Yoshida In The Spotlight

Masataka Yoshida has had a pretty damn good WBC, with a tournament record 13 RBI before tonight’s final vs. USA, fueled by a 1413 OPS. That’s around the same level as the headline-grabbing Trea Turner (1429) and Shohei Ohtani (1421). He also had an outfield assist in last night’s game, cutting a runner down at home, although that was more a byproduct of an aggressive but bad baserunning decision. I think I’m going to like this guy.

The Rostah

Well, baseball is back soon and it is time to start trying to figure out who the 2023 Boston Red Sox will be.  To say this team is a bit unsettled is an understatement but moves and options should help us pull things together a bit.

Of course a lot of unknowns remain.  There will be injuries and someone will show up at camp and dazzle us then go 1 for 19 and never be heard from again.  Let’s take a look at our expectations for the March 30th team;

INFIELD: Triston Casas, Christian Arroyo, ...

The Future Starts Now (Hopefully)

Hey all, sorry for the continued absence.  It’s been an interesting (and pretty crummy) off-season and I think we can agree and accept that the 2023 will not be one we look back at and say “wow, that was awesome!”

Winter Weekend was pretty illuminating.  The anger of the fan base was on display and while I felt it was a bit much I can’t say it was wrong.  The approach this winter has been pretty poor.  My biggest issue with Chaim Bloom has been his lack of decisiveness.  This goes back ...

Updates

Jose’s life got crazy and he hasn’t posted a thread. My life got crazy and I haven’t posted a thread. Meanwhile Boston’s roster got crazy and there’s no thread. Let’s correct one of those, and give some updates.

Responding to Failure

Let’s start with a couple of things.  First an apology I had to step away earlier in the year (and frankly probably won’t post as much going forward) for a variety of reasons.  Ironically I stepped away just as the Sox got hot, alas it didn’t last.

Second, please join me in wishing everyone in the Sox’ spring training home of Fort Myers and surrounding areas the best as they recover from the devastation of Hurricane Ian.  As many of you know from my regular trips my parents have a condo in ...

Dead Line

As of this moment Boston is in last place, and not playing well. They are also, with a solidly mediocre 50-50 record, 3.5 games out of a playoff spot. They are Schrödinger’s Baseball Team. They are simultaneously dead and alive.

The trade deadline is 6 PM on Tuesday 8/2. Between now and then they need to choose which side of the line they’re on, and act accordingly.

Hey Now

All-star voting has begun, and various Red Sox players have various vote totals*. Let’s take a few minutes to consider the case for them by position.

*I was trying to come up with an evergreen statement on the vote status. This might have gone too far. I could be talking about Brayan Bello, or Walt Dropo, for all you can tell.

Now That’s A Road Trip

On the morning of June 2nd the Boston Red Sox headed for sunny California for a fairly terrifying road trip.  The quality of competition was not particularly frightening but I am old enough to be able to recite chapter and verse on how west coast road trips have turned Red Sox’ seasons sour.  Sitting at 24-27 the Sox had righted the ship but were still climbing out of their early season hole.  Fast forward to this morning and the Sox are 32-29 having laid waste to the left coasters in fairly ...

Righting The Ship

After a nightmare of April and a pretty bad start to May the Sox righted the ship and finished the month (plus a day) with a 15-14 record.  This is not exactly gangbusters but works out to an 84-78 pace which is fairly consistent with most expectations for the Sox.  Of course the April issue puts them in a hole but after that dreadful month the overall record of 24-27 is still disappointing.  A few quick notes;

- The Sox have a 28-23 Pythagorean Record which would have them 5th in the AL.  In ...

One Step Forward

For the first time in 2022 the Boston Red Sox are starting to look like the team we have expected to see.  They have gone 5-3 over the last week and change and they have done so while playing five of those games against last season’s World Series combatants.  After what can best be called a nightmare start the Sox are pulling it together.  The offense has gotten hot scoring 46 runs in the 8 games and save for one memorable inning Tuesday night the pitching has been very good as well.  The call ...

Unacceptable

We can bicker about this that and the other thing but the simple reality is that the Boston Red Sox are not performing anywhere near where they should be and are in a position that on May 8th they are already in a world of hurt.  Trying to figure out why this is happening is beyond my skillset.  The talent on this roster is sufficient to be considerably better than they are.  Even if we accept that they overachieved last year, and no one would really argue that, they are not a 70 win team ...

