Maxbialystock

Once machines call balls and strikes, which are at the heart of baseball, the nature of the game will change. You want to eliminate human imperfection, which I think is at the heart of all sports. Indeed, one of the time-honored traditions of baseball in particular is the expression, "kill the umpire." It's the basis of this thread because the OP felt our not-so-good pitchers were mistreated by the umps in Toronto. To me that's just part of the game and the endless fascination of baseball. I think the best use of technology is to back up and the teach/train umpires, not to replace them, or more importantly, to replace them in their central purpose in a baseball game, which in fact is calling balls and strikes.

That's the way I see it. Somewhere around 1 August 2013 the Sox were in first place, as they are now, and did make a move to get one more starter. But right now the first four--Wright, Price, Porcello, and ERod--look pretty decent. Not as good as Lackey, Lester, and Buchholz were in 2013, but good enough with this amazing lineup the Sox have.

I forgot the full cost of his extension. That said, the simple fact is that we got him and probably can't "trade" him to the Dodgers the way we did Beckett. Better that he pitch well.

Perhaps. I think he stays there because he's the fastest on the base paths and has pretty much led the team in runs scored for the whole season. That was, however, a helluva May. Right now there's just an awful lot of good hitters on this team.

I think last night's was a key game. Yes, great to go 3 up on the Orioles while beating them at Camden. Betts 3 dingers also great. But to me Rodriguez's start, coming on the heels of good starts by Price and then Wright and combined with some pretty good bullpen last night and Sunday, tells me the there is light at the end of the "pitching sucks" tunnel. Heck, Buchholz even got the win Sunday night coming out of the bullpen. If ERod can hold up, that's four pretty decent starters: Wright, Price, Porcello, and Rodriguez. Plus maybe Kelly, maybe Buchholz if Kelly can't hack it, and that's OK for a 5th starter. The hitting, of course, is out of this world, leading MLB in runs and OPS. Betts has no business leading off with an OBP of .325, but so far that has been brilliant. He not only leads the team in runs scored, which is what lead off batters should do, he also is second on the team in dingers and, wait for it, rbi's. Somebody started an insane thread that this outfield--JBJ, Betts, and Swihart--might be the Sox best ever, but now I'm thinking not so crazy after all. Swihart needs to hit better, but all three are mobile and have good to very good arms--and JBJ is the old guy at age 26. Heck, last night Young, on spot duty in CF, made a terrific catch against the wall/fence in CF. The infield likewise is steady if not brilliant, and all four are hitting well to extremely well even though HanRam needs to pick up the pace a little. Ortiz is only the best DH ever at age 40. Vazquez ain't hitting much, but is still very good behind the plate. It's a long season and we're almost 1/3 thru it, so there is still a lot of baseball to be played. But from here the future looks pretty darn good. Thank goodness Ellsbury had no intention of sticking around. His departure opened a door for both JBJ and Betts. Vazquez's injury last year opened a door for Swihart, who suddenly is the only LF/C in MLB. Sandoval thankfully decided not to lose any weight, giving Shaw a shot. The only bad thing was losing Iglesias, which means we are stuck with that Xander guy at SS. Can't have everything, I guess.

This was another key game. Yes, picking up a another game on the Orioles (while beating them) and the Yankees was great. So were Betts three dingers. But I think ERod's start was key element because just that one start suggests that maybe the Sox have a rotation after all--Wright, Porcello, Price, Kelly, and Rodriguez. Wright has been consistently good. Price seems to have turned things around. Porcello has been worth his $12M/year. Kelly might be a decent 5th starter. And now ERod looks like he did in the last month of 2015 when he was very good. Assuming ERod stays healthy, the Sox even have the luxury of Buchholz in the bullpen as a spot starter and/or long reliever--albeit an expensive one. Don't forget that after those two recent losses at Toronto, the rotation gave every indication of being terrible with a bullpen not up to compensating for lousy starts. A pitching staff in disarray. Now suddenly three straight good starts by Price, Wright, and ERod backed up by a solid bullpen. Did anyone else notice that Buchholz got the win Sunday in Toronto? Mookie leading off with his terrible OBP--.325--looks like idiocy, but it has worked brilliantly so far. He leads the team in runs scored, which is what leadoff hitters are supposed to do, but he is also second in dingers and, more importantly, rbi's. He has, lest we forget, very good speed on the basepaths. I initially thought the thread about this being the best Sox outfield ever was wishful thinking, but, young as these guys are, they are trending in that direction--best ever. Jury is still out on Swihart's hitting, but give him time. All three move well in the field and have good to very good arms. Heck, Young's spot start in CF last night included a very nice grab near the wall/fence.

