Dojji

I don't give the most diminutive undergrown microdamn how "the trade looks." I want the best 5 starters breaking camp with the team in April. Everything else is politics.

And another again between "forcing him to be a starter because you need starters" and "forcing him to be a starter despite having 5 other capable starters, only and solely because of the sunk cost fallacy." There is literally only one reason to prefer Pomeranz over the other 2 options, and that's the trade of Anderson Espinosa for him. Otherwise it's a tradeoff between all of Wright, Pomeranz and E-Rod with no demonstrably "correct" choice between the three. I want Wright because he had the best overall season of the three last year, and I want E-Rod because the alternative is he starts in Pawtucket. While Pomeranz is the third of 3 good choices, rhe only reason to force Pomeranz into the rotation regardless of the merit of the other 2 starters is to justify the Espinosa trade. And let me just throw this out here -- if any part of the reason to pick your 5 starters is based on a player who ISN'T ON THE TEAM ANYMORE, that's a decision that at very best is unlikely to achieve an ideal outcome..

It's the natural order of things. Power arms have the shine and the glamour, and of course other kinds of pitchers should get out of their way, regardless of relative merit.

I am solidly against putting Wright in the bullpen, he was the second best starter on the team last year by ERA+, behind only Porcello and AHEAD of Price. it is an insult to his 2016 performance not to have him in the rotation. Also why the hell do people keep wanting to put our 2016 team leader in Complete Games in the fricking pen is absolutely beyond me, I have no idea why this happens in people's heads. Despite the injury Wright threw 156 innings of 3.33 ERA baseball for the third most starts, third most innings pitched and second best ERA on the team. He was easily our #3 starter, possibly our #2, and until a fluke injury derailed his season he was a dark horse contender for the CYA. That's the guy that's somehow worse than both Pomeranz and E-Rod. Just not seeing it. Yes those two pitchers have great power lefty arms, and yes, we saw with Joe Kelly how well having a projectable power arm guarantees ace level performance. And people tell me that knuckleballers are unpredictable? Try a young power lefty. That's "unpredictable." There are much better uses for a pitcher like Wright than throwing junktime innings out pf the pen. When he's proven he's ACTUALLY as unpredictable as other knuckleballers, which he hasn't done yet, then you treat him like an unpredictable knuckleballer. So far the remarkable thing about Wright is the fact that he's been so steady and consistent despite throwing the knuckleball. Until that changes I'd actually say he's our #4 starter in a walk In 2015 Drew Pomeranz threw 86 innings and made 9 starts in a depth starter role for Oakland, pitching to a 3.32 ERA and maintaining very favorable peripheral stats. In 2014 he was more active as a starterm 10 of his 20 appearances being starts, and accomplished a fantastic 2.35 ERA. There are simply not a lot of pitchers who could have accomplished a season like that while bouncing between roles. I don't think it's particularly unreasonable to claim if someone who is a starter goes to the pen, it should be Pomeranz who was so effective in a hybrid role 2 years prior, or that it is an insult to Pomeranz to place him in a position where he succeeded so spectacularly in the past.

I loved that man as a ballplayer. One of the best professional hitters in his generation, didn't have a ton of natural talent but briefly became a true elite hitter through sheer patience and discipline.

Except that you're ignoring how unsettled our rotation was at the start of last year. We did a lot to stabilize the rotation in midseason and this will be the first season we reap the full benefit of that, and that was of course before we landed Sale.

It's an option we have of our starters are getting a little worn down. An extra day of rest never hurt anyone. It doesn't even have to be a formal 6 man rotation per se -- just slip Pomeranz a start every once in awhile before you turn the rotation over, and give everyone else another day to recuperate from the stress of fulltime starting pitching when they seem to need it. Or skip the guy with the slight elbow tightness you'd normally have him play through because Pom is there to take the start. Or guarantee to the guy who hasn't had an off day in 2 weeks that he just needs 5, and them Pom will take it from there to the late innings. Having him there gives us options at a level that neither Wright or E-Rod has proven they can provide at quite the same level. If Pomeranz stays in that role all year it's because all 5 of our other starters are healthy and we're probably going to the World Series, but that being the case, if he does stay in that role he'll easily get 90 innings pitched and 10 starts or so with a 3.5-ish ERA, which is about what he did in 2015, and will wind up contributing value far in excess of his WAR (which doesn't and can't count "other players not having to do the same work and so being fresher themselves"), especially for a team with championship ambitions. Being able to put that kind of player in a role that suits him so well is a rare luxury for a ballteam. Since Pomeranz is the only one of the three that has done that kind of work over a full season before (in 2014 and 2015) I'm very much inclined to find out whether he can still do it, because people who can pitch that kind of flexible role at a high level are a lot rarer than you might think.

