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How do you improve the Red Sox
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Post by James Dunne on Jun 28, 2016 14:45:56 GMT -5
1) Trade for Teheran (the only substantial upgrade available) from among Moncada/Benny/Swihart (the only cost-controlled MLB-ready talent the Braves need, assuming the three B's and Shaw are off-limits). 2) Take the chance that the same pitching failures continue to happen when you don't have any good basis to predict they won't, or any explanation of how to fix the cause. The Red Sox totally needed to sign Pablo Sandoval because he's the best available free agent, no matter the cost. The only alternative was keeping Will Middlebrooks. There were no other options. For the Red Sox, you see, were at war with Eurasia, and were indeed always at war with Eurasia. And saying that it over and over made it true.
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Post by deepjohn on Jun 28, 2016 14:52:12 GMT -5
1) Trade for Teheran (the only substantial upgrade available) from among Moncada/Benny/Swihart (the only cost-controlled MLB-ready talent the Braves need, assuming the three B's and Shaw are off-limits). 2) Take the chance that the same pitching failures continue to happen when you don't have any good basis to predict they won't, or any explanation of how to fix the cause. The Red Sox totally needed to sign Pablo Sandoval because he's the best available free agent, no matter the cost. The only alternative was keeping Will Middlebrooks. There were no other options. For the Red Sox, you see, were at war with Eurasia, and were indeed always at war with Eurasia. And saying that it over and over made it true. Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication in the art of strategy. SSS anecdotes notwithstanding.
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Post by beasleyrockah on Jun 28, 2016 15:02:19 GMT -5
So the Red Sox options are to trade for Teheran or no one at all? I'm pretty sure decent #4/5 pitchers can be acquired in the next month without dealing Moncada or Benintendi.
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Post by malynn19 on Jun 28, 2016 15:06:06 GMT -5
IDK what it would take to help improve our team, but as much as I hate taking big contracts, I think this is a quick solution for this year. What would it take to get Ryan Braun & Matt Garza? If we could move Panda we would not feel so guilty about Braun's contract.
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Post by deepjohn on Jun 28, 2016 15:12:55 GMT -5
So the Red Sox options are to trade for Teheran or no one at all? I'm pretty sure decent #4/5 pitchers can be acquired in the next month without dealing Moncada or Benintendi. Reality says, Hi!
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Post by mgoetze on Jun 28, 2016 15:18:56 GMT -5
It hasn't said "hi" to you in a long, long time.
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Post by redsox04071318champs on Jun 28, 2016 15:55:44 GMT -5
If so they are risking punting the next 5. The Red Sox have a top-three payroll, five outstanding prospects, and two of the best half-dozen under-25 players in baseball... but deciding not to punt and trade... I dunno, Junichi Tazawa?... will lead to them missing out on a five year window of competitiveness. Come on guys. EDIT: Right now the Red Sox have a .539 winning percentage, which works out to about an 87-win team. What's wonderful is that, unlike most 87-win teams, the Red Sox have these huge, awful, gaping holes on their roster. That may seem like a bad thing - and if not addressed, it obviously is. But most 87-win teams are pretty good top to bottom, and have to rely on incremental improvements to claw forward toward 90. The ability to improve on, say, a 1.5 WAR position to a 2.5 WAR is tough, because the availability of 2.5 WAR players is pretty limited. But the Red Sox can improve simply by getting replacement-level performance from the fourth and fifth starters, and getting a 2+ WAR pitcher would be a huge upgrade. Sorry for my poor word choice. When I said "punt" the season I wasn't referring to trading our assets. I used the word "punt" to be interchangeable with the words "do nothing and not make a trade to improve the team", and I can understand why that led to the response you gave me. What I was trying to say is if the Red Sox do not make a trade to improve the pitching which right now is horrendous behind Price, Wright, and Porcello, and they don't improve the bullpen, the Sox will be hard pressed to make the playoffs. I know some don't agree with that statement either. I honestly don't think Clay Buchholz will be "good Clay" this year. His fastball doesn't get batters out anymore, and even if "good Clay" resurfaced for a handful of starts, he's soon be replaced by "injured Clay". I honestly think E-Rod will not be right this season. I