Jack Flap

Well, he was off to a tremendous start to the season before whatever happened last game. Hopefully he can pick right up where he left off.

Somewhere John Farrell is wondering "Why didn't I think of that?"

Somehow, in my relative inactivity of late, I missed that this happened. That's pretty awesome.

"Or was it Manny Ramirez's knee and Mookie Wilson's hand? Oh, f*** it."

If anyone looks to be in danger of losing his place on the team, it's probably Wright...he really hasn't pitched since the summer of 2016, is now the #8 starter at best behind Velazquez and Johnson, has had off-field issues, and is out of options. I suppose we could option Velazquez and stick Wright in the pen to preserve depth, but a nice, long rehab assignment (plus suspension) would seem to be in order before we get to that point.

I, for one, am glad to be able to watch and enjoy his exploits without them being tainted by the stink of the MFY. Also, quite a few posts in this thread (and others) are looking kind of funny in retrospect. While I'm sure Ohtani probably won't maintain his 2.08 ERA and 0.46 WHIP as a pitcher and his .367 BA and 1.191 OPS as a batter, he looks every bit like the special talent he was advertised as, and the Angels acquired him for pennies on the dollar compared to what he might have commanded as an unrestricted free agent. It's amazing how much arguing some of us had to do that, yes, trying to sign this guy was in fact a worthwhile venture...

Nice story on Hanley: http://www.masslive.com/redsox/index.ssf/2018/04/hanley_ramirez_boston_red_soxs.html

The difference, in my mind, is that it's literally Joe Kelly's job to hurl baseballs in the general direction of human beings, and that the hitter assumes this risk every time they step into the batter's box - which is why the pitcher always has some element of plausible deniability ("It just got away from me") when these things happen. If Kelly was deliberately headhunting, I might agree with you, but to me, a plunking on the back falls squarely within the category of things that may happen at a baseball game, intentionally or not. But charging the mound and throwing punches at people? Always 100% intentional and within the batter's control, and IMO, whatever happens after that point is on you. Austin incited the entire incident and behaved like a punk from beginning to end, from getting up in Holt's face when he questioned the slide (if it was such an innocent play, why not a simple "My bad, bro. You okay?" and everyone moves on) to sucker-punching Febles during the brawl, and probably deserved a harsher penalty than what he got. Normally I find all of this business of retaliation and counter-retaliation pretty stupid, but I have a hard time finding fault with what the Red Sox did here.

B-but he was a number 1 pick!! LMFAO.

Just for the sake of argument: LF - Martinez CF - Benintendi RF - Betts DH - Ramirez 1B - Moreland Not saying I'd support that (being the JBJ fanboy that I am), but you could probably come up with a scenario where it works.

You can add me to this crew. Simply put, we're a better team if Hanley is healthy and raking, so you're damn right I'm rooting for that. Agree. Plus, keeping the better player out of the lineup for financial reasons would be an absolutely horrible look for a team with a short window to win it all, and I doubt Cora or anyone on the Red Sox wants any part of that sort of drama.

I'm saying 95 for now.

Normally I'd agree, but we're talking about someone who's already on the roster and under contract for this season. I don't think it should be terribly controversial to say that his playing time should be based on merit and on what's best for this year's team, which was the only point I was trying to make.

I don't see much point in sweating the Hanley option at this point. If he stays healthy, fields his position competently, and can be the same type of offensive force he was in 2016, he's going to play, the option will likely vest, and I doubt very many will find grounds to complain about it; if those things don't happen, we have a competent safety net in place (Moreland) plus an interesting prospect option waiting in the wings (Travis), and Ramirez will deservedly find himself playing a lot less. Guessing from his comments at the beginning of the spring, Hanley probably understands this better than anyone and should be highly motivated to succeed. Benching him for purely financial reasons when he's producing on the field would sit wrong with me, but it's difficult to see that happening. This is a team that's built to win now, and if he's the best option any given day, he needs to play -- and we'll figure out 2019 later.

LOL!...now that was funny.

The way I see it, we overpaid for Moreland in order to 1) avoid getting into a position of desperation in the JDM negotiations (with the option of playing Moreland at first and Hanley at DH, we were able to wait him out as long as we needed to), and 2) in the event JDM was signed, insure ourselves against Hanley being bad again. It was indeed an overpay when you look at what guys like Moustakas ended up getting in this market, and if Hanley can hit and play 1B the way he did in 2016, Moreland becomes pretty superfluous, but the deal still made sense at the time, IMO, and I have no problem with it.

I saw this as well...not surprising and it makes sense, both that the Red Sox are interested and that they're having some difficulty getting these veteran types to bite. I think we probably have passable depth for the time being, but it never hurts to monitor the market and see what becomes available.

I'm with you guys. I don't see why it's the least bit controversial to want to have as much pitching depth as you possibly can. Someone referred to it as hoarding, and well...um...yes? You know you're almost always going to need more than 6-7 starting pitchers to get through a season, so why not make sure your ass is covered? Sure, I'd prefer to give those spot starts and fill-in duties to someone in our organization if possible, and maybe Johnson/Velazquez/Elias/Beeks/etc. are up to the task, but what if they're not? Or what if Price's elbow starts acting up again at the same time Pomeranz needs a 15-day DL stint, or Rodriguez has a setback in his recovery, and so on. It just makes sense to stock your shelves ahead of time rather than being left scrambling when you need it. That said, there are a few interesting veteran pitchers still unsigned, and I doubt Dombrowski has just overlooked them. I'd say we sign someone in the fairly near future, if I had to guess.

Sounds awful...granted, this was written way back in October, before the Red Sox turned down trade proposals involving Yasiel Puig and Edwin Encarnacion for Bradley. I wonder if people realize, when they spin up salary dump proposals like this, that Castillo's money doesn't count against the luxury tax, therefore he is not incurring any penalties for the team or hampering our ability to add other players. He's not hurting anyone where he is (except perhaps John Henry's ample checkbook), so let him stay there until an opportunity comes along that would actually improve our club.

I agree. There's no cause for "freaking out" at this point, and we may very well have enough depth to get through the season (though the back of our rotation looks rather suspect to me until proven otherwise, particularly with the Pomeranz news), but it never hurts to have more. How often have we gone into the season thinking we had plenty of pitching, only to find ourselves giving starts to a Sean O'Sullivan or Kyle Kendrick a month or two in?

If you think things are awkward with Steven Wright, consider that Miguel Sano is playing for the Twins right now...

Good catch. You could throw in Shaw, Margot, Barnes, and others who have either contributed in some way or been used in trades...and that's before you get to guys like Swihart and Owens who get overlooked now because they haven't panned out, but were considered very good prospects at one time. Ben inherited a very nice pool of young talent from Theo no matter how you slice it.

I agree. Personally, I'm seeing a lot of positive signs - big and small - this spring that show the club took a good look at itself after last season and realized some things had to change. With the finishing touch of Martinez in the middle of the lineup, I'm finding it increasingly hard to constrain my optimism for this year.

There's been talk of Travis working with Tim Hyers to adjust his swing more towards hitting the ball in the air. If he starts manifesting some legitimate power at last, the first base situation is going to become even more interesting...

But the real question is, how is the hair and the cheese?