2017 Rotation

[Bellhorn04]

Hopefully Price gets another shot at the postseason this year. Needless to say there will be a lot of stories about his lack of postseason success beforehand.

[notin]

Hopefully Price gets another shot at the postseason this year. Needless to say there will be a lot of stories about his lack of postseason success beforehand.

 

Price is one of my lesser worries on this staff. The real Rick Porcello is a bigger question mark. Is he really now a Cy Young caliber arm? Was this his one good season?

 

My thoughts are he won't repeat. And instead he'll fall back somewhere in between 2015 and 2016. Given the vastness of that grey area, that's a crazy safe predictions. I do think he can and will be closer to 2016. But it wouldn't surprise me if that was wrong, either...

[Emp9]

Naw. It wasn't Slash who started it. I don't think it was a typo - I had the impression that whomever posted it wanted to call someone a "choker" and misspelled it as "chocker". Someone else (emp?) picked up on it and from then on whenever anyone wanted to say "choke" they used "chock" instead. It became somewhat of an inside joke on BDC.

 

Ok.. you had to be there! LOL

 

I can neither confirm or deny who started that but it twas funny.

[Emp9]

I've always been somewhat critical of Price. Was it the 2008 play-offs we faced Price(Rays) as a RP? I thought he got way too many calls go his way back then. Every pitch was 98-100+ MPH which was very impressive. But a lot of them were called strikes and were a foot off the plate. Those umps were horrid. Then years later Price's comments on Papi thinking he was "bigger than the Game". In my opinion, Papi WAS bigger than the game and maybe that was something Price should strive for. A lot of that is just plain ole competition though. I can't keep that grudge, especially sense he's on the team. Plus 2013 was some payback. 1-7 as a Starter in the post-season doesn't look great, but a few games were winnable. His post-season record could easily be 5-5 as a SP.

[moonslav59]

How many good games does Price have to pitch in the playoffs for people not to call him a chock...errr, I mean choke?

 

If you say 2-3 great games, do you see how ridiculous that sounds?

 

A tiny sample size of greatness can change a label that quickly!

Edited January 14, 2017 by moonslav59

[Northern Star]

Speaking of Price:

 

https://www.yahoo.com/sports/news/david-price-says-hes-heard-racial-taunts-from-red-sox-fans-192523906.html

[Bellhorn04]

How many good games does Price have to pitch in the playoffs for people not to call him a chock...errr, I mean choke?

 

If you say 2-3 great games, do you see how ridiculous that sounds?

 

A tint sample size of greatness can change a label that quickly!

 

What if his next 2-3 games stink? Will that clinch it that he's a choker?

[S5Dewey]

How many good games does Price have to pitch in the playoffs for people not to call him a chock...errr, I mean choke?

 

If you say 2-3 great games, do you see how ridiculous that sounds?

 

A tint sample size of greatness can change a label that quickly!

 

..and a parallel question is how many times does he have to fail in the post season before that "chocker" moniker gets to be credible? If he loses 2-3 more do we begin to think he can't pitch in the post season or do we always dismiss it as being a small sample size?

 

I want the guy to succeed as much as anyone does but at the same time I'm getting tired of the excuses for continued poor post-season performance. I'm sure he knows that he was hired to pitch in the post season so I'm sure he is tired of them too.

 

Just call it like it is - the guy has shown every indication that he's not a good post-season pitcher. I believe that a player's recent performance is a good indicator of what his next performance will be, but until he has a good one or three....

[Bellhorn04]

There appears to be no satisfactory way to evaluate postseason numbers, because the samples are NEVER large enough.

[Kimmi]

I would take clay on a 1 year contract year over price with $31 x 6 remaining years. In a heartbeat and twice on Friday...

 

I was surprised that there were posters last offseason that thought that the Price contract was a good contract, but thought that Clay's option was a terrible deal.

That never made sense to me.

[Kimmi]

Price is one of my lesser worries on this staff. The real Rick Porcello is a bigger question mark. Is he really now a Cy Young caliber arm? Was this his one good season?

 

My thoughts are he won't repeat. And instead he'll fall back somewhere in between 2015 and 2016. Given the vastness of that grey area, that's a crazy safe predictions. I do think he can and will be closer to 2016. But it wouldn't surprise me if that was wrong, either...

