oldtimer

How about Andrew Mcutchen. He is 30 and a good outfielder who can run and has some pop. Twenty Eight home runs this year and an OPS far in excess of what JBJ has produced.

One of the worst decisions was to retain Farrell and let Lovullo go. I can understand why it was done, but Lovullo was the up and comer for the organization and it might be difficult to find someone better if we do decide to let JF go at the end of this season/

If I was to choose one to trade, it would be JBJ. He is of prime age and is an excellent defender so would have some trade value. I'm thinking we could get another solid CF type that would have a more consistent bat. I think what we see with JBJ is what we get and I think he is just an erratic and weak hitter. I do think a new hitting coach might wake up some of the others. Under no circumstances would I trade Betts. Bogey is still viable and might be helped by a different hitting coach and Beni is young, has a pretty swing and I think can perform much better, again with good coaching. Leon I might trade if we could get a decent replacement. I don't expect improvement from him going forward. At 235 pounds on a 5'11" frame, when might he start to break down? Devers I would consider moving hm to 1st to open space for a 3rd base FA. Devers needs hitting coaching as well. That is a popular refrain from me for this team. Teams like Houston and Cleveland have stars but they also seem to get more out of their second line players.

With the exception of Devers, the younger players on our team are in the second round of playoffs and are not doing well offensively. Certainly not well enough to beat the top contenders in the American League. One can dispute that, but we are seeing this by the results of our playoff series. I have asked why before and I still think it is a key question, since it will have a bearing on what should be done for next season. Is it that our players not only don't have power but also are just not that good when compared to the playoff teams rosters? Is it that the players are not getting the best coaching or that they don't really listen? Or is that the tone set in the clubhouse isn't positive enough to stimulate these guys to do better? Devers is a special case since he is raw and has power but seems to have reverted and is currently lacking plate discipline. It probably is a combination of all of those things plus the financial limitations this year prevented the kind of action that would have moved us closer to parity. Personally, I think DD will be attempting to add a power bat or two to the lineup, but I also think he will consider trading some of our underperforming players, look for a managerial replacement and change hitting coaches.

This discussion reminds me off the old 3 envelope joke adapted just for the Sox. It goes like this. When JH hired DD he gave him 3 sealed envelopes and told him to consult them in order to get tips each time he encountered a serious problem with the Sox. Well, last season the swoon at seasons end was just such a problem and DD remembered the envelopes so he decided to open envelope #1 to see if there was anyting helpful. The message contained was Blame Cherington. He did this in a sly way and the sportwriters seemed to soften up on the criticisms for a time and the Sox performed well enough to get a second pennant. The problems came back along with the criticisms, when the Soxs looked pathetic in the ALDS and were swept for a second year in a row. By now, DD was aware of how the envelope #1 have eased the way for him so he decided to open envelope #2. And the message was Reorgaqnize. So he went out and fired his managers and coaches and brought in new talent to run the Sox. Of course if this doesn't work out and the Sox don't seem closer to winning it all again the pressure and criticism will ultimately grow. At which time he will decide to open the envelope #3. And the message contained therein. Prepare Three Envelopes I think DD is all right for now but his action at the end of this season may be to Reorganize.

The Houston series is making it abundantly clear that the Sox are not competitive with the best teams. Our offense looks very weak and our pitching, one of our expected strengths, is not performing in general. Getting swept two years in a row is humiliating and begs the question are we willing to do the things needed to upgrade the club. By that, I mean management and coaching changes and cutting loose underperforming players? Those discussions will likely start soon.

It is too bad to see him in this diminished capability. Age and injury have taken a toll and he is not the same guy of just a couple of years ago. Maybe with recovery from his injury, he will be a top notch second baseman again but if that occurs, it will be next year.

Honestly, the top three candidates for the Cy Young award this year all bombed in their starts in the playoffs. In addition, Pomeranz bombed as well. Sale definitely has been off but the playoff territory also has shown that other top pitchers just don't do well. Our best performance this year to date has come from Price. Sale got us to where we are. The problem is with him swooning, we don't have a lot of other options. Weak offense and less than stellar defense and relief pitching. We are a good team but not a great one. After the season is over, further discussion about how to improve will ensue.

Pretty clear from the game tonight that arguably our best hitter, Nunez, is gone for the playoffs. That is a tough blow for a relatively weak hitting team to absorb. Tonight, our guys tended to follow the same pattern of taking one or two strikes , mostly fast balls and then being put into a pitcher friendly count. I had hoped they might game plan for a different approach but didn't see that. Two runs won't get it done against the Astros. If Altuve at 5'6" and 165 # can hit it out 3 times, then we should be able to hit one once in a while.

