5/10-5/12 Red Sox vs. Blue Jays Series Thread

Excellent job by Lester last night. I thought he pitched better than his no hit game. Great time for a complete game also. The bullpen needed a break .

I think the criticism that Cherington has established a bad trend of over-trading for established relief pitching is a fair one. He gave up too much for Melancon, Bailey and Hanrahan. I don't know that I'd go so far as to say that he's "bad at trades," because the Dodgers one was good, and a couple of his minor deals (Kobernus for Henry, Lillibridge for De La Torre) look downright brilliant right now. But as of right now, a scoreboard of what amounts to Lowrie, Weiland, Reddick, Head, Alcantara, Sands, De Jesus, and Pimentel in exchange for Hahrahan, Bailey and Holt is really, really poor. I'm not really a huge believer in any of the eight players traded on their own, but value-wise that's just not an acceptable return.

Agreed. You'd think the team would take a lesson from it's own past. Papelbon was a product of the system, as is Jim Johnson for the Orioles, Bailey for Oakland, Frieri for the Angles, and on and on and on. Part of this, once again, is due to the howls from much of the media, demands that the "proven closer" label be pinned on someone whose on the market. There were just a lot of questions with Hanrahan, and the system already had a few answers - and it still does. Scan the Pawtucket and Portland rosters over the last few years and there have been a number of warm bodies the team could have shuffled through till they found a good combo. There's been some some good arms out there.

It's my own bias, I suppose, but I really think the twisted notions from less knowledgeable talking and writing heads creates this force field that distorts the team's vision. It's a long season. Agenda-driven elements of the media can push the discussion one way or the other simply to create the buzz they need to get people to read their crap. They do that all the time. Go through even a short-term losing streak and the barbarians are at the gates, demanding your head because you let the closer go and didn't provide a media-defined proper replacement. Tough environment to do your work in. That said, it makes little sense to trade away cost-controlled players over and over again for late-inning guys. A lot of those players burn themselves out by definition. That's their job. Caveat emptor.


Not quite. He actually hits lefties well, even better than he does righties. But he's regressing, as staff here felt he might Worse thing that may have happened to him is hitting those 32+ home runs last year. That may have set him in his ways as a free swinger. Too bad. Cut down on that, and he might still hit 20-25 home runs and boost his OBP to the point where he'd have some serious value. It's not happening right now. Bailey has such great stuff that he's almost worth that trade. Problem has always been staying on the field. Another argument for shuffling through the options till you find a useful set of bullpen alternatives.

I've said this about a million times, but you can't just look at a split and go "oh, this guy hits same handed pitching better", because it's not something the batter can control unless he's getting the grounds crew to move the pitching mound five feet to either side before facing those pitchers. If a batters line says he hits same-side pitching better, he doesn't. There's something else going on be it BABIP or HR/FB flukey-ness or just plain old sample size issues. The advantage that pitchers have over same-handed batters is inherent to the game (though individual pitchers exploit it to a greater or lesser extent) and given enough time batters lines will inevitably reflect that.

I stand corrected on the Reddick lefty/righty thing. His lefty/righty OPS's are basically identical from 2010-2012. Still, a sub .290 OBP vs lefties in that time is pretty terrible regardless of the slugging (a la Salty status). I simply don't share the faith of him redefining his approach to a point where he's actually a stand out hitter. If anything, I always saw the 25 HR power, but as he solidified his presence around the league, he'd become an easy guy figure out. I'd be shocked if he was ever a .800+ OPS player over a full big league season.

And I love Shane Victorino.

We're blaming Ben Cherington for not knowing Joel Hanrahan was going to blow out his arm?

Back to Lester, I thought yesterday's game was pretty interesting. Lester has always been FB (4- and 2-seam), cutter, curve pitcher, with his change being definitely his fourth pitch. But yesterday his changeup was much more prominent ... maybe it was just a game he felt his change well, but something to keep an eye on.

Because that's worked out so well for the Phillies? Letting Papelbon walk was unquestionably the right move.

Papelbon has a 2.28 era and 100k's in 83 innings soooo. . . yeah that's worked out pretty well.

Not going to argue with it from the Red Sox perspective, the Phillies swooped in an snatched him up, they really wanted him. Would not have been a great idea to get into a bidding war over him. I am a little disappointed in what they did with the picks they got for him though.

A back end starter who has been decent in A ball at age 22 and another 22 year old who projects as a reliever and is struggling in A ball. I suppose that's just the nature of the new CBA though?

Well that's because someone promised Bard in Nov. that he was going to start. That worked out well, too.

so anyone who becomes closer for the sox sucks?

That bottom of the 8th sucked. Three stikeouts and I don't think there was a pitch above 88 MPH. I'm beginning to think that Gomes, while a nice guy, etc., shouldn't be in the starting lineup at all. After Nava's last night, he should have been in the game today.

Bard was prepping to start and was pushing to do so. Burning a 60 inning reliever trying to make him into a starting pitcher is really a risk I take every time unless I have good reason to believe he can't do it. Even if Bard had turned into a mediocre starter, he'd have been much more valuable than staying in the bullpen. And all of this assumes that Bard would've continued pitching well if he hadn't been transferred to the rotation, which ignores how bad he was in the last two months of 2011.

Regarding Papelbon, he's been pretty good with Philly, but he's also going to end up getting $52 million, and will pitch at most, 240 innings in the four years. He's made about $17 million to pitch 83 so far. By that standard, Justin Verlander should get a $50M annual deal.