S5Dewey

Ashamed? Not in the least. I'm in good company. Baseball is full of people who don't understand the mumbo-jumbo of WAR. But if there's anyone who posts here who thinks they can explain it to me in detail I'd love to listen. And while we're at it, let's tackle that federal budget too! I find that a great rule of thumb in everything is that the more moving parts it has the greater the chance of its breaking down.

Yeah. And so's the federal budget. And they're both equally understandable and make as much sense.

I don't ever remember seeing a player who has the ability to see the ball coming off the bat, take his eyes off the ball and run to 'the spot', and then turn and find the ball again and make the catch like JBJ can. Not even Mookie.

Nope, not buying that. If that were true then (oWAR0 + (dWAR) + (Positional Adjustment) = WAR, and that doesn't work either. And BTW, if that were true then Mookie Betts would have a whopping WAR of 16.5 prior to the positional adjustment that's just because he plays right field. Now, I like Mookie but I seriously question whether his statistics are worth 16 1/2 wins/year. Not even 10 seconds of common sense and basic math skills.

Good - yes, Outstanding - probably not. Bogaerts is a very good SS. JBJ is an outstanding OF'er. This team isn't particularly deep (yet) at either SS or OF'er so it may not be unreasonable to say that we're going to be downgrading the team significantly if we lose either of them.

Translation: Darned if I know, but there must be something! This simply points out one of the reasons for my lack of confidence in WAR. If a player's oWAR + his dWAR doesn't equal his toal WAR what else is there? "Clubhouse influence"? Or... the player's ability to be "clutch"?

Nothing, and everything to do with which one of them should be considered the more expendable. Especially if Bogaerts is going to be more expensive to keep.

And that raises another WAR issue with me. Wouldn't one think that a player's WAR would be the total of his oWAR + his dWAR? If so then how does this make sense? oWAR dWAR WAR XBo 4.6 -0.2 3.7 JBJ 4.1 1.6 5.3

It's all part of the hype that Bogaerts has always gotten in Boston. In 2016 JBJ had an OPS of .835 and Bogaerts was .802. And for you WAR fans in 2016 JBJ's was was 5.3 (!) and Bogaert's was 3.7. We currently have three outfielders who are arguably among the three best in baseball at their positions. That doesn't mean that any one of them is dog meat!

I don't doubt that those who are stat-driven enjoy the game as much as those of us who aren't. It's just that some of us don't have to find a statistical reason for everything. Like life, baseball is sometimes emotion-driven. Sometimes thing happen with no externally visible reason for it. If it weren't that way a pitcher would never have a bad day or a day when he's "feeling it". He'd be able to go out there every day throw his mediocre (for him) game. The fact that we can't always explain why a pitcher has good days and bad days doesn't mean that he doesn't have them. Why was Curt Schilling able to go out there on "Bloody Sock Day' and pitch the way he did? Was his performance that day only random or was he able to 'turn it up a knotch' knowing the circumstances? Are we to believe that Derek Lowe's performance in the WS was only a random expression of what he was able to do and that the fact that it happened on the biggest stage was only a coincidence? If a person is so stat-driven that they believe that it's ok with me but I ain't buying that. So why should it be any different for hitters?

Then we also can't use "chock" as a predictor because there's too much luck involved in it. Did the hitter get a good pitch to hit? Did he hit it hard but right at someone? That's luck. And if you believe it's all based in luck then Panda may as well be Babe Ruth and David Price may as well be Tom Seaver.

This is pretty much what I've been thinking for some time. Hernandez won't be any worse than Sandoval defensively or offensively but at a lot less money. A low bar, I know. But still..... I've been hoping Pablo would stage a bit of a comeback - at least enough of a comeback to make some other team(s) who are desperate for a 3B to take a chance on him if they only had to take part (half?) of his salary thinking that he may regain his old form. Hey... someone took that chance on Clay so it's not impossible! Only time will tell, I guess.

Well put. I couldn't have said it better myself! ...and describing him as a poor man's Vlad Gurerro had me LOL. Probably because it's TRUE!

We can't differentiate. That's what all 53 pages of this thread are about. For every person who talks about a player being clutch or choking an argument can be made that the player's performance is 'random' and that their overall statistics are a product of that randomness. "We don't see things as they are. We see things as we are".

I know it sounds optimistic but picking up Sale is a HUGE swing for this team. I'll be surprised if Sale doesn't put up 16-18 wins this season. At the same time I would expect the pitcher he's "replacing" - our otherwise #5 - to be sub-.500 with 6-8 wins and a bunch of ND's. That's a net gain of 8-10 wins. It's what Moon talks about when he talks of building a staff from the top down.

Almost, but not exclusively.

Another thing I like about Sale is that he's a "get the ball and throw it" kinda guy. That keeps the defense alert and ready on every pitch, which makes the defense better.

Sale is a nice bit of insurance that we got at a not-unreasonable price. I continually remind myself that playoff positions are often decided by one or two games over a 162 game season so EVERY game is important. IMO adding Sale at the top of our rotation gives us an additional 8-10 wins. That's a huge advantage over our previous position when it comes to making the playoffs.

...which is why I believe there's more to baseball than statistics. And many here don't agree with me. I can live with that.

I will. Almost. I believe that a player can will himself to play better in a clutch situation whether by focus, adrenaline, or whatever. He won't be successful every time because that's the nature of the game but he can give himself a better chance to be successful.

Then we need to rip that plaque down.

Ted Williams is the greatest hitter in Red Sox history. David Ortiz is the greatest clutch hitter in Red Sox history. Since there's no such thing as clutch one of these statements has to be wrong. Which one is it?

And that makes more sense to me than having them hang around in Pawtucket so we can pat ourselves on the back about how good our farm system is. Given the failure rate of prospects I'll trade a prospect for an equally rated starting pitcher ever time, That means that yes, in 2013 ago I'd have traded Mookie Betts for Madison Bumgarner. In fact, I'd trade Benintendi for Bumgarner tomorrow!

First, Sandoval shouldn't even be allowed in the dugout when a lefty is pitching. If he's there Farrell might be tempted to do something stupid (again) like... use him. Moving Sandoval to 1B doesn't really solve any problem. It just means that we're going to need two players to fill his spot in the order - a lefty and a righty. He's still going to suck against left handed pitching. I'm now in favor of leaving Sandoval at 3B, giving himself a chance to build his trade/sale value. That'll give us a chance to evaluate Devers & Hernandez at 3B. If one of those guys pans out as a 3B then we look for buyers for Sandoval. If neither of them pan out then at least we've still got Sandoval. He's overpaid but at least he's now serviceable.

LOL Yes.. thanks! All those zero's confused me.