moonslav59

He was far from inconsistent when compared to the average pitcher in MLB. His injuries and suspensions are what made him unreliable, and some of his poor performances were partially a result of those injuries or rustiness upon returning from those injuries and the suspension. I'll use ERA as my stat of choice, because it's easier to research. Wright started off slowly in the minors, and ended up with about the same ERA as his career MLB number (3.77 to 3.79). His first 5 years were a bit "all over the map:" 5.67 (114 IP as a SP'er) 4.14 (148 as SP'er) 2.48 (87 almost all as RP'er) 4.91 (JUST 7 IP, so I don't count this) 5.02 (75 IP almost all as RP) 6.19 (134 back to mostly a SP'er) Then, we see a lot of consistently good numbers from 2012-2018, except for injury or shortened seasons: 2.54 (142 all as SP'er/ traded to BOS in 2012) 4.26 (135 IP all as SP'er with 13 IP in MLB at 5.40) 3.42 (100 IP all as SP'er in 2014) 4.09 (73 IP with BOS as SP/RP) and 3.81 in AAA (52 IP all as SP) 2015 3.81 (157 IP with BOS aa in 24 starts) 8.25 (JUST 24 IP in 5 starts- injured most of 2017) 2.68 (54 IP mostly in relief in 2018) and 4.86 in just 17 IP at AAA. If you throw out the 24 IP season of 2017, Wright had 6 straight seasons of remarkable consistency and positive production. His worst season was a decent 4.26 season way back in 2013.

It's not that hard to run the bases. It was a freak injury. Yes, inexperience might have been part of the issue, but asking a faster player to PR, desspite less experience, is not an absurd idea.

Maybe not you, but some Swihart supporters think he should have been allowed to play only catcher as well as be handed many more starts than we gave him.

...as well he shouldn't be, except as an emergency 3rd catcher on a 25 man roster that is probably better than most teams can come up with. We did the guy a favor by allowing him a chance to show he might be able to play another position. Nothing in his offensive history justified that opportunity.

Red Sox Select Josh Smith By Jeff Todd | April 26, 2019 at 2:25pm CDT The Red Sox have selected the contract of righty Josh Smith, per a club announcement. He’ll make a start today for the club if the scheduled contest isn’t rained out. Reliever Travis Lakins was optioned down to open active roster space. Smith, 31, saw 127 1/3 innings of big-league action from 2015-17 but failed to make it back up last year. He owns a 5.30 ERA with 7.3 K/9 and 4.4 BB/9 at the game’s highest level. (Note: another hurler by the same name also pitched in the upper minors last year with the Red Sox. He’s now with the Guardians.) Though he has never posted dominating numbers in the upper minors, Smith has struck out better than a batter per nine at the Triple-A level since the start of the 2017 season. He has racked up 23 strikeouts against five walks in 16 2/3 innings in three starts for Pawtucket to open the present season.

There were a lot of us that wanted Iggy at SS and Bogey at 3B. The Middy part of the equation was clearly secondary, especially as he began to show he sucked. I, for one, didn't feel we needed to get anything for Middy to make the above plan worthwhile.

It wasn't about what we could get for Middy. It was about having a great defensive SS and a solid 3Bman.

The argument made by myself and many others was to keep both Iggy and Bogey and trade Middy.

Again, it was never Iggy against Bogey. The idea was to keep both and move Bogey to 3B. One could start an argument about moving him to 2B, but we have no SS to take his place. (Plus, Bogey is pretty close to average on defense in some metric standards.)

Catcher injuries limit a lot of catchers from starting a ton of games, but last year no catcher started more than 123 games as a catcher. That basically means another catcher caught 25% of that team's games (or 39 games). If you split the starts up 60-40 (1 catcher catches 3 specific starters and the other 2 specific starters), the GS totals would be something like 97 to 65. Last year, only 11 catchers started more than 98 games at catcher. Only 8 started over 105 games. Most teams, due to injuries or whatever, already use something close to a 60-40 or 50-50 split anyways. (On an unrelated note, fangraphs ranked the Sox second in catcher defense last year behind AZ. We were also 4th in DRS and 2nd in pitch framing.)

He probably knows them better than we do, and maybe not in a good way.

I must have mentioned Cody over 20 times last winter.

If you look at the top RP'er signings this past winter, most have sucked or are hurt. Less than a handful have done well, so far.

Thanks for that info, Max. Good stuff. Was that loss to Cincy the year Oscar Robertson, another Buck great, led them to the top?

It was, for the most part, when nobody was hurt, Leon with Sale & Price and Vaz with the other 3.

I've been a Bucks fan since I lived in Milwaukee when Lew Alcindor won us a championship. The Celtics were our nemesis, as they were for many teams, but I always respected Havlicek. He was a smart player who always played his heart out. RIP

So sad, but the guy led a great life.

Good to see Porcello looking okay. He was far from perfect, but it looks like step in the right direction. Could Chavis be for real? It would be nice to get a big boost from an unexpected player. Betts is back. That's a big plus. Maybe we can springboard off these two wins.

People blame the ankle sprain on the Sox "messing him up" by making him play another position. The injury was unfortunate, but I view the chance they gave him to win a slot on the team as a non-catcher as a favor to him- not an impediment or obstruction- let alone "messing" him up.

Yes. I agree. I had hoped that consistency would carry over, and he could give us a full season of .790 offense. He may still end up at .790, and if he does, I'm not sure a 4 week slump will be enough to say it was an inconsistent season.

We agree on almost everything else, so it seems strange we are polar opposites on Swihart. Maybe there is a remote chance Swihart might have shown better progress or results had he stayed catching his whole time here and was given much more playing time, but I just don't see any evidence that warranted him being given more chances than he earned. The options running out hurt his chances to earn his way back through high performance in the minors. That might have hurt (assuming he is better than I think he is), but it was not the team's fault. The guy was not a good catcher. We gave him a chance at other positions. We held open a ML roster slot for him all last year and into the start of this year. He never took advantage of what was to me an undeserved extra chance. If Swihart goes on to have a plus career, I'll be happy for him, but even if he does, I'll still think we did more for him than he earned.

Last year, he never really got "hot" for an extended time, except maybe the playoffs. He actually did something he rarely had done before: he hit consistently well for 4+ months.

Swihart messed up. He got way more chances than he ever deserved or earned.

I get it. I love Devers' potential. I know I'm a homer, but I would not trade Devers for Merrifield.

I'm not saying I don't want Moreland back, but I don't think it will or should take $5M to bring him back at a post prime age. I'd offer him $3.5M/1 or $6M/2, and I doubt anyone offers more. (Those numbers might change, if he finally stays healthy for a full year and ends up near .800.