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4/16-4/17 Red Sox @ Yankees Series Thread
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Post by libertine on Apr 16, 2019 21:13:05 GMT -5
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Post by soxfansince67 on Apr 16, 2019 21:21:39 GMT -5
Some extreme thoughts here....
Not deserving a spot on the current 25 man roster - Hembree, Thornburg, Ramirez...and possibly Pedroia (if he can't play - and he has options,so maybe let him go to AAA!), Leon and Nunez. (Swihart is promising youth and should have NOT been DFA).
As far as the 40 roster - Shephard, Taylor - and there are two open spots.
Last year was last year - spectacular - could be time to pay the piper and it is Dombrowski effect time coming home to roost.
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Post by kevfc89 on Apr 16, 2019 21:32:39 GMT -5
Can we trade Sale for Moncada? (who's hit 2 home runs tonight)
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Post by incandenza on Apr 16, 2019 21:50:48 GMT -5
All right, I see the calls to trade Mookie have begun - I'm taking that as the sign to buy low on this team. We win tomorrow and get the split at Yankee Stadium! And we'll be 4-3 in our last 7 games, a 93-win pace! And Mookie is, I very much promise everyone, going to hit better than he has been! And this team will finish the year with better than an 83 wRC+! The turnaround starts tomorrow!
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Post by redsox04071318champs on Apr 16, 2019 21:56:10 GMT -5
Well, say this for the 2019 Red Sox. They're not very entertaining. I tuned in with no score and a runner on 3b for the Yankees and two outs in the 3rd. Naturally with 2 strikes, Sale gives up a hit. I take out the garbage, come back and it's 2-0. No problem because the Sox put runners on 2nd and 3rd with no outs in the top of the 4th and the middle of the order up.
Of course, this is 2019, not 2018, so instead of having a 7 run inning or something like that, the Sox find a way not to score any runs at all.
I turn off the TV because it's clear the Sox have no intention of winning this game. Go on the internet 20 minutes later and it's 4-0. About an hour ago I saw on WEEI.com that it was an 8-0 final.
Didn't bother watching most of it. Like a lot of the season, it's been skip-worthy. They're not even remotely entertaining. In the last two games they've gotten their asses kicked by a combined 16-1 score.
They're terrible in all phases of the game right now.
They haven't been unlucky - their RS/RA proves. That flat out suck right now.
I wasn't expecting 2018 - that's a once in a lifetime type of thing, but Jesus Christ, couldn't they be more like 2005 or better yet 2008 when they were high competitive and didn't embarrass themselves after obtaining glory?
I knew the 2013 team caught lightning in a bottle, so 2014 wasn't quite as shocking as much as it was disappointing, and I suspected that 2018 was a case of just about everything that could go right went right, but this follow-up 2019 season is humiliating. How can a team with that core be so damn bad?
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Post by redsox04071318champs on Apr 16, 2019 21:59:35 GMT -5
All right, I see the calls to trade Mookie have begun - I'm taking that as the sign to buy low on this team. We win tomorrow and get the split at Yankee Stadium! And we'll be 4-3 in our last 7 games, a 93-win pace! And Mookie is, I very much promise everyone, going to hit better than he has been! And this team will finish the year with better than an 83 wRC+! The turnaround starts tomorrow! Of course the flip side of that is if they lose tomorrow that's 3-4 and a 69 win pace which would still be an improvement on the 41 win pace that they were on before the hot streak. We'll see. Right now the way they're playing I don't expect them to win tomorrow and they'd be fortunate to win 1 of 3 in Tampa Bay. That would leave them 7-15 and about 9 games out. Hopefully they surprise and get their heads out of their asses.
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Post by dirtdog on Apr 16, 2019 22:13:00 GMT -5
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Post by Don Caballero on Apr 16, 2019 23:10:32 GMT -5
All right, I see the calls to trade Mookie have begun - I'm taking that as the sign to buy low on this team. We win tomorrow and get the split at Yankee Stadium! And we'll be 4-3 in our last 7 games, a 93-win pace! And Mookie is, I very much promise everyone, going to hit better than he has been! And this team will finish the year with better than an 83 wRC+! The turnaround starts tomorrow! Hahaha... Haha... Ha
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Post by pedrofanforever45 on Apr 17, 2019 5:04:06 GMT -5
Add-
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Post by philsbosoxfan on Apr 17, 2019 5:39:56 GMT -5
So we're better than the Marlins.
