oldtimer

A righty in with Verdugo and Schwaber on the bench and we take 3 strikeouts. Can't win if we don't score.

Nate's our ace these days. Now we need to get him runs. Imagine if we gave him 5 to work with or 10 that Sale had.

By not assigning positions to players you are leaving open the potential for positional moves, mainly to correct defensive weaknesses we have seen this season. I take that position as well. but also think it would be difficult to accomplish. We may need to consider a FA infielder and perhaps trade a stalwart. I hate to even suggest a name in that regard but there are some quality FA's infielders coming available. As far as pitching is concerned I think of Sale as a third starter now, even though he is getting ace money. In my view, another miss on a contract. So I would just do a minor switch to your list. Eovaldi,__FA__, Sale, Pivetta, Whitlock or Houck, Possibly Seabold (although I want to see him in a ML game before elevating his chances) __FA__,Barnes, Richards?, Whitlock or Houck, Sawamura, Taylor, D-Hern, Robles or Brasier In general, I think Bloom will want to hang onto his best young prospects but perhaps let go of some who have been high on the list but not showing the expected promise. It won't be easy, but opening the pocket book would help.

The list that Moon laid out for field players still makes some sense and requires only a minimum number of actions by Bloom, although some are important. Hernandez Verdugo Renfroe Dalbec* Arroyo Bogaerrts Devers Schwaber Vazquez* Util: Plawecki Arauz Duran ____Temp 1st base help until Casas is ready This requires that JDM opts out or is moved. Improving the catching position might prove difficult. Of course this doesn't do much about our defensive issues in 2021. We have significant issues at 3rd still, Bogaerts has range issues and Dalbec has been subpar at first. He doesn't seem to have the soft hands and agility to play 1st or 3rd that well. Can we move these players around and improve the defense? Moon had suggestions for moves as well. Mayer is not coming anytime soon so do we add a SS, move Bogaerts and Devers and make Dalbec a Utility player with 1st, 3rd, DH and pinch hitting roles? It may take something drastic like that to get much better and then we are moving two guys into unfamiliar positions (3rd for Bogaerts and 1st for Devers). Those moves would also block Casas, who may be the soft-handed power hitting 1st baseman of the future. I don't see an easy transition that improves our defense.

The Rays hitting coaches seem to develop game plans that work by adjusting to what the pitcher does best. Perhaps they also pick up on delivery giveaways. They have good young hitters and some speed on the bases, but not enough to justify their run differential, without something they are doing to gain an advantage. On the other hand, our pitchers don't seem to pick up on opponents game plan all that well and get knocked around all to often. I suspect it's equal parts of coaching issues and player issues that make our pitchers look so inconsistent.

While I agree that having both Schwaber and Martinez in the lineup at the same time hurts our defense, I don't see Cora sitting either of them. With that situation. either Verdugo will sit or Kike will play 2nd base for the time being. What we have been talking about for the 2022 roster is to avoid having both DH's on the same team.

Just one more game of defensive screwups. Do we even make the wildcard?

It's frustrating to watch. I believe you are correct. Too many changes in positions. These have been forced by our incredible Covid and Injury numbers.

Lets see how we do with the Rays, White Sox and Mariners. No easy task. Need to win at least 1/2 of these games and hope other competitors can't do better.

Cora was forced to use to minor league pitchers in succession giving up a six run disadvantage. The Sox came back although failed to hit in several key situations when even a fly ball would have helped. Cora probably wouldn't have used Valdez with the lead. He has pretty good movement but his command is shaky because of it. We had a base running error and a defensive misplay at 3rd and one at short that didn't help. It's a likely scenarios when playing so many minor leaguers, and players out of position and having a lot of RPs on the IL. Just have to move on and hope that we get some guys back soon. Kike is rumored for Tuesday.

