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Where are they now?: The former Sox thread
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Post by juanpena on Jan 11, 2019 11:36:10 GMT -5
Nothing against him personally, but the Vitek pick was a strange one to me. It seemed he was billed as a guy without much power or speed or a clear-cut position. People liked his hit tool, but if that's all you've got, it had better be a great hit tool.
Whenever I hear talk of "helium" for a guy in a draft, I think of Vitek and wonder where his helium came from.
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Post by James Dunne on Jan 11, 2019 11:48:00 GMT -5
In his last two years in college, Vitek hit .374/.461/.712 in 512 PA. That included 45 2B, 30 HR, 7 3B, 70 K, and 61 BB.
EDIT: So he basically spent two years hitting like Benintendi the year he won college POTY. And yeah, it was the MAC and not the SEC, so it's not really comparable to what Benintendi did. But still--that's a pretty ridiculous batting line.
Baseball America's pre-draft capsule:
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Post by soxfansince67 on Jan 11, 2019 12:08:46 GMT -5
Wish Will Middlebrooks all the best in the world, but he was one of the most frustrating players I have ever seen put on a Sox uniform. He just couldn't lay off of a breaking ball (especially from a RHP) down and away. As soon as he got to two strikes, I'd go to the bathroom or something because I knew what was coming and the other team always knew what to do too. Throw some offspeed in the dirt, he'd do you the honor of chasing and taking a seat. He was hyped, but he was never major league quality outside of a hot 2012 for a few months. If I had to rate the most dreaded Sox players I have ever seen play in a Sox uniform, I'd rate the list to be like this- 1) Julio Logo (nothing was worse than seeing this guy play baseball) 2) Jose Offerman (old name drop!!!) 3) Will Middlebrooks 4) Pablo Sandoval 5) Edward Mujica **Note none of these players may be bad human beings, but I couldn't stand watching any one of these players play baseball for this team. Lugo, Sandoval, Mujica...LOL! I will add Gagne and Aceves
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Post by jimed14 on Jan 11, 2019 12:27:50 GMT -5
Wish Will Middlebrooks all the best in the world, but he was one of the most frustrating players I have ever seen put on a Sox uniform. He just couldn't lay off of a breaking ball (especially from a RHP) down and away. As soon as he got to two strikes, I'd go to the bathroom or something because I knew what was coming and the other team always knew what to do too. Throw some offspeed in the dirt, he'd do you the honor of chasing and taking a seat. He was hyped, but he was never major league quality outside of a hot 2012 for a few months. If I had to rate the most dreaded Sox players I have ever seen play in a Sox uniform, I'd rate the list to be like this- 1) Julio Logo (nothing was worse than seeing this guy play baseball) 2) Jose Offerman (old name drop!!!) 3) Will Middlebrooks 4) Pablo Sandoval 5) Edward Mujica **Note none of these players may be bad human beings, but I couldn't stand watching any one of these players play baseball for this team. Lugo, Sandoval, Mujica...LOL! I will add Gagne and Aceves How can Dice K not be on that list?
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Post by pedrofanforever45 on Jan 11, 2019 15:07:55 GMT -5
Lugo, Sandoval, Mujica...LOL! I will add Gagne and Aceves How can Dice K not be on that list? I liked watching Dice-K in his first two years when he was actually good. It was the same reason why I left Buchholz off that list, he was good for a little while. The players on my list were barely if ever good lol.
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Post by jimed14 on Jan 11, 2019 16:24:21 GMT -5
How can Dice K not be on that list? I liked watching Dice-K in his first two years when he was actually good. It was the same reason why I left Buchholz off that list, he was good for a little while. The players on my list were barely if ever good lol. He always aggravated me even when he was decent. Remember when he first signed he was touted as having like 9 pitches? I have to imagine it was dishonorable to take a walk in Japan because he couldn't throw ANY of them for a strike.