 

As I have said before, I am a worrier (not by choice), but Price is not on my list of things to worry about.

 

Porcello will almost definitely regress from last year's performance, but I agree that he will be closer to 2016 than to 2015. I am not worried about him either.

[Kimmi]

Speaking of Price:

 

https://www.yahoo.com/sports/news/david-price-says-hes-heard-racial-taunts-from-red-sox-fans-192523906.html

 

I have been fairly critical of Price's lack of 'aceness', but no one deserves to have racial slurs thrown at them. Shame on any fans who would do such a thing.

 

On another note in the same article, it sounds like Price is committed to finishing out his contract with the Sox, choosing not to opt out. Of course, that could always change in the next two years, but I found it interesting that he would make such a comment. We need to really hope that Price does not stink and become an albatross.

[Bellhorn04]

I was surprised that there were posters last offseason that thought that the Price contract was a good contract, but thought that Clay's option was a terrible deal.

That never made sense to me.

 

Some folks don't pay as much attention to the money and the value aspects of contracts, they just thought Price was an elite pitcher and Clay was Mr. Unreliable. Which is true if you overlook the money factors.

[Kimmi]

There appears to be no satisfactory way to evaluate postseason numbers, because the samples are NEVER large enough.

 

There isn't, and so the easy thing to do is to call him a choker. Or in the other extreme, to call someone like Papi clutch.

 

It is quite possible that Price has let the postseason choke thing get in his head, but it's also quite possible that is nothing more than randomness.

[Kimmi]

Some folks don't pay as much attention to the money and the value aspects of contracts, they just thought Price was an elite pitcher and Clay was Mr. Unreliable. Which is true if you overlook the money factors.

 

I realize that and I understand that. But IIRC, these discussions were specifically about the monetary aspects of the contracts.

[Kimmi]

From the file marked 'Thank you Mr. Wright':

 

Wright was upset about the public bashing of manager John Farrell for his decision to pinch-run Wright, which led to the All-Star pitcher missing the final month of the regular season and the playoffs. “I wish people would stop blaming John for that. I was actually excited he called my name for that role,” Wright said. “I was completely prepared for it. . . . I went through all my checkpoints. I told myself I was going to be aggressive and I got caught. That’s my fault. I landed wrong on my shoulder. That’s nobody’s fault. I could have been hurt stepping out of the shower. I could have been hurt if I had reached base the day I pitched two days before. I don’t know why people have to blame someone. It’s baseball.”

 

People need to seriously stop blaming Farrell for Wright's injury.

[harmony]

Speaking of Price:

 

https://www.yahoo.com/sports/news/david-price-says-hes-heard-racial-taunts-from-red-sox-fans-192523906.html

 

To elaborate: "Price added that last year was the first time he didn't have fun on the field during his career."

 

http://www.masslive.com/redsox/index.ssf/2017/01/david_price_boston_red_sox_lhp_1.html#incart_river_index

 

https://www.bostonglobe.com/sports/redsox/2017/01/13/david-price-has-doubt-can-succeed-boston/NDaBB3sqD7I5WLFUJ0hpVN/story.html

[Bellhorn04]

I realize that and I understand that. But IIRC, these discussions were specifically about the monetary aspects of the contracts.

 

Maybe those people were right though.

 

Dollar values per FanGraphs:

Price $35.9 M

Buch $3.9 M

 

(Personally I was fine with both moves.)

[Northern Star]

Some folks don't pay as much attention to the money and the value aspects of contracts, they just thought Price was an elite pitcher and Clay was Mr. Unreliable. Which is true if you overlook the money factors.

 

I probably said Price was a good addition, and that they paid the price it took to get him. Having screwed up the rotation badly with their laudable but impractical unwillingness to give out big contracts, they backed themselves into a corner when there were hardly any top FA options available. Not to mention the ridiculous dearth of homegrown options.

[Nick]

I probably said Price was a good addition, and that they paid the price it took to get him. Having screwed up the rotation badly with their laudable but impractical unwillingness to give out big contracts, they backed themselves into a corner when there were hardly any top FA options available. Not to mention the ridiculous dearth of homegrown options.

