TedYazPapiMookie

It's called a "generous" comp because Devers is no Pujols or Miggy but it represents what other Latin big-boned players who started in their teens as an international prospect have done historically. There are no guarantees that Devers will last through his 31 season or his 36 season but considering his slightly above average hitting career compared to two Superstars, I think it's safe to say the odds are good that he won't be as good and he won't last as long. Also, Devers isn't young he's middle aged for a player that started in his teens. He's in his 15th season overall and his 9th MLB season. That's not young.

Your history of supporting the Red Sox is admirable and a bit longer than mine. My distaste for Cora is about the cheating. He disrespected the game in my eyes and I'm one of three generations of baseball players in my family. His cheating is unforgivable for me. You clearly forgive him. That will NEVER happen for me. The greatest day in Boston's future will be the day he is fired. I root for all the players to be successful. I root especially hard for those that have been screwed by Cora's bad decisions and prejudice. Without Devers, Cora will get a pass even if Breslow provides lots more talent. As of now, I still root for the success of guys like Duran, Rafaela and Campbell. I think Crochets is a huge asset that would have been a great addition to Sale. But Sale couldn't play for Cora just like Price and it appears Buehler is in the same boat so subtract the manager and add back Sale and Boston could have had an elite rotation. Now we need to see what Breslow can do to improve the rotation for 2026. The prospects are not going to provide championship play in 2025 so playing all of them in 2025 will speed the process forward as fast as possible. They will all develop in their own time and Boston will be stacked when that happens, but they will be devoid of quality management and integrity thanks to Cora. That's why he needs to go.

Last three GMs DD - Brings a ton of talent in Price, Sale, JD and others, they win 3 division titles and a ring Bloom - Dumps Mookie and Price, then repurposes the entire 2018 championship team except Devers who he over-pays by $10Million a year for a DH and 5 years longer than Devers will be serviceable Breslow - Figures out the politics of the organization and has Cora recruit Bregman so Devers will retire his glove which should have happened at least 7 years earlier then trades for Crochet, Bregman, Giolito and Sandoval in hopes of improving the horrid pitchers from Bloom but mistakenly gives away Sale for a bad 2B prospect showing he's not perfect. Three resumes and you have problems with the last one? Not the one that destroyed the franchise? Breslow is a godsend. He not only made Cora do the dirty work in getting Devers to move to DH but then he shipped him out of town and recovered $260 Million to use elsewhere if the owners don't have another psychotic break like they did when they fired Dombrowski. I think everything is going the best it has since Dombrowski was fired. No complaints at all. Now if he figures out the complex politics of firing Cora, he will be my idol and win an organizational MVP!!!!

It's not his job and he lacks the maturity to fulfill the role of team leader. He leads by trying to achieve goals not by being a great example for younger players. Breslow has been praised by many in the media for keeping a lid on his deals. I don't understand what's so hard to understand. Devers isn't a Yaz or a Williams who earned the respect of the franchise to have trades run by them. Devers is just a slightly above average hitter with no defensive skills. He never took the time to learn to speak English playing on an American baseball team. Nothing about Devers was about team. It was always about Devers. I am so glad he is gone. One more expulsion and this clubhouse might be cohesive like it should be. Bregman and Crochet need to pick up where Mookie, Bogey and JD left off as the leaders. Even they wouldn't be consulted by Breslow if he wanted to make a trade. They haven't earned it.

Crochet, Dobbins and Giolito all match up well with top 3 SPs on other teams. Bello is inconsistent and Buehler is terrible so far. Somebody needs to fix Buehler and soon. Bello is a borderline MLB SP who lacks maturity like Devers did. I don't see him being a long-term solution. His stuff compared to Houck is AAA-ish. I also like Crawford for the last spot in the rotation before Bello. But for now, you can only use the SPs that are available, so he'll have to do. The real question for 2025 is can the team keep producing enough runs to win with the horrendous line-ups Cora has been using. Playing Hamilton is a joke. The guy is a AA level player, not even a AAA player. His .178 average along with his .121 average in 2023 and his career year average of .248 in 2024 speaks volumes to why he should still be in the minors even if he is fast. The team needs to hit. Mayer's all or nothing at all home run binge has helped win a few games so that's good but neither Anthony nor Mayer had the success like Campbell did and yet they bat in the line-up where reputation puts them not performance. This is why Cora needs to go. The batting order and the confidence bestowed on each of the players is important not just the select few Cora likes. If they can't fix the clubhouse by removing the prejudice, this team is going nowhere in 2025. Breslow needs to add talent at Manager and at pitching and he needs to add a big bat that can step into either 1B or Catcher despite Narvaez and Toro temporarily doing well. They have no track record of success. The rest of the starting 9 hitters do have strong track records of success albeit mostly at the minor league level. They have had the kind of success that can be sustained once defined at the MLB level. 2025 will probably be a year of runs. Winning streaks and losing streaks. Wins over great team and losses to bad teams. That inconsistency is the trademark of the manager.

