curiousd

JAD brings up the point that in modern (post Curt Flood) baseball especially, players may not play up to the standard at which they are paid. So consider: Good players born too soon The only bright spot for the 1951 Browns, who finished in last place, 102 games behind the Yankees, was the pitching of Ned Garver, who went 20-12 for a team that won only fifty-two games. In addition, Garver was the leading hitter on the club, posting a B.A. in 1951 of .351. (This was, of course, long before the DH). During the next spring when Garver negotiated for a salary hike, owner Bill Veeck pointed out to Garver, “We could have finished last without you!” The 1952 Pttsburgh Pirates lost 112 games, the worst record of any major league team since 1935. Home attendance dropped by about one-third. The Pirate's Ralph Kiner, however, led the league in home runs with 37. Despite Kiner's league-leading home-run performance, Branch Rickey outdid what Bill Veeck argued with Garver and Rickey actually cut Kiner’s salary. When Kiner objected, Rickey told him, "We can finish last without you." References include the URL : sabr.org/bioproj/person/b65aaec9

RED SOX SET A NEW MLB RECORD FOR ONE OFFENSIVE STAT IN 2014 From on line preview of the rubber game in last series with Rays in 2014: "Boston leads the Majors in 4.05 pitches per plate appearance, which would be the highest rate for any MLB team as far back as data exists (starting in 1988)." Yeah, Hurrah, Go Sox.......best ever in driving up the pitch count!!!!!!

2014 is a good year to try to find humor in the game, especially for Red Sox fans. Here are a couple of examples. 1. If you thought the RS were bad in 2014…. In 1951, the St. Louis Browns lost 102 games and finished 46 games behind the pennant-winning Yankees. St. Louis was the home of the Brown Shoe Company, and some contributors here may recall the Buster Brown commercials, as do I. Of course St. Louis had the Anheuser – Busch brewery. Defiant fans coined the rallying cry “First in shoes, first in booze, last in the American League”. Reference: http://launiusr.wordpress.com/2012/04/04/five-mlb-teams-that-probably-should-have-been-in-the-minor-leagues/ 2. Lame Excuse: J.D. Drew, a great baseball talent who was probably also one of the game's great under achievers, caught a high foul fly ball with the Red Sox ahead by one run. There was less than two out. The catch was an epic feat of athleticism, a catch that required Drew to stumble over bullpen mounds and scatter relievers' chairs to reach the ball. Tampa Bay had a man on third, the base runner tagged up, and of course scored the tying run. The RS eventually lost the game in 10 innings. Instead of admitting he had zoned out and forgotten the game situation Drew said: "I wasn't like reaching for the ball, I just kind of laid my glove there, and the ball, you know, ended up being there." When asked how he could possibly have not meant to catch the ball, Drew said “I agree completely”. Source: http://sports.espn.go.com/boston/mlb/columns/story?columnist=edes_gordon&id=5508549

Thanks for the feedback, folks. Back to the JBJ issue......I personally have now trouble in watching the games where JBJ plays and Cespedes, for instance, does not. But here is an interesting Fangraphs article on slap hitters and their success or lack of same. See: http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/player-development-case-study-slap-hitters/

Just curious about others opinion......Could it be that RS screwed up WM by trying to fit him into the mold of a high OBP guy who drives up pitch counts? There is some (expert) opinion now that with the advent of the "power bullpen" with specially trained middle relievers with high 90s heat, OBP to get SP out of game early is over rated. (I think this hypothesis can be supported with statistics.) WM may be, as someone posted on Talk Sox, not the "brightest bulb in the chandelier" and is his career consistent with a talent for early pitch slashing but never the subtleties of high OBP hitting?

XB is hitting much better now. There is reason for optimism regarding XB, in my opinion. But what RS are presently doing with WM and JBJ is surreal.....RS management is surely not playing WM and JBJ to win games, and if RS think they are going to shop those two guys around, this is like a dog and pony show without the pony.

