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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Jul 23, 2022 20:22:14 GMT -5
It's interesting that some people seem to be unable to discriminate between the current roster and the players in the organization.
They played this game without 4 of their best 5 hitters and the pitching matchup was an All-Star versus a rookie who came into the season projected as a middle reliever with a ceiling of occasional spot starter. There were only 4 balls all game that were hard-hit and were likelier than not to be hits, and each team had 2, and the Sox lost because the other team had, in succession, singles of 70.5 and 92.5, their only hard-hit and likely hit of the game until the 9th, and a fly ball with an .060 xBA that is an out in 28 or 29 ballparks, but a double in this one.
Obviously that means we should blow up the team.
With Devers on the IL it probably makes sense to move everyone but Bogaerts and maybe Vazquez.
You don't bring in a new catcher to the organization and let him call the pitches when you're taking a look at least 6 and maybe 8 rookie pitchers, and I don't like the idea of dealing CV now without knowing who the replacement would be. OTOH, if it's possible to have Varitek call the pitches, you could get the replacement now and have him learn that way. Or maybe they know who they want to succeed him and are confident that they can snare him this winter, in which case you can finish the year with Plawecki and Wong.
OTOH, it's very possible that the best solution at catcher is to re-up CV for 3 years.
Next year will be like last year: expectations way lower than they ought to be.
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Post by ericmvan on Jul 23, 2022 15:06:51 GMT -5
I’d like to see them add money to get prospects too, but think it’s more likely they try and duck under the tax If they don't trade a guy, his whole salary counts against the tax limit. If they trade him and pay half of his salary to get the prospect they really want, only half of it does.
So the two ideas are not incompatible.
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Jul 23, 2022 15:01:44 GMT -5
Eric I know your posts are very well-researched but that post seems like pretty wishful thinking. Kiké has been bad for a long time now, Sale might not return this season and Eovaldi has regressed. The rotation and outfield both fell apart and 1B is among the weakest in the league. To your credit, I remember you advocated at least exploring selling high on Eovaldi in the offseason, which in hindsight would’ve been the right move. It's not quite wishful thinking ... it's covering your asses in case your luck pulls a 180.
If you can put yourself in a position to capitalize on that, you do so. I'd put the chance at this happening as 5% ... but the significant downside here is merely that you don't get prospects for both Wacha and Eovaldi. That's the only major difference between my suggestion and a full-on sell excepting X and CV
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Jul 23, 2022 4:21:34 GMT -5
What I would do:
First, keep Xander and CV. They are important members of the 2023 team and beyond. (Having thought it through, I don't think Xander would want to be a rental, so that idea is kaput.)
Next, be willing to eat some salary in trades in order to get the prospects they really want.
Acquire the best-bang-for buck 1B, DH and LHR. By "buck" I mean prospect value; I don't want them trading anyone they really like. We're looking for adequate here, that's all. Upside is a bonus.
Give Refsnyfer much more PT against RHP (at JBJ's expense).
Trade JDM. Upgrading 1B and RF to offensive adequacy covers the downgrade to whoever you pick up.
Trade either Eovaldi or Wacha, and maybe Hill as well (I believe the latter two are expected back before the deadline, along with Winck). Whether you can afford to deal Hill depends on when Seabold might be ready, and whether they think Murphy, Walter, and / or Mata would be viable plug-ins in case of injury, and when the latter two will be ready.
(Yeah, Hill has limited trade value on paper ... but if there's a contender with crap for 5th starer, they would want him.)
Trade Strahm if Barnes is looking good in his rehab.
---
Crawford has a .249 xwOBA since his recall (.294 wOBA). Wink has a .299 / .305 since his recall despite two awful outings preceding his IL stint (which always suggests he was bothered by the injury already, and was trying to pitch through it). Bello had a .314 xwOBA in his second start. I like the idea of a rotation of those three behind Pivetta and Eovaldi or Wacha.
The hope of course is that you sneak into a WC spot and have a first-rate Sale and Paxton in your rotation, Kiké in CF, and so on.
And that you pick up some seriously undervalued sleeper prospects.
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Jul 23, 2022 3:05:28 GMT -5
Cora's comments on Duran - better for the players to handle it...really? I missed the game what did Duran do? Lost sight of a ball hit over his head to CF that ended up as an inside-the-park GS. But the actual issue is that he saw that Verdugo was going to get to the ball (which landed on the warning track) before he would, and didn't even take a step in the direction of the ball. That looked really bad.
