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Post by telson13 on Dec 12, 2016 23:28:14 GMT -5
Also, they won the division by 4 games. So it's arguable that those 3 wins made no difference.
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Post by bosox81 on Dec 13, 2016 0:10:31 GMT -5
Ben gets accolades because he inherited a losing team with no flexibility and he went and created the flexibility via a trade with the Dodgers and used that flexibility to make some shrewd signings that resulted in one of the most awesome teams to watch in our lifetimes. DD, on the other hand, inherited a team in the upswing with one of the best, if not the best, farm systems in all of baseball plus enough payroll flexibility to add a top of the rotation starter. Do you understand that there's a huge difference between the two situations? Ben gets accolades sure but it seems like you want to give him no demerits. For example, you speak of DD having the team on an upswing. Can you please explain how you can't go on an upswing after finishing in last place? Therefore no matter where the sox finish as long as it wasn't last place, to people like you the improvement will always be mostly Ben. That's ridiculous. So until the team is 51% drafted by DD or traded this is Ben's team?
This team went from last to 1st in arguably the best division in baseball. Yes Ben did it too a prior year, but then went back to last. Doesn't that tell you something was horribly wrong? This isn't NORMAL. Going from last to 1st is very, very unusual but he went back-and-forth and now DD just took a team that was last and got them to 1st. A last place team. That was one helluva an upswing!!!
The Red sox made a statement by making it clear at ST that salaries meant nothing. Best player plays. The manager even said how refreshing that was. Why do you think he said that? Because he had a meddling GM ,most likely, right? You're just going to ignore that and the implications that probably started the year before? DD opened up the 3b job. DD probably forced HanRam in some manner that he'd have to work for a spot too. If you want to disregard that then anyhow he wasn't the idiot that tried to put him in left field to begin with, now was he? DD picked up a very productive outfielder in Young. DD brought up Benitendi fast which we know Big Ben was shy to rush minor league players. Big Ben got a closer and as much as Koji was hurt and Taz was hurt and awful, thank God we did get one, right? Otherwise where would have our bullpen been? Big Ben had Kelly starting yet we know the folly in that, right? Is this a Ben move or DD move putting him in the pen? I get the feeling posters like you will give kudos to Ben if he does well but blame DD if he flops. What about Price and Pomeranz? Do we have a shot at the playoffs without these two? Would Big Ben have had the guts to do what DD did to Clay? Just like what he did with Panda? You see these type of benchings and trades etc and you don't think it has much effect on the players? Can't you see the difference between the two GM's?
And you're talking to me about upswing? Really? DD built up the starting staff a bit (without Price and Pomz no playoffs) and pounces on Clay's pathetic start. He gets a closer which was desperately needed, he brings in two new outfielders, he sets an example that best player plays so guys like Panda and HanRam know they have to compete and you say "this is largely Ben's team?" You've got to be kidding. You've got to be kidding.
Ok, I see that you need specifics. So here we go: Upswing: - Betts and Bogaerts emerging as solid regulars, if not stars. - JBJ finally having a breakout - Shaw surprising everyone - Porcello showing signs at the end of the season of returning to form, same as Miley - ERod having a great debut - Swihart also having a solid debut - In spite of all the graduations of young players in the minors, the farm was not slowing down with Benintendi having a fantastic professional debut and the addition of Moncada putting the Sox farm over the top. Denying that the team DDo inherited was on the upswing based on the W-L record is honestly very lazy. The team being largely Theo's and Ben's: I think contributing over 80% of the team WAR qualifies as largely. But going back to what started this conversation: I never claimed that DDo had nothing to do with the 2016 success. All I said was that I knew it was only a matter of time before people started to credit DDo for it, which is what your post seemed to be doing.
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Post by bosox81 on Dec 13, 2016 0:16:40 GMT -5
He has traded, what, 16 prospects? 19? I lost count. And so far, the only return that has performed to expectations is Ziegler. For two months. I guess jury is still out on the others, but DDo is off to a bad start. It goes to show that not unlike prospects there's no sure thing in baseball. I'd be lying if I said the dizzying pace at which DD has traded away minor league prospects wasn't making me feel a bit queasy, and very uneasy about the diminished long-term prospects for the major league club. I also worry a lot about the regression to the mean of pitchers with marquee track records (e.g., Kimbrel, Price, Sale) or breakout seasons (Smith, Pomeranz, Thornburg) prior to coming over to Boston. That being said, do you think it's appropriate to give DD credit for properly handicapping the odds of prospects panning out? Let's revisit the Sox trading end of the Kimbrel trade, which has been widely panned to date. 1. MARGOT -- .326/.419/.745 slash line at AA Portland prior to the trade >> .351/.426/.777 slash line at AAA El Paso (24-40% more favorable for runs and hits relative to Pawtucket -- www.milb.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20150703&content_id=134278096&fext=.jsp&vkey=news_milb)2. GUERRA -- anomalous .329/.449/.778 slash line at low A Greenville prior to the trade >> .264/.325/.589 slash line at high A Lake Elsinore 3. ASUAJE -- .334/.374/.709 slash line at AA Portland prior to the trade >> .378/.473/.851 slash line at AAA El Paso. 4. ALLEN -- 0.90 ERA / 0.65 WHIP / 10.8 K/9 / 0.4 BB/9 in Rookie League prior to the trade >> 3.33 ERA / 1.30 WHIP / 7.8 K/9 / 3.7 BB/9 at A-ball Fort Wayne DD might regret including Asuaje in the deal, but would any of us have rejected a Zimbrel for Margot and Asuaje trade out of hand at the time? And DD made this trade several months prior to the market for high K/9 relievers going absolutely bonkers. Does he get any credit for anticipating how market prices would escalate? Even with Margot seemingly developing into a solid MLB CF prospect, don't you think DD could turn around and trade Zimbrel to a 2017 contender for a more significant haul than what he gave up last offseason if the season goes south? And that doesn't even bake in any 2nd year performance improvement from Kimbrel or the potential for acquiring prospects who aren't actually blocked at the MLB level by the Killer B's or Pedroia. What about the other side of that equation? 2016 Kimbrel << 2013-2015 Kimbrel. Did DDo properly "handicap" the odds of that too? Also, be honest: Were you not disappointed by the on-field results of trading away TEN prospects? TEN!
