moonslav59

I couldn't disagree more. This is the first chance these young kids of ours have had a chance to not "come up short". I've been screaming for more top quality pitching since 1970, when I started following the Sox, but trading Moncada and/or Benintendi to try to get one now, IMO is not the answer. I want the Sox to win for many years to come, so I trading our extended future away in hopes of striking it big this year is not my idea of a good idea.

At the risk of sounding like a broken record, this is why you really can't go wrong stocking up on quality SP'ers over the winter. At worse, you end up trading away excess at super high exchange rates. At best, you win a ring.

I'm not saying it's a very important number, but it does "matter".

Team record in starts matters: Price 11-11 Wright 12-8 Porcello 15-5

QUOTE=a700hitter;1015413]Yeah, but her mother and father aren't taking her. WE took our 20 year old daughter to Disneyland last Xmas.

Buch will be traded for a single A player.

My 50 year old wife still begs to go to Disney 10 times a year! Disney is ageless.

Maybe he's trying too hard for Ks and is leaving the ball over the plate more often than normal- hence more hits.

And, this is why pitching keeps you in more games than hitting. It's math. Yeah, SP'ers only pitch every 5th day, but they can face more than 850 batters over 33 starts. Last night's game was unfortunate, but we still have 3 of our top 4 RP'ers on the DL. It's too bad that the one game Price let up zero runs, when we needed it, our pen let him down.

Then again, maybe not.

Maybe they brought their families, so they could go to Disney Land. This trip is going to be very enjoyable for once. (IMO)

Maybe just enjoying the trip. I doubt we make any big moves. The overpay this time of year is too extreme.

Groundballs are fine - although they had a giant sucking sound at 3B last year. In particular, when you play half the games at Fenway, keeping balls out of play is a pretty good idea. True, and although Bogey has come a long way on defense, his range factor was minus last year. Our combined SS/3B UZR/150 was -13.4. That was the worst in MLB last year. (The combined range factor was about -29.) I thought the idea made sense, but then signing Pablo contradicted the plan.

How about the last 365 days? Ortiz .325 42 136 (1.086 OPS) JBJ .290 25 102 (.916) Betts .316 28 94 (.899) Bogey .331 16 97 (.846) Pedey .304 14 51 (.831) Shaw .269 25 91 (.809) Ramirez .260 13 65 (.749) B Holt .265 5 47 (.703) Under 250 PAs .930 Leon .846 Young (Sox only) .802 Swihart .696 Rutledge .674 Castillo .583 Vazquez .571 Hanigan .560 Sandoval

Here's a list of out hottest hitters over the last 28 days: 1.085 Betts 1.056 Ramirez .968 Leon .963 Ortiz .891 JBJ .862 Holt .841 Pedey .830 Shaw .798 Bogey Wow, 9 hitters all above .798! OPS against: .328 Ziegler .570 Barnes .613 Ross .684 Porcello .747 Wright .779 ERod .780 Price .804 Layne .804 Tazawa .808 Uehara .958 Buch .986 Pomeranz 1.137 Hembree Not as impressive, but if Kimbrel and Uehara come back strong our top 4 SP'ers and top 4-5 RP'ers should look pretty good (on paper).

Doug was the second baseman when I first became a Sox fan. RIP Mr. Griffin.

I think I'd rather look to next season and, especially, a half decent pitching staff. Pedro said the other day that we shouldn't worry about Price. I've been "worried" about Price ever since the trade. His past playoff performances have been a disaster. I wonder why. It may have been a decent gamble, but I think Pedro was doing a little hopeful cheer leading. Wright may have some good games left, but it looks like hot-weather sweats are a bigger problem than anticipated. Betts, Bogaerts and Papi have carreid the offense, but it looks to me that Papi knew what he was talking about when he decided to ring down the curtain. I hope I'm wrong, but I think he's an every other day player for the rest of his career. We sure can't expect him to equal his first half. Looking to next year and beyond are all well and good. I'd rather look to the future than spend too much to win here and now, but with Papi retiring next year, we're going to have to greatly improve the staff to just compensate for Papi's loss. The bullpen is a total mess. Almost as bad as the starters, the Yankees are 4 games (the last time I looked) behind us and coming up on the outside like Whirlaway. No, I have.not thrown in the towel, but I'd rather lose getting younger, than hang around for a one game playoff. Well, when you lose your top 4 RP'ers what can you expect? But, I'll be at the TV promptly at 10 tonight, and watch the game until I crap out. Msyne the 7th. ot so! Luckily, it's 9 pm here in Texas.

You said it in a lot less words than I. I feel the same about hitters who strike out a lot. Go ahead and strike out 320 times, and I could care less as long as you have a .350+ OBP or .800+ OPS or 100+ RBIs. I had the same argument about Napoli. Ks are over-rated.

It's not about complaining that they were traded, it's about showing how well our farm system has improved recently.

"Yup" but still no ace! Espinoza, Margot, de la Rosa, Guerra, Basabe, Allen, Webster, Asuaje and more... for Kimbrel, Pomeranz, Carson Smith (via Miley) and Aaron Hill No ace!

