Maxbialystock

One of the half dozen best hitters who ever lived, Ted Williams, was pretty much a pull hitter, which caused Lou Boudreau to create the Williams Shift. Williams still hit for a high average, including .388 when he was 37 or 37, because he made solid contact. When he was here, 2011-12, Adrian Gonzalez showed Ortiz how effective going the other way could be. Nevertheless, Ortiz pulling the ball can still be very effective, especially when it results in solid contact.

Oh, I agree we don't need four threads on Buchholz and am fine with one for now. I also don't think we need four different threads on last night's game. However, I did have the temerity to start a thread on the rubber game win at the White Sox because I thought it was a defining game. We took 2 of 3 on the road from a good team. In the 3d game, we got 3 innings from our starter Owens, but won 7-3 while 7 different guys got an rbi. It lasted a day or two, but then was buried in the game thread, which of course is the kiss of death even though I thought it was a subject worth discussing on its own. But here's my real point. Why not encourage new threads and then bury them after a day or two in something like Kimmi's beating a dead horse thread. The criteria for burying could as simple as the number of replies per 24 hours, which is very easy to check. In the fall/winter I blog on a college basketball site that has tons of new threads after every game. But within a day or two most of them slide down the front page and move to the second page where they pretty much go out of circulation. I would have been happy if my White Sox defining game thread had died after one or two days because few saw fit to reply. That makes sense. I also like "A Realistic View at 2016" because a lot of different topics come up in there, plus it has moonslav and his stats, which are usually pretty good. That format works perfectly for talksox. So I'm flexible. But I still like a policy of encouraging new topics. I also like to express contrarian views as you might have figured out by now.

Please allow a contrarian view. I have no real knowledge of how many threads talksox can sustain, but offer the simple thought that, for the most part, more is better. Take a look at the threads below this one-- JBJ vs. Ellsbury. Fun when it started, but has now run its course. Nothing new to say, really. A realistic View at 2016. Definitely not run its course because it relies on new insights and opinions about how the Sox are doing. Red Sox Offense . . . thrilling as Good for maybe another day or two. Who are David Price's friends? Interesting at first blush, but has definitely lost its bloom. 2016 Starting Rotation. Probably last all summer, but could easily be rolled into "A Realistic View at 2016" The Official Dead Horse Topics Thread. Can always be added to. The David Ortiz Appreciation Thread. Time to let it go. Referendum on John Farrell. My thread. 307 responses. But right now it's a tired topic. Kill it and resuscitate only if the Sox spiral down. Mookie? Kill it. Pablo Sandoval. Kill it. Clay Buchholz, keep it for awhile--still plenty to argue about. Dead Money. Kill it. Missing Iggy Pop? Fun at first, needs to die. Those are just my opinions and I am certainly not qualified to decide what goes and stays. My point is simply there are plenty of new topics that should see the light of day, but this thread and your OP have encouraged us to avoid raising new topics because of the limited resources of the website. I think new topics, even dumb ones, are worth a quick look as long as you have a mechanism for pruning the ones that people aren't reading or especially not replying to.

The Orioles have historically been a very good franchise, but I don't like Peter Angelo or this team because they have failed completely to understand their place in the firmament, which is second tier, just like Tampa. And let's get personal: I sure as heck don't like them beating us. I root for the Yankees when those two teams play because the Yankees are the worthy opponent, but mostly because I want the Orioles behind us where they belong. Who needs Ortiz? We scored 13 without him last night. So what if he leads the team in most offensive categories? Are we facing another lefty tonight with Young in the lineup and Bradley batting 9th? Is there any other team in MLB, MILB or anywhere else that has a 9th batter with an OPS over .900? As important as the hitting is, I like the fact that we have a pretty consistent defense. Lots of speed and good arms in CF and RF. Good hands at 1B, 2B,and SS. Good enough at 3B. Great backstop at C with a great arm.

What leap in logic? It's a guess, an impression. To me Bogaerts is super conscientious and JBJ a little sloppy, but there is no doubt in my mind that JBJ has the better tools. You explanation--that he has had to work harder on his hitting--is at least as good as mine. We agree, I think, on the fundamental point: he could do better. We probably agree on another point: we are most fortunate to have him and not Ellsbury. He is one of the reasons, but not the most important (money was), the Sox let Ellsbury go to the Yankees. And, if it was additional work that improved his hitting, I would agree that time was well spent whatever the effect on his fielding. A so-so JBJ is still a very good centerfielder.

