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Recent Posts
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Post by Guidas on Jul 18, 2023 6:32:39 GMT -5
Meanwhile, Sox are…
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Post by Guidas on Jul 17, 2023 18:30:33 GMT -5
Every year, the MFY “win” the trade deadline by making the flashiest trades by getting the best pieces while giving up a bunch of their overrated prospects, radio sports shows phone lines in New England get submerged by angry callers, Guidas gets frustrated by the lack of Red Sox FO audacity, this very forum melts down and turns into ANGRYDOME…but in the end, they choke and get eliminated by the Astros/Rays/Sox… Well, they are making it to the playoffs, soooo…. My frustration often falls equally on who they get (although we’ve all ridiculed some of their pick-up) and the relative BS prospects they give up.
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Post by Guidas on Jul 17, 2023 15:33:46 GMT -5
Unfortunately does not include an additional 10,000 more seats or a retractable roof for the ballyard itself. Genuine question - is that what people in Boston want? Not a New Englander, so my Fenway experience is limited to the two times I've been, but I'd have figured that most local fans would want to keep the traditional elements intact as much as possible and avoid modernity. Actually I was just talking with a coworker today about that after he visited and took the tour (did not know Fenway had a garden). I'd be all for a retractable roof but with no AC/Climate control. Just something to keep rain/snow from cancelling games.
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Post by Guidas on Jul 17, 2023 14:52:15 GMT -5
Unfortunately does not include an additional 10,000 more seats or a retractable roof for the ballyard itself.
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Post by Guidas on Jul 17, 2023 11:36:00 GMT -5
What do we mean by competitive? Right now the Red Sox are tied with the Yankees and a couple of games behind the Blue Jays and the Astros. Are those teams not considered competitive? Are the Orioles competitive? They don't spend any money and had roughly the same preseason projection as the Red Sox. To me, the Red Sox are competitive now. They were even competitive last year in my opinion, with reasonable expectations of making the playoffs. They have not been the favorites, but that's something different. The rules are designed so you can't be the favorites every year, and being favorites isn't actually worth that much anyways as others have pointed out. Speier's piece was about being legit, repeat contenders for the AL East title/division lead.
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Post by Guidas on Jul 17, 2023 9:30:48 GMT -5
Two weeks until the deadline. Let the rumors fly!
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Post by Guidas on Jul 17, 2023 8:47:48 GMT -5
Alex Speier in today's Globe asking " When will the Sox be competitive in the AL East?" Interesting that this is Speier, who has been mostly a Bloom advocate. Not that it's bad, but it does cast out more critical conjecture than praise (the gist seems to be that the solutions, especially in pitching are not coming from inside the house and they need to trade high value assets to get some, or buy it on the free agent market. Excerpt from an "AL Evauator" (no word if this is the same AL Evaluator who said Yoshida is a 4th outfielder): “I do think they’re on the right track. But with the status quo, I don’t necessarily see them being a top contender in that division in the foreseeable future,” said one AL evaluator. “They have to make a major acquisition or have an unexpected surprise. Even if Mayer becomes what you hope he could be, who else are you getting? What’s going to really set this team over the top? Especially, where’s the pitching coming from?”Lots more in the piece Eh, feels like you're reading the article with a selective slant. There's certainly some criticism there (although less from Speier and mostly from unnamed league sources and, interestingly, from Cora: "Are we where we want to be when I talked to Chaim [when interviewing to return as manager] at the end of ‘20? I don’t believe so. We still have some work to do, but we have made some strides,” said manager Alex Cora. “Last year we finished last and this year we’re playing .500. At the end, you have to be realistic where you’re at. Can we do it? Of course, but you have to very honest and very transparent, black and white, this is where we’re at and this is what we want. And then you look around and see if, yeah, we can pull this off and you make decisions based on that. If you don’t feel that way, then you have to make other decisions.”). But there's also a fair amount of cautious praise about the MLB roster and the farm system: Maybe I needed more caffeine. My take away was that Speier's saying they have some young talent coming but not enough to tilt the scales to be an AL East contender. Additions will be key, especially in pitching. Dealing from prospect depth and/or buying a top starter are the options. In other words, they're on their way, but they'll need help from the outside to get there.