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Post by redsox04071318champs on Jan 11, 2019 16:29:55 GMT -5
I liked watching Dice-K in his first two years when he was actually good. It was the same reason why I left Buchholz off that list, he was good for a little while. The players on my list were barely if ever good lol. He always aggravated me even when he was decent. Remember when he first signed he was touted as having like 9 pitches? I have to imagine it was dishonorable to take a walk in Japan because he couldn't throw ANY of them for a strike. I remember all the hype about some mystical "gyroball". I remember some guy on SOSH acting like some kind of gyroball expert, even though there's no such mystical pitch. If it was a screwball that's hardly mystical. The only pitch that Daisuke mastered was the "nibble" pitch, because that's all he ever did - was nibble. He had the most - I don't even know the word - season in 2008 when he one 18 games and had a strong ERA. It was kind of mystifying how he did that. Then I think he participated in the World Cup even though he was told not to, injured himself, and was never the same.
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Post by pedrofanforever45 on Jan 11, 2019 17:50:54 GMT -5
I liked watching Dice-K in his first two years when he was actually good. It was the same reason why I left Buchholz off that list, he was good for a little while. The players on my list were barely if ever good lol. He always aggravated me even when he was decent. Remember when he first signed he was touted as having like 9 pitches? I have to imagine it was dishonorable to take a walk in Japan because he couldn't throw ANY of them for a strike. He did have 6 or 7 pitches. He was a big part of that 2007 team and arguably the second best starter on that team that year, but he was frustrating. Winning negates all of that for me. Mark Belhorn would have made this list for me too, but he had like 3 clutch postseason homeruns in 2004, so Mark Belhorn is all of a sudden good to me.
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Post by Don Caballero on Jan 11, 2019 22:17:56 GMT -5
A depressing percentage of the top guys in the farm system just before that 2011 draft boom are basically out of the game. Westmoreland, Kalish, Anderson, Middlebrooks, Ranaudo, Doubront, Britton, Pimentel, Vitek, Cecchini, Coyle, Weiland. Probably a couple more I'm forgetting. That's such a sad list and I get some a heavy nostalgia dose from reading all of those names so that's even sadder because it reminds me I'm getting old. They did draft Keith Couch in 2010 and I credit that with the system turnaround. It showed they were now about the guys who played it the right way.
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Post by redsox04071318champs on Jan 12, 2019 0:46:14 GMT -5
He always aggravated me even when he was decent. Remember when he first signed he was touted as having like 9 pitches? I have to imagine it was dishonorable to take a walk in Japan because he couldn't throw ANY of them for a strike. He did have 6 or 7 pitches. He was a big part of that 2007 team and arguably the second best starter on that team that year, but he was frustrating. Winning negates all of that for me. Mark Belhorn would have made this list for me too, but he had like 3 clutch postseason homeruns in 2004, so Mark Belhorn is all of a sudden good to me.[/b] Mark Bellhorn in 2005 was atrocious, but the 2004 version of Mark Bellhorn was awesome, even before his HR surge in the playoffs (how many people know that he's the only man in Red Sox post-season history to hit HRs in 3 consecutive games?) Bellhorn had an acceptable .264 BA to go along with 88 walks which is really, really hard to do when you have Manny Ramirez and David Ortiz following you in the order. I mean, who in their right mind would walk him with those two coming up behind him? So I think he had an OBP around .370 and he had 17 homers, too. He even knocked in 83 runs from the #2 hole. I know RBIs isn't a stat for evaluation, but the fact of the matter is that he found ways to bring runners in despite whiffing and walking at a huge rate. He also played a solid 2b - pretty good at turning the DP as I recall. When striking out 177 times or whatever it was classified as shocking a lot of fans hated Bellhorn and they totally ignored all the good things he brought to the table. I rather enjoyed watching 2004 Bellhorn play - even before the post-season HRs. There were so many other wretched Red Sox I can recall - the duo of Mark Clear and Doug Bird in the 1983 bullpen, Tim Lollar, Matt Young, Mark Whiten when he was a Red Sox, and I'm sure there have been plenty of others who were tough to watch.
