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What Can Be Done to Fix the Sox?
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Post by jimed14 on Jan 8, 2016 22:52:01 GMT -5
Peter Abraham, in the Globe a few days ago, argued that we must trade Hanley, because it's impossible that he can play an adequate 1B. Now, the latter part of that assertion (based, among other things, on cherry-picking his two worst seasons at SS while ignoring the fact that he was only -5 R / 150 GS his last two seasons there) is very open to challenge, but even if it's true, trading Ramirez doesn't seem smart. Abraham believes that the Sox would have to eat half of his contract. Trading him now would therefore result in -$33M of value. If we can get more than $33M of value from him over three years, keeping him is smarter. Let's say that you keep him, and discover by the end of ST that Travis Shaw has to be the regular 1B. Ramirez is relegated to a backup DH role, and late-inning duty at 1B after pinch-hitting and pinch-running. Papi has averaged $20M of value the last two years as a DH (and that's a conservative estimate using what I believe is too small a positional adjustment for DH). Between Papi injuries and platooning, it's not unreasonable to think that Hanley might have $3M of value if used as a backup DH. That leaves $30M of value that you need to get from him over the last two years of his contract, in order to make keeping him smarter than dumping him. Before I did this analysis, I was planning to assert that Hanley could be fairly expected to be 80% to 85% as valuable as Ortiz at DH. But it turns out that he only needs to be 75%. And that's without adjusting for inflation of $/WAR. So, with a worst-case scenario for Ramirez's 2016 value, and a triply-conservative estimate of his 2017-2018 value (conservative about the value of a DH, Hanley's performance, and any change in the $ value of WAR over the next three years), it still makes just as much sense to keep him as deal him. The practical way of looking at this is that they will need to fill the DH spot after Papi retires, and they have absolutely nothing in the way of in-house candidates. So, as others have speculated, they might be expected next winter to go hard after Bautista or Encarnacion. Let's say either one will cost $20M a year. Who would you rather have, Hanley at $22M or one of those at $42M? And it seems clear that having Hanley succeed Papi at DH was part of the plan all along, and was factored into his salary. You talk about his value, but what about the value of his roster spot being given to someone who would help the team more? At some point, you want to win, not win a value game. I still find it pretty absurd and aggravating that they gave Hanley that much more money and years than Papi ever got when he'll never be anywhere near as good. I have to imagine that they didn't expect Papi to play in 2016. After watching Hanley last year, nothing at all would surprise me regarding his defense at 1B. Has he worked on it? Will he work on it? Does he care about it? He didn't seem to in LF. |
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Post by jmei on Jan 9, 2016 2:32:13 GMT -5
If he's going to be a bench player, his taking up a roster spot is unlikely to crowd out someone who would otherwise contribute a lot to the major league team.
The real risk is that he's an awful defensive 1B and it takes the Red Sox two months of starting him to realize that, by which point he's already cost the team a win or so as compared to, say, Shaw. That's a real risk, but it's balanced out by the upside that he's an OK defensive 1B and his bat regresses to its former lofty heights and he's a semi-star.
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Jan 9, 2016 2:43:07 GMT -5
If he's going to be a bench player, his taking up a roster spot is unlikely to crowd out someone who would otherwise contribute a lot to the major league team. The real risk is that he's an awful defensive 1B and it takes the Red Sox two months of starting him to realize that, by which point he's already cost the team a win or so as compared to, say, Shaw. That's a real risk, but it's balanced out by the upside that he's an OK defensive 1B and his bat regresses to its former lofty heights and he's a semi-star. Yup, the downside to keeping him seems to max out at about a win. Whether you dump him now or not, you need to fill 1B for 2017, unless Travis takes a big step forward power-wise. If you dump him now, you also have DH to fill next year. It's kind of hard to imagine not recovering that (worst-case scenario) lost win by not having to give up a draft pick to sign Encarnacion or Bautista for an extra $20M+ per year. Now, if we learn that an asteroid is headed in our direction and will destroy all life on Earth a year from now, then it would certainly make sense. But absent that, you don't maximize this year's value at great expense for the future (unless you're a GM who's trying to save his job). |
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Post by telson13 on Jan 9, 2016 12:12:32 GMT -5
I found that Abraham article remarkably dumb. He gives me the impression of having a vastly inflated sense of his own "reasoning," and by that I mean, he thinks his shallow, emotion-driven opinion is fact based on real analysis. Really, he just has a very weak grasp of statistics. In that sense he's kind of the anti-Cafardo, who just pooh-poohs worthwhile statistics and analysis in general but at least admits he does it.
