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9/21-9/23 Red Sox @ Indians Series Thread
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Post by kevfc89 on Sept 23, 2018 22:54:03 GMT -5
People are a bit hard on Moreland. He is having an identical season to last. He’s serviceable, and he’s cheap at a position where upgrades might come dear. Fine... Shaw blahblah. But if the guys who are supposed to hit do, he’s fine. His picks are not great, but he’s made some nice plays on pop ups, and he’s steady. Great to pick it, but, hey, don’t mess up the throw. ehh, if you are a starter and give the team an under 100 wRC+ at an offense-first position like first base, i don't really care how cheap you are. Only going to get around 0.5 fWAR out of him this year too. Really hasn't helped us at all after his early hot start...
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Post by patford on Sept 23, 2018 22:55:34 GMT -5
People are a bit hard on Moreland. He is having an identical season to last. He’s serviceable, and he’s cheap at a position where upgrades might come dear. Fine... Shaw blahblah. But if the guys who are supposed to hit do, he’s fine. His picks are not great, but he’s made some nice plays on pop ups, and he’s steady. Great to pick it, but, hey, don’t mess up the throw. I'm so sick of hearing about Shaw. The guy couldn't hack it in Boston and had a bad attitude. Good for him in Milwaukee. If he was still in the Boston system he would be an org guy in Pawtucket.
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Post by manfred on Sept 23, 2018 23:02:11 GMT -5
People are a bit hard on Moreland. He is having an identical season to last. He’s serviceable, and he’s cheap at a position where upgrades might come dear. Fine... Shaw blahblah. But if the guys who are supposed to hit do, he’s fine. His picks are not great, but he’s made some nice plays on pop ups, and he’s steady. Great to pick it, but, hey, don’t mess up the throw. ehh, if you are a starter and give the team an under 100 wRC+ at an offense-first position like first base, i don't really care how cheap you are. Only going to get around 0.5 fWAR out of him this year too. Really hasn't helped us at all after his early hot start... I care. Remember Eric Hosmer was an option. Dude is making $21 million to hit: 17 hrs, 65 RBIs, 96 OPS+. Would I like a great 1B? Sure. But who, for what, how much? Moreland is identixal to the “catch” free agent at under 1/3 the price. Could they have gotten a 1B upgrade and JDM? I don’t know.
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Post by pedrofanforever45 on Sept 23, 2018 23:10:46 GMT -5
Truth. He's not good at anything in baseball besides fielding his position (ground balls toward first base). He's just a replacement level player. Very replacement level. Pearce should get some looks this postseason even though he is 36 too. The bad news was about Ockimey... Dude makes a ton of errors. Ohh okay. Yeah I guess he needs work down there defensively, but at least he's brought the bat against RHP in the minors. It is either him or Chavis that should improve on Moreland's value as a player.
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Post by kevfc89 on Sept 23, 2018 23:12:17 GMT -5
ehh, if you are a starter and give the team an under 100 wRC+ at an offense-first position like first base, i don't really care how cheap you are. Only going to get around 0.5 fWAR out of him this year too. Really hasn't helped us at all after his early hot start... I care. Remember Eric Hosmer was an option. Dude is making $21 million to hit: 17 hrs, 65 RBIs, 96 OPS+. Would I like a great 1B? Sure. But who, for what, how much? Moreland is identixal to the “catch” free agent at under 1/3 the price. Could they have gotten a 1B upgrade and JDM? I don’t know. true, i shouldn't say i don't care about their contracts; it could definitely be worse (Hosmer), as you said. It's just the value of Moreland being cheap goes away when we aren't getting any production. It's also annoying how the Yankees can pick up a Luke Voit out of nowhere and he immediately mashes.
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Sept 23, 2018 23:31:57 GMT -5
William Cuevas had a Win Probability Added of .445, but if Lin doesn't boot that ball, it's .576 (and that is the way WPA should be done, ultimately). Even if you put the odds of a GDP on the Kinsler bobble at a generic 50%, that pushes it to .646. I don't recall any defensive gems behind him, so I think that's a fair number.
So he pitched well enough to single-handedly win the game, plus (at the very least) almost 30% of another game.
Of course he is charged with the loss!
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Post by manfred on Sept 23, 2018 23:42:23 GMT -5
William Cuevas had a Win Probability Added of .445, but if Lin doesn't boot that ball, it's .576 (and that is the way WPA should be done, ultimately). Even if you put the odds of a GDP on the Kinsler bobble at a generic 50%, that pushes it to .646. I don't recall any defensive gems behind him, so I think that's a fair number.
