Maxbialystock

Your suggestion is impractical because MLB will never agree to it because the umpires won't. My guess,only that, is the MLB will also not want to automate calls on balls and strikes for the same reason. I personally think umpires have improved in all respects. While I agree balls and strikes and still called incorrectly, I'm less sure of the 14% number because I believe in that grey area where a pitch can be called a ball or a strike without blaming the umpire for a mistake. If we accept that grey area of, say, 1-2 inches, my guess is the percentage of missed calls goes below 10%. But even if it doesn't, I don't accept the notion that missed calls change the outcome of many games. Good pitchers can adapt to whatever the umpire is calling, and bad pitchers can't. Let's not forget that this thread began with the assumption that Sox pitchers would be beneficiaries of more strikes called--a more liberal (or more accurate, take your pick) strike zone. I personally think the Sox pitchers would not benefit as much as opposing pitchers who actually have good location and good action on the ball. Most of our guys can't throw a decent changeup. Most of our guys can't throw a breaking ball that goes anywhere near a corner--it's either way out of the strike zone or dead center. Most of our guys over-rely on the fast ball, the only pitch they can locate, so they need an umpire who will call strikes on pitches that are close. Me, I'm an advocate of a liberal strike zone because I think walks are not good for the game. This is especially true in this era when commentators and others are saying that only worthwhile measure of hitting effectiveness is OBP, on base percentage, which causes batters to wait the pitcher out. I even find myself sometimes thinking that our hitters need to build up the pitch count of the other team's starter. But in fact it's a better game when hitters are more aggressive, which is true, surprisingly, of most our hitters right now. The problem, however, is that most hitters think it is their right and almost their obligation to disagree when a strike is called anywhere near the periphery of the strike zone. Pitchers and catchers,on the other hand, are discouraged from doing the reverse--complaining when a "good" pitch is called a ball. On top of that, I don't think MLB will ever do something that adversely affects hitting and scoring. My guess is MLB headquarters doesn't mind squeezing pitchers.

Great example because I have definitely seen him make a game all about him. However, this year seems pretty subdued. Maybe last year too. But I honestly think he is the exception, not the rule. Plus his antics should have been quelled years ago if the chif of umpires or whoever at MLB had had any balls.

I think this is an ongoing issue with him this year. Despite batting 5th in an extraordinary lineup, he is 5th on the team in rbi's.

Rare is the ump who ruins games intentionally--ditto airing personal grievances against players. Those days are gone. I note too that you still want to fire Farrell and trade Pedroia. Somehow those two assertions make me think I'm the right side of this discussion.

Funny you should mention that. The NL did in NL parks. I think the game is pretty good either way--with or without a DH, a position I think was created to get more hitting. Indeed, a very solid case can be made that since the end of the dead ball era and the emergence of Babe Ruth, MLB has consistently favored hitting over pitching on the assumption that hitting and scoring bring fans to the games and/or the boob tube. Thus was the pitching mound lowered when it was clear pitchers had regained their ascendency after Ruth. Thus the DH. Thus the willingness of almost any hitter to indicate displeasure at a strike called and the unwillingness of pitchers to do the same when strikes are not called. .

I vehemently disagree that over the course of a 162 game season umpires and their mistakes will prevent good teams from winning, bad teams from losing, good pitchers from getting batters out, and good hitters from getting hits. I would remind the proponents of the pure and undefiled strike zone, enforced by technology to be accurate to the nearest millimeter, that this thread started in part because of the perception that the great Kelly was mistreated by the umps in Toronto. You know, the bad umps. Tonight it appears the Orioles have somehow convinced a new set of umpires that the great Kelly should once again be denied fair calls of balls and strikes. This has resulted in poor Kelly giving up 7 runs in 2.1 innings. I say again as emphatically as I can, it's that TV picture and associated technology that has convinced some of us that the strike zone must somehow be purified when it has had its rough edges for 140 years and those rough edges have not prevented the game of baseball from being a great game to watch. Umpires are far less confrontational than they once were--ditto managers--and that probably saves some time but I'm not so sure it makes for a better game to watch. About those replays and occasional reversals of calls. I'm not against them, but on the other hand it can get very boring watching endless replays of multiple angles to tell us--before the guys in NYC can--whether the calls were right or wrong. This is particularly aggravating when the call was right. Sometimes I'd be just as happy seeing a manager go apeshit when he thinks it was a bad call.

The difference is the umpires still make the calls. What you are advocating is that umpires not make the calls on balls and strikes. I think the game does suffer a little with those interruptions, but, as it turns out, they have smoothed out the interactions between managers and umpires and no doubt prevent confrontations, which lead to longer delays of game.

My first was a double header in DC, Senators against the Guardians, summer of 1955 (I was 15). You remember them: "Washington, first in war, first in peace, and last in the American League." But that was the year after the Guardians ran away from the AL with great pitching but lost 4 straight to the Giants in the WS, and I had a blast even though the Sox were my team. My future wife, whom I met the next year in high school, did the same thing about 5 years earlier, age 9, and has refused to go a MLB game since then. For her it was child abuse. I also remember reading Sox box scores in the Stars&Stripes in West Germany in 1949, but my real fandom began the summer of 1954 when we lived in West Springfield, MA and I could listen to Sox games on the radio with Curt Gowdy calling the play by play. I didn't get to Fenway until 8 years ago and went back 5 years ago. Horrible seats, very expensive, both times. Like watching a game through binoculars that have been turned the wrong way around. To me Fenway is best experienced on TV because it has some of the worst sightlines in MLB, especially anything down the right field line. I've also watched MLB games in Philly (where I saw Sandy Koufax pitch), KC, and Baltimore, and all were much better (for viewing) then Fenway.

I'm sorry, but this is nuts and probably the result of too much fantasy baseball where it's all about making trades. Read my lips: the Sox are the best team in the AL right now primarily because of the great play, both hitting and defense, of guys like Pedroia, who is the team examplar for playing the game the way it is supposed to be played. And you want to trade him away and bring in Brock Holt, who is half the player Pedroia is and who, oh, by the way, got concussed sliding into 2B? Give me a break. Pedroia could indeed get injured. But until then the only smart move is to keep him in the lineup and let Brock Holt ride the pine or play LF or maybe even get traded.

Tonight's lineup is Betts, Pedroia, Bogaerts, Ortiz, Ramirez,Shaw, Swihart, Young, and Hanigan with Young in CF again. That's six righty bats against righty Wright for Baltimore. With Kelly on the mound, this could be an adventure.

Indeed they are. But the umpires have been an integral part of baseball since the outset. Somebody has to call balls and strikes, and it can't be one of the players. And whoever has made those calls for something like 140 years has inevitably made mistakes. The game did not collapse because a pitcher or hitter disagreed--along with their fans--with the calls.

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).