oldtimer

My input leaned more toward 2nd half issues which seem to impact Bogey. Whatever is going on, injuries, mental issues, lack of effective coaching, he seems to lapse after4 the as break.

There is a discussion going on of who we should make the 11 playoff pitchers should we make it in. Most are obvious, with the question marks being Price (in my opinion he won't be ready) and Barnes. We have Smith and Maddocks with a chance. Barnes has looked awful at times. So we have 4 starters and our 5th starter probably with be added as long relief. We have Kimbel, Kelly, Reed, and Workman. So with 2 more slots available, would you take a lefty in Scott, or Smith or Maddocks and would you take Barnes or Price? I think we can wait to make that decision to see who remains impressive.

I can't remember what part of the season that Bogey was moved to third. In retrospect, his performance in the second half of most seasons has fallen off. Could it be the move to 3rd coincided with the 2nd half doldrums he seems to wind up in each year?

It was up to me, I load up the batting order with our best in a row and hope to score the runs there. I believe the player hitting third should be a good contact hitter and one capable of driving the ball. Some statisticians believe otherwise, I think they are totally wrong.

If you tried to find a correlation factor using Crystal ball, I think it would be a futile exercise. I would look for other reasons.

Xander the Enigma Xander is listed at 6'1" 210# and is a young but experienced player just turning 25 Oct 1st. He is athletic and has good speed. He is not a flashy fielder but okay at short. He will always be mid pack or below in that regard. To me though he is an enigma at the plate. Looking at a few statistics, including this incomplete year and not putting in his very limited year of 2013, will give one an idea of inconsistency, not explained by injury or pitchers finding the holy grail against him, but a series of ups and downs. Note that I have put a (1) after the year to designate pre-all star break figures and a (2) for post all star break BA RBI OPS HR 2014 (1) 235 22 658 6 2014(2) 248 24 661 6 2015 (1) 304 43 750 3 2015 (2) 337 38 803 4 2016 (1) 329 56 863 10 2016 (2) 253 33 729 11 2017 (1) 303 41 806 6 2017 (2) 200 12 573 2 In both 2016 and 2017 he has shown a steep drop off in his hitting and in this year precipitous. Hard to figure since one would expect a player gaining his experience would actually be able to avoid late season slumps. Also a person of his size would provide more power. He certainly hasn't earned a big raise going forward and it is hard to know what to do with a soon to be 25 year old who is otherwise a good yooung man who may still have some upside. As a minimum, I would say he should get a new hitting coach and go over the fundamentals of his plate mechanics going forward, and work on those things this off season. If he can't find a way out of these funks he gets into then I suggest that is time to trade him and look for someone who can be more productive. I wouldn't do that until the trade deadline next year and see if he can improve himself and realize the gifts that he seems to have.

If you went up and down the Sox lineup to identify our best hitters to the so so ones and then those who are hardly ML level, how would you score them. Not by batting average or OPS, but what you can see they are capable of with some consistency in the second half. To me it is as follow: 1. Nunez 2. Pedey Significant drop off 3. Beni 4. Devers Small drop off 5.Betts 6. Vaz 7. Moreland Another small drop off 8 Rameriz 9 Bradley 10 Travis 11. Lin 12. Bogaerts Still lower 13. Leon 14. Marrero 15. Holt 16. Young Of these, the ones with redeeming defensive qualities include Bradley, Travis (rookie), Lin (rookie), Bogaerts (possibly could be able to make adjustments, but needs an overhaul at the plate), Leon (always can use a good defensive catcher) I would keep outright or in some cases attempt to trade for better.

Watching the game play out last night with our depleted lineup, I still remained worried about an older brother (80's) who made the decision to stay in Venice, Fla rather than go into traffic with little gas or lodging available. I wanted him to drive up to North Carolina to stay with us but age gets in the way. I heard from him around 9:00 pm with hurricane force winds battering the house and water from rain rising near to the house (not storm surge). Trying to contact them but there is no power there. He and his wife are both big Sox fans.

There is a fine line between being aggressive and being stupid. Many of the contributors here agree with that and are okay with aggressiveness. There have also been many plays where our runners were out by many steps after unwisely trying to get the extra base, or were out when they didn't remember how many outs we had or were out on what appeared to be botched hit and run situations. Those are the ones that we all wish they would avoid going forward.

And today it appeared that Nunez, Haley and Pedey were not available. Some for a rest but Nunez is a little bit of an unknown given his gimpy leg the other night. It didn't give Farrell much to work with today and Cobb is a really good pitcher. What we did have looked anemic. We can use the day off that we have. Maybe our regulars will be available.

At least they extended Cobb that inning. Between Vaz and Holt, he had to throw 11 pitches. Maybe he will only last a full 6 innings. No one other than Vaz is hitting much.

wasn't there also $32 million for Allen Craig? We also got nothing for that expenditure.

Just Hanley being Hanley and having a goldilocks moment that doesn't turn out to be "just right"

Funny thing that other teams are considering Machado as a possible short stop as he has tremendous fielding ability. The point is he probably can do both.

