SoxFanForsyth

This team is ruining my freaking vacation. Talk about a disgusting and pathetic series. This was embarrassing. 4 runs in 3 dys?? GTFO. That's ridiculous.

Getting pretty damn tired of this team failing with RISP this road trip. This is pathetic and embarrassing.

Situation too perfect for Nap not to come through

That qualifies you as a cheater in Toronto.

True but anytime you acquire a closer for a position player, WAR is going to favor the position player. It's just weighted in favor position players. In all of baseball last year, Craig Kimbrel was the best reliever at a 3.3 WAR. There were 50 batters with a war of 3.4 or better. Just tough to compare is all I'm saying.

Kinsler and Murphy have hit him well, but that's it really on the squad now. Nap had a 1.056 OPS against him, and Hamilton destroyed him to a 444/515/926 line. I think Lackey throws well tonight. 6 IP, 2 ER or 7 IP, 3 ER would be my guess.

Sporting the Sox gear in St Lucia tonight. Sitting on our patio in our room, sipping on a Piton beer, and finally enjoying life after busy season. If anyone ever goes to St Lucia, check out Ladera Resort. Guarantee you that you will not be disappointed.

Yup. You deal with it if he is effective and chalk it up to a developing pitcher. But this is ridiculous. When you're velocity is down 3-4 mph, and you can't dial it up past 91 when you were regularly touching 96 last year, you're useless as an MLB pitcher. This division is going to be tough to win this year. The last thing we need to do is watch a guy go out and pitch like Mark Buehrle for 4 innings a night and then destroy the bullpen. You can't afford to just blow game after game while waiting for his stuff to arrive. It's May. Go to Webster and let Doubront gain his strength back in Pawtucket. It's what he deserves for coming to camp out of shape.

Not true. He missed substantial time due to his elbow, which kicks in an option for a 3rd year at league min. So essentially he's at 3 years, 32.5mm. You dump his salary and get nothing back and someone will pay him 3/21-24,which at 7-8mm a year is a good deal. And you trade him because if he's pitching exceptionally, he's a high 3's era pitcher. If you have Lee, his average season is a low 3's era and he has the stuff for a high 2's era.

Huh??? They are well well under the cap. Like 20mm+

Right, it doesn't make sense if you are replacing Lester, I agree. But, if Lackey has a solid first half and you feel that you will be able to trade him in the offseason, it would improve the rotation substantially. Or, if you trade Doubront in the deal to the Phillies, and trade Lackey in the offseason, you can have a rotation of Lester Buch Lee Dempster Webster, which would be crazy good. This all obviously has a lot of ways it can go, depending on health and performance. It was really just a question in theory, if there is a need in the rotation, would Lee be a real option, and I think he would.

For visual guys, here's an awesome link to a FG article that shows two of Buchs pitches overlaid on each other, and deciphers the movement from 2012 to 2013. You will enjoy. http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/visually-comparing-clay-buchholz-2012-2013/

I agree. Felix is in Buehrle territory right now. Low velocity and diminished off speed stuff. The good thing is that 1. We have a ready replacement for him in Webster, and 2. He isn't making an exorbitant amount of money.

They also have a lot coming off the books (Ells, Drew, Salty, Aceves) who will likely be replaced by JBJ or Brentz (move Vic to CF) Bogaerts/Iglesias, Lavarnway, and anyone. That's an extra 33mm off the books, which essentially opens up 65mm to spend. They have plenty of flexibility in large part due to the strong system. Plus, I'm sure the Sox wouldn't take on the entire salary. They'd likely give up a better prospect package and eat less money, which is what the Phil's would want.

Not sure it would put them over at all? They are at like 160 right now. And in terms of Doubront - I meant throw him on the DL, he's clearly got dead arm. Not release him.

I said last night that I thought Doubront would hit the DL before the end of the month. I was being too nice. He's going to be on the DL before his next scheduled start. Allen Webster has made 6 starts this year (one of which was a 2 inning stint that got rained out) and has a 2.57 ERA including the rainout, a 2.25 bb/9, and an 11.3 k/9. The entire argument against Webster from scouts coming into this season was that he had some control issues, as evidenced by his consistent 3.5-4.2 bb/9 over his minor league career. Now, though, after some minor tweaks to his mechanics and an adjustment in location on the rubber, he has been able to harness his control and maintain his very strong strike out numbers. He's certainly ready to come up to the big leagues, and he is certainly an improvement over Doubront, especially right now. Get this kid up here and let's go. As a side note, I would not be at all surprised if the Sox pursued Cliff Lee at the deadline.

I know, I know, the last part was a bit of a low blow, but regardless, if you're going to call someone out for cheating, you better be 110% sure that he is cheating. And looking at the movement on his pitches, it's all consistent, so they have no valid argument that any 'doctoring' they think he's doing is having any affect on his pitches.

Did anyone really not see this coming?? Doubront has been a warm pile of garbage all night. This is his own fault for not putting in the work in the offseason.

This is dice k esque. Just horrible. We absolutely cannot be crushing our bullpen like this. I'm done with Doubront. Bring up Webster.

He was averaging 93.5 on his first May start last year. He topped out at 96. This is entering Buehrle territory. He's sitting 86-88, touching 90. This is unacceptable. It's almost as if he didn't work out at all last offseason. Come in way out of shape and now were seeing 86-88 in May? No thanks. Get him on the DL, remind him he's not bigger than the game, and make sure he's got his arm strength before he's back.

Doubront will be on a DL stint before the month is over and I wouldn't be surprised if he loses his job altogether to Webster who will replace him.

Doubront averaged 93 mph last year on his FB. Now he's sitting 88-89. He's not a good pitcher without 3-5 MPH of his velocity.

This feels as close to a playoff series as you can have on May 3rd. Feels like the two best teams in the AL going head to head. Heading to St Lucia for a post-busy season vaca. Don't worry, I'll have Internet to start the GT's and my buddy's mlb tv for the games

Doubront vs Holland Doubie needs to find the zone early and pitch with better efficiency. The Sox are down a man in the pen, so getting 7 innings in the opener would be big. Sox are dogs, +121. Win.

All info per Brooks Baseball: 4 seam Vert Movement in 2012: 10.18. 4 seam Vert Movement on Wed: 9.68. 4 seam Hor Movement in 2012: -4.25. 4 seam Hor Movement on Wed: -4.36. 2 seam Vert Movement in 2012: 7.95. 2 seam Vert Movement on Wed: 6.63. 2 seam Hor Movement in 2012: -6.00. 2 seam Hor Movement on Wed: -7.58. ** Please note, for his career, his 2 seam Hor Movement averaged -7.21 **. Changeup V Mvmt in 2012: 5.78. Changeup V Mvmt on Wed: 4.86. Changeup H Mvmt in 2012: -1.36. Changeup H Mvmt on Wed: -1.59. Curve V Mvmt in 2012: -6.78. Curve V Mvmt on Wed: -7.97. Curve H Mvmt in 2012: 9.82. Curve H Mvmt on Wed: 9.01. Cutter V Mvmt in 2012: 7.23. Cutter V Mvmt on Wed: 5.11. Cutter H Mvmt in 2012: 1.69. Cutter H Mvmt on Wed: 1.87. Every single pitch outside of the horizontal movement on his cutter and horizontal movement on his curve was either less than or consistent with 2012. This entire allegation is absolutely absurd. Both Jack Morris and Dirk Hayhurst are complete clowns who do less than zero analytics on the entire situation. They saw something white on his arm based on a grainy photo, jumped to conclusions, and are now looking like morons. Take that garbage to Reddit you armchair investigators. And stop act like you know anything about baseball.