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Post by pedrofanforever45 on Oct 26, 2016 16:12:49 GMT -5
You're right. Too bad he has to hit and run too, which he can absolutely hurt a ankle with. It's very rare that a player would hurt his ankle as badly as Swihart did running bases or hitting. Ahh now I know what you got your graduate degree in, physics. You must know more than anyone here that Swihart can't possibly hurt a ankle rounding a bag or sliding into a bag or rolling your foot over on a swing. Now I know better. Thanks for clarifying.
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Post by pedrofanforever45 on Oct 26, 2016 16:16:29 GMT -5
The Sox threw Brock Holt and Travis Shaw in LF with no prior experience. They didn't get hurt. I think they were permanently ruined however after these games. How dare the red sox do this kind of thing?
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Post by umassgrad2005 on Oct 26, 2016 16:22:43 GMT -5
It's very rare that a player would hurt his ankle as badly as Swihart did running bases or hitting. Ahh now I know what you got your graduate degree in, physics. You must know more than anyone here that Swihart can't possibly hurt a ankle rounding a bag or sliding into a bag or rolling your foot over on a swing. Now I know better. Thanks for clarifying. I said it's rare, not that it couldn't happen. Again what's with the what ifs? He didn't get hurt running the bases or hitting. It's a fact he got hurt playing the OF, a position he has hardly played. BTW my degree is in Economics.
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Post by jimed14 on Oct 26, 2016 16:26:42 GMT -5
Catchers in general get hurt a lot more often than left fielders. This is like blaming someone for calling you and you hurt yourself when grabbing your phone. Ridiculous. It's nothing like that. The Red Sox put Swihart in a position he has hardly played and he didn't have nearly the development time needed to properly know how to play the position. Sure catchers get injured, but most are just from the beating they take from behind the plate. Here's the thing Swihart has spent what 5 years getting his body ready to handle the catcher position. He had what a few weeks to get ready for the OF. If you gave Swihart a full offseason to get ready to play OF I wouldn't have a problem if he got injured. It's the fact they rushed him, because they had a short term need due to injury. It was short sighted in my opinion. There's a reason why pitchers that pinch run get hurt at a lot higher rate than positional players. Your asking them to do something they usually don't do. And don't give me they practice it, without in game action it means nothing. It's just totally different when a game is on the line. There's a reason why managers rarely pinch run pitchers, they don't want them to get injured doing something out of their comfort zone. If Wright didn't pinch run, another pitcher who could have still participated in the game would have had to pinch run or Papi would have had to run with his aching feet which were giving him a big problem at that point of the season. It's easy to complain about picking a bad option when you don't offer a better one which didn't exist. Swihart is athletic enough to not expect him to get hurt in LF. He was as likely to run into a wall out there as he would be to fall into the dugout on a pop fly while playing catcher. You can literally second guess every injury ever if you think the way you do. Do you blame the Red Sox when Wright got hit in the head while he was running in the outfield last year?
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Post by pedrofanforever45 on Oct 26, 2016 16:52:59 GMT -5
The Sox threw Brock Holt and Travis Shaw in LF with no prior experience. They didn't get hurt. I think they were permanently ruined however after these games. How dare the red sox do this kind of thing? Brock Holt is and will always be ruined because of the last minute switch to the outfield randomly.
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Post by umassgrad2005 on Oct 26, 2016 17:20:38 GMT -5
It's nothing like that. The Red Sox put Swihart in a position he has hardly played and he didn't have nearly the development time needed to properly know how to play the position. Sure catchers get injured, but most are just from the beating they take from behind the plate. Here's the thing Swihart has spent what 5 years getting his body ready to handle the catcher position. He had what a few weeks to get ready for the OF. If you gave Swihart a full offseason to get ready to play OF I wouldn't have a problem if he got injured. It's the fact they rushed him, because they had a short term need due to injury. It was short sighted in my opinion. There's a reason why pitchers that pinch run get hurt at a lot higher rate than positional players. Your asking them to do something they usually don't do. And don't give me they practice it, without in game action it means nothing. It's just totally different when a game is on the line. There's a reason why managers rarely pinch run pitchers, they don't want them to get injured doing something out of their comfort zone. If Wright didn't pinch run, another pitcher who could have still participated in the game would have had to pinch run or Papi would have had to run with his aching feet which were giving him a big problem at that point of the season. It's easy to complain about picking a bad option when you don't offer a better one which didn't exist. Swihart is athletic enough to not expect him to get hurt in LF. He was as likely to run into a wall out there as he would be to fall into the dugout on a pop fly while playing catcher. You can literally second guess every injury ever if you think the way you do. Do you blame the Red Sox when Wright got hit in the head while he was running in the outfield last year? I don't blame Sox for that injury to Wright. Pitchers running in OF is a normal part of their pre game routine. They weren't asking him to do something he usually doesn't do. I only blame the team for injuries when they ask a player to do something outside their comfort zone which I think is very fair. You could have put in just about any pitcher other than Wright who up to that point had been just awesome. Also do you think he pinched ran for Ortiz more trying to win the game or out of fear of him getting injured like you claim? He was trying to win the game. I mean Ortiz was not healthy all year and it only got worse, yet he let him run the bases for the rest of the year. He only pinch ran for him late in games.
