sk7326
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Everything posted by sk7326
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Lopez was a solid lottery ticket sort of trade - Red Sox gave virtually nothing, and Lopez at least "HAD" been an excellent hitting catcher. Bat speed was gone, but dem's the breaks.
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Very much agreed here. If you look at the AL contenders, only Darvish and Verlander are any sort of solid candidates to pitch on 3-days rest. The Sox are in good shape in almost every #3/#4 vs #3/#4 matchup. The top 2 is a little trickier, but a team with Boston's approach at the plate could easily scuffle against a Price but still chase him before the 7th on just pitch counts.
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Yeah they were mucking along until the Buchholz no-hitter, which is an arbitrary endpoint granted - but felt like a lot of weight came off of their shoulders
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Oh whatever. I have memories before that. When Aaron Boone hit the home run - it was the first time I thought I will never see the Red Sox win it. Obviously made 2004 taste so much better - has been hard to really get mad after 2 titles in 5 years. I saw a much drier well.
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the sport would benefit by more balanced schedules. For instance, 13 vs division, 8 against everyone else = 52 + 80 = 132 + 30 against other league. Could end up making it series' vs 10 teams instead of just 5. Basically means everybody in the AL will have 142 of the 162 games be the same - which is a large improvement over the current situatons.
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It is hard to be great every month - it's baseball, even the best records would (if you scaled their record for the number of games) barely qualify for the NFL playoffs or get a top 4 seed in the NBA playoffs. Unless you are the 1998 Yankees (114-48) or 2001 Mariners (116-46), there is going to be some stretches of slogging along. That they have avoided any really bad stretches has been their hallmark all season.
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Foulke was not a 1-inning closer and Francona deployed him in the 7th inning when the outs got very important in the ALCS. The Pirates of the early 90s worked quite successfully with a lot of reliever with a lot of saves. That closers matter is fair - that your best reliever be charged with a relatively adversity free situation is not. The relief ace is not an argument against the closer - but an argument against keeping him in a glass case while letting inferior pitchers get bigger outs in earlier spots in the game. The 2003 Red Sox did not identify a relief ace - Grady drew names out of a hat. Francona identified a relief ace - Foulke and treated him like one. Old timey baseball like Rich Gossage, Dick Radatz, Mike Marshall seemed to figure it out reasonably well - this is not new so much as a refutation of an idea which makes pitching staffs much too large and saddle (especially) NL benches who need all the viable hitters they can get.
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Tie considerations: A division winner or a tie for WC #2, only cases where we get a tiebreaker game ... Tiebreakers: 2-way 1. Head to Head 2. Division Record 3. Record in last 81 non-interleague games 4. Record in last 81+X non-interleague games (X = as many games not involving the two tied teams as needed to break the tie) Three way tie: Teams A, B and C ... game 1: A hosts B, game 2: winner of game 1 hosts C. Team that wins tiebreaker chooses which team they want to be. (host 2 games, or win one road game). Order of draw determined by a process similar to 2 team and not worth getting into
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It is in terms of how runs are scored ... but situational hitting is not a specific skill - the OPS there is not something particularly controllable.
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Lot of good stuff here, and I don't think we're that far apart. That said, while the distribution is decidedly different between Detroit and Boston, in aggregate the teams are almost truly identical offensively. Nearly identical OBPs, SLGs, runs scored, triples. One team uses more homeruns and singles, the other uses more walks and doubles - basically. The total base framework, and it's not a bad one - is more forcefully argued by the difference between Detroit and Boston, two high OBP take and rake squads ... and Baltimore, 3rd in the AL in runs but with a below average team OBP, .317. They do not get many runners on at all - but they have mashed a ton of homeruns and been able to make the comparatively scant number of baserunners count. (if you also want an example of a team that could go into a teamwide funk during a crucial stretch here)
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This team is much better than the 2012 Orioles - and the 2013 Orioles are also a lot better than the 2012 ones. Orioles were a .500 team which had an excellent bullpen (and we know that is unreliable year to year) and an incredibly lucky record in close games. This team has been kicking a lot of butt - and it has not been worse vs good teams ... I mean they have been around .500 against the iron, but you expect that. A team with the general approach at the plate that this team has will create opportunities for itself, even against good pitchers.
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The Buch wait is a concern ... but they have been trucking along anyway. Dempster is clearly the bullpen arm that gets swung - a place where his stuff might play up as the Tim Lincecum of the pitching staff. Like Lincecum Dempster has been shaky as starter, and like Lincecum has legit swing and miss stuff that might be channeled in a short season bullpen. How many of these series would a team bring their #1 back for Game 4 ... the teams with true horses ... Tigers, Rangers, Rays sort of (in theory, but I am not sure they think that their top 3 guys are sufficient) ... it's a short list.
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You're right in the long run certainly ... where hitters are deployed in the long term make very little difference. However, in close games and in the sorts of situations which statistics don't really offer any insight for - being a bit platoon vulnerable can matter. The 1-inning closer thing is much stupider - that is pure misuse of resources.
