jung

That is one of the things that makes these projections useless. They miss everything about what makes a group of players a game winning team. The Royals are as well designed for the place they play 81 games as any team I have seen in a good long while...at least they were last year and even the year before that. The projections totally miss factors like that which is why they did not rate the Royals highly last year and don't have them rated highly again this year.

Might depend on whether KC can turn the trick at home again. 51-30 was one heck of a home record. I think Cleveland will likely be the better balanced team but if KC piles up win totals at home like that again, they might be hard to beat. Probably what the projections missed last year regarding KC.

There is a chance that Porcello settles down this year and has a decent year. I can't realistically expect more than that but making him the highest paid starter on the staff with a vacuum above him was not too bright and not just because they paid him every dime he could have expected in FA. Porcello might just benefit the most from Price being here. Still and all, I can't see him higher than a rotation 3. Eddie is the guy I think slots in behind Price. Eddie would be charting the games Price pitches. Can't hurt.

I don't make stuff up either. Its a discussion forum.....Most of it is opinion by definition. You are a provocateur. You have no interest in discussion. You traipse around the site calling this absurd and that idiotic without offering any credible argument for why they might be either and then when confronted you just ignore it. You are the site's self proclaimed hall monitor. What....in school they would not let you be the crossing guard for a week? I bet thats it. I bet I know why too. Because you are the kind of person that would contrive to have two cars bash into each at an intersection just so you could see how far the trim would fly and I bet everybody knew it.

As usual you have no idea what you are talking about and I will do as i please.

God you do such a good job of being an *******. Were you born this way or is this an acquired skill? By the way, there was no Pres. of Baseball Ops position while Larry was Pres. of the Club which is what allowed him to play the shell game he played. He absorbed it into the Pres. of the Club role. And as for creating the next best thing or telling their audience it is the next best thing that is the equivalent of saying this is not a real projection...it is the next best thing to a real projection...ergo...."fun with numbers".

Fangraphs is literally telling its audience that it is just having fun with numbers with that nonsense....Not to be taken seriously.

The last time we saw Leyland on the bench, he looked old, tired. like the game had finally passed him by and he knew it. Not sure I want to see that continence staring out from the Sox bench.

Interesting that DD has apparently also noticed. According to him they have been spending a good deal of time looking at how they develop pitching through the system. I suspect that includes every aspect of choosing and then developing pitching talent.

They would have to be out of their minds to let projected standings from Fangraphs or anybody else effect their thinking. Where do you think the "projections" had KC last year. Just one reason they miss things like KC is because while there are Park Corrections for individual players, these projections have a hard time picking out how well built a particular team is to the place where they play 81 games. At least KC's park is an honest park. It is big to very big with a fast turf and the Royals are as well built to a field with dimensions as it can be. Conversely while the Yanks are very well suited to the dimensions of their park, I do not consider Yankee Stadium an honest park. It is IMO a travesty of justice that should be outlawed as sure as steroids. But it is never going to happen. MLB likes things just as they are anyway.

I don't know how many know this but all the interviews EEI conducted during this party are up on their web site -DD -Pedro -Pedroia -XB - Hanley I think that is all of them but I might have missed one

A veritable flood of criticism!! At least it would be considered as much here. The first recommendation I would have for any player or pro sports exec coming here would be to: - hang up on the Globe Telemarketer when they finally get to your phone number - same as above for any local paper - if as part of JH's involvement all execs now get the Globe free, GIVE THEM THE WRONG ADDRESS. Let the papers pile up on some doorstep in Back Bay - send the dog out after the local newspaper boy - forget all forum URL's relating to the Red Sox and all local news outlet web sites

I think Porcello becomes this year's Miley to consistency only consistently better than Miley. But with the pressure off (Price) I think Porcello settles in this year, is not spectacular nor even great but is steady. Depending on how it goes with Kelly and Buch, maybe Porcello is steady enough to slot into the 3.

Does anybody know if DD was an autograph signer in Detroit? I would not expect him to change his stripes here. Plus one man's rude when you are not getting the news you had hoped for is another man's terse. I would not start boiling the tar and plucking the feathers just yet.

