moonslav59

So true.

Those should be the basic rights of everyone in the world, but for our great country to let this get away from us like this, worries me deeply.

It's horrible to think how well of this nation is, but hunger is still a serious issue. The worst part is, that many hungry children have a parent(s) who work FT or have multiple PT jobs. So many Americans are barely surviving paycheck to paycheck on unlivable wages, while the stock market surges upward rewarding stockholders more and more. It's not about money going offshore. It's about changing our priorities to where they were during the Eisenhower era.

Plus, some of the meals are so unappealing that even hungry kids don't eat them. There are thousands of kids who are battling hunger everyday in the USA. It's a fact.

MLBTR.... Rusney Castillo is something of a forgotten man in the Red Sox camp, as ESPN.com’s Scott Lauber writes that the outfielder has no clear path to MLB playing time or even the 40-man roster. Castillo is still hopeful of making an impact, as he is retooling his swing and is enjoying more personal comfort now that his five-year-old son and other family members have been able to leave Cuba to join him in the United States. Castillo signed a seven-year, $72.5MM deal with Boston in August 2014 but has just a .679 OPS over 337 big league plate appearances.

We won't know if it is overhype until he has a longer look. He was ranked pretty highly by people who know more about these things than we do. He was younger than Moreland at every level, so the comp is a hard one to grasp. I realize Moreland might do better both this year and going forward, but if Moreland struggles, Swi could get a chance to show he can do better. He could then go on and do better. I do think Swihart might already be better than Moreland vs LHPs, so if Young gets hurt or an OF'er gets hurt and forces Young to play OF and not platoon at DH with HanRam, I think Swihart would be a better choice than Moreland, if only vs LHPs. If Moreland struggles vs RHPs, maybe Swihart could do better. Sam Travis and Brock Holt would be the only in system competition for Swihart at 1B. I'm not sure anyone in our system would be a better DH, if Young, HanRam or Moreland gets hurt, regardless of Zips and Steamer having Holt or Travis projected with a higher OPS. I know, Swihart could struggle in AAA and not be "the next guy in line", and maybe my hopes for Swihart are clouding my judgment, but it's not a stretch to think he could win the DH platoon job from Moreland or beat out Holt and Rutledge at 3B, if Pablo struggles of gets hurt this year.

I said he "might" be better , and no zips projection is going to convince me Moreland is clearly a better hitter than Swi.

"Late & Close" and "High Leverage" take into account just the situations you are talking about. I don't see many people using RISP as a significant basis for claiming someone is clutch or not, or a choke. If they are, they are wrong. Papi overall: .931 Papi "Late & Close": .951 (Plate Appearances in the 7th or later with the batting team tied, ahead by one, or the tying run at least on deck.) High Leverage: .942 (Within a game, there are plays that are more pivotal than others. We attempt to quantify these plays with a stat called leverage index (LI). LI looks at the possible changes in win probability in a given situation; situations where dramatic swings in win probability are possible (e.g. runner on second late in a tie game) have higher LIs than situations where there can be no large change in win probability (e.g. late innings of a 12-run blowout). The stat is normalized so that on average the leverage is 1.00. In tense situations, the leverage is higher than 1.00 (up to about 10) and in low-tension situations, the leverage is between 0 and 1.0.) Papi had 9 seasons with a high leverage OPS of over .960. He had 9 seasons below .870, including 5 below .807. He had none within 28 points of his career norm! If it is a skill, it's very hard to be consistent ("repeatable"). In "Late & Close", he was... 5 times over .999 3 times between .895 and .941 1 at .867 0 times between .768 and .866 5 times between .699 and .767 3 times under .683

Other than 2B, where Hernandez is pretty close, what position is Holt the clear number one sub? I get the high value of having a guy that can play just about everywhere, but if he's not the first go to guy at 6 of the 7 positions he plays, I'm thinking his value on another team might be MUCH greater than with us. That's not saying he has no value here.

I think we all know there's a significant chance Pablo does not do well- fat or not too fat- or not fat at all.

So, what's changed this year, assuming a need arises? I say nothing. Swihart will plug a hole, if needed. Hopefully, none will open up, and Swihart will be given a long look as a catcher in AAA this year, and maybe we can determine where he best fits in as a result.

Makes me wonder if the need in LF was more of the reason than Swihart's troubles on defense behind the plate. Maybe the readiness of Vazquez made LF a greater need than catcher.

I've always been high on Hernandez. I think he's better on defense than Holt at SS, and might be close to equal at 3B and 2B.

I'm not either, but he's usually around .250 not .225 and 35-40 Hrs might be a lot better than what we find out we have at 3B half way through 2017.

I have heard this developmental comparison to Varitek before. Am I right in assuming that Varitek was a catcher and for the most part a catcher only. Yes, and he led the league in PBs at ages 27 & 28 with his fair share of WPs as well. His CS% rarely got above 30% even after 30. I don't remember anyone raving about VTek's great pitcher handling until after age 30. No, we are not going to wait until Swihart reaches age 30 to see if he can catch. He's much different then VTek. I only brought up VTek's name to show that some catcher take longer than otehrs to develop into a plus-plus. I think the Sox want to be patient. I think they wanted to have him catch in AAA last year, but sometimes team needs take precedent.

He could be better than Moreland. He's probably better (at least on offense) than Holt at 3B. If an OF;er gets hurt and Young is not longer HanRam's platoon partner at DH, Swihart could DH vs LHPs better than anyone else, and be availble elsewhere vs righties. If Young gets hurt, Swihart could be our 4th Of'er.

Yes.

I agree and said so. I'm just saying, if something happens at 1B, 3B or OF during the season, we might see Swihart at another position out of need- just like last year.

