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8/24-8/26 Red Sox @ White Sox Series Thread
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Post by Guidas on Aug 27, 2015 9:18:35 GMT -5
I swear I see more and more Rizzo in Shaw. I hope you're right, unless the Sox trade him. Then he can be Lars.
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Aug 27, 2015 9:55:04 GMT -5
One of the knocks against Shaw as that he couldn't hit the high inside fastball. Shaw is one of those players who works on his weaknesses and improves. Often a player gets labeled and the label sticks even when it no longer is valid. This seems to happen more often to players who were not taken high in the draft. Shaw's raw power has always been called above average. How is it not at least plus raw? He's a big bodied guy and is 6'4. His bat speed is solid. He has absolutely crushed 4 of his home runs too. Tough to convince me he doesn't have 60+ raw, even if he doesn't get to it often. Guy hits some serious shots, and I didn't really expect it given the reports we always got on him. Recall that he more or less tied Kris Bryant for the most impressive hit/fx data in the AFL, based on the list of hardest hit balls. The thing that's held Shaw back is that when he gets his mechanics messed up, they stay messed up for many weeks, or even a couple of months. Contrast Manny, who would go into very visible funks that would very typically last about 12 games. He'd do that twice a year, so he was hot about 125 games, cold 25. That's a good ratio. Shaw is 25 now, in his 5th pro season, so there's little reason to think he can fix this on his own any time soon, or that an ordinary hitting coach, the sort of guy who doesn't have an MLB job, can fix it. If it could be fixed, he would be a first-division starter instead of second-division starter / terrific bench guy. There is a guy who had the precise same problem, and who fixed it at age 29: Carlos Pena. His hot and cold streaks looked just like Manny's (hot not quite as good, of course), but the proportion of cold was much higher. It seems as if he was 28 before he got the right advice as to how to get out of his slumps. I believe (based on drilling down way into the data) that he or his coaches thought that he was slumping because he was striking out too much, and so when he got into a slump, he would cut down on his swing. Of course, they had the causal arrow backwards; he was striking out too much because he was mechanically messed up, and the last thing he should be doing is changing his basic approach, as opposed to sticking with it and just trying to get his timing or pitch recognition back. (I even think he sometimes started cutting down on the swing after running into bad luck. Sometimes you fan 4 times in a game because the pitchers happened to throw you unhittable stuff all game long.) I haven't looked into it, but Brandon Moss was insanely streaky in the Sox system, and it's likely that his late blossoming in Oakland was because of the same thing: learning to get out of a funk in a reasonable length of time. These guys, of course, can also be more inconsistent from season to season. Reddick seems to be another. Note that Pena fixed his problem with his 6th organization (although it would have happened with his 5th, us, had we kept him), and Moss with his 4th. That tells you how difficult it is for hitting coaches to fix this sort of problem ... but it is doable.
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Post by jimed14 on Aug 27, 2015 9:57:06 GMT -5
One of the knocks against Shaw as that he couldn't hit the high inside fastball. Shaw is one of those players who works on his weaknesses and improves. Often a player gets labeled and the label sticks even when it no longer is valid. This seems to happen more often to players who were not taken high in the draft. Shaw's raw power has always been called above average. How is it not at least plus raw? He's a big bodied guy and is 6'4. His bat speed is solid. He has absolutely crushed 4 of his home runs too. Tough to convince me he doesn't have 60+ raw, even if he doesn't get to it often. Guy hits some serious shots, and I didn't really expect it given the reports we always got on him. The one he hit last night had a 108 exit velocity and would have been out in 30 out of 30 parks.