There is no question that the Sox have run this shell game for years making it difficult to understand who is doing what. Now that the Pres of Baseball Ops job is separated out from the Pres of the Club job with both Kennedy and DD reporting directly to JH, that shell game will be much harder to run. In fact I suspect that was another Larry concoction. That is just so Larry. I really don't think the Sox got much value from it but Larry did. I suspect that is another thing that drove Theo absolutely up the wall though I think BC would have had less problems with it. I think as long as the checks cleared, BC was OK with just about anything upper management did. BC is not Theo.

Elk I have been away from the board for the bulk of the day. So I just saw your post quoting about Larry and his part in some of these signings. The basis for my view is that Larry was the boss. JH had stuffed the Pres of Baseball Ops job under Larry's Pres of the Red Sox position. So whatever freedom either BC or Theo had was granted by Larry. So it really comes down to whether they forwarded up to Larry their most favored guy for a position or if they forwarded up to him a few guys with the available data and a recommendation. If they only forwarded up one guy for Larry to yea or nay, then that sounds like more responsibility for BC and/or Theo than if they were sending up several candidates with opinions and the available data for Larry to review. In some cases I suspect that Larry would allow either guy to make his own choice. But I would bet that anything on the scale of $$ ala' Panda or Hanley was a decision by Larry with again the only variable whether Larry was receiving multiple candidates and choosing one or just one favored candidate. If the later then that is very close to an approval process. If the former, the Larry is really doing much more than just approving...he is making the choice. In any event it is clear that Theo just got to a point where he felt throttled by the process and hit the road. Again I also think that JH was really telling us more than we understood at the time when he said "Larry runs the Red Sox". As it turns you that was absolutely the case and what happened with Theo makes much more sense when considered within that context.

What I don't think we will ever know unless there is a tell all book eventually is: How did they actually work this thing; - would BC or Theo forward different options with recommendations to Larry with Larry choosing from them? (not unlikely) - would BC or Theo forward up to Larry the one guy for a position that they favored over all others? (possibly but i doubt it especially with BC) - last did it work exactly the same way with both Larry/Theo and Larry/BC? (that I very much doubt for a number of reasons)

There I do agree in principle. IMO we should never think of either Theo's run or BC's run as separate and distinct from Larry. In fact for a long time now I have been posting it as Larry/BC's regime or Larry/Theo's regime. In fact, I think the idea that Larry gave up anything to Theo post the Gorrilla suit is nonsense. Larry gave up nothing and ultimately Theo just had all he could take and moved on. Also, you can't expect organizations to stay the same just because the same people are there. They end up focused in different areas and concentrating on different aspects of the business. They especially will often focus more effort on the things they love to do and that they do well with things that they have been given the responsibility for simply becoming subservient to their favorites. Having won two WS championships in relatively short order, Larry IMO focused more effort on his favorites, Marketing and we got Larry ala' bricks and bats while he still could stick his hands right into Baseball Ops any time he wanted to do so and he could make Baseball Ops act as an extension of his Marketing effort if he wanted to do so. While I often chide JH for thinking about the words he chooses after he has already uttered them, no truer words were ever spoken than "LARRY RUNS THE RED SOX! Funny while JH was never in public more direct nor more honest, I don't think we fully grasped the meaning of what JH had said.

By his own admission, not somebody elses, Panda's next Giants deal was going to have strings attached to it with regard to his weight. Go back and read the interviews Panda himself gave. You don't have to go any further then the player himself. The Giants were attaching strngs. The Sox were not...ergo...Panda to Boston.

Yea it was a fluke. A near 300 lb man shorter than 6' got from 1st to home in one extended run without having a heart attack right on the field! He is a modest defender at best now hampered by the same thing that hampers everything else Panda....his weight!

