moonslav59

Is it still too early for some to post the WC Standings? +8.0 BAL +0.5 MIN ---- KCR -1.0 BOS -5.5 TBR & TOR -6.5 TEX, HOU & DET It's the closest we've been since when? Week 2?

What about Dan D who handed over Nomar to Theo, who traded him for OCab, who netted us the draft pick Jacoby, who netted us the draft pick for Kopech, who was traded for Sale, who later netted us the fearsome Grissom?

lol!

Nice game. I watched it at a friends house, here in Portland, ME. I'm not sure how many people said the F word, tonight. Fun this... Fun that...

Only Ruth and the cheater Bonds has a high fWAR? Do you think they got that wrong?

All fans who criticise it no jack about it.

I guess the word”fun” is no longer banned. We all know this team will hit some more hard times, again, and the bay-sayers will come out of the word work. To me, there was a lot of fun going on, even when we were losing and playing near .500 ball. Hell, we are still near .500 ball, now. Certainly it’s more fun when we win more than we lose, but even in many of our losses, this team has shown heart and soul and mangy exciting moments. Let’s win one tonight!

Just wondering, what chance you think Grissom has to win a significant role on the 26- maybe not FT, but possible more GS at 2B than anyone else over the next 4 seasons. A lot depends on others like Story, Mayer and players doing well, recently, like DHam and Valdez. I get that, but still I'm curious how far I'm off from other's opinions. I say 33-40% chance he starts more games at 2B from 2025-2028 than anyone else.

Houck's ERA is up to 2.14, now, and our rotation numbers have come back down to earth, over the last few weeks, but this still looks rather decent, even beyond the lense of what was expected: 2.14 Houck 3.54 Crawford 3.88 Pivetta 4.15 Criswell 5.00 Bello A lot of talk has been about Criswell getting lucky, and in a few ways, he has, but a 1.21 WHIP is not bad, and we all know some of those hits should have been outs, with a better D. His .708 OPS Against is better than Crawford and Bello. His .299 BAbip is higher than all other Sox current SP'ers. OPS Against Last 28 Days .523 Houck .754 Criswell .765 Pivetta .776 Crawford .796 Bello The team is 3 games over .500 and 8-3 in Criswell's starts. Our rotation is still ranked T4 in fWAR. As bad as the rotation has done, recently, they are still ranked T8th in fWAR is their last 37 games (cutting our current season in half.) 40+ IP 1. Houck 3.3 fWAR T23. Crawford 1.8 (same if you count SP'ers with under 40 IP) T68. Criswell 0.9 (T73, if you count all SP) T87. Pivetta 0.6 (T104) T100. Bello 0.4 (T119 out of 206 SP'ers with 10+ IP) Guys like Criswell are the ones I expected Bloom to find. True, he got Pivetta, but one in 4 years was not very good.

You mean "field well." MLB 53 gms at SS 9 gms at 2B Minors 229 at SS 91 at 2B 8 in CF

Agreed, and since we look like a team trying to keep our budget low, getting more prime years out of our younger players over calling them up earlier and starting their "clocks," pre-prime might be a factor as well.

That could very well be the case, but I will add this... Lugo plays LF, now. He will not play 2B for Boston. Valdez and DHam have a lot of improvement to do on D and prove they can hit over the long haul. (So does Grissom.) Yorke was just recently dropped in the prospect rankings, but has been on a 2 week tear in AAA. He is not great on D, either. Romy seems like a career 26 man, utility guy. That leaves the oft-injured Story and highly-regarded prospect, Mayer. There is a good chance Grissom never wins a FT role among all these other options, but I'm not sure the chances are under 50-50. At worst, he might have a 33-40% chance at becoming our starting 2Bman over the next 4 years. (I wont argue, if someone says his chances are 20-25%. 15% might get a reply.)

By all accounts, he was a great guy. He very easily can be considered the best "all around" player of alltime. His defense was second to none, in his era. He won 10 straight GG and 11 total. He had enough speed to lead the league 4 times in row in SBs. He ended his career with 339 of them. He also led the league in triples, 3 times. With the bat, he rarely K'd more than 80 times a season and came pretty close to having more BBs (1468) than Ks (1526 in 12,545 PAs!) He led the league in BA, once and ended with a .301 BA and .384 OBP. Twice he led the league in OBP and 5 times in SLG. His power was enormous. He led the league in HRs 4 times during an era with plenty of HR hitters. He led the league in TBs, 3 times and OPS, 5 times, including once at age 34. He was ROY and then spent almost 2 years in the military. 2 MVPs (12 times a top 6 MVP vote getter) 24 AS He ended up with a .940 career OPS (155 OPS+) Papi retired at age 40 with a 141 OPS+ for some perspective. From age 39-42, he still had an OPS of .846 (136 OPS+) RIP Say Hey!