It's not the most important point, but it does have usefulness. It shows how well we picked young players over recent years. Espi and Margot helped us get Kimbrel and Pomeranz- surely that has value that would not be reflected in ignoring their rankings on the charts.

Yeah, I remember. I said it a few times myself. Look, I agree that high K pitchers usually allow less hits than lower K pitchers, but why not judge pitchers on allowing less hits and walks? Just because high Ks usually means less hits, there are enough exceptions to the rule to make me think judging pitchers should be more about their ability to actually get outs and not what high K rates project their number of outs should be or normally are.

We are always trying compare player A with player B. Nobody disagree that the offensive aspect of evaluation is easier to quantify. I like OPS a lot and use it often, but almost everyone agrees that OBP is more important than SLG%. I'd prefer an OPS type stat that was maybe 60% OBP + 40% SLG. Base running is also part of an offensive calculation and it goes beyond SB and CS. I do think oWAR does a pretty good job separating the values and then combining them into one number. Obviously defense has always been much harder to quantify. It's probably impossible without some major technological breakthrough. Fldg% is woefully inadequate, yet many posters still rely on it to make judgments. Home field scorekeepers are highly subjective, but that's not even the major issue with using fldg% as a major factor in determining defensive value. To me, range, especially at SS, CF and to some extent 2B, RF and LF can and often is much more important than how many routine plays you complete. I'll use the SS position, because, to me, it is the most important defensive position on the field beyond maybe the catcher position. The difference in errors between the top 8 innings SSs last year is this: 1405 Andrus 22 1360 Bogey 11 1359 Desmond 27 1350 Ramirez 16 1336 Aybar 17 1330 Gregorious 13 1307 A Escobar 13 1305 Semien 35 The disparity between 11 and 35 is significant. 25 errors over 150 games is one more error every 6 games. The widest fldg% disparity is .037 (.984-.947). Some very significant disparities there, but now let's look at total plays made- something many baseball fans rarely look at: (PO + A) Andrus 764 Bogey 665 Desmond 643 Ramirez 666 E Aybar 603 Gregorious 607 A Escobar 635 M Semien 621 Let's look at the differences between Gregoriious and Elvis Andrus. Gregorious has a better fldg% by .007, but can anyone really with a straight face say that makes him better than Andrus? Andrus made 157 more plays than Gregorious! Maybe some of that can be attributed to their pitching staffs-- how many ks they have/how many ground balls to SS they allow, but clearly more is needed than just fldg%. Andrus had 9 more errors, so he must be worse, right? RF/9 (range factor over 9 innings) tried to address this, but it ignored how many balls were hit to the SS position. RF/9 does have some value, and when using it with fldg% one is improving his point of reference, but UZR/150 attempts to address the issue of how many balls are actually hit to a player vs how many they make. Certainly, there are flaws as some balls are hit harder or farther away from the fielder than others. Some balls are easy, some are hard, some are near impossible and some are impossible. UZR/150 tries to distinguish between all these types, but is rated by people who are flawed. I get that. There must be differences between some raters, but they do try to mix them up and move them around, so over a full season or two or three, it should all "even out" to some extent. None the less, the metric is seriously flawed. However, the question is really about the extent of the flaws vs the extent of the flaws of people using seriously unbalanced personal observations combined with fldg% and RF/9. Which is worse? It's my position that UZR/150 over a large sample size is better than the eye test + using rudimentary fldg stats. Let's go back to Gregorious vs Andrus. Andrus played in 75 more innings, so that has to be factored in. Without knowing how many balls were hit to the SSs, I'd say Andrus is clearly the better SS despite making more errors. I'd say the 157 more plays outweighs the 9 more errors, but I'd probably be wrong. According to fangraphs, Andrus had 98 more balls hit in his zone than Gregorious. That changes the equation, and it's something no casual fans knows about or even cares to know about. We make defensive judgments based on near blindness. UZR/150 might be flawed, subjective and more, but it's not blind. It looks at every play, and to me, that's what makes it a better evaluator than you and me. Andrus made 75% of the plays hit into his zone. Gregorious made 79%. Gregorious made 110 plays out of the zone compared to 105 by Andrus (in 75 more innings). The 2015 UZR/150 of these top 8 innings SSs? Andrus 0.0 Bogey 0.9 Desmond -3.7 Ramirez -5.6 E Aybar -8.0 Gregorious 7.9 A Escobar 6.7 M Semien -10.4 The best UZR/150 SSs last year were: 17.7 Hechavarria 17.5 A Simmons 11.9 Crawford 7.9 Gregorious The best by fldg% .988 Simmons .986 Peralta .985 Tulo .984 Hechavarria .984 Bogaerts To me, the UZR/150 list is more refelective of who the best defensive SSs are. It's flawed. It's subjective. But, it's not blind.

Wow! 6 in the top 42! 4 in the top 25!

Matt Moore would be a nice gamble- maybe more for 2017 and beyond than this year. His stock maybe be bottomed out, and that can be a great time to pick him up.