Maxbialystock

I think you mean pitching everytime. I said something like that in the OP when I said some believe pitching is 75% of the game. However, the Sox are rarely, if ever, led by really good pitching. The exception might be their really superb pitching in the 2013 playoffs when their ERA was 2.00. Their usual winning formula is topnotch hitting and good but not great pitching.

Nor have I.

That's a pretty good defense of Swihart. I think he actually misplayed two popups, but the real point is that management bailed out on him as a catcher, probably because Vazquez was healthy and their first choice all along. Long term, I prefer him in LF over Castillo and Young as well. But this year I don't think his injury hurts the team much. Young and Holt can fill in nicely as they were before Swihart was brought back up. Castillo, I fear, was a mistake.

If the truth be known, I too have a low bar for managers. I think they are mostly, not always, interchangeable.

That 93 run differential is wrong. It's really half that. I was looking at hits and converted them to runs.

They are aggressive, but the evidence is that it's been effective and not, as you say, idiocy. The Sox currently lead the AL in runs scored by 93 runs, which is a ridiculous margin--close to 2 runs/game than 1 run per game. And you honestly believe they are running the bases like idiots?

The subject of the OP is referendum on John Farrell, and I choose to defend him. At the beginning of the thread, there were lots of folks saying he needed to go. Now not so many. You say that that's because Farrell's decisions have miraculously improved, and I say it's the same Farrell making decisions they way he always has. This doesn't mean I'm right and you're wrong, but it is my opinion.

That 12th best ERA is based on 57 games, which is a heckuva lot more than going thru the rotation one time.

Age-old question with a simple answer: you really need both. But, if you can only have one, shouldn't it be pitching? Some say that's 75% of the game. The Boston Red Sox however have done remarkably well--not just this year, but in other years--when their hitting has been way better than their pitching. Right now the Sox ERA is 12th best in the AL, but they still have 33 wins, 2d most in the AL. Of course, the hitting could come back to earth. Or maybe the pitching will actually become respectable.

Good thread. Difficult situation for Farrell, but I agree Leon is probably going to catch Wright, something he should be delighted to do because it gets him back in Boston. If he knows about Mirabelli, he just might see a career in catching Wright, as difficult and frustrating as that now appears to be.

Actually, I just think Swihart is over-rated. Last year I was very pro-Swihart because of his age and inexperience, so I was stunned that, with all that 2015 experience plus spring training, plus apparently being handed the starting catcher job, the Sox manager and FO apparently decided very quickly Swihart was a detriment behind the plate. So much so they sent him to Pawtucket and told him to acquire outfield skills. Once you convert to LF, my opinion, then you need to be a pretty good hitter, and I'm not so sure Swihart is. All the Swihart fans, of which there are many, I'm sure, need to acknowledge that he probably isn't that great young catching prospect we all thought he was. I think it's true that he became a catcher after he entered the Sox farm system. Before that he was an infielder/outfielder, which means the catching thing was an experiment, which the FO appears to have decided to abandon. When Holt was hurt, I thought giving Swihart a shot was a good idea, better than Castillo. But right now I'm thinking Swihart on the DL ain't a big loss because the Sox have other decent options for LF-- Young, Castillo, and Holt. Swihart won't be missed.

Who bumped this thread up? All I have to say is a lot of guys wrote Young off a little too quickly.

Good points. I should have said Swihart's hitting is good enough for a catcher, but not for the Sox LF slot. And his play behind the plate is what keeps him from being a viable MLB catcher.

royf19, The answer is none of them were any good--according to Sox fans. A few claim they loved Francona, but that nickname Francoma came from fans. Remind one and all: I don't believe that managers are uniformly good or that they are unfireable. Firing usually takes place when a team overall underperforms in the judgment of ownership or the FO, and that is just the way it is. Francona was actually pretty decent, but the Sox collapsed in 2011, plus there was the beer and chicken thing. Plus Francona wasn't fired--his contract simply wasn't renewed. Now he seems to be doing a good job in Cleveland.

I love these threads precisely because of their borderline irrelevance. Why? Because neither player--Swihart or Castillo-- is that important given what else is going on with this team. Indeed, so far the best LF by far this year is Young, a solid all-around player who played in 140 games for the Yankees last year and who has a $13M contract with the Sox for 2 years. Castillo can't hit and makes too many errors in the field. The tattoo on his arm, "made in Cuba," ain't going to be enough. I like the idea of Swihart--best young catcher in years, could even out do Yaz in LF, etc--far more than the reality, which is that he has yet to show he can hit MLB pitching or that he isn't a disaster behind the plate. Claiming he is a lock in LF is just another pipedream.

