moonslav59

Must be pretty horrible.

Your idea of fairness is warped.

What's a "few games?" 5, 10, 25? What does he need to do to extend the look? What if he hits okay or better, but our staff looks worse? How will we know, if any decline in pitching is attributable to Swihart?

Why? A) Because Sox management felt he would never be able to improve enough to be our catcher. Because we needed a LF'er and Sox management still felt Swihart could develop as a catcher, but chose current need over the long run. If it was B, I think we'd have seen Swihart catch more last year and in spring training this year. The words "fair chance" are not so easy to define and aply to this situation. I happen to feel that the Sox giving Swihart a chance to try and win a job at another position was as fair as they could and should have been. IMO, he was never going to develop into a capable catcher, This is Swihart's 7th season in professional baseball. He's caught over 2,900 innings on the farm and 750+ at the ML level. 3,714 innings + 49 in winterball. I think Sox management has had a significant defensive sample size to judge what's fair or not when it comes to continuing or ending his development chances as a catcher. IMO, they have made the right choice. Our slumping catchers does not make Swihart any better on defense.

Agreed, but then again, our 1B defense is improved.

Pass.

It was also dumb not letting someone know he was feeling tired.

They moved him, because... A) He sucks as a catcher We missed out on getting Carlos Beltran and needed a LF'er who might be able to hit.

I feel the should have moved his position earlier. The injury was unfortunate, but one never knows what might have happened had he stayed catching. He may have ended up having a career ending injury.

Also, decent catchers are hard to find. Swihart is still largely an unknown. Once Pedey comes back, it will be time to choose what to do, assuming we don't put Nunez, JBJ or someone else on the DL (phantom or otherwise).

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.