Officially, this gets scored as a GS to LF (because Verdugo fielded it), but I believe Statcast will have it as straightaway.
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Jul 23, 2022 2:53:17 GMT -5
I wish they would sell because I just don’t think this team is very good. I think ownership would be too worried about the backlash so it won’t happen. They have been the 5th best team in the league, despite an absurd rash of injuries. I think that the team, with everybody healthy, is the second best team in the league, tied with the Yankees and trailing the Astros.
However, it's very unclear that a) they can make the playoffs when the Marinrs will have a 7 or 8 win edge on them just because they don't 76 games against the AL East, and b) that they'll have enough healthy, at-their-normal best players in October to advance in the post-season.
Having said all that, I'm in favor of a combo buy / sell (see the deadline thread).
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Jul 23, 2022 1:20:15 GMT -5
In case you're curious, yes, that was the first time in modern MLB history that a team scored 27 runs in the first 6 innings.
The '22 Cubs had a 26-9 lead on the Phillies after 6, and held on to win 26-23. Really.
So the bright side is that they didn't let the Jays tie or beat the modern record of 30.
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Jul 22, 2022 7:52:02 GMT -5
Who would get trimmed? They are so thin on pitching depth at present (with 11 guys on the IL, including Walter) that the obvious trim, Valdez, is probably a bad idea. Ronaldo Hernandez, probably.
Hernandez's season, I just discovered:
.119 / .140 / .202 (87 PA) through May 19
.364 / .379 / .595 (187 PA) since
So maybe not. Anyone know if he's made defensive progress?
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Jul 22, 2022 4:36:23 GMT -5
Very interesting ... right now we're 23 to 16 in favor of selling, but 10 to 29 in thinking the Sox will do that.
Very quick and dirty wild card standings, adjusted for divisional strength:
TB 3.5 Tor 2 Bos 0 Bal -1.5 Sea -2 Cle -6.5 CWS 6.5
Right now we have a 4.8 win handicap versus the Mariners and a 6.3 win handicap versus the Guardians.
.600 AL East outside the division .477 West .442 Central
We've played 57% of the season, but we have half of our divisional games left.
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Jul 22, 2022 4:29:03 GMT -5
This is all well and good, but the Red Sox have in fact already given Xander an insultingly low offer (just tacking one $30 million year onto the current deal that runs through 2026). And of course they signed Story, which doesn't help to paint a picture in which they really want him back. The only scenario I can imagine where they'd have changed their tune is if their real priority was re-signing Devers but they decided that's not going to happen and now want to re-sign Xander as a plan B. That offer was made after he was ranked 35th out of 36 SS in Outs Above Average / Runs Prevented. He's immensely less valuable as a LF than as a SS, and he looked like a guy who might need to move to the OF as soon as 2023 or 2024. Even a move to 2B would diminish his value significantly.
He ranked 35 out of 40 in 2020, 31 out of 35 in 2019, 29 out of 36 in 2018. You had to go back to 2017m when he was 24, to find a season where he was above average.
This year he ranks 13th out of 36, and is +2 Outs Above Average and +1 Runs Prevented. I think that changes his actual value a lot, and more than his perceived value. I think that when an otherwise hugely desirable player has defensive red flags, there is a natural tendency to downplay that downside (call it the Hanley Ramiez, OFer Effect). It's the exact same psychological effect as the one that causes people to start relationships with attractive people who have behavioral red flags, or buy a great-looking car with a terrible reputation for reliability.
I don't think that signing Story indicated that they didn't want him back. It upgraded 2B a lot and it was a plan B if they decided, as seemed quite possible, that Xander was not going to be worth the money it would take to re-sign him, because of their defensive projection and the just-mentioned tendency for other teams to discount it. The good defense this year squares up his actual value with what other teams will be willing to pay him, and makes an extension a smart move.
Story's also been the second-best defensive 2B in MLB.
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Jul 21, 2022 22:40:00 GMT -5
I am of the mindset of if they have absolutely any interest in bringing Xander back you don't trade him and let him put on another uniform and realize that baseball is baseball no matter where he plays. He'd be traded to a contender where he will hear his name cheered just as loudly as he does in fenway. If that happens he may realize he doesn't need to stay in Boston to feel the love. If they trade him then to me that means they have no interest in bringing him back which if that is the case then trade him if you can get back a package with a player close to contributing to the ML squad. Exactly. That's what happened to Jon Lester. He realized once he was traded to Oakland, baseball is baseball and business is business. His fantasy of wearing only a Red Sox uniform ended and he realized that the Red Sox franchise was going to do whatever thought was in their own best self-interest, so ultimately why shouldn't he? And I think you're right. It's kind of a fan's dream for the player to think that Boston is the only great place to play and nowhere else is comparable. If a player is happy he might feel that way, but once he gets dealt, and usually it would be against his wishes, and is exposed to another place, that feeling can change. Freddie Freeman says hi.
