moonslav59

If a tree fell on the range, would fielding percent hear it?

Campbell has been playing some CF, too.

Mayer went 0-5, today. Anthony 2-4 w BB. Early went 5.1 of shutout pitching: 2H, 0BB, 8K. Jordan homered and Romero went 1-3 w 2B & SF. Clarke walked 5 in 3 IP. Arias went 1-4 w BB. K Diaz homered twice for SAL. Encarnacion 2-5 w 2B. J Gonzalez 3-5

He really has had that issue. Before today: 1.110 OPS in first (BR says 2 runs scored)

Correct. Darren Lewis ran for DH Manny Ramirez with 2 outs in the 8th. He scored as the team had 9 straight hits, including his HR! 1 PA, 2 Runs scores, 1 HR- no time in the field, as he was the DH on the bench for the 9th inning. April 18, 2001 vs the Rays

Here is a 2 part trivia question: 1. How can a player get up to bat for the first time in the 8th inning without being a pinch hitter or defensive substitute? 2. Who was the Sox player who did this, while scoring 2 runs in that inning with just 1 PA (a HR?) That is a hint for Q #1. (This player was not removed for the 9th inning, yet never took the field on defense. He was not a pitcher.)

They were good enough for me, too. Rico was a very good hitter. Burleson was my favorite player after Tommy Harper's days with the Sox ended. Burleson was a good defender, IMO. Rico was good at 3B.

Kind of a weird obsession with my types of postings.

We have Abreu back in the 4 slot, today. Toro is at 1B and batting 6th (YUCK!) Wong 7th DHam 8th at 2B Gotta hope Bello has his stuff or the great run support he's been getting, so far.

Jeter is the poster boy for a s***** SS with a great FLG%. I thought the choice was obvious, and SS is the position where range and error rates probably matter more than any other measurable position. (The catcher position is harder to measure and involves other aspects that no other position has.) I could have used Bogey, who did not have real bad range, especially earlier in his career, but had pretty good FLG%s over the years. He was poorly rated by DRS and OAA due to less than average range. My point was that either by just using the eye test or metrics (or both,) it is clear some SSs make at least 81 more plays a year than others, based on similarly hit balls in their direction. Does your eye test results agree with this? Other positions, especially OF have much lore differentials on range influence.

I should not have said "all you judge GMs by," I was wrong. On the trade deadline moves, last year. I think we all thought they were half-hearted moves (or worse,) but I will say that Luis Garcia and Lucas Sims were not bad RP'ers, but they both sucked worse than what we had before. This is an example where the GM gets blamed for the players doing way worse than what just about anyone would have expected. There were better pitchers traded at the deadline, and all Brez gave up were players that either looked destines to be AAAA types or who were Rule 5 eligible and were borderline on wanting to protect or lose. Lucas Sims had a very decent 2023 season with Cincy (3.107 ERA in 61 IP, but a very nice ,622 OPS Against and 1.18 WHIP) He had a 3.57 ERA to start 2024, but with BOS jumped to 6.43. Is that really Brez's fault? Yes, he could have given up more prospect capital for a better RP'er, but if Sims gave us 3.10 to 3.57, it would have been helpful. Luis Garcia was an aging RP'er who had shown signs of decline in 2023, but still had a 4.07 ERA and a 3.71 ERA to start 2024 (1.17 WHIP.) From '21 to '22, he had a 3.34 ERA and 1.13 WHIP) Nobody expected an 8.22 ERA with BOS. Like Sims, we could have/should have gotten better, but both underperformed, greatly. Brez deserves some blame, for sure, but these two imploded. The Paxton deal was bad. He did not do real badly in his 3 GS, but we all knew he'd never last the season. Gotta give Brez props for the winter moves that brought us Slaten (2.93 in 55 IP) and Weissert (3.13 in 63 IP.) The Criswell addition was the type of move I expected Bloom to make, every winter. Not all of Brez's moves worked, like Chase Anderson, Bailey Horn, Joely, Rich Hill and few others who did not last long. On O, the O'Neill trade was a big plus, but of course, the Grissom for Sale trade overshadowed everything else, combined. Bad GM'ing? Maybe. Bad luck? Maybe.