So he pitched well enough to single-handedly win the game, plus (at the very least) almost 30% of another game.
Of course he is charged with the loss!
What is it if ifs and buts are candies and nuts?
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Sept 24, 2018 0:31:54 GMT -5
William Cuevas had a Win Probability Added of .445, but if Lin doesn't boot that ball, it's .576 (and that is the way WPA should be done, ultimately). Even if you put the odds of a GDP on the Kinsler bobble at a generic 50%, that pushes it to .646. I don't recall any defensive gems behind him, so I think that's a fair number.
So he pitched well enough to single-handedly win the game, plus (at the very least) almost 30% of another game.
Of course he is charged with the loss!
What is it if ifs and buts are candies and nuts? I have no idea what your point is. I'm trying to measure the things that William Cuevas did to help his team win. We can measure that very precisely.
The "ifs and buts" here are exactly what we do when we determine whether a run is earned or unearned. Play the inning out without the errors and see what result we come up with. I'm just using WPA instead of RS as the result.
I thought it was ironic that one of the season's very best games, in terms of helping your team win, gets recorded as a loss. My point was largely to point out how insanely useless W/L records are.
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Sept 24, 2018 0:54:45 GMT -5
People are a bit hard on Moreland. He is having an identical season to last. He’s serviceable, and he’s cheap at a position where upgrades might come dear. Fine... Shaw blahblah. But if the guys who are supposed to hit do, he’s fine. His picks are not great, but he’s made some nice plays on pop ups, and he’s steady. Great to pick it, but, hey, don’t mess up the throw. I'm so sick of hearing about Shaw. The guy couldn't hack it in Boston He had 2.4 bWAR at 3B in his last year here, a whole 0.2 less than average for the position, and 2.0 more than everyone playing 3B for us have totaled in the nearly two seasons since. He was, after all, our starting 3B when we traded him and prayed that Sandoval would be better. I've never heard that before, and Googling his name and "bad attitude" or "attitude problem" yields zero hits that are about him. You made that up, right? Sure.
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Sept 24, 2018 1:15:26 GMT -5
These idiots on ESPN really think cuevas has a chance at the post season roster. lol They can't be expected to know the skinny on all the September callups.
This is a production failure. You have to have a research guy or two for a game like this. After Cuevas finishes his first inning, there has to be a voice in the headphones saying "Cuevas was a longtime org guy in the Sox system, never even made a prospect depth chart, was just good enough the last two years in AAA to be an emergency callup while kicking around as a minor league free agent -- and then at age 27 was re-signed by the Sox and was surprisingly good at Pawtucket. He'll be out of options next year, but he has a chance to put himself on the radar as an extra piece in a trade; some team might want to give him a shot at a long man / spot starter role."
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Sept 24, 2018 1:38:03 GMT -5
It's a bit strange that on a 105+ win team, there's reasonable debate to be had about who should play second, third, first, and catcher in the playoffs. Where we have totaled -0.3, -0.4, 1.5, and -1.2 bWAR respectively (the latter excluding both pitch framing and pitch calling, however), ranking 29th, 28th, 16th, and 30th respectively.
We look to win 108 or 109 games while being below replacement level, combined, at 4 of the 9 lineup positions. That's insane.
The catch here is that the team plays in a hitter's ballpark and yet their wOBA allowed is exactly as expected. That implies a somewhat better than average defense, but DRS has them 23rd. UZR has them 6th; UZR/150 (which, I believe, normalizes the raw results to a set of chances with average difficulty) has them 2nd.
Watching them it sure doesn't look like they have the best pitching in MLB but the 8th best set of position players, which is what bWAR says.
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Post by soxfansince67 on Sept 24, 2018 8:07:17 GMT -5
Hoping the offense got some of the suck out of their system (Mookie, not included of course - what a gem).
Time to rev up the bats against Baltimore - though Cora certainly will have a method to his madness of how to manage the last six games, learn what he can, but bring the team into the playoffs with the right motivation....Let's get that last win out of the way, though, and set the franchise record ... and secure home advantage throughout.
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redsox04071318champs
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Post by redsox04071318champs on Sept 24, 2018 8:39:35 GMT -5
Too bad that the Sox couldn't sneak away with 1 of those 2 games they lost in extra innings. Cuevas pitched his heart out and wasn't rewarded.
The offense has been sluggish for awhile and is concerning. I get that the regulars aren't in the lineup fully, but there are definitely concerns. First I hope Bogaerts is ok. Haven't seen anything other than sore shoulder and precautionary.
Benintendi's lack of power in the second half has been concerning. It's like he hit most of his HRs in a 6 week stretch or something like that.