Trading Ramirez is useless. It's a waste of money for likely very little talent return, and it leaves a glaring hole at 1b/DH. And forget about the whole "he's a cancer" thing: the '86 Mets won 108 games with Darryl Strawberry. The best move is to try to get value out of Ramirez, and stick him at DH next year when Papi's retired. The last thing to do is repeat the error but dropping a bunch of cash at the feet of one of Toronto's sluggers next winter. With any luck, the Devers/Benintendi/Moncada trio will be making the idea of spending big $ on FA look silly by that point.
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Post by humanbeingbean on Jan 9, 2016 12:24:24 GMT -5
Let's just hope that Hanley doesn't crash into any more walls. The 10 homers (I think it was?) he hit last April prior to the shoulder injury can't be understated.
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Post by Oregon Norm on Jan 9, 2016 13:52:17 GMT -5
Let's just hope that Hanley doesn't crash into any more walls. The 10 homers (I think it was?) he hit last April prior to the shoulder injury can't be understated. This is the right take, I believe. If he's healthy he'll hit, he always has. So the right questions to ask, in what ever order you want to ask them are: - Is he healthy?
- Can he stay healthy, and for how long?
- Can he play first base, and will he be safer there?
Those ready to write him off might want to think twice. You may be asking for permission back into the fan club if those questions are all answered with a yes. He slugged .609 before playing wall ball with his shoulder, and .372 afterwards. That's probably not a coincidence. I think it was foolish for him to try to play through that, understandable given the expectations he and others had, but foolish. The real question for me is the same one I brought up last year, before the season started. It's the second one in the list. Even if he starts healthy, can he stay that way? Since 2011 he's averaged 114 games. Take out the 2012 season, when he went from Miami to Los Angeles on his sub-tropical tour - while playing in a whopping (for him) 157 games - and that number drops to an average of just over 102 games. And again, I think he should have immediately been put on the disabled list last year after he got hurt, but nobody called me about it. That would easily have dropped that average below 100 games. The upside, this year, is that the team already knows they have a decent replacement in Shaw, someone they can rotate in on an as needed basis. If they're smart, they'll do that, even if he starts off killing it as he did last year. That's because he comes with a big fragile sticker, and he doesn't carry a replacement guarantee for the type of hitter he is when he's healthy. |
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Post by jimed14 on Jan 10, 2016 11:29:33 GMT -5
Let's just hope that Hanley doesn't crash into any more walls. The 10 homers (I think it was?) he hit last April prior to the shoulder injury can't be understated. This is the right take, I believe. If he's healthy he'll hit, he always has. So the right questions to ask, in what ever order you want to ask them are: - Is he healthy?
- Can he stay healthy, and for how long?
- Can he play first base, and will he be safer there?
