Dojji

So quiet in this thread when we're on a win streak

if the Franchise thought Devers was ready to be called up he would be with the team right now. The need is there. The prospect is there. The only reason the prospect isn't filling the need is, and I guarantee this, DD's scouts are telling him that Devers can't do the job yet. Expecting Devers to jump 2 levels and magically be ready just because the franchise has failed to plan adequately for the third base position is a classic example of wishful thinking. Yes he will take over 3b eventually. We hope. When he's ready. Demanding that he somehow magically be ready now is foolish and more likely to waste our best remaining asset than actually solve the problem. I would rather throw this season away or gamble on Pablo than risk wasting Devers. Leave him where he is until the franchise is comfortable that he's fully ready. And I mean fully ready, not desperation-in-an-emergency-the-same-way-we-murdered-Will-Middlebrooks ready. Until he is ready, work as much of Pablo's money out of him as you can. That's literally the only job left Pablo is good for.

I have a horrible feeling that DD doesn't think he has a hole at 3B, at least not a longterm one. That he's still waiting for the face-saving, franchise-altering mirage that is "a healthy Pablo Sandoval."

Nope. A flawed team just has enough different players coming through on any given night that W's keep happening.

Look at the competition as third base. As relatively subpar as Moustakas looks, he's probably the BPA. Offense is just down this year. As much as our offense isn't what it was during the Ortiz era, it's still among the best in baseball, despite the sucking chest wound at third base. And speaking of sucking chest wounds you could make more mileage out of replacing garbage with Moustakas than you could with replacing any other player on the roster with a superstar. Replacing negative production with above average production is the biggest value spread possible on this roster right now.

If you want the guy who would make a difference, I don't know who that guy would be other than Mike Moustakas.

What would people think of going to the Angels and finding the asking price on Yunel Escobar? He seems like a pretty good fit for what we need.

Not actually convinced that Quintana has regressed per se. I look at his numbers and see a pitcher who's getting bitten by a quest to pursue the three true outcomes. All of Walks, Strikeouts and Homers have spiked for Quintana, while at the same time, BABIP is more or less within career norms.. That tells me that Jose Quintana does not trust his defense, or else is trying too hard to carry the team beyond his ability to do so, and is deviating from his approach by not pitching as much to contact, trying to overpower hitters and get them out himself rather than trusting the team around him, with predictable results. Similar to some of the nonsense Josh Beckett pulled over the years when the team started going bad and he'd try to get everyone out himself. Like Beckett back then, what you saw was an increase in walks, strikeouts, and homers whenever he did that. Put him on a team with a dependable defense, with other reliable starters, a team that was going somewhere and he didn't feel he had to carry the whole load himself, and I think you could see a big improvement in numbers once he shakes the bad habits he's picked up this year and learns to trust his D. I think the numbers are telling me that Q is uptight, feels too much pressure on his shoulders and not satisfied with his team right now. That said I do think he may be traded in the near future if the numbers read true.

I think the point about the tragedy of the commons is the most important issue I'm putting out there. The one thing you can't do is make the decision based solely on the in game situation. You never WANT to have a lesser arm in there with the game on the line, but if you're managing for the season you have to do it sometimes. And if you're not managing the bullpen for the season rather than the game, your top relievers will all have dead arms by the time you need them most. That actually happened to us in 2003, it was one of the reasons we all got Gumped, Grady mismanaged his pen over the course of the year and couldn't trust them in game 7 so he overworked his starter and got burnt for it. The fact is that it's going to be very hard to accurately pick which times to put the hammer down and leave a given reliever in extra long and when you don't need to. Quite frankly ideally your bullpen is so deep that the need to force any reliever to the edge of his endurance in any one outing is pretty rare, whether that means you follow Hembree with Kelly with Kimbrel 2-3 nights in a row, or bridge Hembree to Kimbel one night, Kelly to Kimbrel the next and then back to Hembree. At the end of the day it's the same number of total innings so depending on what each reliever is comfortable with it can be a distinction without a difference -- unless of course your bullpen is so shallow that any effort at bullpen management is an exercise in rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic. In which case it still doesn't matter. The niceties of bullpen management only ever seem to get debated when the bullpen blows the lead anyway, and that leads to a lot of argument from the outcome. I don't think I see any greater number, depth and severity of logical fallacies on this or any other forum than I do when the bullpen blows a game late. At the end of the day if all of your relievers are doing their jobs it almost doesn't matter who's pitching. And if one or a few of them are not, that's the problem rather than when those arms are in the game.

As an aside Moonslav, taking one thing and another I suppose you're probably glad we didn't follow your idea and go after Jose Quintana instead.