JDM has also had a power outage over the past month or so. He continues to rake, but the HR power hasn't been there. At one point I thought he'd threaten 50 and easily beat Dick Stuart for most HRs by a 1st year Sox player, but I don't know that he makes it to or tops 42 homers.
Have no idea who the 3b is. I would think it's Devers. The power is certainly there and he looks ok at the plate although his OBP is still lousy.
Kinsler is slumping again. Moreland is totally lost at the plate and Leon is an automatic out. I guess you can live with Leon, but you can't have Moreland being so useless in the lineup, too, especially with Kinsler slumping.
At the moment the offense is the top 4, JBJ, and the most powerful guy of them all, Brock Holt.
I also worry about Sale. He's looked good, but I was hoping he'd be progressing toward June and July Chris Sale. That's who they need. Porcello has also looked extremely hittable. It's almost like watching him last season.
I think the Sox should go with E-Rod as #4 in the playoff rotation but I get why Cora is doing the opposite. It could work with Eovaldi in the rotation and E-Rod in the pen, and I do feel good about Wright. And Kimbrel is looking great again, which is important.
The Red Sox have definitely not been playing their best ball lately. And while it does bring reasons for concern, it's not the end of the world.
The last two seasons the Sox were riding high in September basically peaking around Game 155 and then they had an awful last week both seasons and were flat in the playoffs.
So maybe to reverse the trend the Sox can beat up on Baltimore and take say 2 of 3 from NY at Fenway, make it to 110 wins and build up a head of steam going into the playoffs.
Because if they keep playing like they have I'm worried that lethargy could carry into the playoffs. So a final good week could get the team pointed in the right direction. Fortunately they're home (for the next 8 games, the last two being extremely crucial), and they face the O's. A sweep of a lousy O's team could get their hitters hot again. Should be an interesting week.
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Post by ancientsoxfogey on Sept 24, 2018 9:57:45 GMT -5
It's a bit strange that on a 105+ win team, there's reasonable debate to be had about who should play second, third, first, and catcher in the playoffs. Where we have totaled -0.3, -0.4, 1.5, and -1.2 bWAR respectively (the latter excluding both pitch framing and pitch calling, however), ranking 29th, 28th, 16th, and 30th respectively. We look to win 108 or 109 games while being below replacement level, combined, at 4 of the 9 lineup positions. That's insane. The catch here is that the team plays in a hitter's ballpark and yet their wOBA allowed is exactly as expected. That implies a somewhat better than average defense, but DRS has them 23rd. UZR has them 6th; UZR/150 (which, I believe, normalizes the raw results to a set of chances with average difficulty) has them 2nd. Watching them it sure doesn't look like they have the best pitching in MLB but the 8th best set of position players, which is what bWAR says.
The fact of the matter is that we will end up this season with upwards of 110 wins, and will be a team that no one fears going into the playoffs. Four problematic positions on the field, an erratic bullpen, quite a bit of uncertainty about the rotation, no clear ace unless/until Sale steps up again ..... Teams are going to look at our record and say "how the heck did they do that?" Hopefully it will be the team equivalent of Greg Maddux, where he didn't look impressive but no one could hit him.
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Post by incandenza on Sept 24, 2018 13:35:34 GMT -5
It's a bit strange that on a 105+ win team, there's reasonable debate to be had about who should play second, third, first, and catcher in the playoffs. Where we have totaled -0.3, -0.4, 1.5, and -1.2 bWAR respectively (the latter excluding both pitch framing and pitch calling, however), ranking 29th, 28th, 16th, and 30th respectively.
We look to win 108 or 109 games while being below replacement level, combined, at 4 of the 9 lineup positions. That's insane.
The catch here is that the team plays in a hitter's ballpark and yet their wOBA allowed is exactly as expected. That implies a somewhat better than average defense, but DRS has them 23rd. UZR has them 6th; UZR/150 (which, I believe, normalizes the raw results to a set of chances with average difficulty) has them 2nd.
Watching them it sure doesn't look like they have the best pitching in MLB but the 8th best set of position players, which is what bWAR says.
If DRS ranks the Sox 23rd in defense then DRS is stupid. It is a stupid stat.
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Post by michael on Sept 24, 2018 13:36:35 GMT -5
Win 110 is a nice number, especially if the Sox are streaking again. Additional reason is simply because Cora has only this season to rank as the best first season record for a first year manager. So I'm selfish.