Love the ballpark, not the parking or the long drive from Virginia, especially going to the game during rush hour for a night game. With JBJ out, Young goes to CF and bats 7th ahead of Swihart and Vazquez. First six pretty normal: Betts, Pedey, Bogaerts, Ortiz, Ramirez, and Shaw. Six righty bats against a righty starter, Gausman, who has an excellent ERA of 3.24 and 4 quality starts in 7 starts. Sox haven't faced him this year. I really like the idea of a win tonight because the Orioles have been uppity for too long.

Agree on 1, but question 2 because I'm not so sure what acceptable is. If it is unacceptable, why don't I read stories about its unacceptability from those many, many sportswriters and the commentators on radio and TV. What strategy to exploit 3? As for 4, no question the strike zone is well defined in the rule book even though matching the rule book to reality is complicated by the human dimension, the size and posture of the batter. I would further remind you that this thread began because the OP was convinced our pitchers--not Toronto's--were screwed by the umps in Toronto. I continue to believe that the real problem is with our pitchers and not the umpires. But most of all, I think automated calls on balls and strikes will change the character of the game of baseball and not for the better. The human dimension is everything in sports, and umpires and referees are very much a part of that human dimension.

I think this boils down to how much you think a game should be umpired by real people vs. cameras and computers. I like the human dimension even at the cost of bad calls. I also think umpires have improved for two reasons. First and foremost, they are now backed up by the instant replays on almost all calls that are not ball and strikes. Secondly, all umpires are now apparently graded on those occasions when they call balls and strikes and are told where they are wrong and how often. They can only improve under this regimen. If MLB goes with cameras and computers for balls and strikes, it will be the only sport where this is done. In all other sports the calls are made by people backed up by cameras on close calls.

The Yankees do them all the time and still manage to keep winning. I generally prefer not to do them, but agree there are exceptions. Manny was certainly one. ARod in 2004 might have been one, but he went to the Yankees and the Sox won the WS that year without him--also in 2007 and 2013. Lester probably would have been one. AGon should have been, but wasn't a good fit in Boston.

Paternity leave? How times have changed. How long?

Babe can irritate, but not, in my opinion, to excess.

I think his handling of the bullpen and the pitching staff overall this year has been only slightly short of miraculous. We have an erratic rotation to say the least--and a closer who now and then loses it despite that humoungous fast ball. Complaints about his overall game management are just the typical Sox fan who believes that good managers simply don't lose games, ever. Let me hasten to add that what makes managing this team possible is that amazing lineup that continues to lead MLB and especially the AL in runs and OPS by a wide margin.

Uehara has two qualities I love in a pitcher--a great splitter and a the guts of a jewel thief when it comes to throwing that fastball, which these days is around 86 mph. He probably isn't as good as he was in 2013, but you have to love the way he pitched the 11th today for the save. Personality-wise, he is a lot easier to root for than that dipstick Papelbon even though Papelbon had a helluva track record in Boston (and I guess the Phillies and Nationals).

You guys haven't lived long enough. The umpires today are way better than in the past--even though I entirely agree they don't always get the balls and strikes right. I say again, getting balls and strikes right over 200 times per game ain't that easy to do. Only a few do it consistently well. While I too will occasionally get torqued about a specific call or two, especially when they go against the Sox, I know the other team also gets screwed now and then. An entire thread about how the refs are screwing our guys to me is pointless. Our pitchers are subpar, pure and simple. Anybody watch Uehara today? Did you notice, as I did, he threw a whole lot more breaking balls, especially his splitter, than he did the other night when he gave up that go ahead dinger? Buchholz, on the other hand, surprised me by looking pretty good. He didn't have command of all his pitches, but still threw well enough to get a clean inning despite the single to left.

Your cry for justice is, I'm afraid, just plain old whining. We have lousy pitchers who can't or won't (some are afraid of it---see Buchholz) hit the strike zone. Just look our presumptive ace, Price, today, May 29. He has two walks and it's talking him 45 pitches to get through the first two innings. The homeplate umpire aren't penalizing our guys. They are doing it to themselves.

Perhaps. Until it happens, I'm a helluva lot more sympathetic to them than to typical whining fans who think the world is unjust because their team just lost 3 in a row.