Those ready to write him off might want to think twice. You may be asking for permission back into the fan club if those questions are all answered with a yes. He slugged .609 before playing wall ball with his shoulder, and .372 afterwards. That's probably not a coincidence. I think it was foolish for him to try to play through that, understandable given the expectations he and others had, but foolish. The real question for me is the same one I brought up last year, before the season started. It's the second one in the list. Even if he starts healthy, can he stay that way? Since 2011 he's averaged 114 games. Take out the 2012 season, when he went from Miami to Los Angeles on his sub-tropical tour - while playing in a whopping (for him) 157 games - and that number drops to an average of just over 102 games. And again, I think he should have immediately been put on the disabled list last year after he got hurt, but nobody called me about it. That would easily have dropped that average below 100 games. The upside, this year, is that the team already knows they have a decent replacement in Shaw, someone they can rotate in on an as needed basis. If they're smart, they'll do that, even if he starts off killing it as he did last year. That's because he comes with a big fragile sticker, and he doesn't carry a replacement guarantee for the type of hitter he is when he's healthy. Do you think this is the first year that John Farrell goes with a young guy like Shaw over a vet like Hanley because he's playing terribly? I'm skeptical. The Yankees planned on ARod playing some 1b last year. After watching him try in preseason, he ended up playing 9 2/3 innings there during the regular season. And ARod was a far better fielder than Hanley. I'm quite nervous about this. |
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Post by gerry on Jan 10, 2016 12:29:01 GMT -5
But after the many successful conversions to 1B we have seen, from Yaz to Nap and Nava, wouldn't ARod be considered an anomoly? I can't think of another big flop, much less several. The evidence says a healthy Hanley can get the job done defensively and that his bat rebounds. Further, Travis Shaw is a good defender who really could be a reasonable platoon partner and late game defensive replacement.
I doubt DDo will be committed to Hanley if Hanley doesn't produce (or Panda). He will not be allowed to hurt the team, despite the cost.
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Post by humanbeingbean on Jan 10, 2016 12:30:13 GMT -5
This is the right take, I believe. If he's healthy he'll hit, he always has. So the right questions to ask, in what ever order you want to ask them are: - Is he healthy?
- Can he stay healthy, and for how long?
- Can he play first base, and will he be safer there?
Those ready to write him off might want to think twice. You may be asking for permission back into the fan club if those questions are all answered with a yes. He slugged .609 before playing wall ball with his shoulder, and .372 afterwards. That's probably not a coincidence. I think it was foolish for him to try to play through that, understandable given the expectations he and others had, but foolish. The real question for me is the same one I brought up last year, before the season started. It's the second one in the list. Even if he starts healthy, can he stay that way? Since 2011 he's averaged 114 games. Take out the 2012 season, when he went from Miami to Los Angeles on his sub-tropical tour - while playing in a whopping (for him) 157 games - and that number drops to an average of just over 102 games. And again, I think he should have immediately been put on the disabled list last year after he got hurt, but nobody called me about it. That would easily have dropped that average below 100 games. The upside, this year, is that the team already knows they have a decent replacement in Shaw, someone they can rotate in on an as needed basis. If they're smart, they'll do that, even if he starts off killing it as he did last year. That's because he comes with a big fragile sticker, and he doesn't carry a replacement guarantee for the type of hitter he is when he's healthy. Do you think this is the first year that John Farrell goes with a young guy like Shaw over a vet like Hanley because he's playing terribly? I'm skeptical. The Yankees planned on ARod playing some 1b last year. After watching him try in preseason, he ended up playing 9 2/3 innings there during the regular season. And ARod was a far better fielder than Hanley. I'm quite nervous about this. Not to merely point out the obvious, but A-Rod is far older than Hanley. Maybe A-Rod would've improved with more time over there, but it's better to play a 40 year old as your DH, rather than in the field. He's definitely been a far better defender than Hanley ever has, but Hanley has (relative) youth on his side. But that's just to play devil's advocate, as I'm also extremely nervous about Hanley being our first baseman. |
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Post by fenwaythehardway on Jan 10, 2016 12:38:42 GMT -5