 

On the heels of two last place finishes, what did anyone expect DD to do? I just hate Monday morning quarterbacks. We won the Division and had a chance to win the World Series when the first pitch was thrown in Cleveland.

 

DD did his job.

[moonslav59]

What if his next 2-3 games stink? Will that clinch it that he's a choker?

 

Not even close for me.

 

Making a definitive judgement about who a player is based on teenie weenie sample sizes, especially when scattered over time, is just not something I do. I think I have math and science on my side, but I also don't see the need or the purpose in assigning such labels to a person even if the sample size neared large enough.

[moonslav59]

On the heels of two last place finishes, what did anyone expect DD to do? I just hate Monday morning quarterbacks. We won the Division and had a chance to win the World Series when the first pitch was thrown in Cleveland.

 

DD did his job.

 

That's how I see it.

 

What else could DD do? Maybe Cueto will turn out better and a little cheaper, but Price looked to be as sure a bet as you ever could hope when deciding to take the deep plunge.

[Kimmi]

Maybe those people were right though.

 

Dollar values per FanGraphs:

Price $35.9 M

Buch $3.9 M

 

(Personally I was fine with both moves.)

 

No doubt that Price was more valuable than Buchholz was last year. However, you're trying to compare a one year deal against a 7 year deal after only one year. It doesn't work like that.

 

Without the benefit of hindsight, I still can't agree with the idea that Price for 7 yrs/$217 million is a good contract but Buchholz for 1 yr/$13 million is a bad one.

[Kimmi]

On the heels of two last place finishes, what did anyone expect DD to do? I just hate Monday morning quarterbacks. We won the Division and had a chance to win the World Series when the first pitch was thrown in Cleveland.

 

DD did his job.

 

Who's Monday morning quarterbacking? FTR, I have always been against large contracts, but even with that being the case, my previous posts were not an attempt to criticize Dombrowski for signing Price. Price was the best starter available and we needed a #1 starter. Price not pitching up to expectations, even though he was still very good, is not Dombrowski's fault.

 

And I will say again that we won the division mostly because of the foundation that was already in place from Theo and Ben. Dombrowski stepped in and is reaping the benefits of the hard work of his predecessors.

[Bellhorn04]

Not even close for me.

 

Making a definitive judgement about who a player is based on teenie weenie sample sizes, especially when scattered over time, is just not something I do. I think I have math and science on my side, but I also don't see the need or the purpose in assigning such labels to a person even if the sample size neared large enough.

 

Which also means, on the flip side, that the postseason numbers of Papi and Schilling have no great relevance to their stature as players.

[User Name]

The whining about Price has become an auto-trigger for me.

[Bellhorn04]

No doubt that Price was more valuable than Buchholz was last year. However, you're trying to compare a one year deal against a 7 year deal after only one year. It doesn't work like that.

 

So they can't be compared at all, really - truly apples and oranges.

[Dojji]

From the file marked 'Thank you Mr. Wright':

 

Wright was upset about the public bashing of manager John Farrell for his decision to pinch-run Wright, which led to the All-Star pitcher missing the final month of the regular season and the playoffs. “I wish people would stop blaming John for that. I was actually excited he called my name for that role,” Wright said. “I was completely prepared for it. . . . I went through all my checkpoints. I told myself I was going to be aggressive and I got caught. That’s my fault. I landed wrong on my shoulder. That’s nobody’s fault. I could have been hurt stepping out of the shower. I could have been hurt if I had reached base the day I pitched two days before. I don’t know why people have to blame someone. It’s baseball.”

 

People need to seriously stop blaming Farrell for Wright's injury.

 

Especially because if I recall correctly, he had the choice of Wright or Buchholz at the time. We all know what would have happened if it had been Buchholz.

[Bellhorn04]

Especially because if I recall correctly, he had the choice of Wright or Buchholz at the time. We all know what would have happened if it had been Buchholz.

 

It was Wright or Pomeranz I believe.

[Dojji]

Which also means, on the flip side, that the postseason numbers of Papi and Schilling have no great relevance to their stature as players.

 

Well, that's not true in the slightest for one big reason -- both Ortiz and Schilling had a HELL of a lot more postseason experience than Price has had.