moonslav59

Think of all the love Jacko bestowed on Kelly last year...

Yes.

Well, if they keep Swihart and trade/cut Leon, one could say the Leon decision is the most interesting choice to make.

They used to put it in their clubhouse drinking fountains.

Of course.

Just goes to show you badly WAR (and hence projected WAR) captures catcher intangibles.

Yes, the 5-7th best RP'ers in a pen are still often called into close games. We have a depth of mediocre to promising RP'ers. That may be the only thing that saves us.

Here's how many PAs our pen guys got last year in "Late & Close" situations: 178 Kimbrel 162 Barnes (almost as much as CK and more than Kelly 149 Kelly 100 Hembree 44 Brasier (did not join team until July 9th) 39 Workman 29 CSmith 23 Cuevas 21 Poyner 12 Thornburg High Leverage PAs (Starters & RP'ers) 136 Kimbrel 130 Porcello 112 Price 102 Kelly 99 Barnes 78 Sale 76 ERod 76 Hembree 52 Johnson 48 Velazquez 47 Wright 47 Pomeranz 42 Eovaldi 26 Brasier 26 Workman 21 Smith 21 Cuevas 13 Poyner 9 Beeks, 7 Thornburg, 4 Beeks, 2 Walden

Yes, and if the top 4 or 5 work out and don't get hurt, they never will get a chance.

True, but then Chavis, Brentz and Dalbec's HRs don't count.

I'm not thrilled with our pen. I wish we had better. That being said, we have a lot of pitchers with promise- some with short glimpses of greatness in the recent past. I think there's a significant chance we find a mix of 6 or 7 pitchers that do what is needed to get the job done. Of course, there is a significant chance our pen struggles, and maybe we barely find 3-4 guys who can be good set-up guys let alone a closer and 2-3 decent set-up guys. Another problem is that we may need to go through quite a few pitchers to find one who gets the job done. That could pile too many loses up before we actually find the 6 or 7 we need. I'm hopeful, the first ones we try will be a success, or we don't need to burn through 5 guys to find the 6th or 7th pen guy that can get the job done. We may not be able to wait until the deadline, if this happens. That's the downside look. Now, a little more optimism.... I'm pretty confident Barnes and Brasier can be decent to very good set-up men, and maybe one can close. If we find out neither can close, we may have to trade for a closer sooner than July. The next set of RP'ers should produce 2-3 decent to good set-up men (maybe 4): Wright Hembree Workman Thornburg Johnson That's the first 7 we try. There's some hope in the next few: Velazquez Poyner Walden Lakins Brewer Shawaryn Longer shots might surprise: Durbin Feltman Erasmo Rodriguez Zach Putnam Domingo Tapia Josh Smith Ryan Weber Dan Runzler I realize every team has numbers (quantity of promise or hopes). I realize many of these on the list are long shots. I realize going through 20 guys to find 7 maybe cause us to lose the division, but for some reason, I'm not all that pessimistic about our opening day pen. I think we can do well enough to get to July and maybe get a boost that will carry us to another ring. (Well, maybe "carry us" is going too far, but not drag us down enough to lose the division and championship.) "

If they trade Swihart, they knock off $910K and add maybe $560K. That puts them over $5M to spend at the deadline. Since the cost is pro-rated, orf you get the team trading to take on salary, like we did last summer, you can actually get good pro-rated talent for $5M- maybe even two good RP'ers. I think Eovaldi cost us just $2M last year. I could be wrong, but I think the Rays even paid part of his deal- or was that the Jays with Pearce? I'm not saying we can repeat picking up 2 Eovaldi's this July, but my point is, $4-5M can go a long way in July.

No RP'er Signings planned. Only $4.75M below the max penalty line. https://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2019/02/dombrowski-red-sox-unlikely-to-sign-additional-relievers.html

It all ended up working out fine. We got Porcello for Lester. Kimbrel carried the closer load for 3 years. Pom gave us one decent season, and even Kelly & Hembree pulled their weight in the playoffs. DD got us a ring. Ben got us a ring. Theo got us two rings. Their previous GM(s) helped set the table, but all made signature moves that led to the 4 rings in 15 years.

I wasn't on talksox then, either, but I said it many times on "that other site."

You may be right.

Assuming Sale stays healthy all year, I agree.

True and true. I thought you might have been being sarcastic.

I think it was pretty clear my statement is an opinion and not a fact. I fell young players look up to the stars on their teams- the ones getting all the interviews and press coverage. When they see someone can make $300M and not even care about hussling, I think it sens the wrong message and is bound to rub off on some players. It's my opinion. I've played on teams with slackers who had a lot of talent and got to play all the time, because they were good to great. I didn't enjoy it much, and even when we won, it wasn't as much fun. I'm fine with anyone who disagrees, but I'm happy he's not on the Sox, and I would have been happy had the Yanks signed him to more than what the Padres gave him.

True.

I think he signs today or Tuesday...Wednesday at the latest. It's Keuchel and Kimbrel I wonder about.

I'm shocked you are being swayed by ST'ing numbers, especially early ST'ing where the pitchers he is facing are no-names.

I mentioned how OPS does not capture his full value, but .781 is pretty mediocre. If you take away his one outlier year, it was much worse than that. Also, before signing with the Yanks, he had stolen 241 bases with the Sox and got caught 46 times. That's a success rate of just under 84%. While that is good, it is not great. Early in his career, he ran into a lot of outs as well. His defense started out so-so, but he did very well for a few short years, but his very weak arm hurt his overall value on defense. I'm not saying he was a bad player, but he didn't come close to deserving that Yankee contract. This is not hindisght being 20-20 either. At the time of the signing I said I wouldn't have given him half of that contract. His injury history was also a concern, at the time.

I'm hopeful he will continue to show that his first year here was a fluke. We have a lot of ifs with our rotation but the ceilings are so damn high for all of them, it's hard to not be optimistic: Sale pitched better than ever in 2018. It's all about his health. Price looked like an ace in the playoffs and has had great seasons in the past. Porcello won a Cy Young not long ago. ERod might have the best stuff out of any one else. Eovaldi needs to stay healthy and focused. Lots of upside with him.

Dodgers now in on Harper. If they get him, they'll have 3 LHBs to fill the LF-1B slots (Muncy, Bellinger and Pederson)- all kill righties, but benching Pederson vs LHPs would not be a bad idea. They'd probably trade Pederson.