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Post by Oregon Norm on Jan 12, 2019 2:41:32 GMT -5
... Bellhorn had an acceptable .264 BA to go along with 88 walks which is really, really hard to do when you have Manny Ramirez and David Ortiz following you in the order. I mean, who in their right mind would walk him with those two coming up behind him? So I think he had an OBP around .370 and he had 17 homers, too. He even knocked in 83 runs from the #2 hole. I know RBIs isn't a stat for evaluation, but the fact of the matter is that he found ways to bring runners in despite whiffing and walking at a huge rate. He also played a solid 2b - pretty good at turning the DP as I recall. When striking out 177 times or whatever it was classified as shocking a lot of fans hated Bellhorn and they totally ignored all the good things he brought to the table. I rather enjoyed watching 2004 Bellhorn play - even before the post-season HRs. We can just about ignore that BA. The .370+ OBP along with nearly .450 in slugging made him quite valuable. The fact that the sports media declared him the official whipping boy showed either willful ignorance, a need to have a target if the team lost, or to create false controversy to pull in eyes and ears. None of those is very flattering.
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Post by pedrofanforever45 on Jan 12, 2019 5:44:03 GMT -5
Belhorn got on base a ton, which was very valuable to that 2004 team, but he was a terrible second baseman defensively. He wasn't athletic, but he brought the bat that year. So credit to him, especially when it counted most.
I was relieved the day Pedrioa came up. The Mark Loretta and Belhorn days were over.
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Post by redsox04071318champs on Jan 12, 2019 10:40:44 GMT -5
... Bellhorn had an acceptable .264 BA to go along with 88 walks which is really, really hard to do when you have Manny Ramirez and David Ortiz following you in the order. I mean, who in their right mind would walk him with those two coming up behind him? So I think he had an OBP around .370 and he had 17 homers, too. He even knocked in 83 runs from the #2 hole. I know RBIs isn't a stat for evaluation, but the fact of the matter is that he found ways to bring runners in despite whiffing and walking at a huge rate. He also played a solid 2b - pretty good at turning the DP as I recall. When striking out 177 times or whatever it was classified as shocking a lot of fans hated Bellhorn and they totally ignored all the good things he brought to the table. I rather enjoyed watching 2004 Bellhorn play - even before the post-season HRs. We can just about ignore that BA. The .370+ OBP along with nearly .450 in slugging made him quite valuable. The fact that the sports media declared him the official whipping boy showed either willful ignorance, a need to have a target if the team lost, or to create false controversy to pull in eyes and ears. None of those is very flattering. My point about the .264 batting average was that the traditional fans, who hardly ever looked at OBP, and only saw the Ks complained a lot about Bellhorn - you would have thought he was a .210 hitter or something - which he was in 2005. In 2004 he was actually ok as a hitter, one of the few times you could say that about Bellhorn. To me, being a hitter and an offensive player are two different things anyways. Bellhorn was almost always a bad hitter but a pretty good offensive player and in 2004 a lot of people weren't really paying attention to the latter. Now perhaps the pendulum has swung a little bit too much the other way? I'm starting to think that sometimes the 3 true outcome teams, the teams that really can't hit singles with guys on 2b or 3b and 2 out or whatever tend to score less runs than you'd think they would. It occurred to me how amazing the Sox were getting those big hits while a team like the Yankees couldn't get that big hit all year, so maybe batting average matters a little bit? It's no substitute for OBP, but perhaps there's more importance in it than given credit for? It was either walk, K, or HR for the Yankees but if it was a close game and they needed just a tying hit, it was tough to come by for them. Meanwhile the Sox had a more diversified offense and got those hits, the occasional HR, and yeah, ran the bases a lot better, or at least by the end of the year they had improved in that category. The Yankees were station to station. Bellhorn was a three true outcome guy himself but it was a little different in that he had less power and played a key defensive position. In 2004, the Sox totally needed a guy like him.
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ericmvan
Veteran
Supposed to be working on something more important
Posts: 8,922
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Post by ericmvan on Jan 14, 2019 0:56:16 GMT -5
Belhorn got on base a ton, which was very valuable to that 2004 team, but he was a terrible second baseman defensively. He wasn't athletic, but he brought the bat that year. So credit to him, especially when it counted most. I was relieved the day Pedrioa came up. The Mark Loretta and Belhorn days were over. He was -3 DRS and -5 UZR. Below average, like half the 2b in baseball and what you'd expect from a bat-first guy.
He also ranked 38th in MLB in Win Probability Added, thanks to ranking eighth in FanGraph's "Clutch" metric.
