TedYazPapiMookie

Well said. If people don't agree with an opinion, they should be mature enough to either not respond or do it politely. That's not been my experience so I gravitate to the more mature participants that can discuss things as adults and let the insulting, immature group go off by themselves and discuss the topics that have absolutely no merit to me. Thanks for your comment.

I know but I have forgiven you. Please stop harassing me and things should work out great. Too many good guys on the site to give it up because I am being harassed by a moderator. I will ask nicely once again for you to simply lay off the insults and if you want to push your beliefs on people please do it elsewhere.

Recommended players Bremner and Arnold went 2nd and 11th; Steele Hall went 9th so they weren't available. LaViolette dropped to 27th and could have been taken at 15 but not 33, Hammond went 28th so he too could have been at 15 but not 33, Since we needed College Pitching, things seem to have worked out well. Quentin Young went 54th and could have been taken at 15th or 33rd. Jack Bauer told teams he was committed to Mississippi State where coach Brian O'Connor had landed after leaving Virginia, so he was NOT drafted. It will be fun to see how well Breslow did in this draft. Witherspoon was a solid pick that dropped significantly from 7 to 15 similar to Mayer's smaller drop to 4th when Bloom got him. Let's hope the drop wasn't justified. Checking Witherspoon's history shows him ranked 500 by Perfect Game in 2022 and he was considered a SS not a pitcher as his primary skill. In 2023 he played in a Florida Collegiate Summer League but only played ONE game and he threw 3.1 innings and gave up 2 hits, 3 walks and 3 earned runs while striking out six. None of that is impressive BUT in 2024 things began to click. In 2024, last year, he played for Oklahoma University and started 11 games with 3.71 ERA and a 1.36 WHIP due to walking 4.5 per 9 IP. His 90/40 K/BB rate was good for his 80 IP except the BBs needed to improve. He played for Chatham in the Cape Code League in 2024 but only pitched in two games for 9 total innings but did well. He gave up 8 hits and NO WALKS which was a huge improvement and struck out 10 batters. This year at Oklahoma he got 16 starts with a 2.65 ERA and 1.01 WHIP. He struck out 124 in 95 innings while only walking 23 and hitting 10. That was good for a 10-win season so he's come a very long way since 2022. Hopefully he'll stay on the steep upward trajectory. Marcus Phillips was the #2 Starter behind Doyle at Tennessee. His history is short but very solid. A South Dakota born SP who played limited seasons up north in HS then went to a JC in Iowa before ending up at Tennessee for his 2024 and 2025 seasons. Advanced SPs from college is what we needed and what we got so that's good. Now we need to hope Breslow chose well.

What a bunch of crap!!! If someone doesn't agree with my knowledge of the game that's fine but you keep trying to prove incorrect concepts and expect me to believe it because the new baseball fans on the site do. Have you ever considered they only believe your inaccurate thoughts because they have never been presented with the truth? FYI... this is the first site I've seen where a moderator is one of the most insulting people simply because I don't agree with a word you are saying. Seems like a bad business model. How about being a bit more open minded, you might learn something. Also, your position of authority gives you the ability to brow beat those who don't agree. Maybe that's why you think people get along with you as opposed to me. They might just be intimidated by your "my way or the highway" approach to moderating. You might want to dial it down a bit. See if people still agree with you and pretend to like you. I guess maybe you should work on your approach too. Thanks for your unsolicited advice!!