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Post by umassgrad2005 on Dec 13, 2016 0:40:30 GMT -5
Pomeranz won 3 games for a playoff team, so he helped get them to playoffs. And lost five, for a team that played nearly .600 ball. So by that argument, he hurt them. You can't argue he didn't help them make playoffs.
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Post by umassgrad2005 on Dec 13, 2016 0:42:14 GMT -5
Also, they won the division by 4 games. So it's arguable that those 3 wins made no difference. You said helped make playoffs, not would they have made playoffs without him. That's just not the same thing!
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Post by ponch73 on Dec 13, 2016 0:54:47 GMT -5
As my prior post attested, DD's transactional style makes me uneasy. To me, he operates like a guy with his pants on fire. He reminds me of a momentum stock investor who is willing to pay nosebleed valuations for the highest-flying stocks from the past 12 months. Unlike Theo -- who started out as the ultimate contrarian value investor before changing his spots -- DD does not seem to respect the notion of mean reversion. But, unlike Ben, DD also appears to be savvy enough to pay nosebleed valuations with nosebleed currency (case in point: Guerra) in the interests of winning now. I also think we need to put ourselves in DD's shoes. I think we could make a case that DD was ready to lock and load on Chapman (he loves flamethrowers, after all) before organizational due diligence turned up the domestic violence incident. At that point, DD's options were limited -- he wasn't going to pry away Miller, Britton or Betances from AL East foes. Or any of the top closers from other 2016 contenders (Melancon, Jensen, Rosenthal, Familia, Casilla, Tolleson, Gregerson, etc.). So, knowing that his options were limited, he pulled the trigger on the next marquee, extremely high K/9, low WHIP closer on his list. And he paid a steep price (since demand > supply) -- little did we know that the steep prices would yet become steeper. The other moves are less controversial to me. It's hard to fault him for giving up Miley for Smith, especially knowing Miley's history with Farrell. Obviously, Smith was a bust in 2016, but I can't fault DD's process there. It's hard to fault him for trying to shore up an underperforming starting rotation with Pomeranz -- a guy whose actual track record would be close to a 85th percentile scenario for Espinoza. I just wish he would have had the trade rescinded once it became clear that Pomeranz was damaged goods. And I think I'd have pulled the trigger on the Ziegler trade without much consternation. This brings us to this offseason. I'm likely in the minority, but I probably wouldn't have given up Moncada and Kopech for Sale. Once again, I fear mean reversion with Sale, not only given his frame and delivery, but also the Boston indoctrination effect, which has tarnished the debut seasons of guys like Beckett, Price, Kimbrel, etc. I also would have been willing to bet on a Price/Porcello/ERod/Wright/Pomeranz/Buchholz rotation to at least duplicate, if not exceed, the 2016 results of all of our starters collectively. But that's what makes a market -- I hate the Kimbrel trade far less than others and I like the Sale trade far less than others. I don't mind giving up lower-level, wild card prospects or nice prospects who are blocked by superior MLB talent. I don't love giving up 2 of the top 30 prospects in MLB to shore up an area on the MLB club that wasn't a deeply glaring weak spot, at least in comparison to areas like a cleanup hitter, 3B, or 7th and 8th inning relievers. Given the late season tailspin, I am also more concerned about the offense considerably underperforming last season than the starting rotation considerably underperforming last season.
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Post by soxjim on Dec 13, 2016 1:37:15 GMT -5
Please provide a remotely rational argument for how Pomeranz helped "get them to the playoffs."Pomeranz won 3 games for a playoff team, so he helped get them to playoffs.
If you recall on August 3rd one of the most biggest blunders from our idiotic head coach could have completely ripped this team going forward. You know what I'm talking about. When he used Wright to pinch run when he could have used Pomeranz instead. A 4th grader would have had more brains. How many reliable starting pitchers did we have at the time Wright went down? Clay was still in the pen - and unsure of himself. And of course we had "Henry Owens" waiting in the wings.
Now -- Go back into August and note how our bullpen was doing. The bullpen was in a full stage collapse for that month. Our bullpen was pathetic in this particular month. Then look at how the Red Sox were scoring runs:
Their average runs scored in the month of August was the second lowest month of the season. Further look at what the Red Sox record was when we scored 1-2 runs - the sox were 5-32 for the season. Look at when we score three runs we're 4-13. We were 6-8 when we scored 4 runs not good but 4-13 when we score 3 runs is real bad. The point is if the red sox weren't getting above that magic 3 number they were lousy / awful/ pathetic.
Well look even closer at the numbers and you'll see June (which had the lowest average of runs scored) had the most games in which the sox scored 2 runs or less. And July and Sept ties for 2nd, and May and August tied for 4th. But-looking at the numbers deeper--when we scored just three runs by far the month August led in number of games we could only get 3. As cited above when we score three runs we were a miserable 4-13. Thus there were 30% more games in which the red sox scored 3 runs or less more than any other month once you sum the numbers up.
