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Post by sarasoxer on Mar 21, 2020 8:00:50 GMT -5
By the logic that past performance justifies current contract, the Red Sox could give Yaz, 8/$200M today and still come out ahead. Well.......with the juiced ball??
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Post by sarasoxer on Mar 10, 2020 21:48:52 GMT -5
Couldn't get the game until late on radio. At that point the announcers were giving some FB readings. Does anyone know how hard Johnson was throwing?
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Post by sarasoxer on Mar 10, 2020 8:10:51 GMT -5
Caught some of Sox in 2 last night, Weber had a pretty strong performance against a strong Braves lineup. The ball looks pretty big coming to the plate tho.... I'd like to grab a bat.
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Post by sarasoxer on Mar 9, 2020 22:23:14 GMT -5
THAT is a shocker to me Chris. I remember when BJ was drafted and the buzz was he could sit low 90's and reach back for 93-95mph when needed and that never happened. Seem to recall around 93 was all he ever had and if he can get to that again, after 7y when he has to and pitch consistently with 91-2? he might be able to work as a back end starter. My fears are he was "shot" with a "hot" gun like my bushnell that reads 1-2mph hot often. I hear you. OTOH, I was watching a recent game when he pitched and to my eye, it appeared that he had stiffened the FB. I had that thought at the time not knowing any gun readings. I remember the scouting reports as you do but then talked with his brother at a Florida minor league game following Brian being drafted who, in answer to my velocity inquiry, said no that Brian threw about 90. We all know older pitchers generally lose velocity. If a pickup here is real AND sustained, has he visited Madame Ruth?
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Post by sarasoxer on Mar 8, 2020 19:17:20 GMT -5
Also; was Pedro really banned? Yes, and about 7 other names he's tried to sign up under since. Which Pedro? There are about 5 on here?
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Post by sarasoxer on Mar 7, 2020 19:09:22 GMT -5
Wanamaker playing down the stretch is a laughably bad decision by Brad. Incompetent coaching. wcp3 obviously it's my opinion only and please take this in the best possible way....but dang you seem intractably negative after every loss and some wins. We have performed better than most anticipated and played a team with nearly an identical record WITHOUT 2 of our best players. We lost by 5. Were you a Utah fan would you excoriate the team/coaching because it could only eke out a 5 point win against a top talent weakened Celtics team? If we were full strength and Utah down 2 prominent starters, and we only won by 5, would you criticize the Cs? The sky is not falling. Yeah, we all wish that we had more depth and Wanamaker may be 4A, but we are a lot closer than most teams. I trust Danny to get us there.
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Post by sarasoxer on Mar 7, 2020 18:39:13 GMT -5
Bobby Bombs today at 1st. I am calling it. Dalbec and Casas (along with Devers) look as though the organization decided to go the opposite way from the smurfs that were the previous wave of prospects to make the team. Hope so...nothing against Smurfs. A lot of our little guys were drafted after the first round but overlooked for the very reason that they were undersized. So we benefitted on talent, not stature. But now that we are likely to move up a bit for a few years, I'd opt for a few Bunyans. There is a certain comfort a tree trunk like Dalbec gives in the box.
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Post by sarasoxer on Mar 7, 2020 10:51:35 GMT -5
Had a couple of observations of Cool Today stadium from a visit last week.
For me, it sported a beautiful field and the park was easy to negotiate. But the stadium doesn't compare to jetBlue in style. It's new, it's nice, but it didn't jump up and bite me.
The big electric board in left center is very hard to read when the lineups are posted and a current batter highlighted in the order....and our group was situated b/t 3B and LF in great seats so we were closer than most.
There was no separate scoreboard or ball/strike display elsewhere and the scoreboard frequently supplanted this info with other displays. This was an annoyance.
