SoxProspects News
|
|
|
|
Legal
Forum Ground Rules
The views expressed by the members of this Forum do not necessarily reflect the views of SoxProspects, LLC.
© 2003-2024 SoxProspects, LLC
|
|
|
|
|
Forum Home | Search | My Profile | Messages | Members | Help |
Welcome Guest. Please Login or Register.
|
Post by redsox04071318champs on Mar 11, 2016 0:35:04 GMT -5
This might be where scouting can disagree with statistical projections. I see an out-of-shape playerIf you can really tell how strong a person's muscles are by looking at them (as opposed to noticing some extra weight around the gut), you shouldn't be wasting your time posting here. You should be outside, wearing spandex and fighting crime. Fine. He's in great shape. I take it back. He looks fabulous. Expecting nothing but an OPS above .800. Why worry?
|
|
|
Post by jimed14 on Mar 11, 2016 7:37:44 GMT -5
This might be where scouting can disagree with statistical projections. I see an out-of-shape playerIf you can really tell how strong a person's muscles are by looking at them (as opposed to noticing some extra weight around the gut), you shouldn't be wasting your time posting here. You should be outside, wearing spandex and fighting crime. How likely is it that he's in significantly better shape while looking exactly the same? We saw how out of shape he looked as he played last year (really bad range at 3B and painful to watch running the bases along with having to be removed from a game for supposed dehydration after trying to run 3 bases, which he could not even finish without looking like he was close to falling down). Given the 17% body fat claim, I personally believe the Red Sox are flat out lying about everything regarding what shape he's in. It's not just his gut. His legs look fat too. This isn't some wild guess here and it certainly doesn't take super powers to figure out.
|
|
|
Post by sarasoxer on Mar 11, 2016 12:11:55 GMT -5
I saw a recent picture of Pablo where it appeared that he had a sizable double (triple?) chin. We have all seen this year's version of the gut....same sized shadow cast. The muscle must be elsewhere.
When the Sox said 'come back in better shape' that was a clear reference to "lose weight"...not 'weight lift'. No Sox personnel have said that he has a glandular/hormone problem, any countervailing medical condition or other impediment to losing nor that his performance would suffer from so doing.
Given the trend line, his lack of 'plate' discipline, and the eyeball test (no need to squint), there is no other conclusion I can draw than that he doesn't much care.
|
|
ericmvan
Veteran
Supposed to be working on something more important
Posts: 9,015
|
Post by ericmvan on Mar 11, 2016 12:21:52 GMT -5
If you can really tell how strong a person's muscles are by looking at them (as opposed to noticing some extra weight around the gut), you shouldn't be wasting your time posting here. You should be outside, wearing spandex and fighting crime. How likely is it that he's in significantly better shape while looking exactly the same? We saw how out of shape he looked as he played last year (really bad range at 3B and painful to watch running the bases along with having to be removed from a game for supposed dehydration after trying to run 3 bases, which he could not even finish without looking like he was close to falling down). Given the 17% body fat claim, I personally believe the Red Sox are flat out lying about everything regarding what shape he's in. It's not just his gut. His legs look fat too. This isn't some wild guess here and it certainly doesn't take super powers to figure out. Let me pose a question to the two of you. I'm 5-11 1/2" tall. When I was in HS I weighed 155 lbs and ran cross country, and I was a co-captain of my college's very first Ultimate Frisbee team (the most exhausting team sport I know of). I'll be 62 in May, I eat a healthier diet than, I would guess, 95% of Americans, I still have the same 32" waistline I had in HS and I'm currently working my way down from 165 back to below 160 (the excess being largely dark chocolate and orange juice). What kind of shape am I in?
|
|
|
Post by philsbosoxfan on Mar 11, 2016 12:26:20 GMT -5
You can't dissuade people in denial mode, particularly those enamored with projection statistics. Projection statistics are right more often than they are wrong, therefore what is seen (scouting) can't possibly be correct.
