a700hitter

With Spring Training right around the corner, I am recruiting to increase the number of players in our TalkSox Fantasy Baseball league. If you played in 2015 and want to return or if you want to join for the first time, PM me to let me know your intention. It's fun and it has the added challenge of trying to make me edit my signature.

We should get some good platoon play from Young.

The whole discussion of the perfect batting order is like trying to grab onto jello. The ynamics of the game means a lot. Putting the stats in a computer and crunching the numbers to come up with the perfect batting order can't take the dynamics of the game into account. The best hitters need to be bunched together at the top of the order to get them the most ABs. The precise order probably doesn't matter much. This theory of batting your 5th best hitter #3 is a theory and that is it. Look at the Mets last year. Before they got Cespedes, they didn't even have 5 good hitters. The result of applying the theory to that team might have had Flores batting 3rd. That wouldn't work.

This ideal batting order is being put forth as a fact based on statistical analysis, but as it has been pointed out, it has not been tried by a manager. There is no way to understand how such a change would affect the dynamics of the game, which can't be modeled with statistical analysis until managers start doing it.

If a guy has been regularly missing time with injuries and it can be expected to continue it is hard to attribute that to bad luck. There was plenty of stink on last year's team. That is what bad teams do. It was not bad luck. It was just being bad and very poorly constructed. Plus, not everything went bad. Bogaerts raised the level of his game significantly. Betts developed ahead of schedule and ER was a big surprise. Holt did a great job and Bradley hit in the second half. There was a lot of good stuff, but it happened on a bad team. It was a function of his being injured which has become a pattern. Not really bad luck. And the worst part of his game was his defense which had nothing to do with luck. Did they go to see him throw to determine if he had regained his velocity? They did not. I can't attribute a lack of homework and due diligence to bad luck. I attribute it to bad management. He is getting older and his injuries have been a pattern in recent years. It was to be expected. IMO, he had a better season than I would have expected. If he plays a full and good season in 2016, that will be good luck imo, because he is staring down father time. Too much pen was used due to a terribly built starting rotation. When you go to the pen too often, the lesser arms become exposed and get exploited and the good arms like Taz burn out. There was no bad luck in our pen last year. There was a lot of stink and fatigue. Boo hoo. His overall numbers from the year were down from the year before right in line with his decline. A month means nothing. But that is not what happened. You are just sounding like the "H" word. At best it is a whiny excuse, playing right into the hands of Yankee fans who love to mock us for whining.

Hanley has been injury prone in recent years, so no surprise there. Masterson had lost about 4 -5 mph of his fastball and had an ERA approaching 6. No surprise or bad luck there either. Pedroia has been injury prone in recent year, so it is hard to day that was unexpected. Also, his power numbers were up from recent years, so he didn't underperform. Taz and Koji burning out was not bad luck but rather a function of a poorly constructed thin starting rotation. Napoli's bad performance was just a continuation of a slide that started in 2014. No bad luck there either. Bad luck is a bad excuse.

Looking at the stats to figure that out would just be wasted effort for some of us.

I thought you said that the #5 ranked hitter should bat 3rd? http://www.talksox.com/forum/threads/17452-Ortiz-to-retire-after-2016?p=980082&viewfull=1#post980082

I don't think we were victims of bad luck last year. Hanley couldn't play LF, but he had never played it before. That wasn't bad luck. Porcello pitched worse than the #4 which he is, but that should not have been a season wrecker. Miley pitched to expectations. We got a good half season out of Buchholz. That is about the norm. Ortiz had his usual good season. Bogaerts made a big leap forward with the bat and the glove. Betts development was ahead of schedule, and Bradley learned to hit in the second half of the season. ER was a pleasant surprise. Pablo played like the fat load that he is, but I would attribute it to poor conditioning, not bad luck. I am not seeing the bad luck excuse for last season.

SO Papi should have been batting first most of his career? Which ranked hitter hits 2nd, 3rd and 4th?

Where does your best hitter bat?

I know.

He was tremendously talented in every phase of his game.

If they are using it to measure relative talent levels of teams, that is really misguided.

I loved J.D. Drew until he would tweak something. No matter how minor the tweak, even mere tightness meant buh bye for 2-3 weeks.

any reasonable person who has seen what I have seen, would agree with me on most issues.

Oh, I just thought they picked his name out of a hat like other GM's do.

Nothing Exactly nothing, especially since it cannot be verified.

There really is no other side to Pablo in a Red Sox uniform. It has been pure stink.

And it was definitely a Larry move.

Don't be so sensitive. Spud and I are good buddies here and on FB and he yawns at me too every so often. He's a good barometer to let us know when we are getting tedious. At least he doesn't look to shut down the discussion like others do.

You should get a second opinion.

I doubt that he has sought help. If you put down stakes in Vegas, you are not interested in giving up gambling. He is pulling down a ton of money each year from personal appearances Vegas, and his gambling has never caused him financial hardship, so he probably doesn't think it is a problem except for his baseball ban which he probably attributes to bad luck in getting caught. That is how degenerate gamblers think.

Maybe it is the Traditionalist in me that just says Yuk!

This much tougher on Hanley and his attitude than anything posted on TalkSox. I am very concerned about this years' defensive experiment. It is a horrible legacy left by Ben http://www.boston.com/sports/baseball/redsox/2016/01/29/yes-hanley-ramirez-still-the-red-sox-plan-first-base/KWmf8Qj6aFPiOkIVmCIIMO/story.html?p1=takeover