Dojji

lol

The team "was going" to be competitive in 14 and 15 too. Unless we spent what it cost to upgrade the pitching staff, we were going to continue to struggle somewhere in the middle and bottom of the division. DD was willing to spend what it took to improve the pitching staff. Cherington kept getting sticker shock at the cost and refusing to take the starting staff nearly as seriously as it needed to be taken. He would NOT spend top dollar for top starting pitchers and that's exactly why those teams did poorly. You get what you pay for. If you don't pay for top quality, don't expect top results. And we certainly did not get top results from our starting staff under Ben Cherington. and that's without the absolutely retarded lowballing of Jon Lester factored in (see above: "sticker shock"). DD realized that to get premium pitching you have to pay a premium. That concept was absolutely alien to Cherington, and it was his downfall. and if the farm system had to be emptied to pay that premium. personally I'll chalk that down to the shoddy state of our rotation and the need by DD to pay through the nose to build the rotation from the ground up in a buyers' market. That's also partially down to Cherington, for not maintaining the starting rotation properly in his tenure. DD had to pay for the pound of cure for want of Cherington's ounce of prevention, if you will.

Not many rentals available, but one that stands out is DJ LeMahieu. He's 29 and has played on the noncontending Rockies for his entire career. He's also having a bit of a down year this year which might disincline the Rockies to extend him. He's a multiple gold glove winner who can hit a little bit -- a definite upgrade at the position. I think the Twins are shopping Brian Dozier around, but honestly think their price will be too high. If we are going to make a move for a full time 2B, LeMahieu is probably our guy. One off the wall idea is to trade for Jose Iglesias and put him at second base. If he was willing to do it and not pout, that would be one heck of a defensive infield

I do think Jar Jar Beeks needs to go back down to the minors for awhile, kid is not ready, he's not able to attack the strike zone with confidence in his stuff, until he is, he needs to be working on his issues in Pawtucket.

Swihart could not have had a better possible showcase of himself as a catcher. He probably just put himself on half a dozen team's radars with that performance. I know if I was on a team that was shopping around to upgrade at catcher, I'd have a scout going over the tape. And yes, being able to confidently handle 6 different pitchers is impressive, even if he had trouble keeping the wet-behind-the-ears rookie in line. He definitely showed that he can handle the mental side of catching, I honestly think DD's deadline phone calls will feature at least a few inquiries about Swihart.

No it isn't. Arguing from the outcome is different from revisionist history. It's accurate that Cherington's teams vastly underperformed, usually due to poor starting pitching. This is a direct consequence of his reluctance to compete for high end starting pitching, so overall it's a very valid criticism. If we hoped that the offense could overcome the weak pitching, that didn't make the pitching magically not weak. Cherington did a very poor job of assembling a competitive pitching staff, and that compounded the matter of the Jon Lester trade, which honestly probably did not need to happen as the man was more than worth the money he demanded and we had to spend virtually the same money on Porcello who's a fine pitcher but clearly inferior to Lester. So, final analysis of that trade by Cherington: We saved a few mil, gained very little talent, and lost a durable top end starter in exchange for a guy who is historically more of a middle of the rotation inning chewer -- a good one, but not as good as what he replaced by any means (Rick Porcello has outperformed Jon Lester in ERA+ in exactly 0 of the three years he's been here). That's not a move you make to put the team over the top. That's a move you make when you're deliberately punting away a couple seasons in order to improve your draft position and want to get younger and start to reposition the team around a new young core -- a textbook move in many markets but exactly what you DON'T do in a media fishbowl like Boston. Final analysis, Cherington didn't realize what GMing for Boston entailed, and tried to run this team like a midmarket squad. He showed no flexibility in dealing with the special circumstances of running a baseball team a big media market and tried to do things by the book. He is probably a competent GM, but was not ready to GM in Boston. I think if a team somewhere in the rust belt tried to give him a chance they'd find him capable. He didn't work out here in the long run.

The difference is, I don't think it will backfire. And really, so far so good. Other than Jar-Jar Beeks, who I'd really rather not see pitch for the Red Sox again this year to give him time to work on his command, control and poise, he called a pretty good game that involved working with a number of different pitchers, and the only one who really struggled was the lefty that clearly needs more time in the oven. He checked off a lot of boxes for me as a catcher in that game, and that's besides going 2 for 4 with a double. But the fundamental problem hasn't changed. Swihart is a player without a position on this team. I think the acquisition of Steve Pearce says all we need to know about what the team thinks of Swihart as a bat off the bench. Swihart is talented, but he's also surplus to requirement, and other teams are aware of that and are going to keep an eye on him. He needs a position to play regularly, and he just can't have one on this team because of the talented professionals we have at all of the positions he plays. And he did such a great job performing off the bench that the team went and acquired someone else to fill that role. If he does well. he may be starting behind the plate for another team next year -- and if he does, I wish him well, because that would be a much better situation for him than the one he occupies now. He has no place to call his own for as long as he's a Boston Red Sox. It's time to move him on IMHO. He will be moved at the deadline for whatever we can get for him, or failing that (say Vaz's injuries are more severe than we realize) in the offseason.

Rest assured we won't be the only ones evaluating Mr. Swihart. There are a lot of teams in need of a decent catcher and they will be deciding if they think Swihart is one. The timing of vaz's injury could not have been better for all concerned. He gets to rest, Swihart gets to play his primary position, and teams get a last minute look to solidify their opinions and decide if they think he could help them and what that help might be worth.

this too

Just gonna leave this here

Mediocre contact hitter yes, that's why he platoons. "little pop?" He's got a career .189 ISO. That's at least halfway decent. You're not exactly going to get Paul Goldschmidt for the bench 1B/OF role. He's a fine roleplayer in a platoon/reserve role. and he's done very well for us in the short term, more than acceptable. Pearce's career slash line, .257/.333/.447/.780, is actually excellent for a reserve hitter. Anything very much better than that is probably finding a starting job somewhere in this offense-starved league. I was frankly amazed that we could grab Pearce from a division rival that cheaply, he's a solid asset, and if the Jays had held onto him til the deadline, they could have probably pulled at least a promising RP out of someone for him.