I'm not sure folks know the whole story ... Freeman completely wanted to re-sign with the Braves and the Braves completely wanted him back.
Freeman's idiot of an agent gave the Braves what seemed like an ultimatum (24 hours, IIRC), with a bluff high price. The Braves thought he had a deal done at that price and was on the verge of leaving and thought, crap, we can't match that, and immediately made the Olson trade to cover their asses.
Freeman then signs with the Dodgers ... four days later. At a price the Braves would have met. When Freeman eventually found out what his agent had done, he fired him.
What is missing from your Lester story is that he felt dissed, in this case by a stupidly low initial offer. Now, if I'm an agent and I get that first offer, I come back immediately with an offer that is just as stupidly high. But Lester's agent didn't make a counter-offer. One wonders whether he was actually serving his client's wishes (by not telling Lester "I wouldn't necessarily take that offer seriously"), or whether the Sox lowballed him on purpose because they actually thought he'd be overvalued on the market. But in any case it's hugely easier to get over your desire to not change teams when you think the old team has treated you badly.
But in any case this is all beside the point, because Boras almost always takes his clients to free agency to see what they're worth. So it probably won't be possible to strike even a ballpark-figure handshake deal with Xander.
However, the Sox could tell Xander that they 100% want him back, verify that he wants to stay as badly as it seems he does, and float the rental idea to him. And that's just to make sure he doesn't feel betrayed. Let him decide whether he wants to go to the Cardinals etc. and have a shot at a ring.
If he does, the Sox trade him and tell the fans that they have every intent of re-signing him a la the Yankees and Chapman. They do not say that Xander approved the trade and Xander doesn't either, because that knowledge (which strengthens the idea that he will return) would change the dynamic of his free agency.
Specifically, if teams know both sides are intent on his returning, they may offer more money, with the purpose of driving up the price for the Red Sox. And in fact the Red Sox would be wise, when asked by other teams how serious they are about re-signing him, to say, with absolute truthfulness, "well, you're going to tell the fans that in any case." And then not make their own offer. Once they've seen all the offers, which they know are legit and not bluffs to raise the price, they reach a deal pretty quickly.
Another second thought: if they sell, CV has to stay, because you have so many young pitchers, and you want them working with a top pitch-caller and framer and, furthermore, the guy they'll be working with in the future. So he's not a rental candidate.
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Jul 21, 2022 18:12:35 GMT -5
Two more reason to sell:
No pressure on any of the injured guys to rush back, and it's easy for them to try things out once they do.
40-man roster space now created for Walters, Murphy, German and anyone else who's a likely to be protected in the Rule 5 (what's the list?).
How often does this happen:
Selling team has three SP they can trade at the deadline (plus 2 injured)
Team has seven to eight rookie starting pitchers who are getting or can get a taste of MLB action. (Mata's #7 and Groome's the maybe. Winck and Crawford are going to lose their rookie status with 3 more starts each.)
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Jul 21, 2022 17:41:11 GMT -5
The assumption is that Xander Bogaerts very much wants to play his entire career with the Boston Red Sox.
A player in that positions will turn down an infinite amount of money if he feels he's being paid fairly. And fairly is not the maximum someone might offer (the home town discount is real).
Thought experiment: you have won a special lottery ticket. You gave a choice of two rewards:
$250M and 4 season tickets to the Red Sox, best seats in the house, with help finding a home and a job (if you like your work) in the Boston area if you live elsewhere;
OR
$300M and the same deal, but for the Cardinals and St. Louis.
Which do you take?
I take the $300 million, because the rest of the package costs less than $50 million. Very clever! No, you forfeit the deal if you don't live in the appropriate city.
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Jul 21, 2022 17:38:40 GMT -5
Why? They are under contract to the Red Sox and can talk about whatever they wish. I guess if you tell the other team explicitly you have a deal, it is sound. But I wonder (Eric might know) — has this been done? I wonder if that handshake deal goes up in smoke when the player starts getting counter offers. I have a memory of this happening, but can't remember who did it.
