A Realistic View at 2016

[Bellhorn04]

man. he fell off a cliff quick.

 

And the money he's costing is just about equal to Lackey's total salary for the same time frame.

[Slasher9]

And the money he's costing is just about equal to Lackey's total salary for the same time frame.

 

yup. all though that bridge was burned when we didnt renegotiate that final $507k option year. he would not have thrown a pitch for the red sox in 2015 at that price. he/his agent forced our hand.

[Spudboy]

yup. all though that bridge was burned when we didnt renegotiate that final $507k option year. he would not have thrown a pitch for the red sox in 2015 at that price. he/his agent forced our hand.

 

Did that actually happen? I have heard things about it but I never heard it from the "Horsefaces mouth." Why did he then play for the min. in St Louis?

 

I'm not doubting your knowledge here. I just have never seen any concrete evidence that Lackey would not honor the deal in Boston.

[Bellhorn04]

Did that actually happen? I have heard things about it but I never heard it from the "Horsefaces mouth." Why did he then play for the min. in St Louis?

 

I'm not doubting your knowledge here. I just have never seen any concrete evidence that Lackey would not honor the deal in Boston.

 

There is none. Just speculation.

[Slasher9]

as it unfolded in first half 2014 it certainly felt like the handiwork of an agent.

and when it didnt work i can only surmise that his people demanded a trade and he would have played that final year minimum for any team not named Boston.

of course the $32MM st louis "eventually" gave him doesnt hurt......

[Bellhorn04]

as it unfolded in first half 2014 it certainly felt like the handiwork of an agent.

and when it didnt work i can only surmise that his people demanded a trade and he would have played that final year minimum for any team not named Boston.

of course the $32MM st louis "eventually" gave him doesnt hurt......

 

Hard to say. It's quite possible the Sox FO felt both Lester and Lackey were too old.

[mvp 78]

Hard to say. It's quite possible the Sox FO felt both Lester and Lackey were too old.

 

That was definitely the time period when John Henry couldn't stop ranting about pitchers older than 30.

[moonslav59]

I think the "age" thing was blown out of proportion. The Price signing shows that.

 

I think it was a combination of 3 major issues:

1) Age and projected age-related decline projections.

2) Attitude and the whole beer and chicken issue.

3) The return we get on trade and the perceived ability to replace them with similar pitchers at the same financial cost. (For example, trade Lester for players and then sign an equal pitcher at the same money.)

 

It didn't work out well. We didn't get good return and we didn't replace these guys in kind.

[mvp 78]

Then why didn't they re-sign Lester prior to the 2014 season? They kept banging the 30+ drum over and over again.

[Bellhorn04]

I think the "age" thing was blown out of proportion. The Price signing shows that.

 

Not necessarily, the Price signing might be more of an 'about face' in policy triggered by desperation.

[Bellhorn04]

I think it was a combination of 3 major issues:

1) Age and projected age-related decline projections.

2) Attitude and the whole beer and chicken issue.

3) The return we get on trade and the perceived ability to replace them with similar pitchers at the same financial cost. (For example, trade Lester for players and then sign an equal pitcher at the same money.)

 

 

You would think the attitude and beer and chicken issues would have been put to rest with Lester and Lackey pitching so well in 2013 and leading us to a title.

[Spudboy]

Not necessarily, the Price signing might be more of an 'about face' in policy triggered by desperation.

 

Most likely.

[Spudboy]

You would think the attitude and beer and chicken issues would have been put to rest with Lester and Lackey pitching so well in 2013 and leading us to a title.

 

In my opinion that issue was far more blown out of proportion than the over 30 policy.

 

Good point.

[moonslav59]

Then why didn't they re-sign Lester prior to the 2014 season? They kept banging the 30+ drum over and over again.

 

The media and posters kept "banging" that drum over and over. I don't recall any hard-fast rules being dictated by Henry.

 

That being said, I do think age was a factor, as I stated above in my 3 reasons, but I doubt it was the only factor.

 

The theory was that we'd get some advantages from the players we got for Lester & Lackey AND we'd use the money to sign helpful players. The theory was not idiotic, but the results were.

 

The players we got: Cespedes (turned into Porcello), Kelly and Craig combined hurt more than helped.

 

The money "saved" was wasted on Sandoval and HanRam.

 

Had Porcello turned into a solid #2 and we signed Scherzer instead of Pablo and hanley, maybe the theory wouldn't look so bad now.

