sk7326

Obviously season is early - but things are playing out as you'd expect. The rotation is not good, but the bullpen is. Ogando has looked outstanding in particular and it was nice to see Koji resemble his healthy self. Johnson, Wright and Barnes are probably your best candidates to start right now. Johnson is the probability guy. Given the nature of innings limits and how youngsters are handled, if Owens or Rodriguez is going to make a contribution it will probably be no earlier than mid-June. The rental market ain't going to start to sort itself out for another few weeks. That said, the offense, bullpen and defense should be sufficient to keep the Sox solvent until then.

Keith Law highlighted best teams for prospect watching in the bigs: http://insider.espn.go.com/blog/keith-law/insider/post?id=3857

Adopting Rafael Devers. Most ceiling in the system - if he gets a good significant run at high-A, we got something possibly very special.

Obviously 247 big league PAs are not a large sample - but he has beat every developmental milestone they have put in front of him. I will temper yesterday with noting a .533 OPS to date (tee hee). But no reason to not be very excited. Guys like him and Bogaerts are guys the team puts in and figures where everybody ELSE will play after that.

What I got from your original post (so if I'm wrong, I apologize and no offense was meant) is that by denying that clutch exists that you are denying that pressure exists. That seems like a strawman - I don't think the argument "stats guys" make is that clutch doesn't exist so much as that those who are good in big moments are also good in the not-so-big ones. Ortiz - for instance - has one of the best portfolio of clutch hits I can remember. But he is also one of the best pure hitters the Red Sox have ever had. That doesn't seem like a coincidence.

1) Yes 2) More like average than below average. The power makes up for the inability to get on-base, but just barely. Now he was good in 2012 - so either that was a fluke or that player can be coaxed out by the right situation.

I would put Rivera in ahead of Pettitte because of the role thing - not that closer is a more important job than starting (it isn't), but that Rivera was better at it than Pettitte and the thing which writers use to pimp Pettitte's cause (the playoff starts) is a function of being on a really good team for a very long time.

Oakland fell apart due to a team wide slump - some of it might have been regression. Cespedes was a .300 OBP guy, which while the power is nice, that's generally a guy not doing his job. Offensive value is pretty straightforward - outs are bad, everything else is better. Occasionally outs are ok, but those are cases where the second run doesn't matter. As far as Rivera goes - he is the greatest 1-inning closer of all time. The way the gig has evolved over time, he is the best at the current version of it. Now do I think the gig which Rich Gossage or Mike Marshall had in days of yore was fundamentally more challenging? Yes. But that is a non-issue here. Rivera's brilliance proves his brilliance, not the general level of the gig. Joel Hanrahan and Fernando Rodney explain more about modern closing as a gig than Rivera or 2013 Uehara do.

On the other hand ... what he is doing today is kind of an ace's job description ... rescue the bullpen after a very taxing weekend.

Durability has been key. His work today and Wright's Friday really big for keeping miles off the 'pen. This is the sort of stuff that adds up over the marathon.

From the "Things you need in a marathon" - forget the linescore which will end up being not-amazing, but Wright on Friday and Porcello today have been able to keep the pitching staff from accumulating too many miles - not a big deal now, but this is the stuff that adds up over a season.

BTW: I do find funny - that views generally espoused by Earl Weaver is somehow "other" than traditional.

I think you are confusing long term trends with individual moments. The moments matter - especially the playoffs which is a small size crapshoot - but that does not deny that the effect of stolen bases is small in general. Now baseball prospectus has done some studies - on run expectancy given a situation. A small extract is here: http://www.baseballprospectus.com/sortable/index.php?cid=1657937 So suppose Betts hits a leadoff single. The Red Sox go from a .4552 runs expected to .8182. So the offensive expectation nearly doubles just by a guy getting on base. This is not an amazing revalation. But now, the guy is at first, what if he swipes second. With 0 out. Runs go from .8182 to 1.0393 ... +0.2211 With 1 out. From .4782 to .6235 ... +.1453 With 2 out. From .1946 to .2901 ... +.0955 What if he gets caught? With 0 out. From .8182 to .2394 ... -.5788 With 1 out. From .4782 to .0864 ... -.3918 With 2 out. From .1946 to .0000 ... -.1946 Already you can see the penalties for getting caught way way way outweigh the benefits of the steal. (I'm focusing on the 1st to 2nd case since it is the most common. Steals of 3rd have increased upside and downside. Double steals have some risk reduction. So, with 0 outs, a good base stealer (let's say 17 steals out of 20) ... add 2.02 runs to the cause With 1 out ... add 1.29 runs With 2 out ... add 1.04 runs Average them out and you get 1.45 runs per season, and since steals are less likely with 0 out, that is lower than that. Now - the case of Roberts is one of the cases where little baseball matter - when you don't care about the second run.

