mvp 78

I couldn't find the origins of "closer" as a baseball term. I think the first guy to exclusively be used as a one inning reliever was Bruce Sutter. Tony gets a lot of credit for making baseball games infernally long, but Cubs manager Herman Franks really started the damn thing with Sutter. Even John Franco was a "closer" before Eck was put into that role in 1988.

OTM's look at the FCL season: https://www.overthemonster.com/2021/9/20/22683326/boston-red-sox-top-prospects-marcelo-mayer-blaze-jordan-wilkelman-gonzalez-paulino-encarnacion Eddinson Paulino, INF Paulino is not a big name in this system, though he did get a six-figure bonus out of the Dominican Republic as part of the 2018 signing class. Spending most of his time at third base this year, while also getting time at second and a little at shortstop, he was a monster at the plate. Paulino finished his season hitting .336/.436/.549, showing total control of the strike zone while also making consistently hard contact. Juan Daniel Encarnacion, RHP Encarnacion had a solid enough pro debut in the DSL, but he took things to another level at the complex this year. He finished his season with a 2.96 ERA with a 30 percent strikeout rate and a six percent walk rate. The long ball proved to be a bit of an issue, but his ability to miss bats was surprising and catapulted him to an impressive run. Phillip Sikes, OF The team’s 18th round pick out of TCU, it was clear he was just far too advanced for FCL competition, but there just wasn’t room for him to play at Salem. And so he was left on the complex, and he just destroyed the league. He finished his season hitting .293/.462/.622.

Roenicke should have just told ERod to get better and figured out how to make Mazza and Weber into MLB pitchers!

https://community.fangraphs.com/solving-adam-ottavino/ When Ottavino’s sliders miss glove-side to lefties, they hang up, right in the middle of a lefty’s bat path. Ottavino’s other big miss is a yanked slider, which has become the root cause of his walk rate. It is a different story for righties; when Ottavino misses the initial glove-side target, the slider is still far enough away from a righty batter (in most cases) in which they would either swing right over it, make weak contact to the right side, or take it for a ball. Despite having 8.1 inches above average of horizontal break, Ottavino has had a -6 run value from his slider in 2021. If you look at Ottavino’s best years from an ERA standpoint, you notice that his two seasons with the Yankees in 2018 and 2019 were elite. A critical difference between those campaigns and the current one is his pitch repertoire. Although most of it has stayed the same, he has almost stopped throwing his cutter entirely. In 2018 and 2019, he threw his cutter 9.8% and 13.8%, respectively. In 2021 he has thrown it just 1.9% of the time. This is notable because his cutter is essentially a shorter, tighter version of his slider that would seemingly be easier to control. On top of that, in 2018 and 2019, his cutter produced a whiff percentage of almost 50% and nearly 40%, respectively. Also, in 2018 his cutter had 6.1 horizontal inches of break, or 3.6 inches above average (143% break above average). It wasn’t nearly as good in 2019 but was still respectable at 3.2 inches of horizontal break, 1.2 inches above average. Ottavino has thrown his cutter 20 times in 2021 and it has had a similar break to 2019. If Ottavino were to increase his cutter usage, he could have a complementary put-away pitch that could be an excellent 1-2 punch when combined with a slider that fools batters. Given that they move in the same direction, hitters would have to make an early decision whether to swing based on whether they think the ball will stay in the zone or not.

Yorke will also most likely be moved off position to LF. If Downs repeats his 2021 performance, he's not a road block to anyone. Cannon is not very good. Koss is a low tier prospect. McDonough is probably a UTIL guy. He's not a 2B only profile.

Yes, if you replace your worst players with good players, you'll win more games. However, it's hard to say which players will see a downturn next season.

Madness and I like Richards as the closer down the stretch.

I thought it was the Red Sox doggie that didn't hunt?

3 of those guys will never make the bigs.

Good luck iortiz!

@SmittyOnMLB Boston Red Sox to use Tanner Houck out of bullpen during final postseason push; ‘Everything will be on the table’

@IanMBrowne Red Sox wearing their yellow City Connect jerseys all weekend that they wore Patriots Day weekend. Players wanted to wear them again. Why?

I thought it was dumb that Megatron turned into a gun. Made no damn sense.

The Eddie Gaedel hater has logged on.

These cares aren't THAT smart. Just smart enough to run over some meatbags. Just wait until the update that allows for cars to charge themselves. They'll no longer need humans. The future is the Cars universe. Ka-chow!

You would want one k zone for all players? An automate k zone based on the average height of every player? The rulebook says the actual k zone is called differently.

If we DFA'd this entire list, it wouldn't materially affect the organization. My guess is they try to keep Rosario around and Maybe Davis/Rios until better options are available. I think they try to keep the catchers you have listed, unless they want an upgrade over Plawecki.

If we can make self driving cars that intentionally turn into pedestrians, we certainly can make software that recognizes each player's individual strike zone.

Sale needs to throw a few of those f*** you fastballs tonight.

Bello Downs Santos Wickowski Jimenez Crawford Feltman Are either put on 40 man or traded IMO.

It's not perfect, but probably better than the umps themselves.

Try as I might, I have yet to see a ghost runner. Maybe need to adjust the settings on my tv.

Armchair is to Quarterback as Stool is to Catcher.

It would have been like a team grabbing Whitlock in 2020's rule V draft. It we're talking 18 month recovery Thaddeus won't be back until 2023.

TBD is probably Sale. Sox need to blow the doors off of these lowly teams as much as possible. Try to save some of those pitching bullets.