sk7326

Patriots Day is good if you can ... granted the Marathon security will sadly be much tighter and I don't know how that will impact getting around in general. The advice I'd give is - besides the opener or Patriots's Day (which is an 11 AM start) - if you have to come in April, try to avoid the weeknights

Like that team that has to run out Pete Kozma and pretend his scappiness makes up for it.

What it really has been - is that this team, which mashed the entire season ... has shown the versatility to lean on their run prevention, and beat two (and perhaps three) primo run prevention teams at their own game.

When the hitting has stopped, the team has been able to shift and lean on their run prevention, and somewhat improbably, against some bigger name foes pitchingwise - it has worked. Has been the best team in the league, and has been a joy to watch them, no matter the outcome. Just hope we can get the last "W".

Obviously Lester was marvelous - and after the Sox Johnny Wholestaffed the last 2 games and with Craig Breslow turning back into a pumpkin ... this has been particularly valuable. If Vic is healthy, he is a tempting go for Wednesday - don't want that giant outfield patrolled by anybody else. But the way he has scuffled, if he can't move - then there is not much marginal improvement over having Nava out there.

Well, +/- stats in the NBA have significant value ... they aren't perfect (especially when you have a bad backup) ... but they have been mined quite a bit, especially when trying to truly measure defense. But yeah, correlation != causation. Gomes has had the good fortune of playing on a lot of good teams - that is what his playoff streak means. Give his agent a cookie, maybe.

Drew has been superb defensively - and the Red Sox just finished giving up 8 runs in 3 games in Saint Louis. They mashed their way into the playoffs - but run prevention has gotten them to the precipice here.

It's a different Bogaerts than I've been watching - you sure you are not thinking of Jair?

Good fastball, but pretty straight ... change-up is plus, good arm action. Good command - which helps. But fairly scoutable right now - it's not #1 stuff over the long term, not compared to Martinez who, while more raw, has serious stuff. Obviously things change - but the 2 innings Martinez threw elicited more "wow" than the 6 Wacha provided (or even the NLCS starts i got glimpses of)

Rolls, doesn't snap - and given how little he throws it, he doesn't think it's a good pitch ... You cite some examples from several thousand years ago, so I cannot attest. Generally people knew much less about baseball scouting/coachingwise than they do now.

There wasn't hopeless confusion like when they faced Scherzer or Darvish in the regular season ... Wacha is a #2/3 sort of starter on a hot streak, which is to be applauded. It's hard to really be flummoxed by a guy without a 3rd pitch of better than "show" quality.

At the same time, we are going into a pitcher's park which does not allow a ton of homers in general - so it is a little easier to go to a gap hitter like Nava in this circumstance. You can hope Gomes has a 3-run homer inside of him going over the monstah or whatever. I think in Saint Louis, something with a bit more consistency could be in order. One thing that is true weirdly (and I regret the appeal to authority here) ... despite a pitching coach background, it has been the shuffling of position players in and out where Farrell has been most effective. I can have minor quibbles with Gomes or Nava, but this area his moves have been sound. The pitching staff has been the shakier part of his roster management (and this has been true since April).

He is not a 4 for 41 hitter - so law of averages kicks in here. He had hot streaks during the season for what its worth.

Drew has stepped it up big time defensively in the postseason. That said, he had a good defensive season overall - can't compare it to Iglesias clearly, but no slouch either. Bogaerts projection at SS has always been more "fringy to average" than good. Hell, the rise in his prospect status over the last year plus has been the belief that he can achieve "adequate" at SS instead of "future 3B" like scouts had pegged him earlier in his career. I did like how the TBS guys would say "speed on the basepaths" when XB was on - some strong racial stereotyping at work there for a player they hadn't seen. I do like the logic that Peavy as a flyball pitcher - might be the opportune time to swap in Bogaerts at SS for Drew, where the glove dropoff might not be as bad. At the same time. I don't disagree with Farrell's logic here. Drew has provided enough defensive value to be able to carry his bat.

i agree - that part is silly - I don't think LF decision has been correct per se ... but clearly (as Gomes' "record" shows) it has not really been a big factor one way or the other.