Gee, I wonder why Ron Shandler pretty much consistently blows away the sabermetric purists year after year after year after year.
|
|
|
Post by jimed14 on Mar 11, 2016 12:33:16 GMT -5
How likely is it that he's in significantly better shape while looking exactly the same? We saw how out of shape he looked as he played last year (really bad range at 3B and painful to watch running the bases along with having to be removed from a game for supposed dehydration after trying to run 3 bases, which he could not even finish without looking like he was close to falling down). Given the 17% body fat claim, I personally believe the Red Sox are flat out lying about everything regarding what shape he's in. It's not just his gut. His legs look fat too. This isn't some wild guess here and it certainly doesn't take super powers to figure out. Let me pose a question to the two of you. I'm 5-11 1/2" tall. When I was in HS I weighed 155 lbs and ran cross country, and I was a co-captain of my college's very first Ultimate Frisbee team (the most exhausting team sport I know of). I'll be 62 in May, I eat a healthier diet than, I would guess, 95% of Americans, I still have the same 32" waistline I had in HS and I'm currently working my way down from 165 back to below 160 (the excess being largely dark chocolate and orange juice). What kind of shape am I in? I would imagine that you're in similar shape that you were in last year, assuming that you look similar and weigh similar. This is all we're judging Pablo on. We didn't watch you play 120 something baseball games last year. I also assume that when someone decides to take his career much more seriously like John Lackey in 2013, that he shows up to camp looking significantly different. I seriously believe nothing that the Red Sox said regarding Sandoval after they told the huge lie about his body fat %.
|
|
|
Post by jmei on Mar 11, 2016 13:19:47 GMT -5
Gee, I wonder why Ron Shandler pretty much consistently blows away the sabermetric purists year after year after year after year. Do you have a source backing up this statement? Based on what I could find online, the projection systems stack up pretty strongly against Shandler's Baseball HQ projections. For instance, here's a 2004 article showing the Nate Silver version of PECOTA pretty thoroughly beating BBHQ. Here's another analysis from 2009 showing that PECOTA and BBHQ are effectively neck and neck. More importantly, you realize that Shandler's projections are, at their core, basically the same nuts and bolts that Steamer, ZiPS, PECOTA, etc. use, right? In other words, use multiple-year samples, regress to the mean, look at predictive rather than descriptive stats, apply aging curves, etc. Shandler is certainly no scout, and his projections have far, far more in common with the "sabermetric purists" than they do differences.
|
|
|
Post by telson13 on Mar 11, 2016 13:49:43 GMT -5
How likely is it that he's in significantly better shape while looking exactly the same? We saw how out of shape he looked as he played last year (really bad range at 3B and painful to watch running the bases along with having to be removed from a game for supposed dehydration after trying to run 3 bases, which he could not even finish without looking like he was close to falling down). Given the 17% body fat claim, I personally believe the Red Sox are flat out lying about everything regarding what shape he's in. It's not just his gut. His legs look fat too. This isn't some wild guess here and it certainly doesn't take super powers to figure out. Let me pose a question to the two of you. I'm 5-11 1/2" tall. When I was in HS I weighed 155 lbs and ran cross country, and I was a co-captain of my college's very first Ultimate Frisbee team (the most exhausting team sport I know of). I'll be 62 in May, I eat a healthier diet than, I would guess, 95% of Americans, I still have the same 32" waistline I had in HS and I'm currently working my way down from 165 back to below 160 (the excess being largely dark chocolate and orange juice). What kind of shape am I in? If you're eating 70% cacao, you're getting about 1% by weight of theophylline. Same family (methylxanthines) as caffeine, but with less nervous system effects and better cardiac stimulant properties. Chocolate consumption is also correlated with reduced MI risk. So I'd say you're in great shape. The whole Panda thing is tired. If he stinks in May, I'll say something. Until then, it's all just unnecessary complaining. Same goes for Hanley at 1b...he's been OK, but I'm reserving relief until May.
|
|
|
Post by philsbosoxfan on Mar 11, 2016 13:50:36 GMT -5
The arguments against Shandler is that he "tweeks" the data based on scouting after the results. So, for example, if he came in with projections for Panda but was told that his bat was slow, he would make adjustments. There was an entire on-line conference about it several years ago to discus why he was so substantially ahead. It was pretty clear that the attendees (Tanglier, Zybrosky (the ZIPS guy),Silverman, objected to the tweeking pretty much calling it luck. My opinion was that they embarrassed themselves and that was a low point in sabermetric credibility.
