moonslav59

Theo says that Big Papi asked to be traded once and that he almost signed Madden instead of Tito. Red Sox almost traded David Ortiz WWW.MLB.COM Three World Series rings and more than 500 homers later, it's hard to imagine the Red Sox once agonized over whether to play David Ortiz or Shea Hillenbrand.But that was exactly the debate in Boston's front office during the 2003 season. Ortiz had been signed in January after the Twins

LOL! I thought we signed JMart to DH knowing he wants to play OF as much as possible. I'm not against giving him time out there, and think him playing only in NL parks might be as much as he should get and expect. I'm not the boss, but that's what I would do, especially after Pedey returns, and I'm looking for new PA opportunities for Nunez.

Have you noticed JMart wandering aimlessly out there, yet?

That's one Gran Paw!

Travis Shaw with Boston: .251/.312/.442 Someone, not me, might argue he wilts under the spotlight or the pressure that comes with playing in Boston.

I'd say ERA- and OPS against are better than ERA and WHIP. I'm not big on FIP, because it discriminates against low K but effective pitchers.

They are going to be tough. They also dumped Bautista- addition by subtraction.

It's hard to catch late breaks while watching on TV. Especially corner OF. Sometimes the TV view has the CF'er in view the second the ball is hit. As a TV viewer, we may never know if a ball was catchable or not. Sometimes, you just see a hard hit ball hit into no man's land and suddenly JBJ appears out of no where and makes the play, and you think, "He must have got a great break on that ball!" I haven't seen any of those plays with JD, but the Boston sample size is tiny.

The cracked shoulder had something to do with his numbers as well, and feelings towards playing the OF.

Let's hope Bogey continues where he left off. He was our best hitter (2nd best?) when he went on the DL.

To me, a pitcher's wins is about last on my list of criteria. Team record in his starts matters more, but is still below ERA- or ERA+, WHIP, OPS against, xFIP, WAR and just plain old ERA.

I think I'm able to separate the comps between JMart and our other three OF'ers. JMart is not the worst I've seen, and the sample size is still small, but he has looked very shaky to me. Ultimately, when you go to make the decision to play JMart in the OF, it does become a comp with the guy you're removing and the other bat you get into the line-up vs the guy you bumped out (most likely it would be Moreland vs JBJ or Beni). JMart's career OF numbers look bad, but his last 2+ seasons have looked horrific. Out of 117 MLB OF'ers with 900 innings in the OF, JMart places... 5th worst in UZR/150 at -15.1 Tied for 5th worst in DRS at -25. If you move the sample size to 77 OF'ers with 1500+ innings, JMart is worst in UZR/150. I don't disagree with wanting to see for yourself before passing judgement, but when I guy scores that lowly for 2 plus seasons, I'm pretty much convinced he's awful. Nothing he has done, so far, despite the no errors charged to him, has convinced me otherwise. Again, I'm okay with playing him in the OF, if it makes him happy and improves the offense by close to an equal amount of the choice hurting our defense, but I still feel that Pedey's return and Nunez then being thrown into the OF mix (and he's a better defender out there than JMart) makes me think the equation will be changed significantly. Maybe that is part of the reason why Cora is going out of his way to get JD OF looks early in the season.

Under this plan, Nunez hardly ever plays.

I've always thought Ks were over rated.

Probably not what you're looking for, and a two game sample size on one side of the equation makes me shiver, but here's something... Runs scored in non JMart games :14 in 2 games (7 per game) 21 Hits and 7 BB (14 H + BB/ game) Runs scored in JMart games: 110 in 19 games (5.8 per game) 186 H + 65 BB (13.2 H + BB/game) (Note: The with JD games incuded extra inning games, so those numbers are actually worse than they look....less runs and hits per inning)

Watching JMart play confirms my suspicions.

Right now, JMart as the 4th OF'er makes the most sense. Once Pedey squeezes Nunez out of a position, we will see. It's really a choice between Moreland/HRam and Nunez. With Moreland at 1B, HRam at DH, and JMart in the OF, Nunez can only play when our SS, 3Bman or 2Bman needs a rest. That's only maybe once a week. I don't see that happening. Assuming Swihart and Holt/Lin get zero PAs after Pedey comes back (doubtful), maybe we can see something like this... Vaz and Leon continue sharing catcher duty. 1B: HRam & Moreland DH: JMart & HRam/Nunez 2B: Pedey & Nunez 3B: Devers & Nunez SS: Bogey & Nunez LF: Beni & Nunez/JMart CF: JBJ & Beni RF: Betts & JBJ 10 players for 8 slots in the order. If we spread it our exactly evenly, whci i doubt we even try to do, it comes out to everyone sitting once every 5 games. Let's assume we rest Betts, Devers, JMart, Beni and Bogey once every 10 games (16 games a year). That leaves the other 5 guys (HRam, Moreland, Pedey, Nunez & JBJ) needing to rest 15 days every 10 games. That's 3 days off every 10 days. It doesn't seem realistic to me. My guess is one or two guys will be cut way back, or we might trade someone. Maybe someone is slumping badly or gets hurt and makes the choice easier. Is Nunez the worst hitter of the 10? Moreland? JBJ? Moreland & JBJ are plus defenders, but does that mean they play more than Nunez? Pedey might need more rest than others but how much? Things could get tricky.

Yes, both would get paid, but I think the question was geared towards who would get more? Who is worth more to the average GM? Most GMs probably don't look too closely at wins or ERA, but my guess is ERA is worth more.

Out of the 60 pitchers with 700+ IP since 2013, a 3.17 ERA would place you 11th behind Strasburg and ahead of Felix & Lester. A 3.58 ERA would place 29th- tied with Quintana and just ahead of Archer and Cashner. Fangraphs has these values listed: $170M Quintana $167M Lester $163M Strasburg $137M Archer $123M Felix (For what it's worth.)

It has a lot to do with their skill level, yes, but I truly believe a good catcher can maximize a pitcher's performance to a noticeable degree.

soxprospects.com Steven Wright left his first rehab assignment with the PawSox early due to stiffness in his back on April 20. Bill Koch of The Providence Journal noted that Wright was making his first start for the PawSox since July 12, 2015 but may find himself making more appearances with the Triple-A club due to the current logjam in the Red Sox starting rotation.

MLBTR suggest this guy as a possible replacement for Elias on the 40 man roster... Left-hander Daniel McGrath, 23, could be another eventual option who’s gotten off to a strong start in Double-A, though he’s not yet on the 40-man roster.

I was wondering when someone would suggest we start Swihart as catcher with our whopping .440 catcher OPS, but I'm fine with continuing as is. Opponents have a .600 OPS against us this year, and I think Vaz & Leon have a lot to do with that.

I always stood by with the fire extinguisher-- terrified the house would burn down.

Assuming everything else is equal (age, health, home park, quality of opponents, I think the 3.17/1.09 guy gets more.