And if Panda only hits from the left side, who cares about a left hand hitter with little power hitting into one of the biggest right fields in baseball 81 games a season? There is an adjustment to be made both for pitchers and hitters. Pitchers simply cannot depend on FB's in the AL as much as they do in the NL and then hitters cannot expect to see as many FB's over here. But Panda does not swing at many pitches in the strike zone anyway. He swings and gets most of his hits on pitches outside the zone, either a bit out of it or way out of it. FB's outside the zone are tough to hit and thus many of his hits come on off-speed, breaking stuff outside the strike zone. So to be honest I would have thought he less likely to have been effected by an NL/AL switch than most hitters. I hate to say it but I take most of my hope for Panda from the opinion that for him it is literally all about the weight. I am a bit surprised that the colossal failure of 2015 did not suggest to him a complete course correction. But there is no accounting for how stubborn someone can be about their right to keep on keepin' on.

Well Farrell I can somebody not having much confidence in him. But TL made I thought a very respectable showing last year...showed no hesitation in making lineup changes when they seemed called for on the one hand and made decent in game moves on the other. As for Farrell I am kinda' surprises that so many of us see him the same way....just because these are traits that are not that easy to pick up. I agree....he is stubborn as a mule and has this undying faith that career numbers for veteran players will eventually reveal themselves. But he does not seem to be able to overlay onto that where that player he has expectations for is on a given day or in this given year. Hence I am pretty well convinced for example that he will play Hanley and Panda into the ground almost no matter what they are doing as he will see them as the best options he has to achieve wins. I am doubly concerned at least for this year because I am also convinced that DD knows he has to get either Panda or Hanley off this team at some point and in some year and they have to play for him to get that opportunity.

Good point CP as that is what I mean in chiding those that insist on last years nonsense that the AL East is somehow weak or hoo-hum. Its not. It is still relatively strong compared to the rest of the AL. There is really only one team that tips the scales partially the other way and they are the Royals. That said the one aspect of AL East strength that is in part fabricated is the Yanks in that shoe box. I mean it...the place should be banned from baseball. IMO all they have to do is be a threat is keep their left handed power upright and out of the old age home and that is a travesty.

Well that would have put Hanley up at 255 which is Panda's LISTED playing weight which is of course sheer fantasy. I suspect Panda "bounces" (pardon the pun) between a low of 255 and a high of close to 290! Panda's listed playing height of 5'11" if at all close is likely in spikes standing on a cement floor! And if Hanley was 255, do you think there was any chance that Panda even touched 255 at any point last year?? Give me a break.

As long as we keep our championship hopes down to a dull roar internally, this season should be great fun. Much to watch...much to ponder....much to expect as a result for the near term (as in 2017). As for any part of this discussion about a weak AL East and whomever wins it winning by default, the entire notion is nonsense. This is STILL the STEEL of the AL. Take KC out of the rest of the AL and you have just about the same dynamic between the divisions that we have had the past fifteen years or more. The dif is that all of baseball is a bit weaker especially in offense. We have now had eighteen years without expansion....a monstrous long run. Expansion is what drives pitching back into a hole and inflates the offense again. You have to expand at least in twos and coming up with 26 ML ready arms out of thin air plus farm systems is no small task. So we are creeping back to a game that used to be played decades ago...when pitching and defense dominated even more and no amount of PED use can stem that tide. PED's are not steroids. But mistaking this for relative weakness in the AL East is just a misread. As for the dynamics within any division, I look for a team or teams strong enough to go on winning runs. Division races are rarely close even when they seem like they might be. Somebody eventually pulls away more often than not and you have to go on a run or more precisely several streaks or wining runs during the course of the season for that. So when I look at the AL East, the Rays pitching could carry them to winning streaks but I think them a real long shot in that regard. At least they have a tool that could take them somewhere, but i really doubt it. The Yankees have that ridiculous shoe box they play in and as long as they can keep their left handed power upright and out of the old age home they always have a shot at going on streaks. The Jays look like the best regular season team in the division, clearly can go on runs as that is exactly what they did. Post season looks like Stroman and pray though. I view the O's and the Sox as tweeners...least likely this year to be able to go on winning streaks and pull away from anybody. Neither team has enough of anything. Our bullpen is without question the strength of the team especially at the back end. But the only way to make that kind of pen pay off as a wining asset is to hand it leads and that is our problem I would wager. So for my money both we and the O's will only end up able to battle for a second spot and a WC birth.