sk7326

They also did build to the ballpark - which has always been pitcher friendly. Also their market I think is a factor - it's sort of what Beane did with his change in Oakland. It's cheaper to build around run prevention than scoring - and the Rays have always had quality defenses to go with the pitching (which makes the numbers look even better). But a lot of it has come at the expense of the offense. And yes, the high draft picks matter - picks the Sox rarely get (and indeed have not gotten in those special sorts of years).

Craig Biggio??

I've always said this - I have issues getting too critical of Ben because I am never sure how much control he has. There are moves which seem like the result of a GM running a baseball team, and there are other moves which seem like operating NESNs flagship TV series. Now one can say "you don't know - you're not there", but there is a schizo nature to some of the moves at time which seems to point to this. Now one can also say "why doesn't Ben quit?", but Boston is a great place, there are only 30 of these jobs, and when people get out of your way you can win a World Series or 3.

LOL - he will. New system more or less makes it so. He has a bit more leverage as a sophomore - but it is safe to assume the entire first round signs unless the teams did not do their homework or discovered an odd medical thing

Updated Top 10: Moncada #7, Devers #9 (updated due to promotions and such) Benintendi Law rates as Sox #5 prospect behind: Moncada, Devers, Margot, Owens and maybe Guerra. Of course this was not a great year for "star" prospects (look at how many college bats went early compared to high school)

Law notes where each of the Top 10 picks would land in each teams rankings. http://insider.espn.go.com/blog/keith-law/insider/post?id=4008

Mike Trout was a very special case and one of the fascinating ones. He was from Southern Jersey - and Billy Rowell (former O's prospect from same area) totally crapped out. Northeast prospects are already facing negative perception - the level of competition is bad compared to Florida or California. And you remember the winter of 2009, right? Just brutal - record snows and whatnot. Scouts just did not have chances to see him, his games kept getting cancelled. So you were speculating on looks against inferior competition during a season where you had very few chances to see him in person. Made for some serious foggy information.

I think the criticism of Farrell is not about the tactical stuff you see necessarily - although things like optimal use of shifts and whatnot deserve scrutiny. But the entire team is underachieving at the same time - the lack of good seasons is so widespread that it is hard to put it all on the players or the GM (who would be accused of landing untalented players).

It is not likely to save the season. But it could help. Changing the players may or may not fix things - the players are not that bad and some of the underlying stats seem to lead you there. Also - if everybody is underachieving at the same time, it is unlikely all 25 guys stink.

Wouldn't canning a manager you extended be owning a mistake?

A creative solution: Offer Panda back to the Giants. Eat a smallish amount of his salary (say $15M of the $110 - so amazingly it would be 95 million) and ask for at least a single A lottery ticket. Giants are getting exactly diddly poo from their 3B. The Red Sox 3B position is their strongest organizationally. Just put Ramirez there until the end of the season, put a potted plan in LF and see what happens.

The "character" and "leadership" of their best players have won titles. Unless you think Pedroia, Bogaerts, Ortiz, Uehara and Napoli took stupid pills there are some flaws here. Or if you think that guys who were integral to the 2013 title turn to jello at the site of Hanley Ramirez and 3-time World Series champion Pablo Sandoval.

To add a little more mitigation to the rotation - their numbers have been bad, but one of the things the Sox were counting on was run prevention help from the field, and that has not happened - almost entirely because of Sandoval and Ramirez.

Yes ... odds are low and the peripherals are not encouraging. But the scouting elements have not faded offensively - the bat speed has not wavered much, the things you'd expect to go south (like strikeouts) have not. I think a coaching change would help.

Funniest thing - is he was ordinary in the past to a little better than that. He is not old and he was extended for a reasonable haul for an innings eater. Oh how I WISH he was ordinary!

9.5M is essentially nothing to the Red Sox Ranaudo is a AAAA pitcher. Neither move has had many desirable results - neither move was scandalous. Any reasonable model would have had the starting pitching be average - not bad, but average. (in fact ZIPS and Steamer projections had the rotation collectively as good as last year - dropoff from Lester, improvement from Peavy and the De La Rosa-Webster-Ranaudo pu pu platter) They have underachieved - because they have been below "ordinary". You can win a lot of games with offense and #3 pitchers - they are getting neither of those, though both were reasonable projections.

$25M, 3 fWAR, injured halfway through the contract Daisuke Matsuzaka $52M, 7.8 fWAR, injuries abound ... Two pitchers I hated watching. Hard to do the "success/failure" game due to injuries, but clearly did not get maximum value out of either.