Devers has no right to know what Breslow is going to do with respect to making trades. If he misled Devers at all due to his curiosity that was just smart baseball because leaking the Bregman deal could have ruined the deal.

I like the theme of your article. Losing Devers is a good thing and now Breslow needs to lose Cora and the transition to a less toxic environment will be complete. It's hard when your manager is someone who represents cheating. Devers was selfish and set a bad example, but Cora cheated and sets an even worse example for the young players. As far as this year being a slow start for the big three prospects, think again. The transition from minor league baseball to major league baseball is not an overnight action. There is so much to learn. Campbell for example started out the best of the three by FAR and looked like he was going to adjust immediately and then the reality of making the jump to the MLB hit. The scouting for each team is very thorough. The book on players is created and modified daily. Once a small chink in the armor exists, the other teams exploit it. That's how a guy like Campbell goes from hitting .400 after 6 games to hitting .301 after April and 29 games to hitting .227 after May and 51 games to .226 after 66 games on June 17th. Teams didn't have a book on him then they did, and the coaching staff did NOT do a good job helping him adapt to the changes they identified. Eventually, he will make his adjustment and catch fire once again, but the length of his slump will be dependent on the amount of help he gets and how quickly he learns what he needs to do to make adjustments. This is a process that varies by player, so patience is key. Don't expect greatness year one. Expect the player to move up the learning curve on how to make adjustments. Marcelo didn't start fast like Campbell. He's struggled from day 1. After 6 games like Campbell, Mayer was hitting .217 not .400. Mayer has played 20 games now. He's hitting .214. He's now in the same boat as Campbell needing to make adjustments but he never experienced the joy of starting out hot like Campbell. The ironic part is that fans are all over Campbell stating he should be sent down, but he has experienced so much more success than Mayer!!! That's the politics of the Red Sox fan base and front office. That is the direct influence of a manager who plays favorites which is why he needs to be fired. That should level the playing field for the young prospects. Lastly, there is Anthony. After 6 games, he's the worst of the three with a .059 average. He's only played 8 games so far and he is at .080. He's batting 3rd in the line-up!! Again, this is why Cora needs to go. He's benched Campbell the most successful prospect and is batting the worst performing prospect 3rd and the 2nd worst 5th. Put yourself in that dugout and tell me, as a player not on Cora's good list, would you want to be there when outperforming others means nothing? That's how Duran felt a couple of years ago. That's how Rafaela felt last year. Now Campbell is the red-headed stepchild. That's why the dugout is toxic. It was great for years for Devers when players like Mookie, JD, Bogey and Benny were out playing Devers and now it's great for Anthony and Mayer and Hamilton, a AAA at best skilled hitter batting .178 or 48 points lower than then Minor League Player of the Year in 2024 who is sitting. It's truly pathetic the choices Cora makes and his reasons for doing so. He was hired as an attempt to fix the diversity issue and instead he simply created a new type of racism. Instead of white players getting all the opportunities, it's now the Cora favorites that get all the breaks and those favorites have a tendency to be people who are part of Cora's culture. Baseball should be a performance-based sport, not ethnic based sport Cora didn't represent diversity like he was supposed to, he simply changed the focus of the racism. Couple that with his cheating and I will never understand how this former player with questionable morals got the greatest managerial job in baseball.

