Dojji

He's going to act like he does either way, since he's stuck with the guy for the time being.

I'd say Swihart established what he was to everyone's satisfaction last year. he wasn't up to "get a chance." He was up as an injury replacement, just like he was last year when the team was force ti give him all the "chances" he could handle and then some.. Not rushing vazquez is why Swihart got any starts in April. I'd say they have tha base covered.

We're in a good position to accept a Big Papi limp year. We have some good offensive players with options that we can use to cushion any setback in Ortiz's performance if he decides not to hang it up, starting with Blake Swihart, possibly Sam Travis if he can get back on form in AAA this year, and the possibility of Moncada and benintendi has to be considered as well. We have good insurance against a bad 2017 if the big man feels he has another year in his tank and proves to be wrong.

What reason would there be not to call CV up ASAP? The team had made no commitment to Swihart as an everyday catcher, and CV represented a big defensive upgrade at catcher. There's no logic to not calling up Vazquez as soon as he was ready. No disrespect to Swihart, but CV is a gold standard in defensive catching. There's no reason to have CV anywhere but in the majors if he's healthy.

you know something, if you don't make the playoffs I don't care if you finish last or second to first. Cherington had a ring and 3 years where the team DNQ. Adding "last place finishes" to that pretends that the AL East is any other division. It is not. A last place finish in the ALE is by no means last in the American League, and put the same talent in a less competitive division (that would be all of them) and the outcome of that schedule would be a lot different.

If you were trying to use a hook, then it wasn't an effective one. I like knowing what the thread's about before I click. There's no need to be complete generic vanilla, but a thread topic is about the topic of the thread, not a difficult concept.

I think Benintendi is a bridge too far this year. We're going to need to fill in time for at least this year to get to Benintendi, and in the end math we may wind up needing Benintendi to replace JBJ, who is not off to a great start this year. Not saying it's impossible, I'm saying too much has to go right by Benintendi to be counting on it at this point.

We'll see where things stand when October rolls around. If Papi is still tattooing the ball all over the place, I have my doubts he'll walk away from 7 figures to play for the team in 2017. Especially if we are a competitive playoff bound team this year and look to continue the trend next season.

Don't worry guys, I took some "taming" too. got myself banned from SoSH simply because I wouldn't calm down.

Above league average offense at 2B combined with very good defense -- if he was playing 2B every day he'd get to the All Star level on positional value.

Yeah I feel that way. I kinda feel like a battered spouse where Buchholz is concerned. So many times he promised to improve and so man times he let us down.

You know things are going pretty well when one of the biggest quibbles on the team right now is the usage of the 4th OF.

Holt is an All Star Level starting second baseman. We don't recognize that because we have a guy who if healthy is even better, but at least 18 teams would have Brock Holt starting at second for them. He did very well there when Pedroia got hurt the last couple years, and I think you have to weight his vaule as primarily a second baseman, and as a 2B, Holt is a borderline All-Star, it's a position where his level of offense is enough to allow him to shine.

So we theoretically have 3 pitchers for 2 spots. Kelly and E-Rod are on the bubble, Wright has pitched himself out of the bubble for now, Price and Porky were never in danger of losing their jobs, and I think buchholz is pitching himself onto the bubble (or onto the DL). So that said, of the 3, Kelly, E-Rod, and Buchholz, at the moment you have to go with E-Rod and Buchholz, but Kelly might manage to worm his way into the 5 slot if Buchholz continues to struggle.

MVP is kinda like that. Think of MVP as forum quality control. Because he does. he's got a lot of knowledge though, so a bit of grouchiness is tolerated.

get bored Big Papi. Get really really bored. I agree on the title but feel it's a nitpick. Actually, all it really needed to be was in quote marks, that way we'd at least know it was someone from the team saying that not just you saying some random crap.

No one's saying he's the next Rogers Hornsby, but there's a difference in degrees. Before 2015, he was at "doesn't do any good" levels of offense against righties, bad enough, but probably at or around replacement level, where in 2015 he was in 'actively causes harm" levels. That was the first and so far only year he was solidly below replacement level against RHP.

If you don't see the outlier in those numbers, I don't know what to tell you.

Holt was not at an all time high last year. I think he's just going to be at about that level consistently while playing 4-5 different positions in a given season while hitting enough. Trading an uniquely irreplaceable player for face value, even if that value is high, is pretty foolish in my honest opinion.

No no no, Kingface, "bench player" and "inferior player" may go hand in glove, but that's only because so many front offices are cheap. There's no law that says that you have to employ crap on your ench, There's nothing criminal about having a good bench and liking it. We have one of the richest teams in baseball, we can afford to keep 2 WAR players on the bench. We got the SP and BP help we needed in the offseason and I really doubt that trading Holt was the key to getting any more of either.

The point is that "he can't hit righties" is only based on last year which may be an outlier. Not saying it definitely is an outlier, but we sure as hell don't know it isn't based on 20-something plate appearances.

because what Holt does is criminally underappreciated on the trade market. you can get any AAAA guy to do what Holt does, the trick is that none of them will do it as well as Holt year in and year out. Holt provides 2 WAR off the bench, that's true of very very few full time benchies. And he's shown that he's more than good enough to start for weeks at a time in any of 5 different positions and good enough to back up 2 more (the latter 2 being SS and CF) but he's not quite a true starter with advantages on both sides of the baseball if he's playing anywhere but 2B, so teams make offers for him like he's a bogstandard second baseman. Which he's a really good 2B player, any team with a hole at second ought to be interested, but they're unlikely to pay a premium IMHO. Besides, as UN mentioned, we need him. Holt is almost unique, the only guy close to his combination of of versatility and above replacement level offense is Ben Zobrist. You can't find what this guy does just anywhere, I'd be very reluctant to send him off anywhere until we can't control him anymore.

Rasmus is in the last year of his contract and if I'm not mistaken Houston is in mid rebuild. Rasmus will be raded, it's only a question of to whom and how much they can milk a team for.

I wonder if a deal could be made for Colby Rasmus. He'd be an ideal LHH platoon partner with Young.

Possible yes, but I think it's very likely that the Red Sox trade for an outfielder, and they have no plans of moving Betts or bradley anytime soon, so where does Benintendi fit into that? you don't rush a kid like that up just so he can compete for a job.