jung

My God the rocket ship baseball turns the entire game into a joke.

And out comes the opener...not even out of the 1st. There we go folks....the state of what passes for pitching in MLB.

1. Mookie Betts ® RF 2. Rafael Devers (L) 3B 3. Xander Bogaerts ® SS 4. J.D. Martinez ® LF 5. Brock Holt (L) 2B 6. Christian Vazquez ® DH 7. Jackie Bradley Jr. (L) CF 8. Michael Chavis ® 1B 9. Sandy Leon (S) C 1. Eric Sogard (L) RF 2. Freddy Galvis (S) SS 3. Lourdes Gurriel Jr. ® LF 4. Cavan Biggio (L) 2B 5. Justin Smoak (S) 1B 6. Rowdy Tellez (L) DH 7. Teoscar Hernandez ® CF 8. Danny Jansen ® C 9. Brandon Drury ® 3B

Somebody going to put up a game thread?

Also, the lineups are up for the July 4th game. Beni sitting, JD in LF, Holt at 2nd, Vaz at DH and Sandy catching.

Well this is interesting. Baseball Press where I usually go to get both teams lineups has Neck-tat v Derek Law.

That has always been the case around here. Surprising since you cannot possibly pay Coaches what you pay players. Why not have assets that can do a better job of developing pitchers? So it would have seemed a no brainer long ago....but the Sox have apparently been pretty resistant to it. I suppose it might have its genesis in the years when Fenway was a real deal HR hitters park. So maybe management decided that they would spend on hitters instead of pitchers and spending on hitters also then drove the management mentality regarding the development and management of pitchers. Worth noting that this team was not always so flush with cash, far from it at times. That might have had an impact as well. Seems that those days ended at the latest with the Fenway seat additions and other modifications to the park itself. Its a doubles park now....the best doubles park in baseball.

This is actually pretty funny. Its like MLB has looked at the Federal Gov and decided "Hey if they can have a cluster every day, why can't we". So last night, the big conjecture was whether Stroman would pitch. Stroman seems to be shown everywhere. But I guess what looked pretty much like Neck-tat pitching for us is now up in the air????? Could it be that the Jays deciding on Stroman forced Cora's hand in his view forcing him to stuff Porcello into this start. Wouldn't this be Rick's regular turn anyway and was Cora trying to give him a break?

The only repeatable skill in baseball is actually a talent, not a skill. Hand/eye coordination is all baseball players really have that distinguishes them from other humans and other athletic humans. The hand/eye coordination of players that make it all the way to MLB is far beyond what the rest of us players that fell by the wayside have. There is actually no amount of hard work or determination that can make up for it. For players that do not get that far, to have any sort of career at all, their hand/eye is far better than the average bear's. MLB players might as well be aliens from another planet when compared to the rest of us with regard to hand/eye coordination.

We are assuming a good deal with regard to Kimbrel and staying in Boston. For example I think it unlikely that Kimbrel would have accepted 3 years/$16M per before the start of the 2019 season. I suspect he was holding out for more than 3 years, more like 4 or 5 and only signed for 3 years/16 to get back in the game. I would not have wanted him for 4 or 5 years. The problem is not so much were we didn't spend the money as much as where we DID spend the money. Henry appears to be making his feelings on the matter felt in baseball ops as we speak.

He is relatively small and Manfred's rules support larger, less agile players because that is what he wants. Mookie is a midget out there. Plus he is more dependent on his wrists to generate power than what is now your run of the mill LARGER ballplayer. He is more fragile and more susceptible to a wrist injury that in his case will be more telling than the norm which is usually bad enough for a ballplayer. If he was Machado sized or Harper sized I would feel much more comfortable with Mookie playing the game Manfred seems destined to want these guys to play.

This mistake with Sale was extending him. Who on Gods green earth thinks we want a Pitcher who has shown signs of wearing down over the course of the season all the way out to 2024 at $29M per? I am not questioning whether he could or did pass a physical before signing. I am confident he did. What does that have to do with anything? What the f*** was that. That is an albatross around our necks. That is what that is. Mookie is simply too diminutive a player to take the risk inherent to making him a $30M per player playing Manfred-ball. He is literally one wrist injury from being turned into the most average player we are ever going to see and he is only 5-9, 180. Let somebody else do it and be happy with the result. We got a championship out of his run here. I would ONLY keep him around and let him go as a FA if I had a genuine, feeling we had the pieces around him to make a very serious run to another ring...not a run to the division or the WC but a serous run at ALCS at least. Frankly, I think there is too much fixing that needs doing here for that sort of confidence. Yes, he does have to adapt to pitchers not giving him his favorite pitch as often. He probably will which is no guarantee that he will handle what they ARE throwing him. That said the general quality of pitching in MLB is so piss poor that he can reliably expect to get pitches to hit. There are far too many pitchers pitching in MLB that are wild in the strike zone. In fact I think noise about expansion is laughable. Where are players going to come from for two more MLB teams? Most specifically where are the pitchers going to come from or will Manfred just proclaim again that "these are the greatest hitters in history" [hitting rocket ship baseballs thrown by pitchers that belong in A ball]? Why are Bogie, Devers and Vaz doing as well as they are doing? Because they are hitting virtually everything thrown up to the plate at them...low and away, low and in, up and out over, breaking balls, FB's WHATEVER.....they are hitting it. I am reluctant to put JBJ in that category because we never know when JBJ is going to wake up one morning and turn into ......THE OTHER JBJ. The two SUPERSTARS are doing none of that. Chavis is just benefiting from so many pitchers throwing crap breaking balls right down main st which it appears he just can't miss and the occasional FB below his belt. The rotation sucks balls. But I am not willing to simply ignore the fact that they ALL REALLY sucked balls for 4 turns through at the start of the regular season. What if for example the lack of ST stints was simply the visible manifestation of a light work load throughout ST? Erod had the best starts through that period followed by Price. There is simply no ignoring how bad they were through 4 turns right at the start. None of them could throw a Change to save their lives. They were all up and out over with Change ups which is death for that pitch, every one of them exhibited that tendency. I am in agreement with the bolded text in the quote. Though this tendency to fall in love with players by management, not the fans is as much responsible as anything. Never mind whether we fall in love with them or not. We don't have a seat at the Baseball Ops table. Why for example did DD feel the need to validate his choices to supplement the 2018 championship run by signing Pearce at all and signing Eovaldi for too much money? DD had done his job and those two players had done theirs. What the f*** did any of that have to do with 2019?