They want to have the equivalent information that other teams have so they are not looked at as being at a disadvantage. The more important question is what a team should do with this information. There is no one right way to use this information. Initially, 25 years ago teams started to shift using this information, but the data was in its infant stages when no two companies could come up with the same values for metrics like WAR. As companies worked to standardize the formulas to some degree and build industry standards for what was to be measured the popularity of the estimates grew. I believe the media was well paid to endorse the data because Brian Kenny knew Bill James and tried to establish himself as the biggest promoter of metrics despite many of the REAL baseball people still resisting the accuracy of the data. The support for metrics varied greatly across baseball with the media pushing the concept that if you didn't use them, you were behind the times and couldn't be as effective as those that do use them. That opinion was paid for by the new companies that invested heavily in this new data age and as fans grew accustomed to the fun comparisons (despite their inaccuracies due to the apple to oranges challenges) the MLB got behind the data era growth to try to expand the fan base. Here's the part that I can't seem to get across to you. The contributing factors that are assembled to evaluate a player by a scout and a metric breakdown are all subjective. There is no right answer because the future is unknown. Today most teams are backing off the metrics and reversing the trend to a more balanced combination of human evaluation and the metrics approach. What will the future hold? We don't know. Trends often are cyclical so maybe human evaluation will regain a stronghold like in the past due to the inaccuracies introduced by averaging, normalization and extrapolation. Who knows!! Now let's break down when a metric might be of use. Do you need metrics to know how hard Bonds hit a baseball to know he was elite? How about Judge? Is there any value in knowing who hit it harder? ABSOLUTELY NOT. It might be a fun fact, but it doesn't add value to know it. If you observe a player like Skenes or Skubal, do you really need to know spin rates or try to measure the break on his off-speed pitches to know they are both outstanding and you would want them on your team? No but both are still measured. So where is the added value in metrics? What is the information that a scout can't determine? There isn't any!! BUT scouts have biases that make them not optimal. So, if two scouts disagree does it help if an estimate that doesn't have to be accurate breaks the tie? It helps if the scouts are equally respected. So where is the actual added value from the data gathered today during baseball games? It's in the stats that are accumulated prior to the misinterpretation of the metric formulas. The scouting reports on each batter. Not the batter's WAR but the actual pitches that have been historically effective against him as a hitter and other hitters. The BOOK, as we call it, on a hitter or pitcher. I don't consider that data metrics because its facts recorded about the game if done properly. This set of data documents the game just like hits, runs etc. If you choose to use WAR over base facts, that's your choice but it's an inaccurate one in comparison. If you want to tell a hitter that the pitcher throws a curveball 72% of the time on this count versus left-handed hitters, that's ok as long as the hitter understands that the future is NOT KNOWN but the pitcher may simply have tendencies to be aware of. Those analytics departments that I know don't calculate WAR they do the work to summarize the data that I have just mentioned. That data aids the hitter or pitcher with information relevant to the game he is playing in. Again, the metrics are for fans that like what-if scenarios. Now it's your turn. What do you know about the game? My family stories date back to my father going to Spring Training with the Boston Braves when Stengel was the manager and big and little poison were in camp with Ernie Lombardi. My dad was a Red Sox fan, so I grew up a Red Sox fan and started playing at age 8 through age 23 when I finished my playing career with a semi-pro team before I left for grad school. I actually stopped playing at 53 due to foot neuropathy. In between, I managed many teams from Little League, through Babe Ruth League, through American Legion ball to HS select teams that competed in National Tournaments. Then I dedicated 10 years to helping HS players get college opportunities and elite select team opportunities while assisting a hitting coach for Milwaukee and the Astros with testing new technology like the tennis balls that were fired at over 100 mph using multicolored balls and letters on the tennis balls. So, I have a pretty good understanding of baseball and during my Anheuser Busch days I observed the inner workings of the St. Louis Cardinals from a financial perspective. You don't have to believe what I wrote but it's awfully specific to be a fabrication and it is factual. So please explain to me why you think you have the right to be so condescending to me because I don't agree with you on the value of metrics?

You want to confuse the concept of a fact and an estimate to try to make your point but a fact is something recorded for history in the record of the game. Estimates known as metrics are fabricated data that tries to extend what actually happened in a game to a comparable number to other games and other players because the reality is no two games are identical. Each game is unique, so you are comparing apples and oranges because as a fan you can't live with just the facts. I care whether the team wins or not and what a player does to help them win. You want to rate players who don't experience the exact same thing by making questionable assumptions about how they are similar BUT NOT THE SAME. I don't have that need because baseball gives me all I need to evaluate a player's performance, and I don't assume performance from game to game will be identical for any player so to suggest it in a formula is completely bogus.

