Hitch

You love a clickbait link. Why do you waste your time on this crap?

They did lie to him - they kept parroting the nonsense that Bregman was destined for 2nd base. Even after he signed. Which of course, doesn't change that Devers is coming out of this looking terribly now.

The best thing the Sox could have done this off season was say to Devers - look, we hear you, we want to make the team better, but the only impact bats left to us are 3rd basemen, and gold glovers at that. Would you be up for us bringing them in, and you taking reps at 1st base and playing some DH every now and then. We can really improve the team this way. Instead they lied through their teeth at him. Which doesn't excuse his ******** yesterday. And really doesn't excuse the - 'do your job and get a 1st baseman' in spiel.

Unless you then flip those prospects for another big player than can help now? Again though, I think there is more chance of me getting a date with Scarlett Johansson.

Several times this week I've gone to write a post (and then stopped) to say we need to ease off on Cora in his remarks about this issue and that the Red Sox really F'ed it up with Devers. They told him over and over that he was their 3rd baseman, that Bregman was a gold glove 2nd baseman in waiting, knowing they were full of s***. Then they tell Devers that he is DH'ing and nothing else. Now they need him at 1st. I can see why Cora was trying to downplay it. The players are human, not robots, he has to manage egos, smooth things over, nudge people down certain paths. He has to manage 26 players (and more) into a coherent well melded group that believes in him. They couldn't have played it any worse in the way they've handled Devers, In saying that, if the translation matches up (we've ben through this once), Devers is really coming off bad here. He knows full well they don't want him to play anywhere else, and that 3rd base to 1st base transitions are relatively normal. He's not coming off great at all, and yet a part of me understands why he is so pissed off. I'm of the opinion and have been since it was signed that his contract is going to be horrible for us in the second half of it. I'm also of the opinion that we have very little to no chance of trading him. And think it hugely unlikely either way. So it'll be interesting to see how it plays out from here, because they need to sort this out somehow.

Devers comments today on playing 3rd... “I know I’m a ballplayer, but at the same time, they can’t expect me to play every single position out there,” Devers said through team translator Daveson Perez after a 5-0 win over the Rangers. “In spring training, they talked to me and basically told me to put away my glove, that I wasn’t going to play any other position but DH, so right now, I just feel like it’s not an appropriate decision by them to ask me to play another position.” The 28-year-old said chief baseball officer Craig Breslow spoke with him following Casas’ injury and asked him to consider a move to first. “I’m not certain what he has with me,” Devers said of Breslow. “He played ball (Breslow pitched in the majors for 12 seasons), and I would like to think that he knows that changing positions like that isn’t easy. “They put me in this situation, and they told me that they didn’t want to allow me to play any other position,” Devers said. “Now, I think they should do their jobs, essentially, and hit the market and look for another player. I’m not sure why they want me to be in-between the way they have been.” Asked if he was upset about the inquiry into change positions, Devers didn’t hold back. “Yes, of course,” he said. “I don’t feel that they stayed true to their word. They told me that I was going to be playing this position, DH, and now they’re going back on that. So I just don’t think they stayed true to their word.” Though Devers eventually changed his mind about being the DH, he doesn’t think he’ll have a similar change of heart about first base. “I don’t think so,” he said. “They’ve told me I’m a little hard-headed. And they already asked me to change once, and this time, I don’t think I can be as flexible.” While Devers’ refusal to play first may seem like he’s putting himself above the team and potentially threatening the team culture, he thinks, at least, he is on good terms with his teammates. “Here in the clubhouse, thankfully, the relationship that I have with my teammates is great,” Devers said. “I don’t understand some of the decisions that the GM makes. Next thing you know someone in the outfield gets hurt and they want me to play in the outfield. I think I know the kind of player that I am, and that’s just where I stand.”

Sorry to hear about this Moon, that's terrible. I hope you and the family are doing okay, all things considered.

I feel really sorry for Casas - looks like a bad one, and he was already scuffling. I recall him making comments on betting on himself, and knowing his value when extension talks were thrown around early last year. Man, did he miss out there if there was anything near a Rafaela/Campbell offer in the making. The Red Sox dodged a bullet by not extending him. The kid has some terrible luck. Campbell should be nowhere near 1B (or CF for that matter). Leave the kid play his position. 1B is going to be an interesting one to see what they do. My feeling is they will ride Romy for a while with it. Might well be the opening Grissom has been waiting for, however.