think they kind of rushed him through his injury out of desperation for the drek that has been pitching in the #4/#5 spots. He changed his deliver to lessen the pain to his knee, is trying to go back to his old mechanics (makes me wonder how comfortable he truly is right now) - I don't think you can count on E-Rod to be the guy he was last season. I think next season, there's a good chance we see get back to what he was. Joe Kelly is still Joe Kelly, a tease followed by a lot of disappointment. At his age, he is what he is. Owens can't throw enough strikes, pure and simple - he can't be counted on. Elias has been brutal each time he was here and he can't be relied on at this point. So now we have Wilkerson can give them what the others couldn't, but even so they'd need another starter. They're going to have to get outside help. If Wilkerson can be better than a fringy #5 starter, then they can survive with him and go after what's available - guys like Santana from Minnesota and I would guess Liriano from Pittsburgh. Those guys won't cost you much and maybe they'll be just really bad instead of brutal. If Wilkerson can't really hack it that well, they'll need to have a starter that gives them a chance to reasonable win every 5th day, so then you get into the few higher end pitchers available like Hill and Teheran. Those guys cost a lot in talent, so they could (I'd hope) decide to pass and just get the Lirianos and Santanas of the world, who may or may not be that much better than the drek they currently have. Those guys aren't going to make the Red Sox a heckuva lot better (they're already getting shelled in bigger ballparks). I considered that "punting" which is the wrong word. I have trouble believing the Sox won't make the move to get a stronger starter like Teheran even if the price winds up costing them Devers, Espinoza (gulp) or Kopech. I think the pressure of making the post-season will lead them to doing something out of desperation, or at least that's my fear.
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Post by dnfl333 on Jun 28, 2016 16:21:28 GMT -5
No. But why, for the last three years, do the Red Sox pitchers seem to enter these death spirals that they never get out of until they are hurt or demoted or shut down? The pitchers aren't this bad individually, but when such a diverse group of pitchers underperform both their peripherals and their scouting profiles for such a long time then it seems to me that something else isn't working. EDIT: And you know that I'm not a type to come out screaming that the sky is falling. I think the Red Sox would likely make the playoffs with minor upgrades to the pitching staff. But it just seems to me to be more than luck that so many pitchers the last couple of years have been so much worse than their projections without any physical/injury issues. Plenty of Red Sox pitchers have come out of bad stretches in recent history (whether with the aid of a demotion/injury or otherwise). Price this year, Rick Porcello, Joe Kelly and Eduardo Rodriguez last year, Buchholz and (post-trade) Peavy in 2014. I'm not saying they shouldn't look into trades. I'm saying that whether they do so or not, their back-end pitching is unlikely to continue to be as bad as it has been so far. This team is still very likely to be a playoff contender through the fall, and the panic and overreaction is unwarranted. Your correct. Pitchers do come out of bad stretches. Problem here in Boston is, the pitchers you have outside of Wright and Price in the rotation are not good. Its that simple. Pitchers who are not good, do not come out of being bad and inconsistent. That is the difference. I understand baseball is a game of patience with your Player Personnel. How many chances can you give Pitchers such as Barnes ERod Kelly CBucholz Layne and to extent Porcello. I do understand contracts come into play. But that is where you need a sound Player personnel developmental system to weed out the inconsistant performers.
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Post by humanbeingbean on Jun 28, 2016 16:37:11 GMT -5
What I absolutely just don't understand is what happened to Rodriguez's offspeed pitches? The slider he's featured this year has been scarce and both extremely hittable and wild. But what about the curveball AND cutter he was supposedly working on over the offseason? I don't have any links right now to point to, but I'm sure a lot of you remember him working on those as well. Did he abandon them, or has he not bothered trying them out until his knee is completely back to normal? It also should be painfully obvious to Farrell/Willis that he can't succeed with only a fastball and changeup, but he still hasn't thrown his slider with any more frequency. Maybe he'll actually utilize an array of pitches in Pawtucket and come back ready to be the great pitcher he was last season, aided by at least a decent slider.
