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5/2-5/4 Red Sox vs. Athletics Series Thread
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Post by Jonathan Singer on May 2, 2014 7:49:27 GMT -5
5/2 Red Sox (RHP Clay Buchholz 1-2 6.66) vs. Athletics (RHP Dan Straily 1-1 5.14) 7:10 pm ET, NESN/MLBN/WEEI5/3 Red Sox (LHP Jon Lester 2-4 3.10) vs. Athletics (LHP Tommy Milone 0-2 4.56) 1:35 pm ET, NESN/WEEI5/4 Red Sox (RHP John Lackey 4-2 3.83) vs. Athletics (RHP Sonny Gray 4-1 1.76) 1:35 pm ET, NESN/WEEIMLB StandingsRed Sox Hitting StatsRed Sox Pitching StatsMLB ScoreboardMLB TransactionsWeatherSeries Thread Disclaimer: The SoxProspects Moderators will be somewhat liberal in policing the Red Sox "Series" Threads. Some of the Ground Rules are applied loosely in here, as we understand that there is a tendency to want to react (or overreact) to every play of a Sox game with one line reactionary posts. Those posts are okay in the Red Sox Series threads to a point - we certainly appreciate the passion. Just try not to overdo it, and try to maintain some semblance of reason. In addition, please don't let those type of posts spill over to other more substantive threads, where they may be deleted. -The Management
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Post by Jonathan Singer on May 2, 2014 7:51:23 GMT -5
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Post by Guidas on May 2, 2014 8:50:56 GMT -5
From May 4-11 the Sox face, in order, Gray, Cingrani, Bailey, Darvish, Perez.
Where is Houston and the Cubs on this schedule when you need them?
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Post by Don Caballero on May 2, 2014 9:09:28 GMT -5
I still remember that draft where we almost got Sonny Gray but Oakland had to snatch him up. He was my pre-draft binky and just missing on him was cruel.
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Post by Guidas on May 2, 2014 10:25:17 GMT -5
I still remember that draft where we almost got Sonny Gray but Oakland had to snatch him up. He was my pre-draft binky and just missing on him was cruel. This totally. We ended up with Barnes instead, I believe.
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Post by godot on May 2, 2014 12:11:22 GMT -5
There seems to be a growing consensus that these Sox are just not the Sox of 2013, duh, and they may not turn it around. Well, if so, what did you expect after gutting what they had last year up the middle, and John Henry's stated philosophy on free agents and paying. No surprise, it is going to be a bumpy ride, hang on. You can debate until you are blue in the face that what they did was correct, but the brute fact is that a seamless transition has not been made, creating number of flaws. There are of course other factors such as Felix's lack of development and Dustin's injuries (again)that clearly are sapping his hitting abilities, and no way can Koji duplicate last year. It makes me wonder just how brilliant the guys behind they wheel are, and were they mainly lucky last yr. Time will tell, and it will interesting from here. BTW the As are a real ball team, unlike.....
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Deleted
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Posts: 0
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Post by Deleted on May 2, 2014 12:11:36 GMT -5
I still remember that draft where we almost got Sonny Gray but Oakland had to snatch him up. He was my pre-draft binky and just missing on him was cruel. This totally. We ended up with Barnes instead, I believe. That's right. Taylor Guerrieri (Rays) and Alex Meyer (Nationals) were also in the mix that year.
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Post by soxcentral on May 2, 2014 12:17:42 GMT -5
There seems to be a growing consensus that these Sox are just not the Sox of 2013, duh, and they may not turn it around. Well, if so, what did you expect after gutting what they had last year up the middle, and John Henry's stated philosophy on free agents and paying. No surprise, it is going to be a bumpy ride, hang on. You can debate until you are blue in the face that what they did was correct, but the brute fact is that a seamless transition has not been made, creating number of flaws. There are of course other factors such as Felix's lack of development and Dustin's injuries (again)that clearly are sapping his hitting abilities, and no way can Koji duplicate last year. It makes me wonder just how brilliant the guys behind they wheel are, and were they mainly lucky last yr. Time will tell, and it will interesting from here. BTW the As are a real ball team, unlike..... Were people expecting us to just continue right where we left off? We replaced two strong veteran players with two unproven rookies, plus changed catchers which almost certainly has an impact on the pitching staff at the beginning. Regardless of win-loss records I am thrilled with the direction of the franchise right now, building a foundation through homegrown players both in the field and in the rotation. Depending on prospects require patience, and its only been 4 weeks.
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Post by godot on May 2, 2014 13:02:28 GMT -5
"Regardless of win-loss records I am thrilled with the direction of the franchise right now, building a foundation through homegrown players both in the field and in the rotation. Depending on prospects require patience, and its only been 4 weeks."
