sk7326

The gamble was not the issue - it was not cutting bait quickly. They had no problem hedging on kiddos in the lineup (to Bogaerts and Bradley's respective detriments) but did not do the same with wobbly veterans who warranted a very very short leash.

Really, as bad as his defense is - his empty OFFENSIVE numbers have bothered me more. You figure he can get better in the field - but if he is going to be essentially a poor man's Dave Kingman (how about that), that is very troubling.

Yes. I advocated the manager portion around the end of June. Now I don't know who I'd choose - aside from wanting somebody who has managed in some form or another - but everything this year has pointed to a flaw that stands outside of simple talent.

Who knows what the reasons are. At the same time, the history of established guys who publicly want to stay at a position is vast. These are proud guys - it is an admission of defeat. I remember John Valentin bristling about not being the SS when the idea of Nomar came up. Perhaps it is something that can be done in the future, but in a more face saving manner. I look at left field as a less demanding position because of 1) that teams put virtual DH sorts out there frequently, 2) neither range nor arm are huge issues, especially if the CF is good. I do think Fenway stands outside of these a bit since range is not the issue with playing LF. There are athletic sorts who have done it badly and less athletic guys who have been good. Obviously burden is on him to fix it if he wants to stay in LF. I also have no insight into whether there are physical things which he has not talked about, which might be true since his approach this season offensively has largely gone to seed.

It is a bit of the 2011 analysis. Ortiz and Pedroia turned into low character goons suddenly. Or the players were such delicate flowers that a co-worker who came over from a team that won multiple titles made them all drooling vegetables.

He was traded for the best young starter in the league (along with the double-A version of Anibal Sanchez). And the Red Sox STILL had to take back Mike Lowell's (perception at the time) entrails. I know at the time in Pawtucket there was a measure of senioritis which can come with a blocked guy ... that happens from time to time. You wish it didn't, but he was one of the league's best players once he got a regular gig. The worries are less character with him to me than simply physical. Has there been enough damage for him to not be able to play the field at all. That is on him to fix. LF is do-able, it's a matter of how much he wants to fix it.

He and Hoyer were co-GMs. So if it is less than now, it's not by much.

You have to monitor each case individually. Also, it helps to take a personal view, like your own job. Are all companies the same? If we accept that some firms are better places to work, and others can bum you out, why should that not be the case for baseball as well? Now you are right, you might have an actual red flag guy. But if he is talented and you think that your firm is a better spot for him, it often is worth a whirl.

Did they not check him out? These are significant investments - they probably had medicals anyway. For them, $9.5M IS chump change for a 1-year hitch by Red Sox standards. That said, I do agree with you that they spent far too much time down this rabbit hole. It wasn't as bad one as say, Grady Sizemore last season ... but the warning signs were there early enough to cut bait quickly. I blame the management for not tacking quickly on Masterson who was highly speculative to begin with. This also applies to Kelly who was fringy too and might have been a wipeout bullpen weapon (which would have turned out quite handy).

Also, for what its worth, Owens and Rodriguez by the end of the season is going to sail past the 140 inning mark or so. Without considering the eventual Tommy John operation (ducking lightning bolt), neither will be starting 2016 from ground zero, and these days a 160-170 innings cap is really not much of an encumberance at all (basically it's going to be where Miley ends up). I agree that the rotation around them needs more quality bulk to help augment the management of the kids. And the bullpen needs improvement to help also. In particular, Rodriguez won't be a rookie in 2016 in any meaningful way.

The instruction I think in high school and college is okay, but you are also at levels where often guys can get away with just being better athletically. In the pros the craft I suspect becomes more important. Anyway, I was being silly also.

And that he was already enormous for a 19 year old ... just physical growth might have voted him off the island

I will refrain from the threadjacking bait on the second half. The other stuff - he obviously needs to field balls he can get to. But there is indicators he is getting to a lot of balls. I don't think the team is making a fetish out of moving players - because it's not that simple. I think it is more that (and this was at least true in my high school and college teams) your best athletes pitch, your best athletes play shortstop and your best athletes play centerfield, and acquiring premium athletes is a good thing. Also in a lot of cases, their first good exposure to defensive instruction does not really start until you get to pro ball.

It does mean some improvement is required, but if he is generating many more chances for errors by getting to balls, that is a good thing. Or at least something which large error totals can hide.

2012 Lots of people got hurt and the manager was a bozo 2013 Lots of people didn't get hurt and the Red Sox won a title. Given they were the best team in the league almost every day of that season, it is hard to call it lucky. 2014 underachievement plus the FO being wimps about their own organization which didn't help. 2015 has been marked by underachievement in a widespread way - in 2015 more than 2014. Blaming the players is fashionable (and they are not blameless) because it is easy to seem more reasonable by not wanting to can the manager. There is a lot of evidence that Farrell has not brought anything positive to the party except for 2013 where his status as a decent human being was a huge improvement on Valentine.

