oldtimer

Robles throws hard and has movement which makes him viable, provided he can deal with his command issues.

I expect our starters will include Eovaldi, Sale and Pivetta plus one of Houck (who will be working to add a new pitch) and Seabold available in case of injury. That leaves room for a #2 starter unless we decide to bid for E-Rod at full market value including length of contract. I expect our relievers will include Whitlock, Taylor, Swamamura, Barnes, D-Hern, Brasier and possibly Robles. We have alternatives in the minors and someone or two may allow for flexibility without going heavily into the FA market. I think Ottavino, Perez, Richards and probably Valdez are gone.

Usually matchups are more important then seasons record when it comes to success in the post season. The Astros have a solid offensive club that may give us more problems than the Rays did and we were closely matched with the Rays.

I wonder if they reconsider any players for the ALCS. The two I would wonder about are Swamamura and D-Hern vs perhaps a Barnes,, who seems pretty far off his game.

I agree that the smart move is to treat JDM and Schwaber as an either one or the other for DH. Playing both is a defensive liability. So either JDM opts out, is traded and we try hard to sign Schwaber or we live with JDM for another year and let Schwaber walk. Both are quality offensive players but Schwaber is younger so I prefer him. There are a lot of guys who won't be back. The big question is whether we are willing to compete for E-Rod in the FA market and the corollary, do we make a QO to him? We will be rid of Pedey's contract and quite a few smaller contracts but will not doubt see arb increases. As you point out the following year Bloom will need to make decisions on a number of key players with large contracts. Part of our success will require promoting some of our low cost prospects year to year. Bloom has done a lot to make that possible but he had to start from a depleted minor lead system. (Duran, Casas, Yorke, Mayer, Bello, Seabold, others.)

I hope the White Sox win today and take it to a 5 game series. That will give the Red Sox a much needed break to recover from an arduous series against the Ray. Give JDM a further chance to rehab his ankle and Devers a chance to recover from a sore forearm. Probably others with lingering aches and pains as well. Our entire pitching staff could use a few days to reset. Does anyone know if there can be/will be any changes for the ALCS?

Both staffs were tired going into last night. E-Rod gave us a big lift with 5 solid innings, where we got to them for 5. Cora made the best pitching moves available, with Houck, Taylor, Brasier and finally Whitlock. Give the Rays hitters credit for battling back against some tired pitchers who they had just recently seen. Thank Boom for Whitlock. the 9th was a great demonstration of small ball. The Rays were down to a good but not great reliever. Vaz led off with a single and Cora got a well executed but from Arroyo, moving Vaz into scoring position. Then Cora pinch hit Shaw for Dalbec assuming Shaw was a lower strike out risk. Shaw put the ball in play and we got a break when the throw to first took a tough hop. Men at 1st and third one out. Cora subbed Santana in to put speed and third and Shaw took second on defensive indifference. Now Cash was faced with pitching to Kike or putting him on and facing Devers. The rest went our way.

And you of course are the epitome of knowledge regarding the Sox.

Everything done by the Sox was wise beyond belief. Anyone who expresses doubt must be a crackpot.

Davis walked the first batter he faced on 4 pitches and he went in with a 2 run lead. He got lucky to get out of it without further damage when only needing one out. Robles has been good but has pitched a lot of late. He came in and gave up the lead and Whitlock had to come in anyway. at the very least, Robles should have been removed while we still had a 1 run lead. If you feel the need to defend Cora's moves then good luck to you.

The idea of taking a hot Brasier out in the 7th to put in Davis, a poor reliever, was one I wouldn't have made. He promptly walked the first batter letting the tying run come to the plate. The use of Robles again was defensible but Whitlock was fully rested and our best reliever. Two innings for him made more sense to him. Robles came in and immediately played macho man, overthrowing his first three and then cut back on his velocity to find the plate. A home run and double and an out later were all Robles needed to throw. No, Cora stayed with him to give up the tying run and then had to go to Whitlock anyway. My view is Cora's moves were badly thought through and wound up causing the Sox to use up their pitching staff and took a real chance of losing the game that was not necessary.

Agreed.

Cora's pitching moves will be discussed after this game, whatever happens.

If the leagues adopt the DH universally, he has a chance of getting a multi-year contract. Probably not close to $20 million but possibly tempting.

In the end, it was the lack of hitting depth in the Yankee lineup that did them in.

Putting your best hitters consecutively in the lineup seems to be the best way to cluster hits. The manager therefore can set the lineup to obtain the highest probability of hits in clusters. Am I missing the meaning of cluster hitting (luck)?

The Rays seem to dominate our lefties. Maybe Pivetta makes more sense from that POV also.

We may have issues with pitching contracts that could create serious headwinds for the team , not only in 2022 but beyond. The obvious ones are the Price $15 Mil owed in 2022 and the E-Rod free agency in 2022. We have to decide whether to make a QO and risk overpaying him if he underperforms or get something back if he is still taken. The big question there is whether he might retain good enough form a year away from Covid to lower the risk of overpaying. Once past that, we have given Barnes a 2 year extension at $10 Mil per based on his 1st half performance. Clearly he lost effectiveness in the second half. Will he return to effectiveness or become another albatross limiting the moves we can make? Perhaps the biggest question is with Sale who is contracted through 2024 for Ace money. He was injured when the contract was signed and has done little for us since. He is a great competitor and was one of the best. The Hope is that he can return to being a quality starter, but it is by no means a surety. Will he improve enough from TJ surgery and Covid to be worth the huge contract? It looks like we may need to add up to 2 starters and a late inning BP arm.

Not much mention of Barnes. Cora gave him a shot with an 8 run lead and he got through it, but looked pretty bad with a lack of command. He has a lot of work to do to regain the form needed to be a high leverage BP arm next season.

Our Ace Chris Sale was pummeled in the first.

So long to FREAKIN Chris Sale

I doubt if the analytics guys have a case impacting the shift for a fast guy on third with a left handed pitcher. They shouldn't have shifted like that and Taylor wasn't paying attention. A manager should overrule the directions suggested by the analytics in special cases like we saw last night. Just one of several disappointing aspects of last nights game. Tonight we see if our $30 million ace can keep us in the game for 5 or more innings.

It makes sense financially to promote our best prospects year to year. Other than that, we can trade JDM this winter and pick up Schwaber at essentially the same cost. Vaz will be much harder to replace.

Going into last night we knew that it would be tough to score on the Rays. The have good young arms and generally play defense at the highest level. We also knew they challenge the battery by running and even one run given up to them that way creates a hurdle. So last night the first disappointment was that the bad E-Rod showed up without good command and nibbling. Really, right away the walk to Arozarena and the hit by Franco set the tone, not helped by Kike's mishandling of the ball in center. Two runs later we were in trouble. In the second after another leadoff walk it became obvious that E-Rod was not right and he was removed putting a lot of pressure on the staff. Pivetta while he was in was not that sharp and was tagged for a couple of HR's. The second disappointment to me was when we had the bases loaded with one out and Devers up. The Rays had made a rare error and we were in a position to put a lot of pressure on the Rays. Devers at bat was not smart. He swung from the heels twice and missed two fastballs down the middle. Finally he swung at one out of the zone. He looked bad on that at bat. The third disappointment to me was when Taylor stupidly took a long time setting up to throw with Arozarena half way down the third base line. He essentially gave up the fifth run due to negligence. Perhaps shifting Devers so far from 3rd on that play was also a dumb tactic. We outhit them but couldn't score. They just outplayed us.

Walks have turned into runs although Pivetta's walk of Arozarena was helped by two bad calls by the ump. The steal of home off Taylor was inexcusable. Just not paying attention. The ox are hitting but nothing big.