They'll do that when one of them shows a proper mastery of the game at the AA level. What they absolutely can not and must not do is promote guys based on the needs of the big league roster. "ready or not, here you come" ruins careers. Not all careers, but it's certainly a destructive policy on average.

Two really minor things if I may say so. Managers make a million decisions, even a good manager has a error rate in the 30% range, that means that if you nitpick any manager you're going to find things not to like. Every manager with a handful of exceptions makes roughly the same number of mistakes. If you arbitrarily decide to like a manager you brush past that stuff, if you arbitrarily decide you don't like him, these little mistakes instantly start galling you, it has nothing to do with his performance and everything to do with how human prejudice works. That's why I try to avoid prejudicing myself against any manager, it colors every conclusion I draw thereafter.

It depends on whether you might need him later. If you're in the bottom of your rotation and have your warhorses going in the next couple days it's easier to take that risk, because if you've used someone for 2 innings it's probably the course of wisdom not to trot him out there in the next game if you can avoid it. Because the problem with increasing a pitcher's workload in any one game is that you can NOT turn around and increase the reliever's TOTAL workload. So using him more in one inning in any given situation means using him in fewer situations. There's costs and benefits associated with that that need to be weighted accurately if you don't want it to blow up on you. Unless this game is strategically far above the mean in terms of importance though, it's rarely worth it to risk poisoning the well. And the tragedy of the commons needs to be managed against. 2 innings this game and 2 the next followed by another 2 is not worth elbow soreness next week and 30-40 plus games missed by the playoffs. It just isn't. I wish "use your best relievers for all the innings ever" was an actionable decision and a valid option that wouldn't have drawbacks later in the season or even wreck the reliever's career too, but I learned a long time ago that just because I want something to be true doesn't mean it is.

All we really need is a Maicer Izturis. A glorified utlilty guy who can stand in as a starter. We had one until Brock Holt got a concussion.

Pretty good impression. But it is possible to exploit inefficiencies in the market to maximize risk and minimize reward.

With a competent 3B there's no reason this team can't be competitive. We're pot committed to trying to build a playoff team this year. And Moustakas is both young and skilled enough to be worth re-signing if possible.

So let me get this straight. You want a good 3B to make a playoff pus hnow, but have no intention to pay for one. DD is just supposed to conjure one out of his hat is that it?

They're being just the right amount of cautious. In the worst case scenario throwing away this season is probably worth it if the outcome is Devers is healthy and playing at a middle of the order level when he does come up. If he meets his potential Devers is the kind of player you build franchises around. When prepping a player for the big leagues nothing below AA ball really counts. Devers have had 250 developmental at bats that matter. These things take time and needing Devers now doesn't magically make him ready. Let the scouts and development people do their jobs. Finding a way to bridge to Devers is DD's part of the job.

Yeah but we're talking about a .500 team, 1 month from now .500 won't be close to wild card contention. Yeah they won't do the trade now but at the deadline I put it at the lowest at 50/50 that the Royals will want to reposition and everyone older than Salvy and Hosmer will be on the table. (believe me if there was any hope of getting Salvador Perez to the red Sox I'd be all over it before the Royals sobered up... but that *is* a pipe dream. Mike Moustakas might not be. Especially if we were willing to pony up to the tone of Sam Travis for the privilege)

Sinde promoting Devers is a large and probably unnecessary risk you are asking us to pick up a veteran. If we're doing that I know exactly who I want the Red Sox to acquire. I want Mike Moustakas. The OBP is low but he ticks every other box you'd want, power hitter, good defender, World Series champion. The Royals are not contending, he's a UFA after this year, the Royals are unlikely to break the bank for him as he has a prospect behind him. The stars are lined up. Get 'er done DD.

I'm convinced that moving Youkilis to third fulltime shortened his career by at least 2 years. He was a gold glove 1B who could back up 3B at a good level, but he had injury problems throughout his career, asking him to take on a more athletic position fulltime when he was on the wrong side of age 30 was a mistake. I mean the guy had never played fulltime 3B in his MLB career and we asked him to start when he was 33? How was that not gonna backfire?

There was a guy we signed a few years back that seemed pretty decent to me. Adrian something.

As opposed to 2d sidescrolling?

There is greater than zero logic in shifting bogaerts over and playing someone else in shortstop. If nothing els a place holder shortstop is easier to acquire. It depends on what you can acquire and whether you think Devers is ready. That said moving bogaerts over increases the number of things that can go wrong, and lest we forget XB had his own second half slump last year so screwing with his comfort zone is playing with fire.

You're ignoring the problem of maintenance. Staying at an acceptable level defensively takes a certain work ethic when you're not naturally built for the position. That's fair.