Almost every year (but not every year), the Baseball HQ ads point out that he had outperformed the competition. Being straight forward here, the sabermetric community pretty much avoids whenever he wins but makes a big deal out of it if he doesn't.
One of the industry's best analysts also came out of that group. Derek McKamey. He was hired away by the Cardinals and the Cards thought enough about his contributions that they awarded him a ring with their first championship. He also took the same approach, analyzed the prospect tools, looked at the stats and the tools. If the stats didn't come in as expected he would then try to figure out why. Both mix sabermetrics and scouting combined to come to their conclusions.
I'll go ahead and predict now that every team will end up 81-81. At the end of the year, on average I'll be 100% correct. I'm guessing that will impress the saber community so mark this post.
|
|
|
Post by jmei on Mar 11, 2016 14:59:57 GMT -5
The arguments against Shandler is that he "tweeks" the data based on scouting after the results. So, for example, if he came in with projections for Panda but was told that his bat was slow, he would make adjustments. There was an entire on-line conference about it several years ago to discus why he was so substantially ahead. It was pretty clear that the attendees (Tanglier, Zybrosky (the ZIPS guy),Silverman, objected to the tweeking pretty much calling it luck. My opinion was that they embarrassed themselves and that was a low point in sabermetric credibility. Almost every year (but not every year), the Baseball HQ ads point out that he had outperformed the competition. Being straight forward here, the sabermetric community pretty much avoids whenever he wins but makes a big deal out of it if he doesn't. Do you have a link to one of their ads which shows a head-to-head comparison against the major projection systems? I took a look at their website and couldn't find any examples, nor could I find any similar analysis other than the two articles I linked above. As a paid subscription service, they have every incentive to play up their superiority over the free projection systems, but I'm not really seeing them make those claims in any concrete way or substantiating it with comparative analysis. And again, I'm pretty sure Shandler is part of the "sabermetric community." Here's a link to their "2015 Track Record" page touting all of their accurate calls in 2015. It's all stats, with a smattering of health/injury discussion, but just about no scouting-based analysis. Indeed, Shandler describes himself as a sabermetrician and statistical analyst in the " About Ron Shandler" section of his website. If you have evidence to the contrary, I'd love to see it, but I really think the Shandler-as-scout narrative exists mostly in your own head.
|
|
|
Post by philsbosoxfan on Mar 11, 2016 16:17:16 GMT -5
I used to have a subscription to Baseball HQ. Every year I get e-mail ads that basically calls himself the top service. I'm on their mailing list
I never said Shandler was a scout. I said he adjusts his analysis by scouting reports. Whatever on your opinion and this sidetrack but my narrative was that we have to stop looking at the Sandoval projections and start looking at what we're seeing and adjust the expectations and what I'm seeing is a negative WAR player.
We'll see this coming year which was the best way to evaluate Pablo. In general it's my opinion that sabermetrics is very good at looking at what happened but nowhere near as good as scouting at looking forward. Neither method is as good as combining the two.