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The math for scoring runs is very simple: Step 1: Gets lots of baserunners, Step 2: See step 1. If you have a bunch of guys who can just make good at-bats, you are going to get a lot of baserunners and you can get into a team's bullpen quicker. Also, you get the pitcher working from the stretch a lot, and there is some evidence that this is helpful. Do those things, and a lot of good can happen. Even when the Dodgers were slumping earlier, they were getting on base a lot - it was a good omen for turning things around. Good baserunning helps - not stolen bases necessarily but taking bases where you can, avoiding mistakes. With lineups - I am not sure how much protection matters (it might, but not a lot of evidence). But yeah get your best hitters as many PAs as possible and preferably as many PAs with run scoring chances. Batting your best guy either 2nd or 3rd balances those two out well.
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I'd think assuming he is healthy enough to go, Buchholz makes the rotation - usually guys coming off of arm trouble need some regularity, so he wouldn't add value to the bullpen. For me, Dempster is the odd man out - and maybe only having to get 6ish outs at a time, his stuff might play up more. (if you could add another 2 mph to the fastball, that splitter makes a very powerful tandem)
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One of the revelations of the first wave of dorkball analysis was that the willingness to take pitches is really born, not made. Middlebrooks is always going to be a hacker to some degree. You just want to see some evidence of a game plan, foul off some tough stuff, look for "his pitches" at least early in the count. He looks a lot more comfortable than he did in his previous tour - he's never going to be a 50 walk sort.
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Red Sox are 2nd in the league in OBP (not coincidentally, #1 in OBP is also #1 in runs). They are also 2nd in LOBs. Sox are giving themselves tons of chances - the LOBs and runs show it, just a team that gets a lot of baserunners on, and in the long run that will work. It works in April and works in October. Even when guys have struggled (Middlebrooks excepted), the strong approaches prevent them from becoming total offensive zeroes. Before his slump and injuries got a lot worse, Napoli walked enough to carry a .340 OBP while he was still scuffling. Like you said, Nava, Carp, Gomes. They have a lot of guys who do not give at-bats away. I think that was the genesis of Middlebrooks' demotion - you can live with a slump, but not competing at the plate. The take and rake approach gives up a ton of strikeouts - but in general that is not something I tend to worry about, it is a fair price for the good stuff.
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Oh no doubt. But if Price and Moore pitch shutouts every time out, the Rays would never lose. For all the perception about how good the Rays are relative to us - all of those games were close and competitive - just have to grind a bit more on the ABs so they can get to the bullpen a tad earlier.
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A WMB-X-Drew rotation on the left side is an offensive plus ... defensively it's a plus when Drew is at SS, jury still a bit out on Boegarts although he has not done anything to scare me or anything.
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Middlebrooks showing some competence at 2B was a nice turn - allows them to not have to keep a Holt on the roster JUST to cover for any Pedroia substitution. To be fair, Middlebrooks looks a lot more composed at the plate - he's never going to be Kevin Youkilis out there patience-wise, but he is showing an actual game plan. Boegarts looks very smooth right from the outset. Approach, driving the ball the other way, all of it is very sound. Boegarts ceiling is much higher than Middlebrooks - but there are at bats around for everybody. You wonder whether a 20 year old frame like that can say "Shortstop Sized" for the foreseeable future, but until then you can see the superstardom. (and to be totally fair, if he hits his offensive ceiling and has to play 3B, that is still a very good player)
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The coaching staff has done well - just by not being run by insane people. Lester has receded into what he is - just a solid, durable guy. Last couple of starts mojo has been better, although I'd be more bullish on the LA start than the SF one (3 strikeouts against a poor offense). Also remember, two good starts in two good pitchers parks. Lester's not the team's best starter - but he is the most reliable.
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I'd call it a John Farrell brain fart away if you want to be accurate
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Something about a good west coast trip to raise the spirits. Peavy was on last night. And let's be honest - the starting rotation has been a strength. There have been hiccups during the season, and it'd be nice to have a true #1 (but so few teams have one of those). But day in and day out, the starter has given this team a chance - and that did not happen nearly enough last year or the September prior to that.
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I don't think it was that fancy - Francona left and management wanted an outsider ... Farrell was the guy Ben wanted all along, but Farrell got a managing chance before Tito left. What management wanted I think was just a guy who fits in the organizational philosophy - to be able to balance both the needs of the team on a day to day basis, but also being able to understand what the management wants to do developmentwise and stuff. Farrell lapses into a bit too much old timey Fire Joe Morgan sort of mistakes (using the bullpen suboptimally)- but he understands the entire operation, from scouting to teaching to interpreting stuff the nerds are telling him. The idea is just a throughline from the head of baseball down to the coaching staff - and Valentine pooh poohed that sort of thinking. Farrell is a better company man, and has done a better job just not being a carnival side show. This team has had a chance to work and just focus on baseball. His in game management is not Dusty Baker-level awful, but not in the Maddon-Tito sort of level either.
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4 out save - Farrell had a good day - atoned for the mistake from Tuesday. His best reliever got the most important out ... and then rode it to the finish.