sk7326

I think Ramirez to 1B might make sense - but it will probably have to be done in the offseason with his buy-in. I know some enjoy the idea of management barking "you will move because you are paid to move" but we know that a move like that tends to require a little more groundwork than that. No reason he can't do that well - athleticism is not a prerequisite for mastering 1B (of course it wasn't for LF either).

Since this thread is about the hot stove and (presumably) stuff learned from playing out the string ... but ... small sample sizes abound BUT ... could Jackie Bradley have figured out something about hitting??

I wrote elsewhere questioning his performance. Obviously, this is a separate issue. For Pedroia and Ortiz in particular, who have a longer relationship with him, this must have hit hard. Farrell clearly is very lucky to have caught it quickly (and by accident).

That is a piece that sounds smarter than it is. Of course teams don't use WAR - not because it's bad, but because competitive intelligence has moved to different, trade secret sort of things. WAR (or WARs components more accurately) was a place to start. The question is for fans among publicly available resources. WAR is miles better as an item to cite than OPS, which itself was better than RBIs. It's just evolution in this field. The point about multiple ways to calculate WAR is a strength of the current state than a weakness. Instead of arbitrarily resolving questions about the nature of baseball, this provides a range of outcomes based on that assumption ... which is more accurate anyway.

Interesting question - now young premium every day player at premium position vs potential ace ... let's put it this way, that is a fair question. I probably wouldn't, but I would not argue with anybody who says "yes"

2011 was a collapse. 2010 was one of the more proud seasons unless you are unreasonable - another season where injuries decimated them and they still managed 89 wins and the last two weeks of the season with something to play for. "Injuries are part of the game" is a cute idea except that in 2012 all of their good players were hurt for long stretches - no team can recover from that. You are veering awfully close to the "29 teams have had disgraceful seasons" each year mentality, which makes it hard for sports to do much of anything other than disappoint.

I wouldn't be surprised if Farrell survives. But he shouldn't. There are a lot of viable candidates - as simple as Lovullo to a wider search.

I definitely see the frustration - although 2012 was so smashed to smithereens by health issues that inclusion among 2014 and 2015 is a little unfair.

And you have to be realistic too. Rodriguez has over 100 big league innings under his belt. He might not be proven relative to Roger Clemens or Randy Johnson - but he's a big leaguer with the tools to be a hell of a lot more. He is going to be part of the 2016 rotation, and he's a sophomore. Owens is where the more interesting question lies, and I do see your point, and certainly the team needs 7 or so guys they can turn to for the reasons you cite. Now if they go to the market to get a Cueto (just to put a name out there), then you are looking at a pool of starters with Cueto, Buchholz, Rodriguez, Porcello, Owens, Johnson, Wright, Miley, which is less daunting. One of the areas the brass screwed up in 2015 was not just the rotation that started the season, but not churning aggressively. Of course when the team turned into the 2013 Mariners for an entire month, the churn probably would not have helped much unless you could deliver the 1971 Orioles from behind the curtain.

Maddon became the natural choice once the brass had all these kiddos on their way. Francona, Showalter, Maddon - somebody like that is available, go get em.

I find it funny since Theo had guys like this around all the time. This not some new MO relative to the last decade plus. Self scouting is an important gig too, and it helps to bring in somebody from the outside to do that. DiPoto will be fine in the limited gig. He has a solid reputation, and is not in a position where someone is telling him "do the analysis, just don't ask our staff to use it"

Truth there - but the question is not about whether kids hit bumps (duh!) but whether there is anything to learn that facing AAA hitters can fix. For Rodriguez, I am not sure there is a lot that AAA hitters can offer on that front. He has trouble steering out of a bad inning skid, but that might only really be tackled at the big league level. It is an argument for having a strong bullpen to back him up - but that is obvious. Turning over a lineup the third time around is difficult - hell in the postseason you saw managers flat out not bother to let starters even do it - only way to get reps is to get reps.

Not a surprise. Team has used old GMs (Lajoie, Baird, Lee Thomas) extensively in the past. Assuming there is a process everybody is on board with, as Faber University's motto said, Knowledge is Good.

Also, the two flavors of WAR do not REALLY differ for position players. The difference is for pitchers, and since there is legitimate debate about the value of FIP, I don't see a reason to not look at both. Help draw your own conclusion. For instance - FIP vs xFIP. It is good to have both around, since "homerun luck" is not a settled issue either.

He couldn't stand up to Scioscia because his owner did not have his back. Life when the manager won't listen to what the player-personnel people say.

