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Chasing a Gold Glover: Ceddanne Rafaela
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Post by nonothing on Jun 1, 2024 17:52:28 GMT -5
His approach in spring training was very improved over last year. In the regular season, it has been awful. He really should be sent down to work on his plate approach and told that he has to stop trying to pull pitches on the outer third of the plate and even off the plate outside. He wants to show he can hit bombs. Congrats - he can for sure. But to play in MLB, he needs to listen to Jim Rice and hit the pitch on the outer half the other way and be compact and to the ball with two strikes. These are things that should have gone away in AA. His defense in CF has the potential to be great. But if he keeps the approach he has, he will have a career like Miles Straw. He is capable of way more. I think they probably avoided sending him down due to terrible SS D by others earlier in year. But with Romy and Hamilton doing an ok job, I would send him down hen O'Neill is healthy. They can play O'Neill, Duran, Abreu w/ Ref at 4th spot and let the kid go back and hone his approach. It would help his development, as it did for Duran to go down and find a MLB compatible approach that works for him and the team. And I love the glove and really hope he is in CF for us for the next decade. But he needs a timeout for a bit to get back to what led to him making the team out of camp. He leads the team in RBI out of the 9 hole in the lineup, so he is at least contributing offensively, and he is the best defender on the team, and maybe in baseball. I’m keeping him up if it’s my call. He is neither the best defender on the team (Duran has been this year), nor certainly all of Baseball. He could be if he didn't make mental errors. But he does. Either way - his development would benefit from time focusing on his plate approach in a less demanding environment. The things he is doing don't require facing MLB pitchers to iron out. That doesn't mean I don't think he has a great future. I think more development would benefit his future. Just my opinion based on watching so many absolutely terrible at bats.
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Post by Foulke_In_Athol on Jun 1, 2024 18:17:28 GMT -5
You could be right, but at this point I think he's just going to need to learn on the job and in the cage @ the MLB level.
The reason being: You want to send him to AAA to hone his craft and make him a more complete player, but I think Ceddanne would see it as a serious slight and a demotion. That could easily hurt his confidence. He's doing everything they've asked of him and he's starting to improve at the plate slowly but surely. He's making adjustments I think he's earned the leash, time to let him fly.
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Post by scottysmalls on Jun 1, 2024 18:44:43 GMT -5
He leads the team in RBI out of the 9 hole in the lineup, so he is at least contributing offensively, and he is the best defender on the team, and maybe in baseball. I’m keeping him up if it’s my call. He is neither the best defender on the team (Duran has been this year), nor certainly all of Baseball. He could be if he didn't make mental errors. But he does. Either way - his development would benefit from time focusing on his plate approach in a less demanding environment. The things he is doing don't require facing MLB pitchers to iron out. That doesn't mean I don't think he has a great future. I think more development would benefit his future. Just my opinion based on watching so many absolutely terrible at bats. Just for what it's worth, on a rate basis, after today, Rafaela will almost certainly grade better in the outfield than Duran this year, even with the mental errors.
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Post by nonothing on Jun 1, 2024 19:48:22 GMT -5
You could be right, but at this point I think he's just going to need to learn on the job and in the cage @ the MLB level. The reason being: You want to send him to AAA to hone his craft and make him a more complete player, but I think Ceddanne would see it as a serious slight and a demotion. That could easily hurt his confidence. He's doing everything they've asked of him and he's starting to improve at the plate slowly but surely. He's making adjustments I think he's earned the leash, time to let him fly. He is neither the best defender on the team (Duran has been this year), nor certainly all of Baseball. He could be if he didn't make mental errors. But he does. Either way - his development would benefit from time focusing on his plate approach in a less demanding environment. The things he is doing don't require facing MLB pitchers to iron out. That doesn't mean I don't think he has a great future. I think more development would benefit his future. Just my opinion based on watching so many absolutely terrible at bats. Just for what it's worth, on a rate basis, after today, Rafaela will almost certainly grade better in the outfield than Duran this year, even with the mental errors. Maybe - but not having seen the last couple of games, has he hit any balls to right field? Has he avoided constantly being in 0-2 and 1-2 counts? I am not being sarcastic. I don't know. But the last few games I watched, I couldn't believe how incredibly poor his ABs still were. They are routinely embarrassing. He is only hitting over .200 due to immense talent, with a mental approach that is costing him .100 BA points easily. I would be thrilled to see him put it together in the big leagues, if he can. But I would be equally happy if he went to AAA for 4-8 weeks, worked things out and committed to keeping up good habits for his career. The big club wants to try to win, so I get keeping him up for the D. Whether he is better or worse than Duran, he is better than Refsnyder. So he belongs at the big league level for D. But... so did Myles Straw. I really like this kid. I am just for tough love and teaching reality as keys to long term success. If his confidence took a hit, it would benefit his hitting. Or -- they can just get Jim Rice to visit him repeatedly to tell him how to hit. That could work too.
