I was once a closeted, self-loathing adolescent contemplating suicide. Then baseball saved my life! My journey on @OverTheMonster:

@WallyEatsCats Given the geographic imbalance of the SAL, and the fact that the Red Sox have one of those seven southern teams here, Rhode Island would be a natural fit as a sixth team in the north if they built a ballpark for it.

@LevAkabas And they failed to score in the first quarter in all six of their wins.

@TVSportsUpdates The World Series was pretty darn good. Games 1 and 5 both produced incredible drama. The fact that it didn’t go 6 or 7 games is the only thing that kept it from being a classic.

@cornbreadcowboi The single best marketing tool they ever had was a season long championship battle. The point leaders were the stars and the standings marketed themselves. People knew the plot by the summer and fall, and the early season events had an urgency that no longer exists.

RT @casasamiga: PERSONAL INFORMATION REVEAL: I never told anyone which Fenway bar I worked at for privacy concerns. Now that I've no longer…

@nate_hague @LiamFennessy_ Probably not much in Massachusetts as the best forcing looks to be over the state for much of the night. Further southwest there’s more risk of the precip shutting off or turning to a mix, but around Boston this should easily produce.

@LiamFennessy_ Smiley strikes me as a weather weenie willing to manipulate storm report data in his backyard.

@LouMerloni One thing that's become abundantly clear to me is that people who've never watched Arenado play day in and day out have no idea how good his defense is and how it wrecks games for the opponent. He is at worst the third best defensive third baseman of all time.

Well, one, him getting hurt defensively at 3B the last two years should be a big warning sign to the Sox that they need this guy healthy late in the year if they're going to start making postseason runs. You're paying him $330 million to hit clutch bombs. At some point, DH is the best position for him to do that long-term. Two, Devers at 1B makes much more sense if we didn't already have Casas over there (unless he's moved in some larger deal).

@ZackScottSports @gingersnaphyde No problem there! I get the argument to keep Devers at 3B for at least another year if there's no Arenado. If they do pull the trigger on that trade though, I think it creates some very harsh realities very quickly. It's a fascinating domino effect.

I think whether he has the ability to learn 1B would be the wrong measuring stick in this instance. At this point in his career, it's also about what are the risks / opportunity costs to having him learn that position. I agree that he'd likely be able to do it, but right away there's some risk that he'd struggle. Then on top of that there's a risk that learning the new position / playing multiple spots would drag enough of his focus away from hitting to where he wasn't quite as good on that side of the ball. Then there's also the risk he could get banged up playing the field at his new position. A nagging injury that makes him less effective in September / October in spots where you need his bat to be as good as it can be. To me the question is more about where he's the most valuable in the big picture both in any one given year, and through the length of the contract. If there's no Arenado trade, it's likely 3B for at least another year. If there is an Arenado trade, that opens up a very large big picture discussion.

Fair enough. I think any shortcomings there are maximized because they touch / receive the ball the most of any position. But it’s debatable. I’d also be more open to a move there for Devers if the Sox didn’t already have Casas. I get wanting to have depth / options, but Devers is just so damn good at the situational / late game at bats, I’d rather have him at DH where he can maximize that skill in as many playoff runs with this core as possible.

@LiamFennessy_ The “their” better be doing a lot of heavy lifting on that one.

Devers has never played 1B at the major league level. This would require him learning a completely new position when he's already been a subpar defender throughout his career. The chances he's both good at it and stays healthy doing it are remote. Devers' best skill is hitting clutch bombs, both late in individual games and (hopefully) late in the calendar each year at key times. I would like to preserve that for as long as possible (and even allow him to potentially focus more on it instead of devoting physical and mental resources to learn a new position). To me, Devers' takes one of the best situational at bats of anybody in the sport, and now that the Sox are likely to have a roster capable of consistently producing big situational at bats in September and October over the next five or six years, that's where I want to maximize him. Therefore, I'm more than willing to give up some positional WAR value from Devers if it means he's in the absolute best position to excel at what he does best during high leverage moments in the fall.

@ZackScottSports @gingersnaphyde I don't understand why you'd want to play Raffy at 1B under any circumstance. The most valuable part of his game is his bat, and he's under contract through 2033. He should usurp anybody else from DH if a vastly superior defender at 3B (Arenado) comes in.

@jayhaykid The Dodger number feels too low.

@BillKoch25 @MattMcCarthy985 The Qualifying Offer has also torched the value of so many solid free agents. How the MLBPA did not nuke that thing when they had the chance in the last CBA is beyond me.

@LiamFennessy_ Once they got caught in scandal it should have gone back to being known as Enron Field.