Maxbialystock

Cleveland gave him lots of trouble last year too, and maybe before that. There is little doubt in my mind that he has a "tell" in his setup that only they have figured out. My guess is that they try to not to use it too much to keep him from figuring it out.

Fister was incredible. Wild applause for starting him (and maybe fixing his delivery). I would have tossed him onto the ash heap of history. I loved the hitting of course, but it still amazes me what a difference the starter can make. However, I gotta give credit to DD for acquiring Nunez and bringing up Devers.

Well, apparently the DWAR compilers heard you because today Gardner is ranked higher than Benintendi. No question Gardner runs better routes, etc, but I am not down on Benintendi to the degree you are because of the reasons I gave. At the same age, 23, Gardner was still in the minors and didn't play his first full season with the Yankees until 2010, when he was 27. Ellsbury's first full season with the Sox was 2008 when he was 24 (he turned 25 that year). Benintendi was born in 1994 and has already turned 23 this year. So, you are absolutely right in slamming the DWAR, but I disagree that Benintendi is as bad as you (and others) say he is.

damme, but that Kimmi is tough with the numbers, on top of which she is invariably nice to everyone. Sadly, I must abandon my belief that the absence of Ortiz is the key to everything that has beset this year's lineup. FWIW, I was also sure Nunez could not possible help, and I've been wrong there too. Tonight against the Guardians' righty Clevenger, I'm hoping Beni, Moreland, Devers, and JBJ have a good night. Could be Vazquez will be out there again tonight because his bat seems to have heated up again, including against righties. Also FWIW, I don't see how Chili Davis can escape some blame for what has happened this year.

I have to agree with moonslav on this one. I too have raved about the absence of Ortiz and its effect on this team, but I honestly never thought it would be this bad. So of course I side with DD on going after Sale because our biggest problem by far last year and coming into this year was the rotation. Also, Ortiz had an incredible year, which DD was never going to be able to fill in for. There were literally no comparable bats available. Does no one else know that last year he had the highest OPS, 1.021 in MLB last year.

I was just quoting some facts that happen to reinforce my impressions of Benintendi. You seem to have forgotten a couple of things about him. 1. He has mostly played centerfield in the minors and before. 2. This is his first full season in MLB after skipping AAA last year. 3. The green monster has made things difficult for a lot of other leftfielders because it is tricky, as is the way the left field stands are almost in LF. 4. He has also made some very good plays, does have a pretty good arm, and has 6 assists to 3 errors, not too shabby. 5. He is hands down the best leftfielder the Sox have, certainly better than Young, for example. What's with the insults, by the way?

Since this is the Farrell thread, I have a couple of criticisms. Barnes isn't the only Sox pitcher who seems oblivious when it's time to play defense by covering first or backing up home plate or whatever. Sale is an exception, but of course he learned the basics in another system that didn't tolerate the bs. Here's one that just kills me. Our hitters generally can't came near a slider breaking away from them. Why? Partly because they are weak on pitch recognition and partly because the slider can be really effective if it has some break to it and is thrown in the right place, mostly low. Anyway, against us it's a killer pitch. On the other hand almost none of our 12 pitchers--or the others who come and go--has a good slider. I think Sale's is pretty good but even he doesn't consistently put it where it can do the most good. While my natural preference is to blame the pitchers when the bullpen screws up, today I thought Farrell was way too reticent on pulling Barnes, then later acted like bringing in a new arm was the most natural thing in the world and he does it of course after the horse is out of the barn. It sure looks as though Farrell is not the right guy for this team, at least not this year.

DWAR ratings rank Benintendi as the third best fielding leftfielder in the AL and better than Brett Gardner.

Tom Hanks says this guy Wilson is good in the tough times plus he's guaranteed not to get in pissing contest with Eck.

Tonight it's lefty vs. lefty--a pretty good Vargas vs. a so-so Johnson (in for Price). Plus KC is on a roll, 8-2, and the Sox are in the doldrums after a 2-4 road trip and before that 4-4 at Fenway--6-8 since the ASG break. But never fear because DD just made the deal of the century for a righty bat at 3b--Nunez.

One more small point. I'm tired of defending Farrell and so have taken to attacking him. On the other hand, this has to be the most pathetic Sox lineup I can remember and certainly in the John Henry era.

My bone to pick with Farrell is his continued use of Fister--last game at Fenway to start in a game we would have won if anyone else started and last night bringing him back to pitch a 3d inning when we had two other guys available, when we had a lead for crying out loud in the 13th inning, and when he is absolutely guaranteed to blow up by the 3d inning. As for the Price thing, I think Farrell is caught between a rock and hard place. He can do nothing about Eck because Eck ain't on the roster and is popular besides. On the other hand, he needs Price badly right now, plus Henry is paying him $31M/year. I seem to remember the Athletics back in the day won 3 WS in a row and were constantly fighting each other, verbally and otherwise. All due respect to Spudboy, but I just don't MLB as anything like the "real world."

