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Post by fenwaythehardway on Jun 18, 2019 16:04:19 GMT -5
If they trade high end prospects for another reliever im jumping off the sagamore Insanity is doing the same thing over and over against and expecting different results You did it with Kimbrel and won. You signed Foulke and won. You signed Koji and won. This team's depth is small until Wright is back. Wright can't help you win one postseason game either. They signed Eduardo Nunez and won.
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Post by fenwaythehardway on Jun 18, 2019 15:56:35 GMT -5
Truly spectacular. I’d like to see a lot more of this. Hit ‘em where they ain’t! I love that. Take note. The Marlins might be a little more careful on shifting on him in certain situations now - now that he's planted that seed in their heads. I wish others would try to do just as Carpenter did. Every now and then to keep the defenses honest could be a big difference maker. My guess is that there aren't a lot of good bunters out there and that's why we don't see as often as we'd think we would. There's been a lot of times I'd wish JBJ would drop one down. I mean, if he's the leadoff batter of the inning, and particularly if there's a lefty on the mound, if he can get a pitch he can push down the 3b line while most of the infield is shifted to the right side, it's almost like a free hit. Of course, they probably try to pound him in to try to get him to bang it into the shift, but if you get an opportunity sometimes it can really pay off. The problem is that forcing defenses to respect the bunt doesn't actually help the hitter much, because moving the middle infielders around is what really makes shifting effective. And bunting isn't automatic, guys make outs trying to bunt all the time. If you really game it out, it costs more for the hitter to commit to this strategy than it does for the pitcher/defense to counter it.
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Post by fenwaythehardway on Jun 14, 2019 12:23:59 GMT -5
They really need a system for the draft that isn't just reverse order of record. They need a lot MORE than that, but as far as some low-hanging fruit for the next CBA, just make it so teams aren't actively incentivized to chase down down the '03 Tigers every year. The slotting system really reinforced it. Unless there's a Bryce Harper, having the #1 or #2 pick was often about the same, and the difference between having the #5 and #6 pick was about zero. The slotting system means a team going from 64 to 68 wins is hurting themselves. It's a total disaster. That, and I think not tanking is to front offices what not striking out is to hitters. In a previous generation, it was a point of pride to not do these things, even if it wasn't necessarily the most efficient strategy. That type of sentiment is basically gone from today's game, everyone is just ruthlessly chasing down every advantage they can get. To the extent that MLB thought about this at all, I think they probably just assumed that teams wouldn't actively try to get worse. The real galaxy-brain take here is that having all the teams on a strict budget obviates the need for a draft entirely.
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Post by fenwaythehardway on Jun 14, 2019 11:37:57 GMT -5
In the ongoing saga of "The Orioles embarrassing Chris Davis in order to tank," the guy is hitting .127/.186/.164 over the last month. And .168/.245/.297 with a -3.7 bWAR since the start of last year. They really need a system for the draft that isn't just reverse order of record. They need a lot MORE than that, but as far as some low-hanging fruit for the next CBA, just make it so teams aren't actively incentivized to chase down down the '03 Tigers every year.
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Post by fenwaythehardway on Jun 12, 2019 14:31:42 GMT -5
Not a rhetorical question, still waiting for an answer. John Henry signing me to a $350M contract won't change his standard of living either. He doesn't do it because it's dumb. You're not Mookie Betts.
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Post by fenwaythehardway on Jun 12, 2019 13:56:07 GMT -5
So your complaint should be with the Red Sox for not paying the tax, not with Betts for not giving billionaires a discount. You know how people always ask why players go for the highest offer, when the extra ten or twenty million won't make a real difference in their standard of living? How much do people think signing Betts to a $350m extension would effect John Henry's standard of living? Not a rhetorical question, still waiting for an answer.