Well At Least April Is Over

To be fair I also considered “that sucked” as a title for this piece and frankly that would have been just as accurate.  Sometimes there are things you can say and sometimes there aren’t.  This is one of the latter times right now.  We can talk about the failure to get a right-handed bat in the outfield or a platoon partner for Bobby Dalbec but the reality is that the problems on this team are the guys that we shouldn’t have to worry about.  Xander Bogaerts (.918 vs .862) and JD Martinez (.906 ...

Lining Up The Minors

With the big club clicking like a well-oiled machine (shut up, that’s my story and I’m sticking to it) I thought it might be a good time to take a look at what is happening on other teams who go by “Red Sox.”  And just in the interest of keeping it simple let’s acknowledge here and now that all numbers in this piece suffer from small sample size warnings.

1B - Triston Casas - AAA - Honestly there is no way that Casas wouldn’t be the player I would focus on here.  Bobby Dalbec is not exactly ...

Predictions of Ridiculousness

Last year towards the tail end of the season I charted the Sox’ path to 92 wins.  In what turned out to be a bit of serendipity the Sox in fact wound up with 92 wins on the dot (thank you Raffy Devers).  With that bit of good luck I had planned on doing a semi-tongue in cheek prediction for 2022.  I didn’t quite get around to it but what the hell, 16 games isn’t that far.  With that in mind here is my 2022 Boston Red Sox prediction!  It will likely be fun to see how accurate the overall is (I ...

The First Big Test

The 2021 Red Sox were in many ways a bully team.  They had their way with lesser opponents finishing with the third best record in the league against sub-.500 teams but the 7th best against teams over .500.  They also led the league in games played against teams over .500 (94) courtesy of their division.  Not much is changing schedule-wise in 2022 with the AL East being a grind so if the Sox want to ascend to last year’s success they will need to beat the best.  After a relatively mild early ...

A Lovely Day and a Lousy Game

Well the good news was as Opening Days go that one was a humdinger weather wise.  It was absolutely gorgeous in the ballpark which looks fantastic.  Looks like they’ve done some pretty aggressive painting and cleaning and Fenway is in wonderful shape for a 110 year old girl.  When I arrived at the ballpark I made a beeline for the new section above the bleachers in right center field.  I have to say based on a ten minute stroll up there…I am going to make it my business to catch a game from ...

Some Thoughts on the First Series

This is genuinely just a series of random thoughts;

- This weekend really was a microcosm of this team.  The top of the lineup looked solid save for Kiké (and I really need the e with the accent to be easier to access on my iPad).  They need to get some help at the bottom of the order.  Particularly on Friday the bottom of the order seemed to be leaving a small village out there.  The starters looked good I thought.  Houck struggled to put people away a bit but the Yankees didn’t really do ...

(Just About) 48 Hours to Go

It’s almost go time for the local nine, the carmine hose, the old towne team, that’s right, the Boston Red Sox get back at it at 1PM in the Bronx on Thursday.  A few scattered thoughts between now and then;

THE ROSTER (assuming no injuries or trades);

Infield: Bobby Dalbec, Travis Shaw, Trevor Story, Xander Bogaerts, Rafael Devers, Jonathan Arauz, Christian Arroyo
Outfield: Kiké Hernandez, Alex Verdugo, Jackie Bradley Jr.
Catcher: Christian Vazquez, Kevin Plawecki
DH: JD Martinez
Rotation: ...

Over and Under

With just Ted Williams days until Opening Day for the 2022 season I thought I’d throw out a few non-sensical over/unders for the Boston Red Sox for this season.

Team Wins - 86.5 - I’m a bit hesitant to be super-optimistic about this team.  Part of it is I still have concerns about the pitching staff and part of it is the American League East is going to devour itself.  I think there are four teams in the division that are true 90 win talent teams but because those four teams will play 57 games ...

Things Have Happened

So while I was driving 1,543 miles in two days Chaim Bloom decided to get busy.  After a somewhat frustrating stretch as big names fell off the free agent board he dropped big money on infielder Trevor Story.  I’m a bit conflicted here because I suspect it means that Xander Bogaerts’ time with the club is dwindling.  I think something in me has changed over the last couple of years and having had the good fortune to see four World Series titles I’m a bit more interested in players I want to ...

Report From The Fort

I would love to be able to give you guys some interesting stuff from my two visits this week to Fort Myers but I have little to report. On Tuesday it was just the big club working out, the minor leaguers were “in with the sheriff” according to one of the security guards which I assume is kind of like a start of semester meeting with the RD when you go live in a college dorm.  Then today I don’t know where the minor leaguers were but again, it was the big boys on the back fields.


The ...

