sk7326

It definitely behooves Epstein to say that.

His OPS vs lefties in 2009 and 2010 was .696 and .704. Not very good, but not disastrously bad considering what else he did. There was reason to bet on him - obviously it didn't work out.

They are way cheaper than going into the FA pool and have a chance to be better. Heck, the Yankees could very well sign Machado and move Andujar to 1B and solve things that way.

I wouldn't want to Peter principle Pearce like that. He has been a part timer his whole career - and it would be hard to justify assuming he can be more at his age.

it does - and I don't mind that it should (the offensive bar should be higher for a specialist) ...

I would not be surprised if the Sox look at this seriously this spring.

Heyward was an interesting calculated risk - getting him cheap-ish with a short opt out period. Unfortunately Heyward has been a one way player largely. Darvish has been terrible in a predictable way - that was always a risky signing.

Pearce will be interesting. Jacko is right that this is his last chance for a big payday - and he wants a full time ride. At the same time he has always been a platoon bat. I'd put it at 50-50 he comes back. The Sox should be able to make him a 1 year deal to come back as a platoon guy. Maybe somebody will offer more, but I am not sure there are many full time rides for him.

Lucchino was in baseball for a billion years - and was super experienced building a front office. He clearly was well heeled in EVERY aspect of the baseball business. Remember, Lucchino was Epstein's mentor - he discovered him, and helped pay for Theo to go to law school. I think at a certain point Lucchino could not let go - he was the president, he wanted his say on moves. This was not an unreasonable belief - and so it resulted in some moves which there might not be 100% agreement on. This obviously also applied to Cherington, who also came up the same way. Now Epstein has every incentive to spin his side of the story - it's easy to say ex post that "hey, I would have taken a different approach". But - he was part of a collaborative process, and some of those moves didn't work. Also, I'll submit that all of the moves were not ex ante bad moves. I mean the Red Sox ended up in one offseason signing the top rated pitcher and the top rated position player. And then they made a trade for one of the best power hitters in the league squarely in his prime. Basically injuries (and the ability of the players to deal with them) caused all three moves to be sub-optimal, but all of them made sense. Crawford's failure was obviously more than that (specifically that one of the league's best defensive players went straight into the tank on THAT end). The one thing Dombrowski did (and Henry allowed) was that he is clearly where the buck stops in the front office. Given how accomplished a baseball guy he is, that is not a bad thing. And - by all accounts - he did not just willy nilly destroy the business processes that were already here. (a front office which was the envy of the league) After all, on paper he should NOT have been attracted to Cora - or anybody from the Astros shop - but there you go.

Well of THOSE, maybe. But he has a couple of elite tools (arm, power) and looks capable of staying at 3B. Chavis' probability is higher but not sure the ceiling is higher.

Everybody knew he couldn't really catch - the problem was that he couldn't hit either.

I am inclined to mark JD up a little bit because he was a DH - he was asked for one dimension and he delivered. But not enough to crack the Top 4 or so. Trout-Betts-Ramirez is a clear Top 3. Betts to me is the best choice, and only Trout is a fair guy to pick over him.

I can see that - but so much of the other stuff is outside the player's control. Should Trout or De Grom be penalized because their GMs did not do their thing properly?

Dalbec is the ceiling guy. 24 is not old for AA (it's not young either). But yeah, he has to be able to get his bat on the ball, at least enough for his power to show. He looks like he should be able to stay at 3B. He is their most interesting position prospect but without great probability.

Eovaldi's market is fascinating. Kershaw extended his 30M a year deal with LA. But if you did not know their names and saw them pitch you'd have a hard time thinking Eovaldi did not have better stuff.

(baseball players do not participate in a free market)

Eovaldi locked down the 12th, 13th, the 14th, the 15th, the 16th, the 17th - those all were pretty big deals

He was very good. His fundamentals were not great with an absurdly low BABIP and shaky command. There are very few special closers - Mariano Riveras aren't around every day and 2013 Koji Uehara sure as hell isn't. Closers - at least the middle 95% of them - aren't magic.

His view of what a ludicrous contract was weird. Plus, he got his economic theory way wrong.

it's not because of your point Now - Swihart's development path has been screwed up by injuries, and that's what it is. I don't know if he is a starter - even if I still like him. There is enough uncertainty in history to not be a sure thing. The real question is whether the World Series version of Vaszquez can be relied upon. He doesn't have to be good - but a .260/.300/.350 sort is good enough to be a perfectly good starting catcher (when considering his defense). If they only carry 2 catchers Leon would be a reluctant odd man out for me. But I have no issue keeping 3.

But his bat is what made him famous enough to have a reputation

Gold Gloves so often end up reflecting fame and offense - that they even get one right at all is always a surprise to me.

possibly in some general ways, but football is its own unicorn (a really short season, few guaranteed deals)

That is silly - but the WAR leaders is a good place to start. WAR is not precise enough to take as gospel, especially with smaller margins. As such, Betts and Trout are far and away the best choices for the award. Ramirez, Lindor, Bregman and Chapman are clearly a step down but worthy of consideration, and in many other seasons WOULD be serious MVP candidates. JD Martinez I'd put up there too - while the fact he added no defensive value is a fair minus for him ... I mitigate that somewhat by noting that his job was to hit the baseball and he was elite there. Betts is a fairly easy choice in that the narrative and the numbers match. But Trout is certainly deserving. Betts' edges in WAR come from defense - but a lot of THAT edge comes from playing RF where the baseline performance is lower. Would that edge hold up if Trout played RF and Betts played CF. There is reason to believe they are basically tied. The problem with talking about team success is that in reality you are evaluating the other 24 player on the roster - when you are supposed to be evaluating the player.

The 2018 Red Sox deserve to be on any of those lists where you'd put the 1976 Reds, the 1998 Yankees, the 1970 Orioles (I'll leave out the 2001 Mariners since they did not win it all, though that was an incredible season on its own terms), any of those old timey Yankees teams. They are unquestionably one of the greatest single season teams in history.