sk7326

Lester is what he is - a super valuable guy to have over the course of a long season - the ability to crank out 200+ average-above average innings while never getting hurt is an extremely underrated quality. But he is probably not going to be a #1/#2 sort of guy ever again (not with the declining strikeout and the inability to feel his cutter).

Nava is just like Salty and Carp and Drew - guys who are fairly useless against lefties even if the former two are switchhitters. Drew and Salty redeem that by the simple fact that replacement level for their positions is so low. Drew can manage to not be able to hit lefties and have his overall body of work STILL be 3-win sort of useful. Saltalamacchia falls in the same boat - his limitations against lefties is more than offset by just being a decent hitting catcher generally. I don't think you can start Nava and Carp without having solid platoon partners - definitely true for Nava, Carp's numbers are a bit tougher to evaluate given how few PAs he has against lefties. Fortunately, 1B/LF types are one of the easier things to find in the free agent market. This does not affect how much I like Nava, who is proof of the positive of perserverence in his career ... as well as how far having a good approach at the plate can take you

He has been ok. Strikeout rate still not "old Lester" - Giants helped a lot yesterday. But he has been solid.

We are in the land of double switches and hitting for pitchers ... even if Boegarts does not get starts, he will play a lot - possibly finishing a majority of the games. He might see a day off, but I doubt it ...

NL Parks - might be a lot more ...

(ducking lightning bolt) ... there is a lot of season left, blah blah ... that said, figured it'd be worthwhile to put the playoff eligible list together and keep it updated. Put simply, to be eligible for the postseason, a player has to be either: A) on the 25 man roster on August 31 on the disabled, bereavement or suspended lists as of August 31 C) guys on the DL as of August 31 who stay on the DL at season's end get a replacement spot. So, the playoff eligibles: P: Breslow, Britton, Villareal, Doubront, Lackey, Lester, Morales, Peavy, Tazawa, Uehara, Workman C: Ross, Saltalamacchia IF: Drew, Bogaerts, Middlebrooks, Napoli, Pedroia OF: Carp, Ellsbury, Gomes, Nava, Victorino DH: Ortiz Disabled List: Bailey, Buchholz, Hanrahan, Miller, Thornton, Wilson, Snyder, Kalish Projected Wildcard Slots: 4 (Bailey, Hanrahan, Miller, Kalish all done for season)

Offense will be scarce - two big time pitchers parks and teams (at least in LA) to match. But the defense/pitching should also have a chance to perform well. Boegarts made sense this time - Sox need a little more versatility in the NL parks, and he gives them more options. Can he make them keep him here through August? That's up to him.

BABIP seems to be a repeatable pitching skill more than a hitting one. There are pitchers who can deliver low BABIPs, but you need a few years worth of data to prove it isn't a fluke (that a guy really is that hard to square up). For hitters there just is not a lot of control - although line drive rates can help. At the same time, so do ground ball rates (more likely to be base hits but obviously less potential for big damage). Let's put it this way - Seattle is an anemic offensive team and they basically sold Carp for a bag of baseballs. He has proven to be an excellent role player - you run the risk of making Brian Daubach sorts of mistakes by putting too much everyday significance into what he can do. I think he can be a lefty in a good to great platoon arrangement between LF-1B. But expecting much more is tough - even a switch hitter like Daniel Nava is functionally really only valuable against righties.

They'll bring up Boegarts - he will be on the playoff roster. I am not 100% sure if they will treat the wild card round like they did a year ago as a separate "round" - thus, you get to set a roster for the WC game, and then another for Game 1 of the ALDS. If they do and the Sox are a WC team, Boegarts is a lock to make it onto that roster. (1 game elimination, makes no sense to carry 11 pitchers if you can reset your lineup after the game is over). Bradley will also make the playoff roster I am almost certain - as will Lavarnway if at all possible.

if i'm not mistaken exact matchup of the Napoli walk off game (also a Sunday night)

Actually, last year's team was spectacularly unlucky - for a lot of the season carrying a positive run differential without a winning record. The pitching was bad - like wheeling out Aaron Cook's corpse bad. But the team was decimated by injuries and performance drops that nobody say coming. Crawford was so horrible in 2011 that he would have had to be better in 2012 and 2013 by just being a living breathing baseball player. But the injuries held him up still. If he could have recovered to just "average" the Sox could have lived with that. But what REALLY f'ed the Sox outside of the pitching - where their plans for world dominance failed - was that Adrian Gonzalez basically turned from a GUY! into a guy. The guy has persisted in LA. This doesn't mean he is a bad player - but he is not the transformational slugger for a decade the Sox (and the industry) thought the Red Sox were landing. 25 million for a 30 year old future Albert Pujols makes sense ... 25 million a year for a 30 year old future Adam LaRoche does not. You take that one one hand, and then take Kevin Youkilis, one of the leagues top dozen hitters entering that time frame, having injuries basically destroy his ability to be a serious everyday player. The things which seemed like safe bets ALL came up snake eyes - one hates just chalking it up to luck, but something very much like that happened.

What Farrell has done I think is just restore a sense of professionalism in the coaching staff. The communication is cleaner. Perhaps even the fried chicken is back - but moreover, an environment is there for the players to do their jobs. Were there other, less expensive choices who might have worked too? Without a doubt - like a Lovullo or a Gene Lamont - but clearly Cherington wanted Farrell and Farrell wanted Boston. The team and the day to day is just more "boring" this year - just a bunch of guys free to do their work, and a coaching staff that understands the entire Sox mission, from development to the nerdball.

