S5Dewey

Good news, bad news. To put the best spin on it, at least that will be out of the way while we still have control over him and we're not paying him a fortune.

I keep thinking that since he's out of options he may be figuring in next year's plans. That's the only rationale I can think of.

I'm not prepared to call it stupid stat, probably because I like watching it happen, but I think it may be overrated. I've long been wary of any player who can only perform "in certain situations". As I said earlier, a clean inning is a luxury for a reliever but how often does a reliever other than the closer get to start with nobody on base? A clean inning is a recipe for success while coming into a situation with runners on base is a recipe for failure - and yet we revere the guy who always has to have the clean inning.

All true... in 2018, but we didn't know how Price would look in 2018. There were only two possibilities - that Price would do well or he wouldn't. If he did well - pitched like he did in 2016 (230 innings, 17 wins, ERA of 4) he's be opting out, leaving the Sox having to fill those innings, etc. with another pitcher who is 1) a gamble, because every pitcher is to some degree, and 2) possibly having to pay more to get it because pitcher's salaries continue to escalate. If he did poorly or was even mediocre (2017...74 innings, 6 wins and a 3.38 ERA) - and no matter how you slice it 74 innings isn't worth the money he's getting, regardless of his stats - we're stuck with him and his $30M year for subpar performance. The only thing that's changed is that we're getting essentially NO performance. I saw no upside then and I see no upside now. I hated the contract but was optimistic that he'd at least pitch well during our "window" and we'd worry about his opting out after he did it, but IMO he was our best shot at Rings.

As painful as this is to admit there's a possibility that I may be wrong about something. I've been an advocate of using your best reliever a/k/a Kimbrel in the toughest situations. As it turns out he appears to be more effective if he can start with a clean inning. When it comes to pitching, a "clean inning" is actually a luxury. In fact, at this moment I'd rather see Joe Kelly in the toughest situations and save Kimbrel for his "clean inning". This does bring to bear the value of having a "True closer" vs. a "Fireman" though as it pertains to their worth to the team and therefore their salary. Is it possible that we (and everyone else in MLB) are overpaying for that closer when a "normal" BP arm can get those outs in the 9th inning and what's really necessary is the pitcher who has the kajones to come in earlier and get outs when the team is in trouble?

Well, that's kind of harsh. DD did what he had to do - he signed a pitcher whom it looked like was the best pitcher available at the time, Ya, he had some downsides but so did everyone else who was anywhere near available. My personal problems were that he hadn't proven that he can win big games and that ridiculous opt-out clause that had no upside for the Sox. Did it bite the team on the ass? It sure did, but in all fairness I'd probably have done the same thing, except for the opt-out.

Well, they did get some help with the Sox losing 7 games over that period to the A's, the Rays and the Jays. I've thought for some time that those people who are saying that they're not afraid of the Yankees are doing what my mom used to call "Whistling past the Graveyard". The Yankees are a very good team, may be (?) more talented than our Sox. However, IMHO they're not as good as they look right now just as the Sox aren't as good as they looked when they went 17-2. If they continue at this .900 clip they'll be heralded as the best team ever in baseball - but I don't see that happening.

I was wondering how someone would blame JBJ for this loss when he's not even playing. Now I know.

You're right. My apologies for thinking you might be enough of a baseball fan that you wanted to see some competition for the Heralded Yankees. I now understand that what I saw as concern for the financial straits the Sox may be in was nothing more than gloating. Typical Yankee fan after all. :-(

Wait a minute! We haven't decided that's what's going on... have we? I raised the issue in my post back a couple of pages that I didn't understand why, with all the technology available, JBJ isn't hitting better. How did that morph into JBJ is "stubborn" or "dumb"? There are other possibilities... glasses?....pitch recognition issues? Were it up to me I'd give him a rest the next time we play a 2nd division team and let him go into the video room and then the cages to try to replicate what he was doing 'way back when'. But what do I know? I used to coach with a guy who told the kids that no matter what they hear, "Practice does not make perfect. PERFECT practice makes perfect."

Dan Butler?

Here's what I don't understand about JBJ's struggles at the plate: This guy isn't always a lousy hitter. He's had spells when he looked like Ted Williams reincarnated, so we have video of him being successful. With all the data that's available I can't understand why he and the coaching staff aren't looking at that data, seeing what he does when he's struggling, seeing what he did when he was hitting, and getting him to replicate what he was doing when he was successful.

My eyes tell me that JDM is playing better defense now than he did in ST and earlier in the season. That's not to say that having him in LF and moving Beni to CF improves our defense...it doesn't. It weakens the defense in two positions. Let's face it. This team's infield defense isn't good. Devers defense is horrid - he may get better with time but how well he plays in 2020 does us no good in 2018. Bogaerts is what he is - mediocre for a SS. Nunez isn't anyone's answer for a full time 2B. The only infielder who's good at his position is Moreland when he's at 1B, which is about half the time. Given all of that I find it imperative that we keep an outstanding outfield even when it hurts run production. Just as I've said that there are two ways to win a game - by scoring a lot of runs or by holding the other team to very few runs - there are two ways to lose a game too, by giving up a lot of runs or by not scoring many runs. Personally I like the strategy of trying to hold the other team to as few runs as possible and trying to scratch out whatever runs we can but your results may differ.

Wow. It seems like more. A LOT more.

It's nice to see that you're now at least honest enough to admit it. You've been trolling all around that for some time, pretending to be "concerned" about the future of the Sox.

Nice play by Garner

I'm some f***ing sick of seeing those outside pitches being called strikes!

Oh God. If Paxson pulls this off we'll never hear the end of it from Harmony.

I know we want to dis on the Sox offense tonight but c'mon guys. Maybe it's not our offense. Maybe it's Severino.

Baseball needs more players like Bill Lee. He was "colorful". One of my favorite memories of Lee was when I was at a game he was pitching and I was sitting a couple of rows back of the Sox dugout. Lee gave up a HR in one inning and when he came back to the dugout he threw his glove and said, "Every time I throw that f***ing pitch some ********** hits out out of here!" LOL

You're not going to see Price tomorrow night. He's got that "tingling" in his fingers again. http://www.bostonherald.com/sports/red_sox/clubhouse_insider/2018/05/david_price_to_miss_start_with_red_sox_to_get_tests_on Sorry Ill.. I was finding the link while you were posting.

It's typical Pom - in and out of trouble. This guy handles stress better than anyone I've ever seen.

Back when I was just S5 and you were Hfx I posted that there are two ways to make money in MLB - by winning big and by losing big. Teams that win big draw crowds and get big TV contracts and teams that lose big get Revenue Sharing. Everybody makes money and nobody loses except the fans of the losing teams. Now teams have carried that to an art form by intentionally losing. At the end of the day this is only making things worse because the teams who are setting themselves up to lose are selling/trading off their best talent (Hear me, Marlins?) to the traditionally stronger teams, making the disparity between the good teams and the bad teams even larger. The best teams will always be the best teams because they have the revenue stream to support it. They may not always win the WS but over the span of a decade the good teams will remain good and the other teams will be... average with highs and lows. MLB has been wanting enforced mediocrity and they may get it - except for those few teams having the revenue stream to remain competitive year after year. It'll be interesting to see how the MLB Brain Trust tweaks their system next to try to take away the advantage the historically better teams have.

Jack hopes they will!!

..to the point where I've stopped reading his posts.