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Post by jmei on Jun 5, 2016 15:48:02 GMT -5
Hanley has hit a ton of those, by the way. His ISO is down but he's still hitting the ball crazy hard. Hanley's exit velocity has been dropping for nearly a month now. His exit velo is tied for Mookie Betts for second on the team (behind David Ortiz; the two of them are also tied with Mike Trout and Paul Goldschmidt).
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Post by thursty on Jun 5, 2016 15:49:30 GMT -5
Hanley's exit velocity has been dropping for nearly a month now. His exit velo is tied for Mookie Betts for second on the team (behind David Ortiz; the two of them are also tied with Mike Trout and Paul Goldschmidt). I'd hope you can see that that is in no way response to what I posted.
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Post by jmei on Jun 5, 2016 15:53:02 GMT -5
Sorry, maybe I should have been more explicit. His exit velo is down a little, but it's still been very good, and his YTD exit velo has been elite.
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Post by James Dunne on Jun 5, 2016 15:55:34 GMT -5
Maybe, but it speaks to an overall roster construction issue. Hernandez and Rutledge don't need to be on the roster at the same time. Brentz and Chris Marrero aren't stars but they are better hitters than Hernandez, and having them up would also allow Hernandez to play every day in the minors. The Red Sox have seemingly taken a last out first in approach to the back end of their roster this year. Hernandez and Noe Ramirez keep getting the call when there is an opening, seemingly because they were the ones who got the call last time. This is the case even though there are players who either fit the roster better (in the former) or are simply better players (in the latter). Hernandez is a LHH and offers more positional flexibility and speed than Brentz or Marrero; I'm sure that's the thinking The LHH thing is useful I will grant. The team already has pretty good positional flexibility though. Hernandez and Rutledge both as backups on a four-man bench just doesn't make sense to me.
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Post by thursty on Jun 5, 2016 16:01:40 GMT -5
The problem is the pitching, both starters and relievers. I don't really see how anyone can make a straight-faced argument otherwise. But given who the GM is, it's best to hope that nothing be done about it.
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Post by James Dunne on Jun 5, 2016 16:11:41 GMT -5
There are available improvements to the position player roster though. Just because it isn't the most pressing problem doesn't mean it should be ignored. Getting singularly focused on solving the biggest issue at the expense of overall roster management ends up with a roster like the 2005-08 Yankees, with stars at the top but no structure below that.
EDIT: Like, Jose Fernandez over Joe Kelly would certainly be a bigger upgrade than Chris Marrero would be to Josh Rutledge, but the transaction costs would go from astronomical to nearly zero.
And frankly, a better bench would have given them a better chance to win today than an upgrade to the pitching would have. Rodriguez is nowhere near getting replaced at this point, he just had a bad game. And Hembree/Buchholz in the pen couldn't have been better. But having a better bench might have made a difference.
EDIT2: And it probably wouldn't have made a difference. Sometimes Marco Estrada is on and induces a bunch of pop-ups and the Blue Jays lineup hits home runs and you lose. Losing stinks but it's hard to pin today's loss on anything other than the Blue Jays did baseball better than the Red Sox today. That's going to happen.
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Post by ancientsoxfogey on Jun 5, 2016 16:20:13 GMT -5
The problem is the pitching, both starters and relievers. I don't really see how anyone can make a straight-faced argument otherwise. But given who the GM is, it's best to hope that nothing be done about it. Hmm .... apparently temple thinks that the team's problems begin, end, and revolve around Christian Vazquez. I think maybe he's actually Donald Trump and he thinks Vazquez is a Muslim. Interesting how we've had a couple of games with extreme gopher ball problems recently. Not a lot of other hits, but what is being hit leaves the park.
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Post by telluricrook on Jun 5, 2016 16:26:43 GMT -5
The problem is the pitching, both starters and relievers. I don't really see how anyone can make a straight-faced argument otherwise. But given who the GM is, it's best to hope that nothing be done about it. Yeah i wouldnt have much confidence in mike hazen either.
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Post by burythehammer on Jun 5, 2016 16:31:24 GMT -5
Does he need to hit again if we tie the game? I guess, but what are the odds that they tie and not win and get to his lineup spot again? A lot better than the odds that having a slow footed runner on second in the bottom of the 9th when you're down by three runs will hurt you (roughly 0%)
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Post by jimed14 on Jun 5, 2016 16:33:31 GMT -5
I guess, but what are the odds that they tie and not win and get to his lineup spot again? A lot better than the odds that having a slow footed runner on second in the bottom of the 9th when you're down by three runs will hurt you (roughly 0%) You're not factoring in the odds that Papi gets hurt. I personally think they don't PR for him nearly enough. He just looks like he's in pain when he runs, which would be the same as any 40+ year old. It's a pretty petty thing to get upset over.