Machado could possibly play short. Then you could Devers at 3rd, Machado at short and still have room for a good player at first, assuming Hanley is no longer with the club for the 2019 season. Means some hard decisions.

The Rangers put up a good fight but were unable to solve the Yankee pitching today. We have to help ourselves tonight.

Probably made the FO more gunshy of getting into these deals.

There will be enormous competiition to sign both Machado and Harper from the FA market to play in 2019. Machado is intriguing, since he can play 3rd base and possibly SS. That would give us some flexibility is structuring our team. Harper is another who will be greatly sought after. Either would come in a possibly replace a starter that we currently have in our lineup. To be competiitive, it would be a help to have rid ourselves of a $22.7 million salary who as you say has a negative WAR value. I would also hope the medical staff can get Price back to a sound condition so he can opt out of his $127 million that remains. Shedding over $50 million a year being paid to unproductive or underproductive players would allow us to be fully competitive in the FA market.

Baseball is a crazy game. Nothing is easy. They need to take it a game at a time. It would be great if the Sox build some momentum going into the playoffs, unlike last year.

Most likely we would keep Hanley for another year as the options don't seem that attractive. As nasty as it seems, under no circumstances should we continue to have him back in 2019. A salary offset deal seems unlikely to me. The deals that have been made for the unproductive players we signed have weighed the club down and we still have two of those hanging over our heads in Hanley (not the worst of them since at least he has produced something for the club) and Price who doesn't appear to have a ghost of a chance to stay productive going forward. A short term solution for the club, while keeping it balanced until we can shed Hanley's contract seems to be a reasonable solution, with the big acquisition having to wait one year. Alternatively, we take a huge payroll upgrade and pay the extra now.

Is it too early to talk about magic numbers? It looks like the Rangers will win tonight leaving the Sox with a Magic number of 19 with 22 games remaining for both the Sox and the Yankees. Be interesting to revisit this at the end of the TB series.

If you really want to think big, why not go after Manny Machado. At 26 years old now, he is one FA that we might get but it would break the bank. He could play third while we could consider moving Devers to ist. He is a great third baseman with the big bat we need. The amount of money would be equal to any we might sign and the contract period would be long, but he is in my view the best young 3rd baseman in the game today. That would leave Hanley as DH only with Nunez or Pedey filling in as needed.

I too am for getting a big bat and possibly also improving by getting a better player to replace someone that is good but not very good. I do think we have to maintain a balance up and down the lineup and not put all of the emphasis on one player. So who do we part company with and who do we keep as a core group? In my view, we would be well to keep our outfield together for its speed, defensive ability and still potential to improve offensively. As far as catcher is concerned, I am not wowed by either of our guys but think they do a serviceable job for us. That leaves the infield and DH as places where we could get that big bat and also probably also make an additional change to shore up our positions. We really need to do that on a value basis and we shouldn't pay any of these guys over their real value in either salary or time commitment, realizing BB is a competitive business and we still need to pay competitive amounts. I do think we should keep Devers and either play him at 3rd or move him to first depending what is best for the club. I also think we have Pedey under contract and need Nunez to come back as a super sub if we can make that happen. Beyond that I see opportunities with first base, DH and shortstop. I don't recommend giving away the store in prospects to get a better bat and anyone we sign as a free agent or trade for needs to be able to hold down a position first and be a DH second. Bogey is still a young player and has more value just due to the years left in his career. Based on his level of play, I would be satisfied if we could either trade him and work to get a significantly better player or stand pat. Moreland has been pretty good for us but is the obvious choice to be replaced by a player with a superior bat and decent defense. Good luck finding that player. I too would think trading Hanley away, even if we had to eat some of the contract, would be in our interest. We should be able to replace him and get equally good numbers at a far better value, but who would want him? Our utility players would include Nunez but we should be looking for a Young, Holt replacement. We have Lin, Hernandez, Swihart and Travis available and still others may emerge in the minors. Chavis may come along and be available next season. I look for speed, defensive ability, flexability in positions played and at least a contributor offensively. Pitching is a separate story and I won't comment on that here.

I am thinking about the hurricane these days because I have a brother in his 80's in Florida and I have a condo there as well so am hoping for the best as the storm progresses. Lucky me, being in the mountains of North Carolina until mid October. The only problem is the hurricane track now takes a dead aim at us here as well. I have lots of big trees around my house and they still have the leaves on so if the winds reach 39 to 73 mph as expected, some or a lot of the trees could be landing on us. Right now I am worried about the safety of my brother and his wife and all the other Floridians in the direct line of this monster Cat 5 hurricane. Kind of lowers the importance of whether the Sox get a power hitter or not next year at this time.

There are more games these days and there is more travel involved. Maybe all of this accumulates during the season and wears on the guys physically and on their minds as well. It helps to have positive vibes in the clubhouse. Teams like Cleveland and the Diamondbacks seem to have overcome the same number of games and the same amount of travel and are prospering. Maybe they have a better clubhouse attitude or maybe they are just more talented.