sk7326

if by bag, you mean commercial fishing net

I am sorry it took you a spring start to come to that realization.

He got stretched out. He got a feel for some of his pitches. He missed a few in the process. That is exactly what I take out of this outing. 90 or so pitches, got a couple of trips through the order. Longest sustained work he has had this preseason. His arm is still attached to his body. Good. Every other conclusion for any stage of camp is just hyperventilating I tend not to get into until the games start to count. (and you start seriously moving fielders around and start seriously preparing for each individual hitter)

I don't know if Shaw has Hillenbrand's raw power. On the other hand, Travis Shaw seems to understand that some pitches are balls, some pitches are strikes, and if you get 4 balls during an at-bat it comes with a free trip to first base. Hillenbrand knew none of those things.

The question will always be how hurt was Gonzalez in 2011, and whether that was predictable or just damn unlucky. What is funny is if you look at how Gonzalez has played in LA - while I don't know if I would have paid what the Sox/Dodgers paid for it ... that's a good player.

I agree with every syllable of this ... Indeed, when Spud was getting upset about John Farrell feeding us pablum - this is EXACTLY why, and part of why Tito was/is an excellent manager. It is a corporate thing to say - since we're baseball fans and raised to think of managers as like the dude in Major League - but a huge part of the job is being able to stand in front of the mikes, crack a few jokes, say the player is doing exactly what we expect from him, and then get back to work. I always noted that Francona's experience managing in Philadelphia, as well as being Michael Jordan's baseball manager, and the media savvy required accordingly - were VERY significant plusses and big reasons Epstein hired him. I don't care what the manager tells me - we have fangraphs, box scores, and whatever the girfriend of Jung's Uber driver is telling him for that - it's what he is telling his players that matters. What Castillo needs now - and what Jackie Bradley and Xander Bogaerts needed in 2014, was a manager (and management in general) who was going to stand behind their analysis and just let the reps and hours logged happen.

Aside from one year had some significant home/road FIP splits. Tampa and KC were pitchers parks with outstanding defenses behind him.

Players do work on all of that, but I think most of that takes place on the practice field. It's why the players were grateful that Will Ferrell showed up to make the Cactus League games a bit less dull. It's like football preseason - most of the evaluations take place during workouts.

He has never pitched in anything less than perfect pitching environments (well last year the outfielders did not improve on potted plants, but it was Petco) - and last year had his worst numbers in years.

Are you sure? What if it's just throw X fastballs, Y curves, whatever. Are they gameplanning hitters, changing stuff 2nd time through? I am not pleased - but spring training means virtually nothing aside from some income for some towns in Florida/Arizona. If his job was to get the work in, make a number of each kind of pitch - I don't think anything happened to impact that one way or the other. It's not like they are using advance scouts here.

It's easier to read when they are winning - Francona did it all the time. Evaluating this stuff is always tough because I just don't know what the intent of the start was.

It was, although I think they might have been too dogmatic in their valuation - model results vs the market as is. I could have told you that he was a $25M pitcher, just because the comps were becoming obvious. (#1/#2 pitcher with exceptional durability) I am not sure their terms read the market correctly. Certainly it missed the market by a large enough margin that hometown discount was a non-issue.

TV rights are holding the whole ship afloat

Daniel Nava/Mike Carp seemed to work out

- I don't know if Lovullo would want it - especially if there could be a league perception of knifing his best friend. (not sure if it would happen, but given what a solid candidate he is for any job, would make sense for him to be protective) - One of the wacky vestiges of the 75 man pitching staffs are decisions like this. Seriously. Look at the roster: C (2): Two of the three IF (6): Bogaerts, Ramirez, Pedroia, Sandoval, Shaw, Holt OF (4): Castillo, Bradley, Betts, Young DH (1): Ortiz 12 pitchers It seems goofy to ask Shaw and Holt to learn 2B, but your non-starters have to cover a lot of ground when you have so few roster slots. Now this is a strong argument for small pitching staffs, but that ship has sailed.

Shields only virtue is that he never gets hurt. The market voted on him last year - fly ball pitcher ended up in a fly ball death zone. Now a Shields for Sandoval and prospect makes sense, but you have to use the Sox depth - someone like a Merrero level or something at best.

Derek Lowe, Keith Foulke, Tom Gordon, Koji Uehara, Rick Aguilera, Jonathan Papelbon ... all closers who have hung up good season(s) ... closer has not been much of a problem for us mostly

Yes he will. And so will a dozen others. A team that has a one run lead entering the 9th with nobody on is expected to bring that game home >80% of the time. (32 saves out of 40 chances for instance) A team that enters that inning-out situation with a 3 run lead is expected to bring it home almost 95% of the time. The closer is almost certainly not adding $15M of win probability to that situation.

No, that doesn't matter either - just guys getting work in. What is that work? Are they really praciticing situational baseball? Altering approach and whatnot (for those situations). Or are they just trying to take good at-bats and see pitching. Honestly, 80% of the reason for the games is to generate gate revenue.

Indeed - that was the real story of that WS. The Mets ran into a team which never struck out and just put balls in play and forced a shaky infield defense to make plays, and they whiffed at key times.

They did - but it was augmented with the bullpen as you noted, but also a phenomenal defense which allowed the starters to play up. Their starters are not terrible, but yes not that much better than the Red Sox were wheeling out there, but they took advantage of their ballpark and their fielders.

The injury might have led to the approach issues - as pitchers were less fearful of mistakes in the strike zone.

I agree to a point here. I think what we've seen is that a bullpen with shifting jobs does not seem to work. Players do not seem to be comfortable with a true matchup-based approach (what a bullpen by committee is - not the hash Grady Little made of it). A guy to consistently pitch the inning does matter - players clearly like the roles. But I am not sure Kimbrel's performance, even at it's right tail, would actually move the standings needs that much relative to simply telling Carson Smith, this is your team and letting it fly. There is value in the late game consistency - but I have my doubts whether the 9th inning is specifically harder, enough to warrant a dedicated specialist.

I forgot how few games 2013 was - he was a 5 win player in 86 games, which made him one of the league's best players when he could take the field. Hanley until last season has always been able to hit - and to recognize pitches and whatnot. Burden is on him on that end for sure. As always spring stats mean zero, and maybe less than that.

Hanley Ramirez was a credible downballot MVP choice as recently as 2013. He wanted to play in Boston so badly he was willing to try a position he was not wild about - to try to increase his durability. Bat the way DD wants him to bat? Does Dombrowski not want walks and hard hits? That would be grounds to fire DD no? It is hard to say anything but Hanley is trying.