moonslav59

I know Schwarber was not a May or June addition, but many complained about forcing him to play 1B, at first. You just can't win.

There is a reason they cost just a dime, each. Look, I think Bloom should have tried something. I forget the guy, but some FA 1Bman signed in June, that year, once Casas went on the IL. He should have tried, and he probably made a bunch of calls, but the reality is, these are the usual results of trades in May and June: scraps.

Some WSP'er numbers: QS% 78 Houck (team 4-5 in his starts) 56 Crawford (team 3-6 in his starts) (38% league avg) 25 Pivetta (2-2 in his 4 starts) 17 Bello (5-1 in his starts) 0 all the rest, including openers If you modify the QS start to count 5 IP and 2 ER or 4 IP w 1 ER allowed, you get these numbers: QS/GS 8/9 Houck (one miss was 4ER in 5.2 IP- his 12 hit game) 7/8 Crawford (one miss was 4 ER in 6IP 5/6 Bello (one miss was 4 ER in 5 IP) 4/5 Criswell (team is 5-0 in his starts. His only miss was 2 ER in 4 IP) 3/4 Pivetta (one miss was 5ER in 4 IP) 3/4 Whitlock (1-3 in his starts. His only miss was 2 ER in 4 IP) Total: 30 out of 36 GS! (83.3%) All of these 6 SP'ers only had one start where they did not meet my modified criteria.

Houck's run support: 9 win 12 win 0 loss 2 win 1 loss 5 win (no decision) 5 win 2 loss 1 loss 3 loss Like the season as a whole, 21 runs were scored in those firsat 2 starts. 7 were scored in his 5 losses. (7 were scored in the team's other 2 wins.)

Agreed. Ref has been hitting RHPs, well. He should play FT, at least until he shows he should go back to platooning.

Even team record in GSd is deceiving

So much ch for the idea that GMs can find capable 1Bmen in May.

I feel the same.

And the infield is in or the 1Bman is holding the runner, sometimes

Indeed! He should have been on an IV. Where were the team docs? If he quickly gained back 10-12 of the 14 lost, it was obviously water.

Our OPS Against on the season is .622, and we've actually done better the last 4 weeks (.601). Last 28 Days: .386 Jansen .387 Bernardino .431 Kelly .463 Bello .464 Uwasawa .465 Houck .509 Weissert .599 Criswell .615 Martin .624 Slaten .646 Anderson .664 Winckowski .674 Booser .712 Crawford 1.018 Pivetta

Seems pretty random, to me. Players get hot and cold at any time or moment. Even the hitters we remember as being great "in the clutch," often have very similar numbers in clutch situations vs non clutch situations. Of course some do better and worse, but you'd expect that over a random sort among mostly small or smaller sample sizes. 2024 MLB OPS: .697 overall .727 with men on base .716 High Leverage It's been higher with men on base every year back to 2021, the last year I looked. Sox hitters never got the memo.

Back when I was in shape and playing sports day and night, I once lost 9 pounds from wake-up to after a Basketball game that night. (I played in a racquetball that afternoon.) I sweat a lot.

While recent trends and current numbers are not a reliable predictor of things to come, I do wonder if it makes sense to keep Duran leading off. OBP Leaders for 2024: .448 Refsnyder .387 Devers .381 O'Neill .375 Wong .373 Abreu .350 Romy G .348 Yoshida .342 McGuire .325 Duran .267 Cooper .238 Rafaela .206 Smith .135 Grissom I'm thinking Wong, but maybe some sort of platoon lead-off hitter might make more sense. Some batter seem to be having reverse splits over the first quarter of the season. Here are some meaningful OBPs of possible lead-off hitters: 2024 vs RHPs .469 Refsnyder (not his usual split) .396 Abreu (maybe not an ideal lead-off option) .344 Wong (R v R) .304 Duran 2024 vs LHP .425 Wong .423 Refsnyder .375 Duran (reverse split, this year) Maybe go with Wong first. (He might not be bad as the numbr 2 guy, either.)

Probably mostly due to dehydration.

His 5th inning, career, is worse, but yes. Good one.