Interesting concept to cut salary and lessen the return we'd normally get. I'd say it might work, if we could be sure JH would spend the savings, but we can't say that. Probably, only the Dodgers might even consider something like this. Yoshida is owed about $56M, after 2024. At the deadline, it might be around $62M still owed. I don't think any contender would ever play Yoshida, but if they get some real talent with him, maybe taking on much of his contract might be an idea. A lot would depend on how much a team wants 1 or two from Jansen, Pivetta, Martin or O'Neill. I'm wondering how much we'd have to pay a team to take him off our hands for zero return. $47 of the $62M/3.3 yrs left? $52M? How about Wink, Yorke, Yoshida and half what we owe him ($31M) for a far away prospect?

MLB OPS Leaders 18 players are over .850 with 180 ABs and we have 3 of them: 1.115 Judge 1.024 Soto .996 Ohtani .994 Ozuna .986 Kwan .979 Tucker .951 G Henderson .930 Devers .916 Witt .912 O'Neill .906 Harper .905 Freeman .903 Profar .896 Correa .893 Betts .873 Y Alvarez .863 K Marte .850 C Wong

Don't look, now, but O'Neill is over .900 and Rafaela is nearing .690. We can't seem to gain much ground on the teams above us in the WC race. Currently, we are 11th in MLB. -2.0 from MIN, who is tied w TBR at 6-6 in the 9th. -2.5 from KCR (and ATL from the NL) -4.0 from #7 MIL and -4.5 from #6 SEA On the flipside, we are 2 up on #12 STL and 14 teams are between a .452 Win% and .500. (3.5 games seperate STL from #25 TEX & HOU!) Only 8 games seperate 18 teams in MLB #8 ATL and #25 TEX/HOU Only 7 games seperate us from #4 CLE and being 25th by ourselves.

Woo took it on the chin, tonight, losing 16-4. Yorke went 0-5 and Lugo 0-4 w 3Ks Meidroth was 1-4 with his usual BB. Abreu 0-4 in rehab Alvarez homered and Kavadas, Sogard and Gasper all had 2 hits. POR won 12-11. Campbell is just going absolutely nutty: 3-3 w a HR and BB & HBP Teel & Mayer went 3-5 Jordan had a 3-run triple Anthony 0-5 GRE lost 1-0 as Early pitched well 5IP of 1 hit/2BB no runs allowed ball.. C Coffey sucks: no HR and only 2-4 SAL won 2-1 as Rodriguez "Cruzed" through 5 (2H, 1 BB 0ER) Brannon 3-4 (up to .819) Anderson 2-4 FCL won 5-4 Arias 3-4 w BB Cespy 1-5

If it was a 1 year of Sale for 1 year of Grissom, maybe, but Grissom has a long time to redeem himself (or maybe a short time to prove he's a flop.)

If O'Neill keeps hitting like this, he should fetch a decent prospect. If he's part of a package deal, it could get interesting. I do think Pivetta & Jansen have the highest trade value, as of now. If Martin puts together 6 weeks of elite pitching, he could, too. It's starting to look more and more like maybe we don't sell, but who knows?

Ref has another year of control, unlike O'Neill, and one of our weakest areas is lack of RH'd bats. I don't see us trading one of MLB's best RH'd bats (Ref) over the last 2-3 seasons, combined. Only 17 batters in all of MLB have more PAs and a better OPS v LHPs than Ref since 2022. That's a 3 year period of over 280 PAs.

Anything can happen, but our bench has been our savior, so far, and with players coming back (Abreu, Grissom- who may need to earn another shot in AAA and I Campbel & later, Hendriks. It might take 2-3 OF injuries for Anthony to be the guy called up. If Wong or McGuire gets hurt, I think Heineman is the guy we promote. We have 3 middle infielders who have been doing pretty well: DHam, Romy and EValdez. Westbrook may be replaced by Grissom, and maybe even Yorke is above Mayer on the ML Ready AAA list. We also have Alvarez & Sogard. One way I could see these guys called up, if if we have a major firesale and teardown, where 4-5 roster slots open up on the 40. We all know the FAs to be: Jansen, O'Neill, Martin, Pivetta, Anderson, DSmith and Keller. Maybe we decide to trade Wink and McGuire or some surprise guys Brez and or Cora has soured on. I just think the odds are low we see any of the big 3 in 2024. I would not be surprised if we wait until mis 2025 or even SEPT '25 to see even one.

I'm talking frozen buttah- hard as iron! LOL

Time will tell, and we should know more in 6 weeks.

A very nice win. To be honest, I kinda felt like it was going to be a loss. O'Neill has been buttah.

That was very deflating.