Dojji

You don't mean Jeurys Familia do you? As in 2015 World Series Jeurys Familia? Because as ideas go, that one's right up there with uranium flavored ice cream. Moonslav, if you buy a discount closer, then you get a discount closer, which is fine in the regular season, and then in tight games in the World Series, you have a discount closer, which is not fine at all. Yes Kimbrel had a bad stretch in the playoffs and gave up some walks and hits. A discount closer in the same situation gives up leads and wins. NO thank you.

That's an overpay and an underpay at the same time. I didn't think that was even possible. I am not in favor of trading Johnson at all. Our depth starters probably get between 6 and 15 starts for us this year and Johnson's sitting in the #6 spot right now, a position that's tricky to replace if you don't have a quality prospect there. Until I see more from Sharawyn, we really can't spare Johnson.

Right now we're getting an adequate catching tandem for roughly 5M a year. That allows us to spend in other areas, especially the rotation.

He went MIA in the second half because the team could afford it. If they'd been in trouble, Sale would be pitching, but Cora gambled to make sure he was available in the postseason and thankfully Johnson stepped up a few times and Price moved into the #1 slot while Sale was out.

There's only 2-3 players on this team I keep over bogearts. Betts, possibly Sale. Having great offense from the shortstop position is that important.

He's slightly buried in the offensive depth chart these days, overshadowed to an extent by JD Martinez and Mookie betts, but I'd like to talk about the impressive season Mr. Bogaerts had this year because he really upped his game this season and it should be recognized. Xander has had a career before 2018 of having good stretches, and then going into massive slumps that tanked his numbers by the end of the year. This year, his age 25 season, was the first year that it did not really happen to him. He finished as strong as he started and provided one of the rarest assets in major professional sports, a true middle of the order caliber power bat out of the shortstop position. We've all known he had the potential to be this, but for the first year ever, he WAS this, and despite the many other incredible things that went our way this past season, this progress shouldn't pass unremarked. The man is starting to enter his prime, and he had his first prime season this year at the right time.

Everything has its price. But Devers' obvious potential makes it hard to want to trade the man. He turned 21 this year and already has 30 home runs. He is absolutely worth working with and has true superstar potential

Oh I think it did help. It just didn't cure him. How it helped was a pitcher with some kind of structural complaint in his throwing mechanics was able to literally finish the season for us. That's valuable. And now he's in the offseason and has months to give his elbow and shoulder all the TLC they need. That's also valuable. If they actually managed to avoid a potential Tommy John, that just puts it over the top. From my perspective, Sale pitching literally through the end of the season was one of the best possible outcomes once this elbow fatigue cropped up in the first place. I think Cora and his staff handled this just about as perfectly as humanly possible. Personally I would be all for Sale skipping several noncritical starts in the first half of the coming season just to hope his ligaments tighten up and recover from the strain. We have the depth right now, no harm in doing a little extra to be sure, especially if we can get out to an early lead again.

dWAR is very flawed when it comes to catchers, a lot of what catchers do is too subtle to be easily tracked statistically. That said, Grandal has led the National League in Passed Balls three times. He is not a good receiver, which is something that's very tricky to track on a purely statistical level unless you get a real outlier, but Grandal's history makes it kind of obvious. If a pitcher can't trust his target it makes it just that much harder for them to use their best stuff, which is why having a mediocre receiver playing catcher is not good at all.

Not that concerning on the face of it, the real worry is his medical report, not his usage or conventional wear and tear. I know there's a tendency among those of us who live in the world of baseball numbers to assume that you can find everything somewhere in the stacks of data. That's not always the case. There is no "elbows hurt" statistic. The core of the problem is concerns about the future, records of past performance won't indicate a new factor until more time passes.

He's still on the depth chart for a reason.

Johnson could play that role, or even be used to give a starter a week off here and there as needed.

Could be? Absolutely. Many things "could be" true. That said HV is incredibly useful right where he is. Do you have any idea how rare a real, high quality long relief man is? There really are not all that many of them. Also -- when asked to face batters multiple times through a lineup, HV has not fared all that well. Could be a combination of small sample size and not being fully "stretched out," but the guy's so dominant in his own role that I'm reluctant to experiment.

I don't need to argue this. The real world has proven you wrong unless you "No True Scotsman" your way around several rather obvious moments in history.

No, really no. Honestly, if JD has to be bad at a position I would much prefer him to be comfortably bad. We tried this experiment in reverse with Hanley and it did not end well. JD might be mediocre in the outfield but at least he knows how to be mediocre in the outfield. He's comfortable playing there and knows what to do, even if he doesn't always have the tools to execute. That's good enough for me. I would far, far inconvenience Beni or JBJ a few times a year than risk this experiment for rather little gain. It's the old adage, better the devil you know. And while offensive competence is always finite, defensive incompetence is effectively potentially infinite. I just don't see any gain to offset the risks here.