I'm not defending the current -.3 rating, but what I am saying is that so far this year, despite his undeniable talent in the field, JBJ has seemed to me to be not as good as last year or the year before. My suspicion, only that, is that his fielding is slacking off commensurate with his success at the plate. To me he is the polar opposite of Bogaerts who, despite his excellent hitting stats, is super conscientious about his fielding at SS. It also helps that Bogaerts knows he ain't the greatest fielding shortstop around. My guess is that JBJ thinks he is God's gift to centerfielding and can rest on his laurels. That is just a guess. I say again, his talent is undeniable. He not only has a great arm, but also a great instinct for where the ball is going. As I recall, the complaints about Ellsbury were that he had weak arm and less than great instincts about where the ball was going, but he was faster than JBJ is and was pretty good at not making errors.

I wouldn't call Ted Williams a dreadful outfielder even though Jimmy Piersall once claimed he should get paid double because he had to cover CF and LF both. Ted got pretty good at playing the caroms of the green monster. In 1942, for example, he had 15 assists vs. 4 errors. In 1951 it was 12 and 4. Plus I happen to think a great outfielder is wasted in left field at Fenway. Even the best are going to have a problem going back to the wall because it's the one thing you don't want to crash into. But the real point is that Williams didn't get to sit on his fat ass between at bats as Ortiz gets to do. 8 or 9 times a game, he grabbed that mitt and headed out to the field. And don't forget that standing out there can be a mind-numbing experience when you have a slow pitcher or one who walks people or both. My guess is the average time between pitches is close to 30 seconds, which gives you plenty of time for a couple of practice swings and still get bored waiting for the pitcher to do something. Don't forget Williams got nailed by a pitch on his right elbow right before the WS in 1946 and reportedly it swelled up like a grapefruit. Some think that affected his swing, and I'm one of them. 1946 was just one of two seasons when he was voted AL MVP. He loved big games, which is why he was so good in All-Star games. In 18 All-Star games his OPS was 1.091 against the very best pitchers in the NL (and he was 4 for 4 in the 1946 All-Star game). He was such a pure hitter with great eyesight and a very detailed knowledge of how to swing a bat. How pure? Almost 3 walks to every K says a lot, especially for a guy who hit over 500 dingers. No way that swollen elbow didn't affect his swing in the 1946 WS. I did not make it clear that to me you don't even get to the playoffs without a great team behind you. Thus it was the team John Henry assembled that got Ortiz to three WS, and it is beyond question that the synergy between Ortiz and Ramirez, batting 3d and 4th, that allowed both to excel throughout the playoffs in 2004 and 2007--as well as in the regular seasons of 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, and 2007. If you look at his prior year stats (1997-2002) with Minnesota, you will see Ortiz was a shadow of what he would become. And afterwards, 2008-2015, he has been excellent, but not as good as when Manny batted right behind him. Is it worth noting that in 2008, the year Manny ran away to LA, the Sox played 11 games in the ALDS and the ALCS and that Ortiz OPS was around .680? You think Manny's absence wasn't a factor? The next year, 2009, in 3 ALDS games Ortiz's OPS was .167. 2013, however, was a huge, huge year for Ortiz, but especially the playoffs when he was just out of sight--at 38 years of age, which is the same age Ted hit .388 for his last really good season, but with fewer games, no doubt a concession to age and the fact that he had to go out and play in the field.

Back to JBJ. His hitting is a big surprise to me, not this year but last year when suddenly in August he started blasting and finished with an OPS over .800, which this year so far is over .900. So I took a peak at the espn.com ratings of all AL centerfielders and was mildly surprised that Bradley Jr is ranked 5th despite having the second best OPS after Trout, just one less rbi than Trout, and all those defensive skills. Well it turns out, as has been noted already, that JBJ's defensive WAR is actually a -.3 despite that great arm, those great instincts, and a 4 assist/1 error ratio. What I am here to say is that, while I think the -.3 is wrong, I do think it suggests that JBJ, despite his enormous talent in the outfield, might not be quite as great as we all think. For one thing, that great arm isn't always accurate. When it is, I hasten to add, he is one of the very few centerfielders who can do what he did last night--go to his right and in a little to grab a single and then gun down the baserunner coming from 2d base. The throw was a little off line, but it was a shot that got to Hanigan on the fly and gave him time to dive across home plate and nail the runner on a very good play. Other times, I have the impression JBJ is a little cavalier about line drive ground balls to centerfield which at least twice have gotten right by him. Once I also saw Holt make a diving catch in left center that I honestly think JBJ was closer to. Plus sometimes he likes to showboat a little on easy catches.

Absolutely true, best offense in the AL and almost in MLB. A deep lineup with one terrific cleanup man, Ortiz. But one cautionary note: maybe we haven't faced much in the way of good pitching. On the other hand, Betts and Ramirez haven't quite hit their strides yet. The Sox are 7 games above .500 despite a woebegone rotation. That's how good this offense is.

Sox have not hit lefties well, so tonight 7 righties in the lineup, including Young and Rutledge. I'm not much of a Young fan, but you gotta play sometime when he's healthy and getting $13M for 2 years.