Last year, all the saber guys seemed to be very positive about the Hanley and Pablo signings. How did that work out for ya ??
|
|
|
Post by jimed14 on Mar 11, 2016 16:31:36 GMT -5
I used to have a subscription to Baseball HQ. Every year I get e-mail ads that basically calls himself the top service. I'm on their mailing list I never said Shandler was a scout. I said he adjusts his analysis by scouting reports. Whatever on your opinion and this sidetrack but my narrative was that we have to stop looking at the Sandoval projections and start looking at what we're seeing and adjust the expectations and what I'm seeing is a negative WAR player. We'll see this coming year which was the best way to evaluate Pablo. In general it's my opinion that sabermetrics is very good at looking at what happened but nowhere near as good as scouting at looking forward. Neither method is as good as combining the two. Last year, all the saber guys seemed to be very positive about the Hanley and Pablo signings. How did that work out for ya ?? I agree with you. I'm much more optimistic about Hanley and not Pablo because of what I've seen. We seemed to have a lot of arguments over how Allen Craig was supposed to rebound too. I never saw him do a single thing to make me believe he would so I never thought he would no matter what the projections said. I'm not even sure why Pablo supposedly worked on batting RH all winter. He should have worked on batting LH so he could be a platoon player.
|
|
|
Post by jmei on Mar 11, 2016 18:19:46 GMT -5
I used to have a subscription to Baseball HQ. Every year I get e-mail ads that basically calls himself the top service. I'm on their mailing list I never said Shandler was a scout. I said he adjusts his analysis by scouting reports. Whatever on your opinion and this sidetrack but my narrative was that we have to stop looking at the Sandoval projections and start looking at what we're seeing and adjust the expectations and what I'm seeing is a negative WAR player. We'll see this coming year which was the best way to evaluate Pablo. In general it's my opinion that sabermetrics is very good at looking at what happened but nowhere near as good as scouting at looking forward. Neither method is as good as combining the two. Last year, all the saber guys seemed to be very positive about the Hanley and Pablo signings. How did that work out for ya ?? That's my point-- you keep trying to push this sabermetrics versus scouting angle, and it's just not there. You've still yet to provide a source which suggests that Shandler meaningfully incorporates scouting information into his projections or that doing so makes his projections better. Plenty of saber guys, including myself, were down on the Sandoval signing at the time (though, admittedly, I thought the Ramirez signing was a good one). Moreover, I'm not sure that scouts are really all that down on Sandoval. Pablo's always been fat and overaggressive and a bad baserunner. It's not like Craig where it was obvious that he lost a bunch of bat speed and could no longer pull the ball effectively (which showed in his peripherals and spray chart). I haven't seen any scouting reports out there saying Sandoval is no longer athletic enough to be a productive baseball player. He was awful defensively last year, but a lot of it was balls clanking off his glove or throws sailing-- in other words, technique stuff that can be fixed (for instance, by playing back more). At times, he still showed the surprising quickness and agility that had made him a solid defensive 3B over the course of his career despite his size ( example one, example two).
|
|
|
Post by pokeyreesespieces on Mar 11, 2016 19:25:55 GMT -5
I used to have a subscription to Baseball HQ. Every year I get e-mail ads that basically calls himself the top service. I'm on their mailing list I never said Shandler was a scout. I said he adjusts his analysis by scouting reports. Whatever on your opinion and this sidetrack but my narrative was that we have to stop looking at the Sandoval projections and start looking at what we're seeing and adjust the expectations and what I'm seeing is a negative WAR player. We'll see this coming year which was the best way to evaluate Pablo. In general it's my opinion that sabermetrics is very good at looking at what happened but nowhere near as good as scouting at looking forward. Neither method is as good as combining the two. Last year, all the saber guys seemed to be very positive about the Hanley and Pablo signings. How did that work out for ya ?? That's my point-- you keep trying to push this sabermetrics versus scouting angle, and it's just not there. You've still yet to provide a source which suggests that Shandler meaningfully incorporates scouting information into his projections or that doing so makes his projections better. Plenty of saber guys, including myself, were down on the Sandoval signing at the time (though, admittedly, I thought the Ramirez signing was a good one). Moreover, I'm not sure that scouts are really all that down on Sandoval. Pablo's always been fat and overaggressive and a bad baserunner. It's not like Craig where it was obvious that he lost a bunch of bat speed and could no longer pull the ball effectively (which showed in his peripherals and spray chart). I haven't seen any scouting reports out there saying Sandoval is no longer athletic enough to be a productive baseball player. He was awful defensively last year, but a lot of it was balls clanking off his glove or throws sailing-- in other words, technique stuff that can be fixed (for instance, by playing back more). At times, he still showed the surprising quickness and agility that had made him a solid defensive 3B over the course of his career despite his size ( example one, example two). lol what? Panda had zero side to side movement last year. It wasn't simply "balls clanking off his glove". You've got blinders on man.