Why is this concept so hard to grasp? ANY item recorded in the record books is a fact because it will be the official documentation of the game record going forward. The metrics are values not recorded as part of the game because they are estimated numbers after the fact. There is no accuracy to them since changing one assumption or changing the algorithm as people fine tune it will change the number but since the number is not an official part of the game it's irrelevant. Additionally, the metric has no guaranteed level of accuracy and it's not an official stat, it's just an interesting perspective that has next to no meaning except to those who choose to believe EVERY parameter of the calculation is correct which nobody should believe except those who construct the metric. Use the wrong pool of players in the averaging and the number changes. That's just one example of how the metric is dependent on the assumptions and the assumptions have no validity because they are guesses by the creator of the metric.

What a wild opinion. The error is not a guess in my opinion as I have documented 3 times to you. It is a fact because it's in the record book. Please pay attention to what is written! You've gotten the same fact wrong several times now. The FACT is the error. The determination of difficulty is a subjective estimate made by people trying to conjure information from past events that can't be accurately fabricated to solve the questions they want to answer. The end result is a GUESS that fans buy into as fact, but it is as far from a fact as you can get. It's an estimate which translates to a GUESS. Metrics have no credibility for accuracy. They are at best educated guesses. The error on the other hand is a fact whether it's right or wrong because it's in the record books.

Southern California HS ball is very competitive. Arenado, Chapman and Skenes are from the same high school. Arenado and Chapman played together with Arenado the SS then after he graduated Chapman became the SS.

You lost me. The error is a stat not a guess or estimate. That's what I've been saying all along. Guesses are the metrics that try to improve on the errors by suggesting other strengths of a player beyond their ability to field. Metric decisions on the difficulty of play are subjective especially once they are rolled into totals then divided by the participants to come up with an average. The average has absolutely no meaning because it's based on data in the past that doesn't apply to the future. You are free to believe what you want but I distinguish between facts recorded about MLB games and estimates that are fabricated from base data that must be summarized, indexed and retro actively applied to the actions of past games or projected to future games. I never assume that a guy who ran 10 feet to a ball is better than a guy who only ran 5 feet to the ball because i don't know whether that relates to his skills or the distance the ball was hit from him in a real-life unique circumstance. I do know if one is an out and the other is not that the player producing the out helped his team more. You can only make plays on the balls that actually happen in a game and that dictates the landscape of the game. It's a landscape that will never happen again so assuming a play made today will be made in the future is a guess. The fact in this scenario is that the play was made today.

If you will stop flip-flopping between baseball and the outside world you will find what I said is correct. The definition in a dictionary is out of context to baseball jargon. The metrics that are published related to baseball are ALL GUESSES ALSO KNOWN AS ESTIMATES. That's a fact and undisputable. Errors are recorded data or facts about what happens in the game. The accuracy of the error is irrelevant to the actual role it plays in baseball. It is a recorded fact that may or may not be changed in the future but IT IS NOT a calculated value based on someone trying to fabricate a simulated event. That's a metric.

The key point of disagreement is the assumptions you make. Every play is new and original. Looking at what has been done in the past is NOT a guarantee for the future. Too many variables factor into a play to say definitely that what happened in that one instance will always repeat itself. Consequently, the qualitative differences are NOT guaranteed they are simply history. To adjust the base data of fielding percentage is to guess an alternative outcome based on history but as I have mentioned history does NOT predict the future so to assume it does creates an ADD ON qualifier that is highly questionable. So if the temp is 50 degrees today what is tomorrow's temp? You can add a ton of influencing factors and come up with a guess or you can guess 50 again. Which one is guaranteed to be correct? Neither!!! Metrics uses a base of the past and then adds on qualifiers that will fine tune the guess. I stay away from guesses. I let the actual play stand for itself and I interpret if the team was successful on the play. An out means yes and everything else means no. The more yes results from a player, the better off the team is. I simply refuse to force fine tuning of real data with estimates without accuracy. If the estimates could be guaranteed, then I would use them but they can't be. You can't know what Ruth and Bonds might have done under simulated situations any more than you can take one SS that gets specific balls hit to him and compare him to another SS that gets a completely different set of balls hit to him. You can sub one for the other to see under what circumstances each would be better. That's simulation or what-if analysis and it has no accuracy like the results of a play does because it goes in the record books.