***Now look at what Pomeranz did in August. From August 4th to Sept 5th Pomz had 7 starts in which he let up only 13 runs. And just one start was it over 2; it was 3 runs. Incidentally, the game he let up 3 runs, the Red Sox lost. Sandwiched in that 3 run start, Pomz had two starts on 8/25 and 9/5 of which he only let up two runs. And guess what? The Red sox lost both those games too. How much is it Pomz fault vs the hitting (lack of hitting) for August? Anyhow, looking over that 7 game stretch Pomz gave the sox 41.67 innings. Not bad innings wise but good runs allowed wise. In addition to these well pitched games, in three other starts of his we won the games 3-2. ** The red sox won 4 games all year by scoring 3 runs. And three of them were with Pomz when he pitched well in August. That month of August arguably our least efficient run scoring month in which we needed quality starting pitching the most and Pomz came through.
In conclusion -- you had the dog days of summer. The bullpen was collapsing. Farrell made one of the stupidest moves we'll ever see and what were our alternatives for starters? An unsure Clay whom we were scared to death with in his spot starts in August and Henry Owens or one of that ilk. And we were at least effective scoring runs. And during that time Pomz came up huge. So yeah absolutely Pomz was a key player for us getting into the playoffs.
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Post by soxjim on Dec 13, 2016 2:24:04 GMT -5
Ben gets accolades sure but it seems like you want to give him no demerits. For example, you speak of DD having the team on an upswing. Can you please explain how you can't go on an upswing after finishing in last place? Therefore no matter where the sox finish as long as it wasn't last place, to people like you the improvement will always be mostly Ben. That's ridiculous. So until the team is 51% drafted by DD or traded this is Ben's team?
This team went from last to 1st in arguably the best division in baseball. Yes Ben did it too a prior year, but then went back to last. Doesn't that tell you something was horribly wrong? This isn't NORMAL. Going from last to 1st is very, very unusual but he went back-and-forth and now DD just took a team that was last and got them to 1st. A last place team. That was one helluva an upswing!!!
The Red sox made a statement by making it clear at ST that salaries meant nothing. Best player plays. The manager even said how refreshing that was. Why do you think he said that? Because he had a meddling GM ,most likely, right? You're just going to ignore that and the implications that probably started the year before? DD opened up the 3b job. DD probably forced HanRam in some manner that he'd have to work for a spot too. If you want to disregard that then anyhow he wasn't the idiot that tried to put him in left field to begin with, now was he? DD picked up a very productive outfielder in Young. DD brought up Benitendi fast which we know Big Ben was shy to rush minor league players. Big Ben got a closer and as much as Koji was hurt and Taz was hurt and awful, thank God we did get one, right? Otherwise where would have our bullpen been? Big Ben had Kelly starting yet we know the folly in that, right? Is this a Ben move or DD move putting him in the pen? I get the feeling posters like you will give kudos to Ben if he does well but blame DD if he flops. What about Price and Pomeranz? Do we have a shot at the playoffs without these two? Would Big Ben have had the guts to do what DD did to Clay? Just like what he did with Panda? You see these type of benchings and trades etc and you don't think it has much effect on the players? Can't you see the difference between the two GM's?
And you're talking to me about upswing? Really? DD built up the starting staff a bit (without Price and Pomz no playoffs) and pounces on Clay's pathetic start. He gets a closer which was desperately needed, he brings in two new outfielders, he sets an example that best player plays so guys like Panda and HanRam know they have to compete and you say "this is largely Ben's team?" You've got to be kidding. You've got to be kidding.
Ok, I see that you need specifics. So here we go: Upswing: - Betts and Bogaerts emerging as solid regulars, if not stars. - JBJ finally having a breakout - Shaw surprising everyone - Porcello showing signs at the end of the season of returning to form, same as Miley - ERod having a great debut - Swihart also having a solid debut - In spite of all the graduations of young players in the minors, the farm was not slowing down with Benintendi having a fantastic professional debut and the addition of Moncada putting the Sox farm over the top. Denying that the team DDo inherited was on the upswing based on the W-L record is honestly very lazy. The team being largely Theo's and Ben's: I think contributing over 80% of the team WAR qualifies as largely. But going back to what started this conversation: I never claimed that DDo had nothing to do with the 2016 success. All I said was that I knew it was only a matter of time before people started to credit DDo for it, which is what your post seemed to be doing. The mods will stop us because we'd be going in circles. I'll end my points here. For all your points these "upswing players' were a last place team the year before. All you seem to be doing is being in denial that Ben led this team to 3 last place finishes in 4 years and you astonishingly you give credit to Ben because now that he couldn't have led to the team to a worse finish and mismanaged the team so badly, now you want to claim it was all roses for DD because the last place team had to eventually go on an upswing. Thanks for telling everyone that a team under Ben's rule with a $190m payroll is bound to be on an upswing leading intot nenext year.
Further there is this point about PITCHING. You say ERod had a great debut?? Huh??!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Wasn't there some stat this year that spoke of Clay and Erod to start the year and their first few months was amongst the worst ever for 4/5 starters in baseball history? You can have all the hits you want, but without pitching you know you can't win, right? And other than Porcello, which Ben guy pitcher had a shining season? DD had to get players because Ben was extremely deficient in this area right? Could you please tell everyone when was the last time the Red Sox had a home grown starter? May never happen with DD either but at least he's committed to us fans not having to watch crummy last place baseball because he wants to hoard minor league players. Yo enjoyed those miserable Sunday afternoons when he had to watch a last place team play so badly? And I think our starters are a tiny bit better now that Ben is gone, don't you think?
