up. McGuire, with our 6th best OPS before the game started on the bench. This team is defying all the odds- bad Pirates team or not. The west coast trip was not against all bad teams. True, we have to beat the ALE teams, too, but this is really quite a start to 2024.

Even our pen games are getting the job done. I'm not sure how much longer we can keep this up, but our much-maligned bench has been carrying us quite a bit.

Good point. Keep playing him FT, even if it means sitting Yoshida vs LHPs. (Ref sits vs RHPs.)

Before today's game, only 21 batters in all of MLB have had more PAs and a higher OPS vs LHPs than Refsnyder, since 2022: The guy has to play vs LHPs. (LF or DH preferred.) Some notable vs LHPs with 200+ PAs since 2022: 1.055 Wm Contreras 1.037 Goldschmidt 1.035 Betts 10. JD Martinez .962 21. Bogey .891 23. Refsnyder .885 101. Devers .778 189. Verdugo .660 Casas .815 in 146 PAs Story .778 in 142 Yoshi .735 in 162 Dalbec .714 in 146 Duran .679 in 120 (.805 since 2023 in 78 PAs) Wong .546 in 144

It sure looks that way. 1. On a team that struggles vs LHPs, we need to keep Refsnyder starting every game vs lefties, even when O'Neill comes back. 2. Duran has earned FT status and is doing great v LHPs. 3. O'Neill deserves to play FT, when he returns. 4. Abreu needs to play everyday vs RHPs. As much as Rafaela might be our best defensive OF'er, it makes sense to play him at SS and let Reyes play back-up. Oh, and b y the way, Rafaela is likely our best defensive SS not on the IL and on the current 40. No brainer, for now.

No doubt, but that was not the position I was responding to, and the statement was "very bad." If you think 78 wins is "very bad," then we disagree. I'd say 78-84 is just plain bad. 2020 (.400) 2012 (.426) 2014 (.438) were "very" bad. Just my opinion. Certainly the 3 seasons with 78 wins were disappointing and bad, but they weren't awful. Cherry-picking winning %'s to create and either or situation, I can come up with this: 12 seasons (not counting 2024) 5 seasons at .568+ (92+ wins) 1 season between .482 and .567 6 seasons below .482 In this light, the statement made can be viewed as correct, but I'd say "bad" not "very bad."

Depends what you call "very bad." 2 seasons over .581 (actually over .598 in 2013 & 2018) 4 seasons .521-.580 4 seasons .480-.520 3 seasons below .479 .400 in 2020 (60 gm season) .426 in 2012 .438 in 2014 13 seasons: 2 great 3 very good (.568 to .574 or 92-93 win seasons) 5 not real bad (.481 or 78 wins) to not real good (.519 or 84 wins) 3 really bad

Abreu up to .824!

If we could improve on these numbers, it would help: 10 HRs with men on base (344 PAs) and 8 of these 10 w just 1 man on 19 HRs with bases empty (493 PAs)

Giving Abreu some playing time sure seems to have worked out well.

We know this team will it some rough patches, going forward. Some might be long, and we may not recover from it or them. Our roster has too many holes and too many injuries to sustain good play, as it stands, right now. We need to get some players back, but we also need a lot of other things to go right- like our SP'ers not going through long periods of struggle. We need our offense to improve and be more consistent. The homers are nice, but we need men on base, better baserunning, and to somehow improve our defense. Maybe Grissom can improve our 2B D. Maybe we pick up a SS who knows how to field. Maybe, our corner IF has a good year on D. (Devers has before.) This is a long season. To me, there is more reason to be optimistic than there was in the winter, but hopes were so low, then, that might not mean all that much. I just think being 12-10 with so many key players out, gives hope that when many return, things can stay the same (88 win pace) or even improve.

The Sox are tied for 4th and last place at 12-10. That record would lead the NL West and AL West. (I know some hate to hear certain facts.) Yes, we have to play better than most teams to compete in the division we are in. That is a fact, too. 15-6 CLE 14-7 NYY 13-7 BAL 13-8 KCR 12-9 TOR 12-10 BOS Tied for 6th best out of 15 12-10 TBR 11-10 DET 11-11 TEX 10-10 SEA MLB We are tied for 12th out of 30 teams in winning %, but tied for 11th with Cincy at 11-9 in GB leaders.

