Red Sox in season discussion

joe dokes

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"Being in last place", while true, is misleading. It implies they are among the worst teams in baseball, when in fact they are a .500 team, 17th out of 30. That's not what I wanted out of the season. But how many times has a division had every team .500 or better this late into the season? Are the 40-57 Cubs having a better year than the Red Sox because they are in 3rd in their division? It's a quirky result based on an unlikely confluence of teams in their division that allows people to take a disappointing season and make it seem far worse.
We are in heated agreement. But I would hate to be placed aboard the happy train.
 

CoffeeNerdness

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Is hoping that a 22-year-old kid will take over a position that demands production actually a good move? Besides the fact that that plan got totally derailed by an injury, it doesn't really strike me as a no-brainer lock.
 

Cesar Crespo

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Snark like that lowers the discourse on this board, but by all means carry on.
Funny thing is you don't even disagree with the people you are claiming exist.

What if someone thinks the future looks bright but wants to sell this year because the team is meh? Someone like you. Are you on the happy train or the doom broom?

Personally, I think they should let the market decide whether they buy or sell this year and I think the future looks bright. I'd rather they not trade anything significant away that would only help the Sox chances in 2022.
 

Ganthem

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Is hoping that a 22-year-old kid will take over a position that demands production actually a good move? Besides the fact that that plan got totally derailed by an injury, it doesn't really strike me as a no-brainer lock.
I don't think 22 is overly young for a player to make an apperance. I will concede that Casas is more then likely to come up and scuffle rather then rake, but there is nothing that can be done about that. If a team is going to develop homegrown players they have to be willing to let those players take their lumps in the majors. Even if Casas came up because of Dalbec sucking and Casas himself sucked, it would not be the worst thing in the world.
 

joe dokes

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Snark like that lowers the discourse on this board, but by all means carry on.
As Kaleb Ort, Phillips Valdez, Connor Seabold and others have probably been told repeatedly, if you throw enough hanging changeups, they'll get hit eventually. But, FWIW, I was mocking the phrase "bullied for not boarding the happy train." I could have been more direct and said, "as far as I can tell, there is neither bullying nor a happy train." I did not; and that's on me.
 

Cesar Crespo

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Is hoping that a 22-year-old kid will take over a position that demands production actually a good move? Besides the fact that that plan got totally derailed by an injury, it doesn't really strike me as a no-brainer lock.

It's not a good plan if that was the plan. Not wanting to block him long term is fine but assuming he'll take over the spot mid year or expecting anything out of any prospect is not a good plan. Make them earn the spot.
 

Ganthem

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Funny thing is you don't even disagree with the people you are claiming exist.

What if someone thinks the future looks bright but wants to sell this year because the team is meh? Someone like you. Are you on the happy train or the doom broom?

Personally, I think they should let the market decide whether they buy or sell this year and I think the future looks bright. I'd rather they not trade anything significant away that would only help the Sox chances in 2022.
My comment involving the happy train was in response to the people complaining about the people who had reservations about this team early on. It seemed that anyone who had a less then rosy outlook in regards to this team was piled on. I am not just referring to myself. I saw many posters in the now closed sellers thread that were willing to entertain the idea that the Sox might be sellers and they were routinely shouted down and frankly bullied. I think there is an issue with posters being able to disagree with a premise and doing so in a respectful way.
 

Red(s)HawksFan

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Is hoping that a 22-year-old kid will take over a position that demands production actually a good move? Besides the fact that that plan got totally derailed by an injury, it doesn't really strike me as a no-brainer lock.
It may or may not have been a good move, but I think said kid being the organization's #1 prospect and being projected/expected to "arrive" by mid-season may have limited the alternatives. At least on the free agent market.

A lot has been made of Bloom's choice not to pursue a better backup plan at 1B than Shaw (and Cordero), but if there was a free agent 1B out there and he's looking at possible landing spots, how keen is he to sign with a team with a 27 year old incumbent coming off a 25 HR/105 OPS+ season AND a top 1B prospect on the cusp of the big leagues? Does a free agent sign where he has to both compete for the job (or platoon) and could get bumped even if he's doing a decent job?
 

jon abbey

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What kills discussion is meta-discussion, from whatever side. The more people stick to baseball talk, the better off we'll all be.