He's got a lot of walks, but it doesn't feel like they have been pitching around him too much weirdly. There's been a steady diet of fastballs he couldn't catch up to. I only caught a game and half of the Guardians series, so not sure there, but while he may lead the Sox in hard hits, I would guess he also leads the Sox in whifs on fastballs.

May as well wait it out. If he pitches well he gets hit with the QO which will depress his market somewhat and he'd likely be open to it anyway. Extending him to 4 at 80 would be very risky at this point in time. No rush.

The Orioles had a shocker of an off season. To have all that youthful talent and fail to supplement it with good pitching is bordering on criminal. Crazy.

It's a fair concern. I hold out hope not least because of the potential if they do unlock him.

Beautiful swing from Rafaela.

I think that's harsh. He seemed to want to switch it up (or Narváez/coaching staff did) to throw off the offence 3rd time through.

Yeah he's crazy against lefties. This has been a fun 2 games. The offence is waking up.

Yes! He's an absolute spark plug for this offence.

We absolutely could.

I think you could be massively underpaying what a change this is. Of course, it might have no bearing on anything at all. But it certainly wouldn't surprise me to learn it does.

The Devers thing for me is not that he's possibly pouting about being put as DH but that it takes a completely different mindset. To go from constantly engaged for 3 hous to watching most of the time is some adjustment. Even Ortiz got to play 1B in NL parks a fair bit. Just sitting around ruminating over a bad at bat must be tough!

Yeah, I went to same site looking for clarification and came across the same quotes. That would normally be enough for me, but the person behind Stats on twitter is usually very much across this stuff, so the insistence on 60 games is odd. They're clearly quite sure they're right, which is throwing me. If I still had my account I'd ask them the question. I do think if there's anywhere near truth in this, out lot will forsake this year for another year of the lads primes further down the road, rightly or wrongly.

I've found the quote I saw - With those circumstances in mind, NESN's Keagan Stiefel made a prediction on Friday: Anthony won't be up in the majors until late May at the earliest. "The club would lose a year on his arbitration if the 20-year-old won 2025 American League Rookie of the Year," Stiefel wrote. "It’s not exactly crazy to think Anthony would be in contention if promoted, so the smartest thing to do in their current state is to wait things out — for that reason, and a few more. "It’s extremely unlikely that he debuts anytime soon, so just keep those thoughts on standby until Anthony falls out of contention for individual awards and back into contention for the call. It’s looking like late May or early June, folks." And this was the corresponding tweet from Stats. Like you I can't find anything that suggests there is a hard deadline to fall out of contention for the award, and so maybe Stiefel is making the assumption that being called up that late just automatically leaves you with too much to do. But then, I'm not sure why Stats is quite sure on the 60 game point either. I believe Anthony still has time to stay down to make sure we don't burn a year, but not 60 (well 50 odd now) games... Weird. It's the kind of rule you'd think would be laid out in very black and white terms to avoid confusion.

Yup exactly this. Nothing to do with arbs - All about that extra year of control. A tactic teams have been using for years.

I read earlier (but can now not find while on my phone), that you lose eligibility for rookie of the year if you're called up after a certain date (end of May). Red Sox Stats hinted at it on twitter, also. Unless there's assumptions that the catch up to win would be too great. Anthony and Mayer will still be rookie eligible next year under the wild development that they aren't called up until 45 days from the end. Not even the Sox are that insane.

Agreed on all counts. If we're bringing up Anthony to play left field, we have Duran who has proven to be a very good CFer. Leave Campbell where he is. Let Rafaela be utility for this year if need be.

Yeah Mayer is most in limbo for the reasons you mentioned. That said, if there's no danger of losing that year of control, Mayer will soon make himself a much better option than Hamilton you'd imagine. Then he can get fairly regular at bats giving a day off each to Story, Campbell and Bregman. Whether that's better for his development than playing every day in AAA is up for debate.