sk7326

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.

Also - the matchups with Nava/Gomes can be more specific than strictly lefty-righty. If we are dealing with guys with excellent changeups like Scherzer - the lefty/righty thing might not be so obvious. After all, a righty-righty matchup can neutralize the righty changeup, at least a little bit. And the vs pitcher splits involve so few at-bats, that really a "scouting" based decision on who to put up there is totally reasonable. The Red Sox interestingly have three switch hitters getting prominent run. Victorino, Nava, Saltalamacchia. None of them should be switch hitting, period. And Victorino next season - even if his hammy is ok, really shouldn't go back to switch hitting at all.

Comparing Uribe to Middlebrooks is silly. Middlebrooks just turned 26 while Uribe is is 34. Uribe was a 5 win player this year, which was a screaming fluke driven by BABIP way out of line with his career. Middlebrooks was barely replacement level this year - although given where he was when he got sent down, that represents a nice comeback. I love on-base machines. We all should - it is the fundemental role of offense. But guys who AREN'T are not doomed to be useless. Middlebrooks (unlike Uribe) has safely another 2 years or so of legitimate development and growth we can look to. He is also a terrific athlete (as evidenced by his two-sport background, and shown by being chosen to pinch run for Bogaerts in an important spot in Game 5) - and excellent athletes with good work ethic are always good candidates to "get it". Raw power which gets into games (and not just left in the batting cage like Ryan Sweeney), and the ability to play a good 3B defensively (granted his slump earlier this year bled into that), and the ability to back up other positions (he has shown he can fake 2B) - there is quite a bit there to like. That is an above average starting 3B - he just needs the reps.

Drew's QO will kill a lot of his attractiveness on the market - it makes sense for he and his team to show they are willing to take the offer ... enough so the Red Sox will not offer it.

Boras will look to maximize Drew's income - Drew getting $14M in year 1 is better than anything he could dream of on the market. He could easily accept it and deal with next year when it shows up. That said, its in neither party's interest to do a QO. It's an expensive gamble for the Red Sox to make and Drew wants to go where he can start (Saint Louis would be an obvious choice for one). I think the Red Sox like Middlebrooks at 3B, but you worry about hurt feelings next season. Really Middlebrooks success will be essentially the same challenges as what Josh Reddick has faced. He doesn't have to be a .350 OBP guy, but it he can be a .320 OBP sort of guy that might be enough to let him get to the stuff he can do (the raw power and athleticism at 3B). Low OBP guys can still be immensely valuable - and Middlebrooks certainly has the tools to do so. You generally can do worse than betting on an athlete of his caliber to figure things out enough to be a quality starter.

Beltran has a 1.160 OPS in 194 career plate appearances. There is no doubt that he has been amazing in the postseason, but his career OPS is .854, so he has been a good ballplayer the whole time. And 194 PAs is barely 25% of a season. So that is a very small number to make any conclusions about him. A lot of these sorts of things (like RBI numbers) are largely a function of opportunity. Give good players chances to make magic, and they will.

It's not really a technicality. You are using situational stats as an indicator that you should play one player over another (possibly over a better one) and make player signing difference. That means that the player has something to do with the situational stats aside from just not having enough cracks at it. Repeatable skill is one way to phrase it, some knack which you can count on is another. The RISP OPS says EXACTLY how a player has performed in these spots - nobody disagrees there. But it's predictive value - your ability to use it to say what WILL happen. I think the numbers are interesting, but say very little (if anything) about the player. This is an industry with 750 jobs nationwide - you don't make the Show without showing a ton of "character, moxie" or whatever. In a way to call anybody who made the big leagues unclutch is demeaning to just how enormous a challenge it is to engage in the gig.

Nick Punto hit .297 with bases loaded, 50 points higher than his career. Gomes is .231 (so basically put that runner on first and he suddenly poops himself). Most of the AB samples are too small to make any conclusion out. Also, what is clutch - is there a unified definition. Ortiz hit the Slam, but he has been pretty unclutch in the postseason since the last title. Does that mean the superpowers have gone awry? Beltran I am with you - I'd love to have him in October. But I'd like to have him in the other months too - he is a terrific baseball player.

of course he's UNHAPPY. He's a competitor - who wants to be benched? This is a non-story.

