sk7326

The move is to walk Encarnacion to load the bases and then bring in Britton - your best bet to get the strikeout or a weak grounder. A smart manager clearly overthought this.

Realistically Young is the first righty specialist off the bench ... and Hill is probably good enough for another. Really I am choosing Merrero for #25 only because I thin a defensive sub is going to be more valuable than anything else given the talent pool.

it does not mean he is not a good manager - or does not know how to use his bullpen. he made a mistake - and while it is impossible to prove a counterfactual (since we don't know what Britton would have done), the odds of succcess were lowered by not having your best reliever out there.

Amazing a legitimately good manager made a mistake an average internet poster would never have done.

Every team is better at home for the same reason you sleep better in your house than on a business trip. But the history of home field is very very dicey. The question is not whether playing at home helps. It does. But does that extra home game help a lot - and the answer has been historically (in baseball) "not really" Since 1946 - there were 28 World Series Game 7s (which is useful since home field in the World Series is not related to the quality of the contestants). Home teams are 14-14 in those games. A strong, meaningful home field advantage should have revealed itself there. The Red Sox led the AL in wRC+ at 113. They led the AL in road wRC+ as well. During Henry's time what is instructive is not the 23-10 home record, but the 22-17 road one. The Red Sox have simply been good.

* Guardians beat the Red Sox by a little in UZR, Red Sox beat the Guardians by a lot in DRS ... both teams added value defensively * Guardians play in the 3rd best hitters park in the league, Sox play in the 4th best park in the league ... both pitchers played in hitter friendly home parks * The competition thing is legit - although I have not looked at the start by start K/BB ratio correlates well because strikeouts correlate well ... the walk component does not correlate much one way or the other. I don't actually disagree with Porcello as the Cy Young winner - there are four good candidates and he is one of them. He and Kluber have - essentially - identical park adjusted ERAs (ERA+ or ERA-, both are really close), and they allowed an equal number of runs per 9 innings (ignoring the "Earned" portion - since assignment of earned vs unearned runs is in general a bit of a mess). Porcello pitched 8 more innings, but from a bulk prespective, again, both are pretty close. Where they differ is that Kluber struck out more hitters, and (at least from a couple of studies) got a little less defensive help than Porcello did relative to the quality of contact. I note that bWAR, which starts with runs allowed and adjusts from there, has Kluber and Verlander with a significant lead on the AL field - which is noteworthy. Porcello had a marvelous season, and if he won, that would be okay. He has quietly transitioned from being a groundball pitcher into one who strikes out more hitters - there is nothing bad to say.

That is why players do not make these decisions. First responsibility is to the org, both this year and the 3-5 year plans. The Sox made the deal because they thought Pomeranz would be better now, yes - but also better in the next few years. The truth of that is an open question.

Not really - the deal made sense because the teams were on two different timelines. The question is whether Pomeranz is any good - we traded a highly valued asset because we thought Pomeranz was good and would be better than that.

That was high quality bat flip

Also, give a solid 7.5 out of 10 on the bat-flip

Barring injury any explanation was gobbledygook ... align your best pitcher in the spot where the best pitcher is needed the most ... that didn't happen. Now - as Pedro said on the postgame, intentionally walking Encarnacion to load the bases would have been a more sensible move anyway - but imagine if there was a pitcher who could have induced weak contact into the ground ... If you don't want to bring him into that spot - why activate him for the wild card game?

Aside from the NFL, all sports are "niche" sports - that is all

Smart of Showalter to save his best reliever for the most important spot

There is no correlation between walks and strikeouts that makes this that interesting.

But what does that even mean - and what is the pitcher's contribution there? The name of the game is not allowing runs - which is a team's job. All the stats you pull up is confirming the assertion - that strikeout rate is a pretty good estimator for pitcher quality, which you'd expect. It's not the only one - but things like ERA- or WHIP (for whatever that's worth) are outputs. Strikeouts are baked into those results. Now there are other things - not allowing hard contact. But not allowing hard contact is not really a separable skill from striking people out (aspects of the same job). Now there is something to be said for a pitcher letting a good defense be good.

And the genius Buck Showalter just left Zach Britton twiddling his thumbs as Edwin Encarnacion ended their season

Definitely has been a down year - fortunately hitters don't put the ball in play a whole lot.

Jeff Bagwell has been passed over a couple of times over innuendo and circumstantial hooey - and you could make a stronger circumstantial argument against Ortiz. I don't believe the voters should be playing police here - if there was not a failed test, then there was not a failed test. But so far the voting has clearly reflected writers trying to moralize and moving goalposts on this issue.

For everyone's sake, let's hope the Hall of Fame voters get a clue and make peace with "the steroid era" before Ortiz' candidacy comes up.

Given most teams all year carry 12 or 13 pitchers, 10 is a bridge too far. 11 is sensible. Kimbrel's real problem is frankly the number of blowouts the Sox are administering - sometimes he has not had regular run.

With player #25, I am focusing on a really good level of a specialized something. Young and Shaw already give us enough acceptable pinch-hitting bats. Defensive substitute I think makes the most sense give the guys here. Hernandez is not a silly choice by any means, but Merrero can field the position a bit better, and that should be sufficient.

For the position players: Leon, some catcher Ramirez, Pedroia, Bogaerts, Holt, Benintendi, Bradley, Betts, Ortiz Reserves: Young - extra OF, lefty masher Shaw - can play the corners, best choice for a designated pinch hitter. Hill - a righty bat. has struggled a lot, but still Merrero - The best extra piece we have in the org is a defensive specialist.

one is a good rate stat, the other a fantasy one ... the bulk does matter for an award which is an issue here

that Farrell was managing rest and playing time over winning - that part was obvious

Manny of course - although often less enigmatic than the other two ... being out front was never his thing.