Elktonnick

Good catch! I've got to start looking for that if he plays tomorrow afternoon.

Pablo is the one who makes it an issue. His quoted statements have only served to alert the media and anger the fans. I am down here at FT Myers. His play in the field in all the games that I've seen to date has been strikingly bad. He literally has not made a clean play on any ball he has handled in the several games that I have attended to date. I am going tomorrow and we'll see how he does then. The point is that Sandoval should expect to be questioned about his defense. He was only the worst defensive 3rd baseman in baseball last year and his performance to date suggests no improvement. Sandoval has to accept some responsibility for his play. His attitude suggests that he hasn't. If he doesn't turn it around both on the field and with the media I can see an already irritated fan base driving him out of Boston they way it did Renteria and Crawford. I am sure Dombrowski sees that as well.

To be successful in major league baseball consistency isn't a superstition it is a prerequisite. One speaks of pitchers needing to be consistent in the delivery, consistent in finding their release point and having consistency in their control. Practice they say makes perfect that is all about establishing consistency. BTW You all make it sound that bringing in your best pitcher in the 7th inning is a brand new idea, It has all been done before. If any of you can recall Dick Radatz. He was doing that in the sixties. He would come in in the 7th, 8 th or 9 th. I even think he came in as early as the 6th inning on one occasion. I recall watching a game in the early sixties from the right field bleachers. You could hear the explosion of the ball hitting the catchers glove way up in the right field bleachers. (Of course there were fewer fans watching the games back then.) Another reason why there is less reason to bring your "best reliever" in before the 9th is that there are more high quality relievers today and more who can throw 95 and above today. Just look at the Yankees bullpen for example.

What is missing in this argument is the fact that managers don't manage one game at a time except in the playoffs and then only in the later games. Major leaguers need consistency to be successful. The closers role didn't just suddenly appear over night, It evolved over the last hundred years this game has been played. The stats show a trend to using more relievers for a shorter period of time. There are times a manager may use a closer earlier than the ninth but those are rare and few and far between. The point is that major league ball players are creatures of habit. That's why the closer by committee doesn't work. The current system of using the "best reliever" to close out the game was developed because it has been shown to produce the best results through actual experience not by a theoretical model. Experience has shown that teams get their best results when the designated closer knows day in and day out before the game starts that he is one who is going to get the ball with the game on the line in the ninth inning.

Here is what Nick Cafardo wrote: ■ “Clay Buchholz hopes to pitch 200 innings.” This is the seventh straight year for that goal, and he’s yet to reach it. " Clay should stop talking and just start doing.

Managing a full season in the major leagues requires the husbanding of resources. Remember this is a marathon not a sprint. Expect in the post season, successful managing is not about managing a day or a game at a time. This is why the concept of role is so important in baseball. A player must know his role, whether it be starter, middle reliever or closer. While even the average major leaguer is an exceptional ball player compared to the average player of his age, he is still a human being who must understand his role. This is why the game and use of pitchers has evolved to the way it has today.

Does it now? Unless a theory has been proven by experience and replicated it is still an untested theory.

Kimmi, it is one thing to second guess a manager for a particular game or even over the entire season. However, you are questioning the entire baseball establishment. I don't recall a single successful manager who has managed the way you are suggesting over an entire season. BTW I presume you have never managed, or am wrong about that assumption.

WE know Bard wanted to become one. Nevertheless the question is was that Ben's decision or did Larry force Ben to do it.

I think JH's relationship with Larry was far more complex and involved then it was with Ben. Larry Lucchino was a protege of Edward Bennett Williams who in his day was one of Washington's premier lawyers. People on this board may deprecate Lucchino but he has tremendous political skills and savy which he obviously got from his mentor the late EBW. Larry may be the only sports executive with a World Series ring, a Super Bowl ring and a Final Four watch, as he played basketball at Princeton with Bill Bradley in 1964-65.

Enough said then.

By your post you were trying to ascribe that opinion to me inferring that both the Dombrowski and Cherrington dismissals were congruent. If one doesn't hold that opinion then it is somewhat disingenuous to erroneously ascribe it to another Ben was fired for a lack of competence. Specifically, his employer was not of the opinion that Cherrington was sufficiently competent to do the job without an experienced executive with superior baseball operational skills overseeing him. Dombrowski wasn't let go for that reason. Dombrowski was however hired for that reason. To date Cherrington is not. Furthermore one can reasonably speculate if he ever will be. Until that day arrives one has ample justification to believe that baseball ownership is skeptical that Ben has the requisite competency to do the job that Dombrowski has.