First, try to understand the nomenclature. Errors are not a metric, they are a stat. Metrics are guesses or estimates. Fielding % is also a stat not a metric. The laughable part is your lack of understanding about what you are talking about. OAA is WAG also known as a wild ass guess. It's nothing more than one perspective on a guess at a fabricated concept called Outs Above Average. That's a joke metric. It's completely fabricated. Ultimate Zone Ratings are fabricated. They are new parameters made up to try to make apples to oranges comparisons that are wild ass guesses. Most people actually use a measurement to define the best at something. Go look up who had a better DRS in CF in 2024 - Duran or Rafaela. I'll give you a hint, it's the guy with 2 errors in 550 total chances in CF since he joined the Red Sox. It's Duran. You do realize that just saying something is so doesn't actually make it so? Right? You are welcome to your opinion, but you must know that nobody cares what that is. They care about facts, and the fact is Duran outperformed all Red Sox outfielders last year, with Rafaela second and Abreu the gold glove winner finishing 3rd. It takes a lot of nerve to suggest something is laughable when you have no knowledge about the topic.

Let me point out that you didn't ask the right question for the data you provided. The question should have been which player performed better given his unique set of plays he acted upon. The answer is simple when phased properly, Player B performed better and showed his competency within his range is superior to Player A. Player A might have more range or maybe he simply got a different set of ground balls hit to him. That is unclear. Simple rule, the player with better fielding skills is always the preferred player because you can't control where the balls are going to be hit to. If in 2024 a more athletic player gets hit balls that are 4 feet farther away but his fielding percentage is significantly worse and then the next year he gets balls hit to him that are 4 feet closer to him so his fielding percentage is better but not as good as the other player who had the same range factor the year before, the answer is obvious. Getting to more balls only can be a bonus if the additional balls gotten too aren't misplayed at a rate that includes more extra bases than balls hit to him. The question of "who is the better player?" is irrelevant and that's what metric people don't get. All that matters is who performed better on the unique set of balls hit to the player. Everything else is an extrapolation that is pure conjecture. Just because a player made a play in the past that is a specific distance away or a specific difficulty, that doesn't mean they will ever execute it again in the future. You can only measure reality.