The food had what I envisioned as a Georgian skew...altho I can't name an item off hand except maybe corndogs. The hot dogs were of the nano variety and their equally small buns, soggy. Two bites and need a refill. The $4 price was reflected in the product. There was sausage...about the length of the hot dog and in the same sized bun but no cooked peppers and onions that should, IMHO, be a staple at every park.
Ok so I'm spoiled.
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Post by sarasoxer on Mar 4, 2020 13:28:22 GMT -5
I’m nervous, but let’s remember we called Price a time bomb four years ago, and he is still surgery free. Wait...and...see. And Tanaka....
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Post by sarasoxer on Mar 3, 2020 20:26:26 GMT -5
Any of you guys want to revisit your medical credentials on this ? That was highly entertaining last time. Yes. We don't know what we don't know on Sale. What we do know is that without a once effective and efficient Porcello and a Price 'I've learned to pitch effectively w/o overpowering velocity', we are already down a couple of quarts. What we do know is that Sale has been injured over the past 2 years and now has a sore elbow. He throws slingshot with effort and given perceived emphasis on strikeouts, has thrown a huge amount of pitches. It would be no surprise if he needed surgery. Get it now if needed. We don't have 3 ready replacements in this worse case scenario. The Sox need to sell tickets so they are not going to jettison other productive players near term. But come trade deadline, I suspect a JBJ, JDM, Moreland and perhaps others can be had for prospects. IMO, that is the roadmap... Let's not be rose-glassed myopic. I look for us making the way back in 2022-23.
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Post by sarasoxer on Mar 3, 2020 18:00:09 GMT -5
Huzzah! Let the Martin Perez as #2 starter era commence Hosanna in the highest....
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Post by sarasoxer on Mar 3, 2020 17:26:55 GMT -5
Everyone chill out. Pneumonia turns into Elbow Pain for lots of people. True enough. Very few people know this so kudos. We weren't going anywhere anyway so I'm not bummed as if we were going to compete. If he needs surgery, git r dun and share a hospital room with Severino. Sale would miss this year and part of next. We'll need him in 2022 when we are back fighting for a title. In the meantime, we'll get higher picks, more international money and claw our way back with perhaps a still lower payroll. We'll then be ready to pounce. I was at a Braves-Rays game today with a men's lunch group and talked with a knowledgeable Rays fan who said the Sox "stole" the brains of the Ray's organization. In Bloom I trust....
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Post by sarasoxer on Mar 2, 2020 12:58:31 GMT -5
How Mookie performs will determine what the market for him will be. That's what's being said. Go back one page and read the thread. That's not what was being said. Let me correct myself then. That's what I was attempting to say.
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Post by sarasoxer on Mar 1, 2020 21:44:13 GMT -5
All well and good. But what Betts or anyone else believes is irrelevant to a price set by the market. It has not spoken. Should the Sox offer him the number he threw out there? That's the crux of the discussion on this board and I've been interested in what people here have to say. But it isn't about the market value. That hasn't been determined. How Mookie performs will determine what the market for him will be. That's what's being said.
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Post by sarasoxer on Mar 1, 2020 9:32:40 GMT -5
I've started looking into park effects as measured by wOBA - xwOBA. Since the former is the actual result and the latter is the average result based on EV and Launch Angle across all of MLB regardless of the direction the ball was hit, you can look at things like ... fly balls pulled by RH hitters. It's quite tricky, because if you look at what home hitters have done, you've got a small group of hitters who may have been selected for the ballpark, and a larger group of defenders who are less familiar with it. If you look at what road hitters have done, you are absolutely looking at the home defense quality (which might be largely one guy), not just the park effect on the average road hitter. Be that as it may, from 2017 to 2019, on fly balls pulled by RHB: Fenway Park ranked 2nd in MLB for road hitters (behind Minute Maid), while Dodger Stadium ranked 19th. Fenway ranked 1st for home hitters while Dodger Stadium ranked 23rd. But just stating the ranks doesn't express the actual magnitude of the difference. As you can probably guess by the evidence of your eyeballs, Fenway and Minutemaid are off in the stratosphere for RH pulled fly balls. Fenway is 3.1 standard deviations better than Dodger Stadium for home hitters (.432 to .199, 2.4 SD to -0.7). It's 2.7 SD better for road hitters (.481 to .219, 2.4 to -0.3). Now, hitting fly balls to LF is not all of Mookie's offensive game. (I probably should have included LD, and will the next time I run these numbers!). Out of 206 RHB with 500+ PA the last three years, he ranked just 34th in park-neutral value (xwOBA x number of balls hit). But he did that ranking 43rd in frequency and 78th in xwOBA. He has really benefited from his fit to the park.