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Post by bosoxnation on Jun 2, 2024 5:22:59 GMT -5
I think it's important for a young player to play his best position defensively for him to succeed offensively. I like Rafaela a lot but he looks horrible at the plate too much. I just hope they are working with him on that because if he can figure out how to lay off those pitches that make him look silly hes a starter. Duran is my favorite player to watch, do I like him taking Duran out of CF, no because I think Duran is playing so great he deserves to be there EVERYDAY. Either way Hamilton Duran and Rafaela got speed and make the game exciting.
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Post by incandenza on Jun 2, 2024 10:30:01 GMT -5
He's now officially in positive WAR territory. The defensive stats weren't enthralled with him for a while even at CF, given the tendency for lapses, but he hasn't had many of those lately and the spectacular plays are starting to pile up. Now he's at +4 OAA in CF in 257 innings which is unquestionably elite.
He and Duran have combined for +10 DRS and +9 OAA in CF. Pretty nuts.
(Rafaela is kind of eating Duran's WAR, by the way. Rafaela is up 0.6 WAR in the last few weeks while Duran is like -0.3 or something. That's partly because Duran has been slumping, but also his defense is less valuable in LF and the positional adjustment is way harsher. Part of this is all just a meaningless function of how WAR is calculated, but part of it is also that they are genuinely redundant with each other to some extent. Theoretically Duran - or Rafaela - would be more valuable to another team that didn't already have an elite defender in CF than he is to the Red Sox.
I wouldn't relish trading either of them, but from a roster optimization perspective it does kind of make sense.)
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gerry
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Post by gerry on Jun 2, 2024 11:24:23 GMT -5
Given the recent history of this team, what doesn’t make sense is having to decide among Duran, Rafaella, Abreu, O’Neill, Refsnyder, Anthony, Bleis. The Sox OF will be top five for years to come. Resolving this wonderful problem will be mind blowing at best.
All I see for Duran, C-Dan and Abreu is continuing improvement, overwhelming fan support and ROY votes. Anthony is SP’s top prospect. Ref must rank among the best 4th OF in the game. A remarkable conundrum. None would be getting these AB’s without the team’s injury jinx; especially if the amazing O’Neill had avoided a full speed collision with Raffy’s head. I also see “what to do, what to do” handwringing on the horizon.
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Post by soxinsf on Jun 2, 2024 12:01:49 GMT -5
I am in the Cedanne camp as our CF. Duran is, thankfully, much improved as a defender, which is proof in itself against premature judgement, but CR is so smooth that he simply has to be the choice. Also, he has a better arm. The current Sox OF is great. And TON is likely not part of the plan going forward unless one or more of Duran, Abreu, CR and Anthony either fails or is traded.
As Gerry said, what a wonderful problem to have.
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Post by orion09 on Jun 2, 2024 15:37:45 GMT -5
I kind of like the alignment Abreu LF/Duran CF/Rafaela RF at home.
Duran is almost as good as Rafaela defensively. Rafaela has the best arm, and RF at Fenway is essentially a second CF.