Also you realize the Red Sox needed a closer, right? Are closers important? Maybe not so much to Ben. Otherwise, we'd have Miller, right? Why did we need Kimbrel when we could have had Miller? Ohhhhh - that's right. Ben chose to not want to go after the younger guy who came into his own. HE chose to take the 40 year old instead. Guess what happens after you have a 40 year old for a couple of years? He is likely to get more ineffective, right? Well what do you think that means? It means the Red Sox have to go out and spend a lot more or trade to find a closer. hose fault is that Ben was too dumb to not realize that Koji had a short window and Miller was in his "upswing?"
And you continually ignore what "management" means. What Dave did early in the season and probably last year --as I said -- "Best player plays." What did Farrell say? Again-- to paraphrase he said 'It's refreshing that I can choose the best players instead of worrying about salary." These type of things are management skills DD has which makes this HIS TEAM and contributes ot those WAR numbers you cite. Further, those WAR numbers you cite don't mean a hill-of-beans if you didn't have the pitching to go with it.
I'm done with this. Nice arguments.
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Post by soxjim on Dec 13, 2016 2:44:49 GMT -5
As my prior post attested, DD's transactional style makes me uneasy. To me, he operates like a guy with his pants on fire. He reminds me of a momentum stock investor who is willing to pay nosebleed valuations for the highest-flying stocks from the past 12 months. Unlike Theo -- who started out as the ultimate contrarian value investor before changing his spots -- DD does not seem to respect the notion of mean reversion. But, unlike Ben, DD also appears to be savvy enough to pay nosebleed valuations with nosebleed currency (case in point: Guerra) in the interests of winning now. I also think we need to put ourselves in DD's shoes. I think we could make a case that DD was ready to lock and load on Chapman (he loves flamethrowers, after all) before organizational due diligence turned up the domestic violence incident. At that point, DD's options were limited -- he wasn't going to pry away Miller, Britton or Betances from AL East foes. Or any of the top closers from other 2016 contenders (Melancon, Jensen, Rosenthal, Familia, Casilla, Tolleson, Gregerson, etc.). So, knowing that his options were limited, he pulled the trigger on the next marquee, extremely high K/9, low WHIP closer on his list. And he paid a steep price (since demand > supply) -- little did we know that the steep prices would yet become steeper. The other moves are less controversial to me. It's hard to fault him for giving up Miley for Smith, especially knowing Miley's history with Farrell. Obviously, Smith was a bust in 2016, but I can't fault DD's process there. It's hard to fault him for trying to shore up an underperforming starting rotation with Pomeranz -- a guy whose actual track record would be close to a 85th percentile scenario for Espinoza. I just wish he would have had the trade rescinded once it became clear that Pomeranz was damaged goods. And I think I'd have pulled the trigger on the Ziegler trade without much consternation. This brings us to this offseason. I'm likely in the minority, but I probably wouldn't have given up Moncada and Kopech for Sale. Once again, I fear mean reversion with Sale, not only given his frame and delivery, but also the Boston indoctrination effect, which has tarnished the debut seasons of guys like Beckett, Price, Kimbrel, etc. I also would have been willing to bet on a Price/Porcello/ERod/Wright/Pomeranz/Buchholz rotation to at least duplicate, if not exceed, the 2016 results of all of our starters collectively. But that's what makes a market -- I hate the Kimbrel trade far less than others and I like the Sale trade far less than others. I don't mind giving up lower-level, wild card prospects or nice prospects who are blocked by superior MLB talent. I don't love giving up 2 of the top 30 prospects in MLB to shore up an area on the MLB club that wasn't a deeply glaring weak spot, at least in comparison to areas like a cleanup hitter, 3B, or 7th and 8th inning relievers. Given the late season tailspin, I am also more concerned about the offense considerably underperforming last season than the starting rotation considerably underperforming last season. You say DD buys momentum stock yet someone else could say he buys the big cap safe stocks and evne if overvalued he feels big cap over the long haul will outperform the market.
As far as Kimbrel. Before his stint with the Padres, Fangraphs had him right up there with all the other elite pitchers. Up until this year Chapman had also very high walk numbers, didn't he?
As far as Pomz and rescinding, the Red Sox were in trouble in August, weren't they? Wright hurt, Clay pitching poorly, and the bullpen collapsing while in August the Red Sox weren't as efficient scoring runs? And from what I understand by the time they found out the extent of Pomz injury other targets such as Rich Hill were gone, wasn't he?
As far as pitching, didn't we have Schilling and Foulke do well in their 1st year? If you look at things the way you are at this moment, what would ever make you decide to get Schilling? Or Foulke? So you would pass on these guys? Also-- many of these Aces also want to win. So if your expectation is that the aces will fail in their 1st year and you know you have to back up the truck to get them, when would you ever be in favor of getting one? Because you realize they are also going to want to win, right?
And I can understand what you're saying to an extent- sox do have some troubles with 1st year pitchers. However if you look at that data, what about the data of Porcello and Price performance in the playoffs? What do you think our chances of them being a 1/2 starter combo vs maybe being a 2/3 playoff starter combo because now they have Sale? Do you feel that the stats of past aces means that Sale is more likely to fail rather than looking at the stats of Price and Porcello and you being very confident that they will be a terrific 1/2 combination in the playoffs? In other words, Why do you prefer the "Sale will struggle stat" rather that the playoffs 1/2 stats of Price Porcello? I'm not arguing but if one were to feel that Price and Porcello struggles in the playoffs - unless you can trade them, wouldn't it mean then you better find another top notch starter that can maybe control a series? I'm not arguing. Anyhow have a good night.
