Dojji

And if it were, that player would be Gonzalez.

I see no real difficulty in exploiting Crawford's speed on the bottom half of the lineup. Even a really good on base hitter gets on base less than half of the time. The number of times when there will be sufficient basepath clogging to impact his speed is minimal, only a few more than there would be the second time through a lineup when it's the 8 hitter blocking his way at the top of a lineup.

Oh lord lol! Hey ORS! You realize what this is? This is the Dusty Baker "Clogging the basepaths" argument!:lol::lol:

Which only makes Crwaford more valuable in NONtraditional scoring opportunities. Such as those most commonly found at the bottom of the freaking batting order. If we didn't have Ellsbury, I dunno, maybe you could make a case, but Ellsbury is more than getting the job done at leadoff, and you need a RHH (Pedroia) behind him. You aren't going to move Crawford up without taking one of those two out of roles they're among the best players in the league at. I don't care if Crawford is good there too, that isn't even the question, the question is who is the best fit for each role on the Sox, and that's Ellsbury in leadoff and Pedroia as the 2 hole hitter and Crwaford down in the lineup ready to move up if one of those two gets hurt..

Amen.

THey're right there at the end of his hips. He's perfectly capable of using them to manufacture extra RBI's for any reasonably consistent singles hitter. In fact putting him ahead of power hitters limits the impact of said appendages because too much of the time he's jogging home from scoring position or doing the "I was driven in by a HR" trot. He's better off using his speed in a quasi-second-leadoff role where it might actually increase the chances of him scoring where other much slower hitters wouldn't -- which is not so true if he's hitting in front of the big boppas.

He's just fine producing runs in a power hitter role guys. In case you haven't noticed he's a creditable slugger, especially if you don't focus too much on homers (Crawford is a perennial contender for the league lead in Triplies and has rarely slugged under .450) he is actually a very good fit for the lower middle of the order. Since we have a top notch leadoff speed guy and Laser Show in the 2 hole where he's virtually the ideal #2 hitter, I don't consider it sensible to force Crawford in to a situation where he's a LESS good fit than what we ALREADY have there, when there's other roles in the lineup where he does just fine. Especially when him hitting 2 means putting 2 lefties at the top of the lineup and forces everyone else one space down. Sounds like a losing proposition to me. This is not a lineup that goes 1-6 then black hole, black hole, black hole. Especially with Lowrie producing and Salty coming around. Good hitters in the 6-7-8 holes IS NOT A PROBLEM. Heck anyone remember Bill Mueller in 2003? He got the batting title out of the 8 hole. We got away with that because the rest of the lineup was freaking amazing. We're close to a very similar situation here.

By career OBP: Pedroia .368 Ellsbury .347 Crawford .335 one of these things is not like the others... Crawford is a gap power hitter who leverages his legs to increase his slugging percentage. He does not have the discipline required to lead off. He's been in the "tolerable top of the order hitter" range in my mind for exactly 3 years of his career, it's very hit and miss whether he'll do you credit there, meanwhile if you take pressure off him to get on base and let him swing, he'll tattoo a lot of doubles and triples and do a lot of damage in what I like to consider the second run creation unit (the 6-9 guys) and thrive in an environment that plays to his strengths as a lower middle of the order "power" hitter.

Hit him down in the lineup and give him room to run. He doesn't have the OBP to hit at the top of the lineup and never has. Lives on gap power and speed, exactly the kind of guy people fool themselves into thinking are leadoff types. Not all fast guys need to lead off. He'll thrive in the 7 hole for as long as we maintain the kind of lineup that can allow him to hit there.

Aceves with six solid today. Glad we stole him from NYY -- we might have a winner here. If Ace and Wake can nail down the bottom of the rotation we might just want to try and do without Lackey.

Has Saltalamacchia turned the corner? That's ANOTHER bomb from him.

You're overselling it with that "never." Daisuke pitched 200 innings in 07 after all. Afterwards his shoulder was a bloody hamburger mess, which is the real problem with him. I'm not denying that we probably should have held onto Arroyo. Especially since Wily Mo Pena turned out to be a whole lot of not much. But it's water under the bridge, and speculating about how he'd have done here is almost as productive as wondering if Gabbard doesn't get hurt and lose all semblance of command if he stays in Boston.

Bronson Arroyo would never have become what he is in Cincinatti, here in Boston. Was not going to happen. Besides, he was gone by the time it was time to look for a guy to fill that particular hole. Our alternative at the time was either Paps to the rotation, or signing Barry Zito. I think on the whole we did better with Daisuke than we did with the other two plans. We're in trouble regardless that year with the Schilling injury if Lester and Kason Gabbard of all people don't come in and have a good summer. I will always wonder what Gabbard might have turned into if he doesn't go down to Texas and ruin his arm... ahh well, he wasn't exactly an irreplaceable talent. Still, lefties with decent K and GB numbers aren't that easy to come by, and the guy he was traded for...!

Pity. He really could have been great. He wasn't the same after he mysteriously lost 5 MPH off his fastball halfway through 2007.

I don't have to know precisely what the SD is to know that a difference this incremental is well within it. That leaves the distinction easily within any conceivable margin for error and the concept as a whole a rather petty one. But you haven't done that. You've established a principle based on one approach (pythag) that is based entirely in pure theory and even there doesn't take into consideration the obvious confounding variables of scarcity and diminishing returns which apply on either end of the spectrum. At the end of the day which you should focus on, runs scored or runs allowed, is almost entirely dependent on where the team is. At the end of the day the only reason this would even be interesting is in a "run prevention vs. run scoring" framework of discussion and that's counterproductive to begin with. You sacrifice neither for the other -- as you rightly point out, you need to be good at both, and roster policy needs to reflect a determination to shore up any major weaknesses in either respect where possible (bearing in mind obviously that, with human players in the mix, you'll never find a perfect alchemy of the two).

You won't hear any argument over that from here, quite frankly I wanted Martin and took some ridicule for my stance on the subject. I knew he hadn't been playing up to his talent level and had more in the tank, frankly so did the Dodgers, in retrospect his release was clearly more of a financial move than a roster move.

For all the squalling about Wakes, he's right back where he usually is. Kicking around the bottom of the rotation with an ERA in the mid 4's. I'm just saying.

Tek always does this early in the year. Ignore it. Salty's outburst on the other hand might be a much hoped for sign of legitimate progress, and I'd like to see him get out there a bit more often to allow him to keep his groove on. Unlike Tek, Salty has the ability to actually improve, so his skills should be cultivated and developed more so than Varitek's

OK, I obviously didn't get my point across, that's probably my amazing communications skills again lol. My point wasn't technically that 1 run is more valuable scored than prevented. More that really good run producers are harder to get than run preventers. Therein lies your confounding variable of scarcity -- if it is harder to produce a run scoring unit than it is to field a good run preventing one, you still need to build on the basis of scoring runs rather than preventing them even if preventing them is, one for one, more valuable to the success of the team..

Game. Good work by Wakefield tonight.

Nice little oppo slap there.

That's speedball! No bunting required.