jd98

I think this is the only non-biased article on the internet https://www.gpb.org/news/2021/03/27/what-does-georgias-new-voting-law-sb-202-do

The Eovaldi one may have been me, but I liked the Pearce trade. I didn't like the Kinsler trade. I was way wrong about how good Eovaldi would be, but even in hindsight I still wouldn't do the trade. As great as he was in the postseason, the Sox still extremely likely win the WS without him. I had said they need to win the WS after that trade (and Kinsler one), and they did, so I'm not complaining. Back on board the DD train.

"hit 'em where they ain't" -- Wee Willie Keeler, over 100 years ago.

Regarding the talk about Smoltz earlier https://nesn.com/2009/08/cardinals-say-smoltz-was-tipping-pitches-in-boston/ He was tipping pitches. He did a lot better after going to St Louis and fixing it. Nothing phenomenal, but about as good as you could expect for a 42 year old. Oh, and guess who the pitching coach was that probably should have noticed it but didn't.

The UZR/150 list that you posted where he was 12th, when looking only at the players who were primarily CF

An important thing to keep in mind is that these stats compare LFs vs LFs, CFs vs CFs, and RFs vs RFs. Teams usually put their best defensive OF in CF, and worst in LF. This means generally JBJ is being compared to the best OFs, while Alex Gordon for example, is being compared to the worst OFs. This really skews the numbers in favor of good defensive OF's who aren't playing CF. (Side note, this stuff gets factored into WAR, so reason #427 why WAR is flawed.) JBJ is only behind Jones and Hamilton on that list among players who are primarily CF, which is a more fair comparison.

Yeah, I wasn't making any kind of point, just noting specifically what would be missing from Jones's stats that you quoted.

To be exact, UZR/150 and DRS start with 2002. That would miss Jones's first 6 seasons (about 5 seasons worth of playing time).

Did nobody mention Andruw Jones as the best defensive CF ever? FWIW, fangraphs Defensive Runs Above Average for a career, he's first by a mile for CFs. He's at 278.8, which is 8th for any position. Next highest ranked CF is Willie Mays at 170.1 and 58th overall, and Paul Blair is 3rd with 160.3. That's cumulative over a career, so not the best stat to use, but it was easy to look up. Maybe the same stat per inning with minimum inning requirement would be decent. I might do that tomorrow out of curiosity. Anyway, having watched a lot of Braves games in those days, that's who immediately came to my mind. As for best Sox defensive CF, I have no idea. FWIW again, the same stat has Jim Piersall comfortably in 1st. JBJ currently 9th, but he'll probably be 2nd with a few more years with the Sox, but can't see him catching Piersall. Edit: My per inning idea is bad. It's gonna punish people who played longer and had their defense fall off. Maybe best 8 seasons or something, but that's too much work to figure out. So yeah, still Andruw Jones overall. For Sox? Anybody remember Piersall?

This brings up something I was thinking about a few weeks ago. What if the Sox (or whoever has best record) were in playoffs with the 3 worst teams from their league and the 4 worst from the other league. What would the odds be for the best team? I'd guess no higher than 60%. If you ended up facing the Mets, 4 games vs DeGrom and Syndergaard would be tough. For a rough idea, if you had a 70% chance of winning each individual game in the playoffs, you'd have a 63.9% chance of winning the WS.

I completely agree.

No, he had WAR numbers of 0.5 and -0.2 in 2015 and 2017 (see what I did there), which is closer to terrible than ok (I don't want to turn this into another 'WAR is worthless' argument, but yeah.., just please everybody at least put a prefix letter in front) In 2017 his ERA+ was somehow average, which seems ok, so I thought that's what you were referring to, but his peripherals were mostly worse, his FIP was a good bit worse, because he led the league in HR allowed, and his WHIP was worse (almost 1.4) and his bWAR was worse (negative even), so maybe 2015 then, but his fWAR was better in 2017, so maybe 2017, but if you prefer fWAR then you should prefer FIP, so maybe 2015, so yeah I had no idea which one was ok. I'll upgrade his two 'terrible' seasons to 'pretty bad'. Terrible was too harsh, he could've definitely been worse. I thought the extension was a bad move at the time and I still think it was a bad move (if he was allowed to become a FA, what would he have got on the open market). Although I think it's worked out just fine so far.