You like Kimmi assume that all firings are equal and only caused by one thing. Ben always had someone looking over his shoulder in Boston. There was Larry between Ben and Henry. Henry obviously didn't think Ben could do the job without an older and wiser mentor. So he hired Dombrowski. Ben got pissed at being demoted. He correctly saw that his being pushed aside as a firing and left. Ben simply hasn't demonstrated to ownership that he has all the requisite competencies do the top baseball operations job without some more experienced baseball guy over him.

Once again you show that your powers of deductive reasoning is flawed. First of all I never said Ben was totally incompetent but that he was promoted beyond his level of competency. Cherrington got shitcanned because of two last place finishes in a row. By your own account Cherrington always had Larry as a buffer between him and the principle owner. Henry obviously never thought Cherrington was up to the job without some one between him and the principle owner. Dombrowski was to be that person to replace Larry. Dombrowski's departure from Detroit was curious because it is clear it wasn't over competency but for other reasons. Whatever the reason after 14 years and leading the baseball operations in two major league organizations and now a third he is well regarded for his competency.

Your entire position rests on an illusion or better said a delusion. It is based on the premise that all the bad moves were some one else's fault and the all the good ones weren't. Again, you can't escape the one irrefutable fact, the person in the best position and the only one whose opinion counts fired Ben.

One could say the same about your views about Ben, the Good, and Larry, the Bad. Your only basis for believing Abraham is because what he wrote is in line with your bias. Since the alleged executives he quoted are unnamed one has no ability to question their motives. It is easy for an anonymous source to say anything whether they believed it themselves or not. They do not have to take responsibility for their statements. They are gratuitous. And don't say that these baseball executives are giving a reporter such as Abraham their honest opinion. Baseball executives are notoriously disingenuous with the press. BTW, based on my years of experience, the organizations for which I was associated placed very little credence in anonymous sources. We hardly ever acted on them.

Actually it was a fight we had over dinner. He told me he didn't like my wife's lasagna. Can't like anyone who doesn't like Italian cuisine.

I think you are confusing Rohr with Dave Morehead. Elston Howard broke up Rohr's no hitter. It was a one hitter. "Rohr was originally signed by the Pittsburgh Pirates in 1963, but was picked up by the Red Sox a year later in the rule 5 draft. As a 21-year-old rookie, Rohr made his first start at the New York Yankees' home opener on April 14, 1967. The slim left-hander faced future Hall of Famer Whitey Ford, and was one strike away from a no-hitter when Elston Howard hit a soft single into right-center field. Rohr proceeded to retire the next batter for a 3–0 shutout. In his next start, he beat the Yankees again, this time 6–1, but only won one more game in the majors after that."

I recall Billy Rohr who in 1967 was thought to be the second coming. He almost no hit the Yankees in April and went on to win one more game for Boston. It was all down hill from there

There is no scientific basis for that trust which is okay. It is easy to trust a meaningless projection which has no statistical validity other then it supports your bias.

You're basing your opinion on what Abrahams wrote since he quoted anonymous sources. It says a lot that this supposed consensus didn't have the courage to permit their names being mentioned. You have no idea who they may be.

Now you don't know that either about Larry only overruling Ben when he wanted to make a splash. The idea that Ben the "Good" was responsible for all the good things and Larry the "Evil" one is responsible for all the bad sounds like as a fairy tale. BTW who gave Ben the Good the job in the first place.

The point is that FanGraph literally aren't worth the effort it takes to concoct them. So any one quoting them to prove a point may just as well be quoting any Tom, Dick or Harry. BTW the Vegas reference is what is called a metaphor.

I agree. While I like Dombrowski's move to shore up the pen to date, I think more still needs to be done.

Any statistician will tell you that an error that large given the size of the universe makes the projection meaningless. When you have a range of between 75 and 95 games on an 85 win projection is really not any better than a random guess. You can rely on Fangraph projections if you wish but you'd go broke in Vegas if you actually placed any bets based on their projections.