moonslav59

It's not just for the "sake of it". Moncada will not be our 2Bman. His offense may be very close, if not already there, to being needed at the ML level. I don't want to see him having to play 3B or LF after just 10 games in the minors or previous practice sessions. It's not radical. It's not taking away time from his batting practice or his current position, at least in the beginning stages. You are saying I want to "jerk him" into a new position. That is not my suggested plan, so yes I know what a straw man is, and I'm not him- my plan is not the one you are arguing against.

Man oh man! I let my wife talk me out of going to the games this weekend! Nice to come home and watch it on delay. Awesome win!

I'd love to have Myers too, but we'd be using resources sorely needed to acquire pitching to get him.

He won't be ML average at 2B for quite a while. I don't see that as a viable argument. I also do not see us trading Moncada, and if we do, my guess is the next team will move him to a position better suited to his size and athleticism. (Sooner rather than later, which BTW does not mean it has to be tomorrow.)

Constructing straw men again. Asking someone to take some reps after practice is not "jerking".

I guess we'll just have to agree to disagree.

My parents still live in Maine and have a sweet spot on Sebago Lake. We go to Maine every summer. Texas is too damn hot in July/August. I actually moved from Maine to Mexico City in 2004. I lived there for over 4 years before moving to Sugar Land, TX. Sometimes we visit Mexico in winter and Maine in summer. Yeah, we got it made.

So true! Salem took a hit as well.

Does it ever make you wonder, if we didn't have Moncada, Benintendi and Espinoza, teams might be more likely to trade something special for Swihart, Devers, Travis, Kopech & Lakins? Swihart's injury really hurts our chances of trading him to a contender for pitching. I doubt it matters much to non contenders.

Dubon & Beeks were promoted to AA. I'll be in Portland next week. The team is now stocked with guys I can't wait to see... Moncada, Benintendi, Dubon and more...

Not really related to the draft, but Dubon and Beeks were promoted to AA.

His struggles playing 2B is part of the reason I think moving him might be a good idea- sooner rather than later. It might take 3 years for him to become adequate defensively at 2B. I'm not sure that even if we didn't have Pedey locked up at 2B for infinity, Moncada would project to be our 2Bman in 2-3 years. Let me ask you this, Hugh, do you think that having Moncada (or any player in theory) stay after practice for maybe 20-30 minutes a day to take grounders at 3B or fly balls in LF, and then maybe in 2-3 weeks, (assuming he's doing fine in practice) start playing him a game here and there at his new position could seriously retard his growth and pr0gression?

Well, maybe "ruin" is a bit too strong a word, but Clemens actually went after McNamee with a law suit after the hearing! I'm sure Brian's life was all peachy creamy all those days. The money payoff is pure speculation, and I said "I believed" and did not state as fact, but it wasn't about McNamee. I'll spell it out as best I remember: Mindy McCready has never denied she had an affair with Clemens beginning at age 15. I do remember reports that Clemens gave McCready thousands of dollars, but I'm not sure if that was ever confirmed. She reportedly met him at a bar at age 15 and went back to his hotel room, but she denied she had sex with Clemens until age 18. What a wonderful man this Roger Clemens is! The affair supposedly lasted 10 year. McCready later had drug issues and committed suicide years later. I guess Roger had a positive influence on her life.

How would giving Bogey some extra practice and a few spotted starts at 3B before the 10 games he was put there at the end of 2013 be a radical divergence from standard procedure? With Swihart, I did suggest we start playing him a different positions long ago, but I never suggested he stop catching (even less than 60-70% of the time).

I trust Sox management, but believe they have made some mistakes in the past. Those mistakes were not hindsight judgments on my behalf. I thought they should have given Bogey more reps at 3B before they did. I thought they should have given Swihart Betts some reps in the OF before they did. I wasn't for moving JBJ to LF. I was for moving Ellsbury there for two reasons: 1) JBJ was better than Ellsbury in CF, and that's the more important position. 2) Ellsbury had already played LF: JBJ had not. I do agree that the standard guideline of not making a player change position very soon after changing levels is a good guideline, and if a player is not viewed as being close to ML ready, then there is no hurry. My position is not to change Moncada's position 100%. I'm just saying we should begin giving him some practice at 3B and /or LF and maybe a few games later on. That's different from making a total change of position. Hugh, I repsect the hell out of you, and I value your opinion. I'm not even sure we disagree that much here. If Moncada is not close to ML ready offensively, then we have no argument. I happen to believe he is, or at least he's better than what we have right now on the bench and in a month, I may believe he's better than Holt, Shaw or HanRam (all starters). Maybe I'm caught up in wishful thinking, but I am pretty certain that in a month or two, we'll be looking to Moncada and/or Benintendi for help or grossly overpaying for a decent player.

