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It’s the ol’ George Will “Beauty of Pessimism.” You either get to be proven correct or pleasantly surprised…

You’re not in good company…

It must be all those 4th and 5th place teams with tough schedules. Right now the only team the Sox have played that isn’t in third place out better is Toronto, who moved down to fourth place yesterday after being swept in Fenway for four games…

The thing is, you’re probably wrong. MLB isn’t watered down. If anything the talent pool is much, much deeper than it was just 20 years ago. The influx of indoor stadiums available to high schoolers plus many high schools adding indoor batting cages has prolonged the amount of practice. Add to it the meteoric rise in the number of travel leagues - which, thanks to said indoor stadiums, are available year round to players growing up, and the talent pool escalates. And even at high school ages, these kids are learning how to optimize exit velocity and launch angle, and even engaging in training to increase pitching velocity. (Source:Lou Merloni during yesterdays game.) Plus the international growth of the sport and some changes to the Japanese posting system has allowed the best players from other countries more ready access to MLB. Some 20 countries or so are now represented in MLB, and I’m not sure of the exact number. All of this to fill a talent pool that only fits 780 players. MLB isn’t watered down.

Disagree. A reliever can (and quite often do) get blown saves for something as mundane as entering a game with a runner on third and giving up a sac fly. Allowing inherited runners to score can and does heavily influence blown saves. However, in order to get a loss, the reliever has to put the runner on base. (Except for ghost runners -ugh.) Plus the whole “multiple blown saves in a game” things skews the importance. Can’t get more than one loss per game. Oh, and most important when looking at team totals - blown saves are not always losses! Losses, on the other hand…

I’ll take the under…

I think guys trying to make every fastball run between 95-98mph over a 5 inning stretch is a bigger factor…

He’s a weak side platoon bench bat. He’ll always find work. It will be interesting given the play of Tapia and the emergence of Valdez, who goes when players start getting added back on to the 40 man? I assume Garza goes when Mills returns. But for Story? Mondesi? Any deadline acquisition?

I wonder now with the pitch clock working so well, should MLB eliminate the ghost runner? Besides it’s gimmickiness, it messes up player stats. Some player consistently making the last out in the ninth gets rewarded with opportunities for stolen bases and runs scored? That’s not right. You gotta earn getting on base for those…

Maybe 2 seconds…

Disagree on the three wild cards. I like it because they made a 3 game series. The previous single game was just not enough after the 162 game battle to get there. I do understand the criticism of letting too many teams in the postseason. I’d hate to see MLB turn into the NBA in that regard…

Also Arroyo had a .322 OBP last year, not .350. Arroyo has never had a season with a .350 OBP as his career high is .339…

So you’re counting a 60 game season plus 30 games this year as two full seasons?

He needs to get to Boston so he can hurt himself again…

And no one cared about QBR

Houck just isn’t a SP. Ditto Whitlock, for different reasons. There’s nothing wrong with that, but the issue is they’re both more in the rotation by default. I am hoping the Sox move both to the bullpen and Paxton and Bello can take over the starting roles. I have my doubts Cora and Bloom see it that way, however…

1. One game out. 2. Bader, Trivino and Rodon have combined to appear in two games this year. Yet still one game out. 3. Who exactly are you going to sell? The only pending free agents on the team not wearing slings are Wandy Peralta and IKF. Not much of a firesale…

The Yankees are ONE GAME out of the playoff picture!!

Well played…

Old school logic is you don’t pinch hit for the catcher, because if your second catcher gets hurt, you have to scramble to see who owns a mitt, since almost no teams carry 3 catchers. However, this did become less of a c C in ren once home plate collisions were banned…

So… you’re saying German’s horseshoes are better?

Especially considering the Sox haven’t played a single game against a team that’s in lower than third place…

Some of that was their own undoing. Judge has spent nearly one-third of the season (or more) on the IL three times in the previous six years. Stanton can’t stay healthy. Adding Rondon to those two was basically asking for that honor…

I think “clutch” means succeeding in a crucial situation. The debate was never about that happening vs not happening, but whether or not it was a skill. To me, there was always a strong overlap between players who repeatedly succeeded in crucial situations and players who repeatedly succeeded overall…

See I just didn’t get enough votes…