See my last reply for the fear you express. Xander has made it really clear that he loves playing for this ream and want to stay here.
BTW, if he's not interested in playing elsewhere, even if it means another shot at a ring, you just keep him.
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Jul 21, 2022 17:34:00 GMT -5
I'm skeptical of the benefit of the handshake deal from the player's side. A team that would trade for Xander is a good team that needs an infielder. Who says that team wouldn't want to resign him? In fact, if they do want to keep Xander, I'd argue it's a reason not to sell because trading him might significantly reduce their odds of doing so. Anyways if they do sell I can buy the argument that it doesn't necessarily harm the team next year and that it is a sort of perfect storm there. I'm still not there yet though, let's wait and see what the playoff odds are looking like with a few days before the deadline. The assumption is that Xander Bogaerts very much wants to play his entire career with the Boston Red Sox.
A player in that positions will turn down an infinite amount of money if he feels he's being paid fairly. And fairly is not the maximum someone might offer (the home town discount is real).
Thought experiment: you have won a special lottery ticket. You gave a choice of two rewards:
$250M and 4 season tickets to the Red Sox, best seats in the house, with help finding a home and a job (if you like your work) in the Boston area if you live elsewhere;
OR
$300M and the same deal, but for the Cardinals and St. Louis.
Which do you take?
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Jul 21, 2022 17:13:07 GMT -5
"In general" = don't assume any specific player will be dealt.
I left out "too soon to tell" on purpose. If we kill it between now and then, you can change your vote at any time (and you might want to note that below!).
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Jul 21, 2022 16:48:13 GMT -5
Is anyone giving thought to conscious rentals, if this homestand is rough and they decide to sell??
Work out an informal extension with Xander, just a mutual understanding of the ballpark $. The Sox offer will be rational and I don't see X leaving just to get more money from a bad team that is willing to overpay.
Then you do him a favor by dealing him to a contender, telling the other team that he will not sign an extension with them. And re-sign him after the season.
They could do the same thing with CV. The other pending free agents would seem to be replaceable. Note that this is the last year that playing in the AL East is a huge handicap for postseason ranking. They could be buyers, end up with the fifth best record when adjusted for strength of schedule and still miss the playoffs.
Obviously, trading all of the walking guys would add a lot of talent (including a much better draft ranking). We may look back on the insane rash of injuries and the resulting lost year as a blessing in disguise. It's a perfect storm: unfair postseason handicap and a crazy rash of injuries ... in a year where you have
scads of talent to move at the deadline, without harming the team next year.
Off topic ... a Devers extension last winter never made any sense. Why would the Sox want to pay for solid 3B defense when it might not happen? Why would Raffy want to take conversion-to-1B money when he was confident that it wouldn't happen?
Now that both parties have a good projection of his future value, it should get done easily.
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Jul 21, 2022 16:21:56 GMT -5
... currently consists of 3 pitchers. IIRC, that's two less than you need.
It's unclear when Winck will clear his COVID status, so we may need either one or two bodies for the upcoming homestand.
They can of course call Bello back up when Sale is put on the IL. That seems almost certain. He was actually pretty good in his second start, just unlucky.
Guys on COVID IL can be replaced by a non-40-man player who can then be sent down ... but they replaced Winck with Darwinzon. Unfortunately, they added Ort to the actual 40-man five days before Winck went down.
If Winck has to miss another start, I have no idea whether we can now option Darwinzon and replace him temporarily with Murphy. If we can't, we can select Murphy (who will be added in November regardless) and worry about the 40-man jam later. They would need to clear a roster spot now and 2 or 3 more later for Barnes, Paxton, and maybe Taylor.
Who would get trimmed? They are so thin on pitching depth at present (with 11 guys on the IL, including Walter) that the obvious trim, Valdez, is probably a bad idea. Ronaldo Hernandez, probably.
If it's just one missed Winck start it probably makes more sense to start Whitlock and have him go 3 innings.
If they can get a couple of bodies back before the deadline they can maybe deal Valdez to an NL club for an apparent nothing (but actually something) return; he should be MLB-caliber against unfamiliar hitters. And I still like the idea of moving Diekmann and $$$ for an undervalued prospect.
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Jul 20, 2022 2:40:00 GMT -5
Kahlil Watson from last year exhibit A Yeah, though also maybe exhibit A about how "makeup" can be a hard thing to judge? I seem to recall him being lauded for exactly that prior to the draft. Maybe I'm misremembering, but this write-up is how I remember him being described: Maybe the teams have a deeper understanding of someone's makeup than baseball america, but how easy is it ever to judge, really?