Personally I don't think Dalbec and Franchy into Casas was a weak plan by Chaim coming into the season, it's easy to say 'make guys earn their spots' but they can't do that with a healthy unoptionable veteran ahead of them. One of the trickiest things in baseball is for contending teams to integrate young players, some teams are better at this than others but it is not easy.
 

Yelling At Clouds

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The other thing about Dalbec is that he was kind of bad for the first four months last year, too, and it didn’t stop the team from winning a bunch of games. I’m sure that went into the thought process of whether or not to bring in a better caddy than Travis Shaw. Bloom and the FO may have thought the team could stay afloat until the trade deadline and/or Casas was ready because they’d done precisely that a year before. The real issue has been injuries to and underperformance by other players who were actually good last year.
 

grimshaw

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What kills discussion is meta-discussion, from whatever side. The more people stick to baseball talk, the better off we'll all be.

Personally I don't think Dalbec and Franchy into Casas was a weak plan by Chaim coming into the season, it's easy to say 'make guys earn their spots' but they can't do that with a healthy unoptionable veteran ahead of them. One of the trickiest things in baseball is for contending teams to integrate young players, some teams are better at this than others but it is not easy.
Franchy wasn't really part of the plan to start the season. https://www.masslive.com/worcesterredsox/2022/04/woosox-notes-franchy-cordero-working-at-first-base-rehabbing-josh-taylor-expected-to-pitch-friday-and-saturday.html

Dalbec wasn't showing anything and Shaw was cooked, so three weeks into the season they tried Franchy.

I understand that it would have been difficult to sign an actual 1b with the incumbent on his way, but they tried guys playing out of position like Santana, Chavis and Arroyo as well. And this is a recurring issue, not limited to this season. For whatever reason, it's a spot they are punting more or less since Napoli was around.
 
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jon abbey

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For whatever reason, it's a spot they are punting more or less since Napoli was around.
People think that 1B is a very easy spot to fill but that's not really the case. NY had a somewhat similar situation between Teixeira (was good in 2015, retired mid-2016 after being terrible) and Rizzo in 2021, when they were hoping/expecting their own 1B prospect, Greg Bird, to take the job. He fizzled and none of NY's replacements did especially well (Voit was very good at times but couldn't stay healthy). I said it here once recently but I think because 1B is low on the defensive spectrum that people think it is easy to fill with a solid contributor, but that's not really the case.
 

Trlicek's Whip

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It means that if the Sox do manage to get in, they have a VERY REAL and legitimate chance to make a deep run and maybe even win it all.

I, for one, am holding out hope that somehow, some way, they can squeak into the playoffs and then get hot like they did last year, which is totally possible and not a crazy thought at all
I think it's wild to ever diminish the Sox's possible playoff hopes IF they get in as a lottery ticket, when the Sox in a couple of their WC runs basically hit unicorn superfectas to win them. 2004: Down 0-3 in the 2004 ALCS against the Yankees, in case anyone was in a coma since 2003. In 2013: they bat .202 against the Tigers and if it wasn't for David Ortiz essentially saving their ass in Game 2 with that bomb off Benoit, it wasn't looking great.

There's an argument for the Sox not having the horses to get there for whatever reasons people want to use (Bloom built a bad team, a scourge of injuries and lack of depth to compensate despite the excessive injured list, even parity in the league with regards to A-list pitching etc.) I'm pessimistic the team can rebound, or that the FO will give them time to go on a run, but it's still 3.5 games back as horrific as they are playing.

Also, in 2022 last place means very little if you are in the AL East. Virtually every team in that division is over .500 and most teams in the division have gone on sick winning streaks at various times this season. The Blue Jays being the latest, the O's before the ASB, the Sox's insane June. It's a bloodsport. There's no margins, and there's more parity and two wild cards and the Sox had to play .770 ball in June *just to keep pace.*

Unless you have Yankees fans as coworkers that you don't like getting shit from when they talk trash, then to regard LaSt PlAcE without the context of the wild cards or the level of competition they face in the AL East in 2022 is "guy in the car long time first time" sports radio frustration. Which I get, they aren't fun to watch right now.

Some of the sentiment here is how one defines the team's success. If it's "value" based on their payroll then sure, run the WAR and the salaries and post accordingly. If it's essentially Steinbrenner-era "if we don't win a WS every year we're losers" privilege, then yeah the Sox DO suck every year they don't win one.