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Post by redsox04071318champs on Apr 17, 2019 7:51:44 GMT -5
So we're better than the Marlins. The way this season is going that might be the marketing/advertising slogan for the 2020 season, "Hey, at least we were better than the Marlins!!!" lol
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Post by station13 on Apr 17, 2019 7:53:49 GMT -5
What does Pedroia provide if he is unable to play more than 3 games a week? His presence is a becoming cumbersome to the team that has only 12 position players, 2 being catchers. Seeing Vazquez play 2B when Lin should be is a huge WTF.
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Post by carmenfanzone on Apr 17, 2019 8:10:08 GMT -5
Looking on the bright side, at this pace we are not going to have to work about our starters work loads next spring.
Really hard to comprehend how they could go from being so good last year to being so bad this year with basically the same team less Kimbrel and a core that is still relatively young.
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Post by James Dunne on Apr 17, 2019 8:46:00 GMT -5
So I had a wild day yesterday of meetings, car problems, kid pickups, a doctor's appointment... but had the fortunate effect of making me essentially avoid paying any attention to baseball at any in-depth level. Taking some time to step back and look at the team and the offseason, and the way things are progressing right now, there's a definite 2012 Phillies vibe here. I don't think it's "complacency" or lack of effort at the field level - I think it's a team that was championship caliber that fell irrationally in love with its own core. The team last year was incredible but it certainly wasn't flawless. Catcher and second base were essentially disasters, and first base was mediocre. But instead of addressing those things, they just re-upped their own team. They re-signed Eovaldi and Pearce, they stood pat at catcher and second, they extended Sale and Bogaerts.
My guess isn't that the Red Sox are bad: Betts has an absurdly low BABIP, Bradley is streaky every year, Price has pitched better than his numbers (which are fairly good as it is), and I expect at least a couple of the starters to turn around. But... a team with holes like the Red Sox had needed superstar level production around the rest of the field, and couldn't afford any regression. If a couple of the Sale/Price/Porcello/Eovaldi group suddenly are old, or if Betts is closer to his 2017 self, or if Pearce and Moreland show their age and create a hole at first base, then this is an old core without a lot of financial flexibility and without a lot of help coming on the farm.
Going back three years, would you have taken the 2016-18 run, 2018 in particular, if you knew the team would be on the other side of the hill in 2019? I think I would. But I also think the sentimental attachment that led to them basically keeping the 2018 squad together instead of tweaking what needed to be tweaked is looking more and more like a mistake. I hope I am wrong, but I am nervous in a way I wasn't three or four days ago.
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Post by fenwaythehardway on Apr 17, 2019 8:55:15 GMT -5
What does Pedroia provide if he is unable to play more than 3 games a week? His presence is a becoming cumbersome to the team that has only 12 position players, 2 being catchers. Seeing Vazquez play 2B when Lin should be is a huge WTF. A lot of what's going on with the Red Sox does kinda fall into the category of baseball being weird and random, but I do find it astounding that after the Pedroia/Nunez/Kinsler experience last year, they decided to head into 2019 with the exact same group of players.
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Post by p23w on Apr 17, 2019 9:05:46 GMT -5
Last year the baseball Gods were extremely favorable toward the Red Sox. This year they have shown disdain for the World champions. This year, and indeed, the future is up to the self determination of the roster and the manager. I am perplexed by some of the recent roster moves, but I still believe the core has talent and pride. The ship will right itself I believe. We fans need to temper our expectations somewhat and have faith in what we know is a talented team overall.
