S5Dewey

Ya. And I'm not sure that's entirely fair to Swihart - or to the organization, for that matter. At one time Swi and Vaz were our "gold dust twins" at catcher. In fact, IIRC Swi got the bulk of the catching until Leon caught fire offensively during Vaz surgery year. Then when Vaz came back Leon rode the wave of his good year into being one of the two regular catchers and Swi became 'odd man out'. That's when they moved Swi to the OF because they liked his bat. I'm still of the opinion that they guy could be a good #2 catcher for someone. I also think the reason the Sox have kept him for as long as they have is because he fits into their catching plans for 2018, but hell, I have no contacts in the Sox FO so I could be wrong. It wouldn't be the first time!!

Yes, and his decline in 2015 was due to the ill health of his shoulder.

Yeah.. and his bdWAR is 0.0, saying that JBJ is an exactly average CF. That should give us some idea of exactly how accurate dWar is. LOL

The year before was 2015, the .717 year. That's the year he injured his shoulder by running into the wall.

That demonstrates the value of protection in the order.

Sometimes when a player is in a slump a K isn't the worst thing that can happen. IIRC we went through that with Mike Napoli too. JBJ is still our BEST Center Fielder, plus his being there makes the entire outfield stronger.

I agree. I want to see a knuckleballer always start with a clean inning. There are too many things that can go wrong when a pitcher is throwing the knuckler.

I'm completely on board with Slash on this one. First, I was disappointed to see that JBJ wasn't starting in CF since he was on base twice in the preceding game. My next thought was that Cora must have wanted Moreland hitting, but no. Instead it was Blake Swihart who took JBJ's spot in the order and went 0-4 with 2 K's. I can almost promise you that JBJ wouldn't have done any worse! As I was watching the game - and the play in question - I said at the time, "JBJ would have had that ball... for fun." As it turns out that decision cost the Sox the game. And as an aside there was another ball that dropped in front of Beni that JBJ also would have had but fortunately that one didn't amount to anything as the A's didn't score in that inning. There's something I don't understand going on within that team. On the one hand we have a 3B who makes every defensive play into an adventure but he's allowed to continue there because he can hit. I have no problem with that because whether we like it or not we don't have another good option at 3B, plus we (apparently) need to live with Dever's "growing pains". On the other hand we have a GG caliber CF who's on the bench because he allegedly can't hit so it's ok to weaken two more defensive positions. I like a lot of what Cora's doing but he has to stop thinking like a TalkSox poster who thinks offense is everything and defense will take care of itself.

We had our spring one day last week. It was NICE!! LOL

I can remember when Papi had an OPS >1.000 and we looked at him like he was a God. Now we've got TWO guys in that stratosphere!

As do I. It's obvious that Gardner has become the new "Face of the Yankees" since Jeter retired. It's now Gardner rather than Jeter who carries that smug look of "I'm a Yankee and that makes me better than anyone else, and don't you forget it" and the look of wonderment on those rare occasions when things don't go the Yankees way. Gardner is the consummate Yankee, and that's not a compliment.

Me too.

I doubt it.

The thing about those big plays is that they frequently rob a player of an extra-base hit, which often results in multiple runs being scored. In the very worst case scenario they extend the offense by 1/3 of an inning, and we all know how I feel about giving a team four outs. :-)

I don't see Wright getting immediately being reinstated, especially with the roster crunch it would cause. My guess is rehab for Wright, (at least until he learns how to run the bases without getting hurt - said facetiously). I still like Johnson and think he has promise. I don't think they'll send Velazquez anyplace since he's been as good or better than most out of the pen and can spot start. I think the past few days have been a precursor to what is going to happen when Pedey gets back. JBJ to the phantom DL where he'll work on his swing and pitch recognition. (As an aside, and they do that? Can they DL a player and have him work on his game while he's on the DL?)

You don't want to go there. This is a battle I've been fighting for years here. I have no issue with two different sources trying to use statistics to determine who the better players are but when those two different sources use different methods and then label it the same it does nothing but cause confusion. BTW, if anyone is interested here's what Bill James has to say about WAR - and he even mentions "clutch" too! https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/fancy-stats/wp/2017/11/20/bill-james-who-spurred-baseballs-analytics-revolution-is-waging-a-mini-war-on-war/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.6ace3a6a0562

ahh yes. I got my acronyms confused. :-) Thanks.

Nice touch.... made me chuckle.

Thanks. Although I "misremembered" about his being 2nd he's still in pretty good company!

And given up GG defense at 1B and created a roster crunch.

Ya...but ... didn't I read that over the past few years the only player with a higher OPS than JDM is Mike Trout? I'll take that along with the K's.

That's the thing that's being overlooked in the Moreland signing. IMO Moreland was insurance (ok, weak insurance, but insurance) if we didn't sign a big hitter. We don't know where we would be without Moreland if we hadn't signed JDM. Duda? Maybe, but that was't a sure thing either with other teams after him. Moreland may not be the absolute answer to any of our questions but he's at least able to play the game respectably and make contributions. Isn't that the role of bench players?

Ok. We lost 2 of 3 to the MFY, but let's try to keep it in perspective. While it would be nice to have more offense IMO it's not necessary against most teams we're going to be playing. Therefore if Cora's going to insist on sacrificing some defense in CF (and LF) to get Moreland's bat into the order it's not necessary to also weaken the catching defense by inserting Swihart there. Our D is weak enough as it is! I still think we should give Swi a chance this year. I'd suggest giving Swi some starts against some of the bottom feeders in the league (with our "A" team in the OF) to see if he can hit their pitching and with the knowledge that we can probably score enough runs to win in spite of having his D behind the plate. That's a fairly risk-free chance to see what he's got.

They're due!!

His head operates like a gumball machine. Anything that forms up in the top comes rolllllling out the bottom.