162 PAs against lefties - basically the equivalent of 40 games. That is some small sample sizes at work - clearly his managers have thought that he's needed a righty partner if exposed for too much more than he has. For what its worth, using fangraphs, against lefties he had a higher strikeout rate, walked about half the rate and had a .381 BABIP. What is more relevant is that finding a corner infielder/outfielder who can hit lefties and be adequate defensively is not that difficult to find - heck Carp was not difficult to find. It's an easy way to construct a solid 1B without spending like they did for AGon.

Ozzie made himself into a solid offensive player - like Iglesias, could barely break a pane of glass - but he had a good approach at the plate and ended up being able to put up .350+ OBPs during his best years. That plus his glove made him a solid 5 win sort of guy. Iglesias' effectiveness offensively is not in that solar system yet -and there is not much in his history to indicate he can become a high OBP sort of guy, even if got himself up to .250.

V did not communicate to is coaches. That his players hated him did not prevent his success - there are a lot of coaches who had their players hate them and were successful - but that he did not show any interest in managing a coaching staff. Their poor record was not necessarily a manifestation of V per se - the injuries crushed them last year and after the trade they were fielding a AAA team - but he did not help. The chemistry issue in 2011 was hard to blame on anything but a confluence of baseball factors (pitcher injuries and an associated meltdown) - after all the team under the same factors went 81-42. The collapse was doubly shocking due to how dominant they were leading up to it. The managing may have not been great compared to other years Tito had (interestingly 2010 was a magnificent managing job), that is hard to say for me - but I am not sure how he could put lipstick on Kyle Weiland or the fossilized remains of Wake.

Sorry - did not mean to say you were. I agree about the inconsistency with the rules of scoring - it is funny that this stuff has not evolved even though the game itself and the statistics therein have.

Carp can be a 1B, but I suspect he'll need a RH caddy (like Salty and Nava do). Fortunately, finding those for value should not be difficult - it's one of the easier job openings to fill.

Only 2 year stretch comparable was Maddux for sure. Pedro's 291 ERA+ the best of the live ball era. The 243 in 1999 was 9th. Maddux 1994, 1995 were 271 and 260 respectively. That September start against the 1999 Yankees, where Pedro threw a 1 hitter with 17 Ks, and struck out something like the last 8 Yanks http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/baseball/mlb/news/1999/09/10/redsox_yankees_ap/ is the greatest performance I've ever seen. The 5 inning no hitter with an 87 mph fastball that October against Cleveland is the most unlikely.

The player tries to pull it, but he's going for a hit first. But yes, they don't get credit for what that out does. In general though, the out trade is still ultimately a negative (even if you walk, 1st and 2nd, nobody out is still a better situation and a runner at 3rd and one out). Jung is generally right - trading outs is bad until it's really late and close. BTW: the early sacrifice disease (especially with good hitters) is particularly a disease when you watch your local high school or a college game.

There is a lot of motivation and talent to make the league. Only 750 jobs available - so to get one is a big deal. That they drank on off days did not bother me per se - it was not like it was a new habit. It is not a great Hallmark card, but you have to assume it was standard operating procedure throughout the league (by most accounts, it is). After all, these are grownups. That the beer story existed is not debated, that it was causal to their 7-20 September (and not causal, say, to their 81-42 middle four and a half months) seems rather silly to me. This is a formula that won titles and made playoff regulars. The difference was a lack of healthy, effective pitching - and a horrible 7 games against TB when they needed it the least.

Iglesias has been revitalized since going to Detroit: .208/.255/.271. He has been turning into a BABIP-normalized pumpkin since June. Iglesias had never hit at any level until his 2-3 months of 22 infield hits and nearly .500 BABIP showed up. Iglesias is a truly marvelous defensive SS - maybe the best in the game. Detroit can afford to have him soak up grounders and pretend they have to carry a pitcher like an NL team - we could, but we needed a starting pitcher more. There is a very real question whether he can hit enough to justify a starting position playing baseball for a living - he hasn't aside from his early part of this season. Fortunately with his defense, he doesn't have to be good at the plate, just not really awful - the slash line he has put up in Detroit is at this second, pretty awful. I agree plate discipline and pitch recognition are different skills ... Middlebrooks has had trouble with BOTH. He had trouble with both most of his career but he can crush a ball he squares up. His game plan was all screwed up though - has it gotten better? Early evidence is mildly encouraging. Burden is on him though.

This. Pedro's 1999-2000 is the best pitching I've ever seen. Certainly stretches on par with Dwight Gooden 1985, mid 90s Greg Maddux, couple of Johan Santana's pre injury best, or even Bob Gibson or Koufax (on a league-adjusted basis) for best pitching seasons ever.

Well 17-8 depending on the end point, and won their last 5 ... the 6 wins in 7 head to head was a very unlikely sort of thing which is fairly unique in terms of circumstances for playoff impact. This year, Sox have 6 head to heads left against Baltimore and 7 against New York. Sweeps there will obvious make things complicated (and the Yankees need more luck than that). Kansas City and Cleveland might just not have enough opportunity to be the team to eliminate us. The next 9 games are particularly educational with the West Coast trip and then 3 with Baltimore.

I think diagnoses like pitching meltdown, bodies breaking down, the Rays just getting impossible hot ... all those are fair reasons that stem from what actually happened. The "beer" story was more of trying to shoehorn a narrative so Shaughnessy had something to write about.

Pitch recognition, plate discipline sides of the same coin. It's not like Middlebrooks has been a walk machine - at all - in his career at any level. I think the team has been looking for him to have a better plan when he gets to the plate - in some ways I wish they had kept him at 3rd (though I got it) since he was not going to be .192 awful forever, just by getting reps. He was putting a lot of pressure on himself though, so riding the bus a bit made some sense. His return does show a better approach - in the tiny sample - although he will never be a particularly patient hitter. It does place a cap on what he can do at the big league level - it is hard to have Vlad Guerrero's approach at the plate without being Vlad Guerrero.