Actually, fielding percentage is about the balls gotten to and the success rate of getting an out which is the single most fundamental aspect of defense in baseball. So OBP is not the essence of success? We won't ever agree on anything since you've been brainwashed to think estimates known as metrics have accuracy to them and reflect real events. Neither of which is true. An entire generation of fans have been conned as to the value of metrics. They are hypothetical numbers not facts. Fielding % accounts for the success rate of a fielder. Metrics supposed what might have happened given normal conditions calculated from averages that don't reflect specific occurrences. Basically, made up data to try to estimate the most likely scenario for a specific player, not what actually happened. It's a what-if world with no assured accuracy. If a score keeper chooses wrong with respect to an error, it's part of the game. If a player is clustered in a non-representative group of players, the data is completely skewed and nobody knows it because nobody defines the parameters of the equations with historical accuracy. The public must simply accept the information as if there is a level of accuracy that does not exist. Averaging is a form of guessing. A stat like batting average is a record of an event not a guess. Trying to extend reality so you can guess how far a player would have run to make a play based on clustering a group of other players performances on similar plays is pure fiction. It's called guessing. Believing some company can project guesses for the performance of all players is a fantasy world. There is no certainty to guesses. They aren't after the fact data; they are projections based on assumptions that may or may not apply in general and certainly don't apply to very specific plays. Metrics are a fun WHAT-IF world and are great for nerds that like playing what-if games. I prefer to use facts to assess players. It's old school but it's the most accurate way to do things. Nobody should care if someone has the opinion that one player is more athletic than another they should care if the defender made the play successfully to help his team. Non successful plays whether they include forty feet runs or no run at all still has the same net result, the team is hurt by the misplay. I take no offense by you believing in the simulated world of metrics, just don't expect others to follow who actually know the game and math because the data is not even close to being more accurate than the facts recorded after a game. The hits, runs, rbis, doubles, triples, home runs. Those are facts. WAR is a make-believe number that is contrived and derivative in an attempt to compare performance across players. The assumptions can be argued; the normalization is inaccurate and the concept of Wins Above Replacement is absurd because it's a team game not an individual game. Having a high WAR doesn't necessarily mean you've done your best to help your team win, but that's what you are being sold. Players can only succeed at the situation they are in, there is no make-believe world that theoretically allows them to perform to an average performance. It's a unique event that only happens once in life. That can't be predicted, nor can it be lumped in with other events to come up with indices to evaluate players. 1000 exact same instances across 1000 players would never result in the suggested performance of metrics. Baseball deals in reality and metrics deal in a world of fabrication designed to go beyond reality to determine attributes of a player that can't be measured by the real statistics of baseball. My recommendation is to stay grounded in the real game and look at stats to determine how good a player is not how good he could possibly be if you tried to select a similar group of players and compared their skills. Love the sport not the make-believe data that now drives billions of dollars of revenue to all the statistically inaccurate corporations that suggest their data is accurate.

First - I published Yoshida's and Abreu's numbers versus righties and lefties in a previous response. If your conclusion from those numbers is that they aren't that different, we probably have no reason to discuss baseball together. It's beyond obvious that they ARE NOT similar. FYI... he won batting titles in Japan facing both right-handed and left-handed pitchers. Abreu has only had 44 PA in 2025 because he is so bad vs LH pitchers Cora has avoided them. To conclude anything from 44 PAs is a stretch. Just the volume alone tells you how bad he is so the silly argument that he's as good as Duran vs LH pitchers is ridiculous. Second - Duran did have ANOTHER great defensive season in 2024. FYI... He played CF for 261 games in the minors, and he made 6 errors in 576 Total Chances for a fielding % of .990. In the MLB he's played CF in 265 games and made 2 errors for a fielding percentage of .996. Since metric estimates are completely inaccurate just look at the obvious REAL DATA and try to conclude this guy isn't a great CF defender. That would defy logic. The answer to your question is 2024 is the rule based on 10 seasons of playing CF. Third - The evidence was overwhelming why Duran shouldn't be traded before Abreu. The last quality leadoff man in BOS was Mookie. If you lose Duran there is no telling how long, it will take before they find a new one or have to trade for a new one. The data all supports Duran staying and playing CF with Rafaela in RF. Mayer needs to be the 2B while Story is being paid $23.3 Million a year to play SS and Bregman needs to play 3B. As soon as the organization feels Campbell is ready to return as the 1B, he'll join Mayer in the infield and Toro and Gonzalez will become the infield reserves with Refsnyder the outfield reserve and Wong the back-up catcher.