Sounds like a fan of a bottom finishing team, building for the future, but this team did build and then destroyed it because of business reasons dictated by JH whims. Oh, I forget he is a genius even though his hedge found had many bad years and he eventually dumped it. .
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Post by soxcentral on May 2, 2014 13:06:56 GMT -5
A bottom-finishing team that won 3 championships in 10 years, yes. Those titles sold me a bit more on their ability to build a winner.
The Yankees of the 50's, Orioles of the 70's, Royals of the 70's/80's, Cardinals of the 80's to today and many more baseball franchises patiently built and won from within.
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Post by klostrophobic on May 2, 2014 13:32:22 GMT -5
"Regardless of win-loss records I am thrilled with the direction of the franchise right now, building a foundation through homegrown players both in the field and in the rotation. Depending on prospects require patience, and its only been 4 weeks." Sounds like a fan of a bottom finishing team, building for the future, but this team did build and then destroyed it because of business reasons dictated by JH whims. Oh, I forget he is a genius even though his hedge found had many bad years and he eventually dumped it. . Is there an organization that you would expect to win more games over the next 10 seasons? Any org with potentially more young talent (Houston, Minnesota notably) has less money to spend. And the teams with more money to spend are saddled with atrocious contracts and/or middling young talent (Yankees, dodger). The Red Sox have been great since 2003, but I expect the next decade to be even better (though expecting 3 WS might be a bit much). Do you expect the Red Sox to be a bottom finishing team for real?
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Post by pedroelgrande on May 2, 2014 13:36:37 GMT -5
I don't know if there is much to talk about with someone who thinks the Red Sox are "bottom finishers" because they didn't sign his favorite player.
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Post by FenwayFanatic on May 2, 2014 13:58:06 GMT -5
Look what that philosophy has got the Yanks. Yeah they bought the 09 title, but now they're no longer a perennial divison winner. They've missed the playoffs a few years recently. They have some really bad contracts. You think playing the Yankee game is a sustainable option when they have more money than we do?
They're in first place, barely for now, but I doubt that will hold up with the long season, they're already starting to get some injuries. No thanks.
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Post by Guidas on May 2, 2014 14:14:28 GMT -5
I don't know if there is much to talk about with someone who thinks the Red Sox are "bottom finishers" because they didn't sign his favorite player. Yeah, I'm as frustrated as anyone but even with my own binkies and biases I can only really think of two FAs the Sox let get away that they should've held onto, even at the prices they got - Damon and Beltre (although I make a convincing "domino effect" argument on Orlando Cabrera after two beers, as well). The farm plan has definitely laid the foundation for significant future benefits, but I do not believe that you can win championships in this era solely with homegrown players, so a few FA acquisitions and some big (and small) trades will need to be made. That, and the Sox do have a resource that only few teams have or leverage - our billionaire owners are willing to spend up to the luxury tax cap, and even just over from time to time, to put a winning team on the field. It was frustrating to see this team decidedly not get better in the off-season, but as I've said before: you win a World Series I am glad (well, mostly glad) to give them a complete mulligan the next year. Doesn't mean I like watching crappy play on the field, though, and I've identified 4 games already this year where just making the average plays in the field would've very likely netted a win. That includes last night (Pop-up! Pop-up! Grady on the base paths). Last year I had 7 games in that category all year (yeah, I really kept count). Here's to knocking the crap out of the As and SonnyG this weekend.
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Post by jimed14 on May 2, 2014 14:26:26 GMT -5
How do you decide to get better in the offseason and then ever introduce any prospects to the lineup?
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Post by pedroelgrande on May 2, 2014 14:40:10 GMT -5
I think discussing wether the Red Sox should be more aggressive with some of their free agents and other free agents is a worthwhile discussion. I just don't know how far we can go if you are dismissing the entire plan.
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Post by Guidas on May 2, 2014 14:42:14 GMT -5
How do you decide to get better in the offseason and then ever introduce any prospects to the lineup? Sox did it very successfully in 07 DiceK, Okijima, Drew - brought up Pedroia, then Ellsbury. That's off the top of my head. I'm sure they've done it other times in the tenure of the current ownership group. ADDED: Could add 13 with Napoli, Drew, Victorino, Dempster, Ross and later Peavy while bringing up Iglesias, who become a ROY candidate - even if his role wasn't anticipated - then flipping him for Peavy and later bringing up Workman and Bogaerts.
