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So… fire himself and name me CBO? Is that option on the table?

Or the TWO five game sweeps back on ‘12! Oh those ‘12 Sox. Smoky Joe Wood, we may never see your equal. (The Sox actually did have two five game sweeps of the Yankees in 1912. But 5 game series were very common back then and sweeps did happen)

To continue - Sox hitters probably don’t know the strike zone because it’s a young lineup. And if they did do wuth Durbin, they’re probably preaching some new swing with all the other young hitters rather than letting them be the hitters that made them special to begin with. Drawing walks is a skill. Roman Anthony excels at it. Durbin? Yeah somewhat. Mayer and Narvaez are both a little too aggressive, probably adjusting to some swing tweak they’ve each been told to adopt (100% unsupported personal theory). But with Anthony out and Duran obsoleteting himself, the top of the Sox lineup is pretty neutered. This lineup isn’t much different than last year post-Devers, and it’s arguable that Contreras/Durbin is an upgrade over Bregman/Toro/Lowe. But runs are down and one solid root cause is weak OBP, especially at the top of the lineup. And not just Boston either. The Mets lineup features one of, if not THE best hitter in the game today. But they are another horrible offense. Why? Well for starters they traded their high powered OBP machine leadoff hitter for infield defense, literally.

And if he ever gets to Cooperstown it won’t be because of his bat…

So you’re saying Miller is the reason SD has a winning record? Just no. Now what I’m saying is San Diego’s overall bullpen is similar to Boston’s, but the non-Miller pitchers are lifted up by Mason’s stellar year, whereas Boston (nor any other team) has no one like Miller. Home runs really are. Like I said, they account for maybe 3% of a team’s PA for elite slugging teams and 2% for bad slugging teams. Offense comes from having MEN ON BASE. And if the Sox have to string together 3 singles to score, it’s because they’re 29th in MLB in BB%. Take walks. They’re gifts. Putting the ball in play only gets you on base maybe 30% of the time. Walking? 100% of the time. (The Sox are last in home runs but second in doubles and second in triples. They’re not all about 3 hits to a run.) Look at Milwaukee. Homer at about the same pace as Boston, but scored nearly 100 more runs. Why? Second in team OBP, built on being second in BB%. The easy (ha!) solution for the Sox would be another power bat, but the big issue for their offense has been the disappearance of an on base leadoff hitter. Duran has been useless. Gasper? Please…

Durbin’s not a stud, but at a bare minimum he’s a pretty good wingman…

If Mayer had maxed himself out in AAA and forced a promotion, that’s one thing. But he was called up to replace an injured Bregman and stuck around long enough to get injured himself a couple times. If he went down and got some AAA reps it’s not the worst thing. And as someone who called gorbCheng’s promotion two months ago, he isn’t the answer either. When his OPS drops under .600 about 100 or so PA from now, opinions on him might vary…

Cheng has a career .382 OPS in 11 PA, but apparently that’s good enough to crown him Barry Larkin 2.0…

And I’d be fairly surprised if they didn’t modify and attempt to improve it after one season. The goal is more consistent strike calls not based solely on the most insanely difficult decision any official has to make in any sport, not to have teams win games because they are better than anyone else at self-umpiring…

If anything, the best players probably in many cases make awful coaches. If your hitting was based on having elite batspeed, for example, how exactly do you teach that? It’s like thinking Jacob Misiorowski would be a top tier pitching coach by advising his staff “Just throw the ball 105 mph.”…

I don’t even get that complaint. Apparently the Sox had too many players for the OF/DH roles but no backups? And what level of backup did people expect? Were the Sox supposed to acquire Teoscar Hernandez and bench him until Anthony got hurt? They had Yoshida and Nate Eaton. Not exciting but who has better? It’s like last year when Casas went down and the same cries about not having a backup 1b. Well thr players who fill those backup roles are the Abraham Toro/Rowdy Tellez types. The Sox weren’t going to get someone like Michael Busch and bench or outright him until Casas got hurt…

Most of the legendary winningest managers in MLB were not great players. Certainly some were. Joe Torre was arguably a Hall of Fame caliber player before inarguably becoming a Hall of Fame caliber manager. But no one is making the case for, say, Terry Francona making the Hall as a player…

But once his hot streak ends, it’s not like he suddenly reverts to his slump. He’ll fall somewhere into the giant grey area in between. He did this last year, too, when his OPS was just over .500 at the end of May, and then was a .775 hitter the rest of the way. That wouldn’t surprise me if he did it again…

It’s always home runs and closers - the two panacea in baseball. The Sox are last home runs, but they’re tied with Tampa and trail Milwaukee by 3. Yet somehow those teams are a combined 96-62 despite having worse bullpens than Boston and equal ability to come back. Home runs get overrated. Teams have 6200-6400 plate appearances over the course of a season and the top slugging teams hit 200 home runs. The other 97% of those plate appearances matter. The Sox do have offensive issues and need to score more, but if you think a handful of home runs equates to an equal amount of wins, you’ll be disappointed fast. Mason Miller is not why the Padres, with similar runs scored and run allowed have a much better record. Chapman has 1 BS and Miller’s performance serves to hide the numbers of the other Padre relievers - the ones pitching the bulk of the innings…

He doesn’t want anyone being evenly remotely optimistic about this team..

And THAT is what happens when you ignore the bullpen…

So Durbin was supposed to carry the team this year?

So you’re saying Bill Belichick wasn’t a good football player?

It’s actually quite bizarre…

Whether or not we did is one thing, but did Breslow?

This is just not true. In fact, it’s common to decrease/damage/destroy your run differential by adding hitting because the new hitters are worse defensively. And hitting isn’t more the more consistent aspect. Players have bad seasons at the plate, too. Not to mention, hitting isn’t the weaker part of the game as hitters are at the disadvantage. Theres a reason no hitter has ever batted .500. Maybe there’s more room to improve upon hitting because of the inherent role it plays in the nature of the game, but because those same players play defense, it doesn’t necessarily impact the run differential positively…

Again so you’re saying it NEVER works because it failed this one time? Hint: Don’t. It’s easier to find a bottom 5 scoring team that made the WS than a bottom 5 run preventer that did.

Hmmm. Exactly what I said to my daughter when she asked about Cora’s firing. Except the part about paying her…

Sometimes you have to decide, is tjis selling low? Or just abandoning a sinking ship?

Guerrero is also 35 with a long history of issuing a surplus of free passes. If someone is willing to pay for his 12 good innings, jump before the twelfth bong…