But after the many successful conversions to 1B we have seen, from Yaz to Nap and Nava, wouldn't ARod be considered an anomoly? I can't think of another big flop, much less several. The evidence says a healthy Hanley can get the job done defensively and that his bat rebounds. Further, Travis Shaw is a good defender who really could be a reasonable platoon partner and late game defensive replacement. I doubt DDo will be committed to Hanley if Hanley doesn't produce (or Panda). He will not be allowed to hurt the team, despite the cost. Mike Piazza was a failed 1B conversion. It does happen. |
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Post by redsox04071318champs on Jan 10, 2016 12:44:16 GMT -5
But after the many successful conversions to 1B we have seen, from Yaz to Nap and Nava, wouldn't ARod be considered an anomoly? I can't think of another big flop, much less several. The evidence says a healthy Hanley can get the job done defensively and that his bat rebounds. Further, Travis Shaw is a good defender who really could be a reasonable platoon partner and late game defensive replacement. I doubt DDo will be committed to Hanley if Hanley doesn't produce (or Panda). He will not be allowed to hurt the team, despite the cost. Mike Piazza was a failed 1B conversion. It does happen. Dick Stuart flat-out failed the conversion to 1b - no wait, he never was converted. He was just totally brutal at 1b. The point is while 1b might be the easiest position on the defensive spectrum it can't be expected that anybody can play it adequately. That's not the case. That said, the Sox need to try this with Hanley Ramirez. What else are they going to do with him? A healthy Hanley Ramirez (see April 2015 and every other point in his career where he's been healthy - a point that often gets lost in the shuffle) has a very productive bat, and he was a SS at one point, so they need to do this. If it works as well as the LF experiment, then the Sox have no choice but to bench Hanley and wait for the DH spot to open up next year, further flushing down another $22 million this year, but with Travis Shaw available to play 1b and Sam Travis likely to be ready by the end of the year, this is a gamble the Sox can afford to make. Because if Hanley is somehow adequate and he stays reasonably healthy, the Sox will get a strong bat to put in the middle of the lineup, and they need that. Will this work? I don't know and I doubt that the Sox really know. They'll cross their fingers and have Travis Shaw ready to go behind him. They need to anyways - even if it works, given Hanley's injury history Shaw will be needed - of course he might be needed for 3b, too. |
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Post by humanbeingbean on Jan 10, 2016 14:08:33 GMT -5
In other news, I mustered the courage to go on ESPN today, and someone (albeit a commenter, not a writer) suggested (today) the Sox could create a package for Sonny Gray involving Cecchini.
I cherish this website.
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Post by jimed14 on Jan 10, 2016 15:36:20 GMT -5
Pedro Alvarez was a disaster going from 3B to 1B last year.
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Post by ryantoworkman on Jan 10, 2016 16:57:11 GMT -5
Pedro Alvarez was a disaster going from 3B to 1B last year. Pedro Alvarez could never even catch a cold. He is a DH |
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Post by gerry on Jan 11, 2016 2:52:57 GMT -5
Pedro Alvarez was a disaster going from 3B to 1B last year. Pedro Alvarez could never even catch a cold. He is a DH In terms of this discussion, it would be interesting to actually know how many have been good, been adequate, been awful in this transition, and what, if any, were the major obstacles. BTW, I saw Stonefingers (Dick) Stuart hit some of the longest fly balls imaginable, but he made Alvarez look like a GG. |
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Post by jimed14 on Jan 11, 2016 7:26:50 GMT -5
Pedro Alvarez was a disaster going from 3B to 1B last year. Pedro Alvarez could never even catch a cold. He is a DH He was passable at 3B, but not at 1B. |
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Post by carmenfanzone on Jan 11, 2016 7:52:35 GMT -5
In answer to the question of where else to put him, how about 3rd? He would not have to worry about the footwork necessary for 1b - that he has never had to use in his career before. He would be on the same side of the infield that he has been for his full career. We would not have to have both him and Panda in the lineup on the same day. I know Hanley would not be good at 3rd, but he would be involved in many fewer plays at 3rd than he would be at 1b.
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Post by sarasoxer on Jan 11, 2016 8:09:01 GMT -5
Pedro Alvarez could never even catch a cold. He is a DH In terms of this discussion, it would be interesting to actually know how many have been good, been adequate, been awful in this transition, and what, if any, were the major obstacles. BTW, I saw Stonefingers (Dick) Stuart hit some of the longest fly balls imaginable, but he made Alvarez look like a GG. Also known as Dr. Strangeglove... www.historicbaseball.com/players/s/stuart_dick.html |
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Post by sox fan in nc on Jan 11, 2016 8:56:31 GMT -5
This spring training will be one of the more important ones in recent years. A lot of eyes will be on Hanley, Pablo, Shaw (offensively), Vazquez, rotation, ect. This is not going to be just getting reps. Should be interesting to follow.
