oldtimer

It has come down to 2022 or bust, hasn't it?

The Sox are suffering the loss of 6 players and 2 coaches due to Covid. They have also been without Arroyo, Kike and D-Hern for other reasons with Renfroe out briefly as well. It has been very difficult for Cora to put a competitive team on the field. The team still does have a few good individual performers available, but not enough. Part of the problem is that our BP is very thin and the additions through Bloom haven't helped. The defense seems to have lost focus and has been weak at 3rd, SS and 1st. Mistakes are being made even by normally solid defensive players. Base running also reflects a loss of focus. The pieces don't fit together very well with Schwaber and Martinez similar and best fitting in the DH slot. Dalbec has improved his offensive production but is weak defensively and Shaw is a temporary fill in. It appears we are cooked as far as this year is concerned as we won't field our best team until at least the 10th of September and in the mean time will be fortunate to win at the 500 clip. The emphasis now should be on deciding on the direction for 2022 and beyond.

Cora has a terrible predicament, with so many players either hurt or on the Covid 19 list. The pitching is decimated and it will be very difficult for the team to play competitively in games. The best we can hope for is return of our Covid players by Sept 10th and to limp by until then.

The way Duran and Munoz were talked about is that they were doing well in the minors, so why not give them a try instead of guys like Cordero, Gonzalez and Santana, all of whom were struggling mightily at the time. You have a tendency to mischaracterize what had been said for purposes know only to yourself.

What a disaster with Covid on top of the other issues. Some may have lingering effects. Why were only 85% of players vaccinated? These guys should know better.

What you suggest is one of the many possibilities for the team position players going forward into 2022. I agree with many of the thoughts you have but also see them as jumping to answers without expressing the basis for those attempts at answers. Norm Cash of the Rays says he values defense as much as offense in his players, whatever that means. Since the Rays are doing very well on a shoestring budget, it is worth understanding his words. Two-way players: I take him to mean that he wants his players to be better than ML average in areas that define defensive metrics and that represents a plus. Such things as range, consistency and arm all play in. If a player is much better than average then it represents a double plus. Likewise, I assume he would apply the same thinking to offensive metrics such as power, on base percentage and base running. Again, these could be categorized as a plus and double plus. Having a player that both rates a double plus in both defense and offense makes them a star. A plus in both makes for a very good player, while a plus in one category and average in another still makes him worth keeping. Players who can excel at more than one position are worth more since during the long grind that is a major league baseball season, there is often need for shuffling of positions. Assigning value to players also requires a look at durability (a 90% available player is worth more than a 60% available player) and the intangible aspects. Intangibles include such things as enthusiasm, openness to coaching and willingness to help other players versus divisiveness, rigidity and self-centeredness. Value: Baseball is a competitive business. Teams are somewhat constricted in their spending habits by available resources and also by artificial limits like the CBT. There are real penalties associated with going over the limits which grow with amount over and also with years incurred. Those penalties impact not only revenues but also the draft of new prospects. We don’t yet know what will be included in the players -owners agreement, but I assume some sort of limit will still be applied. The presumption is that owners and front offices will pay attention to the limits as they have in the past. So there is a budget established by the front office in which player salaries are divided up based on perceived worth to the team. Up the middle players may be perceived to be more valuable based on needs for speed and agility but also on how they profile in the two-way player evaluation. But contracts are also demanded by players for multi-year deals and risk evaluation becomes a stronger evaluation factor. I would think owners and front offices would have learned due to the mistakes of the past, which left teams with overhanging contracts for underperforming players. Clearly, carrying long term dead money contracts causes a loss of competitiveness. One would assume that rookies are not involved in long term contracts and their performance is likely to improve with experience. Players in the league for several years, but still pre-prime are likely to hold their performance, while those in their prime have a limited time before a decline sets in. Teams like the Rays try to avoid long term contracts for prime or slightly post prime players and trade them for younger ones who hopefully have equivalent value. Some teams however, issue longer term contracts to these players and run a high risk of getting bit with underperforming and expensive long term burdens. Organizations: Some organizations are forced by financial constraints to develop young players to fill many slots in their rosters. Being good at this task means stocking the prospect list with young talent and then focusing on it’s development. The Rays are good at this process and the Sox not so good as yet, but Bloom may change that given time. If you look at Sox position players and ask yourself if they are plusses on defense and/or offense you can get an idea of what we could/should do going forward. Also, it is worth looking at their level of development (improving, holding or declining) at their positions. Should they change positions, be considered for trade, be offered long term contracts, we all have opinions? Moon has suggested some which demonstrate a way of thinking. I will wait until the end of the season before adding my suggestions. Players involved in alphabetical order are: Arauz, Arroyo, Bogaerts, Casas (minors) Dalbec, Devers, Duran , Hernandez, Martinez, Munoz Plawecki, Renfroe, Santana, Schwaber, Shaw, Vazquez, Verdugo, Wong (minors)

Meat of the order went down one, two, three on strikeouts.

