sk7326

Johnson's endurance is not the issue - it's whether Cora trusts him to get to that 3rd time through the order. That might happen - but I'm not betting too much on it.

I think you just ride with what you have. You can always take an All-Star Game approach to the playoff game anyway.

This is the hard part. A manager in baseball is like a manager in the sort of job normal folks have. He doesn't necessarily have a direct impact on the employees work - but there are good places to work, and crappy ones ... and certainly management has a lot to do with that. Cora encouraging aggressiveness and having a way to implement it where it has stuck helps. Also - if you believe the reporting - the Red Sox youngsters have good makeup, and if anything are too hard on themselves when the results slip. Maybe Cora is the sort of guy who has more of a Francona-sort of skill, crack a joke when a guy is in a slump - some of that "nothing a ball getting between two fielders can't fix" - sort of stuff.

I'd correlate it more with Cora than Martinez. Papi left and Betts hurt his wrist and so he went from being amazing to above average/good. Benintendi became a guy who started getting pitched to - that a book came on him because he was no longer an August callup. I remember reading post mortems of Farrell's firing noting that perhaps the team (the kids in particular) needed a lighter touch which Cora could provide, and that seems to have come to pass to some degree. Martinez has been awesome - but it is for his own contribution (his performance and allowing the Red Sox to play Bradley less).

The gettable guys on the market are warm bodies who can pitch 5 innings. Just like Pomeranz.

Catchers weren't good last year either. Bradley was worse than last year, but he wasn't good last year either. (OPS+ from 89 to 73) Betts and Bogaerts leaps have been comparatively enormous. Heck, Benintendi's improvement more than offsets Bradley's dropoff. This doesn't dispute Martinez' impact. He has been everything they could have asked for - including being able to provide ample enough outfielding to allow them to not have to run JBJ every day.

Shields is a useful guy to soak up innings. But - as expected - between age and moving from great pitching environments to a bad one, his numbers aren't so good. Fenway is also not a great place to pitch - even if you are not giving up a lot of homeruns.

That is more likely ... if they have enough bullpen depth to piggyback starts when Pomeranz returns, that might be the best they could ask for. The trade market for starting pitching stinks.

I expect that starting pitching is now a menu item - that said, the market for real impact starting pitching is really terrible. Aside from Cole Hamels (and maybe even him by the 2018 results) there is nobody who is really much of an improvement over Wright and/or Pomeranz being healthy.

And in baseball - games come every day ... if you can prevent small injuries from becoming big ones it helps.

The best single pitcher seasons after the dead ball era (basically post 1920 or so).

it is amazing Gibson lost 9 games. But as noted above, it was a comically good pitching environment.

The top bWAR seasons for pitchers (not including the Dead Ball Era) 1. Dwight Gooden 1985 ... 12.2 WAR (24-4, 1.53 ERA, 2.13 FIP, 276.2 IP, 229 ERA+) 2. Steve Carlton 1972 ... 12.1 (27-10, 1.97 ERA, 2.01 FIP, 346.1 IP, 182 ERA+) 3. Roger Clemens 1997 ... 11.9 (21-7, 2.05 ERA, 2.25 FIP, 264 IP, 222 ERA+) 4. Wilbur Wood 1971 ... 11.9 (22-13, 1.91 ERA, 2.63 FIP, 334 IP, 189 ERA+) 5. Pedro Martinez 2000 ... 11.7 (18-6, 1.74 ERA, 2.17 FIP, 217 IP, 291 ERA+) 6. Lefty Grove 1936 ... 11.4 (17-12, 2.81 ERA, 3.77 FIP, 253.1 IP, 189 ERA+) 7. Hal Newhouser 1945 ... 11.3 (25-9, 1.81 ERA, 2.45 FIP, 313.1 IP, 195 ERA+) 8. Bob Gibson 1968 ... 11.2 (22-9, 1.12 ERA, 1.77 FIP, 304.2 IP, 258 ERA+) 9. Gaylord Perry 1972 ... 10.8 (24-16, 1.92 ERA, 2.50 FIP, 342.2 IP, 168 ERA+) 10. Randy Johnson 2002 ... 10.7 (24-5, 2.32 ERA, 2.66 FIP, 260.0 IP, 195 ERA+) 10. Sandy Koufax 1963 ... 10.7 (25-5, 1.88 ERA, 1.85 FIP, 311.0 IP, 159 ERA+) 10. Wilbur Wood 1972 ... 10.7 (24-17, 2.51 ERA, 2.99 FIP, 376.2 IP, 126+) Pedro was more dominant when he pitched than any of these top performances relative to the league. He pitched much less though which prevents his season from being a runaway #1. And that is important! How much, opinions can vary here. One fun note, Pedro's 1999 season where he was scandalously robbed of the MVP - his FIP was an unthinkable 1.39. He had a 23-4 season with a 2.07 ERA ... arguably the best pitched game in Red Sox history ... and had the worst BABIP of any season where he pitched more than 20 starts. That season also included a game where he gave up 9 runs and got chased in the 4th inning by a 98 loss Marlins team. That registers as one of the weirdest "that's baseball!" sort of days ever https://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/how-did-pedro-martinez-get-bombed/