The downward trajectory actually started in 2017 when Farrell was fired opening the door for many great potential managers and Boston took a bench coach instead. That bench coach hurt the great pitchers that Dombrowski gathered to make the run to a ring. Then the manager destroyed the 2019 season and ownership turned on a dime to teach Mookie a lesson about how the star players need to take low ball offers or they will be shipped out of town. The skid was magnified by the next unqualified person hired, Bloom. He was paid to dismantle the 2018 team, and he was so bad at this job it took him 4 years!! Enter Breslow, the genius. He like Bloom, has no experience but has played for the Red Sox so he knows the toxic culture. He knows he can't demand things like Dombrowski because the owners will just send you packing. So, he plays the long game and gets Cora to move Devers to DH. Brilliant. Then he pulls off a couple brilliant trades and start to replenish the talent that Bloom let go. Unfortunately, Devers decided to throw a kink in Breslow's plan and acted like such a prima donna that owners like they did with Mookie said the guy has to go. Breslow recovered $260 Million of the money wasted by Bloom and picked up a quartet of players who all have good upside potential but are not MLB stars at the moment. The talent level fluxed upward and then back downward. But there is a lot of money to recoup more talent with Devers' money. Breslow needs to do that now. Maybe then he can ask ownership for what most GMs ask for when hired, his own staff!! Cora isn't qualified to be a manager and Breslow is a genius, so he probably has had someone in mind since the day he first talked to ownership. That day may still happen by 2026 if Breslow again restocks the talent for Cora and he can't win with the team. At that point, Breslow will finally get his own staff and can be accountable for the success of the team. With Cora making daily mistakes like Devers did on defense, Breslow is heavily constrained from being successful. But with Henry on Cora's side, it will take excellent talent and terrible results for the other shoe to drop for Breslow. Devers to DH and Cora relieved of his duties were the two greatest challenges when Breslow arrived. One has been accomplished but until the second is accomplished Breslow can't truly be held accountable for the lack of success during his era.

Your comment about Anthony and Mayer is a bit unfair. ALL the great players from the 2018 Champs were expelled by Bloom the butcher. He was hired to cut payroll to allow the parent company to buy franchises they were seeking. That has happened and Bloom has been jettisoned as the henchman and now we have Breslow. Breslow's job is to fix the organization diplomatically. He's done just that. Remember, CORA wanted Bregman which led to the HUGE defensive upgrade at 3B. That probably was the number ONE item on Breslow's list of fixes. Since most GMs prefer to pick their manager, I'm guessing that will be item #2 on Breslow's list but he needs to do it diplomatically. He needs to provide the manager with a ton of talent and then the manager needs to fail. Things were going great until the recent hot streak but then the Devers deal reduced the talent level taking the burden off the manager so he's back at square one with respect to getting his own manager. The money recovered in the Devers deal could provide him with a couple of opportunities to significantly upgrade the talent once again. If that happens and the team misses the playoffs, he once again will have an argument for getting a manager of his choice. Should the young players be concerned? Absolutely. We still have the same bi-polar owners who can bring a winner to Boston then destroy just to rebuild it and destroy it again. Mookie being given away after supposedly alienating the owners or being alienated by the owners says EVERYTHING about the instability at the top. Bring a GM who promptly turns the club into a division winner three years in a row and a world champion just to be fired unceremoniously before the post championship year is even concluded is red flag number 2. The total dismantling of the 2018 roster is red flag number 3. Yes. EVERYONE should be wary of the owners. If corporate needs a new soccer team, the current set of youngsters could be dissolved as quickly as the 2018 champs. Breslow's job will be to get as many signed as possible before the owners have yet another change of heart.

Yes because Narvaez hasn't done it before and could struggle as the year progresses but Raleigh is a monster who has built an excellent reputation. He IS the best catcher in baseball. If Narvaez is the second best then we have an advantage over EVERY team at ONE position. Plus, he's a home run hitter and we need the power to replace a major portion of the power lost by Devers.

I think firing Cora will be his defining moment. Fortunately for Cora, the trade reduces the talent level temporarily which grants Cora a reprieve if he can't win with the team as it is now. That's why Breslow must do something to raise the talent level once again. I wouldn't be shocked if more big trades come out of nowhere before the all-star break. Breslow needs to add pitching and needs to upgrade a hitter in the line-up if the team is to compete. I would love to see Breslow trade for Cal Raleigh to upgrade our catching. With Story around for a few more years maybe Breslow gets Raleigh and Woo and gives up Mayer, Abreu, Jordan and Valera. Raleigh will partially replace Devers stats immediately while the youngsters continue to develop and Woo gives you an arm better than Buehler. It would mean lots of low scoring games in 2025, but the pitching would be much improved, and Raleigh is a force behind the plate.