Nobody, even Papi, knows what he tested positive for, except the lab and the few people who have the results and are not telling anyone anything. Username is right, he tested positive for some kind of PED, but we may never know what it was. We can choose to believe Papi was not a longtime user of PEDs up to 2003 or not. That would be all speculation, but Papi has done very well after 2003, while some others who come off steroids flop pretty quickly. Papi used something. He admitted it. He never said what it was though. Clemens lied, cheated and ruined other people's lives to try to convince the public he wasn't a cheater. He's also had other transgressions beyond PED use that I believe money silenced, but I'll just leave it at that. Clemens lives in my hometown. Even his hometown knows him for what he is: evil.

You make it sound like I'm calling for a radical change in player development (see my previous post). How much time in the minors did they give JBJ in LF and Bogey at 3B? You're saying they were set back, because they moved them too early. My position is that they did not give them enough time in the minors to learn a new position before thrusting them under the spotlight to learn it at the big league level. To me, those two cases back up my position, not yours.

So, is your position that no teams make mistakes in judging when to switch a player's position and sometimes wait too long? But, I guess they just shrug their shoulders and say, "That's what everyone does and it's standard procedure, so it wasn't a mistake". I'm not talking about making a radical change in a player's development plan. I'm talking about taking the player aside after practice and hitting him some grounders and pop-ups at a new position for a few weeks. Then, maybe after few weeks, if the player seems to have a knack for the new position, trying him a game here and there at that new position. I seriously doubt that's going to mess with anyone's head. If they appear to be struggling with the new position,then by all means, stop.

Betts had less than 40 games under his belt at AA, before they moved him to CF, then shortly afterwards, they moved him to AAA where he played mostly OF. It has been done before and without any pressure from need at the big league level, so if can be done without need, why can't it be done (in theory) with need. Again, I'm only assuming that Moncada's bat is jusged to be a month away from ML ready at worst. If that's not true, then I have no issues. Personally, my opinion is that his bat is already better than a few players on the 25 man roster right now. I'm never going to say I know more than the Sox, because I know I don't. My point is that Sox management might think Moncada's bat is ready or very near ready, but may not move him to another position until it's too late. Or, they may end up rushing him at 3B or LF like they had to with Bogey in 2013 and Swihart this year. Nobody doubts those two weren't rushed at a new position, and sometimes unforeseeable things happen. It's my opinion that the Middy swoon was project-able or at least had a significant known risk of happening. Yes, I think teams, including the Sox, make mistakes. I'm hoping they are not repeating one now.

How do you know what Moncadas offensive value is at the MLB level? I don't and I went out of my way to sayit was juyst my opinion and that maybe Sox management knows his bat is not ready, and I'd be fine with the decision. My other point is that even if Moncada's bat is not fully "ML ready", it may be better than our subs are right now, and perhaps even better than the slumping HanRam & Shaw. I'm also talking a month from now at the earliest, so by then, we'll know more about Shaw and HanRam and Holt, but if one or two of those guys are struggling and we need Moncada by then, are we going to just give Moncada 10 games at 3B aor LF nd then call him up? You're all okay with that? milb is tiered for a reason. It's not just fantasy, the jump from each level is significant and real, and even if an elite guy can move up to the next level and still mash doesn't mean they can do it by moving up two. Moncada JUST moved up from A ball. Please stop pretending I don't know what the standard guidelines are. The Sox themselves promoted Betts to AA in 2014 without ever playing CF beforehand. He even played winter ball at 2B and SS only. By August he had been promoted to AAA and the bigs while learning a new position along the way. He also kept playing 2B some along the way. He kept mashing the ball and ended up getting a look before we really even needed him. Imagine if we had been in a pennant race and needed him in June? Ooops! The last time we rushed a really really good player who had very little time in AA ball it appeared to screw him up for a few years ( Who Betts?