|
|
|
Post by Oregon Norm on Mar 11, 2016 19:40:23 GMT -5
You must have been watching a different player than I was. He's much quicker around the bag and more agile than Holt for one. Many of his errors seemed to me to be product of lost focus and poor judgement. He was much better at the end of the season but by then the bat was useless.
|
|
ericmvan
Veteran
Supposed to be working on something more important
Posts: 9,015
|
Post by ericmvan on Mar 11, 2016 19:55:12 GMT -5
Let me pose a question to the two of you. I'm 5-11 1/2" tall. When I was in HS I weighed 155 lbs and ran cross country, and I was a co-captain of my college's very first Ultimate Frisbee team (the most exhausting team sport I know of). I'll be 62 in May, I eat a healthier diet than, I would guess, 95% of Americans, I still have the same 32" waistline I had in HS and I'm currently working my way down from 165 back to below 160 (the excess being largely dark chocolate and orange juice). What kind of shape am I in? I would imagine that you're in similar shape that you were in last year, assuming that you look similar and weigh similar. This is all we're judging Pablo on. We didn't watch you play 120 something baseball games last year. I also assume that when someone decides to take his career much more seriously like John Lackey in 2013, that he shows up to camp looking significantly different. I seriously believe nothing that the Red Sox said regarding Sandoval after they told the huge lie about his body fat %. But what unchanged shape is that? If there is a strong correlation between weight and being in shape, if Sandoval's being out of shape is equivalent to his being overweight, if that's just two different ways of saying the same thing, then I have to be in great shape, right? And, of course, every sumo wrestler is in lousy shape, not to mention half the linemen in the NFL. {the same thing, probably} If you're eating 70% cacao, you're getting about 1% by weight of theophylline. Same family (methylxanthines) as caffeine, but with less nervous system effects and better cardiac stimulant properties. Chocolate consumption is also correlated with reduced MI risk. So I'd say you're in great shape. The whole Panda thing is tired. If he stinks in May, I'll say something. Until then, it's all just unnecessary complaining. Same goes for Hanley at 1b...he's been OK, but I'm reserving relief until May. Actually, I'm in terrible shape. My legs get tired from walking up a flight of stairs. If I do 15 minutes of treadmill walking at the gym, I'm sore for days. I don't know where I rank in terms of lower-half muscle strength for men my age, but it's as probably as bad as my weight is good. One might then ask what correlation there actually is between, on the one hand, working out and building muscular strength and quickness, and, on the other, eating moderately and keeping your weight down. And the answer is, basically none the f--- whatsoever. Sandoval was a dangerous hitter and plus defender carrying excess weight, and the fact that he's still carrying excess weight tells us nothing at all about how much work he did over the winter to rebuild body strength and quickness. The notion that you can tell that he didn't do any such work by looking at him and seeing the same physique is ludicrous, although not quite as funny as the assertion that "his legs look fat," which, to be true, would require a combination of X-ray vision and alien (or female) physique. What we do know is that he claims to have worked very hard all winter just doing that, while admitting that he ignored his weight. And we also know that he ought to have been highly motivated to do the former, while given his past experience, it's hard to see how he could motivate himself to do the latter. I have no idea what his weight is relative to his best years in SF, and if he's X pounds heavier, that is cause for some concern. Given the same lower-body strength, that would ding him a bit of range defensively. But the assertion that he couldn't have done any work in the off-season because he didn't lose any weight is just so demonstrably wrong that it's repeated vehement assertion strikes me as more disturbing than any eating disorder. What's the reason for needing to hate someone that badly, in defiance of all reason?