Martinez might have helped some. You read about the managerial change (and why Dombrowski did it) and that might have helped. But the simple answer - Betts is 25 years old, and young guys get better. Betts was 2nd in the MVP as recently as 2016. Heck, he had a downballot MVP caliber year LAST SEASON. (offensively he was still pretty good and had the best defensive season in the league by a solid margin) Really there is not that much magic to Betts, Bogaerts or Benintendi having such wonderful seasons. It's a part of growing up - and in Bogaerts case, being able to properly grip a baseball bat.

1. Probably some. 2. Negativity - not much. Most of the picks (especially high schoolers) are a few years away from the major league radar. It is more important to be in the show in any capacity.

90 days after the World Series. Now they could be included in a trade right now as a "Player to be Named Later"

This year it has been tough - so many of the top guys are just hurt.

It's hard to call someone invisible who made the All Star Final Ballot ... he, Bogaerts, Sale and Betts are all on their way to (or in Betts' case already has) 6 win seasons ... really impressive

The Sox best pieces to trade for Machado are guys like Benintendi and Devers ... which is not great for 3 months of Machado.

That is fair. The 2018 team really is kind of what everyone in 1975 thought the 1976-77 Red Sox would be ... taking the mantle from the Orioles as the dominant AL East team for years to come.

This is fair - I think it is better to think of him in the context of the Moreland platoon ... given how poor 1B is AL-wide, the Red Sox have one of the most effective solutions there in the league. I think Pearce might be a bit better than a pure lefty masher - but even if it is only marginally so, for this team that is plenty.

I always noted last year was peculiar in that the team won 93 games without anybody actually playing well. I mean - there were no dumpster fire seasons, but there were no "leaps", no crazy outlier seasons (except for Moreland to a certain degree). Between their health problems and "non-outstandingness", the 93 games felt at times like really the worst this team could have done. A LOT of their improvement was going to come from just their own guys playing better. So whaddya know? Martinez has been a crucial signing for lengthening the lineup - he has been everything anyone could have asked for. But instead we get major leaps by Betts, Benintendi, Bogaerts at the same time. Moreland/Pierce have been a super effective 1B combination, and they have been more than good enough to compensate for real struggles at the bottom of the lineup. Even Devers - while struggling - has not been that bad, certainly nothing holding much back with significant potential to turn some stuff around. It is tempting to give Cora credit for this - but probably a little unfair. That said, the seasons these guys are having is why having great young talent is awesome. It is silly not to expect some regression - but these are premium talents, and a good chunk of this is really who they are.

they focus on run prevention with ballparks that enhance it

OB is excellent - and I wish they did not rotate analysts.

fwiw, I'll see them Tuesday - not often the chance appears for me ...