sk7326

With Napoli it carried over. Listen, I am excited to see Moncada - and I think he can be really good. I also am cautious because of his issues making contact - since I do not know whether it was a Napoli-esque calculation, or some real blind spots. And - while I am not worried about him defensively per se ... there is no reason to believe the (run production + run prevention) total package is a clear upgrade on Shaw (at least right now). You can live with Shaw's production if the run prevention impact is significant after all. He is a good sort of guy to have at the bottom of the lineup - solid defensively and can mash from time to time. I am open minded - and baseball is fun. This is cool.

If Holt doesn't make the error - at least it puts the strikeout in play (which he is more than capable of doing). He was not sharp - had not gotten much work in ... some of that could be put on Farrell, but circumstance is what it is sometimes. For the record - I did not love the Kimbrel trade ... not because he was not good, but I just did not see the marginal value of that position.

Will make getting to October a challenge - I doubt Wright cracks the playoff rotation either way.

Somehow, whether by design or luck - our rotation is not a problem.

They sort of have to announce themselves. Hell, bringing Kimbrel into the 9th was exactly the right call - and something most managers don't do!

The team has had some trouble hitting the last two games. Both parks are bad for hitters generally, but clearly the Sox should (and did Friday and Saturday) transcend that. Given the competition on the mound, yesterday was vexing.

See above post - with Napoli, there was clear approach and craft. He was looking for something to mash and he walked a ton ...

I agree in principle. On the other hand there is the "can he actually hit the baseball major leaguers are throwing him" ... as I noted, that's what the scouting is for - was his enormous strikeout rate in Portland a choice in approach, or his bat being afraid of breaking stuff? I think that is why he was down longer than Benintendi with better superficial numbers. You can get a lot done with athletic advantage at lower levels. That AA pitchers got him to whiff a third of the time could (could!!) be a harbinger that there is an absence of craft at this point (which would not be surprising!). I am excited about his arrival - I know the .571 BABIP ain't gonna last.

I get on Farrell - because he's a manager, and that's what watching baseball is. But you look at the box scores - and the team has piled up a lot of annoying losses - and honestly, it is hard not to say Farrell played the right (or at least a thoroughly reasonable) pitcher in the right spot. On some level that is all you can do. Now he has not been hyper vigilant in hitting the eject button - but that is not the best way to manage the regular season. I know in 2013 he was much more cutthroat with that stuff - and generally did not let a chance go to make sure his best relievers had a say in the highest leverage spots.

Giant bonuses are the best dollar value in player personnel ... Moncada's bonus is probably the sort of bonus a good draft year #1 overall pick gets if there in fact no draft.

He started as a SS I think ... 2B was just a good way to ease him in given just how little baseball he had played, and all those things he had to deal with as a 19 year old which normal prospects don't.

Maybe, maybe not. Shaw should not get too down - if Moncada is going to strike out 40% of the time going forward, it's not going to be that much of an improvement on Shaw.

He was very much up there in the "most valuable player conversation" in 2008-2011. There was no fluke - there was no David Eckstein level pity. He was legitimately outstanding. He is happy in Boston. Good. Agents work for players, not the other way around - and the salaries are not at all inflated.

When he's been healthy - he has been quite good. OF course that's the trick.

Should robots be allowed to wear elbow pads? Or do you spend extra to reinforce the bodies? For authenticity maybe they can power them via fuel coming from burning Dip or Chaw

The stats and the eyes complement each other. Now on TV, the eyes lie a lot - you don't see the route an outfielder takes, even if the catch and end is pretty good. It is good when the numbers fit what your eyes see - Ozzie Smith's stardom was entirely justified analytically. I think what WAR (which is a normalized sum of everything a player does that is measurable on the field) has advanced the conversation in some important ways. When I was a kid, you only thought in terms of pitchers and batters as far as getting down to runs. Yeah there were errors and wild pitches and such, but team defense as a meaningful contribution to run prevention was rarely talked about. We have a much better understanding (and it is still fuzzy granted) of the split between pitcher and fielder with regards to run prevention.

they trade them often ... and since we like major league baseball we often don't miss them ... and then in their draft positions pitchers are rarely the best guys available

it is restating the point I think we've covered ... because moncada could replace anybody on the 60 day DL - his playoff eligibility is basically assured.

doesn't matter when he was added - it matters for him to be able to play ... but with the DL positions, he is playoff eligible

If they are really hurt and have been out 15 days, yes

Under current rules, the 40-man and the DL are postseason eligible. Anybody on the DL can be substituted with anybody in the ORG as of August 31. Since every team has guys on the DL, this effectively means "being in the org" is the only real criteria that matters. The only trick is that the person on the DL has to have been on the DL the full numbers of days (at least 60 or 15 days depending on the DL).

Or Sandoval!!! Or Swihart!

For all intents and purposes - if a player is in the organization on August 31, he is eligible for the postseason. Every team puts injured players on the 40-man this time of year for that purpose. Essentially (and this goes for all 30 teams - and I am talking about in effect, not what is written as law), there is nothing which prevents a team from putting anybody they want on the postseason roster. This is how K-Rod got onto the Angels in 2002. Don't worry about it - if he deserves to play in the postseason, he will.

Radatz had a 95 mph fastball ... there are lots of 95 fastballs now. It cannot be separated from usage patterns - but between usage and modern training, guys throw harder now across the board.

This is the thing with "protocol" ... and one of the reasons I puke in my mouth a little when OPS' in AA (or any minor league stats really) are cited to talk about a kid (as tempting as it is). The team has an org plan with a kid - we want to see you do blah blah blah ... and if that happens, yay they are onto the next thing. It might show in the numbers, it might not. Now it sucks in an internet forum to have this be a black box - what fun is that? - but there you go. With Benintendi, perhaps the targets are different - they wanted to see if his approach went to seed, if he could keep constructing good at-bats. Maybe the OF thing had a low score on their Benintendi-O-Meter because they simply assumed he'd be fine (if a born CF can't play LF then what are we doing with our lives). I reckon Moncada was a slower roll for those sorts of reasons - maybe they wanted to see more craft at the plate (they weren't ignoring those wheelbarrows of Ks). The protocol is probably being followed, but the plan for every big prospect is its own snowflake. The plan for hitting is less obvious than for pitching of course - no innings limits to worry about etc.