moonslav59

Yes! As in, one can work as hard as possible and still never make it back at all or anywhere near 100%.

Our starters got extra rest early last season, too- mostly due to several days off early, something we don't get this year. Here's how we started last year: (Also, look who our 4th and 5th starters were to start the season and who will be this year.) Sale Price Porcello Velazquez Johnson Sale Off Price +1 day rest Porcello +1 ERod (1st start- 3 IP)) Off Sale +1 Price Porcello ERod Velazquez +11 Sale Off Price +1 Porcello +1 ERod +1 Pomeranz (1st start- 3.2 IP) Sale +1 End of 17-2 start. ERod & Pom only started 3 games out of 19. Sale had 5 starts (2 with an extra day off) Price had 4 starts (2 with an extra day off) Porcello had 4 starts (2 with extra day) While 13 of our first 19 games were started by our big 3, 6 of those 13 were with an extra day off.

Fair response. I guess you don't count Nunez as a replacement who can hit. (He may not be a good defensive replacement, but he is better than Devers on defense, when healthy.)

Red Sox projected at 4th best defensive team in MLB. The best projected team defenses of 2019 WWW.MLB.COM The Royals have made it perfectly clear that they plan to attack the 2019 season behind speed and defense, because they've said exactly as much. "How are you going to win in our ballpark without speed and defense?" general manager Dayton Moore asked rhetorically in February. Earlier in the month, 4) Red Sox (+21) Betts is obvious, right? We don't need to explain how good Betts is? The same should go for center fielder Jackie Bradley Jr., who won his first American League Gold Glove Award and had the metrics back it up; both Betts and Bradley rated in the top 8 outfielders per Statcast last year. Left fielder Andrew Benintendi was an AL Gold Glove Award finalist, and they've stated their goal is for Boston to sweep the voting in 2019. Dustin Pedroia, if healthy, should be capable enough at second, though the real question here is whether young third baseman Rafael Devers can improve upon his relatively unimpressive fielding showing so far. The Yanks were not in the top 10, but they were listed among the 3 "others."

I wish they all started this season. Too bad there was nothing to speed the game up.

Yes, I took it that way and agree that the hype about Swihart's offense being all that much better than the other two is not really supported by past data or by the projections you provide. I do think Swihart probably has more "upside" on offense, but that is more about his lack of a large sample size and us knowing more about the hitting abilities of Vaz and Leon. Personally, if Pedey, Nunez or Holt start the year on the DL, I'd be fine keeping all 3 catchers again.

wRC+ is way down on my list of what's important from a catcher.

I hinted at maybe a projected 0.50 differential. That's significant, but it doesn't make Sale or Price ineffective with Vaz. (That's way less than the past differentials.) I do think there may be a learning curve with Swihart before these two might get to "effective". I'm not preaching doomsday, although it might appear that way. I guess I'm saying we'd be taking a big risk or a leap of faith in Vaz/Swihart by dumping Leon.

Of course Leon is not the major reason Sale, Price, Porcello and others do well. They were all good to great before he caught them. He's not the biggest reason. I don't think anybody thinks that, but if the differentials are for real, then to me, Leon is worth keeping over Swihart. I think Leon got burnt out when Vaz got hurt, but his defense was always good/better. His bat might not be as bad as .550 again, and that is pretty awful, but if Swihart and Vaz both hit .600 to .650, then one can certainly argue Leon's defense can make up .050 to.100 on offense. I get the argument to keep Swihart: he's cheaper; he has more years of team control; and his bat, despite little evidence to support it, likely has more upside potential. Do all those who want Swihart over Leon think these numbers are a fluke, over inflated in value or not valid? Sale career ERA with... 2.42 Leon (1250 PAs against) 2.51 AJP (896) 2.98 Navarro (388) 3.02 Flowers (2227) 3.36 Phegley (363) 3.40 Vazquez (218) 3.53 Avila (449) Sale's ERA is more than 0.50 better with Leon than anyone else, except AJP. I think his ERA with Leon is more than 0.60 better than his career ERA without Leon as his catcher. Even if you figure luck had something to do with it, if we can get a half a run better every 9 innings from Sale, that makes up for a lot of bad offense. Price's numbers are different, since he joined the Sox near the end of his prime, but Price still does better with Leon over Vaz and Swihart. 2.83 with Leon (769 PAs) 4.32 with Vaz (113) 5.73 with Swihart (48- super small sample size alert) These numbers are shocking. Are they useless?

I think some are influenced (blinded?) by his CS%, and maybe think that makes him a decent to plus defender. To me, this speaks volumes: Career PAs caught with these Sox starters: 0 with Sale out of 5,932 PAs against (.000) 48 out of 7856 with Price (.006) and a 5.78 ERA 498 out of 7312 with Porcello (.068) and a 4.59 ERA Total:546 out of 21,200 PAs or 2.5% of all their career PAs. If we don't dare start him with our top 3 guys, and Vaz has worse numbers than Leon with all three, I think we are tempting fate by trading Leon.

My point was about the value of a DH not an icon. Name another DH who made $20M over multiple years.

If you take away our March and April record from 2018 (21-7) vs patsies and add our playoff record vs the very best in MLB (seems fair, right?), we still went ... 98-50 A .662 winning % wins 107 games over a 162 game season. Game, set, match!

This does seem puzzling.

Adding the 50% tax, what would that cost Henry? Rince the soap out of you eyes. Tell me it's worth it.

JD will be much older and past prime. He is now a DH with negative OF numbers. He plays OF like Papi played 1B. Papi never approached the contract numbers JD is getting, even though that was a few years back, and he never became a FA.

It might be more than one single every 5 games, if you are talking about the difference between Leon & Swihart. It might be a few HRs a year, more doubles, singles and walks. If it is a double and a walk every 20 PAs, it would be like adding over .100 to Leon's SLG% and .100 to his OB%. That's over .200 in OPS (added to .550 is .750). Now, that might be high end estimates, but it is an example of how much great catching can make a difference.

So, I suppose he will never have an "awkward throw" from deep in the hole the rest of his career.

That was my other point. Sale is toast. Pedey is toast. Paxton, CC, Didi, Hicks and all other Yankees will be back soon and at 100+%,

Where's the well-established timeline to 100% recovery for SSs? Look, I'm not saying he won't comeback to 100%, but while there is a pretty good history moat pitchers do comeback after about 1.5 years or so, the history on SSs in largely unknown. Again, I'm not saying it is harder for a SS. I'm saying I don't know. Do you?

I already answered, "No," but I'm really not sure about how easy it is for SSs to get back to near 90-100%. Are you?

I bet it was 14-19.

He's the only catcher that was ranked in the top 10 by all voters in 2018.

If you really think he is just an average defender, there's no use talking anymore.

Both Price and Sale do way better with Leon. If the differences are truly a result of who is catching them, that differential way out weighs the probable loss on offense between Vaz/Swi and Leon. On salary: Vaz is slated to make- 19:$2.85M, 20:$4.2M, 21:$6.25M, 22:$7M club option ($0.25M buyout). Leon makes $2.475M with one arb year left. If the arb guy agrees that he sucks, the Vaz-Leon salary difference will be much more next year. Vaz will likely make more than Leon & Swihart combined in 2020.

So, maybe he starts on the 60 day DL? One question, of all those you listed, how many came back the same or with only a little less ability than before the surgery?