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Post by Guidas on Jul 17, 2023 7:38:33 GMT -5
Alex Speier in today's Globe asking " When will the Sox be competitive in the AL East?" Interesting that this is Speier, who has been mostly a Bloom advocate. Not that it's bad, but it does cast out more critical conjecture than praise (the gist seems to be that the solutions, especially in pitching are not coming from inside the house and they need to trade high value assets to get some, or buy it on the free agent market. Excerpt from an "AL Evauator" (no word if this is the same AL Evaluator who said Yoshida is a 4th outfielder): “I do think they’re on the right track. But with the status quo, I don’t necessarily see them being a top contender in that division in the foreseeable future,” said one AL evaluator. “They have to make a major acquisition or have an unexpected surprise. Even if Mayer becomes what you hope he could be, who else are you getting? What’s going to really set this team over the top? Especially, where’s the pitching coming from?”Lots more in the piece
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Post by Guidas on Jul 16, 2023 19:43:25 GMT -5
A hell of a call, to boot So satisfying.
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Post by Guidas on Jul 16, 2023 16:57:39 GMT -5
1.5 away from last Wild Card
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Post by Guidas on Jul 16, 2023 16:26:58 GMT -5
Great Win!!
Needed that one
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Post by Guidas on Jul 16, 2023 14:31:31 GMT -5
MASA-SAN!!
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Post by Guidas on Jul 16, 2023 14:30:56 GMT -5
F-ing Duvall. F-ing.
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Post by Guidas on Jul 15, 2023 21:24:56 GMT -5
The 2004 Red Sox were down 3-0 to a superior Yankees team and the. won 8 straight. If that isn’t catching lightning in a bottle then I don’t know what is. I would also like it if the Red Sox were the best team in the league every year but I don’t know how realistic that is. But we had Pedro and Schilling I think that is my point earlier. I can’t think of a World Series team that had crap or untalented starting g pitchers Kansas City 2015 had meh starters after Cueto (Edinson Volquez and Yordano Ventura) but a killer pen that usually got to work in the late 5th or start of the 6th inning. In fact, game 4 of that series was a bullpen game for KC. Even Cueto, who was a 4.1 fWAR pitcher that year, was very good, but more of a #2 than #1. In fact he wasn’t even a top 15 pitcher in 2015 by fWAR. The Mets had de Grom (4.9 fWAR) and Harvey (4.0 fWAR), plus Syndergaard, who was a 2.7 fWAR pitcher on only 150 innings of work. It’s a coin-flip, more often than not. The data over the last 30 years at least bears this out.
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Post by Guidas on Jul 15, 2023 21:03:14 GMT -5
This game was supposed to be the better of the Sat-Sun match-ups. Paxton spit the bit and now you have to face one of the very best pitchers in MLB this year and hold-you-breath Crawford going for the Sox. Just more under performance against a sub .500 team from one of the two worst divisions in baseball. Deflating to say the least.
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Post by Guidas on Jul 15, 2023 16:44:51 GMT -5
I think this year in particular it's a reflection of how stacked the division is more than anything else, and I agree with his point that there were a lot of question marks on the team going into the season. ZiPS actually gave Duran a pretty good projection heading into the year, but his 80 percentile outcome was 2.2 WAR. His updated projection now sits at 3.2 WAR, so you are talking about Duran hitting his 95+ percentile outcome. The same could be said for guys like Connor Wong and Paxton. There was a wide range of reasonable outcomes for those guys and all 3 of them have performed well.