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Post by gregblossersbelly on Jun 2, 2024 15:49:20 GMT -5
I am in the Cedanne camp as our CF. Duran is, thankfully, much improved as a defender, which is proof in itself against premature judgement, but CR is so smooth that he simply has to be the choice. Also, he has a better arm. The current Sox OF is great. And TON is likely not part of the plan going forward unless one or more of Duran, Abreu, CR and Anthony either fails or is traded. As Gerry said, what a wonderful problem to have. Maybe next year. I think I’d rather see Ceddanne at SS with Hamilton at 2b the rest of this year. When Grissom is healthy and rakes in AAA we’ll talk. Until then that’s the best minf combo we have.
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cdj
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Post by cdj on Jun 2, 2024 15:56:22 GMT -5
I kind of like the alignment Abreu LF/Duran CF/Rafaela RF at home. Duran is almost as good as Rafaela defensively. Rafaela has the best arm, and RF at Fenway is essentially a second CF. Duran doesn’t have as strong of an arm as Rafaela/Abreu, I prefer things as is
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Post by Foulke_In_Athol on Jun 3, 2024 23:51:20 GMT -5
Yeah I'm not moving Wilyer and his Canon out of RF. I think he can be one if the best RF's we've had since Drew.
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cdj
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Post by cdj on Jun 4, 2024 0:03:42 GMT -5
Yeah I'm not moving Wilyer and his Canon out of RF. I think he can be one if the best RF's we've had since Drew. Flyin Hawaiian was phenomenal out there too
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Post by redsox04071318champs on Jun 4, 2024 5:54:37 GMT -5
Yeah I'm not moving Wilyer and his Canon out of RF. I think he can be one if the best RF's we've had since Drew. Some guy named Mookie was not too bad of a RF either. Me, personally, would say there was Dwight Evans and this Mookie dude defensively in RF and then everybody else including good ones like Drew and Victorino.
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Post by Soxfansince1971 on Jun 4, 2024 8:30:25 GMT -5
Yeah I'm not moving Wilyer and his Canon out of RF. I think he can be one if the best RF's we've had since Drew. Some guy named Mookie was not too bad of a RF either. Me, personally, would say there was Dwight Evans and this Mookie dude defensively in RF and then everybody else including good ones like Drew and Victorino. Agreed, Dwight Evans and his 8 gold gloves was easily one of the two best Red Sox right fielders along with Mookie Betts and his 4 gold gloves and defensive player of the year for the entire MLB.
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Post by incandenza on Jun 19, 2024 8:58:21 GMT -5
Sincere question: how real is Rafaela's turn-around?
So far it's only been a week. Through 6/11 he was hitting .210/.237/.358. In the last week: .615/.643/.846. That's with a .789 BABIP which... I'm going to say is unsustainable. Still, the results have been good.
Merloni mentioned during the broadcast that he had shortened up his swing, which was certainly something that Youkilis, Middlebrooks, and Merloni had all been saying he needed to do for a while. Then they asked Rafaela in the post-game interview if he had made any adjustments and he said no, instead attributing his success to people around him inflating his ego. But maybe he was just being cagey.
Has his quality of contact actually improved in the last week? Is he in fact being more selective? Chasing less? Handling velocity better? What's his overall xBABIP? These are things I would look up if I knew how.
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Post by puzzler on Jun 19, 2024 9:30:01 GMT -5
Sincere question: how real is Rafaela's turn-around?
So far it's only been a week. Through 6/11 he was hitting .210/.237/.358. In the last week: .615/.643/.846. That's with a .789 BABIP which... I'm going to say is unsustainable. Still, the results have been good.
Merloni mentioned during the broadcast that he had shortened up his swing, which was certainly something that Youkilis, Middlebrooks, and Merloni had all been saying he needed to do for a while. Then they asked Rafaela in the post-game interview if he had made any adjustments and he said no, instead attributing his success to people around him inflating his ego. But maybe he was just being cagey.