But it's also still Bloom's first full season with a proper manager (essentially a hire he cosigned), with no Covid-related shortened seasons and less restraints on team-building (but some DD moves to still reconcile), and looking ahead to a more flexible payroll, I think it's fair to cite small sample size if you're optimistic.

Regardless of half-full or half-empty or jumping off the Tobin takes, it's definitely agreed upon that they are not fun to watch right now, and their listlessness while compiling July's bad record is troubling. Their consistency is maddening, but going from .770 winning percentage in June to .273 in July has to have something to do with the personnel, including but not limited to decimated starting pitching, injuries to their best hitters, lack of experienced depth to replace them, and a bullpen that was already their soft nougat center before the SP's went down.
 

Ganthem

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People think that 1B is a very easy spot to fill but that's not really the case. NY had a somewhat similar situation between Teixeira (was good in 2015, retired mid-2016 after being terrible) and Rizzo in 2021, when they were hoping/expecting their own 1B prospect, Greg Bird, to take the job. He fizzled and none of NY's replacements did especially well (Voit was very good at times but couldn't stay healthy). I said it here once recently but I think because 1B is low on the defensive spectrum that people think it is easy to fill with a solid contributor, but that's not really the case.
Even though he needed a platoon partner I thought Moreland did a decent job.
 

Red(s)HawksFan

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Franchy wasn't really part of the plan to start the season. https://www.masslive.com/worcesterredsox/2022/04/woosox-notes-franchy-cordero-working-at-first-base-rehabbing-josh-taylor-expected-to-pitch-friday-and-saturday.html

Dalbec wasn't showing anything and Shaw was cooked, so three weeks into the season they tried Franchy.

I understand that it would have been difficult to sign an actual 1b with the incumbent on his way, but they tried guys playing out of position like Santana, Chavis and Arroyo as well. And this is a recurring issue, not limited to this season. For whatever reason, it's a spot they are punting more or less since Napoli was around.
Mitch Moreland wasn't really a punt. Low cost relative to Napoli, but he made an All Star team during his 3.5 years with the Sox.
 

Trlicek's Whip

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Personally I don't think Dalbec and Franchy into Casas was a weak plan by Chaim coming into the season
My pet theory is whether part of Dalbec's success last year was sitting next to Kyle Schwarber on the bench all season long. Schwarber after his swing retool with the Nats seems to have a better all-around approach at the plate with power and patience. So maybe Dalbec has 30+ HR's in him but lost the plot this year after Kyle left. Dalbec reminds me a lot of Will Middlebrooks.

One of the trickiest things in baseball is for contending teams to integrate young players, some teams are better at this than others but it is not easy.
Usually it happens on purpose (team blown up for a reboot). One team that seems to have a mix of need-based and purposeful integration of rookies and youth movement is the Kansas City Royals. My partner is from there so that's been my 2nd team and we've seen a lot of games this season (more than Sox games lately given their utter stinkitude).

But they have a young pitching staff outside of Greinke, and currently have 4-5 rookies (or rookie eligible) position players starting most days (Witt Jr., MJ Melendez, Vinnie Pasquantino, Nick Pratto, Emmanuel Rivera. Witt made the team out of ST. Melendez was called up after Perez went on the IL (he's been on twice this season). Pasquantino came up after Santana was traded; it was "supposed" to be Nick Pratto but Vinnie was hotter in the minors than Pratto. When they lost 10 guys to the TOR series and being unvaxxed, Nick Pratto made his debut and is now up replacing an OF injury.

I'm surprised the manager at the helm for this youth movement is Mike Matheny. I'm not convinced he's the guy long term but their core is hitting and playing hard and fun to watch.

I think the Sox are in a slightly different situation in that they don't have as highly ranked a minor league prospect system than KC did.
 

grimshaw

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Mitch Moreland wasn't really a punt. Low cost relative to Napoli, but he made an All Star team during his 3.5 years with the Sox.
What's your definition of a punt then? He was a league average bat and bottom tier for his position. They got the exact production they paid for which was very modest.
 

Red(s)HawksFan

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What's your definition of a punt then? He was a league average bat and bottom tier for his position. They got the exact production they paid for which was very modest.
Calling something a punt implies less effort than paying market rate for league average production. I'd buy the argument that Dalbec + Shaw was a deliberate punt before I'd agree that Moreland was a punt.
 

