Jim Breuer called in to one of the talk shows to claim that ownership intentionally hired Valentine to blow up the team and dump some of the larger contracts. His was hired to be a chaos agent.
1. There were no issues with Tito unless you are going to believe the Weekly World News stories ownership put out to throw Tito under the bus.
2. Rudderless? They weren't rudderless. They just had no healthy starting pitchers. They were starting Andrew Miller, Erik Bedard, Tim Wakefield's corpse and Kyle Weiland.
3. The team was righted when they changed the culture and brought in Gomes, Napoli and Victorino. The team got better when the starting pitching got healthy and productive.
@OverTheMonster
Germán Márquez is a good pitcher trapped in pitcher hell (aka Coors Field). And he’s someone the Red Sox should target this offseason.
Career Splits
Away:
3.77 ERA
703 OPSa
WHIP 1.18
BABIP 286
xFIP 3.29
Decent FB, high spin CB...
After leaving Coors, Gray had a decent year with Texas aside from missing time due to injury. Marquez could be a decent cheaper option. He's under 30 too.
They made Tito out to be the problem, but the team imploded after he left. With how he's handled his tenure in Cleveland, I bet the Sox would have been better off retaining him long term and just dumping the players they did in 2012.
Well, that will never be the case. Whenever someone leaves the Sox, you only get the pro-Sox POV.
Tito
Theo
Farrell
Dombrowksi
All were dragged once they left. Cora and Bloom will eventually be dragged too. It's how this ownership works. It's why they bought the Globe.
That's quite the 1-2 punch. It's like running Manny/Ortiz out there again.
If the owner is ok with going over the lux tax, I'd do it. I'd be more confident in Judge than some of the other FA's out there.
Hard to say "yes" when I don't know what the final $$$ amount is. My interest is piqued though.
Bradley as a player is fine for the Red Sox. The salary was too high. The trade was silly. Having him on the roster isn't an issue if you are just burying his bat 9th.
Diekman's FIP every year prior to 2021 was under 4 except for 2017 when he only pitched 10 innings. I think he looked at Diekman and thought 2021 was just a down year and that he could bounce back. Seems more like his career is just coming to a close. There's a whole lot of red on his Statcast page prior to 2021. https://baseballsavant.mlb.com/savant-player/jake-diekman-518617?stats=statcast-r-pitching-mlb
@TurnerGivens
The Mariners could have possibly found the next Luis Castillo. His name is Phillips Valdez. (Claimed off waivers from the Red Sox in July)
Aside from some size (40 lbs) & velo differences (3 mph on FB/SL), the similarities in mechanics & pitch metrics are promising.
There are some deeply unserious people in this world.
I wouldn't have him as a primary DH. I think you could spread it around between Dalbec, Arroyo, Refsnyder and Hosmer. I don't think they would necessarily do a "platoon" DH, but more of a timeshare amongst a lot of guys or when they want to give a position guy a day off from the field.
I'm not opposed to them throwing Duran back at 2b. Time is basically running out for him. He just turned 26. They need to try something else with him. OF isn't working.
I don't think Hosmer is a great option. I just think he's cheap and is "pull in case of emergency" if something happens to Casas. Dalbec is probably a platoon only bat going forward.
I get why people don't like DHern. However, he's a guy that if he just figures it out a little bit, he becomes a late inning arm. He's got much more remaining potential than a lot of the other names on the list.
What people like jung are upset about are analytics being shown to them on their tv screens. If NESN focused less on it and Bloom focused more on it, jung would probably be happier.