Not compared to 2019. Yes, compared to 3-4 years ago, for sure. Was BAL & TOR as good in 2019 as 2024? Do you disagree?

The Stros are really struggling. This hole might get too deep to come out of.

This was a guy Bloom wanted, badly! Where did all the Bloom kiss asses go?

Because the Dodgers have had and still have a better supporting cast. The comp was between Betts and Devers. There were a few years between the possible Betts extension and the when the Devers extension kicked in. In those years, our budgets were lower, and we would not have "filled in" around Betts, had we kept him and let Devers walk, after his control years were up, which is this year. 2020 2021 2022 2023 Now, imagine Betts on the '24 team without Devers. Yes, we'd be better, but still not a contender, and Betts would have had a better team around him in LA, every year, except maybe 2021.

I was talking about Houck, Crawford and Whitlock, and to some extent Bello, who have never pitched 28+ starts in MLB. Also, if and Whitlock returns and gives us over 25 or 26 starts for 2024, I will feel better about his "durability" than I did in March. This season was not about checking our Gio and Pivetta's "durability." Their loss was somewhat unexpected.

I agree, many of our errors are caused by just plain bad defenders, but many are also caused by mental blunders and a seemingly lack of focus and concentration. I'm not just talking about plays that are called errors, either. I know it can't be proven, what is going on in a player's mind before a ball is hit or thrown to him, so it's all speculation, on my part, but these guys seem to have their heads up their asses. Even some of our "good defensive players" have blundered plays. For example, Rafaela has 3 OF errors. We throw to the wrong base. We double hitch, before throwing. We fail to get our body and feet in the right position to make a play, and much more along these lines. Yes, bad defenders don't do these things well, but these mistakes seem more mental than physical, because we do see them do the plays right, sometimes, so they do know how to do it correctly. They just don't, too often, and I chalk much of it- not all or maybe not even half- to a lack of concentration and preparedness.

Singing to the choir!

That's not the point he made. He didn't say the Sox would be worse. He said the supporting cast around Betts would not be like it was in 2018. That's true for Devers, now, it was true for Boegy, JD, Nate & Sale from 2020 to their last day here, and it would have been for Betts, too.

It seems to be way more prevalent with the Sox. Does this fact jolt the bejesus out of you? Red Sox: 57 Earned Runs Allowed 25 Unearned Runs Allowed Royals 56 Earned Runs Allowed 0 Unearned Runs Allowed Also, CLE 62 and 5, SEA 74 & 3, NYY 62 & 11 and MIL 65 & 9. Just having average focus might have us at 14-8, right now.

As much as our subs and depth has been highly criticized, and rightfully so, it's pretty incredible this team is 12-10 with... 3 of 5 SP'ers our (one all year): Gio, Pivetta and Whitlock Our three best RP'ers struggling out of the gate: Jansen, Wink & Martin 5 of our starting 9 everyday players hurt: Story, Grissom (hasn't played an inning,) O'Neill, Devers and now Casas. These aren't just 5 of 9, they are our best 5 of 9, unless you count Duran as #4 or 5. The next best 4 were believed to be: LF .749 Duran DH .700 Yoshida C .922 Wong/.722 McGuire 3rd OF .483 Rafaela/.770 Abreu (Not exactly carrying the team on their backs.) One could easily argue we are 12-10 on smoke and mirrors. One could argue the rotation can not sustain this pace, especially with Nick and Garrett out. One could argue Gio and Story aren't walking through the door, this summer, Hendriks will likely be too little, too late, and others who are injured may not come back, fully to form. I get the fact that the odds are still long, but despite all the injuries, the hope of returning players makes me feel better about 2024 than I did all winter long. (Which might not be saying much, since I was as down as anyone up until opening day.)

This hope is based on some evidence of talent. We all knew our starters had skill, but no history of full seasons of success. That is still the case, but the chances look better, now, than in March. We have not seen the bats do all that much, except homer a lot. We are 12-10 with half our everyday players hurt, Jansen & Martin not looking great and Gio, Pivetta and Whitlock out. There is reason for hope.

I've done it here in HOU, but lately I try to do game 1 and 3.

Makes sense.