Yoshida isn't worthless. He has value. It's not $18 Million a year but his OPS+ was 112 so he's above league average. He only has 2 years left after 2025 and 2025 is half over. With all the current players that look to be starting during their controllable years - Duran, Rafaela, Anthony, Mayer, Campbell, Casas and Narvaez, every player in the farm system that plays the same positions are expendable and available to be coupled with Yoshida to be moved. This is a salary dump that benefits the other team who has payroll room and is rebuilding. Yoshida is a weak defender, but he could make for a good fourth outfielder if the farm system player has some upside potential and is blocked by a current farm system player. Selling off farm system redundancies rather than doing a buy down allows Breslow the flexibility to use whatever money he needs to fill any remaining gaps in the roster. Buy downs simply reduce the amount of money available under the cap.

Interesting, when I looked it up on Baseball Reference I found these facts: BA in 2025 .272 2024 .272 2023 and Career .279 thanks to the early years OPS in 2025 .905 (2nd highest to 2019) 2024 .871 2023 .851 and Career .859 As an international player his prime years start earlier because of NO COLLEGE. His two best seasons to date are 2019 (six years ago) and 2022 (3 years ago) Based on comps of Pujols and Miggy, his prime years should end after the 2028 season, maybe he'll hang on to 2029, but it doesn't appear likely. Pujols fell off after his 32 season and Miggy after his 33 season. Since they are way better hitters than Devers, I expected his 31 season to be his last productive year. All three players started in their teens and became starters in their early 20s. Look up the dramatic falloffs of both superstars. It is a clearly delineated break in skill level for their hitting. Devers will be 31 in 2028. His huge contract runs through 2033 so for 1/2 the contract SF will be totally under water. Now consider Devers actual season so far. He's hitting .087 after his first hit on April 2nd. He raises his average to .278 by the 10th of April. Bregman gets hurt on May 23rd with Devers hitting .299. His average drops to .272 without Bregman's protection. Devers added 200 points to his average in May and he had 10 of 13 games with a hit in June. I believe those numbers will be better than what he puts up in SF. Weird take? Nope. Just the facts. His numbers despite the two set-backs are still ahead of his normal pace.

Devers was a bad fielder at 14 years old and got to play the position of 3B for 14 seasons because nobody was honest with him and told him how incredibly bad he was. All the lies about him improving created the monster than existed for 8 seasons in the MLB when he was NEVER qualified for the position. The record pace of his errors had to be stopped at some point and because it was allowed to go on for so long the reaction by Devers was that of a boy who couldn't accept how truly awful, he was on defense. The problem with the game today is that the clubhouse no longer controls the egos of the players. 40 years ago Devers would have been harassed by the pitchers for blowing so many plays in the field and the coaching staff would have reacted to the negativity by putting a better defender at 3B. It was a harsh reality back then but it ended up being the best thing for the team not the individual like today. If the video from the games since 2017 was used to review all his plays to do a quality check on the actual error count I believe his 141 errors would be closer to 282 than 141. That is a fielding percentage of .891. We haven't seen players with fielding percentages for 8 seasons that low since the dead ball era. Moving Devers to DH and doing like Cora suggested, having him retire his glove, was the right thing to do and it happened 8 years too late for Boston. The team would have been better off playing JD Martinez in the outfield and DHing Devers in 2018 when he made 24 errors. It's over and he's gone so let's move on. We have $260 Million to spend on our needs for the next 8 years and should be happy we got the money back. Now Breslow must use it wisely.

I think we will find the need for Devers is not as great as you might think. He's a DH so he can only contribute on offense. His offense while off to a nice start was going to regress to the mean as the season progressed. We were very fortunate to give the regression to SF!!! Let's see what moves Breslow makes to improve the pitching and offense with an extra $31 Million a year he has available. I hope he gets pitching first but I wouldn't be shocked to see another trade that brings in another all-star quality hitter. I'd like to see a deal that brings us Cal Raleigh. It's not likely but it would be great to have a Raleigh/Narvaez combination behind the plate.

The luxury tax annually for the next two years is $10Million on Hicks. That's below market if the pitching coaches can get him on track as a SP4 or even a late inning right-handed set-up man. Hicks is a FA in 2028. If Breslow can't use the $31Million a year for Devers in more productive ways, he should NOT be the GM but so far Breslow has added Crochet which is huge, Bregman which might be even bigger and he's dumped the biggest waste of money on the team. He's all world right now in my book. Next tasks are to dump Yoshida and Story and get his own manager. If he can accomplish that before 2026 the future will be very bright in Boston. SF now has the albatross around their neck.