[moonslav59]

In my opinion that issue was far more blown out of proportion than the over 30 policy.

 

Good point.

 

What about the 3rd point? Probably the main reason out of the 3.

[Spudboy]

What about the 3rd point? Probably the main reason out of the 3.

 

I don't understand what you are asking me.

[moonslav59]

I don't understand what you are asking me.

 

My 3rd reason for making the trade....

 

1) Age and projected age-related decline projections.

2) Attitude and the whole beer and chicken issue.

3) The return we get on trade and the perceived ability to replace them with similar pitchers at the same financial cost. (For example, trade Lester for players and then sign an equal pitcher at the same money.)

 

On the 3rd point...

The theory was that we'd get some advantages from the players we got for Lester & Lackey AND we'd use the money to sign helpful players. The theory was not idiotic, but the results were.

The players we got: Cespedes (turned into Porcello), Kelly and Craig combined hurt more than helped.

The money "saved" was wasted on Sandoval and HanRam.

Had Porcello turned into a solid #2 and we signed Scherzer instead of Pablo and hanley, maybe the theory wouldn't look so bad now.

 

My position is that the idea was not terribly flawed, but the execution of the plan failed miserably.

 

[Spudboy]

My 3rd reason for making the trade....

 

1) Age and projected age-related decline projections.

2) Attitude and the whole beer and chicken issue.

3) The return we get on trade and the perceived ability to replace them with similar pitchers at the same financial cost. (For example, trade Lester for players and then sign an equal pitcher at the same money.)

 

On the 3rd point...

The theory was that we'd get some advantages from the players we got for Lester & Lackey AND we'd use the money to sign helpful players. The theory was not idiotic, but the results were.

The players we got: Cespedes (turned into Porcello), Kelly and Craig combined hurt more than helped.

The money "saved" was wasted on Sandoval and HanRam.

Had Porcello turned into a solid #2 and we signed Scherzer instead of Pablo and hanley, maybe the theory wouldn't look so bad now.

 

My position is that the idea was not terribly flawed, but the execution of the plan failed miserably.

 

 

I differ from you on this. Dumping Lester and Horseface was just dumb in the first place. To me, they executed a dumb plan and had predictably bad results from those dumb plans. No shock there.

 

Did they just want to get younger and cheaper / controlled in the rotation? If so, why do it all at once?

 

They made the wrong move and the consequences are long lasting.

[moonslav59]

I differ from you on this. Dumping Lester and Horseface was just dumb in the first place. To me, they executed a dumb plan and had predictably bad results from those dumb plans. No shock there.

 

Did they just want to get younger and cheaper / controlled in the rotation? If so, why do it all at once?

 

They made the wrong move and the consequences are long lasting.

 

 

I get your point, and I'm still rolling my eyes on how they botched the Lester extension, however I do think the plan (after the extension was botched) was not as bad as many think it was. I think the hindsight on the execution of the plan may be clouding judgement on the plan itself.

 

Look, nobody hates the Miller for ERod deal, and had we gotten someone better than ERod for Lackey (instead of Kelly & Craig) plus something way better for Lester than a couple months of Cespedes and a year of Porcello (before the extension), then things might be different on this aspect alone. The next aspect of the plan was what to do with the money "saved" by not signing Lester and extending Lackey. I was totally against the Sandoval and HanRam signing from before day 1, but I guess it's understandable that they decided to spend on offense last winter and pitching his winter, when the market was saturated. We ended up getting Price without losing a prospect or comp draft pick. We traded for Kimbrel.

 

To me, the bigger mistake was not the overall plan, but rather how the completed the plan.

 

Kelly has been worse than awful.

Craig was even worse than worse.

Cespedes> Porcello has not been even close in value to what I think we could have gotten for Lester, plus we ended up paying a high salary to keep Porcello around. I'd rather have just outbid the Cubs for Lester than acquiring and extending Porcello. The age difference was probably a big factor in this trade-off, so I'm not trying to minimize the "age argument". The problem was the choice in trade partner more than the idea of trading Lester, IMO.

 

To make things worse, we used the money "saved" to sign Sandoval & Ramirez. Those were horrible mistakes, and I can see how these deals can be related to the Lester & Lackey dumps, but to me, they are separate deals.

 

Had we spent the money on re-signing Lester and Cruz or signing Scherzer & Miller instead of Pablo & HanRam plus got three ERods or better in the 3 trades, we might not be looking back lamenting the decline of our rotation.

 

We messed up judging Kelly & Craig.

