greenwell

Exactly. I don't get this infatuation with BABIP and this belief that it should regress to a norm. Yes, .440 is abnormally high, but there is no reason to believe it should be .300. Do people really think that if you don't strikeout or hit a home run everything else is just luck? Hitting more line drives and hitting to all fields don't mean anything?

3.58 ERA since the all star break. They're doing just fine.

I completely disagree. Wright and Porcello are both top 12 in the AL in ERA, WHIP, and OPS against. Both are tied for 5th in QS. If Price can pick it up a little bit and ERod can continue to pitch like he did the last 2 months and last year their rotation is fine.

I guess you're right. If people are happy with 11 out of 17 good starts, 20% of his starts being horrible, the most hits given up in the majors, an ERA that's 60th out of 90 qualified pitchers there's not much I can say.

This isn't just a redsox problem. You have to look pretty hard to find good free agent signings by any team, especially big contracts. Maybe we need to redefine what is a success for a free agent signing.

I'm getting pretty tired of the Price apologists. No, he hasn't been good since June 1. He was good in July, that's about it. He has had several good starts, but consistency is what makes a great pitcher, most pitchers have some good starts. I'm not giving up on him, but this team would be in first place if he had pitched even close to what he should be.

Except for Benintendi and Leon:) It will be nice when everyone not named Mookie starts hitting again.

Thanks for clearing that up. I had been listening to people say the opt out clause was good thing for 8 months and couldn't understand it. I do agree with you and Moon in that if he does opt-out it might not be a bad thing.

When you said "like I said earlier" I thought you were elaborating on your reply to my post earlier, which I didn't respond to at the time because it did not even come close to addressing what I said.

This is missing the point. It's not about what could happen to make it a win for the Sox, it's about the fact that if he does opt out that means there was a pretty good chance the sox could have gotten rid of him without the opt out clause.

So you're saying it's basically about Price and his agent possibly misreading the market and thinking someone would give him a better contract? Because obviously if someone would give him a better(for Price) contract they would also pick him up off waivers since that contract is better for the team. The third point is a possibility.

I have never understood this opinion and have yet to hear a good answer to this. Unless it's about Price pitching better because he has the opt out clause, this clause does nothing good for the red sox. If Price opts out that means that he can get a better contract on the market than what is remaining on his sox contract (or at least he thinks he can). If this is true that means the redsox could at a minimum put him on waivers and someone else would take over the contract, or more likely they could trade him, get out of the contract and get something else in return.

Compared to Price's first 4 starts with the sox 4 GS, 21.2 IP, 7.06 ERA, 1.38 WHIP, 2.49 BB/9

Seeing as 1 of the BBs was intentional and 2 of the hits were bunts and it was technically a "quality start" I don't see it as a bad start.

Completely agree on Price. If he was even close to what he should be no-one would be calling for Farrell's job and we would be calling this latest road trip a success. I see lots of excuses being made for Price, he pitched good in some games, his defense/bullpen let him down, but if he was pitching the way he should noone would have to make excuses. I fully expected the contract would look bad in the last few years and I was unsure what he would do in the postseason, but I never thought he would be this bad during his first season.

He has to go on the 25 man roster

When they left on the road trip they were 2.5 games out, they are now 2 games out.

This brings back the question I asked earlier today. Does anyone know the story with Dan Butler? I remember him being up very briefly a couple of years ago, but don't remember anything about him. He has a .800 OPS this year in Pawtucket. Is he just not a ML caliber catcher from a fielding standpoint?

I couldn't have said it better. A lot of people look at the price game and say, there's one decision that cost them the game, and don't realize that A. They may have also lost the game if they pulled Price after 7 or left Barnes in to face Cano. B. What happened was a fluke, if you replayed that inning 100 times leaving Price in and 100 times taking him out, they would probably lose as many without Price as they did with him. Take Abad over Barnes. Abad has given up 2 HR in 51 ABs vs lefties. Barnes has given up 4 in 69, but for arguments sake lets say he gives up 1 in 51 ABs. That means out of 50 times Abad would give up the HR once more than Barnes, so once in 50 bad decisions. If you factor in all of the other ways the runners could have scored it could easily be 1 loss out of 100-200. That's simplifying the point as it's not about repeating the same decision, but the many different "bad" decisions a manager can make in a year. But the bottom line is these decisions are based on very small percentage differences.

Agreed. They scored 24 runs in 8 games and lost both games started by their "Ace". They're lucky to be 4-4.

Pedro was a fluke. I bet at 17 Pedro was compared to a lot of guys with great stuff, that were too small so their body broke down.

Anyone know who has the highest Avg in the AL for players with over 100 ABs and who has the second lowest. Here's a hint, they both play C for the redsox. Is Dan Butler a bad fielder, he's hitting well in Pawtucket, would definitely be an offensive improvement over Hanigan.

I don't see a fade coming from Pedroia. I do think he should be farther down in the order, but that's mainly because of the large number of good hitters and as he is not that great at driving in runs.

I looked at it differently. They didn't sign him to be a fourth outfielder. It was a low money contract knowing that he could bust, but if he returned to form it would have been a huge signing. He played well enough in spring training and more importantly seemed healthy. Finding out from the start of the season what he could give them seemed like a good call to me. It turned out being a moot point due to the Victorino injury.

It was definitely a risk, but there was some merit to it. Sizemore had far more experience and was a very good player for years. Also, in hindsight, Sizemore had a better year in 2014 than Bradley, although they were both bad that year.