Question......I would like to start a thread on baseball humor. Or, I could build along the lines of the Vin Scully, slightly off topic entries that have appeared here recently. But where do I go in Talk Sox to find out how to start my own thread, or is a thread on baseball humor appropriate? The 2014 RS need to be considered from a humorous standpoint.

Regarding Bradley...........I am curious about what the RS are or are not doing about his batting. Case in point of what could be done instead about JBJ... See "Nori" Aoki of Kansas City. 1. Look at Aoki batting style.....he chokes up on the bat and slashes down with a quick stroke Reference: See http://kansascity.royals.mlb.com/team/player.jsp?player_id=493114#gameType=%27R%27 2. Look up the 2014 results on Fan Graphs: Only one home run but .265 B.A. and .333 OBP. Compare this to what the RS are having Bradley do...grasps bat on very end and uppercuts the ball but the man is too small and lacking in strength to hit more than one or two home runs a season. A fly ball he hits on the nose is often caught on warning track or before.. I think the RS have an Idee Fixe that all outfielders must be power hitters. I almost think that if the RS had Eddie Gaedel, the Bill Veeck midget, out there, they would be having Gaedel swing for the fences. I do not blame Bradley for this. I think the RS are, in the instance of JBJ (and other cases like running Craig out there continually instead of shutting him down and letting him heal his ankle), fulfilling Einstein's definition of insanity, to wit: Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.

Hi Spudboy, Thanks for the reply. As by my username...just curious. Holt seems like a really natural choice for 3b. Seems like the RS may wind up with power in the outfield between Cespedes, Betts, and Castillo and hopefully they will really fix Napoli's hand in off season for more power there as well . I like idea of Nava as a left handed platoon guy as suggested by Paladius. BTW.....the MVP of the international league title the Sox just won was - blast from the past - one Ryan Lavarnway!

In a different thread Spudboy stated: "I wonder about 3rd base. Are the Sox going to keep WMB and hope that he starts 2015 playing well enough to be the starter going forward???? If not, who will be the chosen one? Can Graig play 3rd at all? He plays 1st okay. Although a sub .100 BA is not going to get it done. Can the Sox move him to another team with the way that he has been failing at the plate?" Why not Brock Holt at third base in 2015? Except for the recent concussion he has hit well, and shown guts. And he is left handed with a projected overly right handed line up in 2015.

I have heard variants of the following argument advanced by both the RS T.V. announcers and then yesterday independently by the Yankee announcers: Whereas middle relievers were once generally failed starters or closers, now teams are stocking up with power arms trained for lights out middle relief. Therefore, the old "Money ball" mantra....have long at bats, OBP rules.......is the wave of the past. The idea was always to get the starter out of the game, but now be careful of what you wish for. With the Yankees, the guy who goes in before Robertson is Betances! You get the idea. I have noticed that with Girardi, if his bullpen is fresh enough he does not mess around with irrelevancies (for the Yankees) about letting the SP pitch through five innings to qualify for a win. He commonly will pull the SP after 2, 3 innings and then begin the relief parade. See the URL: http://www.vivaelbirdos.com/2014/1/13/5296618/why-the-stat-of-pitching-wins-is-obsolete-in-one-graph This URL shows that the number of innings the starter pitches versus year graph has reached a flat minimum between five and six innings. Such a curve may be due to too much managing based on an out dated doctrine? Perhaps, even in the minor leagues the RS are training their hitters based on an out of date baseball strategy? One could analyze all this in statistical detail, were there an interest.

Well.....lets consider Chris Tilman tonight's O's starter, now considered, I guess, the O's best SP. First year in majors, 2009 with ERA 5.40. Second year in majors, 2010 with ERA 5.87. Third year in majors, 2011 with ERA 5.52. Finally in 2012, 2.93 ERA. Typically it takes a few years for young pitchers to be able to be successful in majors as we all know. I think the reality is that maybe in three years the Sox will be good again.

