Dojji

C'mon guys, you're not actually thinking about this. Coco is a 2-3 WAR player on his defense alone. And he isn't a terrible hitter for a CF. At the very least he would bring an impressive glove, great speed off the bench, and a switch-hitting bat that hits better from the righthanded side of the plate -- things we could use. Things most teams could use. Who was our centerfielder the last time this team won the World Series? Covelli Loyce Crisp. I don't think his skills have deteriorated perceptably since. But leave it to Sox fans to completely underrate defense as a reason to bring in a position plater -- while at the same time railing on the pitching staff. As usual. Considering some of the drek we're sorting through trying to find an answer in the outfield right now, and our desperate need for some righthanded platoon advantage which Coco's always been good for, this is a better fit than you're letting yourselves think it is.

If you want a guy who advances a pure hitting philosophy for the everyman, then swallow your pride and bring Wade Boggs back. He lived for most of his career, certainly pretty much all of his post-Boston career, on pretty much nothing but. Wade Boggs, Dwight Evans, and guys like him are living proof that so-called sabermetrics are older than they look. Heck back in the old days, even when the focus was on not striking out, teams knew how to use a guy who could walk. Jackie Robinson achieved walk-to-strikeout ratios that are unheard of today -- likely because of the evolution of modern pitching. It was no deep dark secret that walks led to runs -- managers just didn't want guys out there working the walk when they had a chance to line up something bigger, and that's certainly still true today. I'm not convinced that baseball thoght really "evolved" that much in the sabermetric era. About all it really gave us is a way to compare players from the same era a bit more scientifically.

Umm no he didn't, he was out of the bigs after his age 41 season.

I don't believe my position is either unclear, or particularly controversial. Daniel Bard is not proven in any sense of the word as a starter. Other players who have converted successfully to starting pitchers have at least some experience as a successful, for example in the minors. Other players who have failed to successfully convert to starting pitchers also had far more depth of experience in the minors than Bard. Furthermore, in light of the fact that we've never really stretched him out in 4-5 years now, Daniel Bard we've seen in the majors really suggest to you that he would thrive if you tripled his innings? This is a kid that has never pitched more than 75 innings a year. You want to push him to literally more than twice that, possibly as much as three times that, and tell me there's minimal risk involved. I call BS.

And that dispute is IMHO meaningless because the underlying fact that there's no proof that Bard ever had the ability to be a professional starter. This is not a situation where "there's no evidence that he can't do it" is a sufficient reason to let him try, because of the risk involved.

He threw harder. That's not the same thing as being better. Masterson misses bats better with his fastball than Wang ever did.

The fact that he could put up a 2011 without a quality change-up goes to my point about that sinker of his. It is a ridiculous pitch. Halladay has a better overall arsenal, but I dunno if there's a pitcher in the league who can do the power sinker thing better than Masterson does it.

Willingham would be an interesting choice if Crawford could play right field. Because Willingham can't. Not at Fenway anyway.

Justin Masterson is a sinkerballer. That's a HUGE difference from being a power pitcher like Bard. A sinkerballer, especially one with the kind of life on his sinker Masterson has, can live on that pitch practically exclusively. Masterson himself adds has a serious ability to mix up his velocity and vary the depth of his sink as a result that puts him in a league apart. He doesn't so much have *a sinker* as he has several points along the sinkerball spectrum that he can access at will. He can throw a mid 90's relatively straight sinker, or really drop an 88 MPH full sink pitch at you, and that's as much variation as Schilling's heat/split duo that he used to such great effect. In one pitch. In short I don't think I've ever seen a pitch as plus as Masterson's sinker, with the possible exception of Mariano's cutter (Mariano though is not a starter) and Bard's heat, while overpowering, doesn't stand up to that. There's a reason Masterson was one of those guys I defended to the hilt around here and didn't want traded even for V-mart.

His mechanics were a common concern about Bard as a starter at Soxprospects when he was drafted, and the fact that the Sox tried twice to correct his mechanics fuels the concern. At any rate, you stretch out Bard when, and only when, you can afford a Duchscherer.

We're going to have to either call up Doubront, or trade Doubront, at some point next year. This limbo status is getting silly from both his and our standpoint.

Personally I think we're not in the market for a righthanded hitting outfielder, or any other kind of outfielder, until we've plugged the holes in our rotation and bullpen. Personally I wouldn't mind starting the year with Reddick and moving on nearer the deadline if it's not working. You can usually score an outfielder worth your time at the deadline, it's the easiest position to replace in midseason..

