a700hitter

Will he preserve his 5+ ERA. Lovullo offered to sit him down to preserve the mark, but Porcello reportedly replied "If I am going to be a 5+ ERA pitcher, I am going to do it over the course of the entire season. I am taking my turn."

Living in NY, I watch the Mets and Yankees almost as much as the Red Sox. If you watched Jeter enough, you didn't need advanced stats to confirm that, but yes the voters that didn't watch a lot of him should have checked those stats and talked to some players.

It is a far better use of my time to look at the stats for the other 29 teams and 725+ players who I don't know as well as the Red Sox. Looking at stats for the Red Sox is almost always an exercise that results in confirming what I already know.

Yes, I did. And I believe that my post was responsive.

Asking for information about the processes that are in place to insure data integrity and reliability is not an attack, nor an unwarranted question. It is a request for information. Edit: There is no reason to provide a defense unless one believes there has been an attack or criticism.

I think you all made too much of a simple question I asked about the safeguarding of data collection and integrity. I did not impugn stats or their use. That is a projection being made by you and kimmi. I just asked about how the data is collected and verified. With the exception of a portion of one post explaining this, I have just been answered with posts telling me that stats are reliable with no explanation of how that is ensured.

This I already knew. What was news to me was that team personnel like GM's could intentionally manipulate the readings.

Questioning is never unwarranted. If there is an answer that addresses the concerns, it should be offered, but that never invalidates the question. Just the way you phrased this ^indicates that you think any questioning of the process is an attack. I don't know who said this. I certainly did not. I have been pouring over stats before your parents met. LOL! Because I look at stats, I want to be able to rely on them, which is why I was concerned about the possibility of a team's ability to manipulate them. I don't need stats to tell me about the Red Sox, because I watch almost every single inning of every single game. That is not true of the other 29 teams and 725+ players.

I clearly wasn't talking about these stats. I was talking about data used in advanced Sabremetrics, not old school stats. This is good information -- something that I had not previously heard or read. THis means nothing to me. Volkswagen's sole purpose was to make automobiles that comply with local regulations.

And you accuse me of being negative. If they are tied after today, they will be tied for 4th place, not last place. The glass is half full.

What I saw was such a blaring lack of instincts needed to play the OF. Everyone in the stadium knew that the ball was an infield popup, and Hanley broke back toward the wall at top speed for 3 strides. And CP is right, I did not go to Spring Training thinking he would be terrible in the field. I assumed that the organization knew something about his ability in the OF possibly from his time in the Red Sox organization. What I saw that day was alarming enough that I thought his defense needed to be monitored.

Usually, those transitions happen with players who are already under contract. I can't remember any other player being acquired or signed for a big contract being transitioned to a position that he had never played without having the flexibility of being able to move him back to his natural position.

i disagree. It was a blind assumption. Cherries never saw him play the outfield and there was no data regarding him playing the outfield. That is blind.

That's right. I forgot about that.

I don't blame him. He didn't bitch or moan or complain. I blame Ben for committing so much money to him on the blind assumption that he could transition to the OF. It took me one look on a play that he was 100 feet away from to realize that he was not an OFer. Then they were inflexible about moving him to the IF, because they were boxed in with a big contract to Pablo at 3B and they refused to move him to first base, because they refused to bench Napoli who was hitting like he was blindfolded. I blame Ben for the bad signing, but it doesn't change the fact that he has no place on this team unless he can play first base. Unless he looked really good working out at 1B, I don't think DD will want another defensive experiment that has the potential to wreck your season.

This is likely to go down to the last game on Sunday.

I really have not seen any character assassination of Hanley. He has played awful and then stopped playing and his team played good ball without him and then he disappeared and went home. There were management excuses for his fielding all season long. The story of Hanley 2015 just stunk to high heaven.

Gordon Edes reported it:

T There are hundreds of thousands of data items are collected each year. There is no possible way to cross check that. I am not implying that the data is corrupt. I am restating what Pedro said was Theo's practice regarding pitch velocity. That data was corrupted. I am not implying it. If that data is official data, it is worthless. I know that you are a stat head and that any questioning of the stats is viewed as an unfathomable attack. If I was as big a stat head as you, I would be concerned about the data collection process and data integrity. Double checking? Do you know if there is even a process for that and how it works? As I said, I think it would be impossible to double check given the volume of data. I felt much better about sk's explanation that much of it is done by independent third parties. That's what would need to be done to preserve the integrity and promote consistency in the data collection process. Without consistency and integrity, the data isn't worth spit. I'd like to know more about how the data is collected and who collects it. You may take the information at face value, but I don't. As a tax attorney for more than 30 years, I have seen government tax revenue projections of law changes that I knew were so inaccurate as to be worthless, and I know that they didn't pick the numbers out of the air, but they will never share their assumptions and calculations when making those projections. They rarely if ever turn to the business community to collect relevant data. So, excuse me if I am skeptical of things that others accept as true and accurate. I am not trashing your beloved stats, but just questioning whether an aspect of the science might need attention.

porcello will be 4 ERA pitcher next season -- a full run better than 2015, but still not a top of th rotation starter.

lol! You are a man that doesn't like regrets.

So, do you think they were "half-assing it"?

If a mere change of regime ignited the team and sparked the late season drive to a third place finish, that speaks volumes as to the leadership vacuum that existed prior to the change. It may also suggest that Lovullo should be the manager next season.

you can thank the Red Sox for s***ing up baseball fields for the first 4 1/2 months of the season. If not for the ridiculously embarrassing circus act put on by the Red Sox, your team would be watching the playoffs from their couches. They are not that good. That being said, if they get by the Wild Card game, the Championship is up for grabs.

CC still can win a big game. I am going to be nervous until the skanks are eliminated. I don't buy into th notion that they will go quietly in the playoffs because they were limping at the end of the regular season. There are too many examples of teams that stumbled to the finish and went all the way. I think the Skanks might have lucked out by Evoldi coming up lame as the Skanks will turn to Warren. I think he is much better than Evoldi. I am hoping that they face the Astros, because Keuchal has completely shut them down this season.