Hey ....you brought up the analysis not me. If your defense of bringing it up is that they are made before players declare and that GM's ignore them, why bring them up. Yea....I am cranky lately and its this sort of stuff that has me cranky.

or maybe Henry was telling him what he appears to be telling him AGAIN now.

So $8M does not mean anything any longer? Put two knuckleheaded deals together like that and you have $16M. At some point, you have to be willing to say No Mas. DD has hardly ever been willing to say No Mas in a career utterly describe by overpays. Heck give me the $8M. Give me the $68M at this point. Pearce and Nate were great adds to the 2018 season. Why DD fell in love with them is a mystery to me. They did their jobs....everybody is happy....THE END! Maybe DD misread Henry. But I keep going back to a view NESN gave us into the owners suite last year. I am sure NESN simply did not think about what they were doing. But this was right during the period when there was all this noise about spending a bunch more money, way past Pearce and Nate money to bring in more players to seal the deal. Henry for his part was animated and gesticulating in the discussion. DD was dour and stone-like. I don't think they were discussing tacking maneuvers into the wind.

Agreed....I am actually willing to accept any of two possibilities: - They let him play here to FA and hope there are enough pieces with him to make an actual run at another WS Championship in the short run - Trade him for the future I am simply unwilling to accept the notion that Mookie is a player you invest $30M per in though it is not hard to convince me that somebody will give him that.

Really, while it is only the scuttlebutt, the scuttlebutt was that nobody was in or close to in on what the Sox gave him and how Sox-like is that! How DD like is that!

Good for Mookie. Won't begrudge him his money as long as its not money we need for this team. If somebody is convinced to invest $30M per in a 5-9, 180lb OFer playing Manfred-ball, more power to them.

Yup....Yup is all I got. Yup is all that is necessary.

Frankly last night was on Sale. I offered last night that Vaz could not possibly call for that many FB's unilaterally. The only possible way for Vaz to call for that many was via dugout discussion with Sale himself. He could not throw his Slider last night and Sale without his Slider is dog-meat. You simply cannot throw that many FB's and telegraph that you are going to continue to do so. Won't work. Once the jig was up, they tried to mix more Sliders which simply created more walks, more hit batsman, more of all the wrong stuff. Then the coup d grace, Cora had to bring Sale back out and try to get him through the 6th inning with the usual 2019 result. By-by ballgame.

If they were doing THEIR JOB, they would not have extended Sale, would have been seriously considering their best options with Mookie as soon as he rejected their $20M per offer in 2017, would not have signed Pearce at all and probably would not have signed Eovaldi for the outrageous money they gave him though I was OK with him being kept. Who were they competing with for Nate's services at that money....THEMSELVES! Not only was the Pearce money a total waste but the entire manner in which they have handled 1st base has been a laugh. If they ARE doing their job, they will decide whether it makes sense to simply allow Mookie to go to FA or trade him. HE IS NOT A $30M PLAYER. Let somebody else spend stupid money on him. They would look to package up Beni and get him the hell out of here. Beyond that, they have really strapped themselves and the only people that don't think so believe Henry will treat his business like a bottomless pit of money for DD to draw on when Henry knows DD has NEVER restrained himself and has ALWAY been willing to spend every last farm prospect and every last dime the owner lets him spend. I cannot consider these posts about going after Scherzer seriously because they have extended Sale! Has anybody seen the Scherzer contract? Where is that money supposed to come from...ain't coming from John Henry and anybody that thinks it will does not know what business Fenway Group is actually in. Hint....its not sports franchise management....its an entertainment enterprise. Henry is telling DD, you got your money, you spent it. You had your farm system you spent that too....just like you always do. Henry only needs to win one of these things once a decade or so and he is fine. He is running a carnival down there on "The Way".

What is going on this year makes the Sox FO approach to the 2014 season look like a well thought out, studied, Bill Belechickian answer to what you do with your team after it has won a championship. So I am not sure if we should any longer worry about what happens when DD pushes the panic button. The question might just be what does Henry do after he pushes the button that opens the trap door under DD.

And its not even like he has begun to work out of it yet. Just a hot mess.

That was another nothing pitch to Tellez. This is tough to watch and Eck trying to ball wash Sale is not making it easier.

Beni appears to be trying to shorten up his stride AGAIN this year as it just invariably creeps out there again and again. That has him more screwed up at this point because he has no idea where he is at the plate. Has gone from popping up to pooping out in a matter of a couple nights.