moonslav59

That's the truth. There many of us. I remember when the argument turned to "should he still start, if he's hitting .220?" I always said, I never felt he'd hit .220, but if he didn't, I'd still want him starting CF everyday.

My point? IMHO there's more to it than just PA's. It's whether the player has the innate talent, is coachable and is willing to put in the work, all things we as fans have no way of knowing. Maybe merely trying to assign a certain number of PA's to determine whether a player is 'for real' may be a mistake. Makes me wonder how many JBJ's were out there that never got that second long look chance. His great defense was what made that choice easier, but what if...?

I actually do not think even 500 or 600 is NOT a large enough sample size, particularly if it is a player's first 500-600 PAs. Other factors to consider is were those PAs spread out over several seasons, and did the player get sent down and up several times within a season. I never believed JBJ was that bad on offense, and while many players did good to great in the minors and never did well in the majors, I just never thought that would happen to JBJ. I'm not making excuses for JBJ, but he sucked his first 500-550 PAs in MLB. However, he did so well in the minors and ST'ing that I thought he needed a longer look. Thank God, they gave it to him. His OPS was over .850 in over 1,000 minor league PAs, but he had only been on farm for 2 years before being given the starting job to start the 2013 season. He played 12 games and was sent down, later he was called up for 3 games, then back down, then up for 4 games, then back down again. He came up for another 4 games before going back down until his call-up in early September where he played in 14 games (11 for more than half the game). Counting those 107 PAs from 2013 against JBJ was probably not too fair. They did give him a fair shot in 2014 with 423 PAs, but I still didn't think the sample size was large enough to know much about his offense. I was one who argued that his defense was enough to make up for a very poor OPS, and I never was on board with them sticking him in LF and RF so much. From 2013-2015, he started these amounts of games at OF positions: LF: 23 CF: 146 RF: 34 I doubt this messed with his hitting, but it did not allow him to show his maximum potential input to the club. He's been between .832 and .835 the last two years. He dropped off the last two months of last year, but his August 2015 to July 2016 was a 617 PA sample size of an .850+ OPS.

I kind of view clutch as rising above your norm to do better when it counts, but since most super clutch situations usually involve facing better-than-norm pitching and defense, one might expect everyone's clutch "norm" to be lower than non-clutch "norm". If that's the case, then a player producing at his non-norm rate could be viewed as "clutch" by some, and I get it. Papi's playoff, high leverage and "late & close" numbers were all pretty close to his overall career numbers, so unless yo apply the "harder than normal" aspect to hitting in the clutch, it's hard to argue he was definitively clutch. The other important aspect of the Papi case is that if you had a random generator spit out results on the same amount of players and sample sizes "in the clutch", one would see some random samples with very high numbers, so was it all just luck or not? That's what's the hard thing to prove one way or the other. I've always said, if any one baseball player could ever be definitively called clutch, it would have to be Papi. I admit, I'm biased and have not experienced other players from other teams continuously coming through "when it counted".

Travis Wood signs for $12M/2 or $18.5M/3 (option) with the Royals with no guarantee to make the rotation. He'd have fit into our budget numbers, but I think saving luxury tax space for the deadline (or before) makes more sense than going after someone like Wood.

I think mental make-up is a big part of overall success and success "when it counts" (clutch). It's hard to prove that the reason player A does better than player B "in the clutch" is because of superior mental-make-up, or if it is just some confluence of random events. I'm fine with using the term "clutch" for describing events and happenings, or to say so and so "sure seems to come through in the clutch", but when it come to definitively labeling a player "clutch" (or "choke"), I don't think it is something I'd do. Sample sizes are often too small, and when larger sample sizes are used, the results often mimic the same results as a random generator would produce, so even then, it's hard to "prove" anything. Also, is "clutch" doing better or much better than you usually do or that you do in "Non-clutch" situations? If a great player does great in the clutch- but no better than non-clutch situations, is he still "clutch"? The argument or debate is often sidetracked by varying views on just what clutch is and which situations are actually clutch or not.

So can just about every other fair to mediocre pitcher in MLB.