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Post by jmei on Oct 26, 2016 17:43:38 GMT -5
I think playing a player at a new position (whether catcher/left field or pitcher/pinch-runner) increases his injury risk. Not by a lot, and I don't know that there's any data out there that supports (or refutes) it, but in my mind you're putting a player in new situations, and being in new situations increases the likelihood of making a mistake (like not giving yourself enough runway before running into a wall or diving headfirst into the bag on a pickoff attempt) that can lead to an injury.
No one is saying that a player is guaranteed to suffer an injury if he moves positions or that he is guaranteed to stay healthy if he stayed at his original position, and the advantages of playing a player at a new position will often outweigh the disadvantages. But it seems perfectly reasonable to argue that moving a player to a new position, especially if he has limited reps at that new position, increases his risk of injury.
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Post by jimed14 on Oct 27, 2016 7:54:51 GMT -5
I think playing a player at a new position (whether catcher/left field or pitcher/pinch-runner) increases his injury risk. Not by a lot, and I don't know that there's any data out there that supports (or refutes) it, but in my mind you're putting a player in new situations, and being in new situations increases the likelihood of making a mistake (like not giving yourself enough runway before running into a wall or diving headfirst into the bag on a pickoff attempt) that can lead to an injury. No one is saying that a player is guaranteed to suffer an injury if he moves positions or that he is guaranteed to stay healthy if he stayed at his original position, and the advantages of playing a player at a new position will often outweigh the disadvantages. But it seems perfectly reasonable to argue that moving a player to a new position, especially if he has limited reps at that new position, increases his risk of injury. And it especially is easy to place all of the blame on the team when it turns out the way it did and ignore all the times that no one got hurt doing the same thing. Making decisions doesn't come with the benefit of hindsight and it's really annoying when that's all people use to judge a decision.
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Post by jmei on Oct 27, 2016 10:18:45 GMT -5
They shouldn't get all the blame, but they should get some of it. 99% of the time, wearing a seatbelt won't hurt you either, but it's still a foreseeable risk that you're taking.
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Post by sibbysisti on Oct 27, 2016 13:41:18 GMT -5
Swihart could have sustained the same injury at catcher, chasing a wind swept foul ball near the dugouts or the back wall. Accidents happen. It's not because this excellent athlete forgot how to play baseball.
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Post by sox fan in nc on Oct 28, 2016 7:54:13 GMT -5
Maybe it's the LF position @ Fenway. With Hanley and now Swihart, it seems like that shallow foul wall may be the culprit. They're running full speed after a ball & run out of room very quickly. I was going to mention Ellsbury, but he ran into a different kind of wall.
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Post by tjb21 on Oct 28, 2016 12:46:14 GMT -5
I love what Swihart brings to the team, hope he gets healthy and produces offensively the way he already has. Still have high hopes for him and think the defense will come.
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Post by kman22 on Oct 28, 2016 17:19:41 GMT -5
Maybe it's the LF position @ Fenway. With Hanley and now Swihart, it seems like that shallow foul wall may be the culprit. They're running full speed after a ball & run out of room very quickly. I was going to mention Ellsbury, but he ran into a different kind of wall. Red Sox left fielders of late all seem to get injured, one way or another . Ellsbury, Hanley, Swihart, and, most recently, Benintendi.
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Post by sibbysisti on Nov 8, 2016 15:56:42 GMT -5
Swihart has been given instructions by Dombrowski to concentrate on catching in the offseason and in Spring Training. Though not ruling out the field, he is at least limiting Blake's exposure to what got him to the bigs in the first place.
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Sept 7, 2017 14:47:57 GMT -5
Swihart's actual trade value right now, as a percentage of his potential trade value and likely actual worth going forward, is microscopic.
And yet there's no room for him on the roster next year.
Or is that so?
You might gamble and trade Sandy Leon instead. That would be very bold. And of course, if Swihart fulfills your dreams and becomes a sought-after trade chip, then you'd be in the market for a really good backup catcher ... like Sandy Leon.