That's great-teammate makeup. If makeup were a meal, it would be a side dish.
I think the two biggest components are work ethic and the ability to deal with failure. The latter might be the most important, and the toughest to assess. It may even be true that a great work ethic works against you if you can't deal with failure, because you can't simply chill and clear your head.
Watson's being tested for failure this year (and it's worse than it looks; he had a 1.021 OPS in his first 15 games and has hit .187 / .246 / .269 in the subsequent 187 PA). I wouldn't write him off yet ... even if this continues he'll have the whole winter to figure out what went wrong.
IIRC, the Sox were using personality tests to measure makeup back in '04. Theo was intrigued by some ideas I had but we never got around to exploring them. I think it likelier than not that they now use a custom / proprietary assessment. .
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Jul 18, 2022 8:52:03 GMT -5
I want to make my annual point that:
A) Makeup is equally important as tools
B) At best the rankings sites have a vague sense of makeup; once you get past the elite guys, it's probably zilch
C) The Sox have an organizational history of attending to makeup and getting it right.
(new this year) D) There's reason to believe that not every team gets this.
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Jul 16, 2022 1:57:21 GMT -5
One of the best regular season games I've ever seen. Baseball is a better sport than all the other combined.
The Win Probability Story:
.791 1st inning .391 3rd .845 8th .065 9th 1.000 11th
Had we lost this game, it would have been just the 9th worst loss of the season by WPA.
Instead, it's the top win.
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Post by ericmvan on Jul 12, 2022 23:09:51 GMT -5
Man, I wrote a long reply full of stats, accidentally opened something else in the same tab, and the resurrection thing didn't work.
Short version (pre-game thoughts):
They need a LHR, either a good guy they think can be great or this year's Robles. Dump Diekmann, pay some of his $ and get a prospect who's better than his team thinks while doing the opposite with what you give up. They are set at RHR; count the guys.
They'll know whether we need a 2-month rental at 1B. We'll just be guessing.
Franchy's been a -15 R /150 defenders at 1B, which is not good enough, but maybe he projects better. He was very good vs. RHP through 7/1, bad since; they can again project him going forward better than we can.
They know vastly more than we do about Casas and the odds of him being good enough to make any acquisition a losing proposition.
Dalbec, for all his messed-up mentality, has killed LHP in his last 25 PA against them. I don't see where sending him down fixes his head, and he's still a valuable platoon partner. Fox the brain and he's a better everyday 1B than you'll get in trade, I think.
So I'm guessing they don't get a 1B unless someone is undervalued, a la Schwarbs last year.
I'm satisfied with an even platoon split in RF: Ref vs all LHP, JBJ vs RHP at home, Duran vs. RHP on the road (in CF with Kiké in RF). Anyone you pick up at a reasonable cost is unlikely to be better than Ref versus LHP, unlikely to be a significant upgrade to JBJ at home, where his defense will be a big edge, and unlikely to be an offensive upgrade over Duran. The only thing you'd be upgrading a lot is OF defense vs. RHP on the road -- but you'll be paying for a lot more than that.
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Post by ericmvan on Jul 12, 2022 6:09:25 GMT -5
Rays have about 48 ground ball hits this game. Last half inning for the Rays, after Dalbec was Dalbec: .200 xBA forceout .250 xBA single .020 xBA sac fly .400 xBA single .350 xBA single .460 xBA single .000 xBA flyout Absolutely ridiculous luck. They have a .270 xBA for the game and they have 10 runs on 14 hits. .400 BA. Meanwhile the Sox have a .278 xBA and a .272 BA. This game is cursed. Bello allowed 7 hits and precisely 1 was a hard-hit ball with an xBA of more than .370 (Choi's single in the second). He had 4 expected hits, and one was Lowe's 73.5 mph bloop single (.93 hit) in the first.
That's a 5 4 1 1 3 5 line with average luck on balls in play.
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Post by ericmvan on Jul 11, 2022 16:32:44 GMT -5
Game 4 starter is officially TBD. ESPN is projecting Winckoswki.
The TBD has to be driven by the possibility that Eovaldi will start game 1 of the Yankees series, in which case Crawford would start game 4 here. But if he needs another rehab start, then it's Crawford on regular rest followed by Wincowski on 7 days in NY, or Winck on 6 days followed by Crawford on 5. The latter would seem to make more sense, given how Winck fared the last time he opened a series against the MFY's.