Manny Reamirez was a career right fielder before coming to Boston. Left field is just where you put your weakest outfield defender in this stadium. Quite frankly Benintendi is somewhat wasted here in left during home games.

I give a pass for 2012, if only because the writing was on the wall for that one at the outset, with the collapse of the remnants of the old 2007 core at the heart of the issues with that team. The selection of manager did not help, but whoever we put in there would have had a tough act to follow after Tito. (was that deliberate? To take a lost year to reset our managerial expectations before putting the guy you wanted in place? We'll probably never know) The real problem to me is the 2014 and especially the 2015 season. The cracks in the foundation were ever more and more obvious, and Cherington showed an unacceptable rigidness of holding to The Plan instead of making needed adjustments in season or even between seasons. If LL hadn't forced his hand I doubt we would have spent money at all, even on Porcello. That also resulted in bad signings like the Pablob, but at least it was doing SOMETHING. Left to his own devices I wonder if Cherington would have done that much Cherington had a midmarket philosophy for how to deal with these problems, build up the farm and regenerate from the endless supply of youth his drafts would generate. he clearly wanted to clear the roster and build over again from the ground up, while waiting patiently for his garden to produce fruit. You just CAN'T do that in a major market. You have to make a show of trying to contend in the down years. Without Luccino forcing his hand I wonder if Cherington would have done even that much.

I think they're worried about bad reads from a guy who's used to seeing the game from one side of the field -- but if that's the case, then JD is vulnerable to that too, since he's played mostly in LF when he's taken the outfield for us. The best possible starting outfield for us right now at the moment, is probably Martinez-Benintendi-Betts. No doubt in my mind Beni can play CF, he did it all through the minors, the only reason he's not doing it in the majors is because Betts and JBJ are better at it, but if Betts is in right field and JBJ is resting I have total confidence in Beni. That, and it actually puts more people (2) in their usual positions than a Beni-Betts-Martinez outfield (1)

Pearce is a roleplayer, a lot like Chris Young or Johnny Gomes. He's on a rampage right now, but even when he cools down, he'll still be a solid platoon guy.

... "but since I'm still kicking it, and love this team, it will tear my heart out to see them lose -- every time."

A year in which the team had as much talent as it had in 2012, 2014 and 2015, and loses more games than it wins, is never acceptable. If the roster was depleted that's one thing, but the Red Sox roster overall was very talented, it just had holes in key areas, particularly the starting pitching. I refuse to believe we didn't have the resources to fix this more quickly. The resources we had were simply not used well. That's directly on the GM

I think that at the end of the day, results matter. They may have looked like contenders on paper, but we don't play baseball on paper. When the proverbial rubber met the road, severe weaknesses in the team's defense, intangibles and especially starting pitching sunk the team like a rock. These things are the domain of the GM. They are his job to resolve, and it's ESPECIALLY his job to adjust the roster and change the plan to prevent problems like this from snowballing like they did in especially 14 and 15. Having these probpelms bounce back 2 years in a row is unacceptable with the resources this team can field. A GM is supposed to identify the problems in a troubled roster and make adjustments to the team to right the ship, and help the team recover from poor seasons. Cherington did not do this in 2015 especially, and that's why he's no longer here. 2 years into a major slump, everyone could see what the issues were. We needed another starting pitcher, we needed to beef up the bullpen, and we needed to improve our infield defense in particular. Cherington failed to adjust the team and waited for the youth movement. That would have worked in KC or Cleveland, but you CAN'T baseball like that in a major market like Boston. You can't take all that money from the fans and run the team like it's in the poor house. And this is compounded by the fact that not only did he NOT address the major issue of the franchise in free agency (STARTING FREAKING PITCHING!), even in the face of the fact that our minor leagues were not producing results in that area either making signing starting pitchers mandatory and he STILL dragged his feet, but he also spent his money -- on expensive position players in areas of no need. Even if you believe that Cherington was LL's puppet, his job was to put some baseball knowhow behind LL's decisions. This job was clearly not done. Even if you favored the strategy of a youth movement, the way Cherington did this is just not how you do it in Boston. You have to cover your roster with veteran professionals who do their job while the youth movement generates from the minors. You have the resources to do both, making the decision to do one or the other a false dichotomy, and this is where Cherington failed..

It's like Ortiz at first base. He can do it, he can even be adequate for it on a good day, but you don't want him doing it every day. I would honestly rather play Benintendi in right field. As a former centerfielder I'd expect him to figure it out, and he has the speed to close on the ball if he has a bad initial read, Martinez... kind of doesn't.

Ben Cherington made some awful signings. He had all the resources he needed to build a contender and he squandered a lot of them.

Swihart can probably back up at catcher adequately enough. This is a great time to not panic.

There's no point saving Sale for the sake of having a chance to lose. Empty the magazine on the game in front of you in a situation like that.

I think I'm pretty happy with his numbers at DH though. I mean the idea that he could even be better if he played the field every day is tempting, but when they're healthy we have one heck of an OF as it is, so if he hits well enough to make people happy as the DH, that's the place for him right now.

Very pleased with our catcher tandem. They were a'ight even before, but it's great to see them start to hit too.

7 IP 0 ER 6 2/3 IP, 0 ER 7 IP, 1 ER Not bad.