Mojo is real because it can translate into confidence, or a lack thereof. POersonally I feel that clutch and momentum also spring from the same source -- confidence, or the lack thereof. Self confidence is similar to the placebo effect, when you honestly believe you can do a thing you suddenly find to everyone's surprise, including your own, that you actually can. Similarly if you come to actually believe something is beyond your ability it usually becomes so, whether it was originally impossible for you or not. When Price was able to restore his confidence in pitching in the postseason he went from "unclutch" to coming up huge. I do not feel this is a coincidence. I also think that Kimbrel's self confidence allowed him to fight through several moments in the recent postseason where his stuff was not working for him.

Agreed, Lorenzo Cain provided similar production to the Brewers for around $16M AAV I think we can all agree that Cain is a little better than JBJ on the whole. He's nearly as good as JBJ on D and has much more offensive upside.

I only care when it's us that beat them. That said, that's another reason 2018 was freaking sweet. The way we rolled right on through a 100 win Yankee team and took no prisoners. That would have been something to hold onto even if the World Series had gone the other way. Little fun fact: that's the first time since 2004 that we met in the playoffs, do you realize that? Another fun fact: The Yankees haven't beaten us in a playoff series in 15 years. There are adult Yankee fans who only have 2003 to hang their hats on in terms of the Rivalry. For the record: I can understand why they wanted Boston. Their team was very good, and who wouldn't want another chapter of the Rivalry? And that was an very fun series -- for us. Hey Yankees, let's have another rematch real soon, eh?

That's a nice dream for you, but meanwhile, the Red Sox are not passive passengers of fate. DD will be doing what he can to buy time and improve the roster. Hes got some decisions to make, but DD is one of the most experienced and competent GMs out there, I trust him to make those decisions. If not, this year justifies a few struggles down the road. Getting to the top is usually worth the price you had to pay to get there, and considering that nobody's gotten to the top in this century more than the Red Sox, I have to think our ownership and senior leadership have a pretty good idea of how to right the ship when things start to drift downhill I fully expect a steady downward trend in the next 5 years, similar to the period between 2008 and 2013, then the team will begin to integrate the new core it's developing in the meantime and make another stab at the top. The interim years might look messy but don't pretend for a moment that either the Red Sox or the Yankees are going to stay irrelevant for an extended period of time because neither is happening.

If Pedroia can't start the starting 2B will be Brock Holt, with Nunez in reserve and as a possible LIDR. I would expect both men to play significantly second base, and it will come down to an extent to who's hitting better, but Holt actually covered the position very well last year and that has to give him the inside track to start with, at least IMHO. I can see a use for a defensive third baseman to shore up the weakest position in our theoretical starting infield, but Nunez can do that job, and not locking a roster space down there preserves the team's versatility in ways that may prove valuable. if I had to divide infield responsibilities between Holt and Nunez, my impression is that Holt has slightly better range and Nunez has a somewhat better arm, so I'd favor Holt more at second, and Nunez more on the left side of the infield.

https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/n/nunezed02.shtml

God forfend we actually expect a rookie to improve his command and control as he gains experience in the league.

Yes, one could in fact argue that. In fact, one DID argue that. I made that point over and over again at the time, only to be dismissed as a pessimist. Oh, and Pedroia DID have an extensive injury history at the time of signing. Don't conflate "no missed time" with "no injuries." Pedroia played through some pretty nasty stuff from time to time. That, and the history of his body type was a history of guys who didn't age well. Below average sized guys have to use their bodies harder to play at an elite level, and it tends to tell on them earlier than average sized players. His injuries were not out o nowhere nor did they start happening only after the extension, nor is it true that there were no other warning signs given his age, body type and the history of similar players.

This is why you need to look at more than numbers. Numbers can tell you most of the story but never all of it. Especially if you don't look at intraseason numbers or take the trouble to understand why numbers happen. Yes he struggled in Texas. He was a sinkerballer and had been traded to one of the most defensively inept teams in major league baseball at the time. He was also pitching in an era that can't be directly compared to today because in the last decade the PED standards have gotten much tighter and offense has dropped off fairly significantly. Another pitcher with absolutely terrible peripherals by today's standards, who was considered a nice little success story at the time -- Tim Wakefield. Times change, and standards of effective pitching match the times.

I remember the sequence fairly well. He was alright with Boston's defense behind him, but he struggled with the defensive ineptitute in Texas and that put extra strain on his arm. When you're a ground ball pitcher, lack of good defense really makes your job harder The following season he actually started very well for Texas, and his arm exploded on him, he started struggling more and more and after a month of that he left the Texas rotation to have elbow surgery and that was the end of it. Gabbard always was a bit "effectively wild," but when he came back from that injury in 2008, his control was completely gone. Like, take a look at the numbers, after his injury/surgery it was painfully clear he had no idea where his pitches were going. We actually picked him up after the Rangers released him, and gave him one last shot, but there was nothing left. It was sad. He had potential.