The Lockout Files - Rostering

With the players and owners finally in some sort of agreement on a new CBA (162 game season, 12 team playoff) the Hot Stove League is about to become a spectacular sprint.  With that in mind I thought it would be useful to step back and take a quick look at where the hell the Red Sox stand roster wise as of today.

1B - Bobby Dalbec
2B - Christian Arroyo
3B - Rafael Devers
SS - Xander Bogaerts
LF - Jarren Duran
CF - Kiké Hernandez
RF - Alex Verdugo
C - Christian Vazquez
DH - JD Martinez

IF - ...

The Lockout Files - ALDS MVPs

Have I done this before? I don’t think I have.  Anyway, if I have my apologies but there ain’t much to talk about so let’s revisit the theory.

So of course we all know about the ALCS and World Series MVPs, but for some reason the various League Division Series don’t select an MVP.  The Boston Red Sox have won eight LDSes since the 1995 advent of that series and I thought it would be a fun trip down memory lane to pick an MVP from each of those series;

1999 - Pedro Martinez - This would have ...

The Lockout Files - Spring Training

Well the big news in baseball of course is spring training.  Late February, all eyes have turned toward spring training and nothing else.  NOTHING ELSE.  Anyway, I know you are all especially interested to hear what I am looking forward to my trip to sunny Florida in ten days and I thought I’d share that with you.

Going to Games - Last year was the first time since…god 1999? that I hadn’t attended a Spring Training game and frankly 2020 camp was a pretty morose place on the heels of the Mookie ...

David Ortiz - Postseason Hero, Clutch God, HALL OF FAMER

Sleep tight, you couldn’t count the cost through the night
‘Cause it’s not right, it never was right
Come a long, long
Come a long, long way

The words belong to Simple Minds but they are so true of David Americo Ortiz Arias.  He started as a minor leaguer with the Mariners where he began what would be a career long tradition of whooping Alex Rodriguez, then in a Home Run Derby.  He went to Minnesota where after parts of six seasons he was deemed superfluous and young GM Theo Epstein was ...

The Lockout Files - Jon Lester Hangs ‘Em Up

After 16 years, 200 wins and three World Series titles Jon Lester is hanging up his spikes.  I have to admit I never really warmed to Jon Lester.  He always had an A-Rodian quality of seeming fake.  I never got the impression he was someone I would want to hang out with, have a beer and shoot the ####.  But hot damn could the man pitch.  Lester was an old school starter taking the ball every fifth day and stubbornly grinding it out making 30+ starts twelve years in a row. Of course when ...

The Lockout Files - What Could’ve Been

I hope everyone had a nice holiday season and you and yours are safe and healthy.  Hopefully 2022 will be a better year for all of us.

With that out of the way I thought I might kill a little time with a “What Could’ve Been” team from my lifetime.  What I’m talking about should become clear fairly quickly;

1B - Nick Esasky - We start with a twofer.  What if the Sox kept big Nick and what if he stayed healthy.  With all due respect to Carlos Quintana (and who didn’t love Q) imagine the ...

Locked Out and Semi-Loaded

Chaim Bloom finished the pre-lockout period with something of a bang acquiring left-handed starter Rich Hill then in something of a shocker trading outfielder Hunter Renfroe to the Brewers for outfielder and 2018 ALCS MVP Jackie Bradley Jr and minor leaguers David Hamilton and Alex Binelas.  Bradley will get the attention here but Binelas is likely to focal point of the trade from the Sox’ perspective.  Binelas is a bit of a Bradley-like figure in that he entered his final college season as a ...

Thanks Jerry

Longtime Red Sox player and announcer Jerry Remy has passed away at the age of 68 from lung cancer.  RemDawg was the classic case of local boy makes good.  He grew up in Fall River and after starting his career with the then California Angels he was acquired prior to the 1978 season in exchange for young right handed pitcher Don Aase.  I turned 8 years old during that memorable season and Remy quickly became one of my favorite players.  On a team laden with slugging right-handed bats Remy was ...

Five Dumb Trades

Hey, let’s have a thread where everyone tells me how dumb I am!  Rather than just say “hey the Sox should get better players” I’m going to put five trades out there.  It is highly likely that these are dumb trades for someone but hey, it’s a place to start as we look at the off-season.

Red Sox Get: 1B Matt Olson
Athletics Get: 1B Bobby Dalbec, RHP Bryan Bello, 3B Blaze Jordan, RHP Connor Seabold

Sox Do It Because: Olson is a terrific player and under club control for three more seasons.  He’s ...