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Red Sox vs. Indians ALDS Game 2 Gameday Thread
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Post by fenwaythehardway on Oct 8, 2016 7:54:22 GMT -5
Just a reminder: no Papi next year. And no Margot or Espinoza. I'm not giving up hope yet; the last two times the Red Sox faced triple elimination games against the Indians, those series turned out pretty okay. However, hopefully our owner and GM will learn from this. Once upon a time when only two teams made it to the post-season and they both had a 50% chance of winning, it made sense to trade part of your future to go for it when you had the chance. Today, when one out of every three teams makes it to the post-season, but you have to get by three or even four opponents in short series to win it all, you should never be all in any year unless you have an aging team and are approaching a rebuild. Because you just never know when you're team will stop hitting (or hitting with RISP like the Rangers who were 2-18 today) You suppose Indians fans are saying stuff like this about Andrew Miller?
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Post by redsox04071318champs on Oct 8, 2016 7:57:20 GMT -5
In the post game Pedro Martinez said the reason Price got hit is because Cleveland knew he'd be throwing strikes so they stayed aggressive. Also said he kept everything down so hitters never had to change eye level. Seems like correctable stuff, if he gets another chance this year, Seems to me that he has always pitched down in the zone. The big difference I see is in late August he was snapping pitches off to create a late break that was keeping hitters off balance. Now he is not finishing and no late movement. Maybe after 230 innings his arm and legs are tired? Honestly, that is always something I've wondered myself about Price? Is it that he's simply exhausted by season's end? I mean he's had about five bad to mediocre starts in a row. It's very possible that he's spent. Porcello could now be going through the same thing.
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Post by redsox04071318champs on Oct 8, 2016 8:08:11 GMT -5
The elephants in the room that seem to never get discussed - the extent to which Bogaerts has simply looked lost for much of the second half of the season...the lack of following through on the wind up adjustment with Price - the issue that Pedey caught looking at film. Price modified his wind up, he did much better - then right back to the ineffective wind up. To a lesser extent, JBJ's returning inability to make contact at all. Three pretty big factors right there to the post winning streak swoon. Yet - nothing - not in papers, not on websites. There are some concrete issues plaguing this team right now, and since the end of the big winning streak. And yet - no talk about it. Seems to me you can't just switch on success - and that is what the Sox thought that they could do. Turns out to be harder than they thought. Pretty deflating - and yes, they could win the next 1-2-3 games. But that wouldn't fix the fundamental flaw to this team - bizarre streakiness. Xander Bogaerts is a 23 year old who had a 3.7 bWAR season and Jackie Bradley Jr. is a 26 year old who had a 5.3 bWAR season. As much as we would have liked each of these players to have been as good the second half of the season as they were the first, that was most likely not a reasonable thing to hope for. Bradley Jr. probably isn't a 5 WAR player on a consistent basis, and while I think Bogaerts will eventually be he's not there yet. Both were at least as good as we had any right to hope; I find it hard to be overly critical of either. The Red Sox have just lost consecutive road games, nothing more and nothing less. It's unfortunate that they did so during a best of five elimination series, but it's not really fundamentally any different than any other pair of consecutive losses. They are now 45 - 29 in post-season games over the last decade and a half. If there is an elephant in the room, it's that the Red Sox took on a quarter of a billion dollars in salary commitments and traded a substantial portion of its farm system, including half its pre-season top six prospects and two elite prospects, for three players, Kimbrel, Price and Pomeranz, who added less than 5 bWAR to a team that led its division by 5 games when it stopped playing meaningful games. Given that those three players made a combined salary of over $40 million this year, which could have been used to purchase a few more wins, it's hard not to feel that the Red Sox could easily have achieved as much as they did without any of those three players, that barring a major reversal in their fortunes this series, they will have traded away potentially a large portion of their future to accomplish no more --and maybe less -- than they would have with more patience. That is the elephant in the room. Honestly do you really think the Sox would have done as well without Price eating a lot of innings, mediocre ones at time to be sure - but do you really think you would have slapped some guy in there and made the playoffs? As far as Kimbrel goes, if he was pitching like Andrew Miller, like he was supposed to be, do you really think giving up a blocked outfielder like Margot