Nick

Jesus....how long did THAT take? I love Sale. This is how you speed up the game.

Well done sir.

http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/xander-bogaerts-is-a-very-weird-good-player/ Good read about Xander and hitting....here's the best paragraph. But we’re now 2,113 plate appearances into Bogaerts career, and he has an ISO of .122. Instead of becoming Carlos Correa, justifying his existence at shortstop with thundering rockets off the bat, he’s become a solid enough defensive shortstop who hits like a guy who plays shortstop. I'm unwilling to pay a singles hitter $20M. But that's me.

Now that IS random.....what's bouncing inside of your pretty little head?

What would you ask for in return? And can you get it? Betts and JBJ are under contract for three more years after this year and five more years for Beni. Right now, outfield is not the area where I would focus on. Admittedly it's frustrating to wait for his hot streak to come around. We need to address our 3B situation until Devers is ready to take over. I can see a blockbuster trade this off season if by chance we miss the playoffs or are eliminated in the wild card playoff. DD will not sit idly by. Oh by the way, firing JB will be the first move if we don't make the playoffs.

Always starts with a walk or in this case hit bats man. Ugh.

Yep I'm guilty.....so much for spring training success.

Positives Starting rotation Sale is better than advertised. Based on where they were at beginning of spring training, both E Rod and Pomeranz has pitched well. Porcello, good news is he can only get better than he's been. Price seems to be on his way back. Relief Kimbrel is pitching the way we expected him to pitch last year after coming over from San Diego. Barnes has established himself as the 8th inning guy until further notice. Kelly has shown signs of returning to his form of second half from last year. Hembree appears to be a solid major leaguer. Carson Smith may return in June. Position Players. Hanley had similar April as last year. Perhaps he'll warm up much sooner than he did in 2016. Moreland has been a good buy at $5M. But he's a $5M rental. You get what you pay for. Beni has continued to hit as predicted. Xander is hitting for high average. Betts had a slightly better April than last year. He'll get hot soon. Our catchers our playing well defensively. Although the throw last night by Vazquez was just stupid. Bradley is playing stellar defense. Just not sure about 3B situation right now. I can see slump coming for both our catchers, not just one. Pedey just looks broken to me. I will always give him an A for effort. Bradly needs to go into his patented streaks, the other way.

I'm hoping he can join the big league team after the All Star game. He needs to stick and that will be the end of Pablo at 3B. With buy option, what a waste of $100M. Hell they could have given me the money and I'd promise to pay another player $90M to replace Pablo. Everybody wins.

He was beginning to struggle before injury last year. How to you determine why knuckle ball is not knuckling? To me that's the biggest dilemma. Everyone seems to struggle coming up with a cure. It can't be loss of speed. It also can't be location to the extent thrower doesn't know where it's going, just a general direction. Throw in unfortunate pinch running error and recent knee issue (where in the hell did that come from ?), I'm not confident he's a factor in Red Sox future. DD will always favor big, bad ass flame thrower in the starting rotation.

I predict Price will return sooner rather than later. Our rotation will be fine. I also project Carson Smith returning at some point. Thornburg I'm not counting on. Comparing year over year, Betts actually had slightly better April in 2017, 293/363/439 ops 802 vs 266/298/459 ops 757. Same goes for Hanley, 2017 ops of .719 vs .698 fpr 2016. Xander is also up, .731 in 17 vs .684 in 16. Bradley jr is down .597 in 17 vs .807 in 16. Pedy is also down, .663 in 17 vs .845 in 2016. Although both Beni and Moreland has put up very respectable ops with .870 and .837, departed Ortiz, 1.072 and Shaw, .885 had much better April last year. Most telling is the top 4 slugging percentage year ago exceeds this year's slugging percentage.

For Kimmi the stat geek... Anything out there that measures Net Bases advanced (the batter and all base runners at time) divided by plate appearance? thus hitting a single with no runners would be 1.000 (total base advanced of 1 divided by 1) hitting into a double play with runner on first would be -1.000 (total base advanced of -1 divided by 1) grand slam would by 10.000 (total bases advanced of 10 (the max) divided by 1). I would love to see the rankings using this formula and compare it to others.

I disagree

All we had to do was re-sign Andre Beltre back in 2011. Perfect for Fenway, a gamer, plays good defense. We've been on a wild goose chase ever since.

I said "Both Pomeranz and E Rod needs to be more efficient with pitches. Throwing a high pitch on 0-2 count does not mean throwing 2 feet over the strike zone." E Rod is highly thought of by Sox front office. DD was willing to give up a top prospect for Pomeranz. He too is highly thought of by the front office. I'm expecting more than mediocrity here. Maybe all of you are willing to settle for #4/#5 types. My point is right now they still lack command. They are willing to go deep into counts against all batters. There's no point in wasting a pitch. Sale doesn't. I want a kick ass pitching staff. How's Price coming along?

Pedey, Bradley Jr and Pablo/Marco ranks near bottom in OPS at their respective positions. Benitendi and Xander are doing better ranked near top 10. Hanley is our best, ranked 4th (obviously out of 15)

Plenty of talk about lack of production at 3B. Dusting Pedroia, apparently playing for another team these days, is 28th in OPS among 2B. Although he is playing his usual great second base.

Both Pomeranz and E Rod needs to be more efficient with pitches. They will wear out the bullpen going only 5-6 innings each outing. Look at Sale. He simply does not waste a pitch to waste one. Throwing a high pitch on 0-2 count does not mean throwing 2 feet over the strike zone. The goal has to be 7 innings.

tell me again how Wright hurt his knee? He looks out of shape and unathletic.

the ball was dropped....what the hell was our Dustin doing glued to 1B? And these guys are professionals?

Apparently team is ignoring "it's not me/it's them" leader. Sale throws retaliation pitch to Machado for Betts getting thrown to yesterday. Chris Sale is quietly becoming the leader of this team.

We hit too many ground balls. As a pitch, I thought you wanted to induce ground balls, no? So we are doing exactly what the other team wants us to do.

Wright to 10 day DL for sprained knee. I think it's time to move past him. Knuckle ball is too freakish for me. He's giving up too many homers. Why would you event want him to come off the bench? It's not as though he can ramp up the speed on his pitch.

As we close April, Moreland is 1st in AL in OPS, Dustin is 10th at 2nd Base and Xander is 5th at SS. At $5M, Moreland thus far has done his job. (although he doesn't look to be a Gold Grover) I think we were spoiled last April because so many players got off to a hot start.

In last night's game, we had 3 consecutive singles and still had not scored. I'm not sure how to check it, but April 2017 seems to had more 0 run innings than in the past. Big part I believe is our scoring is too dependent on stringing together 3 hits/walk in an inning. And that's due to lack of power hitting.