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Post by soxfaninnj on Apr 11, 2021 15:14:20 GMT -5
Who needs Mookie? We just need the PAHK Manfred!! Lol
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Post by manfred on Apr 11, 2021 15:17:05 GMT -5
Who needs Mookie? We just need the PAHK Manfred!! Lol 🙄
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Post by manfred on Apr 11, 2021 15:18:30 GMT -5
Devers hitting his way to getting traded for prospects.
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Post by chrisfromnc on Apr 11, 2021 15:30:24 GMT -5
Devers hitting his way to getting traded for prospects. Dude you forgot italics. Actually it just means they can trade Casas at the deadline since the Sox will be buyers not sellers.
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Post by manfred on Apr 11, 2021 15:39:51 GMT -5
Devers hitting his way to getting traded for prospects. Dude you forgot italics. Actually it just means they can trade Casas at the deadline since the Sox will be buyers not sellers.Only semi-italicized.
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Post by kevfc89 on Apr 11, 2021 15:48:05 GMT -5
As a whole, you'd like to see these pitchers throw more strikes with such a lead. My one complaint about the BP is that most of them have great stuff but they mostly have inconsistent command. Whitlock might have the best control of the group now.
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Post by Guidas on Apr 11, 2021 15:53:44 GMT -5
Great win!
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Post by voiceofreason on Apr 11, 2021 16:59:21 GMT -5
Oh, I get it, and I don’t want to take this thread off topic. It’s just a passing comment I hear, and it’s typically meant in jest, yet it is really cutting. Also, as for the summers “off”, any educator will tell you that it isn’t exactly a full time vacation. I teach at the college level, and I’d much rather be in the classroom than dealing with the summer meetings, training, syllabi updating, and lesson planning. Anyhow... how about those Carmines? I’m really loving how this pitching staff is looking so far. There are some good looking arms coming out of that bullpen. Now I can see why Chris moves off topic comments to other threads, and i am glad he does. That is rather rude and uncalled for. Two guys can't have a brief conversation?
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Post by voiceofreason on Apr 11, 2021 17:03:33 GMT -5
This is what I meant with my earlier post in regards to the bats. XB, JD and Devers are all capable of putting up big numbers and when they do the Sox are a tough out. Sure their are some teams with even more firepower but the Sox are tough top to bottom or at least they can be. JD is a difference maker!!
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Post by dyoungteach on Apr 11, 2021 17:52:35 GMT -5
Devers hitting his way to getting traded for prospects. I highly doubt devers will be traded anytime soon. Not till he indicates he won’t resign and wants a lot more money than Sox are willing to pay. I also do think we have some prospect depth that we could move, but I question what our holes really are right now? Starting pitching? It’s early but it sure appears like it could be a fun year. Excluding injuries
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Apr 11, 2021 18:01:52 GMT -5
(The purpose of the ball alterations was to increase BABIP on line drives and ground balls but reduce homers, i.e., the extra drag easily more than offsets the boost in EV. Unfortunately, it has also increased pitch velocity and hence strikeouts.)
Are you telling me that, in their wisdom, MLB engineered a ball that will lead to more strikeouts, thus exacerbating the single biggest problem with the contemporary game? Exactly correct. Folks can go to FanGraphs and read the piece "First Look at the New Ball," and read my long comment, which last time I looked was the last one.
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Post by threeifbaerga on Apr 11, 2021 18:03:02 GMT -5
Devers hitting his way to getting traded for prospects. I highly doubt devers will be traded anytime soon. Not till he indicates he won’t resign and wants a lot more money than Sox are willing to pay. I also do think we have some prospect depth that we could move, but I question what our holes really are right now? Starting pitching? It’s early but it sure appears like it could be a fun year. Excluding injuries
Hasn't he already shown a preference for the Mookie-style process of going to arbitration every year instead of signing any kind of extension? Maybe I'm misremembering things or misrepresenting them.
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Post by redsoxfan2 on Apr 11, 2021 18:13:58 GMT -5
Big win, but admittedly slightly disappointed in Pivetta's start. Didn't get to see the game to tell the whole story, but 4 ER in 6.0 IP 7 hits and 3 walks? He's got to be better against the Orioles.
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Apr 11, 2021 18:23:01 GMT -5
Great play by Devers but does not erase the longer term questions about his defensive issues. There are none.
He's now probably made 20 or 30 great plays. He's made one three days in a row. He's had great range and a strong arm from day one.
His only "defensive issues" are shaky footwork, which is something you learn, and self-consciousness of his errors, which leads to more errors ... which is a problem that Alex Cora can help him fix literally in a day.
