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5/3-5/5 Red Sox vs. Angels Series Thread
TearsIn04
Veteran
Everybody knows Nelson de la Rosa, but who is Karim Garcia?
Posts: 2,835
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Post by TearsIn04 on May 5, 2022 19:55:30 GMT -5
Bonds* would* be* the* most* dominant* hitter*. But if you're looking for someone who did it clean in that time period, I'd go Big Hurt. By adjusted ERA, prime Pedro is the GOAT. But RJ, of course, had a longer period of greatness. Neither one would win five games with the Hitless Wonders that the 2022 RS have become. Many many guys since the late 60's have used PED's. Guys on the team with Aaron in the early 70's have admitted they used steroids. There is zero difinitive proff that AAron never used steroids. The guys from the 70's definitely used them... many. Any player after mid to late 60's is suspect. Frank Thomas was 6'5" and 275#. I doubt he was clean. Definitely used them? By definition, that means we have proof. That proof is what? The anecdotal evidence says no. Those guys weren't pumped up like the Michelin man. No trainer has testified under oath that he had to keep giving Aaron bigger hats. No girlfriends have testified that his junk shrank. The feds don't have doping calendars and receipts with his name on them. There's no 1970s version of Canseco blowing the whistle on that era. SI hasn't done an investigative piece on steroids in that era. The Mitchell report said the steroid era in BB began in about 1988. How are you arriving at "definitely" for the 1970s and the All-Time HR Champ?
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Post by manfred on May 5, 2022 20:02:03 GMT -5
Many many guys since the late 60's have used PED's. Guys on the team with Aaron in the early 70's have admitted they used steroids. There is zero difinitive proff that AAron never used steroids. The guys from the 70's definitely used them... many. Any player after mid to late 60's is suspect. Frank Thomas was 6'5" and 275#. I doubt he was clean. Definitely used them? By definition, that means we have proof. That proof is what? The anecdotal evidence says no. Those guys weren't pumped up like the Michelin man. No trainer has testified under oath that he had to keep giving Aaron bigger hats. No girlfriends have testified that his junk shrank. The feds don't have doping calendars and receipts with his name on them. There's no 1970s version of Canseco blowing the whistle on that era. SI hasn't done an investigative piece on steroids in that era. The Mitchell report said the steroid era in BB began in about 1988. How are you arriving at "definitely" for the 1970s and the All-Time HR Champ? Unless they were in the cigarettes dudes were smoking in the dugout…
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Post by notstarboard on May 5, 2022 20:56:08 GMT -5
Mayer is probably 3 years away, at best. If he makes it at all. As Hot as Yorke’s been he’s prob got 2 years in the minors left, too, after this year. If he makes it. We love projection, but these guys are still in the low minors. When I mentioned Story az a future 3b, I meant the last 2 or 3 years of his contract. By 2025 or 2026 I would think that Yorke and Mayer are the 2b/as combo. If they're not the Sox are gonna be in trouble. This is a first round pick with an advanced hit tool and a SS who was considered the top pick of the entire draft. If they don't pan out, I'd hate to see the Sox future. My main point was if they do pan out then Story winds up ultimately at 3b, as we can both guess that X and Devers are both long gone by then and the Sox are on the hook for 23 million for Story...and how many good fielding SS so you see these days? I'm guessing Bloom saw Story as their 2b this year, SS the next 2 or 3 seasons and a 3b the remainder of his contract. And if he's considered slightly above average offensively what is he a few years from now? Hell, even now? Don't think w3ll love the Story signing. I think the reasons I laid out, plus the savings from X to Story, us what prompted Bloom to make his big money move. In theory Story's above average offensively (career 111 wRC+) and also outstanding defensively. Even with a diminished arm he should be much better at SS than Xander is now, and he should have no trouble sticking there and playing solid defense until Mayer is ready (assuming he pans out). If his bat is even league average in Boston he'll be a good value at SS. Last year he had exactly a 100 wRC+ and he was still worth 4.2 bWAR. If he does that for 4-7 years, that's a big win at $23 million a year. Of course, he's down at a 84 wRC+ right now, but it's only been a month and he had about as rocky of a landing on Boston as you possibly could have. He definitely has been showing more signs of life as the season has gone on, his Shohei-induced sombrero earlier nonwithstanding.