I think that Blake Swihart is one hell of an athlete. That being said I doubt very much that he ever catches full time for the Sox. He may get a look but we all know that he has a lot of work to do. The Red Sox don't need to be in a wait mode. He has been dinged around for awhile now so at least it is a good thing I think that they seem committed to leaving him behind the plate. His bat could be race ready early this year. If they can't find a way to use this kid , it would be a shame but in order for him to catch in Boston, he would have to show remarkable improvement in a short period of time. I agree 100% CP. Although Swihart is still young enough to develop into a decent defensive catcher. Some pretty good catchers, like VTek, didn't really become a plus on defense until near or after age 30. I'm not sure the Sox have that long to wait him out, and besides his team control years will be up before age 30 anyways. (He'll be 29 his last arb year.) We have 5 years of team control with Swihart. That's plenty of time to see, first, if he can catch, and if not, learn another position or two. I still think he'll only become our FT catcher, if Leon and/or Vaz stumble. Certainly a significant chance of that exists to keep Swihart on the catcher development path than to seriously have him start learning another position. I don't see any harm in having him take some reps at 3B and 1B and maybe even LF (again), but nothing that would interfere with his catcher reps. I get the messing with his psyche argument, and if Sox management feels he probably can't handle it, then I trust their choice to wait it out. Do people think that this franchise is willing to wait a couple of years for him to develop as an actual catcher if his bat is major league ready? Do they need to? Personally, I wonder what is going through his mind right about now. I can see the push to have Swihart play 3B, 1B, DH or LF this year, if something unfortunate happens at any of those positions during the season. I think his bat is too good to leave at AAA, if we have a giant need somewhere.

Agreed, but HanRam can play 1B and Moreland can play 1B and corner OF. Papi could play 1B in NL parks, but that was about it. I agree; every team needs good subs, and having one that can play many positions is a great value to have, but I think Holt would play more on other teams. That seems to indicate his value would be higher on other teams. That does not mean we should trade him, but sometimes it becomes the foundation for a trade. In theory, the drop off from Holt to Hernandez would be more than offset by the improvement at the position we trade for. Plus, I'm not even sure there's be a drop off at some positions, if Hernandez takes his place. Here's a possible scenario: let's say Pablo sucks or gets hurt, we could maybe trade Holt for Todd Frazier at the deadline or beforehand. BTW MLBTR reports.... If Pablo Sandoval doesn’t reestablish himself as a capable third baseman this year, the Red Sox could eventually swing a trade for Todd Frazier of the White Sox, writes Nick Cafardo of the Boston Globe. Chicago will have paid more than half of Frazier’s $12.5MM salary by the trade deadline, which should make the 31-year-old an attractive target for Boston or other contenders, Cafardo observes. Given that the White Sox are amid a rebuild, it seems they’d prefer to ship out established veterans like Frazier sooner than later, as general manager Rick Hahn implied in an interview with MLBTR contributor Brett Ballantini earlier this week.

It surely has value. Now that we don't have DH only, I think the need is not so great

Last year he only had 324 PAs and still faded late in the season. Career OPS by month: .840 APR .646 MAY .828 JUN .707 JUL .618 AUG .652 SEP .788 first half .620 second half I've caught some grief for holding this position, but I still think Holt's value is greater on another team than ours, where they could use him more often, and where a .700 OPS is better than what some starters give those teams. Also, his best position is 2B, and that is a spot he just won't get much time playing in Boston, unless there's an unfortunate injury. Holt is great as an emergency jack-of-all-trades, but if we need someone to cover a position for a 10+ day stretch, here's how I see Holt's placement on our depth extended need chart: 2B: Holt (Hernandez very capable/Marrero capable) SS: Hernandez then Holt or Marrero 3B: Rutledge then Holt or Hernandez LF: Young then Holt, then or Quentin/Moreland 1B: Moreland or HanRam, then Travis, then Holt CF or RF: Young then Holt As much as I love having a guy like Holt on our 25 man roster, I see him as the top sub at only one position (2B) and maybe pretty close at 2 more (3B & SS). That alone is not reason to trade him, and I wouldn't go out of my way to trade him at least until we know more about Pablo. I could see him being part of a package at the deadline to fill a need that arises over the season. (Note: I'm not bashing Holt. I like him a lot, but the foundation of any trade usually starts with the idea that a player might have more value with the other team...and vice versa.

Could be true, but I do think being at the big league level earlier than planned should not have been a major stunting aspect of his development, especially since he did pretty good in 2015. Usually rushing a prospect only backfires when he sucks and loses confidence. While I don't disagree with your position, I think he got great coaching at the big league level in 2015 and seemed to improve as the season went on. I'm sure they helped him focus on his highest need areas, and put no offensive pressure on him. 2016 was an entirely different situation. They lost faith quickly and then were pressed into switching him to LF out of team needs.

I think Swihart should get all the time he needs to develop his defensive catching skills, but I don't think it would hurt to let him start taking a few grounders at 3B after he's done with practice.

I agree that Swihart's highest value (here or in trade) is probably going to be as a catcher. I agree, he was rushed (out of necessity) in levels, but he was still catching that year. I'm not sure we can bllame a lack of opportunity to catch on his defensive woes. Age 20: 66 games catching at Greenville (A) Age 21: 101 games catching at Salem (A+) Age 22: 97 games catching (81 at AA and 16 at AAA) Age 23: 100 games catching (83 at MLB and 17 at AAA & AA) Then 2016. I'm not sure the 83 games at the ML level in 2015 hurt as much as we might think it did, He actually did okay, andif anything, it should have helped his confidence. Had those 83 ML games been at AAA not MLB, he'd have had what looked like a perfect progression in games and levels catching in professional baseball with 2016 or 2017 looking like his year to break into MLB as a catcher, assuming he proved worthy at AAA.