Most good (not great) pitchers have good and bad streaks. The either "have it" or "they don't". I really never viewed Wake as being any more inconsistent than other 3-4-5 starters in MLB at that time. He was basically a one pitch pitcher, so maybe it's more noticeable when that pitch is not working. He had no other pitch to fall back on like others did which I think helped stoke the image of him being up and down more than others. If you actually look at his numbers and game logs, he was pretty consistent from year to year and withing each season- no more- no less than other back end starters in MLB. Remember, he also pitched in a hitter's park, in the steroid era and on teams that sometimes lacked in plus defense. At times, he had catchers who had no clue as to how to catch a knuckler. I guess one could blame the pitcher for that, but I never did. If a pitcher can throw a pitch that is hard to catch, imagine how hard it must have been to hit! Part of being consistent is being healthy and giving innings. He went 14 straight seasons and 16 out of his 17 seasons with Boston with 140+ IP! He had 13 seasons with 154+ IP and 9 with 180+ IP. His ERA was between 4.13 and 5.14 in 14 of 17 seasons with the Sox (1 at 2.95, 1 at 5.48 and 1 at 5.34). His ERA- was over 103 just once in his first 15 seasons with Boston! It was under 98 ten out of his first 15 seasons. His career WHIP was rather high (1.35), but he was pretty consistent there too by coming within 0.12 of his career norm in 12 of his 17 seasons with us. (3 of the other 5 seasons he was below by more than 0.12.) Except for his last season here, in sesasons with 19 or more starts, his QS% was always between 47% and 73%. All 17 Sox seasons: 3 seasons over 67% QS's 6 seasons from 52% to 60% 5 seasons from 47 to 48% 3 seasons from 29 to 35%% (all when split between starting and relieving) I think if we compare Wake to the top 3 & 4 starters in MLB at that time, he'll look just as consistent.

I know many think it's pointless to do these "what ifs", but it's winter, and there's nothing much to discuss. Had we not done the Kimbrel and Pom trades, could we have pulled off the Sale trade plus this one? Margot, Espinosa, Geurra, Allen, Asuaje for Quintana? We'd have Sale, Quintana, Price, Porcello, ERod & Wright (No Pom) We'd have someone like Clippard and another pen arm instead of Kimbrel (and with his money saved).

Me. Plus Basabe and Diaz. I think I suggested Moncada, Kopech, Hembree (out of options), Owens and Johnson

Yeah, I didn't take it that way. Personally, I loved watching Wake pitch. He did well more than he did poorly. I think he had a 52% QS rate and was over 70% a couple years in a row for the Sox. Towards the end, he was still a capable 5th starter type. Not having a capable catcher hurt. He only had over 10 WPs once up until his last few years- then it was like 4 out of his last 6 years with over 10.

Not everyone. I've never suggested trading Betts, Porcello and I think ERod and Wright. Like I said, I'm not pretending to be an expert on trade ideas. I do remember several posters called me crazy for even mentioning any trade ideas for Sale or Quintana.

1995-2011 HR/9 Sox 0.9 Wake 1.2 WHIP Sox 1.36 Wake 1.35 ERA- Sox 93 Wake 96 From 2002 to 2011, fangraphs placed his value at $83.5M while his actual salary was $28M over that period. They did not compute value before 2002.

Makes sense. I meant to say trade them (one year signings), if you are out of it. I think the Yanks could surprise this year.

For many many years.

I get your point. Once we had Pom (and still had Buch), the need for Sale was not as great, but my position is that guys like Sale don't come along very often- low cost, still young, multiple years of control and top ace history. You gotta pounce as long as the return is not wildly too much. Here's how I rank DD's moves from the bottom up: 1) Pomeranz 2) Kimbrel 3) Price (This doesn't mean if any one of these deals did not happen, some other one or ones would not have been called for and done.) From the top: 1) Sale 2) Thornburg 3) Ziegler Others (somewhere in the middle): Carson Smith, Young signing, Mitch Moreland signing, Aaron Hill, F Abad, Buch's option & trade,

