sk7326

Fielder has had a nice season. Was sort of a sound deal for both sides - Tigers needed a 2B and this move solved a dumpster fire defensively. The evidence of Fielder's slippage was scant - and seemed like something that would bounce back.

Bullpen will not be that hard a fix - just have to be ruthless and keep churning arms. Kimbrel is probably going to cost way too much money and it is a silly way to find a closer to begin with. They need more relief help, but the best way is to throw stuff against the wall.

There is some nature vs nurture here. Clearly the Cardinals and Marlins have some sort of fairy dust competitive advantage in the pitching area which is worth looking at. Otherwise it's mostly about being bad enough to draft them.

I don't mean to imply it's simple ... but there are a lot of guys who are qualified to do it, and it might require a platoon which is ok.

You can staff first base cheaply - this is not a position to worry too much about.

I had a hunch. We'll know how much power Werner has if there is a Bill Cosby day at Fenway next season.

Also the front office talent and whatnot. A lot of guys coming through Boston got gigs elsewhere in baseball. The Sox and Cards have been go-to franchises for teams with job openings and that reflects well, and does bode well for the Sox future too.

That is not difficult ... could be a jobshare

It is tempting, although Cherington has been in the gig much too long for the latter to seem likely ... that side of the house has never really been a clown show since the new ownership took over. Personnel has been pretty first rate (evidence includes how many other teams have poached)

The 2015 performance is almost as bad as that pun.

Yes and no - for the most part winning is the best mousetrap for the $$. At the same time (as someone who lived in Atlanta in 2003-4 I can attest to this), winning a lot also creates drag - especially if the titles don't come with it (obviously moreso in the Braves case). The immediate success trend seems to be better for $$ than success alone. But you are right about the larger point. The Red Sox need a cohesive approach to the baseball operation. Without knowledge of the inside baseball - I think Cherington's powers in that area have not been consistent. That said, the team has a high caliber infrastructure - and if they did not overreact to every WEEI phone call or every Shaugnessy column things would probably be much more sound. Certainly the hyper-reactionary movements of the front office relative to immediate fan/media pressure has been much worse since 2012 than before then - caring about perception instead of what actually matters. This has been particularly striking in how the org has handled playing young guys - an unfortunate departure from what they did in the mid 2000s.

Maybe, maybe not. Like any other person who has been in the game for a very long time, Lucchino had plusses and minuses. He was behind some of the dicier contracts (and to be honest the 2011 debacle really was "Carl Crawford - end of list") and cared more about making his owners a lot of money than the baseball operation specifically. At the same time, he had a terrific eye for executive talent - the Red Sox did not skimp at all on the baseball operation (like say some team in a different borough of New York than the Yankees) and ultimately brought in pieces that led the team to a historically great era. All of it is true. If his ouster will make a better product than what we've seen the last 2 years - lovely. If his ouster will make a better product than what we've seen the last 14 - not so much.

True - although I think in Guerra and Devers cases (and Moncada's too) that being teenagers there is no real rush to promote. Although you'd expect all three to be in Salem soon enough and possibly pushing for Portland. I also imagine there are some off field goals, in terms of maturity and whatnot which impact things too.

It was not a terrible notion, although it was going to be very hard to deliver the necessary bulk over 6 months with that little ML starting experience. But I certainly would have been more aggressive in folding in Owens - although "more aggressive" might have been just before the ASB.

If they were his calls maybe but only ownership knows that. If you had the Porcello trade in front of you, it's a fairly easy one to make. Interesting but exceedingly fungible expiring OF for another expiring. Whether the season is a talent, injury or coaching deficiency will be worth diagnosing also. (if i were guessing i'd go with door #3 there)

What is funny is if he were a UFA with his profile entering 2015 he probably would have gotten six years from somebody and triple figures.

Both wanted to be in charge. Lucchino is a loudmouth. Theo is too young to be happy as a 2nd in command forever.

