S5Dewey

that too

Or a runner trying to advance from 2B to 3B on a ball hit in front of him. (Not that I hold a grudge).

I've seen it done online by using /s/.

Just a flick of the bat!

Anyone who was paying attention knew we were mortgaging the future for the run in 2018. The thing that didn't go as planned was that we thought this team would be good enough to remain competitive for 2019 and maybe 2020. Even then, the only thing that happened that wasn't predictable was having half of our starting pitching staff go into the crapper. If Sale & Porcillo had pitched as planned we'd be in the run with the MFY's and at worst have a WC spot wrapped up by now.

Ya. It's been obvious for some time that you consider yourself to be more cerebral than we Sox fans are. And more of an ******* at times, too!

This team is scoring enough runs to win. The problems with the offense wouldn't be problems if the pitching were up to par.

Why are you so down on Brock Holt?? He has an OPS >.800 and he's a bench player with the ability to play anyplace, all for $3.5M. He's not the reason this team is losing. Offensively and defensively this team is good enough to be in the thick of things. The team is losing because of the pitching staff.

There are 30 teams in MLB. When a poster says that he's the 16th best based on WAR... that's middle of the road. Spin at its worst.

Thank you for posting this. It's exactly what I've been railing against here. Even though I think most of us agree that JBJ's WAR is negatively affected by having Mookie next to him, JBJ has now been branded as being middle of the road.... because of his WAR. This is the danger of using bogus statistics to describe a player.

AL East PO's by CF'ers Boston.......194 NYY...........197 TBay.........172 Tor............211 Balt...........288 I don't see a huge difference there. If you throw out Baltimore, whose pitching staff is going to guarantee a lot of balls hit a long way, the average of the remaining four is 193.5, exactly where Boston is. Since JBJ is essentially the only guy who plays CF for the Sox it's safe to say that he's getting about the same number of PO's as the remaining four CF's in the AL East. (which surprises me too, given that he's playing next to Mookie Freakin' Betts!)

You talk about career dWAR numbers and I did look them up. Here's what they are year to year and I find it to be really ODD. 2013......-1.7 2014......13.0 2015....... 2.9 2016......10.5 2017.......5.8 2018......10.1 2019......-0.4 (so far) I find this odd because it's hard to believe that a player has that kind of swings in defense year-to-year. Usually a player is what he is but in alternate years JBJ has vacillated between pretty good and OMG good. Strange. (Or maybe it's a product of those "trained observers

fangraphs had him @-0.4 this morning, but I'll settle for your saying that JBJ is no better than a AAAA player. I don't think either of us believes that.

The difference is that SLG, OPS, etc. are more objective stats. They're driven by numbers we can hang out hats on. Sure, there are some minor issues with those stats but defensive stats are more subjective. I've worked with people all my life and I can tell you for sure that people are going to see and do things differently regardless of how much "training" they get. And the farther removed (in time) from the training they get the more subjective they get.

We're getting away from my point though - that according to dWAR JBJ is a worse defensive player than a AAAA guy. Can't we say that any formula that says that one of the top defensive outfielders in MLB is worse defensively than a AAAA player has a very significant flaw someplace? As I said, JBJ is just the local poster child for demonstrating that flaw.

This is the problem with the stat-driven "trained observers". If a ball is hit 50' to JBJ's left, he runs to the spot and waits for the ball, and another OF'er has a ball hit 50' to his left and he catches it on the run they both get credit for being able to catch up with a ball hit 50' to their left. Statistically these two players are equal. The problem isn't in the formula. It's in the stat driven "trained observers" who are more interested in accurately reporting the fact that the ball was caught than in the fact that JBJ is obviously the better player because he was waiting for the ball.

Aha. Now we're getting somewhere. Thank you! According to Fangraphs, "Replacement level is simply the level of production you could get from a player that would cost you nothing but the league minimum salary to acquire. Minor league free agents, quad-A players, you get the idea." Fangraphs now has JBJ's dWAR @ -0.4, IOW he's not as valuable as one of those guys described above. You can call up a AAAA outfielder and actually GAIN defensively. What could possibly be inaccurate about that, right? The bigger picture is that this not only applies to JBJ but to every outfielder in baseball. I think we can all agree that there's a flaw there but since we don't know where that flaw is fangraph's dWAR calculation could very well be bogus regarding every outfielder in baseball. I mean, it's highly unlikely that whatever is "wrong" with JBJ's calculation only pertains to him, right? In addition, there are at least 5 (that I know of) sources who calculate WAR and they can't even agree on it! Think of it this way. If you were looking for a car to give you the best gas mileage and every manufacturer calculated MPG differently which car would you buy based on mileage? I'm not saying WAR is useless. It's very good at telling us what we already know. When we see a player with a WAR of 5.0 and another player of 0.0 it's pretty safe to assume that the 5.0 guy is a better player than the 0.0 guy. When we see a player with a WAR of 1.0 and another player with a WAR of 1.2 we can see that those two players are about equal - but we already knew that! But when they try to convince me that JBJ is worse defensively than a freakin' replacement player I'm going to challenge it... every time! I may be old and my eyes failing a bit but my ability to recognize the obvious is still intact.

The thing is, I don't really care if he's the best CF'er in the AL or in baseball. JBJ is what he is and I like having him in a Red Sox uniform. He's just the poster child for what's wrong with dWAR so I used him as an example and here's what's wrong with it: They're foisting off their opinion that JBJ is only marginally better than a "replacement player" without defining what a replacement player is. Maybe Bryce Brentz is a "replacement player outfielder" ...or maybe it's Kevin Pillar. We don't know because "they" haven't defined 'replacement player'. I *think* we can dismiss the idea that a replacement player is an average player because if they'd meant average they'd have said "average". Therefore IMHO a replacement player is one who isn't as good as an average player. Their trying to convince me that JBJ isn't as good as - or only marginally better than - someone who's not even average is something I find to be insulting. You should too. In addition it points out the problem with dWAR and stat geeks refuse to even acknowledge that the problem exists. That's because once they admit that there are serious problems with dWAR they're opening a whole can of worms they don't want opened because... where do those issues with dWAR stop? And they're so invested in WAR now that they need to save face. So it's easier to just accept WAR on blind faith. Again... WAR is the triumph of statistics over logic.

Does the name Dennis Leary ring a bell with you?

That's a great story. Thanks!

Very cool. Thanks. And Vin Scully on the call!

I haven't. I'll look for it. Thanks

I can remember watching the Opening Day ceremonies in 2005, seeing Pesky raise the banner, and thinking to myself, "That man is having the best moment of his life".

True. But for Manny, David Ortiz casts a very big shadow.

Hahahaha,, Yes! The poor bastard!!