I'm just going to reiterate, because it is bananas to me, that ZiPS projected the Red Sox to go 34-37 the rest of the season and projected the A's to go 33-37. It's not even a strength of schedule thing - they're almost identical! I wonder if it’s because they’re down to two legit starers right now with Crawford being a 6/7 and the other two spots are TBA.
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Post by Guidas on Jul 15, 2023 16:36:09 GMT -5
It’s basically a coin flip in baseball. Or at best 55-45.
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Post by Guidas on Jul 15, 2023 14:09:49 GMT -5
Have a great afternoon, everyone!
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Post by Guidas on Jul 15, 2023 14:00:46 GMT -5
Paxton losing the zone against the 7-9 hitters is sub-optimal.
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Post by Guidas on Jul 15, 2023 13:48:28 GMT -5
It seems to me like we're getting screwed by HP umps every single game. I honestly don't remember a game where the calls were in our favor. I'm starting to think that Manfred is conspiring against us lol It's Jim Bowden but take this tweet FWIW. "Framing" is another word for umpire inaccuracy. RoboUmps now, please.
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Post by Guidas on Jul 15, 2023 11:57:10 GMT -5
Maybe a set back or being cautious for Story. Not sure. Any word on Whitlock?
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Post by Guidas on Jul 15, 2023 10:34:16 GMT -5
Gotta keep Kiké at short to see if you can get him going!
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Post by Guidas on Jul 15, 2023 10:33:03 GMT -5
Amazing how Cora can't resist Kiké.
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Post by Guidas on Jul 15, 2023 10:05:11 GMT -5
Honeymoon's over. Chang homers last night so, of course, Kiké is back at SS:
Duran CF Yoshida LF Turner DH Devers 3B Verdugo RF Casas 1B Arroyo 2B Wong C Hernández SS
Paxton P
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Post by Guidas on Jul 15, 2023 9:53:31 GMT -5
Mostly I ding him for some really bad drafts and grossly overvaluing Cecchini, Owens, Webster and Renaudo. I also will never forgive him for trading Josh Reddick for a reliever who could never stay healthy and had been injured right before the trade (that's more personal as I threw down a marker here at the time saying this was a move that would be regretted for years). I give Cherington full marks for pulling 2013 out of his hat, but overall I found him to be one of the most plodding and unimaginative chief executives in the game. That's just me. Was blowing up the team in 2012 plodding and unimaginative? That’s what I consider his signature move as a GM and I think it took a lot of balls. 2012 and 2013 drafts weren’t great, but 2014 and 2015 produced Chavis, Kopech, Beeks, Logan Allen, Benintendi. That’s a decent haul of MLB talent, and key pieces in some major trades. The reliever trades were all bad, for sure. For the prospects he held on to, I think it’s really hard to say he grossly overvalued them when we have very little info on how they were valued internally and what sort of trades they could’ve been involved in. If other teams said “Cecchini doesn’t have enough power and is too passive at the plate, he’s more of a sweetener than a main piece for us” then it would’ve been perfectly fine to hope he could hit at the MLB level. Benintendi is a legit MLB player. And I am all for guys who get moved for good return, so Beeks (1.8 fWAR in exchange for 1/3 of a season of Eovaldi, including his playoff performance) and Kopech (2.5 fWAR in the package for 2 years of Chris Sale), sure who cares what their MLB production has been? But Allen (-0.4 fWAR) and Chavis (-0.6 fWAR) are not "MLB talent" unless one values negative WAR. But, in total, aside from the players you named, his drafts featured a dearth of talent, and 2012 and 2013 were outright busts. As for tearing down the 2012 team, tanking takes no imagination, in my most humble opinion. But what you do after does. I give Cherington full accolades for 2013 - high risk/high reward veteran deals that resulted in a World Series. But he couldn't repeat the trick to even be competitive the next two years. In fact, he went right up to the luxury tax in 2014 and over it in 2015 and yet the Sox the 4th and 5th worst records in the AL, respectively. He was a mediocre to bad CEO. Again, my subjective analysis.
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