Exactly, but they waited too long to start giving Bogey reps at 3B. Does anyone really think 10 games in the minors is the standard practice before promoting a player to the bigs at a new position in the midst of a playoff drive? My contention is that we got lucky he did well for a month, and his 2014 season at 3B is evidence that supports that position. He should have gotten exposure to 3B long before 10 games to the big show. I'm not saying they needed to play Bogey at 3B 100% or even 50% of the time to start 2013 in the minors...just practice a little after practice and get a few reps in games here and there before that 10 games came up.

We'll never know. Maybe he'd be a GG 3Bman by now. The whole Iggy situation was different. My contention all along was that I loved Iggy and wanted him as our FT SS a full year before almost anyone else was on his bandwagon. However, I knew early on that the Sox were never going to hand the FT job to Iggy. They saw Bogey as their SS of the future. I'm not saying they were wrong, and I've said many times over, they know more than I do, and they got the Bogey choice right. He has more than surprised me with his defensive development at SS. They also appear to have judged Iggy correctly. However, the fact is, they ended up needing to use Bogey at 3B in a pressure situation after only 10 games at 3B in the minors. That was high risk. Nobody can convince me otherwise, and even though I was calling for Bogey to be given some reps at 3B long before that 10 game stretch, I never said he should be moved to 3B 100% in the minors. I just said, why not give him some reps at 3B, just in case Middy sucked and I thought that was highly probable) or someone gets hurt, but also because he may end up there eventually anyways. It wasn't just about me thinking he'd "end up there eventually". Fact: we need a LF right now. Fact: we may need a 3Bman/1Bman or both soon. Fact: we could use a good bat to give Papi some days off at DH without taking a good bat away from another position. With Young, Holt and Swihart out, our bench, particularly on offense, is not very good. Leon's bubble is going to burst. Marrero may never have a bubble. Hernandez may give us a spark here or there on offense, but IMO Moncada is already better on offense than any of these guys and maybe even some of our starters, but what's holding him back from helping us now or in a month or two is his ability to only play 2b and DH.

I have never disagreed with what the standard practice is. You guys keeps saying it over and over like I'm not getting it. I do get it, but I also know there are exceptions to every rule or guidleline. Look how Betts shot through the system quicker than anyone anticipated. His bat was probably ML ready when he got to AA in 2014. He zipped through about 50 games at AA and AAA and was in the bigs by August. Guess what? He was promoted to AA and switched position very quickly afterwards, although he did play more 2b than CF. So, "rules" can be broken. When he got to AAA, he played 33 games in CF and 6 at 2B. They did a much better job prepping Betts, because I think they realized his bat was ready. Now, we didn't even need Betts in 2014, because we were out of it by the time he came up, so the rush was not on an as needed basis. It was a conscious choice. Now, I do trust Sox management, and maybe they do not equate Moncada's bat with Betts' early 2014 bat. Maybe they do not think his bat is ready yet, and so that is why they see no rush to have him learn a new position. If that's the reason, I'm fine with holding off giving him some reps in practice at 3B and/or LF. However, in my opinion, I think Moncada's bat right now, is probably better than Holt's and maybe even better than HanRam's and possibly Shaw's going forward. Holt had a .664 OPS before going down. His second half of 2015 was pretty bad as well. HanRam has looked better than 2015, but maybe Moncada can improve on his .718 OPS (.590 over the last 4 weeks). Shaw has been a bright spot this season, but his minor league numbers have always kept a doubt in my mind. He's been slumping for over 4 weeks (.618 in the last 4 weeks), and I'm beginning to wonder, if it may be more than just a slump. If he and/0r HanRam continue hitting around .600 for the next month or two, we may need Moncada sooner than anyone thinks we do. Swihart just got his boot taken off. I wouldn't count on him running around the OF much this fall. Even if we just need Moncada as a platoon with Shaw and/or HanRam and to spell Papi at DH here and there, his offensive value may be needed sooner rather than later.

Well, the way Bogey played at 3B in 2014 kind of made it look like we got lucky with his defense in 2013, don't you think? I also think giving Swihart just 11 games in LF before throwing him out there in the bigs was a mistake that ended up not hurting us, though he is hurt now, and we may never know. The Betts move worked brilliantly, but it seemed like even Sox management was surprised by how quickly and how well he adjusted to a radically different position (2B to CF). I don't I made a case against myself, but I can see how some can say everything worked out well, so no criticism is needed. I just hope we don't miss out on a chance to bring Moncada's ML-ready bat into our line-up, because all he do is play 2B or DH.

Or, Holt & Brentz stinking up the place.