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Post by trotfan on Jun 28, 2016 17:04:39 GMT -5
Truth ...Clay is cooked Erod is cooked porkchop is a number 4 .....this team has no shot at a World Series with Price and Wright who although a heck of a year ...I'm waiting for him to turn into a pumpkin any start now ....Price and Wright are never beating that Cubs rotation .I would trade Pedey over Trading Moncada or Benny at this point and even then Pedey means an awful lot to this team still....Stand pat this year it's just not going to happen no matter what magic we thought would happen for David his final year ...be nice to win 88 games and enjoy Papi now and stop with the trade the kids scenarios.
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Post by dnfl333 on Jun 28, 2016 17:40:44 GMT -5
Truth ...Clay is cooked Erod is cooked porkchop is a number 4 .....this team has no shot at a World Series with Price and Wright who although a heck of a year ...I'm waiting for him to turn into a pumpkin any start now ....Price and Wright are never beating that Cubs rotation .I would trade Pedey over Trading Moncada or Benny at this point and even then Pedey means an awful lot to this team still....Stand pat this year it's just not going to happen no matter what magic we thought would happen for David his final year ...be nice to win 88 games and enjoy Papi now and stop with the trade the kids scenarios. Get a grip on yourself mate. Your trade scenarios are ludicrous..
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Post by jodyreidnichols on Jun 28, 2016 19:38:26 GMT -5
btw, I wonder where all the people went who were ripping on a few of us about a month ago who were calling for some significant changes and their retort was basically: "What's wrong with you!? This is a first place team with a historic offense!" This can go on all year, every year. There's no point. Teams have good streaks and bad streaks. Jim, I started the thread with how to improve the team while it was still riding high and yet I know they are not this bad either. Never judge a team while it's streaking either way because the truth is often in the middle. That said my initial post wasn't that we couldn't make the playoff with our current pitchers just that they could not go far in the playoffs with the current set of SP. Everyone of our SP still had questions either in the post season or the ability to sustain it over a full season but many choose to look solely at the upside rather than what was likely, something in the middle. I mentioned that players like E-Rod often take up to 2 years to reach their potential which clearly he has and I still have full confidence that he will but to expect him not to have set backs along that path is actually kind of foolish based on nearly every pitcher that has proceeded him. Most of us know that both Kelly and Buchholz can pitch well but can not be counted on...... ever. Never mind having 2 guys on your staff that impact the bullpen they way they do, aka lack of IP. Some where swayed by others "evidence" based on a per start basis. When you look at it that way it's still okay of you have a question mark maybe even two but not a staff riddled with questions and a lack of reliability or predictability and now,"What we've got here is failure to communicate. Some men you just can't reach...So, you get what we had here last week, which is the way he wants it! Well, he gets it!N' I don't like it any more than you men." * Improvement should always be sought out and this team still has high upside all is not lost and finding another piece or two is worth it, some holes will go away internally either via performance or return of health.
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Post by Oregon Norm on Jun 29, 2016 1:18:47 GMT -5
... Problem here in Boston is, the pitchers you have outside of Wright and Price in the rotation are not good. Its that simple. ... Simple indeed, a little too simple for me. Porcello has kept them in almost every game he's pitched. Is the board going to piss and moan if he wins 20 games this year? The team definitely needs to keep working on the bottom of the rotation, but that bottem doesn't include this guy, not even close.
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Post by artfuldodger on Jun 29, 2016 4:26:05 GMT -5
I think it would be a mistake to overreact to EROD's struggles. It reminds me of Danny Salazar's. So was sent to the minors May 2014 (http://www.beyondtheboxscore.com/2014/5/29/5757888/danny-salazar-pitch-selection-cleveland-indians) but has contributed to the Indians the last two years. The Red Sox could use a 4/5 to stabilize for this year but not overpay for future middle of the road potential. Therefore, a Santana or Gio Gonzalez makes better sense than a Teheran.