With lackey and Daisuke out we have one hole in the rotation. Spots are presently occupled by Beckett, Lester, Buchholz and Bedard if he returns, which I think the team is going to try to make that happen. I would try Aceves to the rotation, or look to bring in a few reclamation projects and hope one stuck, before I risked ruining Bard. I think the fact that it worked with CJ Wilson is making people think it's an easy process. In fact stretching out a longterm reliever into the rotation is chancy in the extreme. Just ask Justin Duchscherer. Sure if a guy is in the pen while waiting for a rotation spot, a la Curt Schilling, that can work, because the team knows the guy's a starter and he's waiting his chance and so does the pitcher. That's a far cry from a guy who's being prepared as a reliever every day for years and then suddenly, hey-presto, starting pitcher, which is more or less what we'd be asking of Bard. Again both Aceves and Papelbon have a much stronger base and history as starting pitchers to draw on than Bard does. Looking at asset management strictly from a standpoint of maximizing ROI, either one of those two would be in the rotation before Bard would.

Steady enough undercurrent here of Bard-to-the-rotation, and I can't for the life of me figure out why. He simplified his repertoire in order to make it in the bullpen, and his command, while decent, is not profound. He was moved to the bullpen because he was a DISASTER as an over-age starter in A-ball. He doesn't have the pitch selection or command to do it and was never stretched out to start for a full year anyway. I don't think his mechanics are clean enough to do him longterm for 200 innings a year either for that matter. Focus on ideas that have a snowball's chance of working. This team will not throw away what it has in Dan Bard on a fool's gamble when we're hurting in the pen as it is. Aceves is more likely to go to the rotation. I'd actually rate Papelbon more likely to go into the rotation -- at least he's done it successfully at the pro level before, and even at the major league level in 05! This will not happen, it cannot happen, and it would be poor asset management to try to make it happen. Find another idea, people. Find another idea.

Why?

http://chzupnextinsports.files.wordpress.com/2011/10/funny-sports-pictures-cant-unsee-the-mlb-logo-bird-beak.jpg Courtesy of Failblog.

Actually I think Scutaro is rated just about right. He's not gonna carry your team, but if you need a guy to plug a hole at short, you could do a lot worse.

Stick him in the minors. If he isn't ready to come back yet, not much lost, but the reward is too high not to take the chance IMHO. If it fails, who cares, but if we get lucky and get the old Scott Kazmir back? Well we're due for one of those to work and wouldn't it be awesome.

More from the "random musings of the slightly deluded armchair GM" file... I wonder what Scott Kazmir is doing these days. If there was any way to get his arm healthy, it might be worth at least sticking him in the minors and seeing what he had left. Kid was a stud a few years ago and he's still only in his late 20's, he's prime reclamation project material. Of course if there was any way to get his arm healthy, you could count on our joke of a medical staff not to figure it out.

Was he the guy who talked the Mets into trading Kazmir because he thought he could fix Victor Zambrano?

Not just reasonable expectations going forward either. you also have to consider what you expected at the start of the year. I was one of the more optimistic fans when it came to Saltalamacchia and my goals for him were incredibly modest. Given Salty's recent history, a .737 OPS and non-horrible defense was about as much as I was prepared to hope for (my preseason target was .750 OPS and he cane pretty danged close and he was nowhere near as bad defensively as I was afraid he'd be). If he can gain greater consistency next year he could become quite the asset. If he plays at at least this level next year, he's a starting catcher -- if not here, somewhere. Considering the level of expectations you had in Salty in April, SCM, you should be over the moon at this level of performance.

That the middle of the pack was a whole HELL of a lot better than what we thought we'd get out of the catcher's position at the start of the year. Heck it was what we were HOPING to get. If Salty had been an unmixed blessing this year, that would have frankly been incredible fortune. The fact that he was somewhat above that at the middle of the season and then fell back changes nothing. Salty progressed this year, both offensively and especially defensively, and is a creditable average catcher with a mix of skills and weaknesses. Considering where he was at the start of the year, that's pretty significant. Let's not forget that we picked this guy up virtually off the scrap heap. I wouldn't call him defensively weak. He has strengthes and weaknesses behind the plate. Salty had a good year throwing out baserunners. He keeps throwing out baserunners at a 30% clip, teams are going to start respecting that arm more. And remember- -- Salty was the guy who handled Wakefield this year, that affects both how often players run on him, and his passed ball numbers, which led the league. And as a pitchcaller, well, he isn't Tek, but nobody's Tek. Salty's alright there. According to WAR you're getting average production on both sides of the ball -- a little better than with the bat, a little worse than with the glove -- but remember that WAR doesn't cover the Wakefield Effect. Since we probably will not bring Wake back next year, I'd expect Salty's numbers to improve across the board defensively regardless.

Who cares who he is somewhere else. that's a decent take and fairly well thought out.