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Post by jerrygarciaparra on May 2, 2014 15:01:48 GMT -5
There seems to be a growing consensus that these Sox are just not the Sox of 2013, duh, and they may not turn it around. Well, if so, what did you expect after gutting what they had last year up the middle, and John Henry's stated philosophy on free agents and paying. No surprise, it is going to be a bumpy ride, hang on. You can debate until you are blue in the face that what they did was correct, but the brute fact is that a seamless transition has not been made, creating number of flaws. There are of course other factors such as Felix's lack of development and Dustin's injuries (again)that clearly are sapping his hitting abilities, and no way can Koji duplicate last year. It makes me wonder just how brilliant the guys behind they wheel are, and were they mainly lucky last yr. Time will tell, and it will interesting from here. BTW the As are a real ball team, unlike..... I don't think there's any doubt the Sox were lucky last year. A lot of things went right for them. But that doesn't mean they weren't a helluva baseball team. Not many teams carry it over from year to year anymore. That's something everyone should understand.
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Post by thelavarnwayguy on May 2, 2014 15:51:40 GMT -5
Henry or someone on his staff is a genius or incredibly lucky because look what they have accomplished alread with Liverpool. That's a huge success story so far.
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ericmvan
Veteran
Supposed to be working on something more important
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Post by ericmvan on May 2, 2014 16:43:45 GMT -5
I can only really think of two FAs the Sox let get away that they should've held onto, even at the prices they got - Damon and Beltre (although I make a convincing "domino effect" argument on Orlando Cabrera after two beers, as well). The Sox FO believed that Damon would not be able to play CF for three more years, let alone four, and hence weren't that high on re-signing him. In fact, the Yankees moved him to DH and LF in the second year of the contract. By the third year, he was at -25 UZR in CF. Perhaps my memory is mistaken, but I think we had both a pretty good LF and a pretty good DH in those days. Now, Beltre: there's an interesting alternate history where they re-sign him instead of trading for Gonzalez. Would they have needed to deal Beltre to the Dodgers instead of Gonzalez, though, to dump Crawford and Beckett? And what we essentially did there was also trade Rizzo, Kelley, and Fuentes (off to a terrible start in AAA after his breakout season last year) for (compensation picks) Bradley and Swihart, and that hasn't been awful at all. Of course, there's also a history where they do both things and trade Youkilis a year before he collapsed in value. And one where they signed Matt Holliday for 2010 instead of Cameron in 2010 and Crawford in 2011, which I really wanted them to do ...
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danr
Veteran
Posts: 1,871
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Post by danr on May 2, 2014 17:08:06 GMT -5
The Sox team right now is not playing as well as it probably will. I still think the Sox will be in the race all season. However, this is not a really good team, not as good as last year's. Fortunately, what we are seeing now, and maybe for a while longer, should be as bad as it will get. This is the real transition year.
Within two years the Sox could have a lineup entirely of home-grown players, and that could be a dominant team for years. It has been a long time since the Sox had as much talent in the minors, and not far from the majors, as they do now, both position players and pitchers. And there seems to be more coming in the lower levels.
I hope the Sox do not trade any of this talent this year, and continue with the present strategy, even if it doesn't yield a pennant this year. Before long, there could be several pennants.
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Post by Guidas on May 2, 2014 17:36:26 GMT -5
I can only really think of two FAs the Sox let get away that they should've held onto, even at the prices they got - Damon and Beltre (although I make a convincing "domino effect" argument on Orlando Cabrera after two beers, as well). The Sox FO believed that Damon would not be able to play CF for three more years, let alone four, and hence weren't that high on re-signing him. In fact, the Yankees moved him to DH and LF in the second year of the contract. By the third year, he was at -25 UZR in CF. Perhaps my memory is mistaken, but I think we had both a pretty good LF and a pretty good DH in those days. Now, Beltre: there's an interesting alternate history where they re-sign him instead of trading for Gonzalez. Would they have needed to deal Beltre to the Dodgers instead of Gonzalez, though, to dump Crawford and Beckett? And what we essentially did there was also trade Rizzo, Kelley, and Fuentes (off to a terrible start in AAA after his breakout season last year) for (compensation picks) Bradley and Swihart, and that hasn't been awful at all. Of course, there's also a history where they do both things and trade Youkilis a year before he collapsed in value. And one where they signed Matt Holliday for 2010 instead of Cameron in 2010 and Crawford in 2011, which I really wanted them to do ... Why acquire Crawford at all? They acquire Gonzo and Crawford becomes moot.
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Post by jimed14 on May 2, 2014 17:52:38 GMT -5
Wow, Crawford is really bad so far this year.
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Post by Oregon Norm on May 2, 2014 18:13:10 GMT -5
Crisp, Lowrie, Moss, Reddick... Old home week.
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Post by Guidas on May 2, 2014 18:24:31 GMT -5
@brianmacp: Buchholz topped out at 94.6 in the first inning.
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