jd98

Seattle reportedly had strong interest. Houston supposedly some interest. Probably Yankees too. Would have been more talk had he waited longer to sign somewhere. After looking back at some articles, it appears there wasn't much of a consensus on his expected contract, but certainly nothing much less than what he got.

He couldn't have been had for much less. mlbtraderumors projected 6/$132mil. Another site projected 6/$125. That range was the consensus.

The FO might not have ignored the rotation, but they did a poor job addressing it when the pitching would likely be better if they had ignored it. Erod, Wright, and a 3rd AAA guy instead of Porcello, Miley, and Masterson. Not saying it would be better over the entire season and beyond, but using the results so far it's unquestionably better. Which brings up an interesting question. Was the initial Pawtucket rotation better than the Boston rotation? ERod, Wright, Owens, Johnson, Barnes(?) vs Buchholz, Porcello, Miley, Kelly and Masterson. I'm fine with the Hanley signing and hope they don't trade him. The best hitting prospects are already on the team or in A ball. Hanley was looking like an MVP until he hurt his shoulder (which of course is one of the knocks on him). I don't know about the attitude problems, I'm not there. However, if you thought Hanley had attitude problems and Panda had fat problems, and you anticipated those staying problems, and you sign them both to big contracts anyway, then you can't put the blame on the players for that.

There's a lot more to being a GM than fantasy baseball style adding and dropping of players, such as media, player, and public relations, and all kinds of behind the scenes stuff I'm not aware of. As far as I can tell Ben is great at all that stuff. He was a guest for the Greenville Drive's fan appreciation day before the 2014 season, and he signed autographs, answered questions, mingled with the crowd. He seemed like a really good person, very knowledgeable and well spoken. As far as assembling a roster and giving out contracts, well that doesn't seem to be his strongest asset, and that's probably the most important part of the job.

Did the coaching staff really try to change Porcello's pitching approach, or is that just speculation? I know his GB% is way down, and that's probably directly responsible for at least 1 run higher ERA, but do people know this is because of coaches messing with him.

I was going to vote yes because 8 games out of division, 7 out of wildcard, with 3.5 months to go certainly seems doable. Then I looked at the numbers closer and decided it was a looooong shot, so I was going to vote no. But I can't give up in mid-June, so I didn't vote. What it would take-- You have to go back to 2009 for less than 88 wins to make playoffs, so I'm using 88. That's 60-36 the rest of the way, or 62.5% winning percentage. Cardinals are only team currently winning more than 60%. Over an entire season that would be 101 wins. Even the most optimistic people did not see this team as a 100 win team. Hard to believe they can sustain that pace for 3.5 months.

I didn't even notice Ross was mostly a starter last year. I gotta pay more attention. Although he was even worse as a RP last year, but it was only in 18IP. 7.85 ERA, 30 hits, 6 BB, 9 K. Yikes. That trade makes just a little more sense now, but I still think it was bad. And it's just a minor blip on a list of Ben's blunders. I agree with you, Sandoval was the biggie. Signing him for 5/$95 was bad, but acceptable. Signing him for 5/$95 after signing Hanley for 4/$88 was inconceivable.

I agree neither move was scandalous, but I can't see acquiring possibly the worst SP and worst RP from the previous season (and not cheaply) as a good way to build an already questionable pitching staff. That's just not good GMing. The $9.5 mil for Masterson ended up being nothing because they went sailing over the luxury cap. If they would have stayed under the cap, that's less money to spend elsewhere. When they are staying under the cap, every million they overpay someone is less money towards another position. That's why overpaying Sandoval does matter (even if he wasn't sucking), probably starting next year. Not a problem trading Ranaudo. The problem is for Ross. I thought I was clear on that, lol, I mentioned him like 4 times. Stick Ranaudo in AAA, if he continues to do well there, he could be used in a package for somebody a helluva lot better than Ross. If you can find Steamer projections pre-2014, look at them, and then look at the actual results, and then tell me why anyone should pay one bit of attention to computer projections. I don't know how far below average you have to go to call it bad, so maybe it's just semantics, but it seemed very unlikely to me that this rotation would be average. Even if the rotation matched last years initial rotation (which I think was only possible if Buchholz matched what Lester did ), then it's still below average, because last years rotation was below average, even before trading away everybody. They were well below average over the entire season. Sure, if they're not too far below average, that should be good enough to compete, and that's the point you're trying to make, but I'd say to predict a literally league average rotation (or better) was closer to delusional than reasonable.

Misery loves company, so I might as well come back to this board. Ben's at fault. He had lots of money to spend and plenty of flexibility as to what he could do, and he decided to try some outside-the-box moves, and they have failed horribly. There's been tons of talk about Hanley's horrible defense; that's all on Ben. Hanley should have never been in LF. Once he was signed, Sox had 2 primarily SS's who had each spent time at 3B. Put one at SS and one at 3B. Several people have defended the Sandoval signing by saying the Sox needed a 3B. Not after Hanley had signed. The minute he signed, talks with Sandoval should have ended. After signing both of those, he had to skimp on the SP. Sure they *may* be decent enough, but with the 3rd highest payroll in baseball, I'd expect at least 1 reliably good SP. He did a terrible job at putting together a team considering the resources he had available. They need to be good on the field, not on paper or a computer (and I don't know how any computer would have predicted the SP to be anything but bad). Another questionable move that was mostly overlooked was Ranaudo for Ross. Sure, Ranaudo looked bad in his brief stint in MLB and Sox had plenty of SP prospects, but for Robbie f***ing Ross. Ranaudo was expendable, but he was still a top 10 prospect at the time, so for Robbie Ross? Seriously? Robbie Ross? The 2 worst ERA's in the AL last year, minimum 70 IP were Robbie Ross 6.20 ERA in 78.1 IP (with equally bad peripherals) Justin Masterson 5.51 ERA in 98 IP (was even worse after going to NL) If Ben saw potential in these guys and could acquire them as a buy low candidate and see if they improve, then maybe that's OK, but he didn't buy low. He paid $9.5 mil for 1 year for one, and traded a top 10 prospect for the other. That's not buying low, that's buying as if they are going to be quality contributors. And there's more of course, but this post is long enough. On a positive note, I am glad my MLBtv subscription starting freezing a lot, causing me to cancel after 1 month, so I haven't been watching this crap. Hmm, not sure that was positive either.