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Post by pedrofanforever45 on Dec 13, 2016 4:28:41 GMT -5
One thing I have thought about when the Sox hired Dave Dombrowski is that the ownership might be looking to sell in the next 5-10 years (Henry is getting a lot older now). The ownership group might be looking for one or two more championships before they sell.
Dombrowski was probably the perfect guy to execute this in this timeframe.
I don't know maybe I'm completely wrong, but with the willingness to trade everything for major league upgrades with no minor league ramifications added (besides the draft), it just is something I always had on my mind.
Fenway has only so much shelf life as a viable ballpark, that and Henry's age got me thinking about this.
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nomar
Veteran
Posts: 10,731
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Post by nomar on Dec 13, 2016 10:57:06 GMT -5
I have never been to worried about Henry selling the team. I think he cares enough to make sure the next owner has us in good hands. Either way he gets an incredible amount of money.
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Post by jodyreidnichols on Dec 13, 2016 11:41:20 GMT -5
Pomeranz won 3 games for a playoff team, so he helped get them to playoffs. And lost five, for a team that played nearly .600 ball. So by that argument, he hurt them. They won 5 games he started, the starting rotation at that point was Porcello and Price and think thrice. He had 5 quality starts. The bullpen was also at it's weakest when he was at his best with us. You are trying way to hard and rationalizing the loss of AE by going after Drew.
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Post by bosox81 on Dec 13, 2016 12:04:21 GMT -5
Ok, I see that you need specifics. So here we go: Upswing: - Betts and Bogaerts emerging as solid regulars, if not stars. - JBJ finally having a breakout - Shaw surprising everyone - Porcello showing signs at the end of the season of returning to form, same as Miley - ERod having a great debut - Swihart also having a solid debut - In spite of all the graduations of young players in the minors, the farm was not slowing down with Benintendi having a fantastic professional debut and the addition of Moncada putting the Sox farm over the top. Denying that the team DDo inherited was on the upswing based on the W-L record is honestly very lazy. The team being largely Theo's and Ben's: I think contributing over 80% of the team WAR qualifies as largely. But going back to what started this conversation: I never claimed that DDo had nothing to do with the 2016 success. All I said was that I knew it was only a matter of time before people started to credit DDo for it, which is what your post seemed to be doing. The mods will stop us because we'd be going in circles. I'll end my points here. For all your points these "upswing players' were a last place team the year before. All you seem to be doing is being in denial that Ben led this team to 3 last place finishes in 4 years and you astonishingly you give credit to Ben because now that he couldn't have led to the team to a worse finish and mismanaged the team so badly, now you want to claim it was all roses for DD because the last place team had to eventually go on an upswing. Thanks for telling everyone that a team under Ben's rule with a $190m payroll is bound to be on an upswing leading intot nenext year.
Further there is this point about PITCHING. You say ERod had a great debut?? Huh??!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Wasn't there some stat this year that spoke of Clay and Erod to start the year and their first few months was amongst the worst ever for 4/5 starters in baseball history? You can have all the hits you want, but without pitching you know you can't win, right? And other than Porcello, which Ben guy pitcher had a shining season? DD had to get players because Ben was extremely deficient in this area right? Could you please tell everyone when was the last time the Red Sox had a home grown starter? May never happen with DD either but at least he's committed to us fans not having to watch crummy last place baseball because he wants to hoard minor league players. Yo enjoyed those miserable Sunday afternoons when he had to watch a last place team play so badly? And I think our starters are a tiny bit better now that Ben is gone, don't you think?
Also you realize the Red Sox needed a closer, right? Are closers important? Maybe not so much to Ben. Otherwise, we'd have Miller, right? Why did we need Kimbrel when we could have had Miller? Ohhhhh - that's right. Ben chose to not want to go after the younger guy who came into his own. HE chose to take the 40 year old instead. Guess what happens after you have a 40 year old for a couple of years? He is likely to get more ineffective, right? Well what do you think that means? It means the Red Sox have to go out and spend a lot more or trade to find a closer. hose fault is that Ben was too dumb to not realize that Koji had a short window and Miller was in his "upswing?"
And you continually ignore what "management" means. What Dave did early in the season and probably last year --as I said -- "Best player plays." What did Farrell say? Again-- to paraphrase he said 'It's refreshing that I can choose the best players instead of worrying about salary." These type of things are management skills DD has which makes this HIS TEAM and contributes ot those WAR numbers you cite. Further, those WAR numbers you cite don't mean a hill-of-beans if you didn't have the pitching to go with it.
I'm done with this. Nice arguments.
1. Yes, the 2015 Sox sucked. But the general feeling towards the end was that 2016 would be much better based on all the evidence I gave in my previous post. 2. I said ERod had a great debut as evidence of point #1. Please don't take it out of context. 3. You use a lot of words and a lot of question marks to emphasize things that I have no idea what they have to do with what I said. To reiterate: The original point of contention was not that DDo should get no credit, but that people would eventually give DDo most of the credit for 2016. 4. My WAR calculations did include pitching.
