a700hitter

I'd take that in a heart beat. We wouldn't be losing anything as there is a good chance that Marte ends ip being better than Xander.

He's 78 now and still taller than Pedroia. I met him in '87, and he was definitely around 5'11" and taller in his cowboy boots

He is on a tremendous run.

He was taller than that.

I'm in.

^Fixed

How long will Hinch stick with Reddick? He has been helpless in this series.

I am glad that you took it with good humor.

From MLBTR. I am reposting here without a link. Screw their click revenue. They steal and compile all of their information, so they don't deserve anything beyond attribution. I don't want Ausmus, so I am a little upset that he is not interested in the Mets. Brad Ausmus Interviews With Red Sox, Is Not Interested In Mets October 16th, 2017 at 4:51pm CST • By Jeff Todd Since losing his job as the Tigers skipper a few weeks back, Brad Ausmus has drawn quite a lot of interest from other organizations looking to replace outgoing managers. Ausmus interviewed today with the Red Sox, per Chad Jennings of the Boston Herald (via Twitter), but has pulled out of the running for the Mets’ job, according to Jon Heyman of Fan Rag. Boston recently announced that it would move on from manager John Farrell, opening one of the game’s premium posts. President of baseball operations Dave Dombrowski hired Ausmus to his former job in Detroit, leading to immediate speculation about a possible match. While some believe that others are more likely to earn the position — Alex Cora, in particular, has drawn plenty of attention — there’s obvious reason to suspect that Ausmus will be strongly considered. We have been tracking the early-stage developments in Boston’s search right here. As for the Mets’ job, it’s interesting to hear that Ausmus has pulled out of the hunt before meeting with the organization or landing elsewhere. New York was said to have real interest in Ausmus, and certainly has a talent-laden roster in spite of an undeniably rough 2017 campaign. Of course, we don’t know just what considerations Ausmus is bringing to bear on the situation; as Heyman notes, he does have particular ties to the broader area surrounding Boston, though New York is the next closest MLB city to that particular region (and is even closer to Ausmus’s hometown of New Haven, Connecticut). In any event, that leaves New York considering a variety of alternatives. One other notable former MLB skipper that won’t be under consideration, it seems, is former White Sox manager Robin Ventura. He “does not appear to have a strong interest” in the Mets’ job, per Heyman’s report, despite being mentioned as a possible candidate previously. The team’s other candidates (including Cora) are covered in this omnibus post on the search for a Terry Collins replacement.

And you surprisingly have so much difficulty with reading comprehension.

His contract was a good deal for the team, and it in no way hamstrung our FO financially. There are other big contracts that yielded no return. They are paying more to a guy Rusney Castillo, who will never get out of the minor leagues.

I get a little worried about these guys who have been identified as future managers while they are still playing. I remember Butch Hobson. We fired Joe Morgan, who had been doing a fine job with a thinly talented roster, because the Red Sox FO was worried about losing Hobson to the Yankees. What a mistake!

I was discussing XB who is still in his prime. It is a different story when a player is over the hill or almost over the hill. They need an occasional day or days off to keep them from breaking down.

But you really don't know how well the player will play with the injury or adjust to playing with the injury. Some guys play very well when they are banged up. And very often the bench player is not as good as the banged up star.

it is like trying to time the stock market. I think the team is better off with the banged up star than the bench player.

To many statheads, it is not important that a guy plays every day even when he is banged up, because his stats suffer. It is important to me, because I don't give a rat's ass if a guy's stats suffer a litttle bit. I only care whether we are a better team with Xander at SS than with his backup. I would rather have a banged up Xander playing SS than Holt or Nunez at SS.

His numbers were right there with most of the team, but people always seemed to be more disappointed in Xander. Maybe expectations are higher. It always seems that when people are ready to throw in the towel on him, he would come up big like with his game 4 home run. Maybe it is because hisbswing is ugly and unorthodox. He surely was banged up, but he plays through it everyday and at the end of the season, his numbers were not that terrible.

Even when his hands are healthy, he has a very ugly swing. Most of the time it looks defensive.

I would be surprised if he landed a GM spot for 2018. I don't think there are a lot of openings. It took Duke a long time to get another GM spot and he had a much longer and better track record than Ben. Four years and three last place finishes with $200 million payrolls. That's an ugly record.

There is plenty of evidence that Ben is quite the Barista. There is no arguing against that. As a GM, well... he hasn't had a GM job since 2015 and he was only a GM for 4 years.

I am unaware of any diagnosis that has been made public. I don't have a lot of faith that our medical staff is doing the right thing.

They think rest will help him recover? That doesn't sound convincing.

There was a big difference this year from last with regard to pitch identification imo. Our good hitters looked fooled much more this year than last. Early on I said this and I attributed it to the fact that Papi loved to talk hitting and pitchers tendencies so much that they were better prepared.

I am concerned about Otani's ankle surgery. Do you trust our medical staff to determine whether he is fully healthy. You can't play on a bad ankle, and they are trickier than knees.

What is the diagnosis for Pedroia's knee? If it is cartilage and not reconstruction, he should be ready for spring Training.