Not if our guys take two strikes on the plate before getting permission to swing. We scored two off a starting pitcher that wasn't that good like Sale.

This kind of post is tiresome.

Hard to know if Sale is just worn down by all the innings pitched or if some mechanical issue has developed with his delivery. He still is throwing hard but certainly is not the same guy out there. How about that little Altuve hitting two home runs, one to center field. He is pretty small to generate that power.

Don't like the way both Bogey and Beni take two good fastball strikes and then are forced to swing at the pitchers pitch. For once, just go after that first fastball.

Tough start. The hittable Sale, Nunez gone, Baserunning error. Pedroia is not fast, don't try it.

The only truly big guys the Sox have on the roster are the pitchers. Hanley weighs 235 so he is our biggest hitter. We draft our guys out of the land of the lilliputians.

I expected Holt even though I didn't favor him. Marrero and Nunez made sense and I guess they took Holt to cover the case of injuries to both Pedroia and Nunez. JF does support Holt, so that also had to factor in. As far as pitching, I was surpirised by the inclusion of 5 starting pitchers along with Price. I expected them to keep Barnes on along with Maddox and Ross but I was mistaken there because Houston doesn't have many impact left handed bats. Maybe there will be an adjustment, should Boston win the Houston series.

Yes, pedroia is an old pro type who has a better chance of coming through that some on our team. His gimpiness though makes him quite slow to first so a double play candidate.

When will we know the playoff roster?

We won 93 games with our current strategy. Can they really just change it up at the drop of a hat? I don't think Chili and John used a single approach to hitting in all the games this year. If so, they would have been far too predicatable. I think that is what they used in a majority of games, that grind it out style they are known for. Therefore, I don't think they have to totally change their approach, just implement something they have used numerous times throughout the year. Otherwise, just be flexible to suit the situation that they will face.

The Sox are not alone in using a regular season batting strategy which attempts to build up pitch count on the starting pitcher and sometimes relievers. That is done by taking pitches early in the count and fouling off balls. The presumed advantages are to see a lot of pitches and tire out the starter early and get to the weaker middle relievers. The disadvantage of this approach is the batter will often take pitches on the plate early and put themselves in a hole with counts like 0 and 1 or 1 and 2, for instance. We have seen the result with batters then swinging at pitches out of the strike zone. In this crazy world of current baseball, a strikeout where the batter has extended to 7 or more pitches is considered a quality at bat. One wonders if in the playoffs, with a team taking only its best 3 starters and best quality relievers if this approach makes sense, or whether a more aggressive approach would work better. I say that realizing hitting is a very difficult art and that a batter needs to see release point, arm angle, timing to the plate, spin rate and likely position of the ball as it crosses the plate, all in a split second. If a batter hasn’t seen a pitcher recently, he might have to take a pitch or two to get a better feel of the many factors involved. I can’t vouch for this, as I have never faced a pitcher throwing over the low to mid 80’s, but I am told that at 95 and above, the seams look like a blur and spin rate is impossible to determine. Second or third times around a batter has all the information he will get, so it would seem a more aggressive approach would be in order.

Don't know which of us is older but both have probably been following things since the 1940's. We had some great teams along the way, including my favorite (1949) but under Yawkeys ownership we couldn't quite win the world series. I go in to this one not expecting too much and will be happily surprised if the Sox can make some noise.

He seems to have made at least a partial recovery in the past couple of weeks. Lets hope so as we do need to good hitting Bogey in the playoffs, especially since we will be facing the best pitchers they have.

Most people who post here a long term fans who have either played themselves or seen enough ball to know the game. That leads to us having opinions when the manager makes a move (or doesn't). We really are not a party to the managers reasoning and can only impute motives and reasoning based on what we see. Results are important, and the Sox have won the pennant. I personally was perplexed by some of jf's moves during the season and at times saw him as sort of a sitting Buddha (kind of inert and emotionless). Onthe other hand winning the pennant goes a long way toward indicating he has done some things correctly. He was given Nunez, Reed and Davis, whereas the Yankees were in a situation to bring in 5, some as impact players. So we had the further Handicap of the Luxury Tax Limit being a factor in how we could strengthen the team. Good time now to kick back and watch the playoffs unfold. Time enough later to discuss off season moves,

JF tried Workman and Abad in relief today and they both gave up runs. That may be a signal they will not be on the playoff roster . I didn't think either would make it so it makes sense to me.

Imagine the discussion if the manager pulled a starter after 5 that was doing well and put in a reliever who gave up a couple of quick runs. It might get ugly.