mvp 78

I mean, they traded for Mondesi, but the guy can't get through a quarter of a season anymore.

@SPChrisHatfield Dates to keep in mind: 3/25 - Alfaro's (and Goodrum's but whatever there) upward mobility clause date 3/27 - Tapia's opt out No news on that day itself doesn't necessarily mean anything - sometimes it's 48 hours to add the player or something.

Sacré bleu!

I mean, we were told it didn't matter when they were unbeaten, so the current slide must no matter either.

No, they could have signed a cheap SS like Jose Iglesias and left Kiké in CF.

What kind of bad feeling? I think it's really low stakes for those two. I don't expect either to hit all that much. The 13th best Catching team per fWAR only had 1.8 fWAR last season. There were 11 teams that didn't even get to 1 fWAR at the position.

He has the dreaded reverse CERA split with Vazquez??? Unheard of!

@IanMBrowne Verdugo will also play his first game back from the WBC on Friday. Maybe Yoshida this weekend?

Really hard to say. He was a +3 DRS in LF with TBR in 2018, but hasn't had a lot of time there. Last year, he only spent 24 innings since they went out and got Pham at the deadline. He's clearly more suited to fielding LF and maybe RF depending on which field they are playing at (like Yankee3).

And because Arroyo and Mondesi have extensive injury histories.

@alexspeier Yoshida just arrived. “I am tired,” he said in English. Casas should point him to where the best napping spots are.

Yu Chang may be the Pedro Ciriaco/Jeff Bailey of 2023, but because of the WBC rather than Spring Training.

Maybe? He played well at the WBC, but that doesn't necessarily mean he's in the long term plans for the Sox. They did drop him at the end of last season before bringing him back well into this offseason. A whole bunch of other teams passed on signing him for several months.

Not signing a SS forced Kiké to SS.

He hit leadoff 10 times in 2021 and 4 times in 2022. I'd rather it be a guy with a higher OBP, which is why I'd prefer Verdugo, but it makes a weird LLRL at the top of the order.

You can throw Refsnyder in there when considering bad defenders. If his PT goes up, the defense in the OF will get worse. Duran's can only get better, right?

If Plan B is a constantly injured Mondesi, is Plan C Enmanuel Valdez?

@MacCerullo Today's #RedSox lineup vs. MIN: Arroyo 2B, Devers 3B, Turner DH, Duvall CF, Tapia LF, K. Hernández SS, McGuire C, Refsnyder RF, Dalbec 1B, Houck P Has Arroyo been batting leadoff this spring?

I think they had thrown the season out the window when they moved Verdugo. They originally signed Yoshida thinking that Kiké/Rafaela could make up for the deficiencies in LF and RF. Turning his back on defense would be a weird move for sure. I don't want the BOS front office to punt RF defense while they are still playing 81 in Fenway.

The metrics don't necessarily paint that picture, but he's going to be given the opportunity to win a fulltime job there. We'll see if he can hold it down. I feel like it's going to be another year where he fights off nagging injuries and only gets about 300 AB's.

For Catching: Vaz: +5 Blocking, +1 Framing, pop ranked 21st, arm ranked 51st McGuire: -3 Blocking, +3 Framing, pop ranked 36th, arm ranked 56th Alfaro: -7 Blocking, -2 Framing, pop ranked 3rd, arm ranked 2nd Wong: -3 Blocking, 0 Framing, pop ranked 9th, arm ranked 13th

https://baseballsavant.mlb.com/visuals/statcast-infield-defense?type=Fielder&playerId=596115&startYear=2022&endYear=2022&result=&direction=&normalize=undefined&roles=&esrGT=0&esrLT=1&evGT=0&evLT=125&distGT=0&distLT=200&batside=&viz=intercept_fielder_starting_position_ The majority of Story's defensive value came when he had his feet touching the dirt.

That and wRC+ would have hurt my argument so I didn't use them. Duh!

FanGraphs did their positional power rankings for SS. Padres: 6th, 5.1 fWAR Sox: 13th, 3.6 fWAR Boy, this would look better with Trevor Story. Hernández pulled off a neat trick by turning into an excellent defensive center fielder in his first two seasons in Boston, but he’ll have to do it again at another up-the-middle position this year in the wake of Story’s potentially season-ending surgery. He’ll also need to get right offensively; a severe power outage led to a miserable 75 wRC+. It seems to be more pitch selection and consistency related than a loss of ability to drive the ball, which explains why our projections expect a return to normalcy, but that’ll be something to keep an eye on as the Sox try to cobble together a solid shortstop out of two part-timers. Mondesi is that second part-timer. While Hernández will split his time between short and center, Mondesi will split his between short and the injured list if history is any guide. He’ll miss the start of the season rehabbing the ACL he tore last year, and even when he’s back in action, he’ll be a mystery box: he’s hardly played in the last two years, so projecting his output is wildly speculative. He’s always been a brilliant defender, but his offense has never quite come together. Boston is hoping he’ll fulfill the promise he showed early in his career. Even if he doesn’t, though, 280 plate appearances of competent defense would do quite nicely.

I'd take any journeyman SS that can field the position, Kiké at CF and Story at 2B. That would be the ideal defense, especially with Story coming off surgery.