I am with Mark here. Nobody can predict the future - so I think you have to be careful when looking purely at results to evaluate whether a mistake was made. After all, if a #1 overall pick with no medical red flags wrecks his knee in the first workout - that did not make the pick incorrect, just s***** luck. I agree, we can't say "Farrell was wrong", but we can say that he has made a lower probability choice offensively with Nava. Now could he justify it by saying Gomes gives us a better chance defensively? Yes - but he hasn't. As such, the decision can be criticized, no doubt. I mean the information for any decision here is imperfect - the question is whether you are reading the information you DO have correctly? I think you can argue that Farrell has not with the LF decision.

I don't worry about their state of mind. I don't worry about losing home field advantage - this isn't the NFL or NBA - the loss just means that the series is even.

It was a different manager who got into the other WS. And this manager did blow a 3-1 lead in the NLCS. I laugh a bit too - but players can overcome a LOT of managerial mistakes. Let's put it this way, if a team is putting of 6 runs a game, little of what a manager does is going to hurt them. But in razor's edge, high stakes games - there can be some negative impact. In general, I do subscribe that good managers probably have less positive impact than bad managers can have a negative one.

Whether moves WORK is a different thing (the players are human beings and performance is not guaranteed) than whether the move made sense. Farrell plays hunches and does suboptimal things a little more often than I am comfortable with. I don't mind going down in flames while playing the percentages (like say Uehara hanging a splitter to a Tampa Bay catcher for a walk off). But at the end of the day, the players performance train, and the manager can only put the guys out there. If Breslow doesn't throw that ball into the 3rd base seats, we might be having a different conversation. And Farrell has used his bullpen superbly - more or less right until the last two high leverage games. The indecision with Lackey:Breslow was not nearly in the "what a mistake!" as the Morales decision - but I think the indecision ended up creating perhaps the lowest probability option of the things on the table.

Only way to approach it. Can't marinate in the defeat. It's 1-1, Sox need 3 wins ... last night was not a disaster, just a loss.

Farrell has done a good job obviously - to get us this far, he has had a positive impact. His moving of the chess pieces in the game is not his greatest virtue though - he can get better at this.

I think it's more that Farrell recognizes the impact of exchanging Drew for Bogaerts would have on run prevention. Drew has fielded the ball well enough to absorb his horrendous slump and unlike Pete Kozma (for one), his bat at least has POTENTIAL to snap out of it. Sox pitching has been good in this postseason, but that they have "plus" guys at 6 of the 7 infield/outfield spots has had a lot to do with it as well (LF the only soft spot).

For all the fellating the announcers gave Wacha - if you ask me, Martinez' stuff is much more exciting and "future Cy" caliber. Wacha - without any sort of 3rd pitch he has faith in, is more of an elite #3/good #2 sort of ceiling ... he's had an amazing month, no more, no less.

Home field in baseball means squat ... look at the number of years the home team has swept or whatever ... very small. I mean the Sox and Cards were dominant at home, but they had winning road records too - they are good teams, period. The home advantage is ok, but it's a lot smaller than it is in basketball. Farrell's mistake was being caught in between last night - either go to Breslow after the walk ... OR let Lackey (who was still throwing well) work his way through the jam. Yes, bringing in Koji for the highest leverage situation is the right move - but almost zero managers in 2013 would do it (even Maddon, Melvin would act conventionally here - Francona going to Keith Foulke in that spot is rare, and it took the Red Sox being against the wall to do so). And Breslow has been marvelous. What I question is the slavish lefty-on-lefty thing here. Breslow is not really a matchup guy - his swing and miss stuff (the change) is better against righties. I did not think it was an automatic decision - I would have stuck with Lackey, but Farrell's instincts here were not wrong.

Cards were 43-38 on the road ... s*****, that is not. If losing a world series inspired suicidal thoughts, I pity you. Even-ish teams, tactically interesting managers ... stuff happens Also, as I pointed out in the game thread - Wacha is on a hot streak, but the guy who came IN for Wacha is the much better bet to be a staff ace of the future.