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??

1. Of the available pitchers by the above list from deity isn't Samardzija already going to the White Sox? 2. All this sounds good to me but don't trade Betts, don't trade Betts, don't trade Betts.

I think that fielding may be more important relative to offense in the post season than regular season. Both KC and Giants showed spectacular defense, and right now XB does not even execute the DP on major league level. He bails out when runners come into him hard at second base, for example. I cannot see the RS doing well in the post season in 2015 with XB as regular`shortstop, even if they do get back to the PS next year.

(1) Now that the ALCS has begun between Orioles and Royals, Miller is indeed part of a lock down bull pen for the Os. (2) A primary reason given for the demise of the Dodgers in the NLDS is the lack of a decent Dodger set up man in the bull pen. Quoting Bill Shaikin of the L.A times: "The Dodgers showed up for the playoffs with the highest payroll in North American sports history and not a single setup man that Manager Don Mattingly could trust". From (1) and (2) above a good guess is that with one of the two richest teams in baseball (the Dodgers) desperately needing a good set up man for next year when Miller is a free agent, there is no chance for the RS to get Miller back and a record might be set for a set up man contract.

Here is (to me) interesting information I have heard about Kansas City. Last year, during the 2013 championship year for the RS, I heard several discussions by the RS announcers to the effect that KC had at that time the best bullpen in baseball...shut down BP with power arms. This is consistent with what these announcers say this year. Plus, at the time of this post KC is two games up on L.A. in the ALDS and the KC bullpen has absolutely shut down the LA offense. With all this in mind see the following quote from the Kansas City Star, October 4, 2014: By the memory of many baseball people, the best combination of eighth- and ninth-inning relievers in the last generation of the game may be the 1996 Yankees. This is hard to believe for people who don’t remember it, but Mariano Rivera was actually the setup guy for John Wetteland. Ask around, and you will also hear mentions of the 2010 Rangers (Neftali Feliz and Alexi Ogando), the 2003 Dodgers (Eric Gagne’s Cy Young year with Guillermo Mota setting up) and the 2007 Red Sox (Jonathan Papelbon with Hideki Okajima setting up), among many others. But what if you read that by at least one measure, no pair of relievers has ever done what Holland and Davis are doing? Stretched out over a full season, Holland is tracking to strike out 100 batters over 63 innings, giving up 62 baserunners with a 1.52 ERA. Davis’ pace is for 119 strikeouts over 74 innings, giving up 62 baserunners with a 1.32 ERA. Together, the current pace adds up to 219 strikeouts over 137 innings with 124 baserunners allowed and a 1.47 ERA. Consider the O's. There was a discussion I heard someplace that nowadays set up or even middle relievers who are really good will command ridiculous salaries next year and that Andrew Miller might set some kind of record in this regard for 2015. Unfortunately I don't remember where I heard this....FM radio, or perhaps an Oriole's station.

IMO before going negatronic on Bucholtz it might be instructive to look at the record of Peavy since he left the RS and also look at what he says about the RS. This from a discussion of Giants-Nationals online: A 13-year veteran whom the Giants acquired from the Red Sox in July, Peavy was 1-9 with a 4.72 era. Peavy recovered to go 6-4 with a 2.17 ERA in 12 starts for San Francisco. The Giants won each of his last six starts and eight of nine. "It's a completely different makeup, the cast of characters between the two bunches," Peavy said. "At the end of the day, the thing that reminds me the most about the two teams are the ways they play the game. This team plays the game all out, all in, 27 outs, everything that you can give." A Giants web site in discussing Peavy, attributes his recent success with the Giants to the superior pitching coaching in the Giants' organization. BTW what did we get for Peavy in that trade? Anyone?

Kevin Millar tries deer pee on his bat While a member of the Florida Marlins, Millar put female deer urine on his bat in hopes this would help his hitting for opening day against Montreal in 2002. He told reporters that if he got hits on opening day he would continue to use the deer urine. But the odor seeped into his batting gloves and made his hands smell. "You go up to wipe your nose, you know, and it smelled so bad" Millar told the Miami Herald. "Maybe I put too much on." Reference: The Baseball Hall of Shame by Bruce Nash and Allen Zullo

Butch Hobson was probably a worse fielder than Stewart but had an injury related excuse He had football injuries from his college career at Alabama and played in 1978 with bone chips in his elbow. From the compendium "Baseball's Worst Players": "Playing for Boston in the late 1970s, Hobson hit for power but often more than negated the home runs with terrible defense. In 1978, he committed 43 errors at third base, making him the first player in over half a century to post a fielding percentage —.899—below .900. And yet somehow, according to advanced statistics, that wasn't even Hobson's worst defensive year. In 1981, his only season with the Angels, Hobson committed 17 errors in 83 games and demonstrated what might be described as negative range." "Hobson contributed a gem to the genre of minor league manager ejection videos. As manager of the Nashua Sounds, he pulled out the first base bag, carried it into the stands, and handed it to a little boy."

Should Francona have used number one and number two cards in 2011? During the great "Should Josh Beckett have been allowed to leave the dugout and eat fried chicken " debate, Jack McKeon, who had been Beckett's manager on the Marlins, stated that after chasing Beckett out of the clubhouse with a bat, he then made a rule that anyone who needed to use the clubhouse would need "poo-poo cards and pee-pee cards" . Needing permission to leave the dugout prevented any sneaking off. Writer Ian Casselberry pointed out that all this begs the question, "When Francona found out about McKeon's innovation do you suppose he thought: "Poo-poo and pee-pee cards. Man, why didn't I think of that?""

1. Here I speak from the gut only. I have the gut feeling that Betts is something really, really special. Not only his hitting, but his attitude and game sense in terms of the way he runs the bases! I think future HOF ball player. Trade Betts in any package for one or two prime years of a pitcher...and we have another Bagwell for Anderson(??) (Was that the name of the guy that Gorman dealt for?) to haunt the RS for years to come. 2. Take your time with this, RS. We probably won't be able to buy a top pitcher with money only. The Yanks will out bid the RS for people like Lester and Sherzer. 3.It took a few years for Tilman, for instance, to develop into the Oriole's ace...the guy was terrible as a rookie and for several years after. The Rays took being beaten like a drum for years before they established their great young pitching development machine. Betts can be the RS centerpiece, around which the young pitchers are developed, like Longoria is the centerpiece for the Rays.

A Ned Garver Quote “Our fans never booed us,” said Browns pitcher Ned Garver. “They wouldn’t dare. – We outnumbered them." Reference: http://boatagainstthecurrent.blogspot.com/2009/09/quote-of-day-ned-garver-on-why-his.html