I think it's still way too early to know what sort of value his deal is going to end up being. If he plays at his career averages for a few years and then starts a normal decline with age, though, it'll be a bargain. That's why I liked the deal when it was made. I have no clue how concerned I should be about his arm, but the fact that Bloom guaranteed him 6/140 gives me plenty of reason to expect he's fine. If the arm were a concern I would have expected a shorter deal.
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Post by incandenza on May 5, 2022 21:10:45 GMT -5
I feel like if the Red Sox had signed Pham for a dumb little one year, $8 million contract, this could all be chalked up to bad luck and underperformance, and none of it really Bloom's fault. But they didn't sign Pham (or any Pham equivalents), and it's kind of baffling, and I really wish I understood what the thinking was there. Got me. I didn't understand a lot of what Bloom did or didn't do. Trade Renfroe for prospects? Fine, but replace Renfroe. JBJ is not an adequate replacement but if you don't replace JBJ then get him a platoon mate and they didn't even do that. Didn't get a closer for the pen. It was obvious the pen needed to be reshaped. If Bloom didn't want to sign Jansen or trade for Kimbrel, then it was his job to identify a guy with the traits to grab high leverage closing innings. Instead it was run back with the same crew that blew a bunch of leads against TB and Houston in the playoffs but got away with it (until Game 4 ALCS anyways). I don't have an issue with him sticking with Dalbec and Vazquez. It's slim pickings for catchers. And with Casas on the horizon, other than a 1 year solution, I don't think there's that much he could have done. But his choice of Shaw as the backup LH 1b bat was dubious. I honestly think Bloom signed Story because he figured that signing him was cheaper than bringing back X or extending Devers. Perhaps it is, but now they're downgrading offensively and at age 30, with his shoulder injuries, it's fair to question how good Story would be returning to SS, as most SS are rangier under the age of 30. I guess Bloom figured he'd also take the benefit of replacing Renfroe in the lineup and having X and Story co-existing on the same team for a year with the probability that Story winds up at 3b with X and Devers likely gone and Yorke and Mayer up the middle. I'm not crazy about the Sox paying 33 year old Story 23 million to play 3b with his bat around average, but I guess he figured that was better than the alternative: pony up to pay X or pay top dollar for Devers. Still, not necessarily a win on the field, even if that money gets saved. So what I'm saying is, I don't get why he didn't get a cheap platoon guy to play RF. That's really the only thing that doesn't make sense to me. I have absolutely no problem with his not spending $15-20 million on a reliever like Jensen. As I asked in another thread: if you wanted him to get a Jensen type, then what would you have sacrificied for that? Not signed Story? Not signed Wacha + Paxton?
By the same token, since I only have the one small complaint (and JBJ may yet vindicate Bloom - he seems to be heating up with the bat), I can't really lay the team's performance so far at Bloom's feet. It's mostly just a bunch of guys not doing as well as they could or should be, plus a bit of bad luck on the batted ball front. We'll see where things are at in a couple months I guess.
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Post by redsox04071318champs on May 5, 2022 21:12:42 GMT -5
When I mentioned Story az a future 3b, I meant the last 2 or 3 years of his contract. By 2025 or 2026 I would think that Yorke and Mayer are the 2b/as combo. If they're not the Sox are gonna be in trouble. This is a first round pick with an advanced hit tool and a SS who was considered the top pick of the entire draft. If they don't pan out, I'd hate to see the Sox future. My main point was if they do pan out then Story winds up ultimately at 3b, as we can both guess that X and Devers are both long gone by then and the Sox are on the hook for 23 million for Story...and how many good fielding SS so you see these days? I'm guessing Bloom saw Story as their 2b this year, SS the next 2 or 3 seasons and a 3b the remainder of his contract. And if he's considered slightly above average offensively what is he a few years from now? Hell, even now? Don't think w3ll love the Story signing. I think the reasons I laid out, plus the savings from X to Story, us what prompted Bloom to make his big money move. In theory Story's above average offensively (career 111 wRC+) and also outstanding defensively. Even with a diminished arm he should be much better at SS than Xander is now, and he should have no trouble sticking there and playing solid defense until Mayer is ready (assuming he pans out). If his bat is even league average in Boston he'll be a good value at SS. Last year he had exactly a 100 wRC+ and he was still worth 4.2 bWAR. If he does that for 4-7 years, that's a big win at $23 million a year. Of course, he's down at a 84 wRC+ right now, but it's only been a month and he had about as rocky of a landing on Boston as you possibly could have. He definitely has been showing more signs of life as the season has gone on, his Shohei-induced sombrero earlier nonwithstanding.