who isn't as good as the 3 Bs in the outfield would have looked as bad? I'll agree with you re: Pomeranz. That one I believe they will regret big time and wreaked of desperation, but even he kept them away from having to use Henry Owens, which wouldn't have been the case had our manager not used Steven Wright as a pinch runner. The biggest argument I have is that the Red Sox needed somebody who could provide 230 innings of quality during the year, which Price did - they paid for him to provide excellence for those innings, but only got those in stretches, but if they didn't sign him, they would have traded a lot more out of their farm system (and perhaps off their big league roster like a JBJ) than you would have liked and by signing Price instead of somebody like Greinke it preserved their ability to draft Jason Groome. The only two arguments you could make against signing Price would be the two guys who opposed each other last night: Either you sign Johnny Cueto and keep the draft pick, but coming off the year he had, it's not hard to see why you'd sign Price instead, although I've always liked Johnny Cueto and would have been cool with his signing. Or the Red Sox should have prevented all this nonsense and should have signed Jon Lester as a free agent in the first place. If they really wanted him back they should have gone the extra mile to get him back (match the Cubs in other words). They didn't. They didn't offer anywhere near what the Cubs offered him, yet they blew away the field for Price, meaning if the Red Sox really, really want somebody they go and get him. That also applies to Andrew Miller. You could say that the Sox had a choice of signing either Koji or Miller (after they dealt him to Baltimore), but they opted to re-sign Koji and let Miller go to the Yankees over $1 million/year. They should have offered him 4 and $40, It really didn't have to be an either/or situation. They could have opted to be revolutionary and use Koji and the closer and Miller as the fireman, the way he's being used in Cleveland or Miller could have been the traditional closer had Koji faded badly. Their offer was just short of the Yankees. In other words they didn't go that extra mile. Had they done so, perhaps they don't need to deal Margot for Kimbrel. Either way, though, you can't always build a team without trades and free agent signings. Sometimes you don't get perfect value, but you have to do so to prevent worse situations from happening.
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Post by redsox04071318champs on Oct 8, 2016 8:10:07 GMT -5
And no Margot or Espinoza. I'm not giving up hope yet; the last two times the Red Sox faced triple elimination games against the Indians, those series turned out pretty okay. However, hopefully our owner and GM will learn from this. Once upon a time when only two teams made it to the post-season and they both had a 50% chance of winning, it made sense to trade part of your future to go for it when you had the chance. Today, when one out of every three teams makes it to the post-season, but you have to get by three or even four opponents in short series to win it all, you should never be all in any year unless you have an aging team and are approaching a rebuild. Because you just never know when you're team will stop hitting (or hitting with RISP like the Rangers who were 2-18 today) You suppose Indians fans are saying stuff like this about Andrew Miller? Good point, although the Indians fans will miss out on Clint Frazier - the Yanks got a good one there. Assuming things hold up it'll be interesting to see how Miller does against the Blue Jays right handed power bats, Donaldson, Encarnacion, and Bautista. He doesn't get to exploit his lefty on lefty thing, not that he's a LOOGY, but it should be interesting to watch those matchups.
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Post by fenwaythehardway on Oct 8, 2016 10:10:48 GMT -5
You suppose Indians fans are saying stuff like this about Andrew Miller? Good point, although the Indians fans will miss out on Clint Frazier - the Yanks got a good one there. You've got to give up something to get something. The problem is when you give up something for a guy who's not even worth the contract he's signed to. Or to put it another way, if you're going to throw a lot of resources at a problem, that problem better damn well get solved.
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TX
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Posts: 265
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Post by TX on Oct 8, 2016 10:36:26 GMT -5
Enough with the Price hate. He is what he is, an expensive innings eater. And he does that very well.
I don't regret that signing, I don't regret Pomeranz, Kimbrel or fat boy either. The only thing I regret is Lester. He was our boy and should have never left. Even if he wanted to side with Theo - NOPE, here's a ridiculous contract for you, in respect to your talent and all you've done for this team.
Bucky and Porcello help take the next 2, then Jon's loss is magnified.
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Post by libertine on Oct 8, 2016 10:37:40 GMT -5
Just gotta hold serve at home. If we could come back down 0-3 to the MFYs in '04 this is still very doable.