First, baseball is a team sport so what's good for a player might not be good for the team. Devers was a perfect example. He killed the defense for 8 seasons because he wouldn't move to DH. Mookie Betts was a great defender and may have put up better numbers than JBJ on defense had he been allowed to play CF, but they needed him in the more difficult RF position. That's why Rafaela needs to be modern day version of Mookie Betts winning GGs or even Platinum Gloves in RF with his strong arm. Duran is the second-best defender who ranked ahead of Rafaela in 2024 while playing CF. The team is far, far better off with Duran in CF and Rafaela in RF and Anthony in LF. The numbers don't lie. Your out of context reference to Rafaela being 3rd ignores the 2024 season before Cora screwed things up by moving Duran to LF because he's a terrible manager who knows so little about baseball it's frightening. I posted Abreu's ridiculously bad numbers against LF pitchers above. To suggest what's best for the team as being Abreu playing the outfield or playing full time is NOT supported by the numbers. He finished 3rd in 2024 when he won his Gold Glove to Duran and Rafaela with respect to defense and as such, he normally would be put in LF except the young superstar needs to go there so Abreu is the odd man out. As far as DH, look at the numbers I posted. Yoshida is a better DH than Abreu due to Abreu's incompetence at hitting LH pitchers since he arrived in the MLB. Refsnyder should not have to be the handcuff for the inept Abreu. He should be the fourth outfielder full time. Since Yoshida probably doesn't have Abreu's market value since he's been out so much, then Abreu automatically becomes the expendable player if we are going to enhance the roster at the trade deadline. Whether it's Helsley or a starting pitcher, the first one out the door needs to be Abreu coupled with a blocked prospect playing behind Anthony, Mayer or Campbell. If you like Garcia as a prospect even though his odds are bad that he'll ever make the MLB team before being traded, then put Tibbs in the deal instead. He's just as blocked as Garcia. But in the end, we need to do what's best for the team not what's best for your favorite players.

If Helsley won't agree to an extension, there is no point to trying to waste resources on him. It's all contingent on him being extended. I completely agree.

Lots of ridiculous suggestions here. You must consider the trade from St. Louis' perspective for it to have a chance of being approved. Helsley is a top closer so St. Louis might not be willing to drop to Maton as their closer the rest of the season but he does have excellent numbers and the upgrade in their outfield might drive them to do it. Will somebody offer more than Abreu and J Garcia for Helsley? Maybe. And we have enough in the farm system to counter with another prospect blocked by the excellent players who have just arrived in the MLB. This trade is a complete win for BOS because Abreu and Garcia are surplus players that won't down grade the starting line-up. It's called trading from strength, and it makes a lot more sense than the silly pro BOS suggestions I'm reading in the responses. You can't give a bag of balls for an elite closer.

