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Post by ephus on Oct 1, 2024 14:54:32 GMT -5
I want to live in a world where either Grissom or Campbell excel at third. Is this too much to ask for?
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Post by ematz1423 on Oct 1, 2024 15:01:21 GMT -5
I want to live in a world where either Grissom or Campbell excel at third. Is this too much to ask for? Probably, if they had much interest in either one of them playing 3rd they probably would have given them some PT at the position this past season but far as I can tell neither have. |
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jimoh
Veteran
Posts: 4,185 
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Post by jimoh on Oct 1, 2024 15:32:20 GMT -5
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Post by bettsonmookie on Oct 1, 2024 17:02:11 GMT -5
I want to live in a world where either Grissom or Campbell excel at third. Is this too much to ask for? Probably, if they had much interest in either one of them playing 3rd they probably would have given them some PT at the position this past season but far as I can tell neither have. KC got more reps at 3B toward the end of the season. I think in limited looks he has appeared more promising there than Grissom. Would be interested in a more nuanced comparison of Campbell v. Devers defensively at 3B, but not sure the book is out enough on KC yet for that equation. |
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Post by ephus on Oct 1, 2024 22:04:55 GMT -5
Team, I know. We have two 2nd basemen. It’s a pickle.
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Post by Oregon Norm on Oct 1, 2024 23:39:51 GMT -5
Just my take, but Tatis jerked the HR ball this evening with a swing that reminded me of Campbell's: an uppercut on contact with backspin that looked like it generated a monster popup.
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Post by dirtywaterinla on Oct 2, 2024 0:03:22 GMT -5
I’d like to see some video of him playing 3rd before taking this as gospel or have the SP boys discuss it on the pod. Weren’t scouts complaining he had a “funky” swing that wouldn’t translate?? |
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Post by 0ap0 on Oct 2, 2024 7:49:24 GMT -5
I’d like to see some video of him playing 3rd before taking this as gospel or have the SP boys discuss it on the pod. Weren’t scouts complaining he had a “funky” swing that wouldn’t translate?? Reminder: scouts complaining that his funky swing won't translate have not yet been proven wrong. |
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Post by James Dunne on Oct 2, 2024 8:14:38 GMT -5
He unquestionably has a funky swing, you don't need to be a scout to recognize that. There's just a big difference between seeing a lanky kid with great coordination and a funky swing killing it in college and a lanky kid with great coordination and a funky swing killing it in the high minors. Proving skeptics wrong doesn't mean the original skepticism was unwarranted.
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Post by Oregon Norm on Oct 2, 2024 8:18:56 GMT -5
I’d like to see some video of him playing 3rd before taking this as gospel or have the SP boys discuss it on the pod. Weren’t scouts complaining he had a “funky” swing that wouldn’t translate?? Reminder: scouts complaining that his funky swing won't translate have not yet been proven wrong. It may not "translate", but the language he's been using as he made his way through the minors has been really well spoken. |
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Post by nelledouville on Oct 2, 2024 9:16:24 GMT -5
I don't know what the outcome will be for Campbell. But we do know he works hard and is amenable to coaching. With that in mind, an interesting blog story to read.
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Post by thegoodthebadthesox on Oct 2, 2024 9:23:31 GMT -5
He unquestionably has a funky swing, you don't need to be a scout to recognize that. There's just a big difference between seeing a lanky kid with great coordination and a funky swing killing it in college and a lanky kid with great coordination and a funky swing killing it in the high minors. Proving skeptics wrong doesn't mean the original skepticism was unwarranted. There's also a big difference between a claim that it won't translate (which is what I believe was implied there) and a concern over how it would translate (which I believe is/was the case, and is much more fair). |
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Post by bcsox on Oct 2, 2024 10:07:21 GMT -5
I have never understood or agreed with statements like “if Campbell moves from 2b to LF that is going to put a lot of pressure on the bat”
I think the goal is to have a well rounded team then why does it matter if your left fielder doesn’t hit as well as your 2b or catcher or whoever.
Let’s just say you have Dustin Pedroia as your 2b and Aaron Judge as your RF and Mike Schmidt as your 3b, hopefully you see where I am going. Mashers all over the lineup. If I have a left fielder who is great defensively. Covers a lot of the CF’s balls, draws walks and gets on base in front of the mashers but hits .250 with 10 home runs but gets on base at a .380 plus clip then isn’t he very valuable.
I have always felt that someome’s bat value should be team specific.