This misstates the premise. There are definitely pressure packed situations. The trouble is that researchers have been unable to identify a consistent definition where players perform differently in meaningful ways - that stands apart from how the players perform in general. A lot of time the situations are marked as special because we feel it - which is great TV but kind of a post-hoc way to look at things. And would you want to pick your players based on something a TV announcer says? If a list of great "big moment" players turns out to be a subset (if that) of great players, then doesn't the "great player" part of it resonate quite a bit more? And then you look at extremely accomplished players like Todd Helton or Larry Walker, who had relatively few chances to have David Ortiz moments? Did that make them lesser big game players - or just great players whose 24 teammates prevented them from generating the sort of TV opportunities we ascribe to this sort of thing?

Nava is more valuable to the Sox than in trade. And you are right - guys who do not expect 400 PAs, have a legitimate big league skill (hitting righthanded pitching) and can play a couple of positions acceptably make any bench better.

The team is averaging almost 5 runs per 9 innings ... there is no problem.

I agree with others - it is a boring topic. Believe it or not, I actually do agree with your feeling. But - and I've struggled trying to put the "clutch is bunk" argument together in a simple way that doesn't sound like I don't believe in players makeup - there is essentially nothing I can meaningfully say that separates a clutch hitter from a good one. To refer to your specific example, very few hitters get enough chances in those arenas for that .220 to be indicative of anything. After all if you have 20 at-bats the difference between .220 and .300 is 2 texas leaguers. I think Ortiz is good. And almost every clutch hitter identified in the vernacular we use is a good hitter. Good is good enough.

I have seen Ortiz come up very big, the famous homerun against Detroit for instance. It was funny since it was in a closely contested series where he was otherwise horrendous. Clutch is a fan's term - I get nervous and excited at big moments. But I don't think it is a skill you pay for - often coming up big is a function of just coming up. Ortiz has had a lot of clutch moments - but a lot of that is because the Red Sox have been a hell of a good team during his tenure.

I wasn't sure - but this deal was good for both sides. Some risk reduction for Porcello - and a potential substantial discount for a #2 pitcher for the Sox.

Also i think the purpose of this extension (and stuff like this) is to buy a couple of Porcello's UFA years. As UN noted, the deal is partially paying a little extra for a short haul - it is also buying a year or two of free agency leverage in exchange for not being jerks about arbitration deals.

But that's why GM's get the big bucks. Porcello has done what he has done entering his Age 26 season. If you think he's going to put up his 2013 for the next 4 years, then $20M a year is going to be high. If you think his 2014 is the baseline, then $20M a year is going to be high-ish but reasonable. But if you project improvement - the sort of thing you expect from 26 year olds? (Remember Jason Varitek entered the majors as a 25 year old) Then $20M a year is absolutely his going rate and maybe even cheap. The Sox are projecting growth - and projecting growth from a 26 year old who is already a mid-rotation level starter, can lead to a good place.

The problem with Masterson has always been the same. His 3/4 arm slot means he offers lefties no deception. And since he does not have a credible changeup, he has nothing to keep lefties off of him. His stuff needs to be good and he needs to be precise against lefties. One of the hypotheses I think the Red Sox made was that with half of his starts in front of a cavernous RF and in front of a plus defense (especially on the right side of the infield) that his lefty issues can be mitigated or hidden. I am not sure if it was on purpose, but Sox were smart to put Masterson in at #3 and avoid subjecting him to Yankee Stadium.

The assertion here is that the opportunity cost of $20M a year is in fact an elite pitcher. That is almost certainly not going to be true in 4 years (maybe not even in 1). I have my doubts how often the Sox will dip their tool into the UFA pitching pool, just because of the low likelihood that the contract will deliver value. There are excpetions in my mind (I think Lester will deliver sufficient value for that deal for instance). If a star-level pitcher it's coming, it's via trade or development. Budgetarily it's a relative non-issue. They ignored all of baseball's deterrents to sign Moncada for instance ... if there is a good reason to stretch, they will.

Well, not at this second, but given his age and what $20M will buy in the future? It's not that much of a gamble if he stays healthy.

Long season. First start. There was some promise. I'll have to settle for 161-1.