Maxbialystock

A question. What rating would a team have if they simply didn't steal bases, didn't try to stretch singles into doubles or double into triples, didn't try to take that extra base on a single to center or right, didn't try to score from 2d on singles or from 3d on a fly? In other words, are the baserunning stats skewed toward being cautious?

I'm actually not much of a Young fan, and, while I have defended Farrell, I did so on general principles. Last year I would have been fine if he had been fired. My points about Young on the other thread (referendum on Farrell) were that playing him against righties was not unreasonable because the Sox hadn't faced many lefty starters and the Sox were paying the guy $13M/2 years to do something besides ride the pine. Plus he played 140 games for the Yankees last year. Plus it was April and a good time to see what he could do. Plus the Sox offense was actually doing pretty well whether or not Young got a hit. But most of all I believed that Young would not have been played if management, including both Farrell (and Lovullo) and the front office, hadn't thought it was worth trying. In retrospect, it's possible they wanted him to hit against righties just to prepare for the unlikely event, now upon us, that he might have to play against righties. Plus maybe Chili Davis was saying he could hit righties despite that horrible OPS. Thus I was astounded when the few times Young played against righty pitchers were treated as prima facie evidence that Farrell really doesn't have a grasp of which players to use. Yes, yes, the story went, the team is playing well and winning, but Farrell is clueless about who to insert into the lineup when. Look at that Young guy going up against righties if you doubt his ineptitude. I'm also astounded you can honestly say that, despite Young's success, Farrell was still wrong to play him. In other words, if any of us thinks Farrell shouldn't have made a move, any move, he's wrong whether or not it works out. Me, I'm the opposite. I think all moves are OK because he knows his guys and the other teams' players a whole lot better than we do.

Pretty big, all right. Porcello wasn't great but he was good enough long enough, and the Sox really needed this win.

espn has an article (5 things about the Sox in San Francisco) that argues what others here have already said, that Swihart's injury hurts because he is a key prospect for trading to get some starting pitching help.

Hard part is I gotta go to work after missing sleep. Terrific win all around. Funny how the outcast of poker flats, one Chris Young, is now looking like a pretty good acquisition who was maybe helped by Chili Davis. Shaw, meanwhile, seems to be in trouble because he struggles against anyone who can consistently throw to the outside part of the plate. I mean that last night the Giants pitchers all had his number--just throw to the outside part. He might hit it, but won't hit it solidly. High time for Shaw to make his own adjustment.

I did finally read some of the articles on automated strike zones and found none compelling although I now think it is possible MLB will use them, if only to be able to regulate--and by that I mean expand and especially contract--the strike zone to ensure pitching is never allowed to dominate. You can do the same thing with human umpires, but not as quickly or cleanly. The problem, other than my philosophical dislike of marginalizing umpires, I see is that it is in fact true that every player has a different strike zone which a human umpire routinely adjusts to but a computer might struggle with. Heck, I'm not even sure what the real top and bottom points are. If the knees are the bottom, does the ump go by the top of the knee or the bottom of the knee or some middle point? And where is the top? The armpits? The articles I read, I might add, seem to agree that calling balls and strikes has been getting steadily better even if it is still imperfect.

Back to Young. My guess is the Sox got him (for $13M/2years) as kind of a back-up and maybe figured he couldn't be too bad if he played 140 games for the Yankees last year. They probably figured they were solid in CF and RF barring injuries. For the remaining LF slot they had Castillo, Holt, and Young. Of those three Young is clearly the most experienced MLB outfielder, but the question was could he hit. As of today, June 8, I think it is beyond question Young was a smart acquisition. His hitting, especially against righties, has been surprisingly good,--who knows, maybe Davis helped him-- and his fielding is better and certainly smarter than Castillo, Holt, or Swihart's. At his age, 32, he ain't the long-term fix, but meanwhile he's pretty useful, and all the carping critics who argued that playing Young against righty pitchers demonstrated Farrell's malfeasance and ignorance might be carping a little less these days.

Never read that one, but it's pretty good and by the same guy, Emerson.

I thought I'd return to this thread one more time with this thought, that the notion of having computers call balls and strikes is not getting much traction in any news media I am aware of. So, please, you advocates of purifying the strike zone, set me straight. Show me a link to a story about how umpires calling balls and strikes is bad for baseball and must be fixed. I dare ya. Heck, I double-dare ya.

Decathlons can be boring, maybe even very boring. But they are overall terrific competitions because of the variety of things they have to do. Rarely, however, to decathletes go mano a mano. Roller derby is probably more fun to watch.

A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds.

Actually, I would prefer that runners occasionally run into outs because never running into outs--trying to steal or trying to get an extra base--means you are taking zero risks on the basepaths. For example, in a recent game Betts was thrown out going from first to third on a single to right field, but it took a beautiful, dead-on throw to get him. I'm fine with that--that's exactly the way to run the bases, when only a perfect throw will beat you. On the other hand, several years ago, maybe before Farrell, Nava was on 2B and someone hit a shot off the RF wall/fence at Fenway. About the time the ball hit the wall/fence, Nava was sliding back into 2B, just to be sure he couldn't be thrown out. He never got to 3B. That sir, is the result of cautious baserunning--or maybe idiocy.

Ellsbury is coming back a little. I read something recently, albeit written in April, in a NJ paper that the real comparison should be Ellsbury vs. Cano because it was Cano's departure for Seattle--I think their offer was $240M for 10 years--that caused the Yankees to spend big on Ellsbury. Right now Cano is having a heckuva year.

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.