How about keeping them both? You're very likely to re-sign Eduardo Nunez. You could therefore trade Brock Holt, who is two years from free agency.
Swihart could catch. In theory he could play 1B and LF, too, but of course he'd have to hit some in order to justify that. But the main idea is to re-establish his trade value as a C.
The idea would not be to go through the whole season with three catchers, but just to make Swihart into a a guy worth dealing for prospects. Ideally, in fact, that happens in spring training.
What makes this work is that, once you deal him, you'd have your choice of Marco Hernandez and Tzu-Wei Lin to call up and fill the Holt role, and still have a guy in AAA for injury call-ups.
The other thing you'd need to do is prep Mookie to play an emergency 2B, Pedey to play an emergency SS, and Hanley to play an emergency 3B. That covers you on days that Nunez is at DH; if there's an injury to a skill infielder, you don't lose the DH.
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Post by Chris Hatfield on Sept 7, 2017 14:50:45 GMT -5
Swihart screams change of scenery candidate to me. I'll credit Cundall as the one who put that idea in my head.
EDIT: Also, this poll seems kind of crazy in hindsight, right?
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Post by braziliansox on Sept 7, 2017 15:27:42 GMT -5
I think Leon's spot as a backup is pretty safe as long as Sale is around, at least in the near future.
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Post by ramireja on Sept 7, 2017 15:47:25 GMT -5
Swihart screams change of scenery candidate to me. I'll credit Cundall as the one who put that idea in my head. He absolutely does, but to do this, you'd need to trade him at a time when his trade value has cratered. If internally, the Sox believe he can rebound even a little, I'd imagine they would be unlikely to deal him this offseason. That doesn't contradict anything you said, I completely agree he is a change of scenery candidate, but I'm just not sure that will result in an actual change of scenery. Eric -- if the idea is to try and reestablish Swihart's value as a catcher, wouldn't the most straightforward approach to have him prove he can catch everyday (and hit) back in AAA? Obviously, it would be better if he could prove that at the major league level, but I'm not convinced a strong spring training would convince rival GMs that he is back to MLB-level readiness. He has an option remaining if I'm not mistaken.
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Post by Chris Hatfield on Sept 7, 2017 16:06:46 GMT -5
Swihart screams change of scenery candidate to me. I'll credit Cundall as the one who put that idea in my head. He absolutely does, but to do this, you'd need to trade him at a time when his trade value has cratered. If internally, the Sox believe he can rebound even a little, I'd imagine they would be unlikely to deal him this offseason. That doesn't contradict anything you said, I completely agree he is a change of scenery candidate, but I'm just not sure that will result in an actual change of scenery. Eric -- if the idea is to try and reestablish Swihart's value as a catcher, wouldn't the most straightforward approach to have him prove he can catch everyday (and hit) back in AAA? Obviously, it would be better if he could prove that at the major league level, but I'm not convinced a strong spring training would convince rival GMs that he is back to MLB-level readiness. He has an option remaining if I'm not mistaken. He used his last option this year. That's the problem.
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Post by ramireja on Sept 7, 2017 17:43:02 GMT -5
Gotcha. Well in that case, I can't say I love any of the options, and the idea that he could reestablish some trade value in Spring Training seems highly unlikely. It does seem as although we may part with Swihart in the end for next to nothing.
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Sept 7, 2017 17:47:02 GMT -5
He absolutely does, but to do this, you'd need to trade him at a time when his trade value has cratered. If internally, the Sox believe he can rebound even a little, I'd imagine they would be unlikely to deal him this offseason. That doesn't contradict anything you said, I completely agree he is a change of scenery candidate, but I'm just not sure that will result in an actual change of scenery. Eric -- if the idea is to try and reestablish Swihart's value as a catcher, wouldn't the most straightforward approach to have him prove he can catch everyday (and hit) back in AAA? Obviously, it would be better if he could prove that at the major league level, but I'm not convinced a strong spring training would convince rival GMs that he is back to MLB-level readiness. He has an option remaining if I'm not mistaken. He used his last option this year. That's the problem. And it's thorny. Here's the silver lining. He doesn't need a large sample size of good performance. Scouts have always loved him. He needs to look good. He needs to look like the guy who was a top 20 prospect. Teams will come after him, thinking they can get him on the cheap, and you can bid them against each other until you get a solid return. I can guarantee you that every MLB club who doesn't have an above-average MLB catcher on their 2019 projected roster is acutely aware of Mr. Blake Swihart and will be following him closely. They'll all be dreaming of picking up the next Jason Varitek* for the equivalent of Heathcliff Slocumb. *A pretty good comp. Varitek was the 14th player taken in the draft and had Davenport Peak Projected EqA's of .247, .242, and .226 when we nabbed him. His actual peak was .284, and he was .261 for his career. Swihart's gone .251, .264, .276, .272, .241, .188.