The outfield needs to be Anthony in LF, Duran in CF and Rafaela in RF. Abreu is the odd man out of the outfield rotation because he can't hit lefties and Duran's defense in CF is better than Abreu's defense in right field based on the 2024 metrics. Duran is NOT good in LF so to evaluate him and compare him to Abreu playing that position unfairly stacks the deck against Duran who currently leads the team with 169 total bases which is 21 MORE than the next best player Rafaela. Trading away the top Total Bases guys by far is a dumb move. I know some fans only care about what a player has done for the team lately but that is a highly limited approach to comparing stats. Here are Duran's, Abreu's and Yoshida's stats versus right-handed and left-handed pitchers. One of these three need to be traded by the deadline and frankly since Yoshida is highly unlikely that means Abreu is the best candidate based on lower defensive value and his offense not fitting the niche that Duran fills nicely as the leadoff hitter. The downside of picking Abreu is that EVERYONE recognizes Duran is the better player so his trade value is higher, but everyone also recognizes Bregman's trade value is the highest on the team and he's NOT the guy the team should want to trade to step backwards like they would if they traded Duran. Duran - Career vs RH pitchers .280 - vs LH pitchers .235, (45 points, 1379/492 PA 26.3% vs LH ) 2021 - vs RH .225 vs LH .185 (40 pts, 84/28 PA), 2022 vs RH .229 vs LH .184 (45 pts, 181/42 PA) 2023 - vs RH .315 vs LH ,276 (39 pts 313/49 PA), 2024 vs RH .298 vs LH .255(43 pts, 505/230 PA) 2025 - Through 96 games vs RH .281 vs LH .212 (69 pts, 287/143) Abreu - Career vs RH pitchers .272 - vs LH pitchers .200 (72 points, 709/121 PA 14.6% vs LH) 2023 - vs RH .333 vs LH .200 (133 pts, 75/10 PA), 2024 vs RH .266 vs LH .180 (86 pts, 380/67) 2025 - Through 96 games vs RH .263 vs LH .231 (32 pts, 254/44) Yoshida - Career vs RH pitchers .303 - vs LH .238, (65 points, 756/253 PA 25.1% vs LH 2023 - vs .293 vs LH .273 (20 pts, 436/144 PA), 2024 vs RH .310 vs LH .191 (119 pts, 313/108) 2025 - Through 96 games vs RH .571 vs LH .000 (571 pts, 7/1) While Abreu in his 44 PAs in 2025 has done better than in the past he's never had more than 67 plate appearances versus LH pitchers in any season. Duran has had 492 against LH pitchers and is hitting a respectable .235 versus Abreu's .200. The decision chart looks like this - Anthny in LF, Rafaela in RF and who is the best 3rd OF? Duran for his leadoff capabilities, his total bases and his superior defense in CF. Who should be the DH? Comparing Yoshida's performance versus Abreu's you see that Yoshida hits LH pitchers far better than Abreu and given a chance to log more PAs he looks to be the more valuable all around hitter since you don't have to platoon him thus one less player on the roster to fill the same number of slots. This is why Abreu should be the unanimous choice for being traded at the deadline to bolster the roster. Refsnyder makes for an excellent fourth outfielder who should get roughly 6 starts per month while the 3 primary OFers rest 2 games a month giving them roughly 150 starts for the season. Refsnyder can also pinch hit late in games based on the righty/lefty matchups late in the game. So the roster should be: Narvaez/Wong(hopefully can upgrade him) Toro/Campbell/Gozalez at 1B, Mayer at 2B, Story at SS and Bregman at 3B Anthony, Duran and Rafaela in LF to RF with Yoshida as the DH and Refsnyder the 4th OFer. That's 13 hitters for the roster with Gonzalez and Campbell reserves in the infield.

Helsley is a good piece to add and extend. At 30 he's a better option going forward than Chapman but to have both the rest of this year and next year would be outstanding. Sing Helsley and offer a QO to Chapman. That bumps BOS to one of the best set of closers in the AL. What do the Cardinals need? An outfielder. Give them Abreu and prospect J. Garcia. That clears room in the outfield so Yoshida can play DH. If he plays well, maybe we can trade him and gain some more payroll. If not, no impact since he's done nothing for BOS since he arrived.

Gonzalez is either a very slow learner or he's having a career year. All the metrics in the world won't predict his future. Trending his skills makes you think it could be he's developed slowly from a mediocre college career or moving to Boston helped him develop faster but there isn't enough data to feel comfortable picking the likely future of Gonzalez. You keep him another year and hope this 2025 season isn't an anomaly. Based on his mid-season performance, I believe he will regress to the mean rapidly in the second half and what we thought about his overall skills in Spring Training will probably be proven out by the end of the season. If that's the case, don't be shocked if he hits around .200 the rest of the season. Also don't be shocked if he maintains his current performance. With so little data to go on, his second half performance has a wide range of possible outcomes. All the metrics provided in the article are fun to look at but worthless at predicting the future. That's the nature of metrics. Great toy, no predictive value. Flip a coin or guess is just as accurate but like I said if you are into numbers, inaccurate what-if numbers are always fun to review.

Since this comment was a response to my comment maybe I am missing something. Weren't we having the one-on-one discussion before an unsolicited comment was interjected that didn't apply to our discussion? So, who actively picked the fight? The person who interrupted out conversation? Or are you suggesting that I picked a fight by pointing out that the two topics weren't similar? If you are thinking this is on me, I can now relate to Caitlyn Clark's experience with the refs.

