moonslav59

I'm jonsing for some Sox ball!!!

Busted a gut laughing!

I see a big drop from 2011 to 2012, then a slow but steady decline until an even bigger drop when he came here. The uptick on defense prevented his WAR from being a total downward curve, but the curve looks pretty steady to be with maybe a plateau at 2014. WAR: '11 5.3 '12 2.6 '13 2.0 '14 2.9 '15 -2.0 (His 2014 "better WAR" was also largely a result of playing more (638 PAs compared to 584 and 442 the previous 2 seasons). His offense is a complete decline curve: OPS: .909> .804>.789>.758>.739>.658 (BOS) 1RC+: 149>118>117>110>75 (BOS) His defensive curve shows a little up and mostly down: UZR/150 +19.3 +1.4 -6.3 +3.5 (2014 was the only uptick) -21.9 (BOS) DRS 14 -5 -5 4 (2014 w SFG) -11 (BOS) We can argue semantics, but he showed a pretty much uninterrupted decline since his last good season in 2011. If we want to say he plateau'd in 2014 or did better than 2013, I won't argue, but 2014 was still worse than 2011 and better than 2015. I never saw any reason to think his plateau in 2014 was any reason for optimism. His eroding defense and the .563 OPS vs LHPs in 2014 should have been an alarm that shut the whole idea of a signing down.

He had a decent career in SF but took a serious plunge after 2011 and then followed that up with 2 more slowly declining seasons. Obviously, we got him for more than just hoped for playoff heroics. We thought he could return closer to his earlier SF days, but probably not his best SF days.

But, when we sign a guy who only succeeds in the playoffs (Pablo) that doesn't work either!

Agreed. I will add this: 1) If we didn't sign someone big that winter, with all that money "available", Sox management would have been roasted alive. 2) Most big ticket free agent signings do not meet expectations. A large percent don't even come close. Some fail right from year one. 3) It looked like the plan was to address the offense after 2014 and the pitching after 2015 (a much better pitcher market). In theory, this made sense. 4) Had HRam and Porcello played like 2016 in 2015, and Pablo not fallen off a cliff, we probably would not have looked so bad. We might have even challenged for the playoffs. It's hard to blame Ben for the timing of these good & bad years. Basically, expecting our GM to make big signings and then blaming them for "choosing the wrong ones" when a large percent fail to reach expectations is confusing to me. Look at Price. There probably wasn't a surer bet of a SP'er signing than he was. Forget the overpay and the too many years argument, Price was one of the very best FA starters to hit the open market in a decade. We did what we had to do and got him. So far, he has not met expectations. He hasn't been bad, but now that he's hurt, the signing could end up looking like the next Pablo or CC signing. Posters grumbled at the Porcello signing, yet now they are happy as can be. These signings are largely hit or miss, and since most of the big signings occur when players are in or just past prime, missing should really be the expectation for most signings.

Ross has done very well for us, but all mid RP'ers are suspect. In no way was I saying I think Ross sucks or is going to suck, but he's not done much this season to gauge him by, so my point was that we might have kept Abad around as insurance against the small chance Ross does not do well. It wouldn't be the first time a RP'er dipped unexpectedly. GMs have to plan for these types of things as well as injuries. I think this is why DD chose to keep ABad so as to lengthen our pen depth, at least until we have a better understanding on who some of our guys are. Kelly, Barnes and Hembree were all question marks going into this year. Taylor and Workman have improved their stock, and I'm thinking Abad's usefulness as depth is waning.

I agree, but as of now, I don't really think we hurt anybody by "keeping them down" on the farm in order to keep Abad on the 25. That will probably change the minute the next RP'er comes off the DL.

I didn't even want Abad on the team, so I'm with you 100%. I was just stating what I felt the reason was for keeping him around. Another reason could be the uncertainty surrounding Ross- the other lefty. BTW, when Thorburg returns, we'll have our best RP'er vs LHBs on the 25 man roster. His reverse splits are mind-boggling.

He still might be our best 3B option this year. I had hoped he got a longer look before this.

..and keeping pen depth is never a bad idea...get it? A Bad idea? As of now, no great RP'er has had to be on the farm to make room for Abad. Some good one, but nobody who just had to be on the 25.

He was in pretty steady decline, but the curve went off a cliff. His drop from 2011 to 2012 was something that should have been alarming (.909 to .789), and the fact that he did not immediately go up in any of the following years showed there was cause. The expectation should have been for further decline- possibly as large as the 2011 to 2012 one. .909> .789> .758> .739 right before Boston. Looking at his last two years, the drop off was just 20-30 points a year, but even if he continued at that rate, we might have expected... 2015: .715 2016: .690 2017: .665 2018: .640 2019: .615 If you took the average yearly drop from 2011 to 2014, it would be 170 points divided by 3 or about 55 points a year: 2015: .685 2016: .630 2017: .575 2018: .520 2019: .465 Somewhere in between could have been expected, and so far, somewhere in between is what we got.

I wonder why we bothered to pay him so much to begin with.

How did Pablo hurt his knee?

I can't imagine us being worse defensively or vs LHPs, so the only area we might suffer is on offense vs righties.

Add the $9 or $10M we gave Masterson, and we could have paid $30M.

Yes, and clearly Abad would have to go, as he is out of options: 12 pitchers (options remaining): SP1 Sale SP2 Porcello SP3 Price SP4 ERod (2) SP5 & 6 Pom (0)/Wright (0) (one in long relief) RP1 Kimbre RP2 Smith (2) RP3 Thornburg (1) RP4 Kelly (1) RP5 Barnes (2) RP6 Hembree (0) (bubble in?) Bubble out?: Ross (2) Scott (3) Taylor (3) Abad (0) Workman (2) N Ramirez (1) Elias/Johnson/Owens/Kendrick/Haviland/Velezquez/Olmos/K Martin

If I had to guess, upper management wanted it more. Just my opinion.

Think about it, we've received one productive year for $80M. What other job can you f*** up so badly? And I thought getting one good year out of 3 year $39M for Shane Victorino was a rip off. We might end up spending $183M (Pablo + HRam) for just one good year (HRam's 2016 season). Even that season was just our 9th best WAR on the team at 2.6. We spent what amounted to $30M for one year of Renteria.

I believe for many, the problem was that we got into some back contracts with the signing of Crawford. That came from nowhere. That was a horrible signing from day one as well. At the time, I said his contract would "cripple us for many years" and that he was nothing more than a "glorified platoon player". His poor defense did sort of come out of "nowhere", but his decline was faster and steeper than even I expected. CC's splits before joining Boston: Year vs RHPs/ vs LHPs 2008 .754/.641 2009 .868/.704 2010 .930/.696 You guys probably think I'm hung up on splits, but it seems to me that players with wildly large splits seem to decline faster than others.

He faced a RHP for 46 PAs and a LHPs for just 15. That should be the other way around. That being said, he actually hit righties better!

If we could get that this year from our 3B position, I'd be tickled pink!

Maybe, if and when Pablo returns, he'll continue the platoon idea.

What's wrong with Bam Bam at DH? Bustin Pedroia at 2B, Bitch Moreland at 1B and Bazquez behind the plate?

Since 2013 includes 2014, 2015, 2016 and 2017. His decline actually started from 2011 to 2012, but he was still decent in 2012. While his UZT/150 was plus 3.4 in 2014, and one could consider that a decent year, a .739 OPS at 3B doesn't quite cut it for me. Obviously from 2015 to now, he's been a complete disaster. Worst or second worst 3B OPS (550+ PAs). Worst UZR/150 by a 3Bman (-22.0- a full 7 points worse than number 31, Danny Valencia)