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5GoldGlovesOF,75

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Everything posted by 5GoldGlovesOF,75

  1. If the Red Sox have a bad team and a bad April, it could prove fatal (for any employees "on the bubble" anyway)... because then in the first three weeks of May, Boston plays 18 straight games vs. legitimate playoff contenders. It would still be "early" -- but with the ages, health concerns and many one-year contracts, this club doesn't seem built for patience... just more changes.
  2. Shouldn't we be talking about the Sox' first nine games on the schedule? Three each vs. Orioles, Pirates, Tigers. Boston could really jumpstart '23 and get off to a winning beginning -- 6-3, 5-4. Why not? Otherwise... the Sox then play the next 14 vs. better comp: Rays, Angels, Twins, Brewers... and finish the month with the O's and Guardians. Rut-roh...
  3. Probably slot #2 -- Kike has never had an .843 OPS in his career. Plus, I don't see him as a classic batter to hit behind the runner (the old job of a #2 hitter). Check out career BAs for opposite-field: Kike .255, Arroyo .280, Turner .313... Devers .413 Then again, here are career BAs for pulled pitches: Kike .389, Arroyo .472 (SSS?), Turner .427, Devers .355; the latter is bound to improve with no shift, right?
  4. Every club in the majors has an analytics department whose job is find any and every way to use technology to find an edge. The hypocrisy about sign-stealing now is this: if it's still ok (and always has been) to use signs and try to decipher signs of opponents, then why are defenses now allowed to communicate with tech, but offenses aren't? And not just to try to intercept signs, but to strategize, like "take," "bunt," "slash," "hit-and-run," "steal/fake-steal/delayed-steal/get-in-a-pickle-double-steal/etc"???
  5. Pretty good post, moon. I feel good about the OF offense, Casas and middle relief. I'm not ultra-confident that our closer adapting to new rules, new league, and old age will be lights-out. The key to the season that I don't hear or read is how important it will be for either Turner or Duvall to get hot and strike fear into opposing pitchers. Otherwise, Raffy may never see a good pitch to hit -- in which case he'll become a walking machine or flail at balls and become a whiffing target for boo-birds.
  6. I know, talk about berry-picking. So strange that none of the batters I ever played with or coached for half a century never ever wanted to get a hit, unless facing the final out of an inning with ducks on the pond.
  7. Dombrowski throws money at star players -- always has, always will. Some of them, he even pays for past performances. Mookie wasn't even in his prime...
  8. They should trade for Bryan Reynolds today!
  9. The horrors! Still choose to ignore documentation where Houston's analytics department admits devising their systems before Cora was even hired. All the Astros' stars were stars before or are still stars since 2017. The fringe players who had career years were guys like Marwin and Reddick. Now a Globe columnist marvels at how Red Sox' batters all guessed right in the '18 World Series. The champs hit .222 in the '18 WS. Bogaerts batted .136, Mookie .217. JD was already a star when he signed (he had a 4-homer game in '17). Pearce raked the last two games in LA, but was also good enough that year to hit three HRs in one game vs. the Yankees. Boston had some big pinch hits, but not coincidentally every one came with runners on base. I have personally witnessed baserunners in a teenage game hold up one or two fingers to batters, point to the left or the right, tap their knees and make fists. Oh, the blasphemy of it all...
  10. Wow, three more potential relievers. It's nice to grow a farm full of arms, but it would be helpful if a few of them were grafted to starters.
  11. Make-up concerns? Don't leave us hanging -- how about a little elaboration: was it his choice of color or was he just bad at applying it. Nobody wants eye-black smeared down to their chins... well, except my son's Little League team with their warpaint.
  12. It's hard to grow good crops in mountainous regions. