Hugh2

I agree on Koji, I'm hoping his time off and rehab will be enough to recharge him to finish off the season strong and help this team to a WS!!!! I also hope it doesn't fool the Sox into another contract. There are a few guys on the market this year I wouldn't mind picking up one of the more polished arms (including Chapman) and even keeping Zeigler. With Smith coming back the bullpen could look very strong. A Kimbrel/Chapman/Smith bullpen would be pretty sick, and I expect the rotation to be stronger next year as well.

I think so too. I'm still not 100% sold on Leon not being the next great flash in the pan but I'm loving what he's doing and at this point it's his job to lose.

3B has become a black hole on this team. Ok that's probably an exaggeration but the production from the hot corner has been pretty bad on both sides of the ball for about 3 months now. Moncada doesn't have to come up and become a starter, or a star. If he gives us something marginally better, then it was worth a call up. Even if he just swipes a few bags off the bench he adds value in September as the organization doesn't really have any other base stealing options in the minors.

Moncada was 17 when he was playing down there. A teenager doesn't just walk onto a team and take a guys job, so it was probably some no name but more polished player ahead of him. Also I think it's worth noting we will never know where Moncada would have ended up had he stayed in Cuba.

No offense but that is complete ********. It's a nice little narrative but your argument has zero merit. Fortunately we live in 2016 and we actually track every single pitch, every single out, every hit etc etc, and we track exactly where it lands. If a player hits the ball 75% of the time to the right side, what his slash line is or how good of a hitter he is has zero meaning. If you plug another defender where he hits the ball, you will get him out more often than you would otherwise. Not saying shifts should be used 100% of the time, but when the spray chart is extreme enough to warrant it then the shift should be employed regardless of a players batting average. have fun watching the game from your arm chairs everyone. Go Sox!!!

This is a great point because I don't think you ever really truly know when a guy is ready. It's not like the Sox were sitting around back in July saying on September 2nd Moncada will be ready.

If this argument is valid, then you are just 100% against shifts in general because why would you force a pitcher to pitch the strength of a good hitter? Most hitters who pull the ball tend to be good at pulling the ball...that's why you shift against them. You can still pitch that guy to get him out, but pitchers are going to come inside at times and they are also going to miss....MLB players will wait for there pitch and hit it that's why pull hitters are pull hitters. You can be a .240 pull hitter or a .280 pull hitter or a .330 pull hitter. If you are a pull hitter you will get that guy out more often if you shift against him. 70% of the time...it works all the time.

I would agree that teams can get shift happy, but shifting often is optimal. It's a basic math equation, you play where the guy hits the ball more often and get more outs for every hit you give up. I don't think your narrative that low average batters shouldn't be shifted against. If you take strike outs out of the equation a .240 hitter puts the ball in play exactly as often as a .340 hitter per at bat. If anything it makes more sense to shift against them because a worse hitter is less likely to be able to use the whole field. If you DON'T shift a .240 hitter that is pull happy then he'd probably become a .260 or a .270 hitter if he played all his games against your team.

If anything it makes more sense to shift against crappy hitters.....good hitters are better at using the whole field.

Shifts are determined by where the guy hits the ball not his average. A lot of those averages are lower than they would have been because teams shift on them. I mean, why would you not want to shift against some of these guys? https://baseballsavant.mlb.com/player?player_id=475174&player_type=batter# https://baseballsavant.mlb.com/player?player_id=501981&player_type=batter# https://baseballsavant.mlb.com/player?player_id=502143&player_type=batter# https://baseballsavant.mlb.com/player?player_id=519390&player_type=batter#

