Xander Bogaerts

[sk7326]

You asked why. That is the organization's answer at this point.

 

Holt's big league roster spot makes more sense than Snyder's. Holt is the only bench guy they have who can play 2B. (or for that matter SS, though a Boegarts promotion fixes that) I think the decision is really Snyder vs Boegarts/Middlebrooks

[jacksonianmarch]

Sticking with Brock Holt is hilarious. WMB is better and Bogaerts is the future.

[SoxFanForsyth]

With the PawSox having an off day today, and the Sox set to face 3 lefties in their 7 games after today, I would expect that Bogaerts meets the team in KC and is in the lineup tomorrow night against Chen.

[BSN07]

They are winning, and until that changes I don't see Bogaerts up before September. We have anticipated his arrival for awhile. A couple more weeks is no big deal especially if it means he's more comfortable at 3B when he comes up.

[Lord Snow]

They are winning, and until that changes I don't see Bogaerts up before September. We have anticipated his arrival for awhile. A couple more weeks is no big deal especially if it means he's more comfortable at 3B when he comes up.

 

No way he is a September call-up. The Sox are definitely going to want him to have postseason eligibility. He will be up soon, as other posters have pointed out, maybe this week.

[SoxFanForsyth]

They are winning, and until that changes I don't see Bogaerts up before September. We have anticipated his arrival for awhile. A couple more weeks is no big deal especially if it means he's more comfortable at 3B when he comes up.

 

This is silly logic. They're winning in spite of the black hole of 3B. If you can improve your team, you do it unless the cost is prohibitive. The cost is not prohibitive.

[marklmw]

This is silly logic. They're winning in spite of the black hole of 3B. If you can improve your team, you do it unless the cost is prohibitive. The cost is not prohibitive.

 

Sox need to give what every intelligent Sox fan or reporter want ... Middlebrooks or Bogaerts now. I prefer Bogaerts and if he has a hard time np just exchange him for Middlebrooks.

[sk7326]

No way he is a September call-up. The Sox are definitely going to want him to have postseason eligibility. He will be up soon, as other posters have pointed out, maybe this week.

 

Postseason eligibility is a non-issue. The Red Sox will be able to replace Hanrahan, Miller and Bailey on the postseason roster with anybody who is in the organization as of August 31 (think of it as the K-Rod rule). Boegarts can be snuck onto the roster regardless of when he gets called up.

[SoxSport]

Well, they finally brought up Rubby. Who knows? Maybe Bogie will be next.

[SoxSport]

Sticking with Brock Holt is hilarious. WMB is better and Bogaerts is the future.

 

They seem to think keeping a guy in AAA will correct his problems. I don't know why his problems can't be corrected in Boston. They need some experience at 3B, and Middlebrooks is the only one they have. Plus he can hit LHP, which some of their Rhd batters don't do so well.

 

I would like to see Bogie playing SS and MBrooks playing 3B against LHP. Drew can't hit LHP either, and the other two have hit LHP in AAA better than RHP. This team is going to get a diet of LHP the rest of the year, and they have to improve their RHd hitting or risk missing the playoffs.

Edited August 8, 2013 by SoxSport

[sk7326]

WMB is probably better than Holt, but he can't play 2B - so unless he can do that, Holt needs to stay up. Snyder is another story. WMB's approach was broken going back to the minors - if he showed progress, he'd be back. You don't think that the Sox WANT Middlebrooks to be the guy? He just hasn't shown it. IF he could just put together good at-bats, which has been a problem for him his entire career.

[Lord Snow]

Letting Middlebrooks rot in Pawtucket is no good. I don't understand that strategy.

 

I think we ruined Daniel Bard doing the same thing. You can't call somebody up, give them a starting job, for a year and then demote them long-term. It's got to be frustrating and annoying for them, which is why I think they struggle in the minors. It's not like Middlebrooks forgot how to hit.

[sk7326]

Letting Middlebrooks rot in Pawtucket is no good. I don't understand that strategy.

 

I think we ruined Daniel Bard doing the same thing. You can't call somebody up, give them a starting job, for a year and then demote them long-term. It's got to be frustrating and annoying for them, which is why I think they struggle in the minors. It's not like Middlebrooks forgot how to hit.

 

Well Bard was a major job switch - that is one thing. Middlebrooks is a different animal - his approach was awful last year too, but it was redeemed by guys not having a ton of tape on him. The idea I think was a low pressure place for him to learn how to recognize pitches - and not worry about the spiral of ineptitude he had worked himself into. But if there hasn't been progress - who knows. Obviously this weekend lends itself to a call-up so we'll see.

[Dojji]

Letting Middlebrooks rot in Pawtucket is no good. I don't understand that strategy..

 

It's not so much a strategy, as it is waiting for Middlebrooks to give us some actual reason to promote him again.