I first believed he'd become a plus defender when I saw him make a "wow!" play for Salem against the Wilmington Blue Rocks (only game below AAA I've ever seen!) and I've never wavered from that opinion.
And he was already one of the best defensive 3B in MLB at age 22. The next year he had no Cora to talk him down from being too hard on himself and hence getting into a mental negative feedback loop. It was pretty obvious to me that he came out this year overly aware of the need to get off to a good start instead of trusting that he would and putting the question out of his mind, and hence was a mess of overthinking and uncertainty the opening series. But after Cora rested him he's returned to his 2019 form and then some.
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Post by chrisfromnc on Apr 11, 2021 18:33:45 GMT -5
According to Fangraphs...
Odds of making the playoffs before opening day were 38%, went down to 27% after the opening series, and now are at 40%. I feel more enthusiastic about the team than 40%, but I’m a fanboy homer.
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Apr 11, 2021 18:39:38 GMT -5
good sign, because even though he had a good season last year, his hard hit rate was actually pretty low. probably feeling healthier this year than he did last year with the early injury struggles he had. The thing is, some guys do have the ability to consciously reduce EV in order to "hit 'em where they ain't." You can immediately distinguish these "intentional bloop hits" from the accidents. Verdugo did that beautifully in the 5th today: 74.9 EV, .960 xBA! I actually think that this should be scored as both a good pitch and a good hit. I don't think that some pitchers are more prone than others to give up more of these "that's a good piece of hitting" hits than others.
I do think that there is also a related skill to control batted ball direction, and Statcast does not get those correct. Which is why I've been agnostic about the meaning of Verdugo having a big wOBA - xwOBA last year, and how much he's due for regression. I bet there's a positive correlation between that stat and how much of the whole field you use.
. So I was always very agnostic about the fears that he was lucky in balls in play.
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Post by ericmvan on Apr 11, 2021 18:46:56 GMT -5
Man. Umps with a terrible strike call on Santander and then even with the review they miss the call on the play at home. I'd be losing it if I were an Orioles fan. (I mean, this is one *more* reason I'd be losing it if I were an Orioles fan.) It is funny you say that. I have watched these 6 games and thought... what is like to be an Orioles fan? Deep question like Nagel on the bat. I mean: they suck. They are dull. They don’t seem to have that much to look forward to. Do you just watch old clips of Eddie Murray or Jim Palmer? I suspect that I'm the only one who got that (since it had no upvotes), and it made me laugh out loud. The bat in question is not Boog Powell's. If anyone is curious, do the obvious Google search.
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Post by ericmvan on Apr 11, 2021 18:54:23 GMT -5
Pivetta was better than his line will indicate but he’s definitely not the type that is made for seeing an order 3 times. Still, a backend starter giving you 6 innings in a blowout is all you need It should be possible to construct an algorithm (or use machine learning) to figure out when pitchers get pulled on average, and why. If that existed, Pivetta's sixth inning of work would be removed from his predictive statistics. He indeed has a big TTO-3 penalty.
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cdj
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Post by cdj on Apr 11, 2021 18:55:07 GMT -5
Big win, but admittedly slightly disappointed in Pivetta's start. Didn't get to see the game to tell the whole story, but 4 ER in 6.0 IP 7 hits and 3 walks? He's got to be better against the Orioles. Pretty much all the damage happened in the 6th when the game was out of reach. He’s not in if the game was closer. He was fine imo
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Apr 11, 2021 19:14:24 GMT -5
Big win, but admittedly slightly disappointed in Pivetta's start. Didn't get to see the game to tell the whole story, but 4 ER in 6.0 IP 7 hits and 3 walks? He's got to be better against the Orioles. Ir was actually 5 4 1 1 2 4 plus "give us one more inning with a 10-1 lead." Expected hits were 5.6, but he also got an easy GDP, which Statcast ignores.
For a guy who will end up competing with Houck, Richards, Perez, and quite possibly Seabold for the 4th and 5th spots on the the rotation depth chart, it was perfectly solid. Right now it's four guys for three spots.
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jimoh
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Post by jimoh on Apr 11, 2021 19:30:06 GMT -5
Great play by Devers but does not erase the longer term questions about his defensive issues. There are none.
He's now probably made 20 or 30 great plays. He's made one three days in a row. He's had great range and a strong arm from day one.
His only "defensive issues" are shaky footwork, which is something you learn, and self-consciousness of his errors, which leads to more errors ... which is a problem that Alex Cora can help him fix literally in a day.
I first believed he'd become a plus defender when I saw him make a "wow!" play for Salem against the Wilmington Blue Rocks (only game below AAA I've ever seen!) and I've never wavered from that opinion.