about 362,880 of them. And this is just with the starting 9

Not that I completely disagree with you here but I do want to add my critique. 1.) while this is true, I think it is partially due to them being in a different system than other international players. Most guys taken internationally and subjected to the international rules get signed when they are 16 years old, a lot of these high profile cubans are much older when they sign. When Puig signed he was 21 years old and was 22 when he made his debut. Moncada is year older than Puig was when he made his debut. Jose Abreu was 27 when he made his MLB debut. Profar made the jump to the bigs in about the same time as Moncada, but was sent down for the next 2 years and has only made it back up this year as a 23 year old and is doing pretty mediocre. Jose Iglesias rushed through the minors in about 2 years but he was rushed for his defense and didn't really establish himself as a player until he was 23. Moncada is being rushed for the opposite reasons. 2. I don't think it really matters that he did or did not have a "true" position in Cuba. It's the concept of sticking a guy where you think he will play best, and you let him develop there. You don't screw with his head and make him learn new things when you want him to focus on his offensive game. If the team feels a guy can help the club and needs to switch positions he doesn't need the mental focus on developing an approach that he had before. 3. I doubt this, day one he was barely 20 years old and put up a .813 OPS in low A ball, he did have a .950 left handed....but again this was in LOW a ball. I don't think we can decipher how he would have handled making the jump up 4 levels at that point. I think he's ready from the left side now. If anything, I think I'd be more on board with your argument if we were to say that the Sox should give him more time at 3B, but he's ready to close to ready and the club thinks he can help now. He can still go to the Arizona fall league and get reps in at 3B and get some time there in spring training as well. He could also spend a month in Pawtucket next year to polish up his game in the beginning of the year too.

This, and the problem was made worse make in 2011 when the changed the draft rules making it harder to throw money at sign-ability guys after round 1. But even then finding guys after the first round like Jacob Degroome and Chris Archer has proved to be a very rare thing.

I think there was a slight tweeking of the rules, Yoan Moncada could play in the playoffs this year. http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/yoan-moncada-is-already-eligible-for-the-playoffs/

correct me if I'm wrong here but did they not add him to the roster on Wednesday night? If that was the case then he's eligible no matter what.

Moncada is eligible for postseason play.

But in Minnesota they weren't chasing down a pennant like they are in Boston. The guy is obviously a LOOGY, and should be used as such here.

Without looking anything up I feel like Farrell always makes guys sit their first day up. It would make sense to start him, it's on the west coast away from Boston at 10 PM, he's had a day to travel and they're facing a right hander. Watch Farrell sit him tonight, start him against a LHP tomorrow and then bench him against a RHP on Sunday. Ok probably not....but maybe???

They probably don't update that thing everyday. It could also be that they project him to start the year in Pawtucket for 30 days before they bring him up to regain a year of team control. Could be a good chance to let Pablo Sandoval rebuild some value too. If Pablo hits he can platoon DH with someone like Young and might make himself traded able at the deadline. It could also very well be that Moncada plays himself into a starting role come opening day next year.

People also forget that drafting and developing good pitching is the hardest thing to do in MLB. Almost all good starting pitchers in baseball were top 15 picks in the draft, so there's that. There are a few guys here an there like Madison Bumgarner and Chris archer who make it past the first round but they are some of the rarest commodities in baseball. Seriously go look at the top 10 pitchers in baseball every year for the past 10 years. Almost all of them were out of reach by the time this team drafted with the few caveats of a couple international guys such as Tanaka, Fernandez, and Quintana. But the vast majority of Fernandez and Quintana types end up being busts. Luck plays a HUGE role. This team has been unlucky on that side of the ball, but it's balanced out well because I don't think any team has had their position prospects hit and hit as fast as ours have over the past 3 years. It might be frustrating to see this team not develop a pitcher in recent years, but we've been absolutely spoiled on the other side of the ball.

While some of the criticism is just plain dumb a lot of it is justified. Here is an example. LHB are hitting .125/.176/.313 against Fernando Abad. There is nothing wrong with Fernando Abad, Farrell is just using him wrong.

Those aren't exactly projections. The disclaimer states that they are not trying to predict what the roster will be in actuality. They are predicting what the roster could/should look like with zero free agent signings or re-signings which effectively has a 0% chance of happening. It's more of an exercise to analyze system depth.

Player development happens from the bottom up, it never happens from the top down. When a guy is close to the bigs that philosophy flip flops. Maybe that's not sensible on this forum but that is literally how every team handles player development. It's the gold standard.

Maybe DD should hire within this forum then?

Yeah you're right...maybe if they stopped moving 2nd baseman to pitchers right before they promote them to the big leagues they will have better success.