We messed up getting just Cespedes and a comp pick for Lester.

We probably messed up extending Porcello after getting him for Cespedes.

We messed up signing Sandoval.

We messed up signing Ramirez.

 

Had we done better on the choices above, letting Lester and Lackey go, would not have been as bad or maybe even not bad at all.

 

[Nick]

where did Brentz learn to play LF....that's f***ing twice he's gone to third base instead of 2nd.....are these guys coached? Its just inexcusable...jesus h christ.

[moonslav59]

where did Brentz learn to play LF....that's f***ing twice he's gone to third base instead of 2nd.....are these guys coached? Its just inexcusable...jesus h christ.

 

There's a reason he's been called a AAAA player for years.

[Nick]

Brents....you are down 9-0, hit a great double, now its 9-2, you get thrown out at 3rd trying to stretch a double....Why? Why? Why? Are you the dumbest f***ing dumb ass? This is not AAA....

[moonslav59]

Brents....you are down 9-0, hit a great double, now its 9-2, you get thrown out at 3rd trying to stretch a double....Why? Why? Why? Are you the dumbest f***ing dumb ass? This is not AAA....

 

There's a reason he's been called a AAAA player for years.

[Bellhorn04]

He could be in his final season at age 39, and barely over the Mendoza line at the time, and Longoria will still be feasting on Sox pitching.

[oldtimer]

There are several areas that have hurt the Sox this year. Depth of the position players, Starting pitching and relief pitching.

 

Position player depth was setup to be a problem by a series of trades and acquisitions that others have highlighted. Craig, Sandoval, Castillo and to some extent Rameriz. These players have been expensive with only Hanley producing at a journeyman level. Meanwhile, like all teams, our players face a 162 game season in tough climates with lots of travel and a strenuous daily routine. They face scientific evaluation of their hitting shortcomings and are bound to feel mentally letdown when their pitching staff doesn't do the job, not to mention the typical stresses of family life. Injuries are a part of the game and often they play through minor ones. Of course players can and do get sidelined during the season and the team management needs to plan for replacements to give regular players rest and to fill in when the guys go on the disabled list. With Swihart, Holt, Hannigan and Young on the disabled list the replacements called up were on the weak side with the exception of catcher. If we have can't miss prospects in Benentendi and Moncada, why not let them fill in?

 

Starting Pitching

 

We have Wright, Porcello and Price generally performing as acceptable starting pitchers. I was not a fan of the Price deal due to the length of the contract, however, we would be even more lost in the starting pitching arena without him. ERod has talent but has not developed. Buchholz is not doing the job at all, Kelly seemed to fail as well as the two or three youngsters brought up. Are we not getting major league quality pitching prospects or are we not developing the ones we have? This is a serious question. Farrell was a pitching coach at a prior time. Is there something wrong with the coaching and development of red sox pitching?

 

Relief Pitching

 

Some of the problems we have faced here stem from the failures of the starting pitching, which is putting high workloads on our bull pen. Kimbrel was a good acquisition. Koji might just be getting too old. Tazawa is still effective. Hembree is doing a decent job but in general the bull pen needs an infusion of talent. Perhaps Kelly will be moved back to that role but trade or free agency needs to be gone to for more talent.

 

Alas, I think the Red Sox with retreat to a mediocre record this year and Dombroski will need to set sites on improving for next season.

[TheBabeStrikesBack]

There are several areas that have hurt the Sox this year. Depth of the position players, Starting pitching and relief pitching

 

Wow, some tremendous insight there.

 

Pretty much every team in baseball aside from a select few can claim the same thing!!

[moonslav59]

There are several areas that have hurt the Sox this year. Depth of the position players, Starting pitching and relief pitching.

 

Position player depth was setup to be a problem by a series of trades and acquisitions that others have highlighted. Craig, Sandoval, Castillo and to some extent Rameriz. These players have been expensive with only Hanley producing at a journeyman level. Meanwhile, like all teams, our players face a 162 game season in tough climates with lots of travel and a strenuous daily routine. They face scientific evaluation of their hitting shortcomings and are bound to feel mentally letdown when their pitching staff doesn't do the job, not to mention the typical stresses of family life. Injuries are a part of the game and often they play through minor ones. Of course players can and do get sidelined during the season and the team management needs to plan for replacements to give regular players rest and to fill in when the guys go on the disabled list. With Swihart, Holt, Hannigan and Young on the disabled list the replacements called up were on the weak side with the exception of catcher. If we have can't miss prospects in Benentendi and Moncada, why not let them fill in?