He did say that a couple years back. I guess trusting the "eyes" of someone watching all of Jeter's games are more reliable than those trained people entering their eyes test information into the database used to determine UZR/150.

It's still early, but that Narvaez trade looks like a steal. There were big worries about his offense, despite showing some power and OBP skills in the minors, but so far is offense has been pretty decent, especially for a catcher. His defense looks A1 (not AI, LOL.) He could probably hit .675 and still be a plus over Wong. I could see Wong being traded, this winter.

Agreed. Like the Bogey-Story situations, both Story and Bregman were quick to say they'd play where told to play, so that aspect made it easier. Then, Bregman was slotted at 3B, and the situation changed. I also remember ARod differing to the far inferior defensive SS (Jeter) by saying he'd play 3B. These decisions are not always based on what is best for the team, on paper. (In all fairness, ARod's D was starting to decline by then.)

So, the "good ole eye test" is actually someone else's eyes?

We know you think this, and that may be why he might be on a path to being our GM or whatever they call them, these days. There might be an alignment where Brez and Cora share key duties, but it will be interesting to see what happens and who does what, if and when Cora is promoted. IMO, Brez has seemingly improved the Sox in several areas. It remains to be seen, and I know wins is all you judge a GM by, so we may disagree on the term "improvements," but the efforts made to improve the pitching from top to bottom are noticeable, but again, we have to wait out the results to say if it worked or not. It was Brez, not Cora that changed the roster construction to pretty much force Cora to move Devers off 3B. Some might say it was not a clear and good idea, but the attempt was made to improve a defense that was horrifical for the last 2 or more years. The offense may have some serious question, and some bloated contracts (inherited by Brez,) but when you look at the team control, and low cost for many of our key players over the next 2-6 years, I'd say the starting 9 and bench look pretty solid, now and for the next few years. We've seen a noticeable increase in pitchers drafted and draft bonuses given to pitchers over everyday players. We even saw more IFA money going to pitchers than in our recent past. Delzine & Cordero got $850K in bonuses. I think that's more than all the IFA pitching bonuses paid the previous year, combined. In 2023, the top 7-8 pitchers signed made that much , combined. In 2022, the most we paid was $125K and the total was about $200K on all signed pitchers. The 2021 signing period, we spent close to $850K on the top 3 pitchers signed, which was close. I like what Brez is doing. I'm not sure Cora would do better. I'm no where near as high on Cora as I was after 2018, but I still like him as our manager, and I blame JH and the GMs for our failures after 2018 way, way, way more than I blame Cora. (That's not to say Cora is blameless.)

Their situations matter. I doubt Devers would have acted like this, had they moved him to 1B in 2017. How about Bogey at 3B, his first year? Team player or just trying to get a foot in the MLB door. Had he refused, he'd have likely been traded.

The funny thing is, if Brez gets his way, assuming he wants Cora out, Cora might end up replacing Brez in the FO.

As we've all seen and complained about for a half decade: "upper payrolls" do not equate to upper rosters. We've complained for years about all the bad signings and poor roster construction, then blame Cora for not making awful teams win. I'm not arguing that Cora could do no better. I do think he makes mistakes and has some serious flaws, but the teams he was handed from 2020-2024 were jokes, even the 2021 team was not good, on paper (in March.)

Exactly. It's apples to oranges, plus KC has not had an established position since joining professional baseball.

I hope you good ole eye test was able to determine Jeter was a statue, while other made dozens upon dozen more plays on reachable hit balls towards the SS position. I'm also sure you watched every game Jeter played, as well as every game other SSs made, so you could, in your brilliant mind, determine just how much the difference was between Jeter and other SSs.

Yes. It rarely happens. You often see a home team bias in the assignment of errors, and one of the biggest flaws in error assignment is when a defender misjudges a ball and never touches it, so it's a hit. I understand that the sun or lights in a defenders eyes may not be fully his fault, but other defenders make those plays easily, but fldg% will never capture that difference between player A and B. Also, a throwing error that not only changes an out to a hit but allows the runner to get to 2B counts the same as a bobbled ball where the runner stays on 1B. There are flaws in every stat and metric. I think we all agree on that. With modern technology, such as launch angles, speeds of balls hit and precise measurements on how far away a defender was from the ball, when hit, and how long the ball was up in the air makes for an improved determination on whether the ball was fieldable or not. In the old days, it was 90-100% speculation that was often decided by a biased observer. Range Factor became a meaningful stat, a while back, and that had serious flaws, too. Some SSs on certain teams with pitchers who K'd more batter or allowed more Fly Balls than Grounders were penalized for not making as many plays that were actually not ever there for them to make. That's not the case, anymore, and I probably shouldn't have made the Total Chances Case, when I brought up Jeter bs Escobar, but it is very clear some players make way more plays on playable balls than others. We can see that, ourselves, without stats or data, too.