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Post by ematz1423 on Oct 2, 2024 10:16:17 GMT -5
I have never understood or agreed with statements like “if Campbell moves from 2b to LF that is going to put a lot of pressure on the bat” I think the goal is to have a well rounded team then why does it matter if your left fielder doesn’t hit as well as your 2b or catcher or whoever. Let’s just say you have Dustin Pedroia as your 2b and Aaron Judge as your RF and Mike Schmidt as your 3b, hopefully you see where I am going. Mashers all over the lineup. If I have a left fielder who is great defensively. Covers a lot of the CF’s balls, draws walks and gets on base in front of the mashers but hits .250 with 10 home runs but gets on base at a .380 plus clip then isn’t he very valuable. I have always felt that someome’s bat value should be team specific. Just using wRC+ the top 10 LFers in 2024 all had 118 or higher while if you look at 2nd base Marte had 151, Altuve 127 and the 3rd highest was Brendon Donovan at 115 so it's pretty obvious that the bat doesn't have to be as good at 2nd base to justify playing every day than it does to be an everyday LFer. Hence why I would like Campbell to be at 2nd base not OF if his bat is as good as it seems. |
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Post by Chris Hatfield on Oct 2, 2024 10:28:17 GMT -5
I have never understood or agreed with statements like “if Campbell moves from 2b to LF that is going to put a lot of pressure on the bat” I think the goal is to have a well rounded team then why does it matter if your left fielder doesn’t hit as well as your 2b or catcher or whoever. Let’s just say you have Dustin Pedroia as your 2b and Aaron Judge as your RF and Mike Schmidt as your 3b, hopefully you see where I am going. Mashers all over the lineup. If I have a left fielder who is great defensively. Covers a lot of the CF’s balls, draws walks and gets on base in front of the mashers but hits .250 with 10 home runs but gets on base at a .380 plus clip then isn’t he very valuable. I have always felt that someome’s bat value should be team specific. Just using wRC+ the top 10 LFers in 2024 all had 118 or higher while if you look at 2nd base Marte had 151, Altuve 127 and the 3rd highest was Brendon Donovan at 115 so it's pretty obvious that the bat doesn't have to be as good at 2nd base to justify playing every day than it does to be an everyday LFer. Hence why I would like Campbell to be at 2nd base not OF if his bat is as good as it seems. Yeah, the point isn't team-building. The point is that you can more easily find a left fielder who can contribute more offensively. When we make a statement like that, we don't mean that it's going to put pressure on his bat when he becomes an everyday player for the Boston Red Sox as presently constituted. We mean this player's chances of sticking in the majors will be affected in this specific way, independent of what's happening around him. To use the two positions you mentioned, MLB 2B hit .247/.310/.374 this year. MLB LF hit .243/.316/.399. Doesn't seem like a lot but 30 points of OPS in a 20,000 PA sample is significant. To your point, yes, a team can deal with a less-than-productive left fielder if they've got boppers everywhere else. But if they don't and they're going to go get more offense, it's easier to do it in left than at second. |
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Post by gregblossersbelly on Oct 2, 2024 10:37:50 GMT -5
Campbell said his preferred position is 2b on MLB Network last night. I’d like to start year with Hamilton at 2b platooning with Romy my homey. As soon as KC appears ready. That’s where he goes.