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Post by redsox04071318champs on Apr 17, 2019 9:19:22 GMT -5
What does Pedroia provide if he is unable to play more than 3 games a week? His presence is a becoming cumbersome to the team that has only 12 position players, 2 being catchers. Seeing Vazquez play 2B when Lin should be is a huge WTF. A lot of what's going on with the Red Sox does kinda fall into the category of baseball being weird and random, but I do find it astounding that after the Pedroia/Nunez/Kinsler experience last year, they decided to head into 2019 with the exact same group of players. I think the thought was that Holt would spell Pedroia and that Nunez would not even really be needed for 2b too much, or at least not beyond the early going. As it is, nobody would have planned on little Griffin accidentally scratching Holt's eye putting him on the IL. And the Red Sox are into Pedroia for 14 million/year so they were basically crossing their fingers that he isn't a shell of himself. I remember talking about the assumption that Pedroia was going to come back and pick up where he left off. Maybe he's shaking off the rust, still, which is quite possible, or maybe all we're going to get is a DP prone guy who hits for an insignificant BA, whose OBP has fallen, has no power, and isn't the defensive force he once was. I think the Red Sox were also under the assumption that Vazquez was finally going to become the Yadier Molina Jr that they hoped he would be. I don't think that happens, but I think that's why they keep him around. They think he's going to be that guy, and then when he's not, they panicked and went with Leon over Swihart, and cut loose a guy who could have had a future as opposed to a guy whose hitting skills have vanished altogether because they're desperate for his gamecalling skills. They didn't improve the bullpen either. So I guess it's semantics, but it seems to me the Red Sox FO was kind of complacent when it came to actually improving the team - as they didn't want to go above the limit, and I think the Red Sox were complacent in spring training. It's like they mailed it in, and when they're playing now, they don't look ready for the season, and Cora has to bear responsibility for that. As it is right now the Sox would have to play about .600 ball the rest of the way to finish at 93 wins and perhaps make the playoffs. But if key injuries hit and/or the combo of factors James pointed out (his post was brilliant, BTW), then the Sox might only wind up around 87 - 90 wins, and if that's the case, there's a pretty decent chance that if the Yankees get their injury issues lessened, the Red Sox will not be playing October baseball this season. And after winning 108 games plus 11 in the post-season, that's kind of embarrassing. But like James said, if you told me that this core would give us 3 straight division titles topped off by the greatest Red Sox team in history, and then started their (rapid) descent downhill in 2019 with little farm help and a payroll tied up, I would still take it. It sure beats what Dodgers fans are going through - nothing to show for six or seven years of NL West dominance. I do think if the Sox do disappoint this year, they'll probably bounce back a bit next year - can't imagine that everything that has gone wrong will continue to go wrong - if the Sox bring back JDM and show up next season with a chip on their shoulder, they could accomplish a lot. But that's getting ahead of things. They have to try to turn things around this year. All teams have bad stretches, but the Sox are going to have to play extremely well the rest of the season to wind up in the mid 90s with a legit shot at being more than a 2nd Wild Card. And right now, the problems that are there don't appear to be going away very soon.
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Post by Don Caballero on Apr 17, 2019 9:34:11 GMT -5
Going back three years, would you have taken the 2016-18 run, 2018 in particular, if you knew the team would be on the other side of the hill in 2019? I think I would. Dude that's not even a question, how many franchises had this run of excellency lately? How many franchises even won the World Series in the past 20 years? As Boston fans, we're incredibly spoiled and it makes the frustrations like the sorry 2019 even harder to take. But it does not erase the joys it gave us. Sustained success is nice and all, but winning the title is even nicer.
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Post by fenwaythehardway on Apr 17, 2019 10:39:25 GMT -5
A lot of what's going on with the Red Sox does kinda fall into the category of baseball being weird and random, but I do find it astounding that after the Pedroia/Nunez/Kinsler experience last year, they decided to head into 2019 with the exact same group of players. I think the thought was that Holt would spell Pedroia and that Nunez would not even really be needed for 2b too much, or at least not beyond the early going. As it is, nobody would have planned on little Griffin accidentally scratching Holt's eye putting him on the IL. And the Red Sox are into Pedroia for 14 million/year so they were basically crossing their fingers that he isn't a shell of himself. I get that they had a tough situation with Pedroia in that you can't count on him, but you can't really just get rid of him either. But keeping Nunez around even though he can't actually cover you at 2B and is otherwise fairly redundant to Holt (who's not necessarily the guy you want playing middle infield every day at this point either) was a huge mistake. It's the World Series tax, he dove into the stands and limped around for 18 innings, can't get rid of that guy! But he's a terrible fit for their roster. I think the Red Sox were also under the assumption that Vazquez was finally going to become the Yadier Molina Jr that they hoped he would be. I don't think that happens, but I think that's why they keep him around. They think he's going to be that guy, and then when he's not, they panicked and went with Leon over Swihart, and cut loose a guy who could have had a future as opposed to a guy whose hitting skills have vanished altogether because they're desperate for his gamecalling skills. I actually don't think it's particularly more likely that Swihart finally figures everything out than that Vazquez becomes the "mini-Yadi". I also think any time you A) can't make the decision to have Leon on your roster or not and B) can't stick to that decision for more than a couple weeks once you have made it, is just not a sign of great organizational function. In a way I'm kind of glad that Swihart is gone, even though I think it was a bad decision, just because the organization has just not been able to get on the same page about him for like four years now. I don't know what the right decision on Swihart is or would have been, but ANY decision they had made would have been better than dragging out a catcher controversy for multiple seasons. Honestly none of these guys are likely to be that great, just pick two and let everyone move on with their lives.