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Post by incandenza on Sept 24, 2018 13:38:30 GMT -5
Where we have totaled -0.3, -0.4, 1.5, and -1.2 bWAR respectively (the latter excluding both pitch framing and pitch calling, however), ranking 29th, 28th, 16th, and 30th respectively. We look to win 108 or 109 games while being below replacement level, combined, at 4 of the 9 lineup positions. That's insane. The catch here is that the team plays in a hitter's ballpark and yet their wOBA allowed is exactly as expected. That implies a somewhat better than average defense, but DRS has them 23rd. UZR has them 6th; UZR/150 (which, I believe, normalizes the raw results to a set of chances with average difficulty) has them 2nd. Watching them it sure doesn't look like they have the best pitching in MLB but the 8th best set of position players, which is what bWAR says.
The fact of the matter is that we will end up this season with upwards of 110 wins, and will be a team that no one fears going into the playoffs. Four problematic positions on the field, an erratic bullpen, quite a bit of uncertainty about the rotation, no clear ace unless/until Sale steps up again ..... Teams are going to look at our record and say "how the heck did they do that?" Hopefully it will be the team equivalent of Greg Maddux, where he didn't look impressive but no one could hit him. This is some kind of weird self-loathing bias. If another team had Mookie and JDM leading their offense, and Sale, a rejuvenated Price, and a still-underrated Rodriguez leading the rotation, with Kimbrel to close out games, and had won 109ish games, you would (rightly) fear the heck out of them.
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Post by telson13 on Sept 24, 2018 14:48:31 GMT -5
William Cuevas had a Win Probability Added of .445, but if Lin doesn't boot that ball, it's .576 (and that is the way WPA should be done, ultimately). Even if you put the odds of a GDP on the Kinsler bobble at a generic 50%, that pushes it to .646. I don't recall any defensive gems behind him, so I think that's a fair number.
So he pitched well enough to single-handedly win the game, plus (at the very least) almost 30% of another game.
Of course he is charged with the loss!
What is it if ifs and buts are candies and nuts? Why, then, good sir, every day would be Christmas. Which would make baseball in NE problematic, actually.
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Post by jimed14 on Sept 24, 2018 16:18:49 GMT -5
Where we have totaled -0.3, -0.4, 1.5, and -1.2 bWAR respectively (the latter excluding both pitch framing and pitch calling, however), ranking 29th, 28th, 16th, and 30th respectively.
We look to win 108 or 109 games while being below replacement level, combined, at 4 of the 9 lineup positions. That's insane.
The catch here is that the team plays in a hitter's ballpark and yet their wOBA allowed is exactly as expected. That implies a somewhat better than average defense, but DRS has them 23rd. UZR has them 6th; UZR/150 (which, I believe, normalizes the raw results to a set of chances with average difficulty) has them 2nd.
Watching them it sure doesn't look like they have the best pitching in MLB but the 8th best set of position players, which is what bWAR says.
If DRS ranks the Sox 23rd in defense then DRS is stupid. It is a stupid stat. Defensive stats are severely lacking right now because they aren't/cannot adjust for superior shifting. If a player is standing in a ridiculous area of the field and gets balls hit right at him over and over again more than other players, is he a better defensive player because he's catching more balls? Or is he just on a good shifting team? How do you split those two things that contribute to how many plays they make compared to average?
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Post by soxjim on Sept 24, 2018 22:41:41 GMT -5
The Red Sox have definitely not been playing their best ball lately. And while it does bring reasons for concern, it's not the end of the world. The last two seasons the Sox were riding high in September basically peaking around Game 155 and then they had an awful last week both seasons and were flat in the playoffs. So maybe to reverse the trend the Sox can beat up on Baltimore and take say 2 of 3 from NY at Fenway, make it to 110 wins and build up a head of steam going into the playoffs. Because if they keep playing like they have I'm worried that lethargy could carry into the playoffs. So a final good week could get the team pointed in the right direction. I don't think how hot they are or how cold they are has any or very, very little bearing on the outcome of the playoffs. I think it is mostly us fans looking for reassurances which mean nothing. We often react to the "next pitch" as some sort of signal. Look at after Price got bombed in Yank Stadium in August, comments surfaced about Price going to the bullpen. And imo the media is ten times worse. This series for example with Cleveland, Mookie played one game and JDM didn't play last night and they yanked Xb for precautionary reasons. Over these last few weeks they've eliminated bullpen candidates I think. That's all I think we can take from it. Even if they were winning at an extremely high rate vs the top teams these past few weeks we'd still be "concerned," wouldn't we? It's in a fans DNA. I don't think the Sox are favored to win anyways, are they? Isn't Houston favored? These are all tremendous teams. If Sox had beaten Houston, Indians and Yanks 2 out of 3 (do we really think Tanaka is going to be affected because the Sox got to him?), we wouldn't be "too concerned?" OFC we would. FOr example we'd be scared that they peaked too early or the pitchers haven't been very good in the playoffs etc. I'm with you with Kimbrel but - a big but-- for example -- You see that he yanks his 1st fastball a foot outside then his curveball goes 1.5 feet outside -- all of a sudden what might go through our minds? It's going to be "Ohh crap he's going to walk the bases . . ." isn't it? All it takes is two pitches. Then we'd worry about carryover tot he next game etc. Kimbrel's control can go on a flash. Or he could be unreal/devastating. Cleveland is a terrific team. But whether we beat them 2 out of 3 these past few days or now they beat us-- I don't think that matters. Cleveland is not going to see Pomeranz and Velazquez like they did in this series. And if they play again in October they are going to see Mookie, JDM and XB play each game the entire game. One last point. Last year Cleveland was something like 33-4 in their last 37. AT the end of August Cleveland swept the Yanks.