 

People keep thinking that prospects need to be given big league time. Yes, but they also need to be earning the time they get, or no team, and especially a team right in the thick of the playoff hunt, is going to invest time in that player.

[jung]

Well unfortunately, I only get to see WMB hit in little snippets now. Last I saw him, on Saturday past, if he could get ahead in counts, he was getting FB's to hit and he was hitting them at least at a decent clip. If he could not get ahead in the count, he pretty much looked like the same hitter that went back down. I wish I could say that I saw him laying off the kind of pitch that gave him fits last time we saw him in a ML uni but he did not get the opportunity on the day I saw him to swing or lay off that kind of pitch.

 

The biggest dif IMO between AAA and ML pitching is that you just do not see many pitchers up here that will give in an inch. So up here even behind in the count, a pitcher is just as likely to throw a secondary pitch as a FB. At some point, the only way they are going to find out if WMB has truly made any progress will be to expose him once again to ML pitching.

 

On an optimistic note, I have always thought that turning back the clock would not work for him, as some have pointed out in the last few posts. At least at this stage of his career, it seems to me that he has to get ahead in the count to succeed. Maybe he has at least learned how to do that enough to have some success up here. If he has then, maybe the Sox can bring him up for Snyder anyway and see what happens.

[Orange Juiced]

Well Bard was a major job switch - that is one thing. Middlebrooks is a different animal - his approach was awful last year too, but it was redeemed by guys not having a ton of tape on him. The idea I think was a low pressure place for him to learn how to recognize pitches - and not worry about the spiral of ineptitude he had worked himself into. But if there hasn't been progress - who knows. Obviously this weekend lends itself to a call-up so we'll see.

 

It is amazing how much of a disaster the Bard move turned out to be (the move to the rotation). He went from one of the most dominant relievers in the game to.....being just hideous in every conceivable way now. I mean:

 

From 2009-2011: 2.88 era, 154 era+, 1.06 whip, 9.7 k/9

 

Then 2012-2013: 6.27 era, 69 era+, 1.78 whip, 5.8 k/9

 

And even going to the minors hasn't helped.

 

2012-13 minor league stats: 44 g, 44.2 ip, 44 h, 34 er, 46 bb, 38 k, 6.85 era, 2.01 whip, 7.6 k/9

 

I mean, just abysmal. Sad, sad story.

[BSN07]

This is silly logic. They're winning in spite of the black hole of 3B. If you can improve your team, you do it unless the cost is prohibitive. The cost is not prohibitive.

And Bogaerts current manager has said very recently he is not ready defensively. That's fairly prohibitive in my book. And while they are winning there is no need to bring a player that is not ready. They can withstand Holt and Snyder at 3B a couple more weeks if that means Bogaerts is showing up confident playing 3B. It's not silly logic.

Sox need to give what every intelligent Sox fan or reporter want ... Middlebrooks or Bogaerts now. I prefer Bogaerts and if he has a hard time np just exchange him for Middlebrooks.

 

This is silly logic

[SoxSport]

Middlebrooks will be the guy brought up. He's on the 40 man roster, and is preferred defensively--he knows the position.He and X are pretty much a standoff hitting wise in AAA. And he hits LHP better than Holt or Snyder--two guys who should not be playing 3B for defensive reasons. One of the reasons why the Sox are way down defensively in the league. It hurts their pitching.

[Dojji]

It is amazing how much of a disaster the Bard move turned out to be (the move to the rotation). He went from one of the most dominant relievers in the game to.....being just hideous in every conceivable way now. I mean:

 

From 2009-2011: 2.88 era, 154 era+, 1.06 whip, 9.7 k/9

 

Then 2012-2013: 6.27 era, 69 era+, 1.78 whip, 5.8 k/9

 

And even going to the minors hasn't helped.

 

 

2012-13 minor league stats: 44 g, 44.2 ip, 44 h, 34 er, 46 bb, 38 k, 6.85 era, 2.01 whip, 7.6 k/9

 

I mean, just abysmal. Sad, sad story.

 

Bard didn't go wrong in 2012. He was just as bad as he was in 2012-2013 in September of 2011. Something happened that year that he couldn't recover from. It's all there in the numbers.

 

The "Bard move" that killed him wasn't necessarily moving him to the rotation. I don't know what it was really, but there's no indication that that move was the specific turning point.

[sk7326]

Middlebrooks will be the guy brought up. He's on the 40 man roster, and is preferred defensively--he knows the position.He and X are pretty much a standoff hitting wise in AAA. And he hits LHP better than Holt or Snyder--two guys who should not be playing 3B for defensive reasons. One of the reasons why the Sox are way down defensively in the league. It hurts their pitching.