Coachster

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I don't have issues with Bloom....yet. I also don't blame him for the current state of affairs. Yes, we did have a hot streak against lesser competition when everybody was healthy, but we're sure not healthy now. And that leads to my question.

What do we do going forward? From today. From now. I don't care a whit about blame. I kep hearing we're just a couple games out of the wildcard. OK, let's look at injuries.

Hill and Wacha should be back soon-ish. (next week?) That pushes Crawford to the pen, and maybe we can DFA one of the chumps who currently reside there. It probably also pushes Wincowski back to Worcester. See ya.

I've laughed when people speculated that Paxton would help this season. It's almost August. Is he even throwing? Sale is done for the year. OK, our top guy is Eovaldi, who obviously isn't 100%. Is Pavetta? Hard to tell.

Kiké is on the 60 day. Late August? Ever? JDM is here, but if you watched last night, he's not right, and once his back starts having spasms, he'll need periodic days off the rest of the way. Arroyo? Been a while. I saw him on the bench the other night, but that means he's not rehabbing yet. Mid August? Raffy? It''ll be a week or more. Story? Soon?

What I'm getting at, is that although the trading deadline is coming up hard, we have to play every damned night till some of our guys get healthy, with she same mix of AAAA guys we've been seeing the past couple weeks. Let's face it, they aren't going to win many games as we're currently configured. Another 2-5 week and we're going to be even further off the pace.

We've got to sell, and soon.
 

Rovin Romine

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Is hoping that a 22-year-old kid will take over a position that demands production actually a good move? Besides the fact that that plan got totally derailed by an injury, it doesn't really strike me as a no-brainer lock.
In a way it's interesting to compare this situation with 3B in 2017.

Sandoval. . .well, "imploded" is not the exact word I'm looking for, but it'll do. After a crappy April, he was impaired for most of May and played the first 3 weeks of June in an effort to drive up his trade value, or to illustrate why fans should never, ever, ever complain about DFAing him. Overall, he logged 27 games at 3B with an OPS+ of 55.

On July 25, the Sox eventually call up a 20 year old who had gotten hot in a AA/AAA season who finishes the season with 56 games at 3B for an OPS+ of 109.

Who else got the call - easy-to-find league average 3B journeymen who were just lying about? Nope.

Deven Marrero: 46 games, 63 OPS+ in those games.​
Josh Rutledge: 18, 63​
Brock Holt: 9, -25​
Marco Hernandez: 8, 42​
Tzu-Wei Lin: 7, 135​
Eduardo Nunez: 4, 54​
Steve Selsky: 1, -100​


I'm not saying Devers and Cassas are comps, or Cassas would enjoy the success Devers did, but sometimes the heir apparent really is the best option, ready or not.
 

jon abbey

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How could you forget the walk off Grand Slam against Kimbrel in September 2016?
Ah right, somehow I thought he retired mid-season like A-Rod but looks like he finished out the year.

Edit: He announced in early August he was retiring but he finished the season because NY wasn’t going anywhere anyway.
 

joe dokes

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People think that 1B is a very easy spot to fill but that's not really the case. NY had a somewhat similar situation between Teixeira (was good in 2015, retired mid-2016 after being terrible) and Rizzo in 2021, when they were hoping/expecting their own 1B prospect, Greg Bird, to take the job. He fizzled and none of NY's replacements did especially well (Voit was very good at times but couldn't stay healthy). I said it here once recently but I think because 1B is low on the defensive spectrum that people think it is easy to fill with a solid contributor, but that's not really the case.
The "easy" sentiment comes be aise it seems (seems only...i have not verified) there's always more "guys who didn't suck not that long ago" at 1B than anywhere else. There's some logic there, as older guys move there more often than anywhere else, it seems.
But bodies is not the same as production.
 

nvalvo

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If I'm Bloom, here's what I'm aiming to do at the deadline. I want to sell Eovaldi and JD Martínez — let's say, following rumors, Eovaldi to the Cardinals for a solid prospect and JDM to the Mets for a decent prospect — and then combine those prospects with a few from our hoard to acquire a good player who is controllable through 2025 or 26. Spitballing here, Sixto Sánchez (currently rehabbing) for Thaddeus Ward, Matthew Lugo, the return for Eovaldi, and the return for JDM. Something like that. It doesn't need to be a SP.

