Palodios

I had a Deshuttes porter at Safeco last week. Good stuff.

Ben Cherrington. Has he done a good job? Bad job? I want to look at his key moves of his time here so far. This is assuming there has been no meddling, for better or worse from ownership. Wins Koji. Excellent. Napoli. Excellent despite the third year's struggles. Melancon --> Brock Holt. Good. Andrew Miller --> Rodriguez. Awesome. Agon/Beckett/Punto--> RDLR/Webster Franchise changing Iglesias--> Peavy. Excellent. RDLR/Webster--> Miley. Looks pretty good to me. Losses John Lackey --> Kelly/Craig. Awful. Reddick --> Andrew Bailey. Awful. 12 WAR with the Athletics over the years. Jon Lester --> Cespedes/1st rounder --> Porcello + extension. Bad. Castillo. Could easily go into Debateable column, but so far it looks Bad. Pablo Sandoval. Bad. Lowrie-->Melancon. Bad. AJ Pier bad Masterson Bad Debateable Hanley Ramirez. The offense has been excellent, and the defense has been awful. I see potential for Hanley to turn it around. Shane Victorino. Helped win a championship. Hasn't done much since. Moncada. Still early. Best Young Players Traded Reddick 12 WAR/4 Years Lowrie 9 WAR/3 years Iglesias 2+ WAR, plenty of injuries over 2 years He has made plenty of excellent moves, but yeah, there have been some stinkers

Clay Buchholz is probably the exception. He's a ticking time bomb. He's down to a 3.68 ERA right now, with a 2.70 ERA in the last two months. Maybe there is a high ceiling prospect out there in a trade... if Buch stays healthy long enough.

It is a difficult benchmark to quantify, but a QS generally lets your team have a chance to win. It isn't a gem, or an excellent start. What I never understood was why 6 IP, 3 ER is a quality start, while 9 IP 4 ER is not.

Has anyone ever won the Sextuple Crown?

I am so friggen tired of Masterson and Kelly. Why are these guys still getting chances? I don't care what you paid/traded to get them, they're clearly not getting it done, and not going to get it done. Why throw away wins to AL East opponents so easily?

Andrew Benintendi won baseball america's college player of the year award. I didn't realize how big a deal this was until I saw all of the last recipients of the award... (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baseball_America_College_Player_of_the_Year_Award) Between 2000 and 2010, the majority of the picks have all been stars, with exceptions of Mark Prior/Khali Greene. Between 1990 and 2000 are another group of stars, including Varitek and JD Drew. Before that are a few hall of famers. Man, I hope the Red Sox have something in this guy.

Bud Norris had a 7.57 ERA earlier today. Impressive.

That was probably the worst trade I've seen this ownership make. It still doesn't make sense to me.

I'm not convinced the price was outrageous. I understand he signed at 33, but you're just not going to find quality pitching on the free agent market for a 3rd round draft pick and 75 million. The Red Sox spent 9 million for Masterson, 26 million for a 36 year old Dempster. Brandon Fricken McCarthy got 50 million. Brandon McCarthy! I know some of these guys think 20 million is "ace money", but at this point, I would gladly see the Red Sox give a 20 million/year contract to a guy who can consistently put up quality starts, a 4.00 ERA, and 210 IP.

What happened to Cecchini? He went from a player with an elite hit tool to a guy with a .200 average in a short time.

Castillo has played 26 games in the majors this year. We probably shouldn't worry about him quite yet.

I do want to talk about Miley though. Sometimes players take time to adjust, and that seems to be what happened with him. Look at these numbers: April 8.62 ERA 1.79 WHIP May 3.49 ERA 1.27 WHIP June 3.42 ERA 1.31 WHIP He is starting to look like exactly the pitcher the Red Sox wanted when they signed him. If he keeps this up, he could definitely still be a #3 for this team moving foward.

Shields ERA/WHIP/ BAA/ IP per game are all around career averages. His strikeouts are near career highs. If the homers normalize, he can still have an excellent season. I'd take a 96 ERA+ over Joe Kelly's 70 ERA+ or Masterson's 63 ERA+ any day of the week.

Personally, I wanted one more good starter, and one less third baseman/bad starter. Avoid Masterson's 85 MPH fastball and 9 million contract, avoid Pablo's fat ass, sign Shields at 80 mill. I don't like long term contracts to older starters, but Shields was probably worth it. The Juan Francisco/WMB platoon might have hit 35 bombs this year. That's not hindsight, that's what I was suggesting at the time. Juan Francisco hasn't played a game in the majors in 2015

Meanwhile, Hanley cranks #15. The Sox really need to find this guy a position...

If the Red Sox had signed an ace, it would have taken pressure off the rest of the guys. One or two more wins early, one or two fewer appearances per bullpen arm, fifteen fewer appearances by either Kelly/Masterson would make a difference. The rotation wouldn't have had to deal with the "Why don't you have an ace" criticism all year.

How is Joe Kelly still in this rotation? I haven't been following the team so much, so maybe I missed it, but he's been terrible all year. Its time to accept the Lackey trade was a failure and move him to the bullpen.

Since May 1st, Buchholz has had a 3.00 ERA, 1.20 WHIP, and has pitched 7 IP per game. Crazy, huh?

The Sox need to win the next three series. If they suddenly go 7-3 in that stretch, we're looking at a 38-43 team that's probably about 6 games back on the division. The team is healthy, the offense is starting to click, Rodriguez is a huge boost. Trading for that ace might push them forward. Personally, I think they should blow it up, but the next 3 series are going to determine the direction.

Moncada has been stuck in a military compound in Guatamala the last year or two. I doubt anyone was throwing him offspeed pitches down there. He has plenty of time to get back into game shape.

The best case scenario was for him to improve ahead of the 3.43 ERA, 204ish innings from 2014. At age 25, I didn't think that was completely unreasonable, but hey, things don't always work out. The Red Sox need to get an ace, put Eduardo onto an innings limit this year, and hope that pushing Porcello back to a sinkerballer will get him back into being a #3 type pitcher for 2016.

Do you really think Porcello is a 5 ERA pitcher ? To a700's original point, he's been a 4.30 ERA guy his entire career, why would he suddenly become a 5 ERA pitcher and stay there?

You're completely missing the point.

I'm not saying Porcello is as good as those pitchers, just pointing out pitchers that peaked later in their careers. Porcello's first excellent season was in 2014, at the age of 25. Those other guys didn't put it all together until age 30, age 28, age 29. The Red Sox organization screwed with Porcello's approach, and it hurt his development. I'm fine with him going back to the sinker and low strikeout numbers, with an ERA in the 3.80s and 3 WAR a year. He is working on it, but it hasn't been easy for him to do mid-season.