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redsox04071318champs
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Post by redsox04071318champs on Sept 24, 2018 23:34:39 GMT -5
The Red Sox have definitely not been playing their best ball lately. And while it does bring reasons for concern, it's not the end of the world. The last two seasons the Sox were riding high in September basically peaking around Game 155 and then they had an awful last week both seasons and were flat in the playoffs. So maybe to reverse the trend the Sox can beat up on Baltimore and take say 2 of 3 from NY at Fenway, make it to 110 wins and build up a head of steam going into the playoffs. Because if they keep playing like they have I'm worried that lethargy could carry into the playoffs. So a final good week could get the team pointed in the right direction. I don't think how hot they are or how cold they are has any or very, very little bearing on the outcome of the playoffs. I think it is mostly us fans looking for reassurances which mean nothing. We often react to the "next pitch" as some sort of signal. Look at after Price got bombed in Yank Stadium in August, comments surfaced about Price going to the bullpen. And imo the media is ten times worse. This series for example with Cleveland, Mookie played one game and JDM didn't play last night and they yanked Xb for precautionary reasons. Over these last few weeks they've eliminated bullpen candidates I think. That's all I think we can take from it. Even if they were winning at an extremely high rate vs the top teams these past few weeks we'd still be "concerned," wouldn't we? It's in a fans DNA. I don't think the Sox are favored to win anyways, are they? Isn't Houston favored? These are all tremendous teams. If Sox had beaten Houston, Indians and Yanks 2 out of 3 (do we really think Tanaka is going to be affected because the Sox got to him?), we wouldn't be "too concerned?" OFC we would. FOr example we'd be scared that they peaked too early or the pitchers haven't been very good in the playoffs etc. I'm with you with Kimbrel but - a big but-- for example -- You see that he yanks his 1st fastball a foot outside then his curveball goes 1.5 feet outside -- all of a sudden what might go through our minds? It's going to be "Ohh crap he's going to walk the bases . . ." isn't it? All it takes is two pitches. Then we'd worry about carryover tot he next game etc. Kimbrel's control can go on a flash. Or he could be unreal/devastating. Cleveland is a terrific team. But whether we beat them 2 out of 3 these past few days or now they beat us-- I don't think that matters. Cleveland is not going to see Pomeranz and Velazquez like they did in this series. And if they play again in October they are going to see Mookie, JDM and XB play each game the entire game. One last point. Last year Cleveland was something like 33-4 in their last 37. AT the end of August Cleveland swept the Yanks. That's because Cleveland peaked too soon. Losing 2 out of 3 with Pomeranz and Scott being the guys on the mound when they lost doesn't bother me. I'm just simply rooting for 111 wins - although now it's down to hoping for 110. I was more "bothered" if you could really call it that with the Sox not pounding a guy like Tomlin who is a batting practice pitcher. What I'm more concerned with is stuff like Moreland's and Leon's batting issues, the question marks at 2b and 3b, the bullpen question marks, will Sale be at his best, Porcello's struggles since his gem in August against NY, the Sox not hitting HRs or capitalizing with runners on base as they had been doing most of the year. The Sox have a lot of questions for a juggernaut. And like I said the last two seasons the Sox cooled off a lot after a strong September start and I think it carried into the playoffs. Maybe there were factors such as an exhaustion from the David Ortiz retirement ceremonies (one ex-player suggested that) in 2016 to the uneasiness that festered in playing for Farrell last year. As it was Sale, Price, and Porcello might have been cooked going into the playoffs last season. Who knows the reasons for the lethargic play the last couple of seasons?
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