sk7326

Well, if we want a serious analysis - the most important player in the series, or at least the wildcard, is Allen Craig. Craig is arguably their best hitter, and he is making his return in this series. If he is healthy, he allows Saint Louis to field 9 legitimate hitters for the AL games, which is always a challenge for the NL team. If he is not right, then the Red Sox will clearly have that DH/PH advantage that they customarily have in the World Series.

There have been some shabby tactical managers to win pennants - my very first Red Sox manager (John McNamara), Dusty Baker, Ron Washington (oh, Ron Washington), some parts of Tony LaRussa (Mr. Small Sample Size himself). But clearly Farrell has done a good job - and I do give him a lot of credit for bullpen usage this postseason ... the Game 6 move was a shocking lapse given his previous behavior.

You are offering one of the only examples of intrigue in this case. Bill James studied this, almost all of the so-called strategy are frankly automatic decisions. Bunt v no-bunt, Pinch hit v no-pinch hit. 99% of those case, the decision is really clear. A case like you describe happens very rarely. This does not speak to the larger point - hitting, like pitching is a very specific skill. However, the treatment of players who are only good at the specific skill varies wildly.

Drew to the Cardinals makes a lot more sense - there is no incumbent, and he can help them. Yanks are desperately thin organizationally, so the idea to move on from The Captain - especially with a stopgap guy like Drew - for a 1st rounder seems unlikely. Of the four Red Sox FAs, the probability of a QO goes (from most likely to least): Ellsbury, Napoli, Salty, Drew. They will be happy to have Ellsbury return, but I suspect are ready to let Bradley take the next step if something can't happen. Only 9 QOs were given out across the league last year - so the number will be smaller than it looks. At the same time, teams have fewer ways to spend money - and there is a ton of money out there, that there could be some impact there.

Because every decision involving the pitcher is obvious - bunting, pinch hitting. It's obvious because the pitcher has virtually no offensive ability. Players with ability can do more things, and thus more actual tactical options for a manger. The scenario you describe is also extremely obvious - you play for the lead - because the pitcher offers zero value offensively. I am fascinated by the need to watch a player do something he has no time to study. We accept that pitching is hard - there is a dedicated coach, and pitchers are forgiven from being totally useless hitters. We also accept that hitting is hard - Ted Williams wrote a book about it, there is dedicated coaching, yet fans get angry at a guy who specializes in hitting without being a good fielder.

Farrell did a good job. As Jonah Keri in Grantland noted, HEALTH turned this team around at least as much as Farrell had. 47 extra games of Ortiz, 60 extra games of Ellsbury, 19 extra games of Pedroia. That is an average of 42 extra games from their best returning position players. It's another 189 innings of John Lackey being solid (2010 level, and a bit better than that). There have been other factors clearly, including returning to the 2003-2010 organizational blueprint, of which Farrell figures - but a lot of this has just been for once injuries not destroying the core group. Farrell's preparation as Jung has noted - has been excellent. He does not manage the game as well as Francona did - but he is not actively hurting his team there (see Baker, Dusty or Washington, Ron for counterexamples). His bullpen moves have often been head scratching. He clearly deserves a B+ at worst this year. But the turnaround is on many shoulders - including just a 2 year string of horrible luck ending.

Baseball was not intended to be played with one incompetent player being forced to do something incompetently. Reduces the strategy involved, as well as the entertainment. Cardinals could gain an advantage in Saint Louis, but it depends on Allen Craig's form. The AL team usually has the advantage because the first hitter off the bench for the AL is miles better than the NL's.

Brutal and extremely wrong. Salty has put a lot of work in and it shows. Yeah, he's not touching a Molina, but he's fine - somewhere in the middle of the pack.

Keith Law's evaluation on the Abreu signing - obviously only one "prospect guy" view - excerpted for "fair use" reasons. Full story on Insider here: http://insider.espn.go.com/blog/keith-law/post?id=1419

Drew was 8th in the league in fWAR this year in the majors. And considering he had over 100 fewer PAs than Jean Segura, Jed Lowrie and JJ Hardy - you can argue he was better than that. He is a legitimately top shelf-ish SS. But his injury history (and whatever a GM wants to infer from playoff stats - not much if he is smart) probably will prevent him from getting much more than 3 years.

Bogaerts (barring injury) will not miss, guys who have competed at the level at ages like his rarely do ... the question is whether he will be a Jhonny Peralta (offensive SS who is nothing special but who is clearly a starter) or someone you can legitimately build a franchise around.

Glove has been better than that. I suspect the FO's mind has been made up on Drew even before the playoffs began.

That is possible - I think it might end up being based on current form ... Ortiz was scuffling in the Tigers series. Fortunately with the WS starting in Boston, we can figure out if he is locked in again. My curiosity will be about the rest of the roster ... to me, no reason to carry 11 pitchers in this series. With the games in the NL park, I'd drop Morales for Lavarnway - some extra pinch-hitting and another catcher.

Well Wainwright and Kelly, you have to make more of a "stuff" based decision. Neither guy screams "play a lefty" or whatever. Lynn is probably where Navy will get a turn (and maybe Carp also). Wacha has a large split but only a small number of innings, and he has been dominant in the postseason. Wainwright is fastball-slider-cutter mostly ... so Nava could work out there.

