cp176

I agree! Cut from the same cloth. Price is the pitcher. Eck had his day. Once again the media gets in the way. i cannot understand at all why any human would give a s*** about the feud that that these two guys seem to be having. Junior high.

yawn - feud between HOF announcer and a starting pitcher who can pitch and has great teammate support. Slow news day much?

I am in awe of what Vazquez has done this year. I never would have guessed nor would I ever say that I saw this coming. good for him.

I saw Marco in Portland at a time when he was their best player. He was their everyday ss at the time. I' have been on his band wagon since then. If he is healthy, he makes a solid second baseman for this team.

Oh I'll admit that I drank the kool-aid with respect to Irving. Young guy, one of the most talented players in the game, looking for a team to lead. What was not too like? I'm not smart enough to figure out what the future holds for guys like him. I think that it is a far fetched case of hind sight now to suggest that anyone saw this one coming.

That's nice Moon. Maybe Danny should give you a call for a consult before the C's move forward. lol

I'm not sure that it was as clear as you think it might have been. It was a gamble that didn't pay off. that's the way it goes.

Sometimes you just don't know what you are getting until you have a chance to live with the goods I think.

Oh you rascally rabbit. It is about a couple of things for me I think. Not resigning Kimbrel obviously hurt us. Hoping that a thousand guys who have never come close to doing what he has done would get it done, was a pipe dream. Adding to that is the overall underperformance of one of my very favorite players Chris Sale. When you truly have that guy who everybody expects to be the man every time he gets the ball, and for whatever reason, he struggles i think that the mental impact on your team can be huge. I also think that not having Eovaldi has had quite an impact on the process as well. These guys are not robots - we know that. The mental emotional side plays quite a role regardless of what anyone thinks - it is true. On a positive note though, we have had some guys playing very well. We just seem to be a little lackluster right now. It also is human nature I guess for the typical fan to run around searching for reasons why what looked like guaranteed success just doesn't happen. Sometimes stuff just happens.

I'll simply say that that might be why he will have a new team to help screw up. No I don't believe that it is a new policy but hey you decide for yourself.

I love Al Horford. the but is that you ain't winning titles with Al headlining. I don't know whether or not the Celtics have future titles coming their way or not but what I will say is that I like very much that Danny has an obvious no ass-hole rule moving forward. Nothing is worth coddling a pompous butt for brains regardless of whether or not you can win. If this team loses with good hard working players, I'm fine with it. good bye Kyrie and see you later with good wishes to Rozier.

hey where is our poster boy ben hanging out these days? lol

Oh boy Bellhorn, don't you start with this worn and tired refrain. You know what comes next. i could start softly with my belief about where your best hitter should be which might gradually morph in to all of the ridiculous sighnings that can be directly attributed to Ben Cherington.

hang in there - love reading your posts that often relate to a time before baseball for me.

I really don't have any ideas. I don't follow the big picture particularly well.

I agree with you about Barnes. He has proven to be a very valuable set up guy. The but is that good closers imo are special animals. We had one of the best if not the best playing for us in Kimbrel. In my mind, his value is now obvious. I think that bullpens in general can be built in many different ways but when it comes to the back end not so much. They aren't going to be successful every game but you have to have someone out there that you can count on when the game is on the line.

Like I said, there are plenty of people here who after last year were suggesting Alex Cora for near sainthood. We'll see how he deals with this year. How you respond with a little adversity is a true test.

You are never as good as you look when playing at the top of your game. you are never as bad as you look when playing as badly as you can play. Same applies to Alex Cora and the rest of us. If memory serves, there were a whole bunch of people here willing to project him to the top of our leaderboard with respect to managers after last season. It's a process. Time will tell how he is going to turn out. Life is easy when everything is going well. This is a good test for him.

My argument about having your best run producing bat in the number 3 spot is exactly that. A run producing bat! This argument has always been about producing runs via the bat. Everyone who knows anything about the game at all understands that there are other ways to produce runs. If one single second i thought that the argument has been about anything other than the bat, maybe i would feel differently. I don't. My best run producing bat, is in the 3 spot. It is becoming much like a political debate. Some don't like the obvious so they change the rules as they go in an effort to prove a pointless point. Eliminate that first inning and since I have seen no data to dispute the claim - that guy hitting third takes on some serious level of importance.

Your approach is too logical and makes too much sense. We need to find some old stat master to support us.

Oh wait, i forgot to add something for Slasher. I'm not googling it because I'm just not in to that sort of thing, but I would be pretty surprised if I found out that in the world of the ancients that there weren't studies proving that the earth was flat. theories are proven and disproven everyday. maybe if more intelligent people really gave a s***, there would be theories out there proving that the best hitter in your lineup should bat third. It just doesn't seem to carry as much weight as proving that the sun is the center of our solar system did. Oh well! lol

I apologize up front. blame Bellhorn he has led me here. Discounting the first inning, what hitter comes to the plate more frequently than the rest with runners on base? I want my best hitter - what ever this might actually mean - to have the greatest chance to come to the plate in high leverage situations with runners on base. To say that it is the #2 hitter in your lineup, gives more credit to the guys at the back of our order I guess than i do. Our #8 and #9 guys don't seem to hit so good. For the record, think I'll go along with Cora on this one but once again, i think that JD is our most productive hitter. third or fourth seems to work pretty well.

I'm sorry Bell - I just saw the thread. Everything I said goes for the other thread as well! I could have added that I am stubborn as well.

I am okay with the information coming out of the NTMC. The organization's (I'm sure) flawless reputation for precise accuracy is one that I can live with. i'll go with this and be at peace although i'm petty sure that soon that some other malcontent will be giving their interpretation of solid data explaining why there is justification for batting your "best hitter" (whatever the hell that might mean) wherever they happen to think he should be. Oh and just as an aside - I'm all about the no actual research part of this.

I appreciate your taking the time to respond to my question in a thoughtful way. And personally, I am going to say that yes I would keep JD in either the 3 or the 4 hole. I just think that there are so many factors affecting what constitutes a "best" hitter projection. My bet is that you can find data to support just about any idea that you might have. I do find it kind of odd that there isn't available data to answer the initial question that I asked - once you get by the first inning, who gets to the plate the most and who in all likelyhood would have the greatest opportunity to come up in high leverage situations. I understand that to some this might seem like a silly question but unless it can be answered, I will always have a hard time understanding how anyone can be so goodamn sure that they know precisely where the best hitter in any lineup should be placed. If you are the one picking an choosing the data that you like, i guess that it is easy. Not so much for me. I also understand what comes next from some - let it go, who cares, it doesn't make much difference. I get all of that as well - in the meantime, I guess I'll go along with the manager's decision. thanks again Moon!