The Donaldson thing can't really be held against Ben specifically - the industry seemed caught off guard. It is rare that something like this NEVER got leaked in any form. My guess it is one of those things where the Jays casually asked Oakland, "we'd give you Brett Lawrie for him" and Oakland suddenly thought "Lawrie, really?" (ignore whether this is a smart valuation - just that it could be a plausible one). It's like a family that was not intending to sell the house when suddenly somebody offered $200K more than what Zillow said. The priorities can shift suddenly. Beane and Cherington have dealt before amicably - so I doubt the Red Sox would have been shut out of a true open auction.

Both Jon Lester and David Price moved last year in deals with a grand total of two players with any sort of potential big league impact. (Smyly and Cespedes) If Cueto could secure two Top 100 prospects, that would be a massive haul. Note I wouldn't do it - but what it would take for the Reds to budge when you look at how much of a buyers market it is, it not a heck of a lot.

No. 1. They signed Panda because he had high contact rates (which is more important in a run-poor era), he was a good athlete (a fat one, but a good one) and the youngest premium free agent. They were buying more prime, less downside and if you squint hard enough, perhaps even a drop of improvement (granted, a little more dreaming needed to make that happen). 2. Hanley was a disasterously bad infielder whose body was falling off limb by limb. At best he was going be a 3B. Xander has been fine at SS this year - no Ozzie Smith, but a distinct improvement on last year. 3. Left Field is the easiest position on the field. The calculated bet was that Hanley could be kept in one piece and that he'd be decent at the easiest position on the field. Alas.

Yes. I wouldn't do it - but the Red Sox have a stacked system (especially if the Reds don't mind Greenville) and can do an overpay. But yes, the Red Sox could make an overpay to get Cueto now. Yes, the Reds say they are holding him til the break - but that is only because they want a bidding war which the Red Sox could pre-empt. Note that I would not do it - both on principle and because the Sox are not good enough right now to deserve that sort of plunge. For instance, the Orioles made a crappy baseball trade last year with the Red Sox to get a key bullpen cog. It was a poor baseball valuation, but an overpay driven by a team need and a club that could win it all with a key move here. They went all in. The Red Sox have the tools to make that sort of all-in trade but this team is not worth going all-in for. Not yet anyway.

He'd have to be really good - Papi 2013, V-Mart last year. It's a pretty high bar to clear.

Well, I think Victorino was the least important of the outfield assets ... he is on an expiring deal, you figure he could be dealt for a rock bottom price without anybody being bothered too much. Craig was risky, but he had hit as recently as 2013 and he is on what would normally be a very reasonable contract. There has been some bad luck - the odds seemed to be in favor of finding 3 good guys from this pile ... and so far it has not quite worked that way yet. That said, a Ramirez-Betts-Castillo outfield looks like the right move to play and I think that has become pretty clear. Whatever it is, the offense's failings have been crippling.

They signed him for his bat - he is a horrific FIELDER ... left field is the easiest position on the field, it was the best choice to keep him healthy. Now, 3B would have made more sense longer term - and I do think there is a reasonable case for trying to deal Sandoval now for that reason. (that and ALL of the Red Sox uber-prospect muscle is at 3B potentially) I think the outfield plan was pretty straightforward - try to consolidate a strength and use it to deal. Victorino's body and Craig's bat screwed that up. Betts is fine, although one suspects his slow start now has teams hoping they can buy low on him.

Largest slice of blame pie - the coaching staff Ben went out and signed the top 2 position players in the free agent crop. You would have been a fool to expect sunshine and rainbows from them, but they were expected to be helpful, and Ben got them both on pretty reasonable deals by 2015 standards. (ignore the money - functionally doesn't matter, but the years were totally acceptable) Dustin Pedroia is healthy. We are not relying excessively on old farts - this has been a large, systemic level of offensive underachievement (Bogaerts and Pedroia aside). He let Lester go and peopled the rotation with a bunch of mid-rotation sort of guys. Aside from Buchholz they have not pitched like mid-rotation pitchers. Porcello has pitched more like back end, and Miley and Kelly have pitched like guys who might not be actual big league starters. For a bunch of guys in their 20s with either stuff or track record to be *decent*, this is serious underachievement. When the team - with talented players, who have actually not shown that much evidence of non-talent, all fail together, that points to a systemic flaw. I would be all for a managerial change here - something needs to be shaken up.