That is true, although that tends to come more from the scouting side than the reverse - not surprising of course, there is a bit of "get off my lawn" there

I think everybody has a price. With dudes like Devers on Moncada, the question becomes - do you care if a guy blows up in 3 years if you can be much better next year? That is a reasonable question. Even more reasonable question for an Anderson Espinoza.

All save and save related stats are nonsense. Looking at any stats without understanding the components is a bad idea to begin with. The main gap between Fangraphs and Baseball Reference is about how much responsibility to assign a pitcher (there are also differences in defensive measurement, but they are minor - and both sites now use the same functional definition of replacement level). Considering this is actually an open question, it is helpful to have two answers to that question. That any metric is not the one metric which solves all of your measurement problems does not mean it is not a distinct improvement over older made up things like OPS (which add two things which are not equivalent), RBI (which arbitrarily splits the credit for a run being scored), or chicken's blood (which helps Pedro hit the fastball).

The former is certainly questionable. The latter is trickier - since talent does not seem to be an issue so much as execution.

He can - especially things like makeup and projection. But stats can offer an unbiased take on results that for example, liking somebody's Scrappy McScrapperson traits (see Eckstein, David) can cloud. They are complementary pieces - and the analytics stuff has helped shape things that scouting emphasizes that might not have necessarily been the case. (the most famous being the revelation that, in general, approach is born not made)

I think I remember one of the guys on the basketball analytics side (Hollinger, Pelton, somebody) glibly note that the stats guys don't live in their basement ... indeed when you love the sport so much you're willing to do math to learn about it

I honestly don't know - because some of the problems seem more daunting than others: Offense - This does not seem to be especially far away. Now there is a realistic question about whether Pedroia can ever be "healthy" again. But what is clear is that Pedroia's bat has not gone anywhere (aside from out of the lineup a bit more frequently than ideal). Ortiz as it turns out is going to end up with a pretty solid year. Ramirez is a giant question mark - how much of his lost season is due to his approach going to seed (which is correctable, and since approach has normally been a strength of his) and Sandoval moreso (you'd like to think a guy with his tendencies could take advantage of The Wall, but alas). Betts and Bogaerts will keep growing. (Bogaerts next step is to lay off the bad balls he has learned how to hit and wait for ones he can drive - but this year was positive on all fronts) Defense - Again, this has been a good defensive team before this year, in fact close to very good last year. The Ramirez thing has to be addressed - there is no reason the Sox should not be able to field a plus outfield. The catcher defense will be either be good or excellent depending on the decisions made there. Much has been written about Sandoval already - I will not add any more. Pitching - (avoiding rabbit hole)

Advanced stats are useful in baseball for a few different reasons, especially compared to other sports. 1. There are just a lot more datapoints ... twice as many games as any other sport, duh 2. The fundamental exchanges in baseball are fairly simple and happen sequentially. Pitcher pitches, hitter hits and then the ball goes into play and something happens there. Compare the challenge to trying to measure the results of a football play, where 22 guys are in motion and all of them have some impact on the success of the play. You also don't have the information disadvantage you have in football or basketball (where the play was supposed to go, or what a defender's assignment is). Aside from defensive shifts, the movements are isolated, and with few exceptions, hitters and pitchers are chasing the same thing every pitch. (an out, or a non-out) Scouting and metrics complement each other. You do need metrics for your own guys, just because the metrics are unbiased and can show things the scouts might not see. (and maybe allow you to change emphases) While metrics can identify the components of a good player, only scouts can take some of that information and make it actionable. Clearly something in the Red Sox process is squirrely there. One I have identified is I don't know if they have been able to fully capture the impact of Fenway Park on defensive measurement - because there have been some confounding results with some choices that looked like they should have worked out.

WAR is good, although for pitching there is much debate about which flavor is better (and it is good the info is out there). WHIP is a good idea but uses the wrong denominator (if you want to get picky) - % of batters gets you where you want to go. But WHIP gives some good information within those limits. Saves, RBIs, pitcher wins, batting average all are useless to a degree (and the former three are much more "made up" than WAR for instance).

The front office has lost a ton of muscle - so getting some help makes sense. DiPoto lost a power struggle to Scioscia - there is some dysfunction in Anaheim on that front. The team has had a lot of former GMs around helping (Baird, LaJoie) at various times, so more of that doesn't hurt. That they would hire a guy with some understanding of analytics makes sense. Sox clearly are big on that stuff (and given some of the in-house defensive stuff, based on actual decisions, it might not hurt to have a different set of eyes) and obviously not having that puts you way behind the industry.