moonslav59

How players perform in ST'ing has very little to do with how they start out of the gate. Not playing enough is another matter altogether. Your point is well-taken, however. It did matter.

It's hard to notice "Fire & Desire" when you are losing 8-0 to your biggest rival, but you are right. I was critical of JF for seeing very little "Fire & Desire" back in 2017, so I should be fair, despite my admiration for Cora. This team looks lackluster. Their energy level looks very low. Maybe they need a bench-clearing brawl or something to snap them out of this dazed & malaised look. (Liked this new phrase?)

Honestly, Leon is a GREAT defensive catcher. This doesn't mean he's the answer to our problems, but let's be totally honest, here.

Wow! Giving up in mid April. All the way, baby!!!!

I'm still a firm believer that the Sale contract will end up being a great deal for us.

Cockiness could certainly be a major factor in our slow start, but it's hard to know for sure. I'm thinking it's a lot of little things that have added up (or subtracted down) to this miserable start. As the sample size grows, so does my concern, but jacko is right, this team has too much talent to miss being highly competitive this fall. I'm still firmly on the band wagon, but it's getting harder to stay optimistic.

He hit 97-98 several times, so I think he is on the right track. I'm not sure a shutdown is the best idea.

IMO, he'll get it all together at some point, hopefully very soon.

If it's anything like the discord on this site on the catcher position, it's not surprising.

Horrible game. Brutal start to the season. Hope is far from lost with me, though. Get 'em tomorrow!

If a butterfly flaps its wings...

Maybe Andujar doesn't get hurt, if he was playing 1B. (I also think Voit will not continue anywhere near this pace.)

Reminds me of Lavarnway and Kottaras.

We'll see where Betts hits when Beni returns.

I feel the exact same way. The could have called up Leon and IL'd Nunez.

Me, too. If he does, what does that say about the argument that Leon is useless, because nobody claimed him- an argument I felt made little sense?

Sometimes, a shake-up is all it takes to jump start a team.

If the staff suddenly starts pitching well, one will wonder, but to me, the sample sizes were way to small for anyone (including myself) to say, "I told you so."

I was advocating keeping Leon all winter. I thought we should have traded Swihart. That being said, if we demoted Leon to give Swihart a chance, I don't think we gave him a long enough time to prove himself. My guess is, they saw not improvement on "staff-handling, : and his poor hitting was just too much for them to continue the experiment. I hope Swihart does not get claimed, and he accepts a minor league assignment with us, but I won't be crushed, if he's claimed.

Price does much better with Leon, too, but he has done well without him, so far this year.

A big hefty clean-up hitter.

Will Swihart be claimed?

I'm a big Leon supporter, but I am surprised they made this move this quickly.

Red Sox To Designate Blake Swihart By Jeff Todd | April 16, 2019 at 11:34am CDT The Red Sox are set to designate catcher Blake Swihart for assignment, according to Evan Drellich of WEEI.com (Twitter link). The team’s plans beyond that are not known, but the struggling defending champs have obviously decided upon a change behind the dish. Swihart wasn’t off to an inspirational start at the plate, with a .231/.310/.385 slash, but it seems likely that the move was driven primarily by the club’s broader pitching issues. The Boston staff has been among the worst in all of baseball thus far. While that reflects quite a bit more than Swihart’s performance behind the dish, it seems that the organization feels it has something to gain by switching things up. It stands to reason that Sandy Leon will be brought back onto the MLB roster, though that’s not yet clear. He was stashed down at Triple-A after clearing waivers late in camp. Leon lacks Swihart’s abilities on offense but is lauded for his glovework and game management skills. He had teamed with Christian Vazquez to form a defensive-oriented backstop combination in recent years, but the club opted to give Swihart a run at the position to open the season after utilizing him in a utility role last year.

Yankee 1B OPS: .606. Before the season started, I suggested this might be a weak area on the Yanks. Had you signed Machado and moved Andujar to 1B...