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Post by bluechip on Oct 2, 2024 10:42:12 GMT -5
Just using wRC+ the top 10 LFers in 2024 all had 118 or higher while if you look at 2nd base Marte had 151, Altuve 127 and the 3rd highest was Brendon Donovan at 115 so it's pretty obvious that the bat doesn't have to be as good at 2nd base to justify playing every day than it does to be an everyday LFer. Hence why I would like Campbell to be at 2nd base not OF if his bat is as good as it seems. Yeah, the point isn't team-building. The point is that you can more easily find a left fielder who can contribute more offensively. When we make a statement like that, we don't mean that it's going to put pressure on his bat when he becomes an everyday player for the Boston Red Sox as presently constituted. We mean this player's chances of sticking in the majors will be affected in this specific way, independent of what's happening around him. To use the two positions you mentioned, MLB 2B hit .247/.310/.374 this year. MLB LF hit .243/.316/.399. Doesn't seem like a lot but 30 points of OPS in a 20,000 PA sample is significant. To your point, yes, a team can deal with a less-than-productive left fielder if they've got boppers everywhere else. But if they don't and they're going to go get more offense, it's easier to do it in left than at second. I hate to pile on, but also worth noting that if you have a less than productive left fielder, and boppers every where else, you can probably find a bopper in left also for relatively little cost to make that lineup even deeper/better. Guys like Joc Pederson, Teoscar Hernandez, etc. sign every year for relatively modest 1 year deals. Since the Dodgers had Mookie Betts and Gavin Lux in the middle infield, they got very deep by signing Hernandez. |
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Post by fenwaydouble on Oct 2, 2024 10:43:15 GMT -5
I have never understood or agreed with statements like “if Campbell moves from 2b to LF that is going to put a lot of pressure on the bat” I think the goal is to have a well rounded team then why does it matter if your left fielder doesn’t hit as well as your 2b or catcher or whoever. Let’s just say you have Dustin Pedroia as your 2b and Aaron Judge as your RF and Mike Schmidt as your 3b, hopefully you see where I am going. Mashers all over the lineup. If I have a left fielder who is great defensively. Covers a lot of the CF’s balls, draws walks and gets on base in front of the mashers but hits .250 with 10 home runs but gets on base at a .380 plus clip then isn’t he very valuable. I have always felt that someome’s bat value should be team specific. It all has to do with positional scarcity. Because 2B defense is fairly difficult, there are not that many guys who can do it adequately, which means there are very few guys that can do it adequately and can hit well. A guy who can put up an .800 OPS at 2B is quite valuable, because the cheap replacement for him probably has like a .700 OPS (making up a round number here). Whereas there are so many left fielders floating around that you could replace your .800 OPS LF for cheap and still have somebody who has like a .750 OPS. In other words, for a LF to match the value of the .800 OPS 2B, he'll have to significantly outperform him - call it an .850 OPS.
Now, take the scenario where Kristian Campbell (who we'll imagine is a .800 OPS guy) is on a team with Pedroia and Judge and Mike Schmidt. Obviously he's not taking their places, so you could stick him in LF. His value in a vacuum has not changed - his still just as good as he's ever been. But his value to your team has gone down, because instead of giving you a ton of surplus value over an average 2B, he's giving you just a little surplus value over an average LF.
The move here might be to trade him to a team that does not have Dustin Pedroia blocking him but who does have a LF of equivalent value - the guy who hits .850 OPS. You've cashed in on the value of Campbell's 2B defense, which you weren't using anyway, and grabbed the equivalent value (but worth more to you) of the left fielder's better bat.
In practice, it won't always work that way. Maybe Aaron Judge is a free agent next year and you aren't planning on paying him. Maybe nobody is biting on a Campbell trade but they want to overpay for Pedroia. And a little redundancy is never a bad thing in case injuries hit. But in the long term, it's inefficient to have a bunch of guys on the roster who have valuable skills that you're not making use of.
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Post by bentossaurus on Oct 2, 2024 10:55:21 GMT -5
There’s a thread in this forum on should the Red Sox offer TON arbitration, much less re-sign him.
He would have been the second best 2B bat in all of baseball if he played that position, and a slam-dunk case.
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Post by incandenza on Oct 2, 2024 10:56:40 GMT -5
I have never understood or agreed with statements like “if Campbell moves from 2b to LF that is going to put a lot of pressure on the bat” I think the goal is to have a well rounded team then why does it matter if your left fielder doesn’t hit as well as your 2b or catcher or whoever. Let’s just say you have Dustin Pedroia as your 2b and Aaron Judge as your RF and Mike Schmidt as your 3b, hopefully you see where I am going. Mashers all over the lineup. If I have a left fielder who is great defensively. Covers a lot of the CF’s balls, draws walks and gets on base in front of the mashers but hits .250 with 10 home runs but gets on base at a .380 plus clip then isn’t he very valuable. I have always felt that someome’s bat value should be team specific. It all has to do with positional scarcity. Because 2B defense is fairly difficult, there are not that many guys who can do it adequately, which means there are very few guys that can do it adequately and can hit well. A guy who can put up an .800 OPS at 2B is quite valuable, because the cheap replacement for him probably has like a .700 OPS (making up a round number here). Whereas there are so many left fielders floating around that you could replace your .800 OPS LF for cheap and still have somebody who has like a .750 OPS. In other words, for a LF to match the value of the .800 OPS 2B, he'll have to significantly outperform him - call it an .850 OPS.
Now, take the scenario where Kristian Campbell (who we'll imagine is a .800 OPS guy) is on a team with Pedroia and Judge and Mike Schmidt. Obviously he's not taking their places, so you could stick him in LF. His value in a vacuum has not changed - his still just as good as he's ever been. But his value to your team has gone down, because instead of giving you a ton of surplus value over an average 2B, he's giving you just a little surplus value over an average LF.
