moonslav59

LOL. Most of the numbers I use are old school. I don't consider OPS as all that "modern." I do like UZR/150 quite a bit, though, just because Fld% and range factor are so severely flawed.

This will help a tiny bit... The maximum number of mound visits per game will be reduced from six to five. Commercial breaks between innings are reduced to two minutes in length for all games.

Nobody claimed Nunez was a better defender than LeMahieu. In fact, my original post on the issue clearly states Nunez is not a good defender, but is better than Devers, who we all agree has been pretty bad. Your WAR numbers include a big defensive boost from his 2B defense.

For what it is worth, I don't value Steamer projections.

Maybe the bottom 4 or 8 should pick in reverse order.

He sucks at 2B, but when healthy, he's not really bad at 3B, at least over the last 3 years. He's not someone I'd want as my FT 3B, and neither is LeMahieu. I have faith in Devers. My hope is he can become close to average on defense within a year or two. If he hits like I think he will, I'm fine with a slight negative defense, but moving him to 1B may still end up being what is best. He's still young enough to improve. I think he's got quick reflexes, which helps at 3B. His range is already +3.7 on fangraphs, but he makes bad throws too often. That's something that is easier to correct than range, where you either have it or you don't. We'll know more after this year. We'll also know more about Dalbec & Chavis.

Well, it seems like a lot over a point nobody made.

I see two recent posts that bring defense into your argument. The one you are thinking of. The one where you mention WAR and Gold Gloves (not at 3B, I might add).

I went out of my way to say Nunez was not a good defender. I'm not sure why you keep going on like we have. Nunez is an upgrade over Devers- not the extent LeMahieu is over Andujar, but nevertheless, he is. Nunez mighty be a better hitter with the Sox than LeMahieu is with the Yanks based on the COL spilts and hiow well Nunez hits in Fenway. BTW, LeMahieu has just 245 innings at 3B with a 0.0 UZR/150. Inside Edge has him as making zero "unlikely, remote or impossible" plays at 3B. Nunez had 365 innings at 3B just last year (+6.9 UZR/150), but to be fair, he's been a -5.5 over his career in over 2,000 innings at 3B. He has been a net plus 2.6 since 2016 (1460 innings). He has made 17% of the unlikely plays over his career.

I agree. Those changes would be very radical and would change the history of the game. For stat geeks, we'd demand an asterisk for the "post rule change" era.

I do think the fact that Swihart has not caught even one batter with Sale speaks volumes. I'm not saying he can't gain comfort with Vaz or Swihart. I'm just saying I wouldn't mess with something that has worked fine. Out of 372.1 IP with the Sox, Leon has caught 319.1 of them. That's 86%. One could argue Vaz's 53 IP (14%) is not a large enough sample size to know anything, and I can understand that. That is why I am not projecting the past numbers to continue. I don't think projecting something like a 0.50 differential next year is out of line or absurd. One could argue I was being generous to Vaz. They didn't yank Vaz when Sale came in that WS game in relief. (Note: I'm not using numbers to try and show or prove my position is right but to support it. There are other points, like Cora and past managers choosing to go with personal caddies with the best starters. It's a long tradition in MLB. Also, there's a long tradition of changing caddies, when necessary.)

This is something that has been going on in baseball and with the Sox for decades. I'm sure catchers understand it better than anyone esle, except for maybe the pitchers. We won last year, despite all the discord or "friction" it caused. Also, I'm not aware Price has said anything. In fact, Vaz caught Price more than Leon in his time here and in 2018. 2018 394 PAs with Vaz (not counting the playoffs) 2.37 ERA (5.87 OPS against) 328 with Leon 4.68 ERA (.780 OPS against) Career 1113 with Vaz 4.32/.735 769 with Leon 2.83/.636 I don't think Cora minds who catches Price. I'm not sure Price does either. I do, but with with Price, it's not as "slam dunk" as Sale.

His lack of steady playing time is the major part of him having higher upside and not really anything he has done over his major or minor league career, except for a brief time in AA way back in 2014. I'm not sure where the "metrics" is coming from. How much better a few pitchers do with Leon has nothing to do with metrics, in fact, it has more to do with things that metrics don't capture... something I'm not usually associated with by some here. I totally respect your opinion and others who disagree with me on this one. You're one of the best posters on this site. Keeping Swihart has several advantages, and I realize I may be putting too much weight on the catcher-pitcher dynamic. Sale, Porcello & Price are not going to suck without Leon. I just hope the learning curve does not take too long or causes Vaz to burn out by having to catch too much.

Maybe playing in Colorado helped just a tiny bit... Career .835 Home .673 Away .835 Colorado .667 Yankee Stadium (Note: I never said Nunez was better and even pointed out his defense was not good- just that it was better than Devers.)

I'm against outlawing the shift. They used it vs Ted Williams.

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.