Devers I want to back up the Brinks truck: 10/$300m. Bogaerts I want to resign if possible on a 5 or 6 year deal (roughly on the scale of Story's) on the expectation that he plays SS for 2-3 more seasons, and then moves to LF (post-Verdugo; anticipated arrival of Mayer). So I don't trade either of them.

Then in the offseason we need a starting C (Wong seems like a fine candidate to be a backup), a starting OF, a DH, another reliever. We have ~$50m to spend to make it happen.

That gives you a 2023 rotation of: Sale Paxton Pivetta Sánchez Whitlock, with Crawford, Winckowski, and Bello behind them or perhaps in multi-inning relief roles.

And the lineup looks something like:
CF Duran LH
3B Devers LH
SS Bogaerts RH
DH Abreu LH (2/$45m? 3/$60m?)
2B Story RH
LF Verdugo LH
1B Casas LH
C Narvaez RH (2/$18m)
RF Grossman SW (1/$7m)

That looks pretty decent, right? And then the hope is that guys like Rafaela and Binelas catch fire and displace some of the competent veterans.
 

Mueller's Twin Grannies

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Not to dredge up a tabled talking point, but it's worth noting that the Cards team that won it all in 2006 was not some collection of slouches. There were some legitimate stars on that team, including in-their-primes Pujols, Carpenter, Rolen, Eckstein, Molina, and, to a lesser extent, Mulder. They got great contributions from a lot of their other roster players, including a stud rookie pitcher in Wainwright, most of whom were established ML players. The team underachieved during the regular season and caught fire in the NL playoffs, but it still took an epic pants-shitting by a far superior Tigers team (who committed 8 errors over the course of 5 games) to hand it to STL. It was, in some ways, the title they should have won in 2004, when they were a juggernaut.

This Sox team does not have that pedigree. Even if you want to put Devers up against Pujols and call it a push, I can't see equal comps to any of the other star players the Cards had. That team just played below the level of talent until the postseason. This Sox team, even if you bring a couple of the guys on the IL back, does not stack up, in my opinion, especially where several of the regulars for this Sox team are barely replacement-level players (Dalbec, Cordero, JBJ, etc.).
 

Rovin Romine

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If I'm Bloom, here's what I'm aiming to do at the deadline. I want to sell Eovaldi and JD Martínez — let's say, following rumors, Eovaldi to the Cardinals for a solid prospect and JDM to the Mets for a decent prospect — and then combine those prospects with a few from our hoard to acquire a good player who is controllable through 2025 or 26. Spitballing here, Sixto Sánchez (currently rehabbing) for Thaddeus Ward, Matthew Lugo, the return for Eovaldi, and the return for JDM. Something like that. It doesn't need to be a SP.

Devers I want to back up the Brinks truck: 10/$300m. Bogaerts I want to resign if possible on a 5 or 6 year deal (roughly on the scale of Story's) on the expectation that he plays SS for 2-3 more seasons, and then moves to LF (post-Verdugo; anticipated arrival of Mayer). So I don't trade either of them.

Then in the offseason we need a starting C (Wong seems like a fine candidate to be a backup), a starting OF, a DH, another reliever. We have ~$50m to spend to make it happen.

That gives you a 2023 rotation of: Sale Paxton Pivetta Sánchez Whitlock, with Crawford, Winckowski, and Bello behind them or perhaps in multi-inning relief roles.

And the lineup looks something like:
CF Duran LH
3B Devers LH
SS Bogaerts RH
DH Abreu LH (2/$45m? 3/$60m?)
2B Story RH
LF Verdugo LH
1B Casas LH
C Narvaez RH (2/$18m)
RF Grossman SW (1/$7m)

That looks pretty decent, right? And then the hope is that guys like Rafaela and Binelas catch fire and displace some of the competent veterans.
They're currently at $241m, $11m over the threshold.

Super rough count of significant money leaving (no small fry): JD - 19, Eovadi 17, Price 16, JBJ 9, Hernandez 7, Vaz 7, Wacha 7. Call it $82 even for back of the envelope purposes.
DH, 2SP, C are the significant losses.

Assume the fungible pieces replaced at cost. Now, if you bump Devers from 11 to 30, and Xander from 20 to (say) 22? you're down to $61. $50 if they want to stay under the threshold?