Porcello did not have to dramatically improve to justify his salary - he just had to improve on a level a normal person would expect. He has been below replacement level, which no reasonable person could have anticipated. Lots of flaws in the quick methodology of course - the assertion that the last 200 innings are what matters for the before picture ... and the after assumes uniform performance which is shaky too. It also assumes 1000 as a number matters, which is even shakier since the number was chosen because it looks cool.

Much of the jibber jabber about 1000 innings is also making the wrong point ... The better observation might be, where were they when they crossed the 1000 inning rubicon. I used the last full season when that happened. And then where did things go from there. Pedro's last 241 IP 8.6 fWAR ... the NEXT 1000 ... 40.1 WAR in 978 IP (.036 fWAR/IP to .041 WAR/IP) Randy ... 255.1 IP 7.3 WAR ... NEXT 1000 ... 40.6 WAR in 1185 IP (.029 to .034) Brown ... 233 IP 4.4 WAR ... NEXT 1000 ... 30.8 WAR in 1069 IP (.019 to .029) Glavine ... 225 IP 4.9 WAR ... NEXT 1000 ... 21.2 WAR in 1077 IP (.022 to .020) Maddux ... 263 IP 5.9 WAR ... NEXT 1000 ... 38.8 WAR in 1191 IP (.022 to .033) Drabek ... 231 IP 4.3 WAR ... NEXT 1000 ... 18.4 WAR in 1076 IP (.019 to .017) Clemens ... 264 IP 9.2 WAR ... NEXT 1000 ... 28.5 WAR in 1001 IP (.035 to .028) Jim Palmer ... 282 IP 4.6 WAR ... NEXT 1000 ... 18.1 WAR in 1071 IP (.016 to .017) Steve Carlton ... 253 IP 3.6 WAR ... NEXT 1000 ... 23.3 WAR in 1202 IP (.014 to .019) Whitey Ford ... 225 IP 5.0 WAR ... NEXT 1000 ... 17.5 WAR in 1027 IP (.022 to .018) Obviously this is not exhaustive but on average you have .023 WAR/IP at the tipping point, .026 WAR/IP after, a 13% improvement. The basic idea that the first 1000 innings determines a fate which never improves over the next 4-5 seasons is very flawed. After all the 13% improvement assumes the performance stays flat the NEXT 1000 innings, which is of course false.

The history of young pitchers improving is relatively straightforward - setting aside the relatively arbitrary 4.00 ERA which would have been scandalously bad in 1971 and downright good in 2000. Plenty of guys like Tom Glavine, Kevin Brown, Randy Johnson, Doug Drabek (that took me less than 10 minutes to dig up) had significant mucking around periods before hitting their stride. It's more likely for 26 year olds to improve than not. Even somebody like Pedro, who was great from the second he took full time work ... had his first Cy Young in his age 26 season - and got better and better after that. Now the projection for Porcello was from #3 level starter to #2 level - which would have worked out well - was not franchise changing but totally reasonable. Happens all the time at his stage. Clearly it has not worked - and that has to be answered for (I have already suggested the field coaching to walk the plank).

Pretty much ... 200 innings of 2013-14 Porcello would make the deal a net win (albeit a smallish one). Ultimately he'll have to figure out where the groundballs went - the big source of his success.

Interesting guys. Orgs have goals the guys need to achieve to move up - some of it shows up in the box score, other stuff doesn't necessarily.

Here is the thing. When Lucchino clashed with some of the baseball ops, he was clashing with guys who he hired. And in Epstein's case, not just hire, but give his first job in baseball. He's had an eye for executive talent. And the baseball operations department has always been first rate. One hopes Kennedy has his eye on the ball and doesn't screw up the good stuff. His ultimate legacy in baseball is Camden Yards of course. I remember then too - the last 2 parks which had opened were SkyDome - which was out of a Jetson's episode, and US Cellular (then the New Comiskey Park). Camden Yards was such a striking difference - and it's still probably the best ballpark I have been to, in terms of emulating some of the distinctiveness of an old stadium without being cheesy.

They'll miss him - but not surprised.

You are probably right - although trading for fun is also stupid, so reserve the pathos for later. Also, Porcello has a lot of control left, so if a team sees an easy fix, he's not priced outrageously.