This perspective is why I keep returning to this thread. I hate giving up young talent, but, as you say, right now some of them are likely blocked. Meanwhile, the John Henry era continues to demonstrate an inability to find and develop good pitchers and so has had to rely on free agency and trades.

My thoughts are as follows. During the John Henry era, which by and large has been hugely successful, the Sox leadership have demonstrated a pronounced inability to develop good pitching. In the rare instances when they succeed, they too often let them go to other teams or ruin one of them by moving him from the bullpen. Remember that popular commercial about how Bo Jackson knew baseball, football, tennis, etc but didn't know diddley? Well, that's the Sox front office and overall system--they don't know pitching.

The OP is silliness personified. The simple fact is that we have a lousy pitching staff. I think it is possible that in these last two games in Toronto when we lost late and despite scoring first 5 runs and the 9 that the Jays are reading our signs. However, I also think that Uehara threw too many "fast" balls (that top out at 86-88 mph) and not enough splitters. Kimbrel has blazing speed but can also be predictable--but the case for the Jays reading our signs is stronger there. The reality--and the reason why I call the OP silly--is that umpiring keeps getting better and better thanks to the multiple camera replays and the semi-official use of automated strike zones. I say semi-official because the umps still make the calls on balls and strikes and only get feedback later, which is a whole helluva lot better than before those automated strike zones. A further thought is that I think the hitting lobby continues to be far more powerful than the pitching lobby. You can see this in every game when almost every batter is more than willing to complain about a call, but rare is the pitcher or catcher who will do so. To be honest, my sympathies tend to be in favor of pitchers and umpires. Pitchers because they have to throw that ball very hard--in the case of starters, 100 times or more a game--with a variety of speeds and spins while still hitting an incredibly small target 66 feet away. They throw so hard they put their arms and shoulders at risk, but they are still nothing if they don't have control. The home plate umpires, on the other hand, put themselves at risk by just standing behind the catcher. On top of that, they have to make literally hundreds of calls, every one of which is being tracked by special cameras and computers. Did anyone every wonder (as I have) why MLB doesn't simply pick the best home plate umpires, pay them more, and keep them behind the plate? My guess it's because home plate is just too tough a job night after night for the incredibly long MLB season. So the job rotates among the four-man umpire squad. And don't forget that the umpire's view is inevitably and slightly blocked by the catcher, usually on low pitches and outside pitches. The other issue is that a breaking ball might or might not have passed thru the plane of the strike zone even though it began and ended outside it.

Sorry. To me this one is different because it has more data, including the pitchers. It therefore paints a different picture. I also like that several are ranked very high among all MLB players at their position, but the pitchers are ranked way, way down.

WAR uses a complex formula which attempts to evaluate the whole player relative to other players and can be applied to pitchers as well as position players. As of today, the WAR rankings by position for Sox players--compared to all other MLB players at the same position--are: 1B/Ramirez: 10th 2B/Pedroia: 5th 3B/Shaw: 3d SS/Bogaerts: 1st CF/Bradley: 3d RF/Betts: 4th DH/Ortiz 1st LF none "qualified" (not enough AB's/games) C none "qualified" (ditto) P Wright 24th P Porcello 49th P Tazawa 83d P Kimbrel 88th P Price 396th P Buchholz 448th

Ortiz was of course never suspended. Indeed the one failed test in 2003 was a precursor to the regular testing MLB and the MLBPA finally agreed upon in 2004. There is zero evidence Ortiz used PED's during his best years in Boston.

I agree with your enthusiasm, but not with the comparison. I think this team is not playing way over their heads or our expectations. We knew all along Bogaerts could hit, ditto Ortiz and Betts. Shaw and JBJ both started hitting really well last August and September. Pedroia and Ramirez are actually below their norms. Ditto LF and C. The 2013 team had superb pitching with Lester, Lackey, and Buchholz, until his injury, all having excellent seasons. This year the pitching is subpar. Ramirez at 1b is a surprise, granted, but he should not have been. The 2013 team, absent Ellsbury and Salty, collapsed in 2014. I don't see that happening to this team. One other correlation is valid--same manager. But the consensus among talksox posters is that Farrell was lucky in 2013 and proved his lousiness in 2014 and 2015. I disagree, but that's because I'm obnoxious and other things. I do not disagree that no one predicted this team would be 12 games over .500 on May 25. That is indeed astounding, but 2014 and 2015 made it hard to see anything good in 2016.

4 passed balls. A season's worth.