 

It's hard for any team to plan beyond the depth we had to start the season. Pablo's struggles and injury brought Shaw to FT status. Remember, he was a sub on the winter roster. Young was viewed as a platoon option vs LHPs, so I think he was more or less viewed as a sub for Castillo/Holt in LF. Holt was our super sub- he's on the DL. Hanigan was our #2 catcher behind Swihart. Both are gone, and Vaz/Leon are now playing and have been playing since Swihart was replaced and later put on the DL and Hanigan's trip top the DL. All-in-all, I think our subs were great on paper and have done great when forced to play. Where would we be without Shaw, Young, Vaz, Leon, Holt (before the concussion) and Hernandez/Rutledge/Marrero?

 

I can see how the subs of our subs might not look pretty on paper or in real life. I mean who really thought we'd be relying on Leon, Brentz, Miller and to some extent Rutledge & Marrero? These guys haven't done too badly either!

 

Starting Pitching

 

We have Wright, Porcello and Price generally performing as acceptable starting pitchers. I was not a fan of the Price deal due to the length of the contract, however, we would be even more lost in the starting pitching arena without him. ERod has talent but has not developed. Buchholz is not doing the job at all, Kelly seemed to fail as well as the two or three youngsters brought up. Are we not getting major league quality pitching prospects or are we not developing the ones we have? This is a serious question. Farrell was a pitching coach at a prior time. Is there something wrong with the coaching and development of red sox pitching?

 

We got top quality at the top of the rotation at a hefty price, but the whole idea of quantity over quality the rest of the rotation is a failed philosophy to begin with. It never works. Even teams that strive to acquire 5 solid starters have difficulty winning consistently, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't strive to get at least 4 solid, known quality SP'ers. The tragic part of this whole plan was that even with all the "quantity" at SP'er we had with our depth chart this winter, we still ended up using O'Sullivan! Even this part of the plan failed.

 

Relief Pitching

 

Some of the problems we have faced here stem from the failures of the starting pitching, which is putting high workloads on our bull pen. Kimbrel was a good acquisition. Koji might just be getting too old. Tazawa is still effective. Hembree is doing a decent job but in general the bull pen needs an infusion of talent. Perhaps Kelly will be moved back to that role but trade or free agency needs to be gone to for more talent.

 

Alas, I think the Red Sox with retreat to a mediocre record this year and Dombroski will need to set sites on improving for next season.

 

I suggested moving Kelly and maybe even Buch to the pen last winter, but that was based on the assumption that we would acquire at least 2 solid SP'ers and keep Miley around. The Carson Smith injury hurt. Barnes, Hembree and Ross (earlier) have done well, and you'd think that should have been all we needed. However, Uehara, tazawa and Kimbrel have had some issues beyond over-usage.

 

Our pitching staff is inferior. It was on paper last winter as well. We had a bunch of hopes and prayers, and even with the Wright, Barnes and Hembree prayers being answered, our staff still sucks. It shouldn't really be a surprise.

Edited June 29, 2016 by moonslav59

[moonslav59]

Sox OPS after tonight's game:

 

1.111 Ortiz (1st out of 77 AL players with 250+ PAs)

.950 JBJ (6th)

.889 Bogey (14th)

.832 Betts (25th)

.818 Pedroia (28th)

.793 Shaw (46th)

.761 Ramirez (49th)

 

Under 250 PAs

.846 Young (would rank 22nd)

.664 Holt

.554 Vazquez

 

Low PAs

1.283 Leon

.950 Brentz

.733 Rutledge

.720 Swihart

.704 Hernandez

.479 Hanigan

 

If you lower the PAs to 140, the AL sample size grows to 143 (9 players x 15 teams =145.)

1) Ortiz (+.124 over 2nd place Altuve)

6) JBJ

16) Bogey

29) Young

34) Betts

40) Pedroia

52) Shaw

68) HanRam

139) Vazquez

 

WOW! 8 players in the top half of the AL.

 

[Slasher9]

Wow, some tremendous insight there.

 

Pretty much every team in baseball aside from a select few can claim the same thing!!

 

wow, you needed to come onto a Red Sox fan forum to post this?

tremendous.

[moonslav59]

Young may be out longer than expected...

 

MLBTR reports...

 

...outfielder Chris Young underwent an MRI in Boston on Monday, and the test revealed “a little bit more injury” than Young’s initial tests did...