There isn't - just, as a general thing, not playing is not good for a guy's development. If he's playing twice a week - that is still not quite enough to really get the sort of leap you'd want. I do think there is a risk sending him back, of some senioritis on his part - hard to get motivated when you know you are not being demoted for merit reasons - but that depends on the guy. Either way, getting Bogaerts out there and living with the results is a better long term play - and a better chance of him achieving the parabolic improvement between April and August. As far as Drew goes - I am betting against the QO coming. I don't think it can be a condition of signing him, but I would not be surprised if there was understanding between the two parties that this was supposed to be a short term relationship. Everybody has gotten what they wanted from the deal.

The way neither have hit, it's hard to say ... but if you want some clues: Wainwright: lefties .631, righties .639 ... OPS against Wacha: lefties .493, righties .710 (but only 32 IP, so take with a giant block of salt) Lynn: lefties .765, righties .652 Kelly: lefties .690, righties .696 Miller: lefties .761, righties .588 Rotation all righties, but doesn't mean there aren't splits. Nava will probably start against Lynn and if they want to deploy Shelby Miller (they haven't so far). Gomes could find his way into this series too - as there are not huge splits across the other starters, and Busch (in particular) is a pitcher's park with a lot of ground to cover.

It's not that enormous a decision - probably will be Ortiz and/or Napoli ... and I imagine current form will dictate some of that. AL has an advantage in the World Series (a small one) ... since their first pinch hitter is a starting DH, while in the AL park the NL team is putting a designated pinch hitter as the DH. Just an imbalance which makes that position an AL edge.

Generally it is not smart to intuit "caring" from a player's countenance, you are right about that. After all, Kevin McHale could always joke with officials and other players the way Larry Bird never could - but it doesn't mean he did not bleed as much (1987 finals on a broken foot and all). I don't doubt Prince's professionalism. That said, I do think there is something about guys like Prince, or Barry Bonds, or JD Drew or Ken Griffey Jr - guys who really grew up around the game at a high level. They don't necessarily have the same relationship to baseball that fans have - for most of us we'd give anything to be good enough to play in that sphere (or at least dreamt it as kids), but for them it's the family business and being good at it is sort of preordained. The ballpark is a place they have always known - so it's hard to get that visbly excited about it, even if you put in all the work to be good at your job. Detroit fans from what I can tell have been giving the Sox their due. After all, the grand slams DID happen - and Leyland's decisions with the pitching staff were all reasonable. An area where Boston was better than Detroit (the pen) shined. And there was no guarantee that Detroit hangs a big inning up in the 6th. That said, clearly Fielder's mistake robbed Detroit of a golden chance to pounce on the biggest mistake of the game to that point, which was Farrell's movements with the 'pen. But I think it might be a little easier to live with since Detroit DID still have the lead, and still controlled their own fate.

One thing I can say fairly confidently. If Drew is the starting SS, there is zero chance Bogaerts is breaking camp on the roster. Better a guy like him get at-bats, period. Sox already sort of (completely justifiably) robbed him of reps by bringing him up in late August without a starting gig available ... he's not going to get the work he needs playing once a week with the big club.

Cards are a well rounded team. This is not the mismatch the 2004 World Series was. I'm picking the Cards, reverse jinx hello. But the Red Sox have won every way possible ... including with grand slams from hitters who did virtually nothing the other 5+ games.

3 saves, 2 of them legitimately man-sized ones. One win. He has been the best reliever in baseball this season. And his success (and frankly that of the entire ALCS/NLCS closer group) does prove that you just don't know where your closers are going to come from. We're lucky to have found him for this season.

Middlebrooks is already there with an 8 year age advantage (and honestly far less dedicated baseball training) ... look at Uribe's past seasons and Middlebrooks 2012 already beat it. You look at the issues Michael Bourn, Kyle Lohse had in the market this past season - the QO millstone does matter for both sides ... there were precious few offered, and for some of the obvious non cracker jack guys, it caused them a lot of problems finding work. And Bourn is a better player than Drew and he had a serious lack of suitors. A good team will be very gunshy to give up its 1st rounder for Drew. A bad team which doesn't have to surrender a pick won't be - but if those are the only teams Drew will field offers from, he might as well take the QO (potentially). Bogaerts is ready for this. His reps have been limited, and I am not going make a small sample overreaction, but I watch the same at-bats you do. And yes, starting him in AAA is not a tragedy ... although his trajectory (and those of comparable cases) would indicate that it's not necessarily likely. But there is a lot of stuff already there which is big-league ready ... you just need the strong hands to let him do it. The team's evaluation has to be whether this is the sort of dude who can take the pushing, the challenging - judging by the evidence to date, that is a resounding yes.

Have to play 2-3 games in the NL park ... replace him with another position - I'd go Lavarnway, though McDonald is a fair choice also.

Stick with Buchholz ... OR just go to Breslow THEN ... you did it in Game 5. Going to one of your low leverage guys then (especially Morales - Workman I can defend a bit) made no sense. Fortunately Prince Fielder saved the day for us there. I'd drop Morales from the World Series roster and add Lavarnway ... doesn't hurt to have a 3rd catcher/PH with the NL rules. Morales is not really a matchup lefty anyway, and if you are going to go to a non-Tazawa/Breslow/Uehara, I'd prefer Dempster.

Tigers lost due to two swings of the bat by hitters who basically did diddly squat the rest of the series ... it was an epic series, just the darndest finish. Farrell seriously out-thought himself in the 6th inning with Buchholz, but fortunately Prince Fielder helped avert a potential disaster. I always say betting the AL in the World Series is generally a good option all things being equal. That said, Cards are probably the most complete club the Red Sox will face this run, and their young pitching has really dominated during the postseason. In the reverse jinx spirit, I will pick the Cards in 6.