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Post by ramireja on Sept 7, 2017 18:01:09 GMT -5
He used his last option this year. That's the problem. And it's thorny. Here's the silver lining. He doesn't need a large sample size of good performance. Scouts have always loved him. He needs to look good. He needs to look like the guy who was a top 20 prospect. Teams will come after him, thinking they can get him on the cheap, and you can bid them against each other until you get a solid return. I can guarantee you that every MLB club who doesn't have an above-average MLB catcher on their 2019 projected roster is acutely aware of Mr. Blake Swihart and will be following him closely. They'll all be dreaming of picking up the next Jason Varitek* for the equivalent of Heathcliff Slocumb. *A pretty good comp. Varitek was the 14th player taken in the draft and had Davenport Peak Projected EqA's of .247, .242, and .226 when we nabbed him. His actual peak was .284, and he was .261 for his career. Swihart's gone .251, .264, .276, .272, .241, .188. Sure, and I guess thats why I think this is an unlikely outcome. I think the chances are slim that he will look like the old Swihart, unless his performance this year can truly be attributed to injuries that will resolve themselves in the offseason. That said, I'm not disagreeing with anything you're saying as you never said it was likely that Swihart would be vintage Swihart. I'd be happy to hope for this outcome myself.
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Post by pedrofanforever45 on Sept 8, 2017 7:34:27 GMT -5
What are the chances that the Sox use Swihart as the next Holt on the bench?
He'd actually be more versatile then Holt because he can catch.
It'd be a great idea while you try to reestablish value. Maybe he even forces you to think about starting him a lot catcher all over again.
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Post by Chris Hatfield on Sept 8, 2017 12:54:17 GMT -5
What are the chances that the Sox use Swihart as the next Holt on the bench? He'd actually be more versatile then Holt because he can catch. It'd be a great idea while you try to reestablish value. Maybe he even forces you to think about starting him a lot catcher all over again. Near zero. Holt at least had experience at 2B and SS before he started developing versatility down the defensive spectrum. Swihart's non-catcher experience is at LF (24 games) and 1B (7 games), so he'd be moving up the defensive spectrum (catcher is kind of its own animal). There's no reason to believe he can handle the middle infield competently (and 3B is only a guess) and isn't a fit in RF or CF. You've got a better chance of sticking as a third catcher if you can also play 1B and LF, but that doesn't make you a useful bench player necessarily, as the team is still going to need a backup infielder and probably a 4th outfielder. At the same time, he also hasn't necessarily hit all that great in the majors such that I'd even feel confident going with him over a healthy Holt. Unless there's an injury or two, it's tough for me to imagine a scenario where he's not traded before the start of the season.
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Sept 8, 2017 16:31:04 GMT -5
What are the chances that the Sox use Swihart as the next Holt on the bench? He'd actually be more versatile then Holt because he can catch. It'd be a great idea while you try to reestablish value. Maybe he even forces you to think about starting him a lot catcher all over again. Near zero. Holt at least had experience at 2B and SS before he started developing versatility down the defensive spectrum. Swihart's non-catcher experience is at LF (24 games) and 1B (7 games), so he'd be moving up the defensive spectrum (catcher is kind of its own animal). There's no reason to believe he can handle the middle infield competently (and 3B is only a guess) and isn't a fit in RF or CF. You've got a better chance of sticking as a third catcher if you can also play 1B and LF, but that doesn't make you a useful bench player necessarily, as the team is still going to need a backup infielder and probably a 4th outfielder. At the same time, he also hasn't necessarily hit all that great in the majors such that I'd even feel confident going with him over a healthy Holt. Unless there's an injury or two, it's tough for me to imagine a scenario where he's not traded before the start of the season. Teams do go with three-man benches. And the fourth guy on our bench to open last year was Steve Selsky, who started just once in 21 games and had a total of 9 PA and 10.2 defensive inning. He was succeeded by Chase D'Arnaud, who had 1 PA and 1 defensive inning over 18 games. They didn't have a real 4-man bench until Sam Travis arrived on May 23. So a bench of Leon, Holt or Nunez, and Brentz or Castillo, or Leon, Holt, and Nunez, would be perfectly adequate. That leaves you room for Swihart to share the backup catcher position.
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