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Post by umassgrad2005 on Dec 13, 2016 12:42:40 GMT -5
The mods will stop us because we'd be going in circles. I'll end my points here. For all your points these "upswing players' were a last place team the year before. All you seem to be doing is being in denial that Ben led this team to 3 last place finishes in 4 years and you astonishingly you give credit to Ben because now that he couldn't have led to the team to a worse finish and mismanaged the team so badly, now you want to claim it was all roses for DD because the last place team had to eventually go on an upswing. Thanks for telling everyone that a team under Ben's rule with a $190m payroll is bound to be on an upswing leading intot nenext year.
Further there is this point about PITCHING. You say ERod had a great debut?? Huh??!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Wasn't there some stat this year that spoke of Clay and Erod to start the year and their first few months was amongst the worst ever for 4/5 starters in baseball history? You can have all the hits you want, but without pitching you know you can't win, right? And other than Porcello, which Ben guy pitcher had a shining season? DD had to get players because Ben was extremely deficient in this area right? Could you please tell everyone when was the last time the Red Sox had a home grown starter? May never happen with DD either but at least he's committed to us fans not having to watch crummy last place baseball because he wants to hoard minor league players. Yo enjoyed those miserable Sunday afternoons when he had to watch a last place team play so badly? And I think our starters are a tiny bit better now that Ben is gone, don't you think?
Also you realize the Red Sox needed a closer, right? Are closers important? Maybe not so much to Ben. Otherwise, we'd have Miller, right? Why did we need Kimbrel when we could have had Miller? Ohhhhh - that's right. Ben chose to not want to go after the younger guy who came into his own. HE chose to take the 40 year old instead. Guess what happens after you have a 40 year old for a couple of years? He is likely to get more ineffective, right? Well what do you think that means? It means the Red Sox have to go out and spend a lot more or trade to find a closer. hose fault is that Ben was too dumb to not realize that Koji had a short window and Miller was in his "upswing?"
And you continually ignore what "management" means. What Dave did early in the season and probably last year --as I said -- "Best player plays." What did Farrell say? Again-- to paraphrase he said 'It's refreshing that I can choose the best players instead of worrying about salary." These type of things are management skills DD has which makes this HIS TEAM and contributes ot those WAR numbers you cite. Further, those WAR numbers you cite don't mean a hill-of-beans if you didn't have the pitching to go with it.
I'm done with this. Nice arguments.
1. Yes, the 2015 Sox sucked. But the general feeling towards the end was that 2016 would be much better based on all the evidence I gave in my previous post. 2. I said ERod had a great debut as evidence of point #1. Please don't take it out of context. 3. You use a lot of words and a lot of question marks to emphasize things that I have no idea what they have to do with what I said. To reiterate: The original point of contention was not that DDo should get no credit, but that people would eventually give DDo most of the credit for 2016. 4. My WAR calculations did include pitching. In 2016 they might have been a 4th place team, not a 5th placed team. So sure they were on upswing lol. What you leave out is a lot of the improvement from 2015 didn't carry over to 2016. ERod didn't build on 2015, he took a step backwards due to injury. Kelly imploded again, after looking great the last 2 months playing meaningless games. Miley went from pitching like a #3 to pitching like a bad #5. Swihart wasn't able to build on his good rookie showing. Owens went from looking like a solid back end starter to being a total mess. I have huge doubts Cherington would have made the Sox a 2016 playoff team. DD deserves a ton of credit for the 2016 team. No way Cherington signs Price and gets Kimbrel. He probably gets Zimmerman/ Shark and O'Day. No way Cherington pulls plug on Sandoval as quick as DD did. That was his guy. What does Cherington do with Ramirez? Does he move him to 1B like DD or does he trade him? You can say things like 80% of wars were Cherington guys, sure that's your 4th placed team. The other 20% were the difference between 1st and 4th place.
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Post by fenwaythehardway on Dec 13, 2016 14:25:05 GMT -5
Also, they won the division by 4 games. So it's arguable that those 3 wins made no difference. If you're willing to make terrible arguments, sure. Then again, this thread is 90% terrible arguments so go ahead I guess.
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Post by bosox81 on Dec 13, 2016 14:36:23 GMT -5
1. Yes, the 2015 Sox sucked. But the general feeling towards the end was that 2016 would be much better based on all the evidence I gave in my previous post. 2. I said ERod had a great debut as evidence of point #1. Please don't take it out of context. 3. You use a lot of words and a lot of question marks to emphasize things that I have no idea what they have to do with what I said. To reiterate: The original point of contention was not that DDo should get no credit, but that people would eventually give DDo most of the credit for 2016. 4. My WAR calculations did include pitching. In 2016 they might have been a 4th place team, not a 5th placed team. So sure they were on upswing lol. What you leave out is a lot of the improvement from 2015 didn't carry over to 2016. ERod didn't build on 2015, he took a step backwards due to injury. Kelly imploded again, after looking great the last 2 months playing meaningless games. Miley went from pitching like a #3 to pitching like a bad #5. Swihart wasn't able to build on his good rookie showing. Owens went from looking like a solid back end starter to being a total mess. I have huge doubts Cherington would have made the Sox a 2016 playoff team. DD deserves a ton of credit for the 2016 team. No way Cherington signs Price and gets Kimbrel. He probably gets Zimmerman/ Shark and O'Day. No way Cherington pulls plug on Sandoval as quick as DD did. That was his guy. What does Cherington do with Ramirez? Does he move him to 1B like DD or does he trade him? You can say things like 80% of wars were Cherington guys, sure that's your 4th placed team. The other 20% were the difference between 1st and 4th place. A 4th place team would mean worse than the Yankees record and DDo's guys accumulated approximately 6.5 WAR (for over $40 million dollars and 10 prospects! LOL! But that's another story). So your math doesn't compute. We don't know what Cherington would've done. But even assuming that he doesn't do anything (which of course is ridiculous, but theoretically), at about 86.5 wins this is a borderline playoff team looking even brighter for the future with the likes of Moncada, Espinoza, and Kopech waiting in the horizon.
