moonslav59

I get that, but my point is, I do not think Swihart was ever viewed as our number one catcher, except due to another catcher being injured or rehabbing.

True, but we lost 9 of 11 at one point and went 15-16 from April 30th to May 31st that championship season. Did we look like a championship team during that period? Do we look any worse now than we did then? The Sox went 11-16 from June 28th to July 31st during the 2007 championship season. Same thing about that team. Most championship teams play like crap for stretches here and there- sometimes stretches that last 1-3 months.

Certainly, I do not think the increase in runs allowed is due to JBJ being benched... maybe a run or two. I was trying to point out that we are not allowing all that many more now than in our first few games. Talk of our staff being in decline is just not something I am seeing. Out of our last 11 games, we've let up .... 0-3 runs 5 times 4-5 runs 5 times 9 runs 1 time

We are not going to trade for a RP'er until we see how Thornburg shakes out. Then, assuming Smith is toast, we will likely give all of these guys a look, before going outside the organization: Locks: Kimbrel, Kelly, Barnes Near Locks: Wright, Velazquez (DL) & Poyner Out of options & on the bubble: Hembree & Johnson DL: Thornburg, Smith & Maddox That's 11 guys for 7 slots. Others who probably will get or deserve a chance: WHIP on the farm (OPS against) 1.03 Workman (0.658) 1.00 R Scott (0.593) 2.50 M Walden (.919 in 6 IP) T1.41 Buttrey (o.758) I wouldn't be at all surprised, if we never trade for a RP'er this year.

Becasue Vaz was hurt or rehabbing.

2011 he was Drafted, by 2014 he was in Triple AAA putting up good numbers Offensively and Defensively. By "defensively", I guess you mean CS%. https://www.baseball-reference.com/r...d=swihar000bla The plan was him to be #1 and Vaz the Back-up. I do not think that was ever the plan. Vaz got hurt, and that is how Swihart jumped to the 1 slot.... briefly.

I agree and support management on this call. I do not want Swihart catching. I've felt that way for years and advocated moving him to another position(s) long before they did.

I already showed how badly he's done since 2015 on another post. I was just showing why he was chosen over Hanigan & Leon in 2015 and to start 2016. Here's what I wrote on the page before this one... Swihart has been injured for some of the last few years, but here are his minor league numbers since being called up to Pawtucket in 2014: .659 (71 PAs) Paw 2014 .714 (80 PAs) Paw 2015 .655 (122 PAs) Paw 2016 .539 (212 PAs) Paw 2017 .575 (38 PAs) Gulf (2017) .689 (422 PAs) MLB 2015-2018 Nothing here screams for giving him a shot based on his offense.

If both catchers just hit their career numbers, I'd be happy due to their defense. .634 Vaz .655 Leon This .448 team catcher OPS is not even close to their norm. It would be like Betts hitting .600 to .700.

He was our starting catcher due to injuries.

He started 6 games to start 2016 and 19 total in 2016.

When they gave Swihart his chance in 2015, he was rushed into the job. That's the biggest factor in his favor, as far as I'm concerned. His recent offensive numbers at that point we very promising for a catcher: .794 in A+ 2013 .810 in AA & AAA in 2014 While some of his more recent offensive struggles can be attributed to injury and rehabbing from injury, he's shown no glimpses of good offense, except for spring training. BTW, Swihart's back-up in 2015 was more Hanigan than Leon. I still think Swihart started the 2016, because Vaz was not ready, and although the chance was very short, the Sox had let up 7 or more runs in their first 8 games. I'm thinking that was just a symptom of what management had feared all along with Swihart.

My concern now is with the pitching. The rotation and bullpen are both struggling. Last year we didn't have Price and did have other issues, but the team ERA was still 4th best in MLB. Early this season with Johnson and Velazquez in the rotation, the team ERA was under 3 and 2d best in MLB. -Max I'm not seeing the same staff decline you are, and the numbers seem to support my viewpoint. .682 Season OPS against .703 Last 14 days OPS against 1.192 WHIP season 1.185 WHIP last 14 days Over the last 14 days, only Porcello, Kimbrel and Hembree have an OPS against above .800. 4 of our top 7 IP pitchers have a 14 day OPS against below .680 (Sale, ERod, Kelly & Barnes). Plus, maybe we should have expected our staff to start letting up more runs once we benched JBJ. We've let up 48 runs in out last 12 games. We let up 40 in our first 12 games. While that's a significant difference, I'm hopeful Pom & ERod are rounding into shape after recovering from injuries. Price is a wild card. Porcello's last 2 games have not been very good, but I'm not all that concerned about him. Smith's injury could hurt us, but maybe Thornburg steps in for him.