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Post by m1keyboots on Aug 27, 2015 16:31:19 GMT -5
shaw has impressed me with the abiity to lay off tough pitches from lefties and woek counts against high octane guys. (severino, kluber, dude last night). I really don't think he'll be much more than 260/20/85 with his share of doubles and walks, with some solid defense. In Boston it won't fly. it didn't for daubach (much worse on d) but that's a chip that some national league team will give us some power arms and/or a starter for in a package. hmmm I choose andrew cashner
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Post by beasleyrockah on Aug 27, 2015 16:51:46 GMT -5
shaw has impressed me with the abiity to lay off tough pitches from lefties and woek counts against high octane guys. (severino, kluber, dude last night). I really don't think he'll be much more than 260/20/85 with his share of doubles and walks, with some solid defense. In Boston it won't fly. it didn't for daubach (much worse on d) but that's a chip that some national league team will give us some power arms and/or a starter for in a package. hmmm I choose andrew cashner Daubach played in a completely different offensive environment. Brian Daubach's 1999 and 2001 offensive numbers would be elite now. Also, .260 with "walks and solid defense" and 20+ HR power would basically be 2013 Mike Napoli, and that certainly plays in Boston. I don't think Shaw will be that productive, but if he is that productive he's clearly good enough to get a starting spot going forward.
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Post by Smittyw on Aug 27, 2015 17:13:50 GMT -5
I really don't think he'll be much more than 260/20/85 with his share of doubles and walks, with some solid defense. In Boston it won't fly. Sounds good to me, especially for the league minimum.
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cdj
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Post by cdj on Aug 27, 2015 17:18:58 GMT -5
I'll take .260/20/85 with walks and doubles anyday
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Post by ramireja on Aug 27, 2015 17:20:27 GMT -5
shaw has impressed me with the abiity to lay off tough pitches from lefties and woek counts against high octane guys. (severino, kluber, dude last night). I really don't think he'll be much more than 260/20/85 with his share of doubles and walks, with some solid defense. In Boston it won't fly. it didn't for daubach (much worse on d) but that's a chip that some national league team will give us some power arms and/or a starter for in a package. hmmm I choose andrew cashner Thats pretty optimistic, even for upside let alone a projection. That would definitely fly given the alternatives option next year, but I don't think anyone would realistically expect that level of production....
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Post by jimed14 on Aug 27, 2015 17:20:36 GMT -5
shaw has impressed me with the abiity to lay off tough pitches from lefties and woek counts against high octane guys. (severino, kluber, dude last night). I really don't think he'll be much more than 260/20/85 with his share of doubles and walks, with some solid defense. In Boston it won't fly. it didn't for daubach (much worse on d) but that's a chip that some national league team will give us some power arms and/or a starter for in a package. hmmm I choose andrew cashner That would probably be around a 130 wRC+ depending on how much he walked. Of course it would fly.
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nomar
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Post by nomar on Aug 27, 2015 17:42:25 GMT -5
60% chance Cashner gets hammered in this division.
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Post by grandsalami on Aug 27, 2015 17:52:48 GMT -5
Someone has a stick up their ass (this was a question to nick)
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Post by telson13 on Aug 27, 2015 18:11:28 GMT -5
Shaw's raw power has always been called above average. How is it not at least plus raw? He's a big bodied guy and is 6'4. His bat speed is solid. He has absolutely crushed 4 of his home runs too. Tough to convince me he doesn't have 60+ raw, even if he doesn't get to it often. Guy hits some serious shots, and I didn't really expect it given the reports we always got on him. Recall that he more or less tied Kris Bryant for the most impressive hit/fx data in the AFL, based on the list of hardest hit balls. The thing that's held Shaw back is that when he gets his mechanics messed up, they stay messed up for many weeks, or even a couple of months. Contrast Manny, who would go into very visible funks that would very typically last about 12 games. He'd do that twice a year, so he was hot about 125 games, cold 25. That's a good ratio. Shaw is 25 now, in his 5th pro season, so there's little reason to think he can fix this on his own any time soon, or that an ordinary hitting coach, the sort of guy who doesn't have an MLB job, can fix it. If it could be fixed, he would be a first-division starter instead of second-division starter / terrific bench guy. There is a guy who had the precise same problem, and who fixed it at age 29: Carlos Pena. His hot and cold streaks looked just like Manny's (hot not quite as good, of course), but the proportion of cold was much higher. It seems as if he was 28 before he got the right