Middy was the perfect example for exposing how getting overly giddy or down on a player based on 300 PAs (or significantly more) is bound to be the wrong thing to do often enough to persuade people to stop doing it. Unfortunately, that never seems to happen. I caught some grief for suggesting about 2 dozen trades involving Middy after his 2012 half season and into the 2013 season where he had hit 33 HRs over a 615 AB stretch over those two "half" seasons. I'm not saying I didn't fall into the trap of wishful thinking or hype a little bit, as some players do outperform their minor league numbers once in the bigs, but I always felt like it was more "flash in the pan" than something we could count on. Beni gives no such clues, and his minor league record shows he has been quick to adjust to every new level and challenge thrown his way. Middy had a .766 AAA OPS in 896 PAs- a way bigger sample size than the 286 PAs in 2012 (.776 over all levels of the minors combined). He also K'd 198 times in 833 ABs in AAA and 96 in 375 ABs at AA. There were obvious signs he had "holes" in his swing. Sure, player adjust and re-adjust, and we didn't know how little he wanted to work at it, but his minor league numbers should have raised a big red flag to all of us. It didn't. I'm not trying to claim to be some sort of expert on minor to major league projections. I was high on Cecchini and Hassan, so I've been wrong enough to know I'm no genius on this stuff, but I do think using caution on small sample sizes is almost always the right thing to do. Beni's sample sizes are small. He's only got 775 PAs in 2 years of professional baseball, but he's show no indication of struggling. He has more BBs (74) than Ks (63). He's got less than 1 K per 10 PAs. That's a good sign, but let's give the kid some more time and allow him some stretches for adjustments and learning. I think he's got a super high ceiling, and that's one reason he's ranked number 1, but I'm more convinced his floor is pretty damn high.

I'm not very confident either, and hopefully we don't need 30+ starts out of our 8 to whatever starters. I've all but given up on Owens and Johnson with Elias not far behind. Kyle Kendrick and Shawn Haviland are not going to win us a ring either, but I'm not sure our 8-12 starts are much worse than most teams, so unless we have more injuries than others, we shouldn't lose too much ground. We have to hope no more than one starter is out at the same time.

One could argue those players that played 4 years of college are less prospects than a raw kid out of high school. The line has to be drawn somewhere, and we as fans, can make adjustments on our own based on age, and amount of organized and professional ball.

Yes, but I don't hate Pom.

Of course I hated the trade, because I believe Espi will be better than Pom (or the same but for double the years at a lower cost). I know I can be wrong on this. I also know it's not always fair to judge a trade or a GM by how trades ended up working out. We needed a starter, and trading for a 2 month rental would have been costly too. I'm glad we got 2.5 years not 0.33. I'm bummed Pom's injury is lingering, but I hated the deal before I found out about the pre-existing condition- now it looks worse.

My beef was not with Pom. I liked and still like him. As you feel, I'm more and more feeling worse about his end of the deal. I didn't expect Pom to reach the full potential of Espi, nor did I expect him to repeat his numbers in SD 2016. I did expect him to do better than a 1.4 WHIP. The injury issue is probably the reason he was that bad, but injuries count when evaluating a trade post-trade. Everyone knows I hated the trade day one, and right from the start I said it wasn't about Pom. I se it like this: we traded 5-6 years of team control with Espi for 2.5 years of Pom. I get why we did it. We needed a starter and he came with 2 more years after 2016. I get that he was/is more of a proven commodity, and Espi is speculative value only. To me, it was more about double the control years, and my belief that in 3-4 years, we will not be able to keep all our stars. Having a low cost pitcher to take over for Porcello or C Sale could solve more than one problem. If Espi can replace one of those two without a big drop off in production, we could use the money saved to keep one more of our stars. I'm not afraid to look that far ahead. I realize Espi might amount to no more than Owens or Barnes. I get that, but his upside is enormous. I'd have been fine with trading Moncada, Espi or Kopech, Basabe and Diaz for Sale last summer. We'd still have Kopech or Espi AND Sale. I know that sounds like I'm contradicting myself, since that sounds like it was about Pom not Espi, but 3.5 years of Sale vs 2.5 of Pom is night and day..

Certainly he could. I wasn't thrilled by what he gave us "already". He finished 6th in IP and 10th in team pitching WAR. 4.59 ERS/1.369 WHIP I think Sox management expected much better than that. I'm not trying to bash Pom. As much as I hated the deal, I like Pom. I expected him to do better last year, and I'm expecting him to do well, if healthy for the next two year. I just think Espi is going to be something very very special.

We have 2 days off in April (the 7th and 14th) and then the next on May 2nd. We can do with out a 5th starter for one rotation. We will need a 5th starter for our 7th game of the season. The way I figure it, our 5th starter will get 4 starts in April as the others get 5 each.

That's assuming our medical staff knows what they are doing.