Kimmi

LOL No, 50-50 chance aside, that was an educated guess. Very Cherington-esque.

Shouldn't have been started until October.

This is why I've said before that I don't put the blame for this season on Ben. On paper, most "experts" had the Sox winning the division. This team was supposed to be good. What happened on the field is really beyond Ben's control I gave an example similar to your Trout example using Kershaw earlier in the year to make the point that Ben is not responsible for the way Porcello has pitched this season. Porcello is obviously no Kershaw, but the point stands. If Ben signed Kershaw and then Kershaw fell apart, I don't think anyone would blame Ben. Ben should not be blamed for Porcello pitching as badly as he has either.

Spot on post. Thank you.

Not that I agree with it, but I can accept your statement that Ben's research processes are flawed. What I can't accept are the statements or the insinuations that Ben made a move without doing his homework.

You know as well as I do that there is no way to predict future performance with 100% accuracy. It's all a guess. Even the most seemingly sure bet is a guess. All I'm saying is that it's an educated guess based on information that they collected, not a blind guess. They did not just throw their hands up in the air and say, what the heck, let's do it.

I'm sure they did ask around. None of us knows who they talked to and who they didn't. I'm sure there are other former teammates who felt pretty confident that Hanley could make the transition to LF. Perhaps they could have been more thorough in talking to former clubs. Perhaps they were extremely thorough. We don't know. That said, I am pretty sure that they were comprehensive enough in their "homework" that they felt confident in signing him. The point is that they didn't sign Hanley without gathering the information on him that they thought was sufficient.

Thank you once again for being the voice of reason. When I read your posts, it reassures me that I am not way out in left field.

Seriously, do people really think that Ben and the FO make these decisions with no research, both from the analytics and scouting side? A move goes terribly wrong (in the first year of the deal anyway), and we hear all of this is criticsim of how stupid Ben is and how he is signing players based on nothing more than a blind guess. There is so much more that goes into the decisions that we don't know about. They have so much more information that we never hear about because the FO does not disclose it. They are looking at deals from angles that we have no clue about. They are contacting teams about players that we wouldn't even know are on the radar. They are looking at players who might become available in 2 or 3 years and factoring that into their equation. They have both an analytics department and a scouting department whose job it is to research every possible angle of team development. The FO has gone terribly wrong the past 2 years. But please don't try to sell me on the idea that they haven't done their homework.

I have said many times that this team is not far off from contending next season, and that the position players are more or less set. If Hanley can miraculously be decent at 1B (and I have my doubts), then that could solve a lot of question marks. Having an OF of Betts, JBJ, and Castillo no doubt improves the OF defense. I personally would try to re-sign De Aza as the 4th OF. Pablo is showing signs of being the competent defender that he's always been. I do worry about Hanley at 1B though. I don't think we'll see a duo of Vazquez/Swihart behind the plate. IMO, Hanigan will and should be the back up catcher. Swihart could be moved to 1B if the Hanley at 1B experiment doesn't work, or if one of either Hanley or Pablo is traded. As you said, the FO needs to focus its resources this offseason on pitching.

I have my reservations about signing Cueto to the huge contract that he will command, but outside of that, I agree with this post. My preference would be making a trade for a young, cost-controlled pitcher, but obviously, you have to give to get. I do not want trade Betts. I don't like the idea of trading JBJ or Swihart either, though that would be less of a tough pill to swallow than losing Betts.

I was actually very much looking forward to his return. I'm still expecting good things from him going forward.

I did not know that very interesting tidbit! Let me guess, you're a lefty? LOL

What do you know? I give you a +1 on that post.

Basically, it's the concept that when using stats, players are very predictable as a group, but individually, they are virtual unkowns. This is why scouts are so important. Unfortunately, even with scouting reports, it is impossible to know what any indvidual is going to do. The best we can do is to look at what the group as a whole has done in the past, and try to individualize it as much as possible.

I disagree with it not being an educated guess. In addtion to the reasons why it's not unreasonable to think that Hanley would at least not get any worse in LF, you have to consider the offense he was supposed to provide. You have to consider that offense was a team weakness last year. You have to consider that our LF offensive production was 23rd in baseball last season at -11.1. As I said before, the FO did not blindly say that signing Ramirez sounds like a good idea. They did their homework and made an educated guess. You may not agree with the reasoning, but that doesn't make it invalid or uneducated.

I was referring to if he is healthy at the end of the season, ie., he won't be needing TJS. If he is healthy, then he should be re-signed. He may or may not make it through the entire season next year (more likely not), but he is absolutely worth the risk, even if he only makes it through half the season. The key with him is to not rely on him to be the #1 guy and to have a back up plan in the likely event that he gets injured.

They differ in their 'laterality'? Porcello displays 'dextrality' while Miley displays 'sinistrality'. Thank you for making me learn something this morning.

I was going to point this out. You would expect the typical professional response from Jerry when asked about Don, but you can't deny the genuine emotion he showed when talking about it.

I watch baseball to be entertained. There are different ways that the "entertainment" value can be attained. Of course, having a good game to watch is the most obvious. Scully's approach is another - he is in a league of his own. However, Don and Jerry are equally entertaining, in a different way. They absolutely crack me up - I love it. I know enough about the game that I don't need every detail pointed out to me while I'm watching. Especially in blow outs. When the situation calls for, they are all business. As others have said, if you live outside the NESN viewing area, you get the "privilege" of watching other teams' announcers. Some people have no idea how bad it gets. Aside from Scully, Don and Jerry are the best.

When he was younger, versus being at SS. As they age, 3B have moved to LF with success. That said, if Hanley is going to be moved to an infield position, my preference would be to 3B over 1B. That leaves the problem of what to do with Sandoval, however. To Sandoval's credit, his defense looks much better the 2nd half, despited what Spud thinks. According to reports, his conditioning has improved as well.

Of course you have to consider the individual because no matter how overwhelming the evidence is, there will always be exceptions. This idea is easier said than done though. A good example of that would be in trying to determine how well a player will age before giving him a contract. You can look at the individual's injury history, conditioning habits, athleticism, body type, the way he plays the games, etc. all you want, but in the end, you really can't know how that player will age until he actually ages. All you have to go on is how the group with similar characteristics have aged, and make your best educated guess. GMs used the "Large N" idea all the time, because there is absolutely no way of predicting with any certainty what an individual will do. Lindbergh pointed out that, despite what some want to believe, the FO did not just look at their stats and call it a day. They did consider the individual. They had conversations with Hanley to gauge his attitude and confidence, and they consulted scouts and other sources to gauge his psyche. Without having a crystal ball, that is really all any FO could do.

Based on attitude, I did not like the Pierzynski signing at all. My initial reaction to the Hanley signing was similar to that of Pierzynski's, but I soon became hopeful that Hanley had matured and turned over a new leaf. Unfortunately, that new leaf seems to have been short lived.

The article was also chock full of good reasons and rationale behind why the Sox signed him. No one is saying that there weren't any risks, but no one expected Hanley to be this bad, neither defensively, or more surprisingly, offensively. And to your specific point that no player has switched from full-time SS to full-time LF in consecutive seasons, there is even good rationale behind that:

Porcello matched Sale pitch for pitch. Go figure. Good stuff indeed. Wins make the opposing team's announcers 100 times less annoying.