For me the tipper is the fact that Pom can be a productive reliever and has the most experience of the three pitchers in the swingman role. The best argument for not using Pomeranz in the pen is a sunk cost fallacy. Take Anderson Espinosa's trade value out of a decision it really has no place in. Pomeranz is the pitcher of the 3 with the least track record as a fulltime starter, pretty much just this year. He's also the pitcher with the best overall relief performance. The decision starts to look pretty clearcut at that point. If we needed a starter Pom would have every chance to be more than adequate and would be at the bottom if not the middle of nearly every rotation in baseball. I'm not throwing stones at Drew Pomeranz, far from it. But we have a dead heat here, and as far as tiebreakers go for who to transition from one role to another, "guy who was most effective in the other role" seems like the way to roll out the gate. And this is really a question of how to get out of the gate. All 6 starters will get regular action. As the season goes on I have no doubt that whoever sits in that swingman role will make a dozen starts probably more -- again, though, Pomeranz' experience as a very successful swingman actually makes him a rare and potentially valuable assets. True swingmen who can move back and forth from the rotation to the pen, the way Pomeranz did before last year, while maintaining a high level of productivity, are actually pretty darned rare, that's why the job gets given to junktime guys so often, but a guy who CAN do that? Especially if he can swap in and out of the rotation as needed withouit getting hurt or losing effectiveness? Gold. Pure gold. Hell, there's a distinct possibility that the team may transition to a 6 man rotation and sidestep the whole issue if everyone is healthy and productive, especially if we're getting into a long string of games with no off days. It's a luxury to have 6 good starters, one that grants us strategic options we don't normally have -- shame if we failed to take advantage.

Swihart's optimim value is as a big league ballplayer. The bat is ready. If the glove is that far behind, LEAVE it behind.

No.

A good guess indeed, but incorrect unfortunately. I voted for Porcello.

They're replacing Koji, Taz and Zigler with Kelly, Thornburg and Smith and very possibly moving Pom to the swingman role which he has been very good at in the past. I know I, personally, would rather have Wright in the rotation and Pom in the wings than the reverse given the two players' histories -- Wright has never really been great in relief and is much better historically as a starter, and for Pomeranz, he can stretch out, he proved that last year, but he slowed down as the year wore on and the innings mounted -- the swingman role seems to be his natural territory.

Thank god. I was so done with Buchholz. He had the talent to be one of the all time greats and it was so maddening to see how much his only consistent feature was inconsistency. Let him be someone else's problem now.

His value to the team is at thge dish, not behind it, at the moment. personally I want his bat in the lineup, to hell with position. If there becomes a problem at catcher later, move him back.

Grossly Overrated And Terrible I keed, I keed

Well now hold on...... the full expression is "holy flaming buttery hell."

Because ankle injuries are a thing that never happens to catchers.

Rather swap Panda and Bradley in that lineup, but it looks pretty good

If course, there is another alternative, but it would depend on moving some things around. Everyone remembers that Swihart hits switch right? OBP seems to be something he gets right too, and he stole 4 bases in his half season in '15. If a hole opens that he can fill (and we may want him at catcher first and foremost, but he has the athleticism to play a few other positions), Swi may wind up filling in at the top of the order from time to time.

This is true, however, Pedroia's career OBP is .366, which means his .376 OBP this year is well within a standard deviation of the mean. His worst full year was .337. Pedroia is a player that you can count on to get his diminutive butt on base, it's one of his best skills. Remembering years where we were leading off with Kevin Youkilis I have no problem with slipping Pedey into the top of the order. I actually think we do have a bit of a problem here. All of Betts, Bogaerts and Pedey are RHH. If we assume Betts bats third (and he definitely should bat third) then we can't have Bogey or Pedroia batting second. Second place hitter needs to be a LHH or a switch, so either Benintendi or Bardley, to avoid creating a matchup weakness that can be exploited in late innings. That means Pedroia is probably our leadoff hitter, followed by hopefully a Benintendi that isn't in the middle of a sophomore slump, and Bradley winds up down nearer the bottom of the order where he seems to be a lot more comfortable.

I don't know why I use that expression, except that it popped into my head one day and I find it funny. I use it for situations that absolutely defy the very idea of logic, and it's a very good "this is BS" sort of expression for me

Why the holy flaming buttery hell does that count against you as a baserunner? Makes no sense. Baserunning is about what you do once on, the mad scramble for first base after you've put the ball on the ground has zero to do with skill and even less to do with baserunning. Double plays are about contact and quality of contact. They're a natural drawback of highly skilled contact hitters. The harder and more consistently you hit the ball the more you will hit into double plays. it's not what you want to be doing, but if you're HIDPing a lot, it's because you're putting the bat on the ball and getting it fair, and getting it to the fielders quickly -- if you want to be a good hitter, that's actually a pretty good start at the things you need to be doing. There's a reason that the all time leaders in GIDP are Yaz, followed by Rice, Evans, Papi and Teddy. HIDPs have a whole hell of a lot more to do with being a good hitter, than being a bad baserunner. Yes if you have speed you can avoid double plays from time to time, but again, that has very VERY little to do with baserunning skill. Madly scrambling in the general direction of first base is a talent thing, not a skill thing. Meanwhile, double plays are a direct consequence of being a high quality contact hitter who stings the ball. The harder you hit it the more likely you'll HIDP because you're giving yourself less time to get to the base. Again, this is not a baserunning issue, especially not where it concerns Pedroia. His problems with double plays rarely have anything whatsoever to do with baserunning skill. They're the natural consequence of his very high ability to make contact with the baseball.

Just curious what the consensus is. I can see good arguments for at least Sale and Porcello.

See this is why people accuse you of borrowing trouble, Moonslav.

... that a good GM looks at our situation and sees a possibility to mortgage the future for a few years of maximum competitiveness? Yes, that is pretty inevitable. What's less inevitable was Henry signing off on the idea... but he did. DD was hired to do exactly what he is doing. IF you don't like what he is doing, talk to ownership about it If we're lucky, the farm can be rebuilt from the draft over the next 3-4 years and by the time we need to restock the larder from the farm, the prospects are there. If we're less than lucky, at least we had 3-4 really good bites at the apple before things seriously start to go south, and there's likely to still be plenty of strength at the big league level to deal from and restock the larder if that's the direction they want to go.