 

It's possible - though I think if that were the case it would have happened. Just looking at the stat lines, Boegarts has outperformed Middlebrooks in AAA. (the huge on-base difference, .368 vs .314 - more than makes up for any small differences in things like homeruns). The org is trying to figure out whether it makes sense for Boegarts to make the leap. It would be like Machado made in Baltimore - to a position he was not playing in the minors. I think DiSarcina's comments on Boegarts was to help quell the hype machine - just good spin control when facing the Nation. Sox defensively have been middle of the pack - whether it is errors or something more useful like UZR. Not saying the defense should not be considered, but I doubt it will hurt Boston too much.

[sk7326]

Bard didn't go wrong in 2012. He was just as bad as he was in 2012-2013 in September of 2011. Something happened that year that he couldn't recover from. It's all there in the numbers.

 

The "Bard move" that killed him wasn't necessarily moving him to the rotation. I don't know what it was really, but there's no indication that that move was the specific turning point.

 

Well September 2011 could also be a case of small sample size theater. And it does not explain the actual drop in velocity - his STUFF took a step backwards, and that is the real thing. The velocity he lost trying to stretch himself out has not really returned meaningfully.

[Orange Juiced]

Bard didn't go wrong in 2012. He was just as bad as he was in 2012-2013 in September of 2011. Something happened that year that he couldn't recover from. It's all there in the numbers.

 

The "Bard move" that killed him wasn't necessarily moving him to the rotation. I don't know what it was really, but there's no indication that that move was the specific turning point.

 

Well, yeah, it was a pretty bad month, but at that point in his career, you chalk it up to SSS. But the move to the rotation was a real mess.

 

Though it's weird. Here was his first month's game log as a starter in 2012:

 

5.0 ip, 8 h, 5 er, 1 bb, 6 k (ok, pretty awful)

6.2 ip, 4 h, 1 er, 7 bb, 7 k (WAY too many walks, but otherwise really good)

7.0 ip, 6 h, 2 er, 1 bb, 6 k (excellent start by any measure)

 

So his first three starts totaled: 18.2 ip, 18 h, 8 er, 9 bb, 19 k, 3.86 era, 1.45 whip, 9.2 k/9

 

So the walks were real problematic, but otherwise the production was pretty solid. Then May came and he had a few decent outings and a few horrible ones. He compiled a May stat line of 34.0 ip, 33 h, 19 er, 21 bb, 13 k, 5.03 era, 1.59 whip, 3.4 k/9. So he was coming unglued, really. A ton of baserunners, very few K's, and a lot of runs allowed.

 

The last straw was his lone June start: 1.2 ip, 1 h, 5 er, 6 bb, 2 k.

 

In other words, the walks were just killing him. And it hasn't improved. The last two seasons in the minors, he's allowed 46 walks in just 44.2 ip. That's unbelievably bad. And he's walking all these guys while losing his velocity at the same time. He tops out now in the low 90's, maybe upwards of 94. He used to hit 99 and sit at 97.

 

So everything has pretty much gone to the crapper for Bard. It's a little surprising he's still on the 40-man roster.

[a700hitter]

I think the last time Bard pitched was May.

[SoxSport]

What they need to do is put Bard to sleep, and then wake him up and make him believe he's the setup guy again. Use him strictly as a setup guy in AAA a few times, then in Boston. Keep telling him he's the setup guy. Just like old times.

[BSN07]

What they need to do is put Bard to sleep, and then wake him up and make him believe he's the setup guy again. Use him strictly as a setup guy in AAA a few times, then in Boston. Keep telling him he's the setup guy. Just like old times.

 

lol That's one of the better ideas I've read

[Dojji]

Well September 2011 could also be a case of small sample size theater.

 

But it definitely muddies the water on the pat answer some people like to think they have about why Bard went south. The move to the rotation may OR MAY NOT have been the culprit. The correlation some people want to see doesn't quite line up perfectly.

[sk7326]

But it definitely muddies the water on the pat answer some people like to think they have about why Bard went south. The move to the rotation may OR MAY NOT have been the culprit. The correlation some people want to see doesn't quite line up perfectly.

 

His struggles in 2011 were related to command. By 2012, his stuff had suffered and has not recovered. The move to the rotation correlated with just less effective pitches. A 5 mph drop in velo? Yuck!

[Behindenemylines]

The Sox collapse in 2011 seemed to effect Bard personally. The loss of mph and the lack of command led to Bard's loss of effectiveness. I think he gets one more shot next season in the spring and if he can't find the magic again his days in Boston could be over. The Sox are going to start having a lot of young prospects that they will have to put on the 40 man roster and an ineffective Bard will have no place.

[SoxFanForsyth]

Just thinking outloud - do you guys think Robbie Cano is a good comp for Xander Bogaerts?

[sk7326]

Just thinking outloud - do you guys think Robbie Cano is a good comp for Xander Bogaerts?

 

Maybe - though probably less speed. I am thinking a middle class man's Troy Tulowitzki, but more durable which sort of makes up for the former.