Has his quality of contact actually improved in the last week? Is he in fact being more selective? Chasing less? Handling velocity better? What's his overall xBABIP? These are things I would look up if I knew how.
For some reason teams have not been feeding him endless hard stuff at the top of the zone. He's been getting a steady diet of softer stuff at the bottom of the zone, which he murders. To his credit it, he's been pulling that the stuff that he should pull while also putting a ton of balls away into right field (several ground ball hits). He also has not been swinging at the first pitch and has definitely shortened his swing with two strikes. Once teams start going back up stairs with heat his numbers will head back down. He's got to make a bigger adjustment on fastballs to complete his training.
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Post by fenwaydouble on Jun 19, 2024 9:31:52 GMT -5
Sincere question: how real is Rafaela's turn-around?
So far it's only been a week. Through 6/11 he was hitting .210/.237/.358. In the last week: .615/.643/.846. That's with a .789 BABIP which... I'm going to say is unsustainable. Still, the results have been good.
Merloni mentioned during the broadcast that he had shortened up his swing, which was certainly something that Youkilis, Middlebrooks, and Merloni had all been saying he needed to do for a while. Then they asked Rafaela in the post-game interview if he had made any adjustments and he said no, instead attributing his success to people around him inflating his ego. But maybe he was just being cagey.
Has his quality of contact actually improved in the last week? Is he in fact being more selective? Chasing less? Handling velocity better? What's his overall xBABIP? These are things I would look up if I knew how.
I can't figure out any way to get plate discipline or quality of contact splits based on narrow timeframes, but just eyeballing the rolling xwOBA chart on his savant page tells you that his quality of contact must have jumped up hugely lately.
Is that sustainable? Probably not in any real way. He's still walking too little and striking out too much because he both swings too much and makes too little contact on those swings. I think with this approach he might be able to hang around the 80-85 wRC+ mark he's at for the year currently, but he's going to keep living and dying by the BABIP.
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nomar
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Post by nomar on Jun 19, 2024 9:31:59 GMT -5
Sincere question: how real is Rafaela's turn-around? So far it's only been a week. Through 6/11 he was hitting .210/.237/.358. In the last week: .615/.643/.846. That's with a .789 BABIP which... I'm going to say is unsustainable. Still, the results have been good.
Merloni mentioned during the broadcast that he had shortened up his swing, which was certainly something that Youkilis, Middlebrooks, and Merloni had all been saying he needed to do for a while. Then they asked Rafaela in the post-game interview if he had made any adjustments and he said no, instead attributing his success to people around him inflating his ego. But maybe he was just being cagey. Has his quality of contact actually improved in the last week? Is he in fact being more selective? Chasing less? Handling velocity better? What's his overall xBABIP? These are things I would look up if I knew how.
For some reason teams have not been feeding him endless hard stuff at the top of the zone. He's been getting a steady diet of softer stuff at the bottom of the zone, which he murders. To his credit it, he's been pulling that the stuff that he should pull while also putting a ton of balls away into right field (several ground ball hits). He also has not been swinging at the first pitch and has definitely shortened his swing with two strikes. Once teams start going back up stairs with heat his numbers will head back down. He's got to make a bigger adjustment on fastballs to complete his training. Well if you miss low there’s still a 50% chance he’s swinging so I get teams going with low breaking balls against him.
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Post by chr31ter on Jun 19, 2024 9:35:26 GMT -5
Jen McCaffery has a story in The Athletic today about how the Red Sox changed their hitters meetings from a group meeting to more individualized meetings on May 20th prior to the series where they swept Tampa Bay on the road.
Since May 20th, Rafaela is slashing .326/.354/.484/.838.
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Post by incandenza on Jun 19, 2024 9:54:48 GMT -5
Jen McCaffery has a story in The Athletic today about how the Red Sox changed their hitters meetings from a group meeting to more individualized meetings on May 20th prior to the series where they swept Tampa Bay on the road. Since May 20th, Rafaela is slashing .326/.354/.484/.838. But that includes .247/.267/.384/.651 with a 33% K rate and 2.7% walk rate from 5/20-6/11. His last week is doing all the work in that "since 5/20" stat line.
