sk7326

Well Papi and (hopefully) Ramirez have cracks at saving us

Power among the last things to develop. In any event, Machado is an MVP caliber talent (and would be more if he were playing SS, which he is capable). Also, "develop into" is a tough term relative to the two. While Bogaerts is still very young, Machado is only 3 months older. There is a lot of growth left for both.

Bat yes, Glove no

He's had 2 days off. I think sometimes Farrell thinks Tazawa is made of titanium ... so some time off was good.

Nice thing is Ross and Ramirez being able to give the bullpen some rest so Farrell can go to Tazawa-Uehara-Kimbrel now

Might have made more sense to hold Young for Swihart - but it's early.

At-least robot ball and strikes.

It probably helps. It's not a Fortune 100 company or a real job - but it is one of the most competitive industries on earth. Takes a certain drive, talent level and whatnot not to get to the top of the mountain, but to separate yourself from the Crash Davises. A lot of ego is tied into starting - and so not starting has to sting.

Four runs on two joey bats homers ... 1 walk, 7 strikeouts. Good strikeout and walk numbers. There is something to build on. Which neatly describes first time through the rotation.

He made 2 bad pitches to the best homerun hitter of the last five years. I'll take 30 of those outings.

I enjoyed that you are "reserving judgment" following offering a judgment.

If healthy the team can create a lot of 6-inning games. Now, Smith's arrival will be welcome so Tazawa does not drop dead from exhaustion. There is no meaningful conclusion - none - you can make from 26 innings of baseball. However, you can get a sense of whether guys look like they are overwhelmed or struggling or whatnot. - Already you can see Ramirez looks comfortable at 1B. 1984 Keith Hernandez he isn't, but he made a nice play last night, and it is clear he will not be the tsunami level disaster he was in LF - It is striking what a difference just some basic chops on the left side makes for the defensive shape as a whole. This team has the ability to be plus in 3 or 4 places and competent throughout. This team can provide the pitchers some run prevention help that was missing for large swaths of last season. I'm not sure if the LFs will get flummoxed by Fenway LF, but we can only wait and see there. - The lineup has the ability to hit their way through a lot of rough patches in the run prevention. This was I think what the vision was last season - that the team could win enough slo-pitch games while the other side of the ball was getting figured out. That did not come to fruition early enough and then when it did come it was too late. The loss to Cleveland was a bit of a bummer, but 161-1 is still a good season.

For the most part. Revenue sharing is key. Can't really have a salary cap given the gigantic gaps in local TV money. That said, salary caps are for assuring profits than balancing competition. (the sport of baseball itself kind of does that)

A 25 man roster needs a couple of extra outfielders - Castillo is not dead.

Now, the Red Sox also had Swihart (switch-hitter but so far much stronger from the left side) and Bradley behind Holt. Would Tito have gone for the matchup when there were multiple "lefties" left afterward? At least in that particular situation. Joba's wOBA vs righties was .368 last year ... Detwiler's against lefties was .299. Given that it is game 1 of 162 (the same reason you could argue for Holt staying in against the lefty) might as well let Young take a righty on righty turn and then go to LF. As noted - it's not a big deal - to me it's more of a 60-40 than something scandalous. But it probably slightly reduced their chances of really adding to that lead.

Detwiler was the lefty in the game when the bases were loaded (pbp here: http://espn.go.com/mlb/playbyplay?gameId=360405105) Top 7 Chamberlain was in the bullpen - so a pinch hit might have brought him in earlier. And Holt has shown some evidence of a reverse platoon split - but the sample sizes are pretty small, so not a ton proven. For me, with a chance to make it a huge lead, Chris Young's ability to mash lefties, Joba's inability to get anybody out easily, and Young's much higher possibility of hitting it out of the park or somesuch - would have made me go to the pinch hitter there. After all, if LF is truly a job-share, then act like it. But if it was a mistake, it was a misdemeanor.

Well, that settles it!

1 baserunner final 3 innings, 15 strikeouts. If you get 15 Ks, defense hardly matters. That said, just moving up from Hanley/Panda to "adequate" on the left side really helps the defense ... should be "plus" at three spots a night minimum. Good approach today. Lot of good stuff here. Farrell made one non-move which was little baffling, but ultimately did not matter. (not going to Chris Young against the lefty with a chance to blow the game open)

Never lost it - just need to make sure his arm stays attached to his body

maybe he didn't know you could switch platoon guys DURING a game too

Hard part watching this at work on gamecast is not being able to tell if Joba still looks like a mass murderer

Imagine if there was an outfielder who had a knack for hitting lefties on our bench to handle a bases loaded spot ...

IIRC it is because they traded for a projected star 1B, and they had one of the league's ten best hitters moving to 3B. What they got wrong was Yook's body falling apart piece by piece.

funny how it went down the toilet since Duquette was batting eyes at Toronto for that president's job.

1. I think the $$/WAR number I see is from Fangraphs. It's a silly metric anyway, because every market is different - that said the Sox have a very high marginal value of victory - wins are a big boost financially for them, so they'd be on the high end of this in general. 2. The huge difference between bWAR and fWAR comes from the defense accounting - fWAR starts from FIP, bWAR from runs allowed. There are two competing assumptions at work here. First - bWAR is kind of starting with the pitcher getting a majority of the onus for runs allowed and works from there, fWAR starts from lower assignment of credit/blame. Second, fWAR assumes BABIP is entirely random - which is not true. Running the numbers today using 2015 qualified starters, there was a 0.43 correlation between BABIP and line drive rate. (in English, they rise and fall together, generally ... they are not independent, but they are not linearly related either) Last year Price had a 23% line drive rate, which put him in the bottom quartile and an outlier from his normal 20% or so rate (solidly above the median). So there is some cause for concern maybe - but right now, regression is the bet. 3. I wrote that entire #2 not realizing you (as I) misread the bbref entry. They gave him 2 lines (or 4 lines for the last 2 seasons) because he was dealt each of the last 2 seasons. His bWAR in 2015 was 6.0, and his bWAR in 2014 was 4.6 bWAR. Both are actually close to fWAR. 2013 his bWAR was 2.8. He also pitched about 40 innings less in 2013 than he did in 2015 (and 60 less than 2014!). 2014 and 2013 were two years where he had poor BABIP luck relative to other years in his career.