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Post by sarasoxer on Jun 29, 2016 7:41:08 GMT -5
What I absolutely just don't understand is what happened to Rodriguez's offspeed pitches? The slider he's featured this year has been scarce and both extremely hittable and wild. But what about the curveball AND cutter he was supposedly working on over the offseason? I don't have any links right now to point to, but I'm sure a lot of you remember him working on those as well. Did he abandon them, or has he not bothered trying them out until his knee is completely back to normal? It also should be painfully obvious to Farrell/Willis that he can't succeed with only a fastball and changeup, but he still hasn't thrown his slider with any more frequency. Maybe he'll actually utilize an array of pitches in Pawtucket and come back ready to be the great pitcher he was last season, aided by at least a decent slider. Exactly. He has become a 2 pitch pitcher and most of those FBs. On top of that his injury has led to a decline in velocity. Less command gives him the trifecta. 93-94 in the middle of the plate...see ya!
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Post by sarasoxer on Jun 29, 2016 7:52:01 GMT -5
I have a couple of questions for anyone. 1) what is your opinion of Carl Willis and the job he is doing? 2) has anyone heard anything about the health or time table for Brian Johnson? I usually don't think too much about individual coaches, but what is happening to the members of our rotation so far is quite unbelievable. Until this season, Jim Hickey the pitching coach of the Rays has been consistently turning out one solid contributor after another. Even looking at David Price, there seems to be something missing. Is it their routines? Is it their pitch selection? Is it their catchers? I have never seen David Price look like this. That by itself is really worrisome. What changed? When you look at the whole staff, few pitchers have exceeded expectation and most have failed to be close! Yes Steven Wright has pitched well. Do any of you believe Willis had a lot to do with that? I think Hembree has shown solid improvement. Who else? OK, how about in AAA? Anyone making a positive jump? The answer is actually they have regressed. Willis does not have much to do with Owens, Johnson, etc. other than in Spring Training, but is the point(s) getting across? Maybe Willis is not a problem. Maybe Farrell is not the problem. Maybe our staff is over-rated heading into this season. Take Buchholz (please!), we have seen him screwed up before.....but never to this extent. He is totally healthy! Maybe that's the problem. And one last thing, our so-called "pitching guru" needs to start earning his money also. Where is that guy? What you talkin' about Willis? Gosh I have no way of knowing how good he is. We seemed to improve last year when ditching Nieves and Willis did help with pitch tipping for E-Rod. Price has lost velocity and is much more of a nibbler. I hope he morphs into what CC has become. I would bet Johnson is out for a good while...don't know the source of the anxiety issue...whether it was struck by the line drive or something else...but those things can run deep. Really I would like Buch in the pen again if he falters in the rotation. I think he has too many things going on in his head. He is hitting 92-94 so that should be ok. So, IMO Price-lost velocity/nibbling, Buch lost velocity (over a couple of years)/lost confidence/too much thinking, E-Rod injury/lost velo/lost breaking pitches/tipping pitches or being 2 pitch pitcher.