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Post by James Dunne on Apr 17, 2019 11:09:06 GMT -5
Going back three years, would you have taken the 2016-18 run, 2018 in particular, if you knew the team would be on the other side of the hill in 2019? I think I would. Dude that's not even a question, how many franchises had this run of excellency lately? How many franchises even won the World Series in the past 20 years? As Boston fans, we're incredibly spoiled and it makes the frustrations like the sorry 2019 even harder to take. But it does not erase the joys it gave us. Sustained success is nice and all, but winning the title is even nicer. Right, I have no problem for a team perusing a short-term strategy when it has the core that 2016-18 team had. I guess the problem is keeping that when sentimentality keeps that core together past its peak, a la that Phillies team that stayed together and was bad after their wonderful 2008-11 run. I think about the Sale trade, and what Moncada is doing now and... I don't know there's a level that Moncada could reach where I'd be mad about the trade. Like, Moncada could end up a Hall of Famer, and I'd defend the deal knowing how good Sale was and how Moncada wasn't ready to help those 2017 and 2018 teams. But the past offseason was based on the assumption that core is going to continue to be good, and they really didn't tweak their roster to face the realities. And... they still aren't: like FTHW said, a team with Pedroia at second needs a capable backup. But instead of Lin, they're carrying Nunez and Thornburg and playing Christian Vazquez (?!) at second base.
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Post by incandenza on Apr 17, 2019 11:11:09 GMT -5
So I had a wild day yesterday of meetings, car problems, kid pickups, a doctor's appointment... but had the fortunate effect of making me essentially avoid paying any attention to baseball at any in-depth level. Taking some time to step back and look at the team and the offseason, and the way things are progressing right now, there's a definite 2012 Phillies vibe here. I don't think it's "complacency" or lack of effort at the field level - I think it's a team that was championship caliber that fell irrationally in love with its own core. The team last year was incredible but it certainly wasn't flawless. Catcher and second base were essentially disasters, and first base was mediocre. But instead of addressing those things, they just re-upped their own team. They re-signed Eovaldi and Pearce, they stood pat at catcher and second, they extended Sale and Bogaerts. My guess isn't that the Red Sox are bad: Betts has an absurdly low BABIP, Bradley is streaky every year, Price has pitched better than his numbers (which are fairly good as it is), and I expect at least a couple of the starters to turn around. But... a team with holes like the Red Sox had needed superstar level production around the rest of the field, and couldn't afford any regression. If a couple of the Sale/Price/Porcello/Eovaldi group suddenly are old, or if Betts is closer to his 2017 self, or if Pearce and Moreland show their age and create a hole at first base, then this is an old core without a lot of financial flexibility and without a lot of help coming on the farm. Going back three years, would you have taken the 2016-18 run, 2018 in particular, if you knew the team would be on the other side of the hill in 2019? I think I would. But I also think the sentimental attachment that led to them basically keeping the 2018 squad together instead of tweaking what needed to be tweaked is looking more and more like a mistake. I hope I am wrong, but I am nervous in a way I wasn't three or four days ago. I remember when Dombrowski came on board, one of the concerns was that he tended to build stars-and-scrubs rosters - signing some splashy free agents but also seeming to ignore a bunch of spots on the roster. Well, he's pretty much done that here. You'd think any team that won 108 games would basically be without holes, but they had a bunch of holes! 1B, 2B, C; even 3B was below average. That's almost half the lineup! I remarked on that a few times, though I can't take any credit for prescience because my read on this situation was that they had room to improve even if they didn't make any big additions. I mean, things couldn't get any worse than playing Nunez at second, and Swihart had a chance to bolster the offense at catcher, right? And we could even reasonably hope for Devers, Benintendi, Bradley, and even Bogaerts to improve. But none of that has happened so far - instead, almost everyone has been worse, and the pitching has been a dumpster fire. The team-wide ineptitude might be a reason to think there really is something to the narrative that the team wasn't properly prepared in spring training, but we're 18 games into the season... they ought to be good and trained up by now, no? Maybe it's as simple as "almost all teams go through rough patches; it just looks worse when it happens right out of the gate." I guess time will tell.