I think it's still way too early to know what sort of value his deal is going to end up being. If he plays at his career averages for a few years and then starts a normal decline with age, though, it'll be a bargain. That's why I liked the deal when it was made. I have no clue how concerned I should be about his arm, but the fact that Bloom guaranteed him 6/140 gives me plenty of reason to expect he's fine. If the arm were a concern I would have expected a shorter deal.
We'll see regarding his arm and the impact of his injury long-term and we'll see if next season his range is as good as it was prior to this season. I think players' ranges tend to lessen as they hit 30, so we'll see. Yes, his range should be better than X, so yeah I agree with that.
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Post by incandenza on May 5, 2022 21:19:32 GMT -5
I feel like if the Red Sox had signed Pham for a dumb little one year, $8 million contract, this could all be chalked up to bad luck and underperformance, and none of it really Bloom's fault. But they didn't sign Pham (or any Pham equivalents), and it's kind of baffling, and I really wish I understood what the thinking was there. On the one hand I agree about the RF hole, but on the other hand the current .5 WAR difference between JBJ and Pham is not the reason this team is 10-16. My take is that Bloom is to blame for not picking up another OF, but beyond that I'm seeing mostly underperformance, bad luck, and injuries. Sale and Taylor being on the roster would make the pitching feel a ton deeper right now. That'd probably mean Pivetta or Whitlock in the pen and two guys in the Sawamura/Barnes/Crawford group DFA'd / sent down. I don't blame Bloom for the handful of pen guys who started the year with no velo and and much worse performance than most of last year. The bullpen is a crapshoot pretty much no matter how much you pay, so I am fine with the strategy of keeping it cheap, looking for value, and investing elsewhere. Meanwhile his pitching acquisitions look great - Hill and Wacha have both been well worth the cash and the rotation is humming along. Strahm looks great too. Diekman has been fine, albeit scary to have in a late inning role. I have not been a fan of Cora's managing this year. Yes, SP can struggle the third time through the order, but it's backfired horribly this year for two reasons: 1) when pitch count isn't a factor the third-time-through-order factor is mitigated and 2) overworking your bullpen means you're more likely to get iffy performance the second the starter leaves. Also, someone, be it Cora, the hitting coach, or a veteran player, needs to get this team to be more selective at the plate. Cora was on some interview saying that he didn't want to mess with people's approaches, but I'm sorry, their approaches are making them fail. Your job is to get the most out of your players. If you can't coach them without worrying about killing their mojo at the plate (or what little they had left), what are you getting paid for? Yeah, I agree totally with your first two paragraphs here. I'm ambivalent on the last paragraph - I think Cora's pretty constrained by pitch count limits for Whitlock and by Pivetta sucking. He has let Eovaldi go deep (and remember, it was only a couple year ago that Eovaldi was a no-3x-through-the-order pitcher; now he's one of the few guys in the league being allowed to have 100 pitch outings).
On the hitters' approaches... boy I don't know. On the one hand, I feel like Cora gets it, whenever he talks about it. On the other hand, you do have to wonder why their guys keep swinging at balls so much if that is the case. But maybe this is just what these particular guys are; maybe Devers will always be a free swinger who hits 450 foot bombs as often as he strikes out, maybe Vazquez will always be a free swinger who.., sometimes slaps a single to RF. Maybe those are just the cards Cora's been dealt.
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Post by incandenza on May 5, 2022 21:26:01 GMT -5
In theory Story's above average offensively (career 111 wRC+) and also outstanding defensively. Even with a diminished arm he should be much better at SS than Xander is now, and he should have no trouble sticking there and playing solid defense until Mayer is ready (assuming he pans out). If his bat is even league average in Boston he'll be a good value at SS. Last year he had exactly a 100 wRC+ and he was still worth 4.2 bWAR. If he does that for 4-7 years, that's a big win at $23 million a year. Of course, he's down at a 84 wRC+ right now, but it's only been a month and he had about as rocky of a landing on Boston as you possibly could have. He definitely has been showing more signs of life as the season has gone on, his Shohei-induced sombrero earlier nonwithstanding.
