S5Dewey

I see that as being the good news about JBJ. With his offense the way it is he's not going to command $20M/year from anyone - and since he's currently with the Sox we may have the inside track at keeping him at a more reasonable price.

It's not even all that recently. For the past month or so he's been hitting the ball on the nose rather than the continual diet of K's that we got for a while but he was getting nothing for it. That's called 'improvement'. However, he was getting nothing for it, which is why he had that outrageously low BAPIP*. Now he's apparently trying to hit the ball where it's pitched rather than trying to pull everything and he's getting more hits for his efforts. I recognize that he got off to a very slow start. I also recognize that he has a history of being very streaky. But I also recognize that when he hits like he does during his hot streaks there may not be a better overall CF in the league. The hot streaks show what he's capable of and that potential is why it's foolhardy to trade him. IMO he has the remainder of this year to prove himself - to prove that he is a decent hitter with solid power. If he goes into another extended hitting funk it's going to be harder to defend him but until he does defending him is a very easy thing to do in spite of the .200 2018 BA. Unfortunately there are going to be those who have their minds made up that he "can't hit" and should be traded. These are the people who are now saying "He's only hitting .200". Well, last month he was hitting .190 and he's brought his average up 10 points - not an easy thing to do half way through the season. If he continues to hit and his average goes to .210, then .220, then .225 by the middle of September are these people still going to be saying, "He's only hitting .225" after he's brought his average up 35 points in three months? I'm not going to project what his OPS might be but if he brings his BA up by even 20 points his OPS will climb accordingly because of his power. Is he always going to be hamstrung by his poor start this year and the effect it has on his entire year's average? *For those who think that I put no value on metrics, BAPIP is one of those things I'd never heard of before this season but I now think it can a better indication of how a player is hitting the ball than any other. This one makes sense to me because it's steeped in logic. Give me a metric that's steeped in logic and I'll buy into it. It's the ones that have a lot of mumbo-jumbo that I'm skeptical of.

A word of advice: Never forget where Jacko's true alliance is.

I agree that it wasn't the best decision for more than one reason. However, I've got to say that this post sounds like one made by someone who's looking for ways to find something wrong with JBJ. This guy who's been struggling at the plate hit two doubles last night and we're focusing on a baserunning mistake???

You could be right but I'd like to see where the pitches are that he's hitting to LF. I know this - If I were an opposing pitcher I'd be pounding him inside

JBJ has been going to LF more lately, sometimes even fouling pitches off to the left. I know he's been criticized as being "uncoachable" but I'm wondering if he's now just hitting the ball where it's pitched.

Swi is making a case for himself.

JBJ with two hits to LCF

It'd be nice if we could get through this game without completely burning up our pen. The good news is that tomorrow is Sale Day so we can get 8 out of him if we have to.

Great line, btw. LOL

As much as I like Workman, what just happened is a good example of what I don't like about ERA's. Workman gave up a double that scored two runs but in terms of ERA he's treated like an innocent bystander.

OK. I just came back into the room and I thought the runner had gone to 2b. My bad. Thanks

Scoring question... does anyone get charged with an error on Mookie's throw since the runner advanced to second on it?

Have YOU voted for Benni? 404 Not Found: /all-star/final-vote | MLB.com WWW.MLB.COM I don't know how many times a person can vote for a player but I probably voted 40+ times.

That may be the understatement of the day. I fail to see how any reliable set of metrics can be built to compare LF'ers to RF'ers in Fenway due to the shape of the outfield. IF Mookie or JBJ were installed in LF wouldn't their Range Factor go down? They wouldn't have the ground to cover to let the trained observers know which balls hit off the wall they would get to. Without that data all that could be said is that they can go back as far as the wall, and maybe more but we don't know how much. That brings me back around to JDM and why is he in RF??? Does he really cover more ground in the OF than Benintendi? Is his arm really better than Beni's?

And if the Sox only go .500 the rest of the way many of us are going to be very disappointed.

..which puts JDM in LF. Now you're coming around to my way of thinking!

Anything can be sold if the price is right. In this case if the Sox got offers for Swihart they didn't think that what they would get outweighed what they thought he is worth - which is interesting because some posters here felt he was essentially worthless. The only position he's ever played semi-successfully is catcher. It's my opinion that the FO saw him as insurance against exactly what happened and his worth to the team in that capacity outweighed the value of the offers they got.

IMO he's made significant improvement in his defense since ST, to the point where I'm reasonably comfortable with him in the OF. My issue right now is that I don't understand why he's playing RF in Fenway. Other teams, sure, but in Fenway? -for the reasons Hitch explained (above).

I dunno about that. As Slash said, he's our #4 guy. I'd rather have our #4 guy go 5 2/3 and give up zero runs than have him go 7 innings and give up 3 runs - which would still be pretty good for a #4. Remember Ryan Dempster in 2013? He was our #4/5 guy. He'd give us six innings per start repeatedly and ended up with an ERA of about 4.50. IOW 3 runs in six innings. His ability to come through like that at the bottom of our rotation was a big part of our winning 97 games that year. You can say that Dempster was overpaid that year (and Moon will ) but that's not my problem. I'm more concerned about his contribution to the team an d ERod is making that kind of a contribution.

The logical question right now is "Where would we be without Swihart?" Would we be trading for another catcher using our already depleted farm system or would we be calling up Dan Butler, who was released by the Sox last year and had no other clubs wanting to sign him? Or maybe Oscar Hernandez, who's caught exactly 22 games in MLB, the last one being in 2016? The FO's preparing for this eventuality is exactly why Swihart has been kept on the roster. Let's see what he can do now before we break out the tar and feathers and ride him out of town on a rail. It may be a bad idea but right now it's the best bad idea we've got.

This is a pretty good story! https://www.masslive.com/redsox/index.ssf/2018/07/whos_ryan_brasier_newest_bosto.html

That's a really good question. Could JBJ replace Pearce and become the RF, moving JDM to DH? And then switch JBJ & Mookie? I don't think so.. but I'm not sure.

Why did I suddenly get the urge to go to Burger King?

Thank you, Sir. You may have noticed that diplomacy is my forte. Usually.