My bad for forgetting that the great Hernandez is a righty..

Devers has 4 errors in 9 games at Pawtucket, and you think that's an improvement over 18 in 100 games?

Paxton and Hernandez are both lefties, so maybe Devers doesn't play tonight.

Sox now 1-2 on this road trip after going 4-4 at Fenway against the faltering Jays and competitive Yankees. Reportedly, Devers, who is 20 (21 in October) and has blown away AA and AAA (just 9 games) pitching, could well be at 3B tonight. In those 9 games, he committed 4 errors, but these days the Sox are desperate for hitting. Ironically and predictably, one of those 4 home losses was because Farrell insisted on starting Fister over Sales Thursday afternoon and the Sox lost 8-6. So tonight it's ERod, then Pomeranz, then Sale again. I think the Mariners Paxton (tonight) and Hernandez (tomorrow night) are more than a match for ERod and Pom, especially when it's a home game for Seattle and they hit as well as we do if not better in their own ballpark. My guess is that the Mariners hitters will be encouraged to hit the ball on the ground to the left side and the likes of Devers and Bogaerts, whose DWAR of -0.4 makes him the 24th best regular SS in MLB and comfortably the worst in the AL.

Betts Benintendi Pedroia Ramirez Jackson Bogaerts Moreland Vazquez Holt

I'm not that big a fan of Leon or Vazquez's, but I sure like the team ERA--3d best in MLB and best in the AL. So you could well be right--whatever those two are doing, it ain't hurting the pitching staff. Except for Fister of course. He has great stuff and I was delighted when he started yesterday, but Leon just called all the wrong pitches and wasn't framing the ball right.

Good stuff, thanks. I also like the Warren Spahn quotation, which I emphatically believe.

Agree on all points, but would add--again--that Fenway looks great on TV. Also, the fact that those attendance figures remain high--and they do--is partly great marketing, partly a large potential fan base in New England, and partly some kind of insanity left over from the Salem witch trials. I mean these are the same people who tossed perfectly good tea into Boston Harbor, started the American Revolution by themselves and way before the Declaration of Independence, and--I am always astounded at this--like to call themselves the "hub of the universe." Youkofthenation, feel free to respond.

Can't disagree, moonslav. They are making it work and I sure wish we were too. However, the Sox currently have the third lowest ERA in MLB and the lowest in the AL, so somebody has to be doing something right.

Meh. I completely agree with the basic point and have seen it done to us countless times this year. But guess what? We all saw it way back in 2006, Josh Beckett's first season in Boston (after great success in Miami) when his ERA was 5.00 largely because he loved his fastball and opposing hitters loved it even more. And wasn't it like 5 years ago when rookie Daniel Nava hit a clean, sharp single off Verlander's 100 mph fastball? One of the things that made Sandy Koufax so great during his brief (but HOF) career was that he had a great curve--it dropped off the table--to go with a great fastball. What sometimes infuriates me about Sox pitchers is how few of them have really good breaking stuff. On the other hand, that kid Stroman from the Jays had a slider that our guys never came close to hitting. What I don't like about the article is its stupid claim that the Sox have a really great lineup and can hit anybody. Also that the Yankees have discovered something no one else knew about.

I'm sure you're right, moonslav, and I myself have relied on their write-ups. However, sometimes when I read their stuff I remember that early scene in Moneyball when the Oakland Athletics scouts are sitting around the table commenting on various players. They seem to pride themselves--as does soxprospects.com--on never mentioning stats. Instead they say things like, "the ball really sounds great coming off his bat." You, on the other hand, provide a plethora of stats, and I think you also track the age of prospects with respect to which level (A, AA, AAA, etc) they are at. I periodically rage against sabermetrics and especially Bill James, but I also think stats can tell you a whole lot. And I could really care less about some of the subjective, impressionistic bs I sometimes read, including in soxprospects.com.

Actually, not so good news. This year Sale is way better at home than on the road and better pitching day games than night games. Plus starting Sale yesterday would have saved the bullpen.

I still say starting Fister yesterday was mindless. It turns out Sale's splits say he is better at home than on the road and better in day games than night games. In other words, that extra day of rest guaranteed that Sale would have one less start at Fenway and one more on the road. But what really frosts me is the signal--starting Fister over Sale--being sent to the lineup players and the bullpen. Those are the guys who played/pitched in both games of the double header and in the extra inning games. In no games was a starter required to pitch on short rest or to pitch extra innings, etc. The game did not turn on that ball in the sun for the simple reason that we don't know what would have happened in subsequent innings if Holt had caught it. Fister had plenty of walks and hits left in that pathetic right arm of his, and Farrell was more than happy to leave him in the game until at least 100 pitches. I do agree with spudboy that maybe Farrell knew/knows something we don't know. Maybe he and the pitching coach have seen things that indicated an extra day of rest was warranted or whatever. But there are also a wealth of facts that say starting Fister was the wrong move, especially on the eve of a six game road trip to the West Coast.