What is your definition of a market-level contract? Are you saying Devers wasn't overpaid by 5 years and at least $6Million per year? DH's were making $25Million per year max when Devers got $31Million and Devers only had 5 good productive years left in his career. Remember, this guy isn't even close to elite. His BEST year was either 2019 with a 5.4 WAR or a 132 OPS+ or 2022 when he had 4.5 WAR and a 141 OPS+. Neither year was elite. Heck Duran had a 8.7 WAR in 2024 and a 131 OPS+ and nobody thinks he's elite. Mookie at age 23 had 9.8 WAR and 133 OPS+ then two years later had a 10.7 WAR and 186 OPS+. Now that's elite. Yet in 2020 Boston was saying no to $36Million a year but they said yes to a guy without any gold gloves who never finished higher than 11th in the MVP race to $31Million a year? If his market value in 2023 was $313Million then Mookie's would have been over $600 Million because his numbers were that much better considering his defense and his 8.6 WAR and 165 OPS+ in 2023 compared to Devers 3.5 WAR and 126 OPS+. Face it. Bloom signed Devers in hopes of saving his job and didn't care if the contract screwed over the Red Sox for a decade because he knew his time was almost up. Now it's SF's issue and we should all be happy to have passed the entire nugget to SF.

Every player in the deal is a bonus. Just getting back the nearly $300Million left on the contract was the huge win. That money can be redeployed more effectively. The players, like I said, are the icing on the cake. If one turns out great it's a bonus. If all do, it's a bigger bonus. When Breslow uses the $30M per year to get more pitching the team will benefit greatly. He could extend Bregman and remove his opt out for starters. The payroll cost of Devers FAR exceeded his value so this was a lucky break. I believe Devers will not be the 129 OPS hitter after his 31 season. Lets wait and see. I think in a few years you will just how great this deal is. The players will have provided value and the money redirected to other players will provide far more value than Devers ever could have. Harrison could be the best part of the deal but the other players also have upsides we won't know for several years. It truly is a win-win in that we win with the players and we win with the money returned to be used elsewhere.

Simple. Fielding Percentage is an after the fact number. Until baseball fixes the error decision by score keepers it will have some issues but in the end EVERY time an out is made it is properly recorded to calculate the fielding percentage that lives in the historical statistics of baseball. That makes it real. OPS is a metric not a stat. It's an incredibly bad metric since it double accounts batting average. REAL STATS are those that reside in Baseball Reference as documentation of the games played. I don't know how you can possibly argue that point. It IS the history of baseball. Metrics are supplemental estimates that can vary by sample size or any of the factors that go into calculating the number. That's why it's an estimate. These are very straight forward principles. They are really not up for debate.

Just taking back the contract is a massive gain since it was a massive overpay. Now add the players and Boston ends up way ahead. They can better distribute that money to help the team.

He dealt with a minor injury in April and May but he's healthy now and his June OPS is 872 as he starts to heat up. I expect by year end it will be in the upper 800s or higher as usual.