Thanks for the thoughtful reply. I get your point, and do think making less errors is very important, and I was to stress that errors and error rate is factored into metrics. I'm not sure if you were saying "effort" has something to do with range differentials, and I guess it might in some cases, but range is part physical attribute, instincts (getting good jumps, positioning correctly and knowing by watching the pitch location, where the batter is likely to hit the ball to you: as in to his left or right and maybe leaning that way) and skill. You really don't think getting to 140 more balls but making 5, 10 or even 20 more errors is not worth it? I don't understand the "days of Jeter not wanting to make an error? or that those "days are over." Jeter didn't get to many balls hit his way, because he couldn't, not because he chose not to, just as some SSs, today cannot get to many balls others do get to and finish the play. You mention changing conditions, but aren't some errors given based on easier plays vs tougher ones? In both cases, we expect the conditions even out, just as we do for BA, OBP, SLG, ERA and other traditional data. Also, when we see certain players have the same data, year after year, even when changing teams, parks and other factors, I think it's safe to say the numbers are just as accurate as flg % and BA (which also depends on the assignment of an error or not, to a small degree, and the luck or unluck of conditions, such as parks, opposing pitchers and defenses,,,,) On this, "All the hypothetical what-if components of metrics render them useless for evaluating players. " 1. You do know the assignment of errors or no errors is subjective, right? Also, it's not hypothetical to see and prove that some SSs make way more plays than others. They know how hard a ball is hit and how far away from the defender it is. They can then see who gets to it and who doesn't. That part is not guessing or hypothetical. The formulation of things like WAR do factor in the likelihood that a play made or not made affects the chances of a run being scored, but what makes you think that is any more faulty than the scorekeeper calling some obvious errors a hit and vice versa? You say most fans don't know the formula, and you are right, but do you? If not, how can you be so hypercritical of something you don't understand. If you heard a simple explanation on how they compile the data, you may see it's not so hokus-pocus as you think. Maybe not. Simply put, not all great range defenders are "flashy," and even if some are, if they make 140 more plays that the steady Jeter types, while also making 10-20 more errors, some because they are throwing off balance after making a spectacular stop, it's a joke to say the steady Jeter type is better. It's not even close. Stopping 140 base hits in exchange for making 10-20 errors, that would have been hits, anyway with the Jeter types is no comparisons, at all. Even if all 20 "extra errors" led to the runner getting to 2B on a bad throw, it is still a clear advantage having a great-ranged SS over a statue who never makes errors. Forget the metrics and hypothetical aspects of some of these metrics, range is a tangible and observable aspect of the game. We can all see with our naked eyes that some short stops have amazing range, while others have way less than average range. The differentials between the best and the worst are easily 80 a year, or one play every two games, while the differential between a 5 error SS and a 25 error SS is one error every 8 games. Keep it simple, and it still shows that errors are not the only major aspect of defense. IMO, it's not even #1, let alone something that blows range away in value. I played next to a great range SS and saw that value, firsthand. He took so many hits away from the other team, that if you counted those hits and added them to his offensive numbers, he's have hit over .450 and maybe even .500.

BAL canned their manager, today. A lot of teams ahead of us lost, today, so the win was very helpful. We are 2 down in the WC race, with 2 teams to leapfrog for a slot. That's pretty telling, when you consider how badly we have played. The AL final WC slot is just about anybody's, except maybe the CWS, with BAL trying hard to fall out of contention, early. The NL had 4 teams 7 or more games back from the final WC slot.

I never got any sense of his selfishness, until this year. He's kinda been a quiet, calm and happy-go-lucky kinda guy, to me. I'm not happy with what has happened this year, but I don't usually make harsh judgments about someone over a couple incidents.