Verdugo and Pivetta have arb so. . .maybe closer to $45 on DH, RF, C, SP, to spend till they hit the threshold?

And that's assuming Duran is the CF plan and some of the AAA pitchers might be able to fill the SP gap. Not unreasonable assumptions, but who knows what the front office assessment is on that. "Worst case" scenario is something of a redo of this year's problems - a short/thin lineup if Duran, Cassas, RF and DH don't hit. They can strongly hedge against that by signing a couple of good bats.
 

mikeford

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They didn't finish last in 2006.

They've spent more than $200 million to be in last place in the division. This isn't all about the injuries either. The defense is horrendous, the team is very creakily constructed, they've got nothing out of several key positions and nothing's been done to address any of it.
Cant blame the black hole at 1B and RF on injuries. And in my mind you can't blame CF on injuries either since Kike isn't that good in the first place and was terrible before he got hurt.
 

nvalvo

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Cant blame the black hole at 1B and RF on injuries. And in my mind you can't blame CF on injuries either since Kike isn't that good in the first place and was terrible before he got hurt.
Huh? Kiké had a 5 WAR season just last year, and that doesn't even include his 1.000+ OPS in the postseason. I don't think many of us expected him to repeat that performance, but the over/under was higher than 0.3.
 

mikeford

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Huh? Kiké had a 5 WAR season just last year, and that doesn't even include his 1.000+ OPS in the postseason. I don't think many of us expected him to repeat that performance, but the over/under was higher than 0.3.
Yeah he had an insane year last year but looking at his career in totality, if you were surprised he crashed back to earth, that's on you IMO.
 

soxhop411

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Yeah he had an insane year last year but looking at his career in totality, if you were surprised he crashed back to earth, that's on you IMO.
Ok, but he really didn't ""crashed back to earth".. given he has been injured for most of this season
 

Red(s)HawksFan

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Yeah he had an insane year last year but looking at his career in totality, if you were surprised he crashed back to earth, that's on you IMO.
Regression from his very good season in 2021 was certainly possible, if not likely. But what he did this year was way worse than his career in totality. It's unfair to say it was entirely predicable.

Career prior to 2021: .240/.313/.425/.738, 97 OPS+
2022 numbers prior to IL: .209/.273/.340/.613, 68 OPS+
 

BaseballJones

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Right but like some of the others I mentioned earlier, it's one thing to expect Kiké to regress, even significantly, from last year. It's another thing entirely for him to put up a 68 ops+ and then spend forever on the IL.
 

Cesar Crespo

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97 OPS+ for the career is still bad though. That's my entire point.
Not really, and position matters.

It's basically average.
2018 3.5 WAR
2019 2.0 WAR
2020 1.1 WAR (48 games)
2021 4.9 WAR

But yeah. We should have expected 0.3 WAR in 51 games because his past 4 years somehow suggests that.
 

Petagine in a Bottle

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The years in which Hernandez has played 100 or more games he’s had bWAR of -0.1, 1.2, 3.5, 2.0, and 4.9. He’s been all over the place, but seems like 2-2.5 would have been a conservative estimate.
 

Cesar Crespo

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The years in which Hernandez has played 100 or more games he’s had bWAR of -0.1, 1.2, 3.5, 2.0, and 4.9. He’s been all over the place.
yeah but his last 3 seasons of 100+ games or more are 3.5, 2.0 and 4.9. That's good.

What he did in 2016 and 2017 is less relevant than what he did in the 3 seasons leading up to 2022.

Use Devers. His 17 and 18 mean nothing in future evaluations.
 

scottyno

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Dec 7, 2008
11,304
FWIW projection systems seem to have had Kike at roughly a 3 WAR player and a slightly above average hitter coming into the year, which is a regression, but not an unexpected one, and not the complete collapse that he was at the plate until he got hurt.
 

BaseballJones

ivanvamp
SoSH Member
Oct 1, 2015
24,375
Yeah let's all be brutally honest. Kiké is a solid major league player. Not a star, and not as good as he played last year, but he's solid. Decent bat (97 career ops+), but a tremendous fielder (last 3 seasons going into 2022, his dWAR per 650 PA was 2.5; and his oWAR per 650 PA was 2.2). AND he's versatile.

So the bat regression from 107 to his career 97 ops+ would have been expected. But not all the way down to 68. No way. And his fielding was fine this year. Through a third of the season his dWAR was 0.7, which I suppose would have projected to 2.1 dWAR for the year, which is excellent.