|
|
|
Post by ray88h66 on Mar 11, 2016 20:28:20 GMT -5
I'm so tired of the Panda weight debate. His play and production was awful last year. I hope it's better this year.
|
|
|
Post by philsbosoxfan on Mar 11, 2016 22:26:21 GMT -5
You must have been watching a different player than I was. He's much quicker around the bag and more agile than Holt for one. Many of his errors seemed to me to be product of lost focus and poor judgement. He was much better at the end of the season but by then the bat was useless. I'm not sure why we keep going back to last year or his history, I'm referring to what I'm seeing now. In the mornings with Butterfield, Sandoval has specifically worked on trying to improve his range. "First step, that's what I've been looking for," said Sandoval. "Trying to get my first step back, get low so I can catch the ball." m.redsox.mlb.com/news/article/166556158/pablo-sandoval-makes-2-errors-puts-in-workHe's working on it but it just isn't there now. Can it improve ? Sure. Will it improve ? That's the big question and I'm not overly optimistic. There's absolutely no way he gets to the play Shaw made yesterday. The following is opinion, mine, I haven't seen it in print: I don't think there's much hope offensively either. He's significantly behind on a lot of pitches. lately he's started to cheat the swing. The foul ball double the other day (batting lefty) came on a first pitch fastball that he clearly was swinging no matter where the pitch came. That's a slippery slope, it won't take major league catchers long to spot and exploit that. As far as I can see, again my opinion, he'd have to improve significantly to be as bad as he was last year.
|
|
|
Post by pokeyreesespieces on Mar 12, 2016 4:28:31 GMT -5
Butterfield has even said something to the tune of "his range is what it is"
|
|
|
Post by dirtywater43 on Mar 12, 2016 6:09:56 GMT -5
You must have been watching a different player than I was. He's much quicker around the bag and more agile than Holt for one. Many of his errors seemed to me to be product of lost focus and poor judgement. He was much better at the end of the season but by then the bat was useless. I'm not sure why we keep going back to last year or his history, I'm referring to what I'm seeing now. In the mornings with Butterfield, Sandoval has specifically worked on trying to improve his range. "First step, that's what I've been looking for," said Sandoval. "Trying to get my first step back, get low so I can catch the ball." m.redsox.mlb.com/news/article/166556158/pablo-sandoval-makes-2-errors-puts-in-workHe's working on it but it just isn't there now. Can it improve ? Sure. Will it improve ? That's the big question and I'm not overly optimistic. There's absolutely no way he gets to the play Shaw made yesterday. The following is opinion, mine, I haven't seen it in print: I don't think there's much hope offensively either. He's significantly behind on a lot of pitches. lately he's started to cheat the swing. The foul ball double the other day (batting lefty) came on a first pitch fastball that he clearly was swinging no matter where the pitch came. That's a slippery slope, it won't take major league catchers long to spot and exploit that. As far as I can see, again my opinion, he'd have to improve significantly to be as bad as he was last year. With each passing day, it seems like Shaw deserves the starting third base job over Pablo. I'm not going by spring training stats either. I'm going by how each player looks in spring training. I'm starting to think that the Sox best course of action would be to trade Pablo at the end of spring training, eat half the contract (or eat another bad contract) and just be done with this problem. Marrero or Craig can take his roster spot. It doesn't matter. Pablo doesn't look good at all anymore.