The move here might be to trade him to a team that does not have Dustin Pedroia blocking him but who does have a LF of equivalent value - the guy who hits .850 OPS. You've cashed in on the value of Campbell's 2B defense, which you weren't using anyway, and grabbed the equivalent value (but worth more to you) of the left fielder's better bat.
In practice, it won't always work that way. Maybe Aaron Judge is a free agent next year and you aren't planning on paying him. Maybe nobody is biting on a Campbell trade but they want to overpay for Pedroia. And a little redundancy is never a bad thing in case injuries hit. But in the long term, it's inefficient to have a bunch of guys on the roster who have valuable skills that you're not making use of.
I think I disagree with the bolded, and this is where bcsox may have a point - if we further stipulate that this team has no other decent player to put in LF. In the abstract, LF is an easier hole to plug than 2B. But for this particular team that might not be the case. In this scenario Campbell has *more* value for this team in LF than 2B.
I think WAR underestimates guys with positional flexibility for this reason. When Brock Holt is put at LF or 1B, he gets a bad positional adjustment for that game, which suppresses his WAR total. But it might be that he's needed at those positions on a given day due to injuries or to give other guys rest days, etc., which benefits the team in the long run. Similarly, Duran would've had a bigger WAR total if he'd played CF every game this year; but since this particular team also has Rafaela they benefited overall by having Rafaela in CF and Duran in LF.
(But I think the point in the last paragraph about roster inefficiency is also right; the fact that the Red Sox have to push Duran to LF to accommodate Rafaela is arguably a reason to trade Rafaela.)
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Post by patford on Oct 2, 2024 11:00:38 GMT -5
Is being named the Portland Defensive Player of the Year almost meaningless? Or did Portland just have a collection of butchers?
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Post by carmenfanzone on Oct 2, 2024 11:31:27 GMT -5
Is being named the Portland Defensive Player of the Year almost meaningless? Or did Portland just have a collection of butchers?
I think they are almost meaningless. I seem to remember there were a few previous winners that were very questionable. I hope it doesn't mean the rest of Portland's players ( which include Teel, Mayer, and Anthony) are a collection of butchers. One question I have is whether Campbell has ever played leftfield. I ask because I seem to remember the Red Sox assuming Hanley Rameriz could be taken off the infield and placed in left because he was such a good athlete. I seem to remember Hanley being awful in left. |
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Post by thegoodthebadthesox on Oct 2, 2024 11:38:21 GMT -5
Campbell said his preferred position is 2b on MLB Network last night. I’d like to start year with Hamilton at 2b platooning with Romy my homey. As soon as KC appears ready. That’s where he goes. Given how often athletes perceive their abilities as being greater than they are (justifiably so - having that level of confidence is probably a big reason that they're so successful), it's pretty surprising and honestly a little refreshing that he didn't try to claim that he should be a shortstop or something like that. |
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Post by redsox04071318champs on Oct 2, 2024 11:42:22 GMT -5
I don't know what the outcome will be for Campbell. But we do know he works hard and is amenable to coaching. With that in mind, an interesting blog story to read. That was a great article about Dwight Evans and Walt Hriniak I always wondered what the numbers were prior to his swing overhaul and now I know the numbers. Night and day difference. The timeline always resonated with me personally because I discovered baseball and became a Red Sox fan in mid July 1980, basically right around the time Evans salvaged his career. He became one of my all time favorites. Sometimes a guy can be a hero to a kid growing up, then you meet him and come away disappointed. It was the complete opposite with Dwight Evans. I finally had an opportunity to meet him a few weeks ago and he couldnt have been any more kinder, just a real gentleman. It was totally an honor to meet him and I realized that Dwight Evans the man is even greater than Dwight Evans the ballplayer. And as I told him, I hope he winds up in Cooperstown soon and I hope the Red Sox do right by him and retire his #24. He deserves the honor (similar feeling towards Luis Tiant regarding the HOF and his #23). Thanks for sharing that blog article. |
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Post by incandenza on Oct 2, 2024 11:54:05 GMT -5
Campbell has played all of 137 games in his minor league career, and he's split his time between 6 different defensive positions. The most he's played at any one position is 410 innings at 2B, the equivalent of about 45 games.
Glass half full: if he is deserving of that defensive player of the year award, he must be some sort of savant to be that adaptable. Glass half empty: he's going to get to Boston with remarkably little experience at whatever position they have him play.
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