So this year's Kiké is far, far below what any reasonable regression should have been. Just another example of a guy vastly under performing expectations this year. And that's even before he became completely unavailable to the team thanks to the injury. Which isn't his fault, but it still means he's given them far less than they were counting on.
 

soxhop411

news aggravator
SoSH Member
Dec 4, 2009
46,275
Moving this here
Anyone who wants to get upset at this team needs to realize how many fucking injuries there are. This is like the D squad.
Thats on top of JD and Xander no longer being power hitters
Take this JD stat from the past two months.

View: https://twitter.com/tylermilliken_/status/1552458262548725761



Who is honestly trade for someone like JD when his “calling card” up until this season was a power hitter.

And
View: https://twitter.com/gfstarr1/status/1552469183048433665


with all the injuries we have had you would have hoped those not injured (like these two) could try and carry the team.
But if they cant. You really have no chance at winning many games. (Especially close ones)
View: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1wWM4k18sr69VNMmdAcUSWMMnzJXjJwpRPfbKVv1N-Us/edit?usp=sharing
 
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soxhop411

news aggravator
SoSH Member
Dec 4, 2009
46,275
Just added a second tab to the above google sheet to show you everyone who has a 99 wRC+ or less over the past two months

But in short, the players highlighted in blue have an 88 WRC+ up to a 99 WRC+ over the past two months

 
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JCizzle

Member
SoSH Member
Dec 11, 2006
20,530
Just added a second tab to the above google sheet to show you everyone who has a 99 wRC+ or less over the past two months

But in short, the players highlighted in blue have an 88 WRC+ up to a 99 WRC+ over the past two months

Trever Story appears to be below that threshold somehow? He wasn't injured that long ago.
 

chawson

Member
SoSH Member
Aug 1, 2006
4,660
If I'm Bloom, here's what I'm aiming to do at the deadline. I want to sell Eovaldi and JD Martínez — let's say, following rumors, Eovaldi to the Cardinals for a solid prospect and JDM to the Mets for a decent prospect — and then combine those prospects with a few from our hoard to acquire a good player who is controllable through 2025 or 26. Spitballing here, Sixto Sánchez (currently rehabbing) for Thaddeus Ward, Matthew Lugo, the return for Eovaldi, and the return for JDM. Something like that. It doesn't need to be a SP.

Devers I want to back up the Brinks truck: 10/$300m. Bogaerts I want to resign if possible on a 5 or 6 year deal (roughly on the scale of Story's) on the expectation that he plays SS for 2-3 more seasons, and then moves to LF (post-Verdugo; anticipated arrival of Mayer). So I don't trade either of them.

Then in the offseason we need a starting C (Wong seems like a fine candidate to be a backup), a starting OF, a DH, another reliever. We have ~$50m to spend to make it happen.

That gives you a 2023 rotation of: Sale Paxton Pivetta Sánchez Whitlock, with Crawford, Winckowski, and Bello behind them or perhaps in multi-inning relief roles.

And the lineup looks something like:
CF Duran LH
3B Devers LH
SS Bogaerts RH
DH Abreu LH (2/$45m? 3/$60m?)
2B Story RH
LF Verdugo LH
1B Casas LH
C Narvaez RH (2/$18m)
RF Grossman SW (1/$7m)

That looks pretty decent, right? And then the hope is that guys like Rafaela and Binelas catch fire and displace some of the competent veterans.
I like a lot of this plan in theory. I think the injuries to Sixto Sánchez have dimmed his outlook quite a bit, so I don’t know if he’d be my target. He’s now a 40+ FV guy, the 15th-ranked in the Marlins system. He seems like a distressed asset roughly similar to Jay Groome, who I don’t want to pencil in as our fourth starter next year.

Man, it’s a fascinating alt-historical timeline to wonder how the last eight years might have gone had Cherington bid just a little bit more for Jose Abreu than he did. I’d be very happy with him at DH, but I kind of see him hanging in Chicago until he’s done.

What’s the current projection for Ronaldo Hernández? After a terrible start, he has a 151 wRC+ in his last 50 games since May 21. I like Narvaez, but I wouldn’t be shocked if we grabbed Contreras with so much money available, especially if we’ve got any QO picks from our newly departed.