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Post by templeusox on Apr 28, 2016 21:40:12 GMT -5
He doesn't worry me that much but I'd take Benintendi and Espinoza over him as is. Benintendi has cemented himself as the best prospect in the system and maybe the best in baseball.
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Post by philsbosoxfan on Apr 28, 2016 21:54:03 GMT -5
He doesn't worry me that much but I'd take Benintendi and Espinoza over him as is. Benintendi has cemented himself as the best prospect in the system and maybe the best in baseball. Future collector's item:
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Post by brianthetaoist on Apr 29, 2016 5:11:49 GMT -5
I dunno ... Benintendi is definitely more polished than Moncada, but Moncada has such a ridiculous ceiling and pretty correctable flaws. I can see why someone would like Benintendi more, but they (with Espinoza) are basically a coin flip to me until they get higher in the system and possibly start to separate themselves from each other. And, with the error bars on projecting A-ball prospects, there's a decent chance that Devers turns out better than any of them.
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Post by thelavarnwayguy on Apr 29, 2016 6:18:51 GMT -5
To me, investing in Swihart's ability to stay in the lineup by giving him the option to play the OF is a major value added proposition. I'm all for it. Of course he's more valuable as a catcher but getting another 20-30 games of him in the lineup each year is a big potential plus also long term. I don't think it will take him much time to be at least an average defensive LF. He doesn't have the bat for LF, which is the second least valuable defensive position. This definitely doesn't add much value to him. It only takes a couple of weeks to do and we have some time now. It adds to his positional flexibility and in some ways serves the function of a short term 5th OF, enabling you to carry another reliever for long periods. It's increased OF depth for a team which doesn't necessarily have a lot of it. If he does hit well it enables you to keep his bat in the lineup and last year he showed a potentially good bat. Is he a Jorge Posada level bat maybe? It's too early to tell but Is that not worth keeping in the lineup more? Posada didn't even really spend much time in the majors until he was 25 and he never hit higher than .280 in the minors. Maybe the sox think more of his bat than some of you think. If he wasn't catching full time it probably helps his bat and when he was with USA baseball they played him all over the place and he said in an interview then that he was fine with that. He was brought up early last year so we really don't know what his bat will end up being. I get that most people want to keep him a catcher, to maximize his positional value and I don't dispute that abstraction but I think the added positional flexibility is not costing us much to do right now and it may help improve his value to any team. Some 2nd division teams would love to keep his bat in the lineup in particular. This is not a simplistic, binary decision. If you look at it from the team's perspective there are instances where some catchers are worth keeping in the lineup, particularly if their bat is good enough to be worthwhile and if they can give you good defense and base running abilities in another slot, even if it is as a back up. Right now we have Brock Holt in LF. I think it's pretty obvious what the Sox are doing here and it absolutely makes sense to me.
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Post by jmei on Apr 29, 2016 7:30:46 GMT -5
He doesn't have the bat for LF, which is the second least valuable defensive position. This definitely doesn't add much value to him. It only takes a couple of weeks to do and we have some time now. It adds to his positional flexibility and in some ways serves the function of a short term 5th OF, enabling you to carry another reliever for long periods. It's increased OF depth for a team which doesn't necessarily have a lot of it. If he does hit well it enables you to keep his bat in the lineup and last year he showed a potentially good bat. Is he a Jorge Posada level bat maybe? It's too early to tell but Is that not worth keeping in the lineup more? Posada didn't even really spend much time in the majors until he was 25 and he never hit higher than .280 in the minors. Maybe the sox think more of his bat than some of you think. If he wasn't catching full time it probably helps his bat and when he was with USA baseball they played him all over the place and he said in an interview then that he was fine with that. He was brought up early last year so we really don't know what his bat will end up being. I get that most people want to keep him a catcher, to maximize his positional value and I don't dispute that abstraction but I think the added positional flexibility is not costing us much to do right now and it may help improve his value to any team. Some 2nd division teams would love to keep his bat in the lineup in particular. This is not a simplistic, binary decision. If you look at it from the team's perspective there are instances where some catchers are worth keeping in the lineup, particularly if their bat is good enough to be worthwhile and if they can give you good defense and base running abilities in another slot, even if it is as a back up. Right now we have Brock Holt in LF. I think it's pretty obvious what the Sox are doing here and it absolutely makes sense to me. This is a really cogent, well-written bit of analysis. I still don't really agree with it (I think Swihart's time is better spent learning to be a better defensive catcher and his bat is unlikely to be better than the De Aza types that they should be able to grab at the deadline if needed), but it's a fair point that there is a scenario where Swihart is their best internal LF option at some point this season.
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