Groan.....Kelly deserved better. I like Vasquez.... but Ross? Ross can't hit and now his fielding is suspect. RS need a better back up catcher. Cespedes is erratic and XB has a lot of learning to do. The Orioles look to win this game by out - fielding the RS. Bright spots: The old Buchholtz seems to have come back, which is a true ace until the arm goes again, probably after part of 2015. And Kelly /de LaRosa seem competent middle of rotation starters.

Question about what may happen with Victorino: Where my modern baseball knowledge is at its worst is about the rules involving people under contract. Regarding Victorino, in some sense I worry most about what the Sox do with this guy, not Bradley. Bradley had an even worse B.A. in Pawtucket than in the Bigs since he went back down, which would be expected if he is tinkering with his swing to become an out and out banjo hitter with no hope of power. Maybe JBJ will learn how to do this, and then he could be valuable. There have been such outfielders with successful careers. But because of Victorino's age and injuries I think we will be stuck with Victorino as someone adding to the outfield backlog, unless... (1) We can put Victorino on waivers and someone takes him. Could this work if the RS pay some of his salary?? (2) If we have to pay Victorino could the RS send him to the minors anyway? (3) Finally, there is some evidence that once a major league team invests money in someone they will tend to stick with that player against all reason. In 2011, Adam Dunn had a year in which he was kept on the roster of the White Sox and batted .159, hit 11 home runs, had 177 strike outs, had only 42 RBIs and committed 60 outfield errors . But he played on in the majors in any case. Could you guys advise me as to what the Sox are likely to do with Victorino, if he is done, done, done as I suspect?

The Orioles are now just two games in back of L.A. for best American League record without an all star quality but injured third baseman (Machado) and without an injured all star quality catcher (Wieters). Both should be ready to go for 2015. Everybody else in AL east playing for wild card in 2015, yes? Revenge of the Duke!

This is just after the debacle of the game the Thursday after Labor Day. When Koji gave up the two home runs on splitters that don't break anymore. One would think that either: 1. A healthy Koji would still be used for winning games, even though every inning pitched by him at this point increases the chances of his being ruined for 2015, OR 2. Koji would be shut down completely to give him the maximum chance of being effective next year. Instead: 3. A completely ineffective Koji with no splitter is being used with the effect of both losing games and maximizing the chances of Koji being ruined for 2015. I don't usually bitch about managers but this procedure by Ferrell seems to be borderline insane. My question for all: What is Ferrell doing??!!

IMO people are blinded by the present generation of players overly when considering historical greatness. By Bill James "Historical Baseball Abstract" , written in 2003, the greatest modern era shortstop at age 20 was Alex Rodriquez, and in 2003 the top four shortstops in Win Shares per game were (1) Honus Wagner, (2) Arky Vaughan, (3,4) Barry Larkin and Alex Rodriquez nearly tied. James' top ten over all 20 shortstops through 2002 were (1) Honus Wagner by a large margin, (2) Arky Vaughan, (3) Cal Ripkin, Jr., (4) Robin Yount, (5) Alex Rodriquez, (6) Ernie Banks, (7) Barry Larkin, (8) Ozzie Smith, (9) Joe Cronin, and (10) Alan Trammell. Derek Jeter rated number 20.

IMO we are reading too much into this. I think: Bucholtz is a physically fragile pitcher and even after his arm strength has returned following extensive rehabilitation it takes him a long time to re learn how to control his stuff. One of the reasons he can be so effective is that he has a good curve, fast ball, change, and cutter but he needs all four pitches. I think he is "back" now but can be expected to be good for at most half of 2015, just as he was good only about half of 2013.

Absolutely agree Koji probably is injured. They should shut the guy down to lessen the chance he will be shot for next season. They have been overworking Tazawa also. The announcers were saying something about Workman going back to minors and relief staff being strengthened. One hopes so. Until this season happened to the RS it never dawned on me that teams who don't score enough runs can ruin relief pitchers just as do teams with bad starting pitching.