Devers is being paid $5Million over the going rate for DHs so it's already underwater. Now here are some facts that should be considered to prove ti's WAY UNDERWAY. 1 - Mookie spent 5 full seasons in Boston with a 42.5 WAR if you believe in WAR. His OPS+ was 137. He won a GG four years, was an all-star starting at 23 for four years, he won an MVP and finished 2nd, 6th, 8th and 19th his other 4 seasons. He won a silver slugger 3 times in the five seasons. Those achievements should have earned him $36Million a year but he got low-balled and then given away. Devers stats part way into his 9th seasons (7 full ones and 2 partial) are 24.9 WAR and a 129 OPS+. Significantly lower than Mookie!! Until he was finally dragged off 3B with a career .944 fielding percentage when league average was .961 (17 below league average) and a Rdrs of -61, Devers actual value was below his offensive value which was simply a little above league average. 2 - #1 shows it would be a stretch at his current production level for the contract to be a break even. Now take the highly unlikely chance that he fulfills his contract and guess the drop off rate over time. Two players far greater than Devers (Pujols and Cabrera) both came into the league around the same age as Devers. Both had far better numbers through age 26. A 10-year contract starting at 27 should last through his 36-year-old season. Pujols stopped putting up monster numbers after his 32-year-old season. His OPS+ dropped from 136 his lowest number until then to 121. His WAR dropped from 4.8 to 1.6 and never made it back to 4.8. Cabrera who was the next great hitter after Pujols. Cabrera stopped producing after his 33-year-old season. He went from an OPS+ of 155 to 93. He only had 2 over 100 the next 7 seasons and one was 128 and the other was 104. The drop was dramatic, overnight. His WAR dropped from 4.9 to -0,9. Most of his remaining years were negative with 0.3 his highest. BOTH great players who are far superior in hitting to Devers fell off the table with respect to their offense after age 32 and 33. Considering how much better than Devers they are I predicted Devers dramatic drop off would happen after his 31-yr old season. Thus 32 to 36 or 1/2 his contract would be completely under water. A total waste. That's roughly $150 Million in payroll wasted. This trade was a miracle. Breslow should have earned HUGE brownie points with ownership. He saved the Red Sox a ton of money, improved the clubhouse and opened up the doors for more effective use of that same money. So it's not total BS. The contract, best case, would have fallen at least $150Million short from a performance standpoint. Soto and Guerrero are separate cases just like Mookie was. The big difference with Mookie is that Mookie stays in shape and is a great athlete so at age 39 he'll be much better than Devers at age 32!!! He's the Tom Brady of baseball. He's still bowling 300 on a regular basis. Physical conditioning won't be why Mookie's skill will finally drop off near 40,

The talent level in the group for Devers is icing on the cake. Losing the $30Million from payroll opens lots of doors to direct the money to better places. The talent received immediately improves the pitching roster without spending a cent. The hitting got a boost too. EVERYTHING is positive with respect to this deal.

This trade is OUTSTANDING!!! Think about all it accomplished: 1 - Close to $30Million available for the next decade to spend where we need it. Devers was hot lately but with every hot streak is one of his cold streaks so Boston got his production without his slump in 2025!!! That's huge along with the money. 2 - The players he got will push out some of the less talented pitchers from the roster and make the roster stronger from a pitching perspective immediately. 3 - The disrespect shown by Devers should have been unforgiveable. He deserved to be treated like crap for being so arrogant about his value to the team. Bloom knew he was on the way out and chose to screw over the club for a decade. Now the jokes on him. His bad contract has been completely erased before the damage of Devers' declining skills could be felt by the team. 4 - Mookie was a superstar compared to Devers. He got worse treatment than Devers. There is no feeling sorry for Devers in this scenario. He still gets his money, he's simply taking his attitude elsewhere to be someone else's problem. BRAVO BRESLOW. HOPEFULLY CORA IS NEXT!!!! I'm starting to buy into your nickname Bres!!! Keep the deals coming. Yoshida needs a home. Now Abreu can be the DH and the outfield defense can be maximized with Duran in CF, Rafaela in RF and Anthony in the footsteps of Teddy and Yaz in LF. Refsnyder/Abreu can be the 4th outfielder and DH so no roster spots wasted on the platoon. Now we need Mayer at SS, Bregman back at 3B, Campbell at 2B and Story traded to a contender for more young stars. Breslow dumped $30Million a year already and can still reduce payroll by another $40Million between Story and Yoshida. ($23.3M and $18M) Can you imagine what Breslow could do with another $100Million (Devers, Story and Yoshida) to beef up the pitching? WOW this was the best day we've had since we picked up Crochet in another awesome trade by Breslow!!!

Any railing that has happened was due to me being called names for not buying into the metric bs. Defending my position is within my rights. Gross exaggerations don't make your arguments any more valid. I know what front offices believe I've been around the game a long time. I also know every word I've written is true. Facts are facts and metrics are estimates. The definition of each word is simple and straight forward and if execs pick one or another or both together that is their call. That doesn't make it right, it makes it their decision. A reference book like Baseball Reference gives you facts and it's expanded to include estimates that are not base statistics. Are the stats more accurate. Absolutely. Could the estimates be as accurate? No way to know. It's up to the interpreter of the data to decide. This is called mathematics. Stats are after the fact, estimates suggest a possible outcome that is based on a hypothetic instance, not a real event. This isn't controversial. If you want certainty, you look at history. If you want to predict the future or how two events that are apples and oranges compare, you use estimates. I've repeated this mantra through all the hysterics from metrics supporters. It's all true whether you agree or not.