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Post by fenwaythehardway on Jun 12, 2019 10:46:37 GMT -5
It's realism. Until the Red Sox show they're willing to blow past the luxury tax on a consistent basis there is a mini-cap. Unless they're going to pay Betts and blow out some other parts to make space. So your complaint should be with the Red Sox for not paying the tax, not with Betts for not giving billionaires a discount. You know how people always ask why players go for the highest offer, when the extra ten or twenty million won't make a real difference in their standard of living? How much do people think signing Betts to a $350m extension would effect John Henry's standard of living? Also, I'm a bit of a conspiracy theorist, but I wonder if there's some sort of gentleman's agreement about the luxury tax. There is. Like, "you can go over and pay penalties, but we really want parity and if you continue to abuse and go over then we'll start looking more into a hard cap". Its also been a nice excuse to slow the growth of players contracts. Money. They really want money.
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Post by fenwaythehardway on Jun 12, 2019 10:07:35 GMT -5
Would I bet my life-savings on it? No, of course not. It's just what he has been. Just as much as Sale has been a pitcher who has faded at the end of the year. Betts is entering 2020 in a bit of a lose-lose situation. If he performs like it's 2018 then he continues the narrative. If he "struggles" then this becomes more of a reputation of who he is as a hitter. Someone capable of putting up a big year, but ultimately is a .830 OPS hitter with great defense. I'm at the opposite end of this. Mookie is going to get his 300+ million unless he has a career threatening injury at this point. He's a consistently really good player at this point with consistently great defense. The Sox are the the ones that are in a lose-lose situation. He's easily worth 280-320 million over 9-10 years in free agency. If they give him the money, Betts probably declines defensively and becomes less valuable over the course of the contract. If they trade him within this season or the next season, they take a step back for the future. Betts really put the Sox in a tough situation when he turned down not one, but 2 extension offers and opted for the most money possible. Now they have to overpay him or trade him in the next 12-19 months. Pretty sweet how a substantial portion of sports fans now actively root for their team's profit margins over paying a generational talent what he's worth.
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Post by fenwaythehardway on Jun 11, 2019 14:36:18 GMT -5
2015: .820 OPS 2016: .897 OPS 2017: .803 OPS 2018: 1.078 OPS 2019: .838 OPS Seems rather, "every other year" to me. People said the same thing about Josh Beckett too. This isn't a new concept. Mookie still has a 2.7 WAR. He's just not Mike Trout valuable. Yeah, it SEEMS like it. That doesn't make it meaningful or predictive, though.
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Post by fenwaythehardway on Jun 11, 2019 13:39:04 GMT -5
Despite what TV and movies would have you believe, the vast majority of people who are willing to kill for money are, for lack of a better term, idiot losers. Not that it particularly matters anyway, but any questions of intent are best filtered through the assumption that this guy was, in fact, a total idiot loser. Being drunk at the time certainly squares with that theory.
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Post by fenwaythehardway on Jun 11, 2019 8:42:32 GMT -5
I find it kind of mystifying that people consider the 2019 Red Sox to be a completely distinct entity from the 2018 team despite the fact that it's all the same dudes. Like people argued with such great conviction that last year's postseason run proved this team's superiority to the Yankees, Astros, and Dodgers, they could not have possibly lost those series, but now those same people are convinced that the 2019 team will never win a series against a quality opponent again. It's the same team!
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Post by fenwaythehardway on Jun 10, 2019 14:55:04 GMT -5
You barely ever get more than five innings out of the guy anyway, and tons of bad stuff happens when you do, so why not just plan for him to go five? Well, the easy answer to this question is that you really don't have the depth in the bullpen to plan for this, especially with Eovaldi out. Your fifth starter not named Eovaldi has a ERA over 7 this year. You barely ever get more than five innings out of the guy anyway, and tons of bad stuff happens when you do, so why not just plan for him to go five? I don't know if it's a failure to realize the utility of this strategy or just a failure of pitching depth, but this endless waiting on an Eduardo Rodriguez breakout when you could just have him be effective now in a slightly different role is getting tiresome.