advice as to how to get out of his slumps. I believe (based on drilling down way into the data) that he or his coaches thought that he was slumping because he was striking out too much, and so when he got into a slump, he would cut down on his swing. Of course, they had the causal arrow backwards; he was striking out too much because he was mechanically messed up, and the last thing he should be doing is changing his basic approach, as opposed to sticking with it and just trying to get his timing or pitch recognition back. (I even think he sometimes started cutting down on the swing after running into bad luck. Sometimes you fan 4 times in a game because the pitchers happened to throw you unhittable stuff all game long.) I haven't looked into it, but Brandon Moss was insanely streaky in the Sox system, and it's likely that his late blossoming in Oakland was because of the same thing: learning to get out of a funk in a reasonable length of time. These guys, of course, can also be more inconsistent from season to season. Reddick seems to be another. Note that Pena fixed his problem with his 6th organization (although it would have happened with his 5th, us, had we kept him), and Moss with his 4th. That tells you how difficult it is for hitting coaches to fix this sort of problem ... but it is doable. Thank you...I keep mentioning those 2013 results (Mookie was quite average that fall), where Shaw was statistically neck-and-neck with Bryant, and also (along with Bryant) one of only two players to crack the top-20 in exit velocity at 25-35 degrees launch angle (something like 90% of those balls are HR in MLB). FWIW, BA counted one Bryant hit at 37 degrees, so really Shaw was the only one to crack the top 20 twice. He raked in Portland the next spring. I think you're right...with the right hitting coach, friends, and video review he might flip his hot/cold streakiness. My concern with him is that he doesn't sound like he has much sense. I saw something on how he reused to eat vegetables and stuffs himself with burgers and pizza. That sounds like the exact **opposite** mindset of a guy who needs to be disciplined in his approach to hitting. I hope he gets it together, because I believe the Trackman data, and they say he's easily got 60-70 raw power.
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danr
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Post by danr on Aug 27, 2015 19:07:14 GMT -5
Your perception of him is wildly different from mine. I heard him on the radio last night talking about all the work he put into overcoming various shortcomings. Lovullo has said similar things about him.
I had pointed out quite a while ago when I began lobbying for him to be promoted that he had gotten better at each level after initially having problems. This year at AAA looks bad except after having a bad start he hit pretty well. He seems to be skipping that part about doing poorly at the next level.
I think what he likes to eat is pretty irrelevant. Baseball players, including many of the really good ones, often are a bit weird. Boggs used to eat almost nothing but chicken. He even wrote (or had ghostwritten) a chicken cookbook. That was pretty odd, but it didn't seem to affect his hitting. If Shaw hits .300 with 30 HRs next year - or anything close to that - we shouldn't care what he eats.
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Post by telson13 on Aug 27, 2015 22:40:57 GMT -5
Your perception of him is wildly different from mine. I heard him on the radio last night talking about all the work he put into overcoming various shortcomings. Lovullo has said similar things about him. I had pointed out quite a while ago when I began lobbying for him to be promoted that he had gotten better at each level after initially having problems. This year at AAA looks bad except after having a bad start he hit pretty well. He seems to be skipping that part about doing poorly at the next level. I think what he likes to eat is pretty irrelevant. Baseball players, including many of the really good ones, often are a bit weird. Boggs used to eat almost nothing but chicken. He even wrote (or had ghostwritten) a chicken cookbook. That was pretty odd, but it didn't seem to affect his hitting. If Shaw hits .300 with 30 HRs next year - or anything close to that - we shouldn't care what he eats. Yeah, I actually thought of Boggs (who I've heard was also known to down something like a case of beer on cross-country flights, and I think had some weird Fruit Loops addiction as well). I don't know enough about Shaw to make any judgement, just that his aversion to healthy eating might also signal a guy who has some intense aversion to watching video or another similar very helpful activity that he "just doesn't believe in." I've also read accounts of his hard work, so my point is more caveat than presumption...I just wonder if there's some specific tool he refuses to use out of obsessivity or hard-headedness. Obviously, if he hit .300/.400/.550 nobody would care. But people have made a huge stink over Sandoval's habits, so if Shaw doesn't (and I highly doubt he will, although it would be awesome) put up that line, or even .260/.330/.450, his habits will come under more scrutiny. Don't get me wrong, I'm pulling for him, and I love that he hits some screamers, but while he's fighting for an MLB roster spot, I wonder if he's willing to do everything he can to improve.