Farrell has a streak of old timey hunches and "veteran scappy gamerness" in his decisionmaking which keeps him from the very top of the managerial ranks in terms of the tactics/strategy. This is one of those areas. At the same time a straight platoon probably leaves Gomes on the bench too much and Nava on the field too much. And in a lot of these platoon cases, you can make a "stuff matchup" argument instead of a straight lefty-righty thing. If a righty loves himself a nasty changeup, then it makes sense for Gomes to play over Nava who could be particularly vulnerable from the left side. Stuff like that.

What you have noted "Certain players perform above their skill levels" is describing a talent, a skill, a knack. A season's worth of "clutch ABs", whatever that means, is very small - far less than what you would want to make an evaluation on. Yes, there are players who will outperform or underperform their averages a little bit in higher leverage spots - but it's not very significant, and could just as easily be coincidence as anything else. The players who go down as clutch players are all great players. Ortiz (for one) doesn't need the artificial definitions when his actual talent level justifies it plenty.

This nonsense came up when Ortiz hit the Grand Slam Sunday ... he has 2 hits the entire series. Were the rest of the moments unimportant? Does that mean he dogged it the rest of the time? Does it mean that Gomes dogs it the majority of his at-bats? I buy very much into clutch - there are clutch moments for sure. Papi's slam was clutch. I don't buy into clutch players. Note that all of the clutch players people talk about - are all actually good players in general. I want Papi up with the game on the line. I'd like him out there when the game is not on the line too. There is virtually nobody with a repeatable "gets better in situation X", nothing that has been recorded. And if they were, what would that say about their ability the rest of the time - that they cannot generate runs without some sort of external jump? In some worlds, that would be a working definition for "lazy"

It's just hitting ... and you have to look at it as a skill for the stat to have any real predictive value. Hitting is the skill - it doesn't magically get better with baserunners on, certainly not in any way that can be repeated.

Bogaerts defense can only really be evaluated as a combination of scouting reports and small samples - he has not played a ton of SS in his tour here, but he has done it decently. The scouts project him to be an average-fringy defensive SS. (his prospect hype is because his defense could be ok enough to play his bat there). Drew is a very good SS who looks inferior because we had Iglesias manning that spot. Has made the "should" plays and in Fenway made a couple of legitimately excellent Web Gem sort of plays (ranging for popups and such). XB is a young guy, but a good comment on his perceived athleticism was being lifted for a pinch runner (Middlebrooks) in the 9th yesterday. I think coming back with Middlebrooks-Bogaerts is not unfair at all ... but I think the defensive dropoff as SS is larger than the one at 3B. And the offensive upgrades might not be that different.

Situational hitting is not a skill - unless the situation is "at the plate" ...

Farrell has done a better job than Leyland for sure. At the same time, Leyland has done so little in terms of moves - that he limits the downside damage that could be done. None of the four managers in the LCS are in the Francona-Bob Melvin sort of level but Farrell has probably done the best job. It's not like he or Leyland is actively hurting their teams the way that Ron Washington does routinely in Texas.

I think the Drew-Middlebrooks who should sit was a coin flip for Farrell. But Drew has been so good defensively - that I think this was the right choice. Both guys are struggling, and Bogaerts at 3rd represents a smaller dropoff defensively.

Can always find a time horizon when someone is good, or someone is bad. It's why terms like "clutch" or "down the stretch" or "hot streak" are all really useless terms.

It is not an unfair claim - Greinke would be most team's #1. Scherzer will win the Cy this year (deservedly, and really only he and Felix deserved consideration in the AL), but Greinke has a better track record. Verlander is probably the pitcher one would pick to win a game tomorrow. Kershaw is the pitcher you'd probably pick to have on your team the next 5 years.