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Of course the real reason Epstein let Cabrera walk was probably the comp pick bonus that netted him an extra draft pick for signing someone else. I think in this case that pick was used to draft Jacoby Ellsbury...

Of all the Sox shortstops between Nomar and Bogaerts, my favorite was easily Alex Gonzalez...

I imagine team execs and GMs evaluate players by data much more than how good the team they are on was. Sure Cabrera was on a lot of successful teams. But when people start saying "he must have been good because his teams were", it makes me wonder if these people think think Steve Kerr and Robert Horry weren't the best players in the NBA from 1994 through 2007. Hey they were on a lot of good teams, as one or the other was on 12 of 14 NBA champion teams in that stretch, including the first 10. This can't be just a coincidence, can it? (Answer: Yes. Yes it can.)...

Gloves might not be necessary if you take precautions like you said, but not everyone takes them. and precautions or not, gloves + precautions > just precautions. Obviously being forced back inside is going to be a huge factor in the spread. But back in March and April, I saw a lot more gloves on people, and a lot more curbside pickup vs going into stores. In fact, there was a stretch where wearing gloves in the stores was at nearly 100%. Now, I'd put it below 1%. I think people started relaxing on the precautionary measures months ago. One could argue the increased presence in public spaces is evidence of lessened precautions as well. I'm even seeing Lysol on store shelves again. Four months ago, the stuff lasted on the shelves for a period of time best measured in nanoseconds...

Vaccine or not, seems like that has been going on or months. When was the last time you saw people wearing latex glove in the supermarket?

Doesn’t it also tell you all these teams prioritized winning as lower than having Cabrera around...

I think you’re rushing it. It could take the rest of 2021 alone to reach the point where we have sufficient quantity vaccinated. And by that time, the effects of this vaccine with zero history on the first recipients might have worn off...

Tha Angels signed him to a four year deal. They traded him away rather than let him finish it. No idea if they finally got sick of him (they did get Jon Garland in return), but it wouldn’t surprise me at all. And after that, he never played a second season for a team again...

No idea if he was hitting or hitting on anyone. But from what I saw of Orlando Cabrera in Chicago, he was an immature, selfish and insufferable human being who threw teammates under the boss frequently as he tried to make excuses for his own poor play. There’s probably a really good reason this guy played on 7 teams in the last 7 years of his career after leaving Boston. A lot of people spent 2005 through 2007 asking why Orlando Cabrera was not brought back like it was a mistake. What no one noticed is no one else was bringing him back either...

It does happen. For example, Carlos Santana signed with the Phillies, played for one year and then got dealt twice in a week, finally ending up in Cleveland. Mike Leake was traded to Seattle at the deadline one season after signing with the Cardinals

What is ZIPS thinking? Not buying that a pitcher less than 14 months from Tommy John surgery is going to make 24 starts and average 6.1 IP per start. And if he does, is ZIPS projecting the date Cora gets fired?

Point? That doesn't mean he was mentally incapable of playing in Boston. And you left out he was traded for a prospect ranked as BA#9 the previous season...

Renteria is a favorite among people who like to highlight how some players "cannot handle a big market", but how bad was he compared to the player he was before? His OPS in Boston was .721, but the season before in St. Louis, it was .728. And his career OPS before signing with Boston was .746. So it's not like he was struggling at the plate compared to his prior performance. Granted, he had a horrific season in the field, making a career high 30 errors. And that seemed like a lot for a player who had won 2 Gold Gloves in the previous 3 seasons. Of course, his putout numbers and assist numbers in Boston were also among the best of his career as well. Defensive metrics are not available for his early career, but he did posts some comparably poor UZR numbers in Atlanta and DRS numbers in San Francisco afterwards. So while it was the worst defensive season of his career, it wasn't ridiculously out of line. Not to mention, one thing I noticed that year was he did not dive for anything. I have always wondered if he had some sort of injury that he was playing through. But because Tony LaRussa said he wouldn't be able to handle Boston (which I read between the lines to mean "Renteria is nothing without Tony LaRussa"), he drew the "can't handle pressure" label. Which was a label that seemed really odd to attach to a guy who once got a walk off hit in extra innings of game 7 of a World Series. I mean, isn't that the scenario we all drew up in our backyards as kids? "Game 7. Score tied. Extra innings. Bases loaded. And here's the pitch..." Or did some of you draw up "Everyone's watching. One bad swing here and the media will fillet him like a halibut. And here's the pitch..."

Especially if other GMs are equally hopeful about them...

I think I sort of implied it

He'll be back opening day completely rejuvenated. 31 starts. 279 IP. 838 K's. (Plawecki made him work harder than one time by dropping a third strike.)

Psychology itself had created a few fields that can be considered unquantifiable. Does the recent proliferation of pet psychologists mean we have an uprise in Lhasa Apsos struggling to deal with the troubles in their daily lives?

It's not that I think there are no mental factors. Even Yogi Berra said baseball is "90% mental and the other half is physical." So according to him, the mental half of the game is almost the entire game. But my theory is players who cannot handle the mental aspect of the game don't make it to the majors. For all the talk about the mental pressure and media pressure, I've always felt there is more pressure to perform in the minors, where a failure to perform means a failure to get promoted. In the majors, there is pressure to keep any job you have. There is pressure from the guy behind you trying to replace you as one of the only 750 people in the world capable of holding an MLB roster spot. But this is the type of pressure these players face day in and day out. I am not so sure it can be equated to any single specific game situation...

Mystery solved. Go get him, Bloom!

But it's not like the pressure-riddled New York media doesn't cover road games. More likely, they were attributable to the small park...

Some promise. But the numbers of a 21yo player in Rookie Ball shouldn't be taken too seriously just yet. In maybe 2 or 3 years if/when he reaches AA ball, we will see how he does...

No one has been pushing harder for Taillon than me, but I do wonder that since he settled before arbitration, if it affects his availability. I don't like Musgrove nearly as much...

The bigger issue is fan perception, where they think pitching in Boston and New York is so much more difficult. There's pressure on every MLB team for every player. Don't perform and you don't get paid like you want to, or worse, the guy behind you passes you up on the depth chart...

100 mph fastball. Plenty of hard throwing minor league position players have transitioned into being major league relievers, including Trevor Hoffman, Joe Nathan, Sean Doolittle, Rafael Betancourt, Jordan Weems and Javier Guerra. (The Sox farm system seems to be the primary source for these guys, having produced Betancourt, Weems and Guerra before Aybar.) They're taking a chance at a guy with some serious heat. You can teach a guy control and mechanics. Teaching a guy to throw 100 mph is a lot harder...

There was a clear goal of opening a 40 man roster spot. While they could have released any number of players, Aybar was in an extremely small subset of the expendable players who could have gotten anything in a trade. I think that subset is now basically just Chatham...