Bellhorn04
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Everything posted by Bellhorn04
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The Jon Lester contract situation
Bellhorn04 replied to jacksonianmarch's topic in Boston Red Sox Talk
Depends if we see Good Clay or Bad Clay the rest of the way. He's auditioning too. Actually, unless he sucks, I'm sure he'll be back. They obviously like the guy a lot. Not a single bad word about him through all his ups and downs. -
'See the ball, miss the ball' is not an effective approach, that's for sure.
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I will offer one rebuttal on this: Bradley is also breaking into the majors in a pitching dominated era. In 1965 the average AL team scored 3.94 runs per game, and this was before the DH. In 2014, the average AL team is scoring 4.24 runs per game. I do agree that Bradley's lack of power numbers adds to the concern that the kid might not ever be an ML hitter.
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8/12 Red Sox at Red Stockings
Bellhorn04 replied to Northern Star's topic in Mike Grace Memorial Game Thread Forum
Better keep him. One thing we don't have in abundant supply is good late inning relievers. -
8/12 Red Sox at Red Stockings
Bellhorn04 replied to Northern Star's topic in Mike Grace Memorial Game Thread Forum
DLID - Designated Late Inning Defender -
Ah, but last year his BABIP was .338 at home and .397 on the road.
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Now hold it right there (big Napoli fan here) - Mike's road OPS is higher than his home OPS since joining the Sox.
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The solution to the JBJ problem is staring us in the face. Just make him our Designated Late Inning Defender. It's the same role that Coco Crisp performed brilliantly in the 2007 playoffs after being benched for Ellsbury, and JBJ has clearly shown the merit of this maneuver a few times in recent games. The DLID slot could even acquire the same type of prestige now bestowed on closers...though not paid nearly as well.
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Webster finally shows his stuff.
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No question. I only brought up the Drew signing there in connection with the payroll issue.
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Well, the much-maligned Drew signing this year did at least demonstrate that the FO was willing to take on more payroll that they really didn't have to, in order to try to upgrade the team.
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Sure. Bradley is getting the long look. He's getting a whole season to see if he can hit ML pitching or not. Because if the answer is no, they have to make plans for next year without him. That's my guess at least.
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8/6 Red Sox @ Cardinals
Bellhorn04 replied to Wasatch's topic in Mike Grace Memorial Game Thread Forum
Nice game for Farrell huh? Yeesh. -
In a shocking development, Joe Nathan did not blow the save last night vs. the Yankees.
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Actually the bloated levels of the free agent contracts and the high percentage of busts have been a big equalizer in economically disparate MLB. Parity is running rampant this year. Check out the standings. Outside of the AL West, there is nobody more than 15 games over .500!
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Nice blanket generalization!
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It remains to be seen if the Red Sox can succeed with that type of philosophy. They will be ending the 2014 season with one of the worst records in baseball and a myriad of holes to fill and question marks. Let's see how much of it they can solve without 'spending their way out of it'.
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I think Buchholz is more erratic than Beckett by a significant margin. Buchholz may be the most erratic pitcher I've seen over this length of time.
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If you want to try to prove that some guys are exceptionally good at this over their careers, the statistics are readily available on Baseball-Ref.
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Some right-handed hitters benefit from Fenway - fly-ball hitters, I would assume. Cody Ross was a classic example of a mediocre hitter who crushed at Fenway in 2012 - 921 OPS, 13 HR, 49 RBI in 66 games.
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But when I point out that Jeff Bagwell's postseason OPS is 263 points lower than his regular season OPS, you dismiss it, because it's 'only' 129 PA's. Well, of course, 129 PA's is the entirety of Bagwell's postseason career. That's as big as the sample will ever be. So we'll never know if the results would have continued that way. In my opinion, we can't prove clutch hitting, but we shouldn't outright dismiss it either.
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OK, well, I'd change my vote from 'Too soon' to B, if I could, but it's too late. This would be more feasible if we were voting on each deal separately. But voting on multiple deals like this is pretty difficult, for me at least. I just don't follow the game closely enough any more.
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I don't think there is necessarily any implication about players trying or not trying more than usual. I think it's about high-leverage situations naturally raising the fear and adrenaline levels. One of my favorite lines in connection from this came from Sox relief pitcher Steve Crawford, who came into Game 5 of the 1986 ALCS after Dave Henderson had put us ahead. I'll paraphrase, but this is close enough to what he said: 'I wished there had been a Port-a-John on the mound because I really thought I was going to s*** myself.'
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Was Jeff Bagwell a non-clutch hitter? .948 regular season OPS, .685 postseason OPS in 129 PA's. Of course it can't be proved, but that's a pretty big disparity right there. Nick Swisher? One of the worst postseason hitters in history. It doesn't mean he was a choker, but it could mean that his postseason failures were in his head. I think psychological factors are very real, even if impossible to measure with any empirical certainty.
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This statement is exactly the same way I see it. There is an obvious reason that being a clutch hitter is not a repeatable skill. The pitcher is going to get you out most of the time because that's how baseball works. You can be the biggest clutch hitter in the world, but if the guy on the mound is at the top of his game, painting the corners with 98 MPH, or throwing insane splitters like Uehara, you're still going to lose most of the time. What about being a clutch pitcher? To me that's more interesting. Was Curt Schilling one of the greatest clutch pitchers, or was October just a good month for him?