My favorite Bellhorn 2004 situational split: he fanned in 29.7% of his PA excluding this split, the worst rate in MLB among 161 qualifiers. With a runner on 3B and less than 2 out -- where striking out is actually bad -- he fanned 10.5% of the time (4 times in 38 PA), which would be the 33rd best rate among the 161. IIRC, he actually went into June or July before fanning for the first time in that situation. Where he hit .345 / .421 / .793.
When you replace Batting RAA with WPA converted to runs (and you should, to measure true value), Bellhorn ranks as the 2004 team's most valuable position player.
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Post by pedrofanforever45 on Jan 14, 2019 1:55:52 GMT -5
Belhorn got on base a ton, which was very valuable to that 2004 team, but he was a terrible second baseman defensively. He wasn't athletic, but he brought the bat that year. So credit to him, especially when it counted most. I was relieved the day Pedrioa came up. The Mark Loretta and Belhorn days were over. He was -3 DRS and -5 UZR. Below average, like half the 2b in baseball and what you'd expect from a bat-first guy.
He also ranked 38th in MLB in Win Probability Added, thanks to ranking eighth in FanGraph's "Clutch" metric.
My favorite Bellhorn 2004 situational split: he fanned in 29.7% of his PA excluding this split, the worst rate in MLB among 161 qualifiers. With a runner on 3B and less than 2 out -- where striking out is actually bad -- he fanned 10.5% of the time (4 times in 38 PA), which would be the 33rd best rate among the 161. IIRC, he actually went into June or July before fanning for the first time in that situation. Where he hit .345 / .421 / .793.
When you replace Batting RAA with WPA converted to runs (and you should, to measure true value), Bellhorn ranks as the 2004 team's most valuable position player.
Manny had a OPS over a thousand that year. Johnny Damon had a OPS over .850 that year. Mark Belhorn had a OPS of .817 In no world imaginable was Belhorn was the best position player on that 2004 team.
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Post by James Dunne on Jan 14, 2019 9:21:54 GMT -5
I'm trying to understand why WPA converted to runs would be a better measure than WPA itself. Wouldn't WPA converted to runs put a greater empahsis on those around you in the lineup? Which, in Bellhorn's case... those 1/3/4 hitters on the 2004 Red Sox lineup were pretty good. Bellhorn succeeded a lot in 2004, but he was also given an enormous opportunity to succeed. Which... most managers wouldn't have put a hitter like Bellhorn in that spot in 2004 (we still had the Paul LoDucae and the "bat handlers" of the world hitting second, grounding meekly into double plays in between bunting a player from first to second so he could score more quickly on a two-run homer), so good work to Francona.
That's not to dismiss Bellhorn, of course. Fantastic in 2004, and really hit the wall in every way imaginable in 2005. His bat slowed and he couldn't take advantage of those deep counts anymore, and he lost a step on defense that he couldn't affort to lose.
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Post by Chris Hatfield on Jan 16, 2019 7:28:18 GMT -5
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Post by James Dunne on Jan 28, 2019 10:33:41 GMT -5
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Post by soxfanatic on Jan 28, 2019 11:09:54 GMT -5
http://instagram.com/p/Bsql5kmgAyS drivelinebaseball Kevin Kelleher (@kevinkelleher24) averaged over 95 MPH on Trackman at Scout Day with a slider averaging over 3000 RPM 😲 Will be signed real soon, I'm betting. #freeagent #proday #pitching #bullpen #trackman #spinrate #slider #fastball #95mph
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Post by James Dunne on Jan 28, 2019 11:13:23 GMT -5
That spin rate is pretty crazy. On the other hand, his indy league numbers are atrocious. No reason not to take a chance, though.
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Post by Chris Hatfield on Jan 28, 2019 21:31:17 GMT -5
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Post by pedrofanforever45 on Jan 29, 2019 4:52:06 GMT -5
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Post by James Dunne on Jan 30, 2019 10:56:30 GMT -5
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Post by Chris Hatfield on Feb 21, 2019 11:24:40 GMT -5
LAx Basabe with a broken hamate bone. Out 4-6 weeks, baseball mode in 12, whatever that means.
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Post by pedrofanforever45 on Feb 24, 2019 3:11:15 GMT -5
Hanley found a deal.
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