Interesting that the Rays started a 21 year old against us tonight. Would the Sox move a young player up that quickly?

Sloppy defense has hurt the Sox in thee second half in particular.

It looks like Arauz might have injured himself today. With Arroyo and Kike out for a while we seem pretty thin in the 2nd base, SS positions. I know Munoz can fill in at 2nd as a non-optimum solution. Who could we bring up short term if we need another infielder. Downs?

Whether we called it a cliff or not, DD did leave us with a depleted prospect list. Our prospects were rated low compared to other franchises. In addition he left us with a number of questionable contracts that limited our ability to spend while still staying below the CBT. We still have 1/2 of Price on the docket into next year. Part of the reason for the Betts trade was to get out from some of the Price monetary commitment. I agree with your assessment of being able to spend for 2022. If we do we should be a stronger team. We appear to need a couple of starters, a high leverage BP arm and possibly a catcher and also a short term first baseman. Those will cost money and perhaps some of our prospect who don't figure in our plans for 2022 and on. I do hope we get Schwaber as he can be a perfect fit for us going forward.

We also knew we were short of BP help tonight so giving up 7 is no surprise. Better defense would help.

I was interested in what JDM said about his day off. He said he normally takes hundreds of swings in preparation for play and studies for hours. Given the day off, he took no swings and only looked at the pitcher tapes at night in the hotel. While at the day off game he became a cheer leader. Maybe he found out what has been bothering him. I hope so. Take less preparatory swings and try to relax. Sounds plausible to me.

Let's watch the situation through September and see who we should keep. Arauz is one of those on the edge at this point in my view.

Because that coincided with the period of the AS break on. If you remember my contention, I said that both he and to a degree Bogey had significant performance declines from that point onward. Surely I would not choose dates before that time, since I didn't indicate his performance was in decline before that time. My recommendation was for Cora to talk to both players and find out what if any problems existed and try to work out a path forward where they could help this team as we are in a pennant race.

And you are entitled to your opinion as well and neither does that make you right. Cora has direct access to the players and he can talk to them about what is bothering them and make appropriate decisions.Moonslav is a stat machine. I prefer to closely watch the game. Both have there strong points and weaknesses. I believe I also have Cora, so that is a shared value. Calling ideas flaky because you don't agree with them says something about you.

Right now it is closer by committee. Cora is getting plenty of examples of who is trustworthy and who is not. Maybe Barnes will find his mojo and regain the closer role.

All of us would like to see Kike in the leadoff spot and Arroyo in the lineup. This is a tough pitcher we face and Cora is trying to use a lineup full of lefties. Let's home we can hit this guy enough to win the game.

As Reagan would have said. There you go again. You love using OPS. Please look at the game by game logs. Very little from July 22 to the end of July and very spotty in August.

I want a guy who can consistently throw strikes yet has the stuff to challenge a hitter. Barnes fit that role for a good part of the season. I see no one else on the roster, other than Whitlock who fits that description. Getting Barnes back in form would be best. If that doesn't happen we may have a closure by committee. A different guy each night.

The tendency is to cherry pick stats to support an argument. OPS is one of those where a guy can have a couple of good days against weak pitching and the OPS will hide the fact that he was not so hot the remainder of the time. i include here the game by game logs for Martinez and in them I notice he really fell off from July 22nd onward. I don't know why but the results speak for themselves. He did have a couple of good days against Baltimore and maybe one against the Jays but by in large, not so hot. We need him to be better. The same is true for Bogey. https://www.baseball-almanac.com/players/hittinglogs.php?p=martijd02&y=2021

I would be asking both JDM and Bogey what they think about the situation because they are both very experienced players and hitters. If they can shed some light on the current swoon, then their opinion should be listened to. It's like AA, they first have to admit to the problem and identify the steps (probably not 12) to return to their former productive selves. Just throwing the guys out their without a plan to get better doesn't make sense during a pennant race. At one time Bogey's wrist was sore although that was some time ago. I don't know of any excuse for JDM.

With Ottavino pitching my heart was in my mouth. Could he throw strikes? Could he hold a runner on base? not so much but he did get the three outs. A miracle win with the lowly guys contributing and the pitching just good enough.

It is a miracle we are leading. The only base runner from the top 5 hitters in 20 AB's was a hit by pitch and we still have 4 runs. Now it would be nice to have a functioning closer

My facts are taken off the day to day game logs. They are what they are.