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Post by telson13 on Aug 27, 2015 22:47:07 GMT -5
FWIW, there's a rather extensive (and rapidly growing) body of evidence in the medical literature than indicates that diet has a rather substantial effect on both physical and cognitive performance. While a lot of it is cohort-based or case-controlled studies, some of the specifics gleaned have led to more rigorous randomized controlled trials of specific diets and dietary components, omega-3 fatty acids being a big one. The evidence is still being collected and pored over, but diet is most certainly not irrelevant, particularly when one gets into elite-level athletics.
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danr
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Post by danr on Aug 27, 2015 23:03:33 GMT -5
I'm not disputing that diet can affect performance but exactly how is a matter of some confusion, as you probably know. Unfortunately food and diet, like many other things in our society, have become politicized and subject to intense ideological disputes that often have no relation to the real science, which still is developing.
What is known is that cohorts, ethnic groups, etc. have certain similar characteristics. For example, why is it that Germanic types tend to have heavier builds, larger bones, etc. while the French can eat a high fat diet and generally not be overweight? There are theories that answer these questions.
And then there is diet science, which is very confused. There are the paleo/Atkins low carb types (of which I am one) and there are the low fat Dean Ornish types. There are vegetarians and vegans. I once had a coast-to-coast plane ride sitting next to a Seventh Day Adventist scientist, a fairly famous man in his field. He had me convinced that vegetarianism is the healthiest diet. My daughter is one, but I can't do it.
Hamburgers and Pizza are not as bad as people think, depending on the metabolism and other factors of the person. My pizza is pretty healthy with all the good stuff I put on it and my terrific sauce. Hamburgers are mostly harmful because of the buns, which add calories and carbs and not much else. If carbs are combined with fat, the fat sticks to the body. If you don't eat many cards, your body doesn't retain fat. That's why paleo/Atkins works for many people, but not everyone. The fact is we are all different and there is no one diet that fits all.
And when you are 25 you can get away with a lot.
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gerry
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Post by gerry on Aug 28, 2015 1:19:10 GMT -5
Danr, there is a growing acceptance among SDA medicos that, because many of their dietary restrictions against meat, fish, wine, black pepper, tea, etc. originated in a different time, a century ago, as the healthy-conscious denomination was in formation that they don't necessarily stand the scrutiny of modern science. Wine has been proven benificial against cardio-vascular issues, as has fish. Fat no longer has the warnings it had just a decade ago. Black pepper and coffee have demonstrable health benefits. Hence, many of my SDA friends now enjoy these things in moderation. If the bans were imposed to enhance health (as opposed to being scripturally basex) and the science no longer applies, then neither do the bans.
As science evolves our knowledge of diet, health, performance, it is imperative that the Sox employ the latest dietary guidelines for its players, and that the players embrace them during their careers. An overweight T.Shaw won't succeed longterm, nor will Panda. The age-anomolous, big-bodied Big Papi is svelter than ever, which means he has found the correct dietary and workoit balance for his mind and body. I hope Travis and Panda can find this balance as their success in Boston could enhance and prolong their careers wbile pro iding models for other pizzaburger omnivores. It's a dilemma.
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nomar
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Post by nomar on Aug 28, 2015 6:06:47 GMT -5
i think its funny that nobody is considering the possibility of him exaggerating or joking when he says he never eats vegetables.
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gerry
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Post by gerry on Aug 28, 2015 10:53:03 GMT -5
Good point. There is so much awareness today of healthy eating, with emphasis on organic, non-gmo, etc. that one would think pro athletes aat healthh. But i know a few kids that age who are minimilists when it comes to veggies or fruit unless it's lettuce and tomato on a burger.