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Post by ryantoworkman on Jan 11, 2016 9:16:01 GMT -5
In answer to the question of where else to put him, how about 3rd? He would not have to worry about the footwork necessary for 1b - that he has never had to use in his career before. He would be on the same side of the infield that he has been for his full career. We would not have to have both him and Panda in the lineup on the same day. I know Hanley would not be good at 3rd, but he would be involved in many fewer plays at 3rd than he would be at 1b. I think it's safe to assume they see 3B as part of secondary, or tertiary planning. Sandoval can shift to 1B, if that is what's needed to facilitate the best field alignment. That said, I'm not one who believes this transition is that difficult for him. |
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Jan 12, 2016 3:44:52 GMT -5
In answer to the question of where else to put him, how about 3rd? He would not have to worry about the footwork necessary for 1b - that he has never had to use in his career before. He would be on the same side of the infield that he has been for his full career. We would not have to have both him and Panda in the lineup on the same day. I know Hanley would not be good at 3rd, but he would be involved in many fewer plays at 3rd than he would be at 1b. The thing is, almost everyone who has played both positions has played first base better. Often much better. Kevin Youkilis, for instance. Or George Scott, just to keep it local. People are getting confused because LF is much easier than SS, and Hanley was much worse in LF than SS, and so they're thinking that there's nothing predictable about such position switches. And I think the seamless transitions to the OF made by Holt and Betts has made people think that the infield and outfield have skill sets that are more similar than they seem. But they don't. Dwight Evans, formerly one of the best RF in history, was tried at 1B when he lost his OF range -- and couldn't play it at all. There's nothing in OF play that resembles fielding hard ground balls or catching throws on a bounce, or footwork around a bag. All of those things are things a SS has to do, though (with the one-hop grounder being a much tougher version of an errant throw). While footwork around an infield bag is indeed new to an OF, it's not at all new for a SS who had to turn double plays. He has to learn to do a bunch of things, but there's every reason he believe he has the required skills, because they are lesser versions of SS skills. That was not true of him in LF. |
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Post by carmenfanzone on Jan 12, 2016 8:24:07 GMT -5
In answer to the question of where else to put him, how about 3rd? He would not have to worry about the footwork necessary for 1b - that he has never had to use in his career before. He would be on the same side of the infield that he has been for his full career. We would not have to have both him and Panda in the lineup on the same day. I know Hanley would not be good at 3rd, but he would be involved in many fewer plays at 3rd than he would be at 1b. The thing is, almost everyone who has played both positions has played first base better. Often much better. Kevin Youkilis, for instance. Or George Scott, just to keep it local. People are getting confused because LF is much easier than SS, and Hanley was much worse in LF than SS, and so they're thinking that there's nothing predictable about such position switches. And I think the seamless transitions to the OF made by Holt and Betts has made people think that the infield and outfield have skill sets that are more similar than they seem. But they don't. Dwight Evans, formerly one of the best RF in history, was tried at 1B when he lost his OF range -- and couldn't play it at all. There's nothing in OF play that resembles fielding hard ground balls or catching throws on a bounce, or footwork around a bag. All of those things are things a SS has to do, though (with the one-hop grounder being a much tougher version of an errant throw). While footwork around an infield bag is indeed new to an OF, it's not at all new for a SS who had to turn double plays. He has to learn to do a bunch of things, but there's every reason he believe he has the required skills, because they are lesser versions of SS skills. That was not true of him in LF. I would think that the footwork around !b would be very different (and much harder) from the footwork at SS on double plays. At SS when going to cover 2b you would be going towards the base AND the ball. At 1b you would be going towards the base but AWAY from the ball. And Hanley has shown no ability to learn new skills (the reports are mixed at best about his efforts to do so). Moreover, Hanley was not good at SS near the end of his career. I do not think he would be good at 3b either. However, he would touch the ball a lot less at 3b than he would at 3b. Once last year I saw a Tiger pitch throw over to 1b and Cabrerra did not have his glove on. I shutter to think how many tines Hanley will miss a bad throw to 1b. Moreover, unless Panda rebounds, if you play Hanley at 1b and Panda at 3b, you will have 2 below average infielders. If you platoon Hanley and Panda at 3b and play Shaw at 1b you only have 1 below average fielding infielder. |
