oldtimer

I believe the option was set up with the expectation that the player performance had to meet reasonable levels to have it vest. Clearly, Hanley had not done the job and the club probably saw other signs that he was not going to improve, so they made the important decision. Those signs were not going to be talked about since the legal eagles would have some fodder to use in a suit.

What I find frustrating is that different umpires appear to have their own strikezone. Some will call a strike that is clearly outside and do it repeatedly. Some will not call a strike at the letters and they do that repeatedly. Its not that the calls are blown it is how they define the strike zone. You will get true blown calls and with humans involved it will happen, but having each umpire have a personal strike zone is bother some. Just like Watson can beat the best chess players, computers can also detect pitches in a 3d strikezone programmed to agree with the rules of baseball. Keep the umpire as there is other work for the home plate umpire to do.

Nunez was never known as a top defensive player and since he hurt his knee may have gotten worse. He is a professional hitter though and may be trying to shake off the knee issue. I like him on the team as a versatile utility player and offensive player.

If you read Terry Francona's book the Red Sox Years, and if my memory is correct, as I read the book a year or two ago, Terry implies that LL was behind the signings and pushed them because the club had gone though a low period and needed some big names to boost interest in the club. My reading is that Francona was not for the signings but was overridden. Ultimately it was one reason why he wound up cutting ties. Read the book if you get time and see what you get out of it.

I agree. Let him play. Right handers face right handed pitchers all the time. By getting at bats he will get better at hittig them. Great swing and a growing confidence.

When JBJ is going badly there are a couple of things he does which hurts his solid contact rate. The first is he pulls his head up instead of watching the ball to the bat (hitting 101), the other he tends to take a long looping swing which means less time in the contact zone. Williams used to preach to swing in the plain of the ball as it dropped to mximize the probability of solid contact. He has been getting coaching and perhaps he has realized he is on a short leash (make changes and improve or we can't keep playing you). I noticed a difference with less movement of his head and maybe a slightly flatter swing. Could be I am just seeing what I hope to see or that he has really made as couple of meaningful changes. I have never doubted that JBJ wants to do whatever it takes to get going, it just seemed like he was lost. Having him hitting better would be a godsend for the team.

Then there is the Lucchino hand in the Pablo/Hanley signings. He definitely was mentioned as the instigator in some of the Red Sox related books that I have read.

When we talk about a minimum pay utility player, you are hoping for a guy that is flexible and can play a number of positions. He fills that bill fairly well but so far his hitting is not good. His past history indicates he could bring that up somewhat and maybe enough to be acceptable for our utility needs. Can't see trading for anyone else nor do we have another utility player in the minors any better. Swiharts abiity to catch in a pinch is a valuable thing.

I was not a lawyer by profession so I have trouble understanding how one salary is covered by the competitive balance tax while another is not. In Pablo's case, I forget if we traded him and agreed to pay the difference in his salary or we outright DFAed him. He was on the roster when we guaranteed him the money but was essentially fired if we DFAed him. Hanley looks like he has been DFAed and was on the roster. He might yet get picked up by a club so there may be some cost picked up by the new club, otherwise we owe him the money even though he will not be on our roster. Rusney was on our roster for a while and was at the time we gave him the big long term contract but we took him off the 40 man so somehow his case is different and his salary doesn't count under the competitive balance tax. So, I guess I am missing the distinction between the two cases here. Both were on the roster at some point after the contracts were given and both are now off the 40 man team but two count against our competitive balance tax while one does not. A little confusing. I know it says that in the Sox payroll disclosure but I don't get the distinction.

Thanks for both of you answering. I was sketchy on that point. Would have seemed fair that if you no longer have the services you shouldn't have it apply to the salary luxury cap. So that really does hamper what we can do. I guess we have to hope that Pedey starts hitting and that JBJ makes progress, which he appears to be doing.

I asked this question before, but perhaps I was not clear and will ask it again. Does the remaining amount of money owed to Hanley count against the luxury tax limit? Certainly we DFAed him as we DFAed Pablo. I don't think Pablo's contract counts against the luxury tax limit so why should the remainder of Hanley's. Obviously we still have to pay both contracts so it is money out of the Red Sox budget but I see the two as having one significant difference. If it doesn't count against the luxury tax limit, then the Red Sox would pick up another $15 million in cap space. I assume John Henry would be willing to scape more money together to help the team with a pitcher or field player with that money. Along that line, don't look now, but JBJ is hitting around 290 for the past week. Perhaps the coaching he has received is starting to sink in. I have always thought he really tries hard but just wasn't able to apply coaching in the past. great for the club if he makes solid progress and it would reduce the pressure on looking for a CF replacement.

Certainly is. Seventh HR and still in May. If he stays healthy, he could reach really nice numbers and is approaching a 300 BA. Great for the kid as we really need his bat. Mostly, fans here have agreed that he has a pretty swing and he continues to show that he is a top quality hitter.

I was under the impression that when we DFAed Rameriz his prorated salary became available to acquire a new player. Since 1/3 of the season has gone by roughly, there should be 2/3 of 22.7 million available. Am I mistaken? That is about 15 million. If we had to play the team we last had on the field agaist the Braves, we would lose a lot of games and not be on the pace to win 110 games and maybe not be able to even win the wild card. I am assuming Pedey will eventually hit and play well. We still had JBJ, a catcher, Swihart and others who are marginal if not downright poor major league hitters. I think the idea of DFAing Rameriz was to improve not only by subtraction but also by addition.