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Post by James Dunne on Apr 17, 2019 11:25:04 GMT -5
Yes - part of it is the important distinction from "we won 108 games and the World Series, despite the fact we had Eduardo Nunez play a lot of second base" and "it is okay to have Eduardo Nunez play second base a lot this year, because we did it last year and won the World Series." Winning can make even the best organizations pass over their most glaring problems.
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Post by Chris Hatfield on Apr 17, 2019 11:30:04 GMT -5
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Post by umassgrad2005 on Apr 17, 2019 11:34:36 GMT -5
Do we really think the teams core is overall in decline?
Or is this more we didn't get all five starters ready, have a patch meal bullpen and some players are just starting slow?
Cora is to blame for a guy like Vaz starting at 2B not DD. No Lin is on Cora not DD. Like anyone really think DD wouldn't move on from Nunez if Cora was like I want Lin? Cora seems to favor Vets over the young guys. It's almost like him and DD are battling over that, with Swihart being a perfect example.
The fact we've had two bullpen starts already and how they have impacted our lineup is crazy.
If anything it seems a bunch of huge years from guys last year hide a bunch of Cora's so-so choices and the fact he prefers Vets over giving the young guys a chance. Even now we are going through a bunch of Vets again and not giving our young guys a chance. Chavis, Shawaryn, Lin, and Lakins are all major league ready. I'd rather watch Chavis learn on the job knowing what his upside is than watch Vaz play 2B. At some point you have to take a chance and give these guys some playing time.
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Post by Don Caballero on Apr 17, 2019 11:38:14 GMT -5
Right, I have no problem for a team perusing a short-term strategy when it has the core that 2016-18 team had. I guess the problem is keeping that when sentimentality keeps that core together past its peak, a la that Phillies team that stayed together and was bad after their wonderful 2008-11 run. I think about the Sale trade, and what Moncada is doing now and... I don't know there's a level that Moncada could reach where I'd be mad about the trade. Like, Moncada could end up a Hall of Famer, and I'd defend the deal knowing how good Sale was and how Moncada wasn't ready to help those 2017 and 2018 teams. But the past offseason was based on the assumption that core is going to continue to be good, and they really didn't tweak their roster to face the realities. And... they still aren't: like FTHW said, a team with Pedroia at second needs a capable backup. But instead of Lin, they're carrying Nunez and Thornburg and playing Christian Vazquez (?!) at second base. I absolutely agree with you that the lack of improvement at second base was pretty egregious and there are not enough words to describe how much they messed up the catcher situation. I think the Pearce deal is somewhat comparable to the Mike Lowell deal in that you had no option but to do it all things considered and I mention him because that's the oldest player they retained from the core. Pretty much everyone on that Phillies team was over 30 with the exception of Cole Hamels and Hamels was 28. The current Red Sox are fairly younger and at some point guys like Mookie, Jackie and Devers will just have to deliver anything. But yeah, it was pretty arrogant how they dealt with the 2B and C situations. I believe that's they key word to describe them in 2019, "arrogant". And it's happening to everyone, from front office to the players. They just throw away games, from using CVaz at 2B to pitching Erasmo in a still somewhat close game. When you look at how Dombrowski built this team, he was always very aggressive. Trading away a lot of prospects (and perhaps more than he needed to) in order to get the guys he wanted for us to win it all. This game is punishing. When you get complacent, you get pounded. So I don't think their current struggles are in any way a consequence of their recent run, if they kept up that mentality we probably would be fine. The talent is there. They're like that couple that have been dating for a couple of years and get really fat. They got what they came for and now it's coast time. One thing I guarantee you though, Bill Belichick would absolutely never allow this sh*t.
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