I made a comment somewhere just about a week ago about how his PAs looked as bad as ever to me. Since then he's gone ballistic. But it's still such a short hot streak that I remain wary. More than anything I would like to know if he really has shortened up his swing and adjusted his approach. I don't have enough of an eye to judge the swing very well, but both Merloni and puzzler make some promising observations.
And I really hope Rafaela was lying in that post-game interview. It's a little concerning if he didn't think he needed to make adjustments.
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Post by scottysmalls on Jun 19, 2024 10:09:25 GMT -5
Sincere question: how real is Rafaela's turn-around?
So far it's only been a week. Through 6/11 he was hitting .210/.237/.358. In the last week: .615/.643/.846. That's with a .789 BABIP which... I'm going to say is unsustainable. Still, the results have been good.
Merloni mentioned during the broadcast that he had shortened up his swing, which was certainly something that Youkilis, Middlebrooks, and Merloni had all been saying he needed to do for a while. Then they asked Rafaela in the post-game interview if he had made any adjustments and he said no, instead attributing his success to people around him inflating his ego. But maybe he was just being cagey.
Has his quality of contact actually improved in the last week? Is he in fact being more selective? Chasing less? Handling velocity better? What's his overall xBABIP? These are things I would look up if I knew how.
His rolling xwOBA has been much better since 6/16 (so last three games). Until then it was basically flat (at around .220) from 5/25 through 6/15. So he got lucky and then he started hitting better. He previously had an above average xwOBA stretch from 4/25 to 5/12, so we'll see how long the hot streak lasts this time.
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nomar
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Post by nomar on Jun 19, 2024 10:12:44 GMT -5
Sincere question: how real is Rafaela's turn-around? So far it's only been a week. Through 6/11 he was hitting .210/.237/.358. In the last week: .615/.643/.846. That's with a .789 BABIP which... I'm going to say is unsustainable. Still, the results have been good.
Merloni mentioned during the broadcast that he had shortened up his swing, which was certainly something that Youkilis, Middlebrooks, and Merloni had all been saying he needed to do for a while. Then they asked Rafaela in the post-game interview if he had made any adjustments and he said no, instead attributing his success to people around him inflating his ego. But maybe he was just being cagey. Has his quality of contact actually improved in the last week? Is he in fact being more selective? Chasing less? Handling velocity better? What's his overall xBABIP? These are things I would look up if I knew how.
His rolling xwOBA has been much better since 6/16 (so last three games). Until then it was basically flat (at around .220) from 5/25 through 6/15. So he got lucky and then he started hitting better. He previously had an above average xwOBA stretch from 4/25 to 5/12, so we'll see how long the hot streak lasts this time. I wish they let you break out xwOBAcon because I think his lack of BBs hurts his xwOBA. Not to say the chasing/BB% isn’t important, but I’d be curious to strictly look at his quality of contact.
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Post by scottysmalls on Jun 19, 2024 10:23:11 GMT -5
His rolling xwOBA has been much better since 6/16 (so last three games). Until then it was basically flat (at around .220) from 5/25 through 6/15. So he got lucky and then he started hitting better. He previously had an above average xwOBA stretch from 4/25 to 5/12, so we'll see how long the hot streak lasts this time. I wish they let you break out xwOBAcon because I think his lack of BBs hurts his xwOBA. Not to say the chasing/BB% isn’t important, but I’d be curious to strictly look at his quality of contact. His xBA and xSLG follow the same pattern which at least solves for the BBs part of it. His Avg. EV started moving up around 6/5 it looks like, hard hit % around 5/25, LA-Sweet Spot % around 6/5. His K-Rate also started moving up around 5/25, but then started coming down around 6/10, so I wonder if he started swinging harder then and connecting more more recently.
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Post by gregblossersbelly on Jun 19, 2024 12:05:37 GMT -5
I think it’s time to just call him Ceddanne. No need for a last name. Just Ceddanne.
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