I honestly have no idea which of 2015 or 2017 you are referring to as okay. Depending on what stats you prefer, you can argue either year being better than the other, but I'm not seeing any big difference where one is close to terrible and the other is ok. They both look pretty bad to me.

Porcello was also a pending free agent when traded for. We had a glut of OF and hardly no SP, so I don't see trading a pending free agent OF for a pending free agent SP as any kind of GM wizadry. As for the extension, should we just forget that Porcello has been terrible for 2 out of his 4 years, and that he's making over $20M per year.

Yankees 3 games closer to the 2nd wildcard than they are to the Sox. Go Mariners and A's.

Wasn't there some dummy that expected Eovaldi to perform like Joe Kelly and Beeks to do well in Tampa? Oh, that was me. Still think the trade was unnecessary, but so far I'm very wrong about the performances, and if Eovaldi keeps it up, I'm probably wrong about the necessity too.

True. Now with Sale going on the DL and the way Eovaldi looked Sunday, I'm already liking that trade a lot more. May take me a while longer to come around on the Kinsler deal. I don't hate it, just would rather not have done it.

That's actually pretty good for a RP. They don't get ranked nearly as high as SP or hitters. Buttrey was the 2nd highest ranked RP at #19, and I assume he would have moved up some in the next rankings. First is Durbin Feltman at #17. I don't like this trade either. It's ok on paper. He should be slight upgrade, but it's just not needed. We're on pace for 112 wins, 6 games ahead of the 2nd best record in the league. So maybe we win 114 instead of 112. Whoopdedoo. Some things get called a myth here, one thing I think is a myth is building a team for the postseason. The only position that I'd expect to move the needle for the postseason is a top SP, and even that's far from certain. I also find it weird how the consensus is 'these middle relievers are expendable, they're a dime a dozen.' 'Now we still need to add a RP, can never have enough RPs'

Another thing regarding Ben/DD/farm, if you're out of the playoff race in July, you're not trading away prospects to bolster your team for the stretch run, and you can also trade your pending free agents to acquire prospects. Ben had that luxury 3 out of 4 years, DD 0 of 3. And you also get higher draft picks, which hopefully leads to better prospects (Beni).

Was curious who, so looked it up, and I assume Denyi Reyes? Somehow I've overlooked him, he's putting up awesome numbers. Fourth straight good year in the minors, still only 21. Minor league totals 289.3 IP, 242 H, 27 BB, 260 K, 2.05 ERA, .930 WHIP, and just because it's so ridiculous 30-5 W-L. Scouts don't seem to like him much, but I'll take these guys all day long who actually perform, over guys who may perform eventually based on their physical attributes if they continue to develop. Yeah, still A ball, long ways to go, but that control is nuts and should carry through as he moves up. I should get out to Greenville and check him out before he moves up. Been a while since I've been to a Drive game.

damn that sucks. Those HRs and 5 run lead were just a dream. Never happened apparently.

I seem to dislike this trade more than anybody here and I've never said anything negative about a DD move before, so that statement definitely isn't true.

but this is first time in his career that he's looked above average, and it's just 57 innings for TB, and he's been around a while. Hopefully it's the latest TJ surgery that made him better and it's not just the Tampa SP magic juice. Looking at his game logs, he hasn't been consistent at all. 4 dominant games, 1 other quality start (yeah I know that's a lame stat), 4 not good starts but maybe passable (the best being 5IP 3ER) and 1 horrendous start (against the team he faces next). All of his good starts were in very pitcher friendly environments (2@TB, 1@NYM, 1@OAK, 1@MIA), and only one of those was against a decent offense (OAK). As others have said, he reminds me of Joe Kelly, and that's about what I'm expecting. Hopefully I'm wrong and he helps lead us to a close division win over the Yankees.

Starting a game against the Yankees is essentially the same as starting a game for us (not against the Yankees). Either of those starts is a .5 game in the standings vs Yankees which is all that matters at this point. So I agree with OH FOY, would've made more sense to wait.

Yeah, I wouldn't be so confident if he went somewhere else, but Tampa has some kind of magic potion for SPs