Wasn't just 3 runs on no hits, there were no walks either. I wouldn't have even thought that was possible if I didn't just see it happen.

I benched Mookie in my fantasy league so that he would have a huge week. 1 week in my lineup -- 15 points 3 innings on my bench -- 16 points Seems about right.

Working fine for me tonight. Had lots of problems on Tuesday, but every other day has been fine.

I posted this earlier in the year so yeah I would take your bet. However, I am happily poor, so 1 unit for me is usually just $10. I'd prefer it be no action if he doesn't reach 150 IP. I'd hate to lose because of some freak injury when he's pitching well. As a compromise, how about make it 3.90 ERA and 150 IP, but bet is void if he doesn't reach 150 IP.

Lester too! What a waste of money that would have been. (My last post wasn't in the full spirit of the thread)

I wouldn't say all that. They would have won 10-0 if I was GM Seriously though, Porcello didn't pitch (I expect him to do just fine, but probably not $20 mil fine), Miley didn't pitch, Masterson didn't pitch. None of the bullpen acquisitions pitched. My biggest gripe with the FO by far is Sandoval and he was 0-5 with 3 K's. I think it was absolutely batshit crazy to sign him once they had signed Hanley. Hanley at 3rd, then you can have Castillo in OF instead of AAA. Still got the same bench. Since defense won't be as good, don't sign all ground ball pitchers, especially the worst one in the AL last year for $9.5 mil. Now you got one spot in rotation open and about $29 mil extra to spend for this year. Hanley was great, and I fully supported that signing (I think I said 90% support or something). Some people didn't approve, but most of it was worry about injuries and his attitude being a problem in the clubhouse, but it looks like the attitude problems may be more of an issue with Sandoval than Hanley. Overall, I am encouraged though. Buchholz looked excellent, and I think he's the biggest key to the team. Although it was just Philly. He looked great at times last year too, so still need to see more from him. Mookie is awesome. Maybe you can say it was a good nonmove by the FO to not trade him. It was opportunity to screw up and they didn't, so I can see that as a positive. Pedroia may be back to his old self. Him being good rather than mediocre in the 2 spot could be the biggest boost for the overall offense.

What I hope to see, besides a win obviously, is Buchholz pitching well. Would be huge for the team if he has a good season, and could be disaster if he's a disaster. I also hope Sandoval has a huge game, so I can at least go a couple of days without being annoyed at how dumb that signing was.

81-81 Offense 3rd in AL in runs, pitching 13th in ERA

Nah, league numbers are significantly better in that situation over large sample sizes. Check my post just above your posts. As for Napoli, he has a career strikeout rate of 26.6%. With runner on 3rd less than 2 out his K rate is 19.8%. In 2014 AL, K rate was 19.8%, and with runner on 3rd less than 2 out it was 16%. So Napoli does make a good effort to cut down his K's in that situation. Note that K rate is based on plate appearances, so there is not an automatic improvement because of sac flies not counting as outs like in the slash line stats.

Most hitters do have better numbers with man on third and less than 2 outs. I'm assuming it's because they can make what normally is an out (a flyball), but not have it count as an out. Last year in the AL, batters hit .253/.316/.390 overall. With a man on 3rd less than 2 out, they hit .333/.363/.495. In the 2013, the numbers were .256/.320/.404 and .317/.345/.486

Yeah, that's my thoughts, but admittedly I'm usually pessimistic. I wasn't interested in your bet proposal, I was just suggesting that if you want to entice mvp78 to bet, you needed something more realistic. Oh, and Buchholz could certainly be under 4.00, but he's way too inconsistent to bet on.

Nobody would be dumb enough to take that bet. No team in baseball last year had 3 such pitchers. Only 2 AL teams had 2 such pitchers. You should lower your IP requirement to 180 or the 'qualifying' standard of 162 if you want to have a remotely realistic betting option. If there was an actual betting line on each of the Sox SP over/under 4.00 ERA, with -110 odds, I'd bet 1 unit on Porcello under and Miley over, and 3 units on Kelly and Masterson over, and not touch Buchholz.

I was referring to setting the initial line. Are you really saying the oddsmakers do not consider at all how they think the public will bet when they are setting the initial line? It's obvious they do with straight wagers, and UN? has already posted things showing that. Even if you're just talking about futures bets, let's look at the Cubs for example. There will be a decent amount of bets on the Cubs solely because of hype surrounding the Lester signing. So if the oddsmaker after using his stats and projections, as you mention, comes up with 15-1 for the Cubs, maybe he lowers it to 12-1 because he knows the Cubs are going to get bet harder than they should. You don't think this happens?

I'm not an oddsmaker, but it's almost certainly some of both, and not one or the other.

Red Sox had the lowest odds to win the WS among the AL teams. Dodgers were always lower for sure, and I think a couple of other NL teams, maybe Nats and Cards.

By the time he's MLB ready, the OF glut should be gone. Maybe Castillo and Betts in the OF, Ortiz retired, Hanley at DH, Sandoval or Bogaerts could go to 1B, leaving an OF spot and either SS or 3B available. I don't know if I'd go after him or not. He's going to cost a crazy amount of money for a 19 year old.