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Post by James Dunne on Dec 13, 2016 15:10:17 GMT -5
Going from a one-game win to a four-game win in the division would be foolish if you knew exactly how many games you were going to win and how many your opponents were going to win and could maximize your roster accordingly.
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Post by telson13 on Dec 13, 2016 15:53:17 GMT -5
Also, they won the division by 4 games. So it's arguable that those 3 wins made no difference. You said helped make playoffs, not would they have made playoffs without him. That's just not the same thing! Well, his point was more that Pomeranz was somehow instrumental in getting them there. I mean, Josh Rutledge technically "helped" too. I think there needs to be a bit of perspective there.
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Post by telson13 on Dec 13, 2016 15:57:25 GMT -5
Also, they won the division by 4 games. So it's arguable that those 3 wins made no difference. If you're willing to make terrible arguments, sure. Then again, this thread is 90% terrible arguments so go ahead I guess. That was kind of the point, yes. I was responding in kind. It's highly debatable that Pomeranz played any *significant* role in reaching the postseason last year. His acquisition had a marginal positive effect, if any positive effect at all. What he does in the next two years (or what they get back for him) is the real meat-and-potatoes.
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Post by telson13 on Dec 13, 2016 16:08:25 GMT -5
Pomeranz won 3 games for a playoff team, so he helped get them to playoffs.
If you recall on August 3rd one of the most biggest blunders from our idiotic head coach could have completely ripped this team going forward. You know what I'm talking about. When he used Wright to pinch run when he could have used Pomeranz instead. A 4th grader would have had more brains. How many reliable starting pitchers did we have at the time Wright went down? Clay was still in the pen - and unsure of himself. And of course we had "Henry Owens" waiting in the wings.
Now -- Go back into August and note how our bullpen was doing. The bullpen was in a full stage collapse for that month. Our bullpen was pathetic in this particular month. Then look at how the Red Sox were scoring runs:
Their average runs scored in the month of August was the second lowest month of the season. Further look at what the Red Sox record was when we scored 1-2 runs - the sox were 5-32 for the season. Look at when we score three runs we're 4-13. We were 6-8 when we scored 4 runs not good but 4-13 when we score 3 runs is real bad. The point is if the red sox weren't getting above that magic 3 number they were lousy / awful/ pathetic.
Well look even closer at the numbers and you'll see June (which had the lowest average of runs scored) had the most games in which the sox scored 2 runs or less. And July and Sept ties for 2nd, and May and August tied for 4th. But-looking at the numbers deeper--when we scored just three runs by far the month August led in number of games we could only get 3. As cited above when we score three runs we were a miserable 4-13. Thus there were 30% more games in which the red sox scored 3 runs or less more than any other month once you sum the numbers up.
***Now look at what Pomeranz did in August. From August 4th to Sept 5th Pomz had 7 starts in which he let up only 13 runs. And just one start was it over 2; it was 3 runs. Incidentally, the game he let up 3 runs, the Red Sox lost. Sandwiched in that 3 run start, Pomz had two starts on 8/25 and 9/5 of which he only let up two runs. And guess what? The Red sox lost both those games too. How much is it Pomz fault vs the hitting (lack of hitting) for August? Anyhow, looking over that 7 game stretch Pomz gave the sox 41.67 innings. Not bad innings wise but good runs allowed wise. In addition to these well pitched games, in three other starts of his we won the games 3-2. ** The red sox won 4 games all year by scoring 3 runs. And three of them were with Pomz when he pitched well in August. That month of August arguably our least efficient run scoring month in which we needed quality starting pitching the most and Pomz came through.
In conclusion -- you had the dog days of summer. The bullpen was collapsing. Farrell made one of the stupidest moves we'll ever see and what were our alternatives for starters? An unsure Clay whom we were scared to death with in his spot starts in August and Henry Owens or one of that ilk. And we were at least effective scoring runs. And during that time Pomz came up huge. So yeah absolutely Pomz was a key player for us getting into the playoffs.
He went 3-5 in 14 games (13 starts), with an ERA of 4.59 and FIP to match with 0.5 fWAR. You can concoct whatever narrative you like (and you have to, to justify calling him "instrumental."), but he pitched like a #5 starter. He was roughly as instrumental as Rutledge was when he had a nice hot streak early in the season.