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Post by jmei on Jun 5, 2016 19:33:31 GMT -5
Vazquez has a 54+ and -.1 fWAR That's not a major league player Yep. A lot of the pro-Vazquez posts talking about how little he needed to produce on offense based on his 2014 defensive stats were kind of wild, because Vazquez's 2014, stretched out over a career, would've made him easily the greatest defensive catcher of all time. Like, it wouldn't have even been close. That's a crazy and unfair standard to put on any player. If he's merely among the best at his position in the league, rather than head-and-shoulders above everyone else, it's a fair question what his offense would need to be in order to be viable. With another young catcher who was improving on defense and significantly better on offense in Blake Swihart, making that switch seemed to be a little bit short sighted. With Swihart, there are many ways he could become an All-Star caliber starting catcher - his defense continues to improve giving him a great well-rounded game, he reaches his full hit tool potential and he's the rare catcher who hits .300 consistently, his power ends up playing up as he ages and he ends up a .275/.350/.475 type (fantastic for a catcher). With Vazquez, the upside in the bat is so light that his path to fulfilling his value is basically continuing to be insanely good with the glove, while also taking for granted that umpires never improve at identifying pitch framers. That's a possible path, but a narrow one. This seems unfair to Vazquez. If you're positing Swihart's potential 70-grade batting average or 60-grade power upside, you have to consider Vazquez's contact/patience-driven offensive upside. He has (admittedly only occasionally) flashed the skills to be something like Ryan Hanigan (low end)/A.J. Ellis (mid end)/Francisco Cervelli or Russell Martin (high end). Swihart probably still has the higher ceiling, but Vazquez has legitimate All-Star upside as well.
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Post by mgoetze on Jun 5, 2016 20:19:19 GMT -5
This whole "players get to play based on performance, not contract" thing is kind of a sham, isn't it? If it were true, Hembree would be closing rather than mopping up in long relief.
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Post by thursty on Jun 5, 2016 21:42:03 GMT -5
Speaking of Heath Hembree, saw the condensed game online and his stuff was nasty; including 96 up in the zone (something he had been reluctant to do before), and I guess a slider? that made a couple of Jays' RHH look foolish. He deserves a shot over Barnes next time; maybe the Red Sox have something here.
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Post by larrycook on Jun 5, 2016 22:51:17 GMT -5
Hembree seems to be "on" in non pressure situations and "off" in pressure situations.
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radiohix
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Post by radiohix on Jun 6, 2016 1:25:14 GMT -5
Hembree seems to be "on" in non pressure situations and "off" in pressure situations. You mean like in that Astros game when Kimbrel blew a save by giving Rasmus a 2 run bomb and he came out of the bullpen to pitch 3 shoutout extra innings of pure awesomeness (2 singles, 0 BB, 4 K) to give the team a win?
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Jun 6, 2016 9:28:42 GMT -5
Hembree seems to be "on" in non pressure situations and "off" in pressure situations. You mean like in that Astros game when Kimbrel blew a save by giving Rasmus a 2 run bomb and he came out of the bullpen to pitch 3 shoutout extra innings of pure awesomeness (2 singles, 0 BB, 4 K) to give the team a win? Well, since then he's had just two high-leverage outings and one medium-lev, and just three bad outings (out of 10), and ... yup, the three bad outings are the three not in low-leverage. There was the 5/5 game in Chicago when Owens got yanked in the 4th. Hembree had to pitch out of a jam that inning (LI 1.13), and gave up a run in the 5th and had to leave with the bases full and 1 out, and the lead down to 1 run. There was 5/15 against the Astros (2.11), where he was fine until Rutledge threw away the 3rd out, and then gave up a double to Rasmus and a single to turn an 8-7 lead into a 9-8 deficit. And there was 5/21 in Toronto (2.71), where he gave up the game-tying HR to Encarnacion and had to be bailed out of the inning by Ross. It could be random, or he may have some adrenaline-management issues. You could try to keep him out of low- and middle-leverage situations for a while. You will have to use him again in higher-lev and hopefuly he'll have some success and gain any confidence or calm he might need.
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Post by ericmvan on Jun 6, 2016 9:32:17 GMT -5
A lot better than the odds that having a slow footed runner on second in the bottom of the 9th when you're down by three runs will hurt you (roughly 0%) You're not factoring in the odds that Papi gets hurt. I personally think they don't PR for him nearly enough. He just looks like he's in pain when he runs, which would be the same as any 40+ year old. It's a pretty petty thing to get upset over. JF said he took Papi out reluctantly because he didn't want him running any more. On an unrelated note, the first two HR's E-Rod gave up were gone in only 1 other MLB park. Meanwhile, Hanley hit two balls there were out of Dodger Stadium.
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Post by ddlover on Jun 6, 2016 10:23:00 GMT -5
Just brutal games (Toronto & Baltimore) to watch. Their division rivals always seem hitting HR against either RS starters & relievers. That's why they're now 14-15 in their own division while they were 19-9 vs outside of their division.
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Post by nomar on Jun 6, 2016 10:43:48 GMT -5
The Orioles annoy me because we play bad against them even when our pitching matchups look favorable and we have the better offense.
Bautista, Donaldson and EE clearly are just in the heads of our entire team. No matter who the pitcher is, getting them out is seemingly impossible. All of them are great hitters, but they absolutely wreck is even beyond their normal results.
If Hanley keeps hitting like crap, signing Encarnacion might start to sound good just for the idea that he's out of our hair for 18 games a year.
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