a700hitter

Nice dog in your avatar.

Shifts are always fads. They started in the 1940's with the Boudreau shift on TeddyBallgame. The shifts of today made popular by genius, Joe Maddon and copied by everyone will start to fade. Moving everyone to one side of the diamond should be done sparingly and only against the games best power hitters. Even if they decide to take the ball the other way, you take their strength away. You'll cede the single to keep the ball in the yard. The trouble is that there are only a few hitters who are that dangerous, yet the shifts are done much more than that. The rest of the league who are not big thumpers will learn to take the singles. Also, pitchers will start to get fed up with it because in many ways it takes away the outside part of the plate when the pitcher gets 2 strikes on a hitter. Nothing pisses off a pitcher more than getting ahead 0-2 and having the guy get a cheapie the other way that fielder would have caught but for the shift.

congratulations on this blessed event!

Merry Christmas!

It's pretty hard to cover for a bad SS. The quality of the SS makes or breaks your IF defense. If your SS stinks, you need big strikeout pitchers, not a bunch of sinkerballers.

Gary has to go, He brings nothing to the table.

The thought that the current configuration of our starting staff can yield consistent success is wishful thinking at best. Porcello can be a solid #3 with a ceiling of a #2 if our IF fielding is top shelf. With the rest, we have a pair of 4's and 5's. If Buch comes out of the gate 11-0 like in 2013,that would be a game-changer, but why would they let a whole season ride on such a crapshoot? Maybe Masterson is healed and regains his velocity. If he does, he is a solid #3, but again, what we get from him will be unpredictable. A top guy is needed. We have the money. He needs to get a number one. It is as simple as that. This offense is much improved, but it will not be a wrecking crew like the 2003-2007 teams. We will need to consistently bludgeon peple with this pitching. That is always hard to do, and we don't have that kind of deep lineup.

They are both Italian.

lol!! You make a point, but I still prefer Heidi to Jenny.

The Middlebrooks era in Boston ended when he refused to play winter ball to work out his issues.

Agreed for the most part. Except for last season when XB looked like he was out of position our shortstops have fielded adequately. The position has been a revolving door since Nomar left.

XB's fielding is a concern. In order to reach an acceptable level, he needs a lot of coaching and work. Jeter was a terrible hack in the field in the minors, but he worked at it like crazy. Nomar had Pesky as his personal coach and he took a couple of hundred grounders from Pesky every day. I hope the XB is working intensely with someone. IMO, it is a necessity.

Romine, a defensive specialist and some other prospect kid whose name escapes me.

Up the middle, they were pretty good in the infield. That is most important for a sinkerballer.

I remain hopeful about XB, but unless the FO is very confident in him, I' d rather move him for a Hamel's before he gets exposed. If they stick with XB, I have to assume/hope that he will be okay.

I haven't seen enough offensive talent from him to justify the lofty expectations. His fielding needs a lot of work. As of now, it is not adequate. The slider down and away also has been his kryptonite just like Middlebrooks. In 2012 at age 23, Middlebrooks 0PSed .835 in almost 300 PA. He was hitting balls a mile. The pitchers found his vulnerability and the guy has been spiraling toward the drain ever since August 2012. XB showed nothing at all in 2014. He got worse as the season progressed until garbage time in September. He OPS'd at .360 in August in 21 games and .426 in June in 25 games. 360 and .426! That is beyond awful. Mario Mendoza for whom the "Mendoza Line" was named had a .507 career OPS. I am hopeful about Bogaerts, but I do have reservations.

LOL! Do you have reservations about XB's hitting and/or fielding?

Yep, Mark Reynolds is his ceiling.

Bogaerts is so much better than what the Tigers rolled out at SS? I think Bogaerts has a long way to go in the field.

Jacko, once they realized that he could neither identify a slider or resist swing at them out of the zone, he was toast. With interleague play,the word has made it to the NL.

You have got to be kidding. This is a great example of why stats, especially WAR are just not the be all and end all of player evaluation. The stuff is just not there for Porcello to be considered better than a number 2. Edit: I think the guy is a solid good pitcher and he has been a durable innings eater, but he is not an ace-type pitcher. He just doesn't have the stuff. He is like Derek Lowe, not Pedro or Schill.

Middlebrooks purchased his ticket out of Boston when after looking like a blind man swatting at mosquitoes at bat for an entire season, he refused to play Winter Ball to straighten himself out. The Red Sox were throwing him a life line, but he preferred to let himself drown. The guy is an obvious jack ass with an inflated opinion of his abilities. The slider low and away will be sending him to his next career while he is still a young man.

He was an Alex Cora type player. Both were versatile smart players who were productive in limited roles.

Amaro probably has a lot of bitterness toward Howard as his signing was Amaro's most glaring and expensive mistake. The bitterness is displaced anger, but he has to stare at this enormous mistake everyday so he lashed out at the guy hoping to embarrass him. I don't really care what GM's say or how they behave. I don't care if they are drunks or whatever. I only care about what they put on the field. If Amaro had Ben's demeanor and tact, the Phillies fans should still kill him on the message boards because he has wrecked their team. I'd be even more upset with the ownership that keeps him in place. So, he told the truth about how he feels about Ryan Howard. I have no problem with that. Personally, I can't stomach all of the sanitized statements made by GM's and field managers. It drives me crazy when one of our pitchers gets beaten like a pinata and the manager says that he had good stuff in the first couple of innings but struggled with his location and got hurt by leaving some pitches up. How about just saying what we all saw. He was terrible today. He'll have to work on some things before his next start. He didn't have "good stuff"! I don't expect baseball players, managers or GMs to be diplomats. They shouldn't have immature food fights either, but sometimes it is okay to say that someone is not doing a good job when he stinks.

Poor Ryan Howard. He will just have to keep cashing enormous checks and being useless. Boo Hoo!