Mookie re-signing with the Dodgers instead of coming back to Boston would be like a bit like Fred Lynn trading himself to the Angels. Not that extreme, but just as hard to justify.
I'd be surprised if Mookie doesn't already know about the Fenway / Chavez Ravine difference. The Red Sox have probably told him, in fact. He'll be experiencing it first hand this year.
Not sure that I could absorb all the detail but the gist is what I supposed. One would suspect that Mookie knew this, but if so, he obviously risks denting his value. If he hits .285-.290 with 23 Hrs., is he commanding 12/35? Maybe he will be back next year! The Fred Lynn situation is what had come to my mind.
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Post by sarasoxer on Feb 28, 2020 21:24:39 GMT -5
I'll predict that Duran will be the fastest riser in our system. I was listening to last night's game. On both flyouts, Joe C.'s voice went up an octave like it does with well struck balls. Joe has caused me to change my underwear more than once....
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Post by sarasoxer on Feb 28, 2020 21:23:04 GMT -5
So are we pronouncing it "Jet" or "Jeet"? I'm going with Jeets in my head. Lord a' Mighty! Say it ain't so.
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Post by sarasoxer on Feb 23, 2020 21:06:31 GMT -5
Watched the whole game today. Few thoughts. Marco Hernandez has a couple of plays that he could/should have made at 2B that he didn’t come up with. He’s pretty low on the depth chart to me at this point. Hall had trouble with his release. His first batter he missed all of his pitches low and it looked like he tried to overcompensate for it because everything after that was left up and hit hard. Jonathan Diaz struggled for the most part but got two guys looking with a couple of very nice backdoor sliders. Wong has a cannon behind the plate. Almost got a guy at second after he blocked a ball in the dirt. Duran looked really really good both in the field and at the plate. Aybar’s fastball can be overpowering but he’s still struggling with command. Ockimey absolutely MURDERED a ball in the 9th after getting robbed of another hit on a hard hit ball earlier in the game. Hope that you were at the game. Ed Smith Stadium is so much improved from the sterile, cement edifice it was when operated by Cinci. A great arm and newer to pitching, Aybar is so, so far away. He is the quintessential "thrower" with very poor control. He started with 20 straight FB to 95 dropping to 93 when he tried more to 'locate', then 4 straight sliders which he commanded much better, then back to all, everywhere fastballs. He is so very raw. True Ockimey hit the ball very hard twice and displayed his "good eye" taking some very close pitches called balls. But goodness after hitting .204 last year at AAA, any hope of helping near term seems remote without super advancement and at an older age. On the plus, Duran looked good in the field and had a couple of bingles. As noted, Wong impressed with his arm.... Guy looks like a player....and I thought that he was a 'throw' in.
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Post by sarasoxer on Feb 22, 2020 19:38:51 GMT -5
Was at today's game far down the left field line but with good views in this superb stadium. The darn sausages, peppers and onions seemed better than ever. The wind was left to right and blustery. Temps were 74.
Some main guys seemed to be picking up where they left off. JBJ struck out twice and Chavis, as others have noted, couldn't touch high fastball strikes...
JBJ looked as tho he had timing issues...still. If he can judge a fly or liner running full speed over uneven ground with the ball jiggling to the eye, why can't he 'catch' the ball with his bat? Tougher than rubix to solve.