Depends on what they were. Errors by themselves don't say a lot about fielding.

Given how widespread team underachievement was across so many areas, without great underlying talent reasons ... failures in the manager/coach are completely normal things to suspect.

Essentially it comes down to how much credit/blame do you give his teammates. In 2014 he had some good homerun luck, and the previous years he didn't, and in all cases he played in front of teammates who largely did not improve upon potted plants in the requisite fielding positions. The underlying pitcher was largely the same. Weirdly despite how bad the left side of the defense was, the Sox were STILL A better defensive outfit than the Tigers teams Porcello got to work with ... but he brought far less to the table.

I agree with that.

His 2014 was in line with his 2013 and 2012. ERAs varied, but a lot goes into that. The 2015 was not in line with any of them.

Well you would have: MYSTERY MAN, Buchholz, two kids with ERAs at or below the blessed holy 4.00 ... now is that enough to prop up another underachieving offense? Probably not. Is it enough to serve an offense doing its job to improve the bottom line results. Of course it would.

Clearly the team needs to have six or seven guys who can make starts: the way I look at next year: - Owens and Rodriguez should be in Boston. There are things to learn (for the former, getting through the order 3rd time out, the latter avoiding the one bad inning spiral). I'm not putting Owens into Cooperstown on two starts, but it is very clear there is a guy with some big league swing and miss stuff there. Wright is a valuable swingman - and the way modern bullpen construction is, just having any sort of multi-inning guy is very nice to have. - Buchholz was good this year when he was healthy. Obviously that is an annoying caveat, but there you go. The cost control is attractive too So before discussing Porcello or Miley, it seems like there are four starters who can put something competitive out there, and would fall into line quite nicely if the Sox in fact DID sign a Cueto (which I would approve of). Now if Porcello just returns to being an above average starter, like he was before April of 2015, that gets you up to five. If Miley is your 5th starter, then things look less shabby. I think what people like about Miley is the competitiveness, and that he hangs in there - but yeah that does not offset the pedestrian numbers otherwise. When I talked about not needing a slegehammer, the fact is if the Sox signed one pitcher who can be a reliable top of the rotation sort - an "ace" would be wonderful, but even a Hiroki Kuroda/Mark Buehrle sort - just a guy you don't have to worry about would be very helpful. I am not blind about the starting woes this season - I just tend to get annoyed at making run prevention just as simply reductive as talking about pitching linescores. The Red Sox entire run prevention operation failed - and the non-pitching part of it also needs to be addressed.

First - he moved from a hitters park to another hitters park. Fenway gives up a lot of doubles, more than Comerica but fewer homeruns. Both are in the Top 10 in Park Factors, neither are Coors level outliers. The Tigers were also one of the league's worst defenses last year and the Red Sox were one of the league's best. That figures in also. Second, and this is the key point in the Porcello discussion. Instead of looking at the ceiling, which is debatable, look at the floor, which is not. He did not fail to be a top of the rotation starter, or fail to be better than the magical 4.00 ERA or whatever goalpost is used. He failed to be what he was last year, the year before, or years before that. He was a truly bad pitcher as a 26 year old, which defies any sort of non-injury related explanation. Now this happens very occasionally (since I saw Rick Ankiel as a pitcher, and there are no absolutes), but the odds are strongly against that being the future level of performance. Without the revelation of an injury that bothered him all year, I am much more comfortable looking to the coaching for an answer to him becoming below replacement level than a 26 year old suddenly aging at a twentyfold rate. When I am critical of the coaching, it is not because of one guy - it is because of the sheer number of guys who underperformed career norms across all aspects of baseball. And it's not like they are a team brimming with old folks. This was actually the sort of case which you almost expected a managerial change midseason.

He was nearly 3 full wins worse than his "career level" - which is not something which happens to 26 year olds. Top, middle, bottom, front, rear, sides of the rotation. He did not have to be an ace to justify his contract. He had to be better than replacement level, which he has not been this season to even remotely qualify. When talent did not perform to its capability consistently, across all areas of the game, it is completely justifiable (heck, sensible) to blame the coaching staff. There is a lack of "talent related" reasons for many of the failures. (did the bat speed go away collectively? Did the pitching staff all take stupid pills to underperform career norms despite being in their 20s?)

Miley you are closer to the truth. Porcello had a major falloff from his career at an age which does not make sense - there is a lot of fluke evidence (and a lot of poor coaching evidence) there.