Which of his 5 pitches is his worst? Which puts the most strain on his arm?

The report may be untrue, but... Red Sox second baseman Vaughn Grissom is trying to regain weight after losing 14 pounds while battling for the flu last week. “His breakfast today was very unhealthy,” Red Sox Manager Alex Cora said on Sunday after Boston's 9-2 win over the Twins

Indeed, and he far from a rookie. He may be one of those "late bloomers," as his AA and AAA numbers were way better than his single A and college numbers.

Good points, Max. Our O has been about average, but on timely hitting, we have been atrocious. I'm one who believes clutch hitting is not a repeatable skill set, so I'm hoping we regress to the mean. Just being average at that would be a major improvement. (We are sub .600 in high leverage and Late & Close ABs.)

I think we all agree on that, and I welcome differing views, especially yours. I do think it is a good sign that a few of our top pitching prospects are Breslow additions, in such a sort time at the helm.

(corrected post) Agreed, and it's not like Houck has been a longtime ace or even a #2 or #3. It seems like a lot of really good pitchers were taken in lower rounds by teams that do much better than we do with those types of picks. Hopefully, with some new blood the organization, we will start hitting on more pitching picks than we have done, in the past 10-15 years. That being said, I kinda like the foundation of young ML pitchers we have, right now, but we are still an ace and maybe another very good pitcher away from having a dependable solid staff. We lose Pivetta, Jansen and Martin, this winter. Pivetta has 200 more IP than any other Sox pitcher, since 2021, and has been pretty solid for 3+ years. Jansen is the best closer we've had since Kimbrel. Martin had the best set-up man season in 2023 that we've had in a very long time. We may have Giolito and Hendriks for 2025, but we will need more. The current foundation for 2025 and some for beyond: SP: Houck, Crawford, Bello, Giolito, Criswell, Fitts (Gambrell, Murphy, Walter, Wikelman) Pen: Whitlock, Hendriks, Slaten, Bernardino, Weissert, Winckowski, Fulmer, Campbell, Kelly, Mata (Booser, Uwasawa, Guerrero, Zeferjahn...)

Yes, my bad on Whitlock. I'd like to see us lock up Pivetta, if we think his recent injury is not a major concern.

We have Houck on the mound, tonight. Game 3 of the 4 game series. The Sox need to give tanner better support, in this game. Despite his 2.24 ERA and 3.33 FIP, the team is just 4-4 in his 8 starts. (3 losses were in games he was awarded a Quality Start.) Let's hope Romy's "timely hit" was a sign of the team improving in that area. These numbers are one main reason we are still hanging around .500: Team OPS .542 High Leverage (.525 Late & Close) .691 Medium Leverage .789 Low leverage Those bucking the trend on high leverage: .961 Duran .929 Refsnyder .918 O'Neill All the rest are at .701 (McGuire) or less than .630! Late & Close: .956 O'Neill .875 Refsnyder .856 Devers All the rest are below Yoshida at .690 or .625!

This whole Yorke pick talk and his value pales compared to the T Ball pick. Teams miss on draftees, all the time, and maybe Yorke may come back and surprise us all. We are talking draft strategy and no one pick should prove or disprove a strategy's effectiveness. I fully understand the desire to improve our farm's pitching, but I firmly believe taking a pitcher, just because he's a pitcher, over someone we think is clearly better is not a good strategy. On top of that, until we prove we can pick good pitchers, I'm not sure why we'd want to keep banging our head against the wall with bad pitchers being drafted, over and over. You want more guys like this (not that all are doomed to failure)? 115 Duffy '23 99 Rogers '22 105 E R-C '21 118 Wu-Yelland '20 107 Zeferjahn '19 100 Feltman '18 24 Houck '17 12 Groome '16, 88 S Anderson '16 171 Lakins '15 33 Kopech '14 7 TBall '13 & 43 Stankiewicz '13 These are all our top pitchers taken in the last 11 seasons (first pitcher drafted and or top 100 pick) We are 1 for 4 in top pitchers drafted success. The one we got right, Houck, was the 3rd lowest pick of the 4, and the lowest of the first round picks.