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Post by umassgrad2005 on Dec 13, 2016 16:48:36 GMT -5
In 2016 they might have been a 4th place team, not a 5th placed team. So sure they were on upswing lol. What you leave out is a lot of the improvement from 2015 didn't carry over to 2016. ERod didn't build on 2015, he took a step backwards due to injury. Kelly imploded again, after looking great the last 2 months playing meaningless games. Miley went from pitching like a #3 to pitching like a bad #5. Swihart wasn't able to build on his good rookie showing. Owens went from looking like a solid back end starter to being a total mess. I have huge doubts Cherington would have made the Sox a 2016 playoff team. DD deserves a ton of credit for the 2016 team. No way Cherington signs Price and gets Kimbrel. He probably gets Zimmerman/ Shark and O'Day. No way Cherington pulls plug on Sandoval as quick as DD did. That was his guy. What does Cherington do with Ramirez? Does he move him to 1B like DD or does he trade him? You can say things like 80% of wars were Cherington guys, sure that's your 4th placed team. The other 20% were the difference between 1st and 4th place. A 4th place team would mean worse than the Yankees record and DDo's guys accumulated approximately 6.5 WAR (for over $40 million dollars and 10 prospects! LOL! But that's another story). So your math doesn't compute. We don't know what Cherington would've done. But even assuming that he doesn't do anything (which of course is ridiculous, but theoretically), at about 86.5 wins this is a borderline playoff team looking even brighter for the future with the likes of Moncada, Espinoza, and Kopech waiting in the horizon. Your math doesn't compute, because your just taking out Dave's guys not factoring in how the players they replaced would do. You need to look at the negative impact having guys like Kelly and Miley would have on the team if they pitched 30 starts. What if Owens had to start 15 games? When Koji and Taz go down in pen who replaces them if you don't have Ziegler and Kimbrel? Does Cherington put Wright into rotation so early in season or does he stick with Kelly and Miley? We don't know what Ben would have done, but we do know that DD putting Shaw and Wright into starting lineup and rotation was a brilliant move. The 2016 Red Sox pitching staff was worth 15.2 bwars total. DD guys Price, Kimbrel, Ziegler and Pomeranz were worth 5.5 wars. That's 36% of our pitching wars. Price was second in wars to Porcello and Pomeranz was 4th. Ziegler was the bullpen leader in war with 1, Kimbrel tied for second with Ross at .9 and had one of the best save % of any closer . Without those guys we wouldn't have had even close to enough pitching.
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Post by umassgrad2005 on Dec 13, 2016 17:00:15 GMT -5
If you recall on August 3rd one of the most biggest blunders from our idiotic head coach could have completely ripped this team going forward. You know what I'm talking about. When he used Wright to pinch run when he could have used Pomeranz instead. A 4th grader would have had more brains. How many reliable starting pitchers did we have at the time Wright went down? Clay was still in the pen - and unsure of himself. And of course we had "Henry Owens" waiting in the wings.
Now -- Go back into August and note how our bullpen was doing. The bullpen was in a full stage collapse for that month. Our bullpen was pathetic in this particular month. Then look at how the Red Sox were scoring runs:
Their average runs scored in the month of August was the second lowest month of the season. Further look at what the Red Sox record was when we scored 1-2 runs - the sox were 5-32 for the season. Look at when we score three runs we're 4-13. We were 6-8 when we scored 4 runs not good but 4-13 when we score 3 runs is real bad. The point is if the red sox weren't getting above that magic 3 number they were lousy / awful/ pathetic.
Well look even closer at the numbers and you'll see June (which had the lowest average of runs scored) had the most games in which the sox scored 2 runs or less. And July and Sept ties for 2nd, and May and August tied for 4th. But-looking at the numbers deeper--when we scored just three runs by far the month August led in number of games we could only get 3. As cited above when we score three runs we were a miserable 4-13. Thus there were 30% more games in which the red sox scored 3 runs or less more than any other month once you sum the numbers up.
***Now look at what Pomeranz did in August. From August 4th to Sept 5th Pomz had 7 starts in which he let up only 13 runs. And just one start was it over 2; it was 3 runs. Incidentally, the game he let up 3 runs, the Red Sox lost. Sandwiched in that 3 run start, Pomz had two starts on 8/25 and 9/5 of which he only let up two runs. And guess what? The Red sox lost both those games too. How much is it Pomz fault vs the hitting (lack of hitting) for August? Anyhow, looking over that 7 game stretch Pomz gave the sox 41.67 innings. Not bad innings wise but good runs allowed wise. In addition to these well pitched games, in three other starts of his we won the games 3-2. ** The red sox won 4 games all year by scoring 3 runs. And three of them were with Pomz when he pitched well in August. That month of August arguably our least efficient run scoring month in which we needed quality starting pitching the most and Pomz came through.
In conclusion -- you had the dog days of summer. The bullpen was collapsing. Farrell made one of the stupidest moves we'll ever see and what were our alternatives for starters? An unsure Clay whom we were scared to death with in his spot starts in August and Henry Owens or one of that ilk. And we were at least effective scoring runs. And during that time Pomz came up huge. So yeah absolutely Pomz was a key player for us getting into the playoffs.
He went 3-5 in 14 games (13 starts), with an ERA of 4.59 and FIP to match with 0.5 fWAR. You can concoct whatever narrative you like (and you have to, to justify calling him "instrumental."), but he pitched like a #5 starter. He was roughly as instrumental as Rutledge was when he had a nice hot streak early in the season. He had the 4th highest war total among starters in 13 starts. He replaced guys that were pitching at a historically bad levels. You have to factor that in. Getting Pomeranz allowed Buchholz to go to pen and fix his issues. You can hate the trade, no reason to bash the player or what he did for the team.
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Post by thursty on Dec 13, 2016 17:16:32 GMT -5
It's WAR not WARs
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Post by jodyreidnichols on Dec 13, 2016 17:52:23 GMT -5
Also, they won the division by 4 games. So it's arguable that those 3 wins made no difference. No it is not. The goal is not to merely win a division. You are comparing an assumed WAR from last year for a pitcher and then inputting that to a new team based on how they did last year to project next year. There is so many false assumptions there that it's not worthy.
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Post by kman22 on Dec 13, 2016 19:33:33 GMT -5
Wasn't Pomeranz the best Red Sox pitcher in the postseason?
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