Sox sign Brad Penny and Josh Bard

[jacksonianmarch]

I think Kottaras should have some experience catching the knuckler now that he has Zink in AAA. But if neither can catch it and Cash latches on in NY, you guys might be in trouble. Imagine having to call Dougie out of retirement.

[Cocos Disciples]

IMO it's overrated. Kottaras has done it before and will do it in ST, he'll be fine.

[jacksonianmarch]

it is overrated until your catcher absolutely cannot catch it. It has to be mental. But Bard trying to catch wake was one of the most hilarious things I have seen in a long time

[Cocos Disciples]

Yes he was miserable, but he shouldn't be called upon to do it in 2009 very much, if at all.

[jacksonianmarch]

thing is, if Kottaras shows he can hit righties well and Bard continues to hit lefties well, you might have a nice combo for the upcoming yr.

[Cocos Disciples]

Yep, and I believe a platoon is the best thing. But I like your idea:

Bard vs lefties and Kottaras vs righties and with Wake? Step down in "intangibles" step up in offense IMO.

[example1]

Want to know what's overrated? The importance of keeping a single catcher for a single .500 pitcher.

 

Could you imagine if another team did that? It's an extravagance, and is one of the areas of 'cutting chaffe' that the Sox should look into now. Get two catchers, don't base either of their value on whether they can catch a knuckleball, base it on how they can catch the other 11 or 12 guys on the pitching staff.

[Cocos Disciples]

You need a backup catcher, and having one assigned to Wakefield is a good way to guarantee rest for the starter. It's hard to catch a knuckleball and it takes a lot of practice, and the results would be worse if there were two guys catching Wake.

[jacksonianmarch]

Want to know what's overrated? The importance of keeping a single catcher for a single .500 pitcher.

 

Could you imagine if another team did that? It's an extravagance, and is one of the areas of 'cutting chaffe' that the Sox should look into now. Get two catchers, don't base either of their value on whether they can catch a knuckleball, base it on how they can catch the other 11 or 12 guys on the pitching staff.

 

but if you completely ignore that fact then you essentially handcuff your team 20% of the time. Wakefield has a lot of good things going in his favor. He should age well, he should throw 180+ IP and he should win as much as he loses. His one downside is that you need to have a catcher who knows how to catch him.

[example1]

but if you completely ignore that fact then you essentially handcuff your team 20% of the time. Wakefield has a lot of good things going in his favor.

 

He's not the worst pitcher ever, you're right about that...

 

He should age well,

 

He just had his 41 y.o. season. "He should age well" is something you say about 33 year olds, isn't it?

 

he should throw 180+ IP

 

I would think anyone with a regular spot in any rotation should be expected to get 180+ IP.

 

and he should win as much as he loses.

 

Sweet. win as much as he loses.

 

His one downside is that you need to have a catcher who knows how to catch him.

 

I call seasonal expectations of .500 a "downside".

 

 

Look, I like Wakefield. I am one who enjoys a bargain. I also just think this is a team that can afford to have a dynamic pitcher 1-5 instead of someone who we should expect to be around .500. Yes, that has value, but it's not going to get you to stop talking about how great the Yankees are, is it?

 

Seems to me that if people are going to bitch about the Sox team (or brag about how much better their team is on paper) they should take a hard look at a guy who we expect to be about .500 who is in his low 40s and who takes up two roster spots.

[Soxfan1]

It's different' date=' the Belli/Bard deal was because Bard could not catch Wakefield. I really hope the FO would not make that mistake again.[/quote']

 

You think RSN is gonna panic less if our catcher(s) aren't producing than they did when Bard couldn't catch Wake?

[TheKilo]

No.

[ORS]

In 178 ABs? That's a small sample size to say he was unlucky.

Prove it.

It's not surprising you ignored this. FTR, assuming 550 ABs for a full season, 178 will yield results that are +/- 8% at a 99% confidence level.

[BSN07]

It's not surprising you ignored this. FTR' date=' assuming 550 ABs for a full season, 178 will yield results that are +/- 8% at a 99% confidence level.[/quote']

 

Owned much?

[Cocos Disciples]

You think RSN is gonna panic less if our catcher(s) aren't producing than they did when Bard couldn't catch Wake?

 

RSN is not the front office.

[diony]

It's not surprising you ignored this. FTR' date=' assuming 550 ABs for a full season, 178 will yield results that are +/- 8% at a 99% confidence level.[/quote']

 

Lol, enjoy your backup Catcher then.:thumbsup:

[ORS]

Lol' date=' enjoy your backup Catcher then.:thumbsup:[/quote']

I mentioned Bard in my posts? No, my intent was clear. Your posts about what is statistically meaningful have a genesis in fantasyland, depending on which team is the topic of discussion.

[Jacoby_Ellsbury]

I mentioned Bard in my posts? No' date=' my intent was clear. Your posts about what is statistically meaningful have a genesis in fantasyland, [b']depending on which team is the topic of discussion[/b].

 

I don't think that has much of a bearing on his posting quality.

[Dipre]

I mentioned Bard in my posts? No' date=' my intent was clear. Your posts about what is statistically meaningful have a genesis in fantasyland, depending on which team is the topic of discussion.[/quote']

 

http://img30.picoodle.com/img/img30/4/1/8/f_stallowned5m_da6b18a.jpg

[Soxfan1]

RSN is not the front office.

 

Then sub all mentions of RSN to FO. Doesn't really change a thing. This team is gonna give up way to much for a solution to a possible production problem out of Bard/Kottaras.

[TheKilo]

No, they're not.

[Dojji]

I see no reason not to let the people we have play out April. All of Kottaras, Bard and Brown have the upside to be interesting as catchers, with Brown as the guy who probably should win out and Kottaras and Bard as the ones who probably will.