I can't find the page, but early on in this thread one of the raps against Farrell was his willingness to play Young in LF. You know, the guy whose OPS right now is over .900. But back then playing him, especially against righty pitchers, was considered proof that Farrell was clueless in Seattle. Who's clueless now?

Young is better. Not for a trade, but in LF.

I thought ERod's problem today was he did not have the good changeup, one that was down in the zone but still hard to resist swinging at. The notion he wasn't throwing hard enough is silly when the other guys was shutting us down with 89 mph fastballs.

Don't like hockey that much, but have to say listening to a baseball game can be great fun. It's how I got hooked on the Sox--summers of 1953 and especially 1954 I listened to Curt Gowdy call the games.

Allow me to restate why I still believe umps should call balls and strikes. Just two reasons. First, over the long haul missed calls balance out and do not prevent good hitters from getting hits nor good pitchers from getting guys out--nor, for that matter, good teams from winning their fair share of games. Second, calling balls and strikes is uniquely--among all sports--at the heart of baseball, a quintessentially human endeavor. To take umpires away from calling balls and strikes is, quite simply, to marginalize them tantamount to emasculating them. They are part of the very fabric of baseball even though, as mvp78 points out, no one goes to a game to root for his favorite ump. My gripe, I should add, is that all this is caused by television, and, to me, baseball is easily the best sport to watch in person. Unfortunately, I overwhelmingly have to watch games on the boob tube. Strangely enough, I like the strike zone superimposed on the screen so I can see where each pitch went. But I am fine, for the most part, with whatever the umpire calls because I think it's essential that that activity be a human endeavor. Indeed, sometimes it is is part of the drama of baseball. Last night Tazawa walked the first batter on 5 pitches only because the umpire missed two strikes that were well inside the strike zone. Trumbo should have never been up to bat with two and and two out, but instead he got that big dinger. I was furious. But to me that's part of the experience of watching baseball, and it did not make me want a computer calling balls and strikes. I like umpires engaged, not standing around waiting for a computer to tell them what's going on.

They do indeed charge out onto the field to protect players, but these days it's to confront home plate umps on calls on balls and strikes. Rare is the player or manager these days who goes ape over a call on the bases or in the field. They are all conditioned to await their own team's prognosis on whether that presumed bad call is challengeable.

FWIW, I was getting ready to post something here last night after that 3 run dinger Tazawa gave up to Trumbo in I think the 7th inning last night. We had gone ahead 5-4 with a great rally and dinger by Ortiz, but Baltimore had tied it. Ross came out and walked the first guy of 5 pitches, but two of those balls were well within the strike zone and should have been called. If they had been, Trumbo would not have come to bat for the 3 run dinger. As it turns out, however, the bullpen was more than willing to give up another 4 runs. So I'm sticking to my two basic points. 1. Ball and strike calls by human umpires even out over the long haul and do not prevent good pitchers from getting hitters out nor good hitters from getting hits. 2. Having balls and strikes called by cameras/computers would definitely "purify" the strike zone, but would change the nature of the game, I think for the worse because balls and strikes are central and taking umpires out of the equation marginalizes them and makes cameras and computers central to what is a quintessentially human endeavor. I am not anti-technology and rely on my iphone, ipad, laptop, and a plethora of other gizmos in my home, car, etc. When I watch a game, I even prefer to see that strike zone framework on the screen. But I want the umpire to make the call there and on the basepaths and in the infield and outfield. They are part of the game, indeed part of every competitive team sport I can think of.

So let me ask you and the other advocates for a pure strike zone. If one were rigorously enforced--probably by technology--would you be in favor of it if it meant the Sox would lose more games than they would under the current system? I ask because I have the sneaking suspicion that everyone advocating better ball/strike calls wants that because they believe it will help the Red Sox pitching.

While I agree the rotation ain't so hot, I think Wright, Price, and Rodriguez are pretty decent. And the bullpen is better than it has been recently.

Tazawa threw the right pitch, another forkball, but left it way up in the zone. Let's not forget that the first batter should have been out if the ump had not called balls on two pitches comfortably inside the strike zone. Machaco should not have come to bat.