sk7326

Buch is what he always was - a tease. It was why he was annoying, why the Sox could keep him cheap and why I could not quit him. If he ever "figured it out" - but that's a big if, and the world has been waiting a decade for it.

2B - Pedroia LF - Benintendi RF - Betts SS - Bogaerts 1B/DH - Ramirez 1B/DH - Young/Moreland 3B - Sandoval C - Somebody CF - Bradley I like having baserunners on when the lineup turns.

It is also the hardest to project generally. Who knew that Hideki Okajima would turn into the best setup man in the American League and then turn into a pumpkin the next season? There is really no meaningful foolproof way to build a bullpen (and if so, Dombrowski sure as hell has not cracked it). There are a lot of live arms in this group - and that is a good place to start.

Kelly's potential as a bridge guy is huge. Catcher is fascinating to me - the ideal solution would be for Swihart to take the job (of the three, he is the only one with all-star raw talent). But he has to earn it on both ends, which is totally legit ... Leon's 6 weeks does not outstrip the remainder of his career, though he has earned the right to try. Vasquez only has to hit a little to be a pretty good starter - but he has not achieved that "little". If he could deliver a .260/.310 sort of line - even a fairly empty one - that would be sufficient. Of course with Vasquez he actual gamecalling is a question. The pitching staff performed much better with Leon - which I am not stupid enough to blame on the catcher wholly, but it is a datapoint which is out there.

Clutch exists for baseball fans - and obviously for some players ... but what is it and how do you describe in a way that is meaningful (and thus something which you can scout for or measure). Those answers have largely been elusive.

Right. This is especially true with pitching. We don't know what the game plan was. (BTW: this extends to leaning too hard on minor league stats generally) Winning is not a primary objective. A pitcher might get lit up, but if the directive was "I want you to throw 35 changeups, 30 curveballs, and don't worry about blasting the fastball too much" - then that's what you have to lean on.

Now you can never account for health - that is the 800 lb gorilla in all these assessments. That and bullpen - which is forever a crapshoot ... very few teams get consistent performance from that year to year. The rotation should be able to survive not having Price for a little while. Rodriguez flashed star ability last season - and if he ended up the team's 2nd best pitcher ... it would be a surprise, but not a crazy one. 3B is an issue - but there are ways around that ... if the Sox want a corner bat badly enough, there is trade inventory, whether it be Bradley or some of their high minor stuff.

At its heart, the WBC is a showcase to expand baseball's reach worldwide. In pro wrestling terms, the US being there to put other countries over is immensely helpful for TV exposure of course. But it's getting fans to care in Italy, Netherlands (and then suddenly having guys play baseball and turn into Guys (see Max Kepler)) that is the real benefit to the game at large. When there is a day that there is meaningful WBC zonal qualifying - that's what I'm looking forward to.

Boo! WBC is better if the US doesn't win

The most important thing about spring training is that it helps the economy of those cities - that's about it.

94-68 On paper this is the best team in the American League.

Clutch pitching is a bit twofold to me - and it really depends on definition and such - For starting pitchers, I tend to believe in a version of clutch pitching. The numbers "with runners on" is meaningful - not so much for the clutch thing - but because the pitcher is working out of the stretch, a meaningful mechanical difference. Working from the stretch is a separate skill. - For closers, largely no. We've been over this a lot. It is why the marginal utlity of a "9th inning guy" is for the most part, pretty low. There is also a ton of noise when dealing with bullpen guys. There is strong statistical evidence that pitchers have a meaningful edge the first time a hitter sees him in a game compared to subsequent looks. That edge creates a lot of value inherently. (and it's why failed starters - who largely cannot turn lineups over - can often become great relievers) There is no doubt that keeping your nerves in a tough situation is a big deal - but for the most part with bullpen guys the numbers won't help that much. Very few relievers sustain performance - it's why a kitchen sink approach to bullpen construction is sensible.

Yeah I don't like prospect for Japanese players. It's true because of rookie eligibility - but it is a bit of a dig to NPB, which is better than any minor league.

A team like Boston only really needs to focus on quality. They can source "worker bees" with money and mid-level prospects. You keep the stars. Devers is tracking, and Benintendi sure flashed a ton of promise to that end.

Consistency and repeatibility is the proof that it exists. Now - at least for me - the issue is not whether big moments exist. Of course they do. (this seems to be a popular strawman) It is whether the ability to deliver then is really differentiating. Clutch would be a little easier to get behind as a thing if there were, say players the caliber of Sandy Leon - who delivered Papi-esque production in higher leverage spots. At best, clutch performers are a subset of a group of players who were already far more likely to deliver than their counterparts.

All of this is true - and great players embody all of it (and therein lies the problem). You have the odd David Price - but his splits are so rare that it does not seem to prove anything.

He was a remarkable postseason pitcher - he was also a remarkable, very underrated all the time pitcher. He also pitched quite poorly in the 2007 ALCS. So even there there was a blip.

Clutch definitions always seem to be applied post-hoc which is problematic. Every systematic definition of a clutch situation has largely revealed no statistically significant evidence. Again - that doesn't mean that such situations don't exist - but the evidence is scant. Are some players better than others in those spots? Sure. Is it a significantly different list of players than simply players who are good? I am skeptical. Pitchers with men on base of course is meaningful - pitching out of the stretch is a different skill after all. After all - every favorite example comes with a pretty good counter. Papi is an all time clutch player. He had a miserable 2008-2009 and 2016 postseason. ARod choked a lot. He was the Yankees best player in their 2009 title run. David Price can't get it done in big games. He pitched his best down the stretch for teams chasing division titles the last two seasons.

In his chat, someone noted the Red Sox either had or dealt 7 of his Top 24, which is pretty ridiculous

Org Sleeper Pick http://www.espn.com/blog/keith-law/insider/post?id=6739

It would have changed the narrative. Would he have gotten better? Who knows? But he became a great hitter - and with the Red Sox being so successful, a number of those moments found him.

Martinez' production was fairly low variability to - until the very end, he was a ridiculously good hitter. Ortiz had a 3 year stretch where he seriously lost it - which I do think people tend to forget. It makes the autumn of his career remarkable of course.

When I meant unclutch - I note that he was the league's best player. I would have wanted him up at every hour of the day - not just the big moments. That is my issue with the clutch player definition - it does not deny psychology. It does not deny the reality of players coming up big. It's just that in almost every case - those identified also happened to be the best players in the sport. They weren't hulking up - they were that way the entire time. The moment found them.

Fairly short years - we knew he could hit (that was the big surprise of his 2015 - that he didn't hit at all). Money is sort of a who cares - if John Henry wants to lay it out, hooray.

Yaz was the best player in the entire league in 1967. He was unclutch as well. (which sort of proves the point)