curiousd

My opinion: 1. The Badness of Buch does not compare with the much, much worse Badness of ERod. Can they send ERod back to the minors to learn how to get a curve over the plate? 2. The starting pitching after Price, Wright, and Porcello is so horrendous that I am giving up on the Sox even making the wild card this year. So don't trade prospects, wait two years for 2018. Cheers, Curiousd

Question.......any chance that with Buchholz his speed and stuff has diminished to the point that a small dislocation of the pitch in the strike zone has a good chance to be hit out by a major league hitter? In which case there is little hope for him to improve? Just curious.

Observation: Of course there is the well known "big payday" effect. R.S. fans like me were down when the Yanks picked off Ellsbury, but now that contract is being talked about as being one of the worst in Yankee history. Look what happened to the Angels once they broke the bank with Albert Pujols. The Red Sox and Fatso... Vernon Wells in Toronto..? Anyone with a better memory than I have inclined to list examples where there was a benefit for forking over the big payday versus getting shafted?

I wonder if a poll should be started: Will the Sox score a run sometime in the second half of the season? Yes? No? Uncertain?

There was an interview with Ferrell about Porcello......seems coaching staff asks him to stick with sinkers and he wants to be able to do up in the strike zone pitching... if this is true.....I can imagine Porcello's thought process...OK now I am going to try and thow my best hanging curve at .... Encarnasion and then Bautista and lets see what happens? WTF?? and why, oh why are they still sticking with Napoli ---less than 200 B.A. at the first base position?? Anyone else.....Nava maybe? One of the worst cases of the "If we pay them we play them" iI have seen. Grouse, grumble, argggjh

Sorry to chime in so off topic, but I like baseball humor and I'm not sure where else to post this....Couple of broadcasts ago, Don Orsillo remarked on Remy's Boston accent.....(Remy says "Pedroier" all the time)......Seems Remy said something about Xander B. and his homeland of ......."Aruber??" I have an Ex who was making the mistake of asking people for directions when she first came to Boston and was told that she should stop at what she thought was "Knot Station?" Who can guess how the direction giver thought "Knot Station" is spelled?

Panda cannot field his position. You cannot win in big leagues playing an infielder that is this bad If he is injured they should bench the guy and keep him there...or would that be too much of an admission that Cherington/Lucchino/whoever really screwed up in getting fatso.

Maybe the nerd/computer projection part of being a GM is more important than one would think.....In Political projections I have been hugely impressed by the accuracy of Nate Silver, and his programs for running Monte Carlo projections. And now the Cards are caught poaching the Astro's trade secrets; Cards one of two top performing teams in recent years...coincidence? I think not. From the way Ben was thrown into this, is there a possibility he does not understand or use Carmine, the software that Theo left behind? Maybe Carmine would have spit out a "No" on Panda, Hanley and Ben was in sheer blind luck for 2013.

Here are year, WAR, salary stats for Panda year WAR $$$ 2009 SF 4.3 401,000 2010 SF 1.5 465000 2011 SF 6.1 3,200,000 2012 SF 2.1 3,200,000 2013 SF 2.3 5,700,000 2014 SF 3.4 8,250,000 2015 RS -0.4 17,600,000

1. Hey, I am curious.....What does Lucchino do, anyway? J.H. forks over the dough, Ben tries to G.M., but what does Lucchino do? 2. I still think they should put the Panda on a diet to lose some weight....someone pointed out that at SF he once lost considerable weight and had a bad hitting year, but he now looks like an inebriated clown when he tries to dive for ground balls...has no agility at all. I am sure he was a much better third baseman than this at San Francisco. Why the Hell can't Ferrell or some one make him work off some of the lard? Are they afraid of the guy?

Back to the Panda.....In a post in another thread, SBF said: "Sometimes when a heavy player loses a lot of weight he does look better but he may have lost a lot of strength. Not all of those 40 pounds are pure blubber. There is some muscle and lean body tissue there. I don't like Panda being so heavy but it seems to work for him, and didn't he lose a bunch of weight a couple of years ago and go off to a real slow start for the Giants before he put some of the weight back on?" My concern is that the weight is worsening Panda's fielding. Likely another big player whose days in the left side of the infield are limited. Maybe next year try him at first base and use Napoli - who has been a hitting disaster - as an expensive bench player? Use Holt at third. Weird...after last year everyone ( including me ) was for a long time harping on the need for an ace pitcher. It is quite possible that this problem will have been solved by Rodriquez, who now for three starts has been amazing. And Buch has been on the whole pretty good. But we have a clean up hitter - Napoli - hitting maybe 220? Hitting seems to be the main problem. Who would have thunk it?

Request for information: In the game thread for the 1-0 win by Buch over Twins, SBF kind of implied that the Giants would periodically weigh Sandoval but the Red Sox refuse to do so.....interesting if true, for sure. In the spirit of the 2011 " great chicken, beer, and bathroom breaks controversy", could it be made part of Sandoval's routine to have periodic inspirational sessions with one of those Weight Watcher Ladies, hired for that purpose?

Yesterday on the radio a commentator said that HanRam has a negative WAR despite the good hitting, because of the abysmal defense. So far this year his fielding might be approaching historical badness - vying with the likes of Dick Stuart (Dr. Strangeglove) at first or the legendary Smead Jolley in the OF. Did HanRam ever attempt LF before?

I think Xander will be good, and wish him well, but I want to post the following mind boggling comparative statistics as of mid May, 2015: 2015 Xander Bogaertz MLB Career Xander Bogaertz 2015 Jose Iglesias MLB Career Jose Iglesias B.A. : .259 .243 [] B.A. .349 .286 OBP : .316 .302 [] OBP: .404 .338 SLG : .393 .381 [] SLG: .477 .375 OPS : .668 .663 [] OPS: .881 .713 I still think, from watching games when the Red Sox had Iglesias, that I never saw any one at S.S. that could play defense like Jose.....I saw him dive back and to his right to stop a line shot hit into the hole between S.S. and 3b, get up and jump around to face ist base while falling backwards somehow, and throw to first to get the runner out! It was a play that one would think was impossible if you did not see it in real time.

Trouble with games like that crazy 8-7 win versus NATS ..... a season of this tends to blow out the bull pen.....2011??