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Post by sox fan in nc on Jun 29, 2016 10:59:54 GMT -5
I have a couple of questions for anyone. 1) what is your opinion of Carl Willis and the job he is doing? 2) has anyone heard anything about the health or time table for Brian Johnson? I usually don't think too much about individual coaches, but what is happening to the members of our rotation so far is quite unbelievable. Until this season, Jim Hickey the pitching coach of the Rays has been consistently turning out one solid contributor after another. Even looking at David Price, there seems to be something missing. Is it their routines? Is it their pitch selection? Is it their catchers? I have never seen David Price look like this. That by itself is really worrisome. What changed? When you look at the whole staff, few pitchers have exceeded expectation and most have failed to be close! Yes Steven Wright has pitched well. Do any of you believe Willis had a lot to do with that? I think Hembree has shown solid improvement. Who else? OK, how about in AAA? Anyone making a positive jump? The answer is actually they have regressed. Willis does not have much to do with Owens, Johnson, etc. other than in Spring Training, but is the point(s) getting across? Maybe Willis is not a problem. Maybe Farrell is not the problem. Maybe our staff is over-rated heading into this season. Take Buchholz (please!), we have seen him screwed up before.....but never to this extent. He is totally healthy! Maybe that's the problem. And one last thing, our so-called "pitching guru" needs to start earning his money also. Where is that guy? What you talkin' about Willis? Gosh I have no way of knowing how good he is. We seemed to improve last year when ditching Nieves and Willis did help with pitch tipping for E-Rod. Price has lost velocity and is much more of a nibbler. I hope he morphs into what CC has become. I would bet Johnson is out for a good while...don't know the source of the anxiety issue...whether it was struck by the line drive or something else...but those things can run deep. Really I would like Buch in the pen again if he falters in the rotation. I think he has too many things going on in his head. He is hitting 92-94 so that should be ok. So, IMO Price-lost velocity/nibbling, Buch lost velocity (over a couple of years)/lost confidence/too much thinking, E-Rod injury/lost velo/lost breaking pitches/tipping pitches or being 2 pitch pitcher. The car jacking might have something to do with it as well.
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Post by telson13 on Jun 29, 2016 11:50:41 GMT -5
Plenty of Red Sox pitchers have come out of bad stretches in recent history (whether with the aid of a demotion/injury or otherwise). Price this year, Rick Porcello, Joe Kelly and Eduardo Rodriguez last year, Buchholz and (post-trade) Peavy in 2014. I'm not saying they shouldn't look into trades. I'm saying that whether they do so or not, their back-end pitching is unlikely to continue to be as bad as it has been so far. This team is still very likely to be a playoff contender through the fall, and the panic and overreaction is unwarranted. Your correct. Pitchers do come out of bad stretches. Problem here in Boston is, the pitchers you have outside of Wright and Price in the rotation are not good. Its that simple. Pitchers who are not good, do not come out of being bad and inconsistent. That is the difference. I understand baseball is a game of patience with your Player Personnel. How many chances can you give Pitchers such as Barnes ERod Kelly CBucholz Layne and to extent Porcello. I do understand contracts come into play. But that is where you need a sound Player personnel developmental system to weed out the inconsistant performers. A 23-y/o coming off of severe injury who's struggled is "not good?" So, just release him then? So he doesn't take up space? Porcello? Not good? Yeah, he stinks this year. Barnes? Release him. Roy Halladay. Carlos Carrasco. Randy Johnson. Mike Scott. Cliff Lee. Tom Glavine. Jaime Moyer. The list is a lot longer than that, but there are *tons* of pitchers who were "not good," for a (sometimes extended) period of time and then "came out of being bad and inconsistent." I mean, good grief, two of the guys you named in Barnes and Rodriguez are in their second seasons. And Layne, Porcello, and Kelly weren't brought up through the Sox system (and Rodriguez did most of his development in the Orioles' system). Literally none of your comment made sense except for "Your [sic] correct" at the beginning. Make up your mind as to whether it's a player development, player acquisition, coaching, roster construction, usage, or other problem (or combination). Lumping it all up and mashing it together with the glue of "not good pitchers can never become good but good pitchers can sometimes be not good" is nonsensical. Fwiw, I agree that the Sox have a player development issue, particularly on the starting pitching side. They also have **clear** problems with transitioning young pitchers to MLB. I think the former is more pronounced with SP and the latter RP. I think coaching probably is a significant part of it. I also think that management (particularly Farrell's bizarre usage patterns) doesn't help.
