notin

What helped us like JDM's contract, too, was it fell far, far short of the $300million Boras was asking for. It felt like a bargain the team could win with and not an albatross that would eventually drag the entire team down...

Harry Carey was not there to announce baseball. He was there to make the broadcast fun and bring the party atmosphere to Wrigley, since there was no way the Cubs were capable of doing either task with anything related to baseball. Carey was a distraction, and a very successful one. Skip Carey, on the other hand, was an outstanding play-by-play man...

How much of a miracle was that hit really? For his career, Mueller hit .455/.500/.727 against Mariano Rivera. The only hitters (min 10 PA) to have a higher OPS vs Rivera than Mueller were Edgar Martinez, Jason Kubel and Aubrey Huff. Period. End of list...

People like Nate Silver don't change baseball; they change the way people look at baseball. Harry Carey didn't change baseball; he gave people something to watch that wasn't baseball...

Miller had 3 saves in 3 chances his first month in Cleveland. In two of those games, the opposing team was bringing up the top of order in the ninth. (One was against the Yankees, with 1-2-3 coming up and a 3 run lead, the other against the Twins with 9-1-2 coming up and a 1 run lead.) His third save was in a 1-0 against Oakland.

I have seen Yaz being criticized for not being clutch by popping out to end the 1978 season. I think a lot of people forgot he was 39 years old at the time....

Gossage once said a one inning save felt cheap to him, and it was too easy. A few years back, back when he was into baseball and not politics, Nate Silver threw out the idea of a new way to evaluate relief pitchers with a stat called the "goose egg." A goose egg was basically an outing in which the reliever entered a close game (lead of 2 runs or less) after the 6th inning and did not give up any earned runs. For every shutout inning, the reliever gets credited with one "goose egg." Per his research, Gossage was the all time leader in goose eggs (and, yes, they were named after him)...

That was also a rare case where the closer was not the best relief pitcher. On most teams, the closer is the best reliever..

And while I am certain Henry would prefer to spend $150 million on a 95 win team over spending $200 million on a 95 win team, he still has a very long history of not limiting his GMs payrolls, outside of the occasional reset. There is probably some sort of wins/dollar metric that he likes and would prefer to get as many wins as possible for as little money as possible. But he till seems to want those wins...

Again, the Sox still have a massive payroll and are still one of the highest spending teams in the league despite not signing a major free agent contract to a player from another team since 2018. We really don't know if Bloom will ever be a spender or not. We know in 2020, despite all public statements that there was no mandate to get under the tax limit, there very likely was a mandate to get under the limit. This off-season, when they could have spent, the season was already under question from the previous March when Sale finally went under the knife and would be sidelined for up to 18 months. So why spend and go for it? I don't think we will get an accurate idea of his financial commitments until next season. And if his Tampa history is the only reason for this label, bear in mind his predecessor in that role and former boss and mentor does run the time with the highest payroll in the league. We've seen other GMs come from small market, low payroll teams and suddenly change their spending habits when they get their hands on real money. Dan Duquette was a prime example. Dombrowski, who was not allowed to spend in Florida (now Miami) also was a totally different GM when he had an actual budget, first in Detroit and then again in Boston. Right now, there is no reason to think Bloom will be any different...

Cora and Bloom do not appear to share this plan. And I can see going with 14 pitchers in April. Starters will likely be on pitch counts and probably rarely go 6 IP in a start for a few weeks, leaving a lot of available innings. And the Sox will not want to burn out the bullpen by June, since no one really knows what the effects are of all of these players entering their first 162 game season since 2019...

I think less. Largely because 1) there will need to be an AL team that thinks they have some post-season chances but lack a DH, which is the easiest position to fill, 2) even with some subsidization, JD's contract is still pretty expensive, especially since he is not going to opt out after this season, and 3) as he is not opting out, and the Sox get Sale back in 2022, if JD is hitting well enough to be considered actual valuable trade bait, then why wouldn't they keep him in the plans for 2022?

While Kimbrel's numbers are definitely better in the 9th as opposed to the 8th inning, it's not fair to say he was better in the ninth. In that situation, you're drawing a conclusion from 486 innings in one situation versus 29 in the other. Same with Papelbon, who threw 51.2 IP in the 8th inning and 584 IP in the 9th. But the Save is so revered that many call Mariano Rivera the clear cut best relief pitcher ever. I would say there is a very solid argument that Rich Gossage actually was. And I would make an argument that Mariano Rivera is the most overrated player in MLB history (bearing in mind "overrated" just means he gets more credit than he deserves, not that he was never any good or wasn't great).

Maybe Martinez is the guy at risk if Triston Casas posts a .950 OPS by July 1...

Also worth pointing out, for a while there was a statistic called "Tough Saves" that was not an official stat, but was tabulated by Rolaids when they were doing to Relief Man Award. (Remember that?) A Tough Save occurred when the closer came in with the tying run on base. And every year the league leader in Tough Saves would have like maybe 4. So a closer would get 35-40 saves, but only maybe 4 Tough Saves. The Tough Save was only tracked from 2000 through 2012. The record in a season is 8, held by J.J. Putz in 2007. That record total is the only time a pitcher was credited with more than 5 Tough Saves in a season. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rolaids_Relief_Man_Award

Holds really are saves. The definition of a hold is exactly the same as a save except for the whole "final" part. And if a pitcher fails to get a hold, the statistic he is credited with is a Blown Save. But closers get held in a whole different regard. Not just by fans, but also by GMs when it comes to determining paychecks...

For 2021, I am ok with Devers at 3b and Dalbec at 1b. Again, without Sale, this is going to be a tough season anyway so if the Sox take some time to evaluate a few things, it makes a lot of sense. If the Sox miss the post-season this year, it will not be because of Devers play at 3B...

Exactly. Like I said, if the closer is facing the 7-8-9 hitter, in many cases, that means someone else was facing the 4-5-6 hitters. Who really did the better job? But teams for years have geared the bullpen around the "save" stat when in many cases, the true hero was guy out there getting the largely unheralded hold....

JD has re-invented himself before. This is a guy who was once released from a rebuilding team. Think about that. A team not even trying to win and with nothing to lose simply gave up on him. That's like getting released by the Orioles or Pirates today. And he turned that around and almost immediately became one of the most devastating hitters in the AL...

I do like the idea of Dalbec in LF. If he has one defensive asset that scores highly, it is his throwing arm. And that is completely wasted at 1b...

Yeah I guess I am not so impressed when a closer comes in to get the final 3 outs of a game with a 3 run lead and the 6-7-8 or 7-8-9 hitters coming up. Especially since this means the set up guy was facing the 3-4-5 or 4-5-6 hitters just one inning before...

Possible, but if they keep 14 pitchers and no one is hurt (which might not be the case as we do have Franchy Cordero), who doesn't make the team? Plawecki (or equivalent) is a certainty. That leaves 2 roster spots for Gonzalez, Arroyo and Chavis. Maybe Chavis should take up catching?

Bingo. I would rather see a team's best reliever used when the game is actually on the line as opposed to being reserved for the final 3 to 4 outs.

Don't lose any sleep over it. It's not your job

Well, they did try him as a starter first. Just because someone is the greatest ever at some task doesn't make the task more important. Somewhere out there, someone can lay claim to the title of World's Greatest Bag Boy...