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Agreed. I've never liked Holt's defense anywhere, although he does appear to be a better outfielder than infielder.

There is no reason to keep Brentz period. I do think the only reason the Sox still have Abad is they haven't replaced him yet...

So Sale is going to supplement the FIVE pitchers you named? I think we can both agree it won't be a six man rotation. Sale is going to replace one of those 5 and the 37 (or more) starts you mentioned will go to the 6-10 starters, who probably start with Wright, Owens and Johnson...

If not Rodriguez, I believe the Sox could also stash Kelly in AAA for depth. ..

And get right back into the same situation they were in before dealing Buchholz? Not to mention, Fister can probably find a deal that puts him in an actual MLB rotation.Anyone who thinks they can get an MLB jobI is not likely to settle for a depth job. The Sox might be able to sign someone like Dillon Gee or Ross Detwiler or Vance Worley, unexciting as that is. But they do NEED to get someone like that...

He'll easily be worth that.

Yes if Jamie Moyer is also coming out of retirement...

Doesn't he still have a PED suspension that he retired instead of serving?

I'd like to see Pomeranz in the bullpen and Abad on another team, but that seems unlikely at least to start the season...

Its not like the idea is to send ERod down and bring up Brian Johnson. The rotation would have the reigning Cy Young, a former Cy Young winner, a perennial Cy Young candidate, an AL All Star from last year and an NL All Star from last year. Its a good problem to have and when you factor in that ERod has never thrown more than 145IP in a season at any level, having him step in would bot be a bad idea at all when the inevitable injuries kick in

On the bright side, we only have to face him 6 times a year now instead of 18...

Well someone will not be starting, even if all six have stellar springs. Sale, Price and Porcello are starters if healthy. That leaves Pomeranz, Wright and Rodriguez. Unlike me, the Sox seem to view Pomeranz as a starter. And they probably should given what they paid for him. Wright could go to the bullpen, but in limited action he has fared better as a starter in his career. So if one guy isn't in the rotation, should it be one of the two pitchers who played in the All Star game last yea? Or Rodriguez?

Well, were the 2015 Cubs in "win now" mode when they kept Kris Bryant down for 10 weeks? They certainly didn't do it because they thought opening day third baseman Mike Olt was the better player. Teams do this kind of thing all the time, and some who don't sometimes find they should have. For example, if the Nationals were dead set on sticking to an innings limit on then rookie Stephen Strasburg, would it have made sense to wait until June to bring him up and have him for the post-season? Or were they right shutting him down prematurely and going into the post-season with Ross Detwiler making starts in the NLDS?

While I don't know all the specifics of how the stats are computed, I do know it's certainly possible they are more encompassing than tour original assertion. This can be accomplished through even simple means, such as comparing runs allowed to outs recorded and attributing a fractional run to each put out. While this can't be boiled down to each individual at bat, what statistic can? Dustin Pedroia batted .318 last year, but I don't remember a single at bat where he received 318/1000 of a hit. Statistics ate there to record the past. And this is true of all statistics, not just baseball. That they can be used to predict the fufuture is not meant to be so precise. And while it is true that no play exists in a vacuum, this doesn't negate the past. But boiling it down to a single at bat or play and saying statistics don't cover this is a gross misuse of the large scale data and the ultimate in small sample size arguments. No statistic anywhere is meant to be accurate or exact in that type of scenario, whether your talking baseball or weather or counting cards in LasVegas..

I'm saying I don't know and neither do you. I'm a baseball freak and a math geek and I'm impressed by their stuff. I do know it is certainly possible to run Roulette style predictions for all possible outcomes (something coolstats does to determine playoff chances, for example) to determine the possibilities in an inning. But while I know it's possible, I couldn't do it myself. However, I will say that on your second example with Pedroia, not really sure which statistic you're questioning and how it relates to the rest of the inning....

Well, they probably don't use any metric any of us have ever used. And that counts batting average, RBIs, fWAR and the "Eye Test"....

Probably true, but the off-season is still young. Untold bargains are sometimes found in January. As are crazy impulsive decisions Bear in mind our decision-maker for the team is a guy who once lost a 33 year old DH for one season, and in order to replace him, signed Prince Fielder to a 9 year $214mill contract. And he signed Fielder to that deal on JANUARY 26, long after everyone else had given up bidding on Fielder. So who knows? Maybe in mid-January Dombrowski, out of sheer boredom, inks Tyson Ross or Jon Niese or Ivan Nova or whoever to a 1 year $5mill deal just to break up the ennui.

The game where teams hold players back for a variety of reasons all the time? Just a guess. The whole "best players make the team" does work for Little League. But - and this is not condoning it, but a fact of MLB - contracts and control rule the Show. The Sox chose not to demote but Rodriguez, but if they did do it (and they still might depending how the off-season plays out) it would be to keep control of as many players as possible. This kind of thing happens all the time with all 30 teams. It was the reason for the overblown Tommy LaStella Retirement Threat last season. (Maybe that wasn't as big of a deal in Boston as it was here in Chicago. If so, apologies for the hopefully not obscure reference.)

I think they're just making the pieces fit. And they did have 0 options for Elias. They must have learned something and updated. It happens. I do think that - even with salary as a concern - it makes zero sense to run Buchholz out of town to accomodate Abad. But that alignment does take some urgency out of the bullpen roster crunch...

According to Soxprospects.com, Elias has onr option remaining. That website is not affiliated with the Sox, but their projected roster has Abad, Ross, and Hembree in Boston and Kelly and Elias starting in Pawtucket. Personally I like Kelly better as a key reliever than a depth starter and its possible Soxprospects is just trying to make all the pieces fit, but that alignment is possible

I do plan on targeting him in my NL Only Auction League....

It would be especially funny if Josh Tobias found his way on to the Sox "untouchable" list by then too...

Many new sabermetrics stats that people eschew are more involved and use more data than people realize. I'm not so sure they don't take into account how a play effects the remainder of the inning, maybe not as directly as one individual example asks. But they are typically more complicated, intricate and involved and try to be very encompassing. And the people who develop them do clearly have a solid grasp of the game...

No one is saying "screw defense," but at some point the offensive downgrades can more than negate the defensive upgrades. For example, the best defensive catcher in any season is usually credited with about 12-15 defensive runs saved, per Fangraphs. So if the hitting catcher allows 15 more runs, but on offense can outproduce the defensive catcher by 20 runs created, id he still the worse option?

Exactly. Bucholz' option was exercised as more of a safety net, just in casr no blockbuster Sale deal materialized. Coupled with the Moreland signing, this deal makes it obviousb that resetting the tax limit was a goal this off-season. ..