Chavis'uppercut swing produced a high left side foul indicating that he was out in front and under the ball....and still exposed to the high fastball....bat having too far to travel to get up to the ball.
Beni hit the game's first Tampa pitch for a ringing line drive single to right center.
Pillar had today's best Sox stick. He had a liner b/t 3rd and SS caught and a rope to left center also caught.
Brewer struck out the side with his good stuff but hit a batter and was 3-2 on two of the strikeouts. Deja Vu all over again...Yogi.
No balls reached close to the walls by fly or on the ground. The wind knocked down anything modestly stuck of which there were few.
It's early.
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Post by sarasoxer on Feb 20, 2020 14:14:16 GMT -5
Do we really need a week off? For our walking wounded, yes.
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Post by sarasoxer on Feb 20, 2020 11:59:19 GMT -5
Which broadcaster there kept using "on the bump" to describe a pitcher on the mound?....It was one thing that I remember that wore thin for me over time.
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Post by sarasoxer on Feb 18, 2020 0:48:48 GMT -5
Yeah sitting 98 and touching 100 with a hammer curve!.....oh wait....I took an Ambien.... Haha! Been there! Me too. A few years ago I was to do a mini triathalon but couldn't sleep the night before being too concerned that I needed to be well rested. I took a prescribed Ambien and my wife literally had to drag me to bed. The race started next day at 6 a.m. with a 400 meter swim ...gurgle, gurgle, glub, glub.
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Post by sarasoxer on Feb 15, 2020 12:27:25 GMT -5
At least we only ended up with the guy with back problems and not the guy with arm problems, too. In all seriousness, this does seem like a big risk. I mean, unproven players are risky enough as it is, but a guy who comes hurt? I don’t mean that as second guessing, because obviously they have all the info and I don’t, but I’d still be super nervous. This actually makes me respect Bloom a tad more, ironically. He is taking a huge risk... he must believe in Verdugo’s upside a lot, knowing if he is damaged goods, he might have sealed his legacy after only months on the job. Finally an answer!! I've asked about the injury here after not having found a darn thing elsewhere. Why the long term mystery tho? 6 months seems a long time for a stress fracture to heal but apparently it's not a significant concern for the Sox. I wonder whether having such a condition lends to a propensity to have more or a recurrence. If not, I wouldn't term Verdugo damaged goods.
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Post by sarasoxer on Feb 13, 2020 15:50:09 GMT -5
Seeing rumors that Verdugo may not be ready to start season? If true, not good. He hasn't played in like 6 months. He passed his medicals? Yeah, that's amazing. He has a "back injury" and has been out since early August---6+ months. What the hey? Why don't we have more info on its nature, extent and the prognosis??
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Post by sarasoxer on Feb 13, 2020 13:46:03 GMT -5
Robert Williams, athlete that he is, is still only 6'8". He doesn't have bulk....His quickness and leaping ability will help, but at that size I'm not sure how much of a deterrent he would be against the big centers. Still, nice to have him as a relief guy and against small ball teams. Doesn't have bulk compared to who? Capela is 6'10" 240, Embiid is 7' 240, Williams is 6'8" 237 and I wouldn't be surprised to see him close to 250 be age 25. With him it's not size, strength or ability. It's experience and NBA Knowledge/IQ. Not going for pump takes, not trying to block every shot, crap like that. The guy blocked Anthony Davis a bunch of times in one game, he was blocking his jump shots. The announcers were like I've never seen Anthony Davis jump shot get blocked before. His wingspan combined with his athletic ability makes for an unreal combo if he develops. Well Embiid is 280, not 240. Yup Williams' length and apparent other worldly leaping ability make him a potentially effective defender. My eyes must deceive me because Williams looks lighter than listed and a guy who knows the Cs pretty closely told me that Williams is less than 6'8" FWIW.
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