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danr
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Post by danr on Aug 28, 2015 11:18:48 GMT -5
Danr, there is a growing acceptance among SDA medicos that, because many of their dietary restrictions against meat, fish, wine, black pepper, tea, etc. originated in a different time, a century ago, as the healthy-conscious denomination was in formation that they don't necessarily stand the scrutiny of modern science. Wine has been proven benificial against cardio-vascular issues, as has fish. Fat no longer has the warnings it had just a decade ago. Black pepper and coffee have demonstrable health benefits. Hence, many of my SDA friends now enjoy these things in moderation. If the bans were imposed to enhance health (as opposed to being scripturally basex) and the science no longer applies, then neither do the bans. As science evolves our knowledge of diet, health, performance, it is imperative that the Sox employ the latest dietary guidelines for its players, and that the players embrace them during their careers. An overweight T.Shaw won't succeed longterm, nor will Panda. The age-anomolous, big-bodied Big Papi is svelter than ever, which means he has found the correct dietary and workoit balance for his mind and body. I hope Travis and Panda can find this balance as their success in Boston could enhance and prolong their careers wbile pro iding models for other pizzaburger omnivores. It's a dilemma. That plane trip was a long time ago and I've had no contact with SDA folks since then, so what you wrote is enlightening. I agree with your main point completely. I do believe in eating healthfully but that can be done in a variety of ways. I started out to make the point that I didn't think the diet business with Shaw was a big deal. Maybe I should have left it at that. He's not overweight. He seems to be in excellent condition. He is a big guy and could become overweight but you cannot assume that he will just because he doesn't eat what others think he should eat. There are many factors in weight gain. I've seen a lot of overweight vegetarians.
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Post by jimed14 on Aug 28, 2015 11:46:05 GMT -5
Overweight people can be healthier than skinny people. It's all about what you eat. Eat more vegetables and don't skip the good omega 3 fats or else your body can't absorb any nutrients. Do skip excessive carbs and processed foods. And don't listen to the advice from government or mainstream media.
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Post by chavopepe2 on Aug 28, 2015 11:48:35 GMT -5
Overweight people can be healthier than skinny people. It's all about what you eat. Eat more vegetables and don't skip the good omega 3 fats or else your body can't absorb any nutrients. Do skip excessive carbs and processed foods. And don't listen to the advice from government or mainstream media. Or random people on a sports message board.
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Post by jimed14 on Aug 28, 2015 11:50:43 GMT -5
Overweight people can be healthier than skinny people. It's all about what you eat. Eat more vegetables and don't skip the good omega 3 fats or else your body can't absorb any nutrients. Do skip excessive carbs and processed foods. And don't listen to the advice from government or mainstream media. Or random people on a sports message board. No one is paying me for my opinions, but fair enough. If what I said doesn't make sense, then ignore me.
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Post by Guidas on Aug 28, 2015 11:58:39 GMT -5
What I think about Shaw is exactly what I thought - and expressed here - about Middlebrooks when he first came up to MLB and was crushing it. They have to figure out exactly what they think he is by the end of the year and act accordingly. Or as I said about Middlebrooks, they needed to figure out of he's Evan Longoria or Brandon Inge. I realize that Middlebrooks was younger then and had a more impressive minor league record, but it's the same type of drill. These are the tough decisions/evaluations front offices get paid to do
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Post by jimed14 on Aug 28, 2015 12:06:17 GMT -5
What I think about Shaw is exactly what I thought - and expressed here - about Middlebrooks when he first came up to MLB and was crushing it. They have to figure out exactly what they think he is by the end of the year and act accordingly. Or as I said about Middlebrooks, they needed to figure out of he's Evan Longoria or Brandon Inge. I realize that Middlebrooks was younger then and had a more impressive minor league record, but it's the same type of drill. These are the tough decisions/evaluations front offices get paid to do Well, Shaw has a track record of walking and not striking out excessively, so he already has a much higher floor than WMB. There's a huge middle ground between Inge and Longoria.
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