This wasn't directed at you. My point was aimed at those who seem to feel we have no chance at winning, because we have black holes in our line-up. If that were true, then the Astros and yanks have no chance either, and nobody wins the AL championship. I do agree on trying to address our team's biggest weakness(es) as the best way to improve our chances of winning this fall. It looks like we have addressed JBJ's issue, at least for a while. Although our defense may now need tweaking, benching JBJ and watching Moreland hit over .950 solves that one "black hole". Pedey's return should fix the offense issue at 2B. That leaves us with just one "black hole" in out line-up: the catching position. I, for one, do not expect Vaz and Leon to stay sub .500 all season, but if it appears like they will, I would not be against us looking to improve there. I just don't think the sample size is large enough to look at major changes there at this point in the season.

The "blame game" has become a blight on our society. It's always somebody else's fault.

I'd add better base-running awareness, but I agree totally. I'm also hoping his OBP improves more than his slugging.

I do think they extended Vaz, because the feel he has "the talent" to be our #1 catcher for 3 years. They probably aren't looking at the same criteria we are. I'm sure they are concerned about the sub .500 OPS. I doubt they expected or continue to expect this offense for 3 years. If Vaz continues hitting under .500, maybe their formula tells them he's no longer a plus, and they'll look elsewhere, but I'm almost certain they will not be looking in Swihart's direction no matter how much some posters here want them to do. As you know, catching is not all about throwing out runners, blocking wild pitches, pitch-framing and calling pitches. Coming from a person sometimes criticized for being too numbers orientated, this is one area not quantifiable with easy to access data. A catcher's rapport with his pitchers is extremely important, and each pitcher's comfort level with their catcher is something to take seriously. Can our staff quickly adjust to a new catcher? Maybe- probably, but how long would it take? Might we lose a few games during the learning curve all for a couple more hits per week? I'm not saying I'm happy with our .441 catcher OPS. It stinks! If it's still at .450 in a month or two, I might feel differently, but it looks like we've already made adjustments to lessen JBJ's poor offense's affect on our team, and Pedey should help improve our 2B offense. I'm thinking we should leave our catcher situation as is for quite a while longer and see how the offense looks as we near the trade deadline. I'm not even sure, if DD and Cora are terribly alarmed by our catcher situation at this point. I'm sure they are concerned, but they may not even be close to thinking of replacements.

It's how we play in October that will be most memorable.

The thing is a "few games" proves nothing. Even if Swihart goes 10 for 25, it might end up hurting us in the long run. Just a hypothetical question, would Swihart playing 2 out of 4 games and hitting .270 (.750 OPS) be a plus, if our team ERA went up by 0.50 in games he plays due to his defense?

Nobody knows their names, but here's all you need to know: 5 of their top 8 RP'ers (35+ IP) had ERAs above 4.35. (3 of 8 were over 5.60.0\ Their pen had a combines 1.28 WHIP, but 5 of their top 8 relievers had a WHIP over 1.32. They did have 3 guys under 1.04 WHIP and 3.00 ERA. How does our 2018 pen stack up to that? Yes, small sample size, but... We have 4 of our top 5 IP guys in the pen with an ERA below 3.07. Kimbrel 0.75 and Kelly 0.93 are a nice 1-2 in WHIP leaders. (Barnes is 1.89.) Team pen WHIP is 1.23 (ERA 3.63).

I can see how a team catching OPS of .441 this year can spur a discussion on giving our 3rd string catcher a shot, assuming he even is 3rd on the organizational long term catcher depth chart, but it's the surety of the Swihart support claims that has us thinking about reaching for a gun. BTW, it wouldn't be my own brains I'd be aiming at- hypothetically speaking, of course.

That only works for Sox players who have sucky recent SSS.

I keep hearing people crying about our 2-3 black holes in our line-up (Vaz/Leon and JBJ, and maybe Nunez). Let's look at some other top teams and their worst 3 hitters. (BTW, ourtop 6 guys in tonight's line-up ended the game with an OPS over .785. Betts went 2 for 4 and saw his OPS drop! Out of top 9 players by PAs: NYY .646 Gardner (3rd in PAs) .557 Walker (7th) .684 Hicks (8th) HOU .615 Gonzalez (5th) .692 Gurriel (7th) .620 Gattis (8th) (.434 Marisnick 10th) (Why do we suck, but these guys are great?) Here's us... .613 Nunez (6th) Pedey on the way back .520 JBJ (7th) PAs being restricted as we speak .435 Vaz (8th) Bogey is 9th in PAs but won't end up there. Moreland and Holt are 10th and 11th. Leon is 12th in team PAs and it's like he's the reason we are playing .500 ball recently! I can't help but chuckle sometimes.

LOL. Maybe ST'ing proved something....like those who thought Betts was toast based on a March slump.

zero chance, unless you package Swi with Devers or Beni plus maybe Beeks and Velazquez.