And he was already one of the best defensive 3B in MLB at age 22. The next year he had no Cora to talk him down from being too hard on himself and hence getting into a mental negative feedback loop. It was pretty obvious to me that he came out this year overly aware of the need to get off to a good start instead of trusting that he would and putting the question out of his mind, and hence was a mess of overthinking and uncertainty the opening series. But after Cora rested him he's returned to his 2019 form and then some.
So glad to hear that Cora has permanently solved these issues. If only the Sox could have had you fill in for Cora last year.
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Post by soxinsf on Apr 11, 2021 19:33:23 GMT -5
Great play by Devers but does not erase the longer term questions about his defensive issues. There are none.
He's now probably made 20 or 30 great plays. He's made one three days in a row. He's had great range and a strong arm from day one.
His only "defensive issues" are shaky footwork, which is something you learn, and self-consciousness of his errors, which leads to more errors ... which is a problem that Alex Cora can help him fix literally in a day.
I first believed he'd become a plus defender when I saw him make a "wow!" play for Salem against the Wilmington Blue Rocks (only game below AAA I've ever seen!) and I've never wavered from that opinion.
And he was already one of the best defensive 3B in MLB at age 22. The next year he had no Cora to talk him down from being too hard on himself and hence getting into a mental negative feedback loop. It was pretty obvious to me that he came out this year overly aware of the need to get off to a good start instead of trusting that he would and putting the question out of his mind, and hence was a mess of overthinking and uncertainty the opening series. But after Cora rested him he's returned to his 2019 form and then some.
Let us break this down a little. First of all, you say Devers has zero fielding issues after a total of nine games. Second, your declarative statement is absolute and allows for Devers no room to be ordinary as opposed to a plus defender. Third, you claim that he had already made 30 great plays, which is belied by the FACT that he has had 29 total chances so far. No issues? You must be joking.
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Post by patford on Apr 11, 2021 19:36:46 GMT -5
Great play by Devers but does not erase the longer term questions about his defensive issues. There are none.
He's now probably made 20 or 30 great plays. He's made one three days in a row. He's had great range and a strong arm from day one.
His only "defensive issues" are shaky footwork, which is something you learn, and self-consciousness of his errors, which leads to more errors ... which is a problem that Alex Cora can help him fix literally in a day.
I first believed he'd become a plus defender when I saw him make a "wow!" play for Salem against the Wilmington Blue Rocks (only game below AAA I've ever seen!) and I've never wavered from that opinion.
And he was already one of the best defensive 3B in MLB at age 22. The next year he had no Cora to talk him down from being too hard on himself and hence getting into a mental negative feedback loop. It was pretty obvious to me that he came out this year overly aware of the need to get off to a good start instead of trusting that he would and putting the question out of his mind, and hence was a mess of overthinking and uncertainty the opening series. But after Cora rested him he's returned to his 2019 form and then some.
I'm wondering if having Dalbec at 1B has also helped. Dalbec's size and glove over at 1B must give all the infielders a big comfort zone knowing that the target is a huge black hole over there that sucks up anything in it's orbit.
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jimoh
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Post by jimoh on Apr 11, 2021 20:11:53 GMT -5
Let us break this down a little. First of all, you say Devers has zero fielding issues after a total of nine games. Second, your declarative statement is absolute and allows for Devers no room to be ordinary as opposed to a plus defender. Third, you claim that he had already made 30 great plays, which is belied by the FACT that he has had 29 total chances so far. No issues? You must be joking. Devers also had 22 errors in 2019, so if it can be fixed in a day I guess Cora just didn't bother to bring it up? Wait! Eric’s claims are ridiculously overstated, so it’s regrettable that you have referred to Devers’ number of errors in 2019. The number of errors is not the best marker of good and bad defense. Devers played a good 3b in 2019, then regressed in 2020 and looked bad at the very start of this season—and even a day or two ago when he forgot how many outs there were on an attempted steal. There is reason to be cautiously optimistic that Cora can help Devers be consistently good. But certainty seems unwarranted.
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Post by chrisfromnc on Apr 11, 2021 20:57:25 GMT -5
I’m not without concerns regarding Devers’ defense, but my eyes tell me he regularly displays the ability to make difficult plays. If he can do difficult/complex tasks well, it seems pretty logical that his occasional struggles with the more routine tasks are not a flaw he can’t fix with a lot of work and good coaching.
He’s had issues making errors. He’s at least as athletic as Wade Boggs who turned himself into an entirely competent third baseman. He got a couple Gold Gloves later in his career.
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