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Post by jimoh on Jan 12, 2016 8:30:43 GMT -5
In answer to the question of where else to put him, how about 3rd? He would not have to worry about the footwork necessary for 1b - that he has never had to use in his career before. He would be on the same side of the infield that he has been for his full career. We would not have to have both him and Panda in the lineup on the same day. I know Hanley would not be good at 3rd, but he would be involved in many fewer plays at 3rd than he would be at 1b. The thing is, almost everyone who has played both positions has played first base better. Often much better. Kevin Youkilis, for instance. Or George Scott, just to keep it local. People are getting confused because LF is much easier than SS, and Hanley was much worse in LF than SS, and so they're thinking that there's nothing predictable about such position switches. And I think the seamless transitions to the OF made by Holt and Betts has made people think that the infield and outfield have skill sets that are more similar than they seem. But they don't. Dwight Evans, formerly one of the best RF in history, was tried at 1B when he lost his OF range -- and couldn't play it at all. There's nothing in OF play that resembles fielding hard ground balls or catching throws on a bounce, or footwork around a bag. All of those things are things a SS has to do, though (with the one-hop grounder being a much tougher version of an errant throw). While footwork around an infield bag is indeed new to an OF, it's not at all new for a SS who had to turn double plays. He has to learn to do a bunch of things, but there's every reason he believe he has the required skills, because they are lesser versions of SS skills. That was not true of him in LF. This seems exactly right. The footwork at 1b is different, but not that challenging for someone who has played SS and made double plays. He won't work as hard as Napoli, but he doesn't have to work as hard as Napoli. |
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Post by brianthetaoist on Jan 12, 2016 12:49:08 GMT -5
I don't think it's ability that's at question here ... I guess I can't speak for anyone else, but I don't question that Hanley has the physical ability to make the transition, and I do think that SS->1B is a lot more natural than SS->LF. And, yes, transitioning to 1B has been successfully completed by a lot of players.
But it's his obvious lack of effort in learning LF that's concerning. This was obvious watching, and it was reported (by Speier, in particular) after the season. Sure, he can learn the footwork around the bag, but will he?
I suspect it will be ok (not good, but ok) because it's similar enough to his past as a SS to work out, but there's definitely reason to be wary.
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Post by ericmvan on Jan 12, 2016 15:01:39 GMT -5
I don't think it's ability that's at question here ... I guess I can't speak for anyone else, but I don't question that Hanley has the physical ability to make the transition, and I do think that SS->1B is a lot more natural than SS->LF. And, yes, transitioning to 1B has been successfully completed by a lot of players. But it's his obvious lack of effort in learning LF that's concerning. This was obvious watching, and it was reported (by Speier, in particular) after the season. Sure, he can learn the footwork around the bag, but will he? I suspect it will be ok (not good, but ok) because it's similar enough to his past as a SS to work out, but there's definitely reason to be wary. Motivating yourself to practice and learn something is not independent of your natural skills at it. The biggest motivator for continued practice is success. You have to be able to say to yourself, hey, I have the skills to do this, I'm learning it, I'm getting better, and if I continue practicing, I will become good. If, instead, you are saying to yourself, I can't do this, I don't seem to have the basic skills, the obvious next thought is, further practice seems almost pointless. Put more simply, your further practice time is a function of how encouraging versus discouraging your past practice has been. Hanley has learned how to do the most difficult thing in all of sports, and do it an elite level. I sincerely doubt that his makeup is lacking in the general desire to practice and learn. After the discouraging debacle of trying to learn LF, being given a chance to learn something that he actually has the skills to learn might well be a very different story. |
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