I was never that big of a JBJ fan because I liked Mookie better. On the other hand, I thought bringing him up last August, which finally worked, was a reasonable move. To me he is just a little too cavalier in the outfield and is the diametric opposite of both Betts and Bogaerts, both of whom feel the need to improve and to keep focusing on fundamentals. JBJ also has a terrific arm, but one that isn't always accurate,which tells me that needs some work. So does the way he plays the wall in left center and fly balls into that deep CF corner, the triangle. But my impression is that he thinks he doesn't need to improve in the field at all, that he's God's gift to centerfield. All that said, I'm really glad we have him both in the field and at bat. Zowie. The Yankees taking him off our hands is still years away.

That is a terrific article about pitching. O'Sullivan doesn't interest me nearly as much as Bannister does. What a pitching coach. I think I read somewhere at least a year ago that it is important to invest in quality people in your "system," including coaches, so I hope Bannister is well paid.

That's an eye-opener. Wow--especially on the Rivera numbers.

You're right. Fans gotta be allowed to fix or at least improve any position on the roster.

Can't buy that, sorry. A hitter is only 1 of 9 bats in a lineup and 1 of 25 on a roster, and virtually all hitters never throw a single pitch, which is half the game. I think it is more accurate to say that John Henry is the best owner the Sox have ever had because he put the right guys in the right places and finally ended the 86 year drought, not once, but three times. Plus Williams had to play left field and lost five seasons to military service. His lifetime OPS was 1.116, and he was walked almost 3 times as often as the struck out. Not that I don't think Ortiz isn't worthy of great praise because he was in fact key to all three world series wins--all three times his postseason OPS was over 1.200. But he said himself after Manny Ramirez left, that he "couldn't get a pitch to hit," which tells me it was very helpful to bat 3d with Manny batting 4th in 2004 and 2007. Indeed, Manny was the WS MVP in 2004, neither was in 2007 (but Mike Lowell was), and Ortiz was in 2013 when he batted 4th and Napoli batted 5th.

A pretty good point. I actually have no problems with anything said during a game and on a game thread--they should be fun and open to all kinds of assertions.

I'm not sure I want to indict him. I just kind of agree with Kimmi that maybe closers have one track minds and are only at their best when they are in fact closing.

To me the $13M was a reasonable investment. Buchholz has had real success in the past largely because he has had good stuff. Control is an issue with him as with most starters, and my guess is the cold weather hasn't helped, but that's only a guess.

I think this thread is unneeded. With Mookie leading off and leading the team in runs scored, the Sox are leading the AL in runs scored by a big margin--170 to the Rangers 147 and they've played one more game. Leading off is hard to do, so why move someone else in there? If Pedroia or Bogaerts, I would argue they are doing just fine batting 2d and 3d. Ditto everyone else in the lineup. In other words, the OP wants Farrell to fix something that ain't broke.

Maybe it depends on the closer. Kimbrel hasn't been so great in tie games and has been much better when a save is on the line. Rivera of the Yankees, on the other hand, seemed to be fine either way. Uehara too, at least in 2013. The great unknown in all these close games is usually what your own hitters will do. In the 3-2 loss to the Yankees, I thought we would do nothing, but I was wrong. Miller got the save, but only by the skin of his teeth.

Really? Is it reasonable and fair to criticize decisions that work out as well as those that don't? Better to say, "I just don't like him as a manager, whatever he does. The Sox finished last in 2014 and in 2015, end of story." My own belief is that the overwhelming majority of decisions by any manager, not just Farrell, are better informed than any alternatives we can think up. He not only has his own experience and knowledge of the players, but the benefit of all kinds of stats and inside knowledge, to say nothing of--in the case of a pitcher--insights from both the pitching coach and the bench coach. Last night, I think on espn.com, the story was that Buchholz fully expected to go back out for the 6th inning because his pitch count was under 90. But Farrell sent in a reliever, which I think was the right decision if only because right now the Sox have 8 relievers and the night before Farrell didn't need the bullpen. But guess what? If Farrell had sent Buchholz out, I would defend that too because I trust his collective judgment and insight a whole lot more than mine.

Farrell has 8 relievers, none of whom were needed last night, so I don't think he will wait for 7 runs.

Of course I want the Sox to win, but for now it's enough there is going to be a Monday night game at Fenway with the possibility if not probability that Buchholz will have a quality start. Beginning to look as though JBJ's move to the 8th spots is semi-permanent. Until he moves up again.

This is an incredible thread if only because the answer to the question is so obvious--no--one has to wonder why it was asked at all.

85 today. In his remarks at his HOF induction, he said he never saw anyone play the game better, and I have to agree with that. I did see him play and don't think there was a better all around player. He won a bunch of gold gloves in CF and still hit 660 dingers, 5th most all time. He also stole bases and won batting titles and played 24 seasons (despite serving in the US Army, 1952-53).