|
|
|
Post by philsbosoxfan on Mar 12, 2016 6:45:47 GMT -5
I'm not sure why we keep going back to last year or his history, I'm referring to what I'm seeing now. In the mornings with Butterfield, Sandoval has specifically worked on trying to improve his range. "First step, that's what I've been looking for," said Sandoval. "Trying to get my first step back, get low so I can catch the ball." m.redsox.mlb.com/news/article/166556158/pablo-sandoval-makes-2-errors-puts-in-workHe's working on it but it just isn't there now. Can it improve ? Sure. Will it improve ? That's the big question and I'm not overly optimistic. There's absolutely no way he gets to the play Shaw made yesterday. The following is opinion, mine, I haven't seen it in print: I don't think there's much hope offensively either. He's significantly behind on a lot of pitches. lately he's started to cheat the swing. The foul ball double the other day (batting lefty) came on a first pitch fastball that he clearly was swinging no matter where the pitch came. That's a slippery slope, it won't take major league catchers long to spot and exploit that. As far as I can see, again my opinion, he'd have to improve significantly to be as bad as he was last year. With each passing day, it seems like Shaw deserves the starting third base job over Pablo. I'm not going by spring training stats either. I'm going by how each player looks in spring training. I'm starting to think that the Sox best course of action would be to trade Pablo at the end of spring training, eat half the contract (or eat another bad contract) and just be done with this problem. Marrero or Craig can take his roster spot. It doesn't matter. Pablo doesn't look good at all anymore. IF Panda doesn't pan out, why would another team want a negative WAR third baseman at any price ? If I'm recalling correctly, a few years ago the Yankees had the same problem with Vernon Wells. They ended up out-righting him to AAA. Even though any team could have had him at minimum wage with the Yankees paying all of his ongoing salary, nobody claimed him.
|
|
|
Post by dirtywater43 on Mar 12, 2016 6:59:26 GMT -5
With each passing day, it seems like Shaw deserves the starting third base job over Pablo. I'm not going by spring training stats either. I'm going by how each player looks in spring training. I'm starting to think that the Sox best course of action would be to trade Pablo at the end of spring training, eat half the contract (or eat another bad contract) and just be done with this problem. Marrero or Craig can take his roster spot. It doesn't matter. Pablo doesn't look good at all anymore. IF Panda doesn't pan out, why would another team want a negative WAR third baseman at any price ? If I'm recalling correctly, a few years ago the Yankees had the same problem with Vernon Wells. They ended up out-righting him to AAA. Even though any team could have had him at minimum wage with the Yankees paying all of his ongoing salary, nobody claimed him. Maybe there's a team like the Padres who are desperate for a third baseman/left handed bat and the Sox throw in a couple of B type prospects to get a James Shields. Third baseman are hard to find. Maybe there's a team willing to take some kind of a chance on him.
|
|
|
Post by philsbosoxfan on Mar 12, 2016 7:06:59 GMT -5
IF Panda doesn't pan out, why would another team want a negative WAR third baseman at any price ? If I'm recalling correctly, a few years ago the Yankees had the same problem with Vernon Wells. They ended up out-righting him to AAA. Even though any team could have had him at minimum wage with the Yankees paying all of his ongoing salary, nobody claimed him. Maybe there's a team like the Padres who are desperate for a third baseman/left handed bat and the Sox throw in a couple of B type prospects to get a James Shields. Third baseman are hard to find. Maybe there's a team willing to take some kind of a chance on him. I'm thinking that if there was a team willing to take a chance on him, he would have been traded long ago. I also think it would take a lot more than a couple of B prospects to take on half his salary. This all assumes he doesn't pan out and the Sox think that little of him that they are willing to start a relatively unknown in his place. If that's the case, it'll end up being 100% sunk cost. ADD: Keep in mind that the Sox Panda cost last year wasn't $19m, it was $19m plus about $14m in lost WAR. That's a staggering price tag.
|
|
|
Post by fenwaythehardway on Mar 12, 2016 10:37:19 GMT -5
I haven't been able (ok, I can't be bothered) to watch any spring training games, but I notice no one is really talking about Hanley's defense at first. I'm guessing this is a good thing.
|
|
|
Post by philsbosoxfan on Mar 12, 2016 11:45:31 GMT -5
I haven't been able (ok, I can't be bothered) to watch any spring training games, but I notice no one is really talking about Hanley's defense at first. I'm guessing this is a good thing. I've seen most of the games. On the one hand he's looked OK, on the other there haven't been any spectacular plays to be made or even big stretches that I've seen. Nothing really to go on except that he doesn't look clueless like in left field. He's usually where he's supposed to be.
|
|
|