9/11-9/13 Red Sox vs. Yankees Series Thread

When the Sox get all their injured players back, this team's gonna go on a run!

Impressions of Lavarnway behind the dish?

Credit where credit is due. Lester has needed a manager to air him out on the mound for about three years. Kudos to Valentine.

Screw the draft, beating thr MFY always feels great

Taz's stuff really plays - as long as he doesn't throw his elbow out on those killer changeups! He made a couple of guys look very foolish. The gun had him as high as 96. Contrast that with the array of off-speed stuff and he's tough.

I'd vote for the Sox going undefeated against the MFY's, and defeated against everyone else.

It's the only race that matters - the battle for a top 11 draft spot (as of 9/12am):

#6 MIA -- (wins tiebreaker with any teams other than SD/KC based on 2011 record)
#7 BOS 1.5 GB
#8 KC 2.0 GB (wins tiebreaker with any other team (tied with SD) based on 2011 record)
#9 PIT (compensation pick due to failure to sign Mark Appel)
#10 NYM 2.5 GB (wins tiebreaker with TOR)
#11 TOR 2.5 GB
#12 SD 5.0 GB (wins tiebreaker with any team (tied with KC) based on 2011 record)

Note: the top 11 draft picks are protected and cannot be lost.

SD has played itself out of the top 11 at this point. MIA has two losses and one game in hand over BOS and wins the tiebreaker, so BOS is most likely to pick between 7 and 11. It should be noted that Boston loses the tiebreaker with any teams.

For 33 innings, he's done what Greg Maddux did for three years.

In all seriousness, Tazawa's development has been one of the real positives for the Red Sox this season. Before this year, I had him pegged as basically a fringe swingman, but watching him now I'm totally confident in him as a high leverage reliever. His stuff seems to match his results as well - his fastball maintains good late movement even with the extra juice on it, and the forkball/changeup has developed into a plus pitch. The advanced metrics like him too, with a 2.07 FIP.

Would like to see Tazawa and Bailey finish strong. I'd like to have a closer, set-up guy and 3 lefties another good rh arm and long man.. If Bailey and Tazawa are the closer and set up guy. We have 4 lefties to choose 3 from; Miller, Morales, Breslow and Hill. A pre-Sept 11 Bard could make it a strength. Even if he doesn't. Maybe a guy like Fields is the real deal. Not much faith in Melancon. I like Mortenson as a long man. Seems like he has a rubber arm.

There aren't really any other starters in the organization who desperately need major league experience (Morales is shut down for the year, Doubront could be shut down any second now, Bard likely gains more from shorter, more frequent stints than starting again). Maybe you want to give a start or two to someone like Wright or Stewart, but Stewart has two options remaining (so you don't really need to evaluate him just yet) and I suspect that Wright can be re-signed as a minor-league free agent. Besides, even if you wanted to evaluate them this season, you'd wait until the Pawsox season ends in a few days before calling them up and presumably bumping Cook from the rotation.

More importantly, Cook is healthy and likely wants to boost his value in advance of free agency next year. You can't just bump him from the rotation if there aren't any better alternatives. Shutting him down or moving him to the bullpen just because you can will just make him deservedly upset and sends a bad signal to other potential free agents. The fact that Cook is starting isn't really an indication that the Red Sox really want to re-sign him-- the team is just playing out the stretch anyways.

amfox - I understand the point of your draft order updates, but I'm deeply saddened that it's one of the only things I check the forums for these days...