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Post by fenwaythehardway on Jun 10, 2019 11:05:11 GMT -5
Eduardo Rodriguez, 2019, through the fifth inning:
62.2IP, 4.60 ERA, 26.4 K%, 6.4 BB%, 3.43 FIP
Beyond the fifth inning:
9.1 IP, 7.71 ERA, 21.7 K%, 10.9 BB%, 6.04 FIP
You barely ever get more than five innings out of the guy anyway, and tons of bad stuff happens when you do, so why not just plan for him to go five? I don't know if it's a failure to realize the utility of this strategy or just a failure of pitching depth, but this endless waiting on an Eduardo Rodriguez breakout when you could just have him be effective now in a slightly different role is getting tiresome.
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Post by fenwaythehardway on Jun 9, 2019 16:05:15 GMT -5
Chavis sure went from savior to unplayable in a hurry.
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Post by fenwaythehardway on Jun 6, 2019 8:18:45 GMT -5
Nice win but damn it seems like forever since Mookie has been great. He had a frankly poor postseason and has been only above average through the first third of this season. That is a long time. Has there been any thought as to what is going on? I keep thinking tomorrow but tomorrow hasn't come. He’s on pace for 4.6 WAR still this year. He’s not going to win MVP but I think people are going a bit overboard criticizing him. Last year was a best case scenario for Mookie. He isn’t going to put up 10 WAR seasons regularly like Trout. He’s still a phenomenal player. 6+ if you give combine what he's done with his rest-of-season projections. The problem is and the only critisism I have for Mookie is that he wants to be paid like Trout. I have no problem with that at all.
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Post by fenwaythehardway on Jun 2, 2019 10:46:48 GMT -5
GDMFYs now 20 games over .500 on the first of June. Sox are back to .500 Barring both a Boston revival that has them playing .750+ ball for the next 45 games and a GDNYMFCSYs collapse that has them playing .520 ball or worse , the Sox are not catching the top of the division and will be spending the rest of the season chasing Tampa (.625), Texas (.518), Oakland (.509), and Cleveland (.500 - thanks to the Sox) for the honor of a one-game playoff to get in the tournament. This ain’t negativity, folks. It’s the maths. On the topic of negativity, I would remind people that while this team isn't where they should be, they still have a path to the playoffs, and on the basis of talent, they're still as dangerous as anyone if and when they get there. That's not to say that no one should be allowed to criticize the team, but also, don't act like you're better than rooting for a team like the 2019 Red Sox. It's a fun team, it's a good team, it's a team that has a chance to win the World Series. Y'all could be Mariners fans.
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Post by fenwaythehardway on Jun 2, 2019 10:34:01 GMT -5
It's never clear to me what this is supposed to tell us.
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Post by fenwaythehardway on May 31, 2019 15:56:29 GMT -5
Also, Harper didn't sign until the end of February, which kinda blows up the notion that the speed of the offseason particularly matters.
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Post by fenwaythehardway on May 31, 2019 8:49:31 GMT -5
nypost.com/2019/05/30/mlbs-attendance-problem-is-getting-worse/amp/Fan interest in the game of MLB is getting worse and worse with each season. Also, fan interest is tied into big offseasons, which was my point all along. You would sell more merchandise sooner and maybe sell more tickets if you could fix your free agency issues MLB- "Large rises have taken place for Philadelphia (10,383), Oakland (4,027), San Diego (3,465) and the Chicago White Sox (2,311). The Phillies signed Bryce Harper and the Padres added Manny Machado." Huge LOL at MLB for having two unsigned free agents into June (Kimbrel and Khechul) who are well worth 50+ million dollars the next 3 years . You really want to take a victory lap with Oakland as the second team on that list? Look, it's bad and dumb that Kimbrel and Keuchel are still unsigned. But I think you're missing the forest for the trees here, the trees in question being these tiresome "see, I was right and you guys were mean to me!" posts.