As far as Price goes, he could have had a Pedro/Schilling/Beckett/Lester post season kinda start and the Sox still wouldn't have won. And unfortunately we got 2015 vintage Porcello in game 1 instead of the 2016 version.
Scoring 4 runs in 2 games just won't cut it. We supposedly have the best line-up in baseball so our hitters need to step up and show that to be the case.
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Post by jimed14 on Oct 8, 2016 10:41:24 GMT -5
If you swapped Price and Lester, I bet their results would be reversed. The NL is so far behind the AL in hitting right now.
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Post by DesignatedForAssignment on Oct 8, 2016 10:42:20 GMT -5
GO CUBS ....
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TX
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Posts: 265
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Post by TX on Oct 8, 2016 10:56:14 GMT -5
Theo and Jon. Is it even possible for a Boston fan to root against them?
Even in a world series also featuring these Sox?
not by me.
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gerry
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Post by gerry on Oct 8, 2016 12:52:02 GMT -5
Theo and Jon. Is it even possible for a Boston fan to root against them? Even in a world series also featuring these Sox? not by me. iMO the Sox won the ALE, a worst to first transition. And this homegrown core will compete for years, and be adding players like Moncada, Travis, Devers, Basabe, Dubon, Kopech, Groome in the process. That makes me happy. I would love to play the Chicago Red Sox in the WS, and will be happy if Theo and crew, and Lester, Ross, Lackey, Rizzo and team break that curse. By the same token, I can't begrudge Tito and Brad and Nap and Coco and guys like Kipnis, Sanchez, Lindor and Kluber overcoming serious issues to advance. In so many ways (and on several teams), this this has been a good year for the Sox. That said, go Sox tomorrow and Monday.
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Post by Coreno on Oct 8, 2016 13:17:47 GMT -5
I really hope the Sox take care of business these 2 home games. That would lead to an awesome game 5 in Cleveland, the 2 Cy guys up against each other, Kluber V. Porcello, winner-take-all.
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Post by larrycook on Oct 8, 2016 20:35:54 GMT -5
I really hope the Sox take care of business these 2 home games. That would lead to an awesome game 5 in Cleveland, the 2 Cy guys up against each other, Kluber V. Porcello, winner-take-all. The bats are so cold, it is really difficult for me to see us getting to game 5.
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Post by Chris Hatfield on Oct 9, 2016 9:36:06 GMT -5
If you swapped Price and Lester, I bet their results would be reversed. The NL is so far behind the AL in hitting right now. Well, and keep in mind that the swap is really Lester and Porcello. Start there, and you wonder what the rotation looks like at this point - do they sign Price, etc. Maybe they do, maybe they don't. Point is that it's not like Lester/Price would be the easy one in, one out swap you would think it is at first thought (or at least that I did).
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Oct 9, 2016 10:30:19 GMT -5
I really hope the Sox take care of business these 2 home games. That would lead to an awesome game 5 in Cleveland, the 2 Cy guys up against each other, Kluber V. Porcello, winner-take-all. The bats are so cold, it is really difficult for me to see us getting to game 5. Johnny Damon was 3/29 with 2 BB in games 1 through 6 of the 2004 ALCS. There are countless further examples ... since, in fact, the hotness or coldness of a player or lineup has no measurable, useful predictive value. Yes, after the fact you can identify hot and cold stretches that are statistically unlikely to be segregated at random, but they are of such variable duration that the predictive power of having been hot or cold up until today is reduced to essentially nothing. To take the most recent example, Hanley Ramirez hit .373 / .423 / .784 in 26 G / 111 PA from August 27 to September 24. He then went 0/15 (with 6 BB, but 2 GDP) in his next 5 games and was very clearly fouling off literally all the pitches he had been annihilating for the previous month. In his last 3 games he's .273 / .333 / .727 and looks locked in again.
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Post by Oregon Norm on Oct 9, 2016 23:39:35 GMT -5
Away from the games for three days. A non-profit I'm involved with was having it's annual meeting and we spent most of this morning ironing out funding grants, internal fundraising,staffing, all of that. The last inning I watched was the one with the three home runs from Porcello - painful - which largely sank that first game. Looks like the second game was even worse. Big hole to climb out of. Has anyone heard how the rain-out today will affect the rotation (I have not read through the threads yet)?
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