FredLynn

Its no coincidence that both he and Pomeranz are essentially two pitch pitchers and both are not as successful pitchers with a larger arsenal, in general. I think that ERod should focus on developing a third reliable pitch this winter if he is going to maximize his value to the team in the upcoming years.

Xander Bogaerts, since Aug 1, has hit .214/.608 in 190 PAs. He should have been moved down until his confidence returned. I would have put Betts in the #2 hole, followed by Ortiz and Ramirez.

Not to be a spoilsport, but we haven't even made the playoffs yet, let alone won the ALE. That said, I think we are in the drivers seat right now.

Uehara wasn't exactly tearing it up before he got hurt. It might be a stretch to think that he will be better than that now.

I disagree. He struck out over 30% of the time in his roughly 200 PAs in AA ball. Thats not good. Meanwhile, Shaw has been good vs RHP and Hill has been decent vs LHP. I think Moncada should not have been given the 3B job so soon. Rather, a Shaw/Hill platoon was best, using Moncada as an occasional pinch hitter or pinch runner. He will be fine, but he badly needs plate discipline.n

Once you get into the playoffs roles tend to become less defined for some pitchers. Starters can come out of the pen and pitch an inning or two-or more. How many innings did Baumgartner pitch in relief the last time the Giants won the WS? I don't recall exactly, but it was a lot. The turnaround in the Red Sox pitching has been nothing short of amazing. After languishing around 10th in ERA for the first half of the year they are now SECOND in ERA since the all star break. This despite the bullpen underperforming. I didn't see this coming.

If you had 10 "trained observers" calculating dWAR for a given player all season I wonder what the variance would be in the results-since its a subjective score. If a player has a dWAR of 4 for the season, for example, I would have much more respect for this assessment if each of the 10 observers scored it as a 4 and less respect if half of the observers scored it as a 0 and half scored it as an 8 (extreme example, but you get the point).

Next year is a long way off. Although unlikely, its possible that in spring training Sandoval will tear the cover off the ball after showing up 30 pounds lighter. I am pretty sure the DD is not going to change: everyone on the opening day roster is going to earn their place there. With all the money he is due, Sandoval is going to get his chance to earn it too.

Complete games are a rarity nowadays...and we don't really need them. If he can go 7 high quality innings, thats fine by me. And it does look like he has come around.

Of the 55 pitchers in the AL who have pitched a minimum of 100 innings this year. Clay Buchholz is #50 in ERA. There is no way in hell he is worth $13M next year.

I think the HR he hit in Baltimore last night was too high

Since the All Star Break Pomeranz has an ERA of 3.70 and ERod an ERA of an outstanding 2.67. The pitching since the ASB is THIRD in the league. Compare that to what Kelly and Buchholz did before the ASB and its easy to see why the team is now winning. Bannister is in the dugout, but the pitchers still have to execute.

Farrell also said at the beginning of spring training that Pablo had lost 20 pounds during the offseason. Then he said recently that Pablo has lost 17 pounds. Given the fact that his first statement was a lie, I also do not believe his second statement.

Next year in spring training he will be on the roster. And as Dombrowski proved this year, if he is unable to earn the 3B job (or any other job), regardless of how much money he is earning, he will sit....somewhere. He will get a shot because he is untradeable.

And they are waiting to get the MRI because........? Is it too expensive? The Red Sox have a history of waiting too long to get indicated diagnostic tests, resulting in delayed diagnoses and treatment. He should be getting an MRI today if he is too sore to play. Its a harmless test and could be very informative.

Given the current mess in minor league SP (or lack thereof), I would add Groom to the off limits list. This is especially true now that Espinosa has been traded. We desperately need pitching in the minors. And there is this: Sandoval is still going to be on the roster for many years. That makes for a logjam at 3B. No one is going to take him off our hands, unfortunately.

Yes. He should not have been thrown a strike. But since Farrell made a mistake and decided to pitch to him, why did he position Mookie shallow enough for Miggy to be able to hit the ball over his head? Seems the correct tactic in that situation would have been to prevent extra base hits. This may have been mentioned earlier in this thread: I haven't read over all of it. Two mistakes by Farrell in one AB...is that a record?

Its pillow worthy

We won't come close to 97 wins more than likely. To do that we need a record of 43-25 (.632 ball) for the rest of the way. Given that a large majority of the remaining games are on the road, including two west coast swings, we will be lucky to make it to 90 wins. Unless Price begins to pitch like Price and Pomeranz is lights out.......and Price hasn't done that all year.

True. And its one of the reasons Theo Epstein has such a good club in Chicago right now. He didn't build that farm system. Someone else did, benefiting from some horrible finishes and good drafting of pick high in the pecking order.

Who knows why he was in the minors? Maybe its because he had options...maybe it was for rehab starts after his injuries. It obviously wasn't because of his performance. His numbers for the past 2 1/2 years are very good. As for Espinosa, I would have loved to keep him. I personally offered SD the combination of Buchholz, Craig, Castillo, Owens, and O'Sullivan, but they wouldn't listen. They weren't willing to hand over an all star for a bag of golf balls. Espinosa may or may not become a legit ML pitcher; he has promise, which is why the Padres wanted him. Whatever your opinion of this trade is, you have to give DD credit for not sitting on his hands. He actually went out and did something to hopefully improve the team. I am going to assume he got the best deal he could, though I will never know. Doing nothing was not an option if this team was to stand a good chance to make the playoffs. Not with our SPing. Here is what Bannister said about his turnaround as a SP: ""He went from being a two-pitch pitcher, which limits your viability as a starter," Bannister said before the Red Sox beat the Yankees on Friday night. "He added a third pitch, which got him over the hump and it's a quality third pitch." That pitch is a cutter, and Bannister believes it's not only the key to Pomeranz's emergence, but the key to sustaining it, especially when paired with a "top-20" curveball, as well as an effective fastball. "He's always had the ability to spin the ball, it's always been one of the better curveballs in the league from a lefty, he's a big body, he knows how to pitch," Bannister said. "He needed something that could balance out his fastball, especially when you get behind in the count, because you can't always just throw a curveball and he wasn't a changeup guy. Just having that ability to mix in that cutter like he has and have it be a power pitch, it's really just taken him to another level.""

I am having a hard time understanding your insistence that he has been very good for only half a season. The fact of the matter is, he has been above average to excellent for two and a half years running: ERA +: 159/108/161. Even if you think he is only an average pitcher, something these statistics show otherwise, its an upgrade over who our #4-5 SPs are now. And this team was sorely in need of an upgrade in that department. What Espinoza becomes or doesn't become is unknown. He is an 18 year old who isn't even pitching well in A ball right now.

Thats not true. His ERA+ in 2014 was 159; in 2015 it was 108; and this year it is 161. Admittedly, he seems injury prone. Thats my only concern about this deal.

So who goes now? SP now include Price, Wright, Porcello, Pomeranz, ERod, (Buchholz)....and in the pen, assuming Kelly comes back, there will be Kimbrel, Ziegler, Taz, Koji, Barnes, Ross, Layne, Kelly, Hembree, (Buchholz). Thats 5-6 SP (if you want to call Buchholz one) and 10 guys in the pen. Two too many I think. Rodriguez hasn't had enough starts to write him off just yet (6). Does Buchholz get released, finally?

Pablo put on 30