I think it's still way too early to know what sort of value his deal is going to end up being. If he plays at his career averages for a few years and then starts a normal decline with age, though, it'll be a bargain. That's why I liked the deal when it was made. I have no clue how concerned I should be about his arm, but the fact that Bloom guaranteed him 6/140 gives me plenty of reason to expect he's fine. If the arm were a concern I would have expected a shorter deal.
We'll see regarding his arm and the impact of his injury long-term and we'll see if next season his range is as good as it was prior to this season. I think players' ranges tend to lessen as they hit 30, so we'll see. Yes, his range should be better than X, so yeah I agree with that. I kinda wonder, if the arm is not really up to SS, might they keep Story at 2B and go after Trea Turner or Correa, two of the few really big FAs next offseason, when they'll have a ton of money to spend?
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Post by beasleyrockah on May 5, 2022 21:26:44 GMT -5
I recall bridges being bandied ‘bout in 2020. If that bridge is reset by a 2nd place finish and we are now bridging again to a potential 2nd place finish next year, I stand corrected. That sounds much better. The first place team lost in the postseason to the second place Red Sox. The 2004 team finished in second too. Are we seriously caring more about the divisional finish than how deep they get in the postseason now? I'm pretty sure if they finished first and then lost to the Yankees or Rays you'd be making fun of their first place finish being wasted. Call me crazy, but I'd prefer to go to the ALCS as a second place team than win the division and get swept in the ALDS like the 2016 team. Ignoring postseason results and reducing a season solely to your regular season finish is a good way to make a terrible take. There are plenty of legitimate things to be negative about right now without reaching like this. The division was absolutely loaded and the Red Sox beat the best two teams in their division when it counted. Also, if you thought the 2020 Red Sox were in position to become a sustainable winner after one rebuilding season your expectations were off. Compare the farm system and financial flexibility when DD took over compared to Bloom, it's night and day. Last year was great, but it was unexpected and took a series of good moves along with a lot of luck and good health. So far this year we've seen the opposite end of that spectrum, not unlike 2012 to 2013, or 2013 to 2014.
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Post by manfred on May 5, 2022 21:30:42 GMT -5
I recall bridges being bandied ‘bout in 2020. If that bridge is reset by a 2nd place finish and we are now bridging again to a potential 2nd place finish next year, I stand corrected. That sounds much better. The first place team lost in the postseason to the second place Red Sox. The 2004 team finished in second too. Are we seriously caring more about the divisional finish than how deep they get in the postseason now? I'm pretty sure if they finished first and then lost to the Yankees or Rays you'd be making fun of their first place finish being wasted. Call me crazy, but I'd prefer to go to the ALCS as a second place team than win the division and get swept in the ALDS like the 2016 team. Ignoring postseason results and reducing a season solely to your regular season finish is a good way to make a terrible take. There are plenty of legitimate things to be negative about right now without reaching like this. The division was absolutely loaded and the Red Sox beat the best two teams in their division when it counted. Also, if you thought the 2020 Red Sox were in position to become a sustainable winner after one rebuilding season your expectations were off. Compare the farm system and financial flexibility when DD took over compared to Bloom, it's night and day. Last year was great, but it was unexpected and took a series of good moves along with a lot of luck and good health. So far this year we've seen the opposite end of that spectrum, not unlike 2012 to 2013, or 2013 to 2014. Wait… so what you are saying is 2020 wasn’t a bridge *year* and this is still part of the bridge? So… we agree? That it is the bridge era, not a bridge year?
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Post by benzinger on May 5, 2022 23:17:48 GMT -5
With their win tonight, the Baltimore Orioles now have the same record as the Red Sox. Just sayin’....