You are basically correct, of course. But there is always a grey area here. When managers have clinched a post season spot they routinely play more subs to save their best line up. The Sox are in the opposite extreme position here. IMO Farrel has been over using Tazawa and Uehara, who have been overworked this season as it is. He should at least back off on those guys, because if they kill their arms this season the Sox will be even more up the well known tributary without a means of locomotion next year.

Bright Side? Well.....its not about winning games this year any more so: 1. Already Betts has a 2014 RS OBP of .338, whereas league average is 0.31 and Jacoby Ellsbury has .340. 2. Holt still has B.A. of 289 and OBP of .340; lets not wring our hands over Holt just yet 3. Cespedes has 2014 OPS of .756 4. I calculated the average season OPS of Alan Craig from 2010 through 2013 as . 833; if they are right that his injury is expected to heal completely, he should be terrific next year 5. The average of Joe Kelly's ERA for his first two years in MLB, 2012 and 2013, was 3.11 He is only 26 and there is no good reason he should not be a good starter in 2015. de La Rosa has a 3.69 ERA this year. Now if only.....(1) Some excuse of an injury disability could be invented for both Tazawa and Uehara and they would shut those guys down for the rest of 2014...(does it really make a difference if the RS lose every game the rest of 2014 at this point?), and (2) Workman has more than two pitches he can depend on so that there is hope he can become a starter instead of a ruined reliever like Bard; Workman has done well with ten days rest but he is not yet a regular starter) and (3) XB can get over his apparent psychological funk/ lack of focus there is hope that the RS could be a decent team in 2015.

Comment about great defensive shortstops: Rating defensive plays is subjective, but for me the best defensive play I ever saw for any position was turned in by Jose Iglesias, in that it seemed totally impossible unless done by video trickery and this was a live broadcast in a meaningless game by another last place RS team. (1) Some guy hit a smoking line drive past Iglesias' right hand. Iglesias had to run backwards from the plate well into left field and was able to back hand the ball. (2) He jumped and turned around in the air; then threw the ball while his body was falling away from the plate. (3) The throw went on the fly perfectly to the R.S. first baseman who stretched and got the runner out. (4) The announcer said that Iglesias was helped by that being a slow runner; I do not recall who the runner was. I do hope Iglesias gets over his shin splint problems and fulfills his potential with someone. IMO he showed signs of being able to hit enough to be valuable in the big leagues, given his amazing defense.

In the radio broadcast of the game the Sox lost to L.A., Remi attributed the much better performance by Workman to 11 days of rest. What kind of success rate is there in converting a relief guy to a starter, rather than visa-versa? I am thinking of Josh Bard, etc.

!. Hi NS...Well.....perhaps "Stupid Play Loss Against Typical Triple A" or SPLATT? 2. OMG in the game today XB did it again! Uh....you are supposed to tag the base first , then throw the ball.....cost the Sox four runs right there. It is almost as if there is so much on his mind....worries about who knows what...that he is going through the motions?

About XB and his problems. So there is WAR, or some calculated "wins added" relative to a minor league player or someone from waivers. There have been major league players with negative WAR, some with pretty high absolute number negative. But I suggest....Ta Ta! SPLAR or stupid play losses against replacement. Thus, any AAA shortstop with his head in the game and anticipating before every play what to do based on different outcomes would not do any of this dumbness. That game the other night against the Astros....the crazy play winding up with the Astros base runner jumping over Badenhop and being safe at home...would never have happened if XB had thrown to first base, not tossed that underhand dying quail to Pedroia at second....Clearly XB gets a SPLAR point for that...that cost the game. Recall way back in the season before they added Drew? On a pop up Middlebrooks and XB start pushing against each other like a comedy act and the ball drops; I suspect because XB did not call for the ball. I recall that play as another SPLAR point versus the Rays. There have been other plays that were fractions of a SPLAR point.... for example on plays with no chance to get the runner at first and the ball should be held but instead it is air mailed by XB into the stands. I think that XB might have accumulated some record number of SPLAR points by the time the season is up, were SPLAR a real statistic. Bright side.....this will get better next year...surely??