I am not sold that 1 through 9 ca hit and put pressure on a team. Vasquez is not that good. Bradley is prone to long slumps. Moreland is a career .317 OBP guy. We have some holes for sure. Pablo can't hit lefties, and Rutledge (the righty platoon) isn't much either.
Still a very good team, but people will need to get used to scoring less runs and offensive droughts. Those who are not worried who think this team will score runs like last season are kidding themselves. We will win games this season by giving up less runs than last year.
And Big Papi had the highest OBP on the 2016 team. He has always been a high OBP guy. He was replaced with a low career OBP guy in Moreland.
Edit: Any way you slice it, losing Ortiz will be a major hit to our run production.
I really don't care about the Kris Bryant Red Sox connection. I only care that we seem to have a knack for signing the wrong family member. Remember we signed Ken Brett and not his brother George Brett.
I am not in panic mode, but I don't expect this team to produce the same number of runs as it did last year with Big Papi. Losing 40 HRs, 115 RBI, the league leader in Xtra basehits will have an effect. He was also a pretty good OBP guy.
I love it when it blows up in the face of a manager who tries to be a smarty pants by making moves like Girardi did today. LOL!! Screw you, Girardi.
I liked watching smarty pants Showalter get ejected too.