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Post by beasleyrockah on May 6, 2022 0:07:30 GMT -5
Wait… so what you are saying is 2020 wasn’t a bridge *year* and this is still part of the bridge? So… we agree? That it is the bridge era, not a bridge year? My beef is with reducing seasons to "second place finishes" given the wild card system. Once you make it, all that matters is your results. The 2016-2017 Red Sox won back to back divisional titles and a grand total of one playoff game. If they finish in second next year there's a good chance they're a top team given the strength of the division, it could be a title team. I'm not suggesting they'll be that team mind you, it's tough to have any feel for next year given the current pending FAs. Definitions vary for what a bridge team actually is. To me, it's when you expect a chunk of your core to turnover soon and a new, more sustainable core to emerge (usually cost controlled internal young talent). Bloom hasn't turned over the core that much to this point, with the big exception of Betts (plus Price, Benny, Porcello and now Erod). Eovaldi and Sale have been kept. X, JD, Devers, Vazquez, and JBJ (other than one year) are still here. They've had the bulk of this core together for a long time relative to modern baseball, you just don't see everyone kept. Was the 04 team a bridge team considering they were about to lose Nomar (then Cabrera), Pedro, and Lowe? The 2013 team had a couple 3/39 signings and short term small deals (despite moving a ton of payroll the previous deadline), it wasn't a go all out year, you could certainly call it a bridge year if these years qualify. The 07 team felt like the start of a dynasty run, and while the 08 team was excellent as well they didn't win a playoff game from 09-12, things can change fast. Bloom has generally been more invested in maximizing long term chances and retaining future value than selling future value (or paying long term money) for short term upgrades which I think is the part that feels like a "bridge". I can't argue much with that general strategy given the farm system and contracts he inherited. When DD took over he had elite cost controlled talent that allowed him to sign an ace and elite DH, and flip prospects for a better ace and elite closer while still making the money work in the short term. Maybe Bloom could've leaned in to a more aggressive rebuild entering 2020, but at that time there weren't many players to sell.
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Post by Guidas on May 6, 2022 1:26:32 GMT -5
Many many guys since the late 60's have used PED's. Guys on the team with Aaron in the early 70's have admitted they used steroids. There is zero difinitive proff that AAron never used steroids. The guys from the 70's definitely used them... many. Any player after mid to late 60's is suspect. Frank Thomas was 6'5" and 275#. I doubt he was clean. Definitely used them? By definition, that means we have proof. That proof is what? The anecdotal evidence says no. Those guys weren't pumped up like the Michelin man. No trainer has testified under oath that he had to keep giving Aaron bigger hats. No girlfriends have testified that his junk shrank. The feds don't have doping calendars and receipts with his name on them. There's no 1970s version of Canseco blowing the whistle on that era. SI hasn't done an investigative piece on steroids in that era. The Mitchell report said the steroid era in BB began in about 1988. How are you arriving at "definitely" for the 1970s and the All-Time HR Champ? Yes, there was, but no one was listening. Also, steroids don’t necessarily balloon an athlete up to look like the Micheline man. Look at all the Olympic athletes in the 70s-1990s that were DQ’d for PEDs. Or look at the so-called dirtiest sport for PEDs - cycling. Most of those guys don’t weigh more than 135-150 yet many are 5-11 to 6-3 at the international level. Remember, Lance Armstrong was tested year round, often being woken up in the night during the off season, and never failed a test. Once he did admit, the Tour de France found they couldn’t defacto award the championship to the 2nd through 10th place finishers because they all had failed the tests, too (once Lance told them what to look for). Oh, and Bonds never failed a test, either. Or better yet, go watch the documentary Icarus and learn how the Russians in particular, but athletes from many other sports and countries, have been using since the 1960s. You’ll learn the trainers are so far ahead of the testers, even at high amateur levels, that, one trainer says, “The only people who get caught are sloppy or stupid.” Anyway, many steroids and PEDs will not make a person bigger unless added muscle mass is their goal. What they do achieve exceptionally well (and why guys can get bigger and stronger fast if that’s their goal) is they allow a person to recover much, much more quickly. This is perfect for pitchers, especially relief pitchers. And yes, one can get stronger without adding a lot of visible muscle mass. So a pitcher can go from throwing 88 MPH in the minors to throwing 96 in the majors in just a few weeks with no noticeable muscle gain, just minor improvements in muscle density. Again, he never failed a test, but that’s Mariano Rivera’s profile exactly. In fact there’s a quote by Gene Michael I remember reading about Mariano saying he was “a skinny guy who never threw faster than 88 in the minors but we got his technique straightened out when he came up and within a couple weeks he was hitting 96, 98.” “Technique.” Uh huh. As for Hank Aaron, I don’t know if he took steroids, but he did take amphetamines “by the handful” by his own admission, as did most of the players after 1945. Those were banned PEDs, along with steroids, after 2004 because they increase fast-twitch muscle and improve response time.
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