Dojji

Not sure that's Cherington's fault per se. If you look at the trend of the last several years, 13 stands out as an obvious fluke, and our core has declined seriously since then, IMHO that decline began in 2008, although it didn't really start to hurt us until 09. We've been heading steadily downhill on a purely talent based analysis ever since. Cherington had a good long term strategy for turning things around that would have worked in a smaller market but he didn't have the time to get them to fruition in Boston because ownership tends to panic with only one bad year, and Cherington's long term loading up strategy would have cost us maybe as many as 4. What ownership wanted was a 1 year turnaround. However the pieces were not there to get things done in the offseason last year. Forced by panicky ownership to spend money, with only bad pieces on the market Cherington did what you would expect with that set of instructions, spent money on bad pieces. Not sure it's his fault when it was clearly what he was instructed to do in the first place. And I think his long term strategy will give us some good players in the next 2-3 years to augment what Dombrowski does with the big league roster (which is more Dombrowski's thing)

Photoshop is an amazing thing JK. I think.

It will be once all those people pan out and there's no need to replace injuries. Meanwhile back in the real world there will always be a use for a prospect or two in the wings.

Yep, one thing Cherington did really well was stock the farm. Credit to him on that point, even if his big league moves were not the best

Yeah but he had injury problems all through 09 too, I want to say he had a big issue with the knee. He could still hit in 08 and 09, but his defense took a sharp downhill turn, going from a decent 3B before 09 to a catastrophe in 09, to barely playing 3B at all in his final year with the team.

Of course that was after he hung on so long playing through the hip issue (despite the presence of Youkilis who could have covered for him while he got the medical attention he needed!) that he completely destroyed his ability to play baseball going forward. IIRC that year Lowell first started showing problems relatively early in the campaign, June I want to say. He was still hitting but it was plain to see that the guy had lost a couple steps in the field, and Lowell was never exactly quick to begin with. If he'd gotten the surgical attention he needed he may have been back in time for the playoffs. Instead one of our better players was useless to us in the playoffs that year and was really never the same again. I can understand every step of the logic chain that led us to that point but it was still incredibly frustrating to watch.

Why not? They've done it before. Holding a player in his position because of the sunk cost fallacy is just stupid. Mark my words, if they're competing for a playoff spot and Sandoval is sucking it up, he will sit. If they're not competitive it doesn't matter as much and he might squeak by, but if he's terrible and the team is in position to do something, I have no doubt that they will sit Sandoval by the end of May.

Brock Holt is a factor too, if Panda screws up bad enough he may wind up being our every day 3B

Would not surprise me to hear that Kimmi headed south

The fly in the ointment in that theory is Hanigan. Just throwing away a skilled and experienced veteran backstop is not an option. Hanigan will break camp with the team and that means one of Vazquez and Swihart will probably not.

And even better, with an ace on the staff, the pressure is off Eddie to perform. He's going to be in a position where he can make mistakes and learn from them. Hopefully not too many all at once of course

That's true, and Swihart, if he converted successfully to 3B, would instantly be second on our depth chart at that position, and the same for first base. It's a question of how much they want Swihart's bat at catcher. There's definite arguments for moving Swihart to any of 4 different positions that are not catcher, and letting him do his damage with the stick at positions where he'll get more time. Besides the two you mention, he's got corner outfield experience from his college days, so I have little doubt that he can slot in at left field, and only a little more doubt in his ability as a potential right fielder. And there's no reason not to believe his bat would allow him to play the corners either. THe question pretty much comes down to, how good does Vazquez have to be *offensively* to kick an offense-first catcher out of his position? We think we know that Vazquez will outplay Swihart on D, but considering the verbal commitment to Swihart as the opening day catcher what's the minimum Vazquez has to hit in order to keep himself in the running as a potential starter or even beat Swihart out? Does just obtaining a reasonable OBP get it done? Does there have to be some XBH potential there which Vazquez really hasn't shown yet at any level?

I think there's a risk in taking a guy who needs reps at catcher still, and trying to drill him in 2 other positions. Remember that Swihart converted to catcher full time only after signing with the Red Sox in the first place. He's less experienced behind the dish than your average rookie catcher and still has a lot to learn. Throwing third base and first base in on top of that may confuse him and result in a worse defensive catcher. It's just a factor to bear in mind.