 

I think Kottaras is somewhat underrated here. He had a pretty good offensive season (.804 OPS) and the big knock on him offensively was a low AVG. A player CAN succeed with a low AVG though and Kottaras has the power and patience to be that kind if player

 

While the comparison isn't perfect, Kottaras' 2008 AAA campaign resembled Mike Napoli's 2005 run, although with significantly less power. Does that mean that Kottaras is a poor man's Napoli? Hardly, since it was only one good year and Napoli is probably better defensively, but Napoli demonstrated that a low batting average in the minors is not an automatic bar to big league success for power hitters and a guy who bears some resemblance to him should be given a chance to show what he can do in the big leagues.

 

I think Kottaras will pleasantly surprise us. Who knows? Maybe in 5 years we'll be singing David Wells' praises like we have for the past decade with Heathcliff Slocumb.

[jacksonianmarch]

SO let me get this straight. The 26 yr old catcher with a career MiLB OPS of .738 who didnt have a good offensive minor league yr until he was 26 in AAA should beat out Kottaras and Bard? Really?

 

And in terms of Kottaras being a poor man's Napoli. Tons of holes in that. Napoli hit 60HRs in his 22 yr old and 23 yr old seasons combined with an OPS north of .900. Kottaras breaks double digits for the first time in his career in AAA as a 25 yr old while putting up an OPS of .804 and he should maybe be similar to Napoli? Cmon now, that isnt a very good comparison at all. Kottaras reminds me a little bit of another Angel catcher. More like a poor man's Jeff Mathis.

[Dojji]

SO let me get this straight. The 26 yr old catcher with a career MiLB OPS of .738 who didnt have a good offensive minor league yr until he was 26 in AAA should beat out Kottaras and Bard? Really?

 

He's the best defensive catcher of the bunch who had very solid offensive years for a catcher in 2007 and 2005, gets on base well, and held up his end of the Brown-Kottaras platoon very well indeed in AAA this year. Combine the good D with his offensive breakthrough over the last 2 years and yes, he probably should make it. But he won't. Both Bard and Kottaras have higher offensive upsides.

 

And in terms of Kottaras being a poor man's Napoli. Tons of holes in that.

 

Right, which is why I went out of my way to say Kottaras wasn't a poor man's Napoli fercrissakes.

 

Napoli hit 60HRs in his 22 yr old and 23 yr old seasons combined with an OPS north of .900.

 

With a low AVG that didn't get fatally worse as soon as he hit the big leagues. THAT was my point.

 

Kottaras breaks double digits for the first time in his career in AAA as a 25 yr old while putting up an OPS of .804 and he should maybe be similar to Napoli?

 

Yeah which is why I said he wasn't and listed the reason why. Just that that one year was an example of a player with a low AVG and a similar skillset succeeding in the big leagues.

 

Dude, read my posts k?

[TheKilo]

Jacko, I can't stand Dojji's posts at times, but you really twisted his words around.

 

With regards to Kottaras being a poor man's Napoli, he said:

 

Does that mean that Kottaras is a poor man's Napoli? Hardly, since it was only one good year and Napoli is probably better defensively, but Napoli demonstrated that a low batting average in the minors is not an automatic bar to big league success for power hitters and a guy who bears some resemblance to him should be given a chance to show what he can do in the big leagues.

[jacksonianmarch]

Sometimes twisting words around is fun. Kinda like the game of telephone when we were kids in elementary school. Mix in a swear here, some lewd saying there and you go from Tyrannasaurus Rex to Bitch lets have sex. All in good fun.

 

That being said, he started out comparing Kottaras to Napoli, then backed off of it. Just wanted to hammer the point home that he is talking about 2 completely different players and making any inference about the two being linked in any way was a farce.

[Dojji]

It's happened before. Every tine I bring out a minor statistical similarity between one player and another to make a point there's a tendency for the Dojji-hunters to baloon that similarity into something far bigger than I ever said or intended my comparison to be.

 

An example is if I said that Pedroia has the contact skills of Wade Boggs. I said exactly that. "Pedroia has the contact skills of Wade Boggs." Inplying nothing more than exactly what I said. Someone who's waiting to pounce on me for something I said earlier or who just plain loved Wade Boggs, tries to destroy me based on Pedroia's lack of IsoD and Boggs' ungodly OBP and basically saying that while Pedroia's a good hitter he can't sniff Wade's jock.

 

Which is a fine point for him to make to refine the comparison but if he makes it by trying to put me down that's not right, because nowhere did I ever say that Pedroia could match Boggs' legendary OBP skills, just his contact skills, IE average and being a very tough strikeout.

 

And if I want to respond I'm left with two bad choices. I can spend 20 posts arguing about a completely pointless minutae that has nothing to do with what I said and is tangential at best to a conversation about Pedroia, or I can drop it and let the other guy "win" with an irrelevant rebuttal. Unless the attacker is very clumsy about it (see above) either way we go I wind up looking like an idiot whether or not my ideas stand on their own. Very frustrating.

[jacksonianmarch]

dont go playing the victim here dojji. Its all in good fun

[Dojji]

Jacko: I went out of my way to say I was not comparing Kottaras to Napoli. I was using Napoli as a specific, highly limited statistical example based on the primary criticism of Kottaras, which is Kottaras' low batting average.

 

Low batting average in the minors is a phenomenon common to both Napoli and Kottaras. Napoli overcame that disadvantage and is a successful major league hitter. Suggesting that for Kottaras to do so would not be impossible and lo, here is a player with the same drawback who did exactly that. That's it. End comparison.

[riverside sluggers]

http://www.bostonherald.com/sports/baseball/red_sox/view.bg?articleid=1142767&srvc=rss

 

The deal for Bard includes a $3 million option for 2010