Dojji

Shaw's above replacement level defensively, that's all i ask of him. A lot better than relying on a guy who can't actually play the position anymore. We are so lucky that we have Travis Shaw. Him just being on the roster averted a major disaster thanks to Pablo's inability to take care of himself, and turned a huge liability into a potential major asset.

Light has good stuff, he could be a useful relief pitcher if he can settle down a bit. I'm disposed to give him a mulligan for the first few big league hitters he ever faced.

Very nice to get 8 innings from Price today. In the future though this sort of thing should either go in the gamethread or the Rotation thread. Just a quick heads up since you seem new. I expect the mods will likely merge this post in with one of those..

Extremely satisfying game.

Welp, hard to blame the kid for getting the yips in his debut outing, credit to him he settled down and started converting pitches.

And the doubt starts to creep in.

Three Stars 1: Price 2: Shaw 3: CV's game calling

Travis shaw for all star

Agreed.

travis Shaw is our starting 3B for the forseeable future. I don't think even if Pablo returned to form he'd be a clear bet to outperform Shaw at this point.

Can I just take a second to say I'm enjoying all the new blood on the forum in the last couple days. The liveliness of the forum increased by an order of magnitude and I appreciate that.

He's still a decent player but I wouldn't be wanting to pay that contract for a guy who was outWAR'd by Jarrod Dyson last year (think about that for a second).

Oh yes, Jeremy Giambi, how could I ever forget him.

Actually we picked Big Papi up off the scrap heap as a pretty unheralded veteran 1B free agent, neither awful not spectacular, and put him into the first base mix along with Kevin Millar and someone else (forget who) to see who could win the position. And then we stopped screwing with his swing the way the Twins were (they wanted him to stop being so pull happy and hit to all fields, we didn't care as long as he hit). The result was magical. One of those "Best signings of all time" things.

I'm under the impression that the dugout did a lot of the pitch calling for Swihart. Would fit with the narrative of talented but brutally inexperienced for this level of baseball.

I agree, but I also think that these threads are pertinent and interesting because they tell us the difference between the young guy and the veteran who tried to bend us over and went to the high bidder when we wouldn't pay a premium. So far going with youth has been the better choice, so I'm glad the FO held the line, even if my heart broke when Ellsbury moved on.

Bad. He's got the tools, but Swihart's problem is that he's not proficient in using them. He just doesn't play like he's used to catching, and for the catching position that's particlarly bad. I think it's safe to say that Swihart's bat is maybe 2 years ahead of his glove, and he'd have to do some learning on the job to become a really proficient catcher. Then again it was also safe to say that about Mike Piazza, so he could still become a great catcher. but it's unlikely this team will invest the MLB playing time to allow him to learn his position on the job, which is a situation his bat has almost forced him into. He'll probably wind up traded to some small market team that can let him develop through some grind years before he needs to really compete at the position. Maybe even wind up a star player for that team. If he stays in Boston though, I honestly think Swihart's days at catcher are numbered and he'll be moved to some other position where they have a major talent gap to take advantage of his advanced offensive approach. The Sox MO so far has been to want to pair a veteran with a young guy, and when it comes to catching, CV is their guy so they'll look for a Hanigan type, or even re-up Hanigan himself, rather than having 2 rookies catching if it can be avoided..

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k440W-Y8hLc No one but Jeter had the "athleticism" to make a routine ground ball into the hole look like the play of the year. People who know what they're looking for have been lauging at those who overrate Jeter's defense forever. A real shortstop treats half of Jeter's highlight reel as routine plays that aren't worth a second of camera time, because real shortstops have this thing called "range" and don't have to run headling dive jump throw plays just to field their goddamn position.

I don't think Swihart's stock was ever thast high. He had the worst defensive numbers of any catcher in baseball last year. Everyone knows he has a ton of potential but he wasn't ready to prove it last year, and anyone would be trading for him knowing they were getting a work in progress, not an MLB ready guy. That has a big effect on value. If he'd cleaned up offensively while he was up it'd be another matter, but the bat is a work in progress too. Very high ceiling for a catcher on both offense and defense, but he hasn't reached it yet.

1-2-3 is a clean inning. I don't know what kind of standard you're holding a closer to, seriously.

He can't say anything nice without dropping 2 insults. It's a laundry thing.

Vazquez seems to have been the making of Rick Porcello. Ever since he's taken over the catching duties, Porcello has been much much better.

Well done Mr. Ross. 6 1/3 IP, 0 ER from Porcello. Solid start #3 in a row.

Finish him!

I'm past worrying about Shaw offensively at this point because the defense is so solid. He could regress quite a bit offensively without losing his value because the glove has been such a pleasant surprise. I think we may just have third base locked down for a few years, which I didn't let myself hope before we got a chance to see Shaw play everyday. I thought he'd struggle with the glove but make up for it with some key hits, I never thought he'd explode onto the scene on both offense and defense Every now and again a guy like that just clicks at the big league level. Too early to say whether that describes Shaw, but early returns are exciting. I don't think he's going to combine good to great defense with his current OPS, if he does, he'll be a Hall of Fame candidate, but if he drops down to the .720--.750 OPS range, and is still playing this level of defense, he's probably still worth keeping as the starting 3B going forward.