And this is your assumption only 10 months after both Vazquez and Hanigan were hurt by mid-April forcing us to call up Swihart in the first place and give him a trial by fire? OK... Seriously there is no rush to deal off our depth at catching. We've made that mistake before, no need to rush into it again. My analysis is there's NFW either of Swihart or Vazquez are traded before the deadline, and are only traded at the deadline if one of the catchers has made the job his own, Hanigan is healthy, and we still have Leon in the wings to provide replacement level backup if needed.

Not everything that's based on experience in defiance of theoretical numbers is superstition. Theoretical numbers ignore some crucial factors that are either unquantifiable or tough to quantify, psychology probably being the most prominent among them.

and I'm saying that it literally does not matter whether he comes in in the 9th (which is the highest leverage inning on average), or some other inning. if you only have 1 man who could either close or shut down a mid inning crisis, which is the only situation in which this debate is even interesting, then you're going to have a gaping hole in your team whenever that 1 guy isn't pitching. And if you have multiple good relievers, or zero good relievers, which are the other two possibilities, then it matters even less.

And how exactly are you supposed to know that that's your highest leverage situation? Let's say that your starter faces 7-8-9 and managed to put 2 by bases on balls on with 1 out and a 1 run lead. Even if the guy gets the next 2 outs, there's 3-4-5 in the next inning, is that higher or lower leverage with a 1 run lead?

Because there is no realtime situation in which this debate matters. If you have 2 or more relievers who could close or plug holes, it does not matter which does what because you've got acceptable arms in every necessary slot If you only have 1 reliever you can count on to hang a 0 up in an inning, it still doesn't matter where you use him because whichever area you DON'T use him will be occupied by a substandard arm that will lose you ballgames. It really does not matter in the slightest.

Yes and there's a reason why. Because teams using that formula have won games and championships for decades. I'm not against the idea of statistical analysis helping the decision making process but basing the decisionmaking process entirely on the world of statics and numbers to the exclusion of giving experienced managers their heads, is where I stop the bus to get off. Statistical analyses miss a lot. They ignore psychological factors, assume average distributions and frequently forecast from hindsight. Emotions and experience do count for something.

I would not load up my XBH ability into the first 2 brackets no matter what the numbers say. I want men on base when my best extra base hitters are up. The best chance for that is to put other hitters in the 1 and 2 spots and then put your best extra base hitters in the next spots in the lineup

With respect, this is a false dichotomy, it's only a valid question if you have only one top quality reliever, and that should never be an issue for a team seeking to contend. you can't use your best releiver everywhere, ideally you need 3-4 really good relief pitchers, and exactly which one you use when then becomes academic. And if you don't have those 3-4 strong relievers and have to use crappy relievers instead, it doesn't really much matter where you let the damage happen either. So if you have a pitcher who performs better and is more comfortable in a role called "Closer" I don't see the harm. Furthermore the tactics you're describing are absolutely impossible in a world where time files in only one direction. It's all very well to say use a reliever in the highest leverage situation possible, but how do you determine when that is during a live game? It's beyond most manager's talents to be that prophetic. It's already been confirmed by statistical study that the closer's role is about 85% effective in securing the highest leverage possible in the game. I'll grant you readily that 85% is not 100% and there is potential room for improvement, but 85% is likely better than most humans can accomplish in real time with guesswork. Do you really think that most managers intend to play Miss Cleo and try to outguess that number in realtime with games on the line? When they don't have to? When a model exists that allows them to be 85% effective at this without any need for the kind of backbiting and hindsight games they already get quite enough of to be going on with?

Young and the Younglings. Lovely.

I would have loved to pick up a nice stable middle of the pack COF this offseason. I think we're going to have problems, even if the final numbers look good, because of how many of our outfielders are just plain young.

If this optimization was as good an idea as its advocates claim that it is, someone would have done it by now. The team leadership may not entertain new thoughts lightly, but they're not idiots. If they felt that a sufficient competitive advantage existed to justify trying a given method to improve run production do you really think they'd risk weakening their chances in the playoffs, or even to get to them, by not playing the lineup to its best possible advantage? Come on now people, think through the real implications of what you're actually suggesting.

Yeah I don't like committing to Swihart this early when it's entirely possible that Vaz will return the better overall value at catcher. The good news is that this kind of commitment isn't ironclad and won't hold up in the face of any significant amount of evidence to the contrary