LOL, the Sox official website has Seabold pitching game 3 of the series (as does ESPN). Seems like I'm not the only guy who forgot he's on the DL!
So the plan is clearly to have Eovaldi, Pivetta, Sale in NYC, with Pivetta getting an extra day's rest that he seems to need. If Eovaldi has a bad reaction to his start yesterday, then they'll do a bullpen game in game 4 and have Crawford in NYC game 1 ... but that would suck.
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Post by ericmvan on Jul 11, 2022 16:20:05 GMT -5
We once had a prospect that was initially regarded as one of the best in the game. When he got to AA he put up a .699 OPS and fell off BA's top 100.
At age 23 in Pawtucket he hit .244 / .332 / .421. Obviously, that didn't get him reinstated. But the line was misleading. This is a cut and paste from a 1997 spreadsheet! The data was compiled from bi-weekly stat lines that appeared in BA, and excludes HB and SF from PA and OBP.
Period PA BA OBP SA weeks 1-4 80 .129 .238 .171 weeks 5- 14 243 .236 .333 .420 weeks 15-22 215 .295 .367 .513
In those days you could buy half a dozen competing season-preview mags. I had a fave but I'd always buy a second one ... that year I bought the sole other mag whose "Down on the Farm" report knew about the slow start and hot finish. The others all reported he was a bust. Nowadays, no one would make that mistake.
The next year he hit .300 / .410 / .513 in AAA and BA put him back in at #99. In his 7 year-prime he averaged 4.1 WAR per 650 PA. He played the big RF beautifully and won a ring in .04. Now, Jeter has never been as good a prospect as Trot was. But the career parallel is very strong. A .606 OPS in AA at age 22 for Jeter vs.Trot's .699, to begin with. And then it gets kind of eerie.
.198 / .315 / .363, 213 PA -- Nixon in AAA, age 23, start
.189 / .297 / .397, 222 PA (214 excluding HB and SF!) -- Downs in AAA, age 23, start
When you weight OBP double, that's a near-identical performance over a near-identical stretch of time.
And then the comp breaks down, because Trot struggled for another 4 weeks before turning on the afterburners. Jeter:
.383 / .509 / .787, 59 PA since being sent down after his 0/4 debut, including last night.
Apparently, no one has asked anyone the obvious questions: did someone fix his swing while he was in Boston for a day? Did Cora or someone else give him great advice of some sort?
I had to look up where he's ranked now ... 21! That is way too low. So your argument that Downs is too low is based on someone maybe fixing his swing in late June? Or that he has similar stats to Trot Nixon in a small sample? This is like the third time Downs had looked like he might be fixed in the past year. You'll have to forgive me for wanting to see more than two weeks before I buy in. For what it's worth, Downs was probably going to be even lower, but Ian made the great point that at his age and with his skills other than the hit tool, he's still potentially got, well, this in him. And keep in mind this most recent hot stretch has happened almost entirely after we'd done most of the work on these rankings - we don't stop the presses on June 30 because a guy has had 5 good games. I certainly didn't mean to suggest that you had him ranked too low, any more than Rafaela etc.. were ranked too low before the latest update. (When I do think that, I say so, q.v. Christian Vazquez and Steven Wright in the past). I was well aware that the timing of the update did not include most of the turnaround. It's just that it's clear that he can't possibly be ranked behind Groome when he's long been regarded as the better prospect and is now having a better year in AAA and MLB than Groome is in AA, at the same age. Turns out that, per Speier in today's Globe, he did change his swing when he was sent down, getting rid of his leg lift. The crazy numbers he had down there may in part be to a change in the way he's best pitched to, i.e., the adjustment (which he apparently has made before) may have turned cold zones into hot ones.
The Nixon thing was 70% for amusement and 30% a very simple reminder not to give to too soon on prospect of his caliber. The specific comparison has no predictive value. I can't find a third hot stretch in the last two seasons. .355/ .400 / .581 (last 35 PA at Worcester last year, then .228 / .389 / .491 (72 PA) in the AFL.
The other thing here is that you never look at just the sample size; the size of the effect is equally as important.
.370 / .500 / .753 in 58 PA ... that's a a lot more extreme.
Here's his before and after rates: PA K% BB% HRC BABIP 222 .311 .113 .091 .209 58 .172 .155 .139 .387
A set of splits like has a 1 in 2,894 chance of showing up at random in a simulation (one that first rolled the dice on SO / BB / Contact, then on HR or not, then on Hit or not).
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