I apologize for making my response too complicated for you. It was clearly articulated and completely logical in delineating the two situations. To suggest I was wrong on so many levels can't be more vague so it suggests you either didn't comprehend the answer or simply aren't equipped with information to try and refute it. The laughable part is that you consider it condescending for me to point out that you incorrectly distinguished how different the two points were. That's not condescending. Look up the word. I simply tried to bring the discussion down to a level that would make it clearer to you so you could understand the difference. That's the polite thing to do when speaking with someone who doesn't understand the concepts being discussed. You should be thanking me for being so polite but instead you try to spin this as me being mean to you. I'm not mean to you. I feel sorry for you because you simply don't get what i was talking about and I'm sure that's very frustrating which is why you tried to blame me. As proof to the fact you don't get what I am talking about, you wrote your last statement which a confirmation of your lack of understanding. I'm just glad you didn't send me an emoji with a guy sticking out his tongue at me!! Next time, if you don't understand something don't attack the person ask them what was meant so you can understand it too.

Let's begin with all the all-star hitters on the team. Bregman - list complete. Next go by position C - A player who has NEVER achieved his current numbers in his career 1B - A list of non 1Bs forced to play 1B that have had decent first halves but have no track record of success. 2B - The best 2B is in the minors after getting off to a great start and then struggling to make adjustments to deal with the book opponents created. Good upside here but not currently. SS - A poor hitting experienced and expensive player who currently is hitting .249 after being hot recently and a highly touted prospect with questionable defensive skills that is hitting .214 currently. 3B - Best player on the team and only all-star hitter this season. The team's one current offensive strength. LF - A misplaced speedster that is an excellent leadoff man who is getting jerked around by Cora and it's impacting his rising performance that Cora stunted recently. A former all-star that needs some consistency from his manager with respect to his proper position and location in the batting order to be allowed to return to form in the second half. CF - An excellent kid that is playing the wrong position for his skills and has been crapped on by his manager for two seasons after starting out great when he was allowed to bat leadoff in 2023. Eventually, he will be a perennial all-star based on his elite defensive skills; his speed and his sneaky power coupled with his timely hitting. RF - An over-rated platoon hitter that focuses on power which creates a streakiness to his hitting that provides for long periods of being hot and cold. No skills related to him hitting LH pitchers is a massive liability of this player. He is a player that should be traded due to his limited hitting skills versus lefties. DH - Currently the best power hitter in the prospect class who needs to play LF going forward like Ted and Yaz. This kid most likely will be the best power hitter on the team but isn't there yet. limiting the current team's hitting. So which hitter jumps out to you that they are currently an above average long-term hitter other than Bregman the lone all-star hitter? When 8 of 9 spots in the batting order are iffy hitters at this point in time and the metrics suggest this is a great or even good hitting team don't the numbers have to pass the eye test? A group of guys who have NEVER been good MLB hitters have accumulated metrics that suggest this is a good or great hitting team. Seriously, how is that possible and how can it be sustainable in the near term? Sure, we all believe Anthony, Campbell, Mayer, Duran, Rafaela will be good to great hitters in the next few years but that doesn't make them great right now. The stats are being put up by pretenders, not legitimate MLB players. Romy Gonzalez is the only guy hitting over .300. He's an 18th round pick from 7 years ago who has never done this before!!! "Smoke and mirrors" is the phrase that fits this offense. The metrics you quoted are part of the mirage that is the 2025 season. Reality will set in after the all-star game just like it has most of Cora's career as manager. Normally, Cora blames the GM for not giving him enough to win but this year is different, Cora has enough to win but simply can't do that with his skill set being limited to "bench coach". Will the core players be excellent in the future? I think so. Are they now? No way. So please refute my assessment of the current status of each player by contradicting what I wrote. None of the best hitters right now have done it before and the prospects are improving but not fast enough to suggest this a good hitting team. They are simply a team that pounds the crap out of certain pitchers and fails to hit against good pitchers inflating aggregates like total runs scored but not translating to wins so the totals skew reality. The totals may be sustainable, but the winning won't pick up as the schedule moves into the down days of AUG/SEP when the AL East historically eats them alive. I like our future, and I am realistic of our present. We had next to no chance with Devers, now, the GM needs to focus on the future, especially the pitching.