Yes a key injury would hurt any team but are you saying it wouldn't make sense for DD to make improvements where we are weakest and that we should stand pat? I am more of an activist and look for the FO to recognize weaknesses and to try and improve those areas.

In the game today we faced very good Braves pitching and they have a decent lineup as well. We had Sale going for us and that gave us a chance but our guys were not htting a lot so down we go. I can't moan about a lost as we are bound to have some along the way. The point of this loss is we had Betts out with a precautionary tightness and JDM out for a rest so were really weakened against a good foe. Beni went one for three and a walk and Moreland did his thing, but it was hardly enough as we are currently carrying weak hitters in too much of the lineup. Pedroia is just back so it is being optimistic to expect him to come right in and be sharp at the plate. We are probably going to have a fairly trying transition period until he is nack in better form. Beyond him we have Bradley, Swihart and Leon who aren't hitting their weight and both Nunez and Devers are not scarying a lot of pitching staffs. The question was asked "Do we need an offensive catcher?" I think we can see from today that yes, we could use an improvement at both catcher and center field becauswe we are only an injury to a key player from being a much weaker hitting club. I for one hope that DD will use some of the luxury tax money freed up with the DFA of Hanley to make some kind of continuous improvement acquisition in the field.

The greatest part of it is he is another piece of a strong lineup. Now with Handley gone we can plug in a better piece for him and DD can look for an improvement at our limited weak spots. The hope is Pedroia will adjust back to ML pitching quickly.

The Sox lineup as constituted with Betts, Beni, JDM, Moreland, Bogey, Nunez/Devers, Pedey, Catcher and JBJ . is pretty formidable. If one doesn't come through on a night somebody takes up the slack. Good going again today with Beni doing the heavy lifting. Now Pomeranz needs to get his act together.

The contracts given during Cherington's tenure have bitten us and limited what we have been able to do. I beliieve that DD's handling of the Price contract has the potential to be the same level of disaster to the club, even if Price givess us a good year or two.

Thats why I have to preface my comments knowing that I am a person who was born before we were in WWII and we were a fairly poor family who had to stuggle to earn a living. I went to engineering school, not a place noted for a wild and crazy lifestyle. So I view the long dyed ringlets on a man from my point a view. Couple that with a seemingly lost approach at the plate and I see a guy that it is easy to attribute a lax attitude to, fair or not. Regardless of that, the performance was not there nor has it been and the Sox got a bad deal for their money. Better to start fresh and avoid more time trying to bring a player back to useable when all evidence points in the other direction. I also still wonder if DD has another move in mind based on the luxury tax savings brought about by DFAing Hanley. clearly catching, possibly pitching and CF are places where we cold improve.

That is true and I believe he is owed $5 million in 2020.

And now the decision to release Hanley has been made, the lineup discussions have a new meaning. I was for batting Pedey back at 6th or 7th while he gets reacclimated and we see what he can do. Now it looks like JDM is the DH and Moreland is the 1st baseman. So it may be that Pedey plays every other day for a while and Nunez (who is starting to hit) subs there in the off days. I can see Bogey moving to 3rd in the lineup. At any rate here is my current expected lineup. Betts Beni Bogey JDM Moreland Pedey/Nunez Devers Leon/Vaz JBJ I think DD has more in mind for the Sox based on the money freed up by DFAing Hanley. Pitching, CF, Catcher. We shall see!

Has anyone read or heard any story about how the decision was made to release Hanley? Cora seemed to be in favor of keeping him and now he is gone. I wonder where the impetus came from. Was it DD who pushed this through? People are right to think there may be another part of this story, like an acquisition in the works. If Hanley is no longer on the roster, does a prorated amount of his contract become available for some acquisition? As a minimum, this decision says to the team that you have to perform and no player is exempt from being let go.

If they trade for him yet he doesn't get his AB's needed to vest, do they have to pick up that part of the contract. That doesn't seem right.

I saw this coming a couple of weeks ago. This guy has been a premier hitter at times in the past, but he also has a tendency to get totally lost. I for one don't think that Cora should need to make excuses for him and say that he needs to swing at pitches that are over the plate. One would hope he would know that. He looks lost and I have recommended he be given a rest, especially since Moreland is a better defender and is hitting the ball now. I know I am from a different time and culture than Hanley. Hes a guy who spends the time and effort to have his died curly locks and just doesn't seem to have his mind on hitting a baseball. I recommend the Yankee approach, cut the damn hair and be a man. Maybe it would take something major like that to bring him back to earth (Scotty, beam him up). I see nothing wrong with letting him sit for a full week whether righty or lefty and then stop the insanity of batting him in the critical 3 spot. Drop him to 9th where he belongs. He needs something to shake him back to reality. This is becoming more of a story about Cora than Hanley. Cora, take some action.

My thinking on length of deal is that for a young field player who is a star, you might have to offer a longer contract to be competitive. I'm talking about the 25 or 26 year old field player. As the player gets older the length of contract offered should be reduced. So if I would go to 8 to 10 years for a 25 year old field player I would reduce that to 5 years max for a guy approaching 30 and someone 32 it would be 3 years max. If you can't get a guy for that it is better to let them go. In the end the long contract ends badly. In the case of pitchers, I would be even more reluctant to go long. Price is an example of that. He may actually help us this year and possibly another but the long term contract we gave him is highly likely to turn out very badly for us. I can't see going beyond 5 years for any pitcher and for one with a lot of mileage, I would limited it to 3. if you can't sign a guy for that then look elsewhere.