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Except that Pedroia has a much better history, even recently. If you like Hernandez' 2016, who not Pedroia's when he had a 13.8 offensive fWAR?

It is possible Girardi has conceded the division title and is resting relievers and starters. After Tanaka today, the weekend has them starting Jamie Garcia and Jordan Montgomery. No CC, who hasn't pitched since Monday and will see Montgomery start twice in that span. It does line Severino up for the WC game...

Brian Cashman, for example...

His xBABIP is based on his line drive/flyball/groundball rates and if his BABIP exceeds his xBABIP, it's probably too high. Speed can certainly influence it as well, although Hernandez, while not slow, probably won't see a huge boost from his speed unless he starts hitting more groundballs. For nearly every player in MLB, a high BABIP of .376 is usually an indicator a player is just having a great year they are unlikely to repeat. This year, only 3 players in MLB had a BABIP as high as Hernandez over a full season - Avisail Garcia, Jose Altuve and Tommy Pham. And for two of those guys, this year certainly looks like an aberration against the rest of their careers. A lot of other players have come close to his number, but again, many of them, such as Chris Taylor and Tim Beckham, are also having career years. Over the last 3 years, no player has a BABIP as high as Hernandez had last year. DJ LaMahieu comes closest, and he has an obvious advantage. Hernandez has 116 career plate appearances in MLB, and those are spread out over 2 seasons. There is nothing he has done so far that should make anyone think they have an accurate picture of him going forward. But if you are such a large proponent of these small sample sizes, at what point do we acknowledge his offensive fWAR of -2.6 is a negligible improvement of Pedroia's -2.7?

It absolutely is not the worst thing in the world and you're correct about him. He is a fun player when spraying the ball all over. He's a good shortstop who might never develop into a great one. But right now, his biggest problem is everyone expected him to. If he was an unranked prospect, would fans like him more or less? We can compare him to Youkilis, who was never ranked by anyone and not even in MLB when he was Xander's current age. How well would that have helped Youk's rep if he was ranked in the top 20 by BA yet not in MLB by age 24? And how we would we have liked his lack of power as a corner infielder? But since he came up with very little in the way of expectations, we had nothing to weigh Youk against and judged him solely as the player he was...

1. Having a high BABIP in the miniors isn't the same as having a high BABIP in the majors. As minor league pitchers ae usually not as good, it's easier to maintain higher line drive rates against them. 2. Very small sample size. Do you also believe hi 1.7% walk rate and 25% strike out rate are also accurate predictions going forward? 3. Even with his small sample size, his xBABIP is .331. That drop off right there knocks his .276BA last year down to a .255 over 600PA. And there would be corresponding drops in OBP and SLG.

Bogaerts' real biggest problem is expectations. They were crazy high and he hasn't lived up. Xander's career numbers are slightly better than those of Yankee shortstop Didi Gregorious. And while Xander hasn't lived up to his BA ranking hype, Yankee fans are pleasantly surprised since they didn't think Gregorious would hit this well. Yet the Sox fan remain slightly disappointed despite actually having the better player of the two and didn't have to trade a closer to get him...

Yeah that 1.47 ERA I his 3 starts before Toronto was pretty boding. Do you make all your judgements based on one start? Pomeranz has 2.20ERA in September. I am certain this means you also think Severino (2.10ERA in September) is equally suspect...

Based on what? His 60 plate appearances that were carried by an insanely unsustainable .372 BABIP?

Sale Pomeranz Porcello

Largely carried by the negative baserunning component. All hid peripherals related to batting are above average. An injured player who can't run on a team that has been willy-nilly on the basepaths all season shouldn't be expected to do all that well...

Exactly. And he isn't likely to get healthier as he gets older. Not to mention, in order to acquire Stanton, The Sox will very likely have to give up player(s) you would probably prefer to keep. Some sort of Travis, Cjavis, Lin package won't get it done. Think more like Benintendi and / or Devers. The Marlins do need someone back they can count on to sell tickets and be worth watching. ...

LOL So the Sox plan to avoid paying Hanley should be to give his money to Duda instead? Given Duda's career, I'd rather just pay Hanley the extra year and quit pretending it meant the end of the franchise...

Maybe they can trade a reliever or two for a first baseman...

Sox lead all of MLB in extra inning wins, and more than half of them have been road wins. Does this finally mean Dombrowski built a good bullpen for once?

But does it matter? What if Espinoza is Greg Maddux 2.0? Does that mean getting a dirt cheap quality starter for multiple years was a bad move?

I would agree. Then I remembered the Shaw-Thornburg trade. And the Miley trade hasn't looked very good yet, either. And as good as Kimbrel has been, that trade still strikes me as a bad idea at that time. Given the state of the Sox rotation at the time, closer was the last thing they needed and a silly way to spend the farm...

Exactly. This team is built on pitching. How many years of great hitters like Williams, Yaz, Rice, Boggs, etc. with zero titles do people need to see before they realize offense alone doesn't cut it?

The concept of "winning" a trade is kind of silly. Certainly there are trades where one team gives way too much for, say, Shelby Miller. But most trades are built on a concept of equality, and offset by the chances that some players simply don't pan out. I have never been a huge Dombrowski fan, but I think he did a good job with this trade...

Even if the Sox were able to make a hypothetical equivalent to a hypothetical trade of Espinoza for Trout (or his equal), that still doesn't guarantee anything. This team had Ted Williams for 22 years and didn't win a title with him...

And auto correct is pure evil...

Whoa. Slow down. No need to package all those attractive trade chips at once.

I'd just assume pass on Ohtani and go after Cobb. Ohtani is about as unknown as it gets, and success in Japan has shown to not always translate into success in the USA (and vice versa). Cobb is a known AL East commodity who will be a big enough financial drain on resources...

I think you mean "moot." Unless you think Wright will lose his power of speech....

I know he was an All Star, but he much faith do you really have in Wright?