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Post by dnfl333 on Jun 29, 2016 12:24:49 GMT -5
... Problem here in Boston is, the pitchers you have outside of Wright and Price in the rotation are not good. Its that simple. ... Simple indeed, a little too simple for me. Porcello has kept them in almost every game he's pitched. Is the board going to piss and moan if he wins 20 games this year? The team definitely needs to keep working on the bottom of the rotation, but that bottem doesn't include this guy, not even close. Ask yourself one ? In a game 7 are you comfortable with Porcello?
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ericmvan
Veteran
Supposed to be working on something more important
Posts: 8,941
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Post by ericmvan on Jun 29, 2016 12:32:58 GMT -5
The Sox need someone to be league-average the rest of the way and solidify the #4 spot in the rotation.
According to PECOTA's rest-of-season projections:
Clay Buchholz has a 68% chance. Aaron Wilkerson has a 56% chance (!). Eduardo Rodriguez has a 50% chance. Roenis Elias has a 39% chance. Henry Owens has a 37% chance. Joe Kelly, once healthy, has a 44% chance, unless he's converted to relief.
All of these guys but Kelly will get 5 or 6 chances before the deadline to show they're the man. The odds of having no one step up are 3% without Kelly and 1.5% with him.
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Post by jrffam05 on Jun 29, 2016 12:37:04 GMT -5
Simple indeed, a little too simple for me. Porcello has kept them in almost every game he's pitched. Is the board going to piss and moan if he wins 20 games this year? The team definitely needs to keep working on the bottom of the rotation, but that bottem doesn't include this guy, not even close. Ask yourself one ? In a game 7 are you comfortable with Porcello? Just to add some context, the Orioles third best starter is Umbaldo Jimenez.
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ericmvan
Veteran
Supposed to be working on something more important
Posts: 8,941
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Post by ericmvan on Jun 29, 2016 12:37:38 GMT -5
What I absolutely just don't understand is what happened to Rodriguez's offspeed pitches? The slider he's featured this year has been scarce and both extremely hittable and wild. But what about the curveball AND cutter he was supposedly working on over the offseason? I don't have any links right now to point to, but I'm sure a lot of you remember him working on those as well. Did he abandon them, or has he not bothered trying them out until his knee is completely back to normal? It also should be painfully obvious to Farrell/Willis that he can't succeed with only a fastball and changeup, but he still hasn't thrown his slider with any more frequency. Maybe he'll actually utilize an array of pitches in Pawtucket and come back ready to be the great pitcher he was last season, aided by at least a decent slider. I posted those numbers earlier. He threw the cutter and two-seamer quite a bit (and the slider as well) while he was getting pounded, then had that great game two starts ago throwing 98 4-seamers and changes out of 102 pitches. That's actually impressive. Not throwing his sinker and breaking pitches is not the reason he's getting hammered. His stuff is so good that when he has command, they're gravy and biscuits.
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Post by redsox04071318champs on Jun 29, 2016 12:49:34 GMT -5
Simple indeed, a little too simple for me. Porcello has kept them in almost every game he's pitched. Is the board going to piss and moan if he wins 20 games this year? The team definitely needs to keep working on the bottom of the rotation, but that bottem doesn't include this guy, not even close. Ask yourself one ? In a game 7 are you comfortable with Porcello? Depends on who's pitching for the other team. We're only three years removed from a scenario that could have happened, but didn't. Had the Sox not beat up Michael Wacha in Game 6 of the 2013 World Series, the Sox would have sent Jake Peavy to the mound to face the Cardinals' (at that time) Joe Kelly.
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Post by jimed14 on Jun 29, 2016 13:36:00 GMT -5
Simple indeed, a little too simple for me. Porcello has kept them in almost every game he's pitched. Is the board going to piss and moan if he wins 20 games this year? The team definitely needs to keep working on the bottom of the rotation, but that bottem doesn't include this guy, not even close. Ask yourself one ? In a game 7 are you comfortable with Porcello? If the Red Sox got to any game 7 with Porcello, I'm perfectly fine with him there.
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Post by trotfan on Jun 29, 2016 13:37:05 GMT -5
This team is not cold they are a bad baseball team now ....fire Farrell and trade Pedey For pitching .
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