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Post by fenwaythehardway on May 30, 2019 12:14:55 GMT -5
The drop in Dalbec's LD% this year (and really since his promotion to Portland last year) is concerning to me, and kind of negates the encouragement in the drop in his K rate. Showing he make that more consistent contact is a positive for sure, but he's not keeping that contact quality consistent while doing so. And I'm not saying he can't do it, just that it's enough of a flag that I can't overlook it. I'd have him, Groome, and Houck closer together at 4/5/6 with the other three (Casas, Duran, Hernandez in some order) a clear step ahead of them. He's still maintaining a healthy power hitter's GB/FB ratio at .80 though, and I tend to put a little more faith in that than LD%.
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Post by fenwaythehardway on May 30, 2019 11:34:39 GMT -5
Jackie Bradley Jr'r May OPS is .825 ...which means he's a month ahead of last year. I kind of feel like JBJ's streakiness kind of obscures the more obvious reality that he should just be platooned. For the last three calendar years, he has a 60 wRC+ against lefties, versus a 99 mark against righties. This year he's .167/.200/.229 against lefties and .193/.316/.351 against righties. One of the things that's really hurt this team is all the guys in the lineup who, rather than just putting up replacement level blandness, are aggressively accumulating negative value. Reducing JBJ's playing time against lefties would have mitigated that significantly.
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Post by fenwaythehardway on May 30, 2019 10:13:02 GMT -5
Thankfully it "appears" that the 4 year old will be OK. Baseball has to fix this, now. They’re inviting an incident that will permanently damage the game.
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Post by fenwaythehardway on May 29, 2019 21:56:01 GMT -5
I still have visions of Kimbrel (who I loved BTW} at the end of season and post season, the word SHAKY comes to mind. The guy I have heard them most associated with is Smith from SF. The track record on guys who've sat out until the draft penalty expired is grim, too. We know that when things go bad for Kimbrel, they go REALLY bad. Greg Holland only missed spring training last year and it took him half a season and a new team to get right. I want no part of Kimbrel at this point. Smith would be great, but I fear the price tag.
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Post by fenwaythehardway on May 26, 2019 8:23:21 GMT -5
I don't know, my attitude was that they had won 108 games last season and were the best team in baseball and it was weird to me that the conventional wisdom was that the Astros were favored in that series, and then the Red Sox steamrolled them (as they had New York, who they were also better than). Seems strange to try to justify the conventional wisdom view even in retrospect. As for saying the Dodgers "HAD" the Red Sox until they choked... I have no idea what that even means. Like, I don't know what to even argue with there. The Red Sox took a 2-0 series lead. Then the Dodgers won a game. Then the Red Sox won the series in 5. So... yeah. Anyway, my take is that the Red Sox are a very good and competitive team, though they are up against a couple of other very good teams in the Yankees and Astros. Fangraphs gives them a 76% chance of making the playoffs, and the 3rd-best chance of any AL team to win the World Series. I don't really see any reason those odds are wrong. It meant that the Dodgers, who hadn't blown a 4 run lead during the season, should have won Game 4. First misstep was the Roberts/Hill miscommunication. Pulling him made no sense. Making even less sense was not having Urias available to pitch the 7th when the Sox, other than the useless Kinsler, had nothing but lefty bats on the bench. They also were "resting" Baez, their other best setup arm. Contrast that with how Cora was managing and you see the difference.And as far as this season, I agree with Fangraphs. I think the Sox WILL make the playoffs. And their 3rd best chances sounds about right depending upon how healthy Snell and Glasnow wind up being for TB. Either way, I would be surprised if the Sox don't make the playoffs. They should. Other than NY and Houston and arguably TB, they're better than all the rest of the teams, although I freely admit that I have no idea how good Minnesota is. I haven't really seen them enough to know and they don't have a long enough track record over the past season or two for me to really believe in them yet. Other than Tito, I'm not really impressed with Cleveland and while I think Oakland will be better, that rotation is really unimpressive. Oh yeah, he was ruthless in deploying the unstoppable bullpen weapon known as Joe Kelly.
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Post by fenwaythehardway on May 26, 2019 8:15:21 GMT -5
How many angels can dance on the head of a one-run ballgame?
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