I am thinking 13 field players on the active roster as you describe here. Catchers with excellence are hard to find and therefore expensive. We will have to weigh Vaz against what would be available. The FA utility player might be a left handed part time first, since Arauz and Duran can fill utility infield and outfield positions. When and if Casas comes, we may have two first basemen who could play every day. At least Dalbec could play third. I think Casas is strictly a first baseman. The lineup and utility group described is a competitive one. When you talked of starting pitchers earlier, you didn't mention E-Rod. I put him in the same category as Vaz, that is, let's see what we can get for equal money and risk as left handed starters are hard to find. t baseman

Covid continues to hurt the Sox lineup and depth. I had hoped Duran was the last. but now Pivetta which forces us to try a good but inexperienced guy against the Guardians. We also have the Rays, the White Sox and the Mariners coming up. I'm hoping for a minimum of Arroyo, Kike and D-Hern to return during next week. We'll need all the relief help we can get during that stretch. Barnes, Taylor, Swamamura?

JDM turns 35 in August and some teams will give him a bye for 2020. It is possible that a team would offer him 3 years for $40/45 Mil. It might temp him since it would guarantee good money for his age 36 and 37 year old seasons. It he had a fall-off in 2021 he might be left with less.

I agree that we need pitching. I see it as Eovaldi Sale ____ (Solid Starter) Pivetta Whitlock/Houck Whichever works best Closer by committee: ____High leverage reliever Barnes Richards Houck/Whitlock (whoever doesn't start) Taylor Swamamura D-Hern Seabold/Valdez/Brasier Get rid of Davis and Robles while keeping Bazardo and Rios in reserve.

I would think that if the data says he made 46 out of 47 plays, it wouldn't matter if he took the wrong route. He got the catch, which is what counts.

It is strange that the guy who pitched worst and for 1 inning gets the win. On the other hand, we can't go to the same guy every night. We need some others to come back of the IL. It's about time for D-Hern. Every little bit helps.

We have some potential for young players to join the team in 2022 and beyond. Casas some time in mid to late 2022, Yorke possibly sometime in 2023 and Mayer probably in 2024. Each of these guys may have solid careers and we may have a star in Mayer. Now we need to fill the pipeline with a couple of pitching prospects each year to make the team the consistently competitive force that Bloom is talking about.

Our major issue involves the BP. We are relying on Whitlock, Ottavino and Richards. They can only do so much. Getting D-Hern back would help and Brasier is back but kind of an unknown as far as form goes. Taylor, Swamamura and Barnes may be out for another week.

I continue to be in awe of Schwaber as a hitter who seems to fit the team as a perfect DH candidate. He also is capable of playing LF in an emergency or perhaps even 1st base. At 29 years old I imagine most fans want to give him a 4 or 5 year contract to stay with the team. It does create a problem with Martinez having another year with the Sox unless he opts out. The problem is that it is not optimum defensively to play them both together. In addition, both will carry substantial contracts that could make adding a quality starter and at least one and possibly two high leverage relief pitchers difficult. We have some other infield defensive needs to address but whether that means FA's or trade bodies is hard to determine. Even through JDM is still a viable DH and perhaps because he is, I would hope to trade him or to see him go in and opt out for 2022.

I have heard that his arm is not Bradley or Renfroe like and that is a negative for a CF. Beni's arm was also a notch lower than our best. It ight impact the DRS calculation. They say it is complex and not something that a fan has the data to make, perhaps somewhat subjective. If we trade him away and he blossoms into an above average ML outfielder while we get less in return, won't we feel had.

Let's hope D-Hern will be back in a couple of days.

I'll bet Cora wanted to save Whitlock with a 5 run lead going into the 8th.

Let's hope there are not more where that came from!

Funny

There continue to be a lot of negative comments about Duran's defense. His actual numbers including zero errors and 46 out of 47 opportunities converted, look pretty good but his DSR doesn't. It turns out it is a complicated calculation made from BIS's (scouts) collected data. Here is one comment which caught my eye in the Fangraph's description. "The other thing to remember is that DRS isn’t going to work well in small sample sizes, especially a couple of months or less. Once you get to one and three-year samples, it’s a relatively solid metric but defensive itself is quite variable so you need a good amount of data for the metrics to become particularly useful. There’s plenty more to say about this issue, but that’s for another entry. In general, DRS isn’t perfect because it doesn’t factor in shifts, positioning, and can’t perfectly measure everything it needs to, but it’s still among the best options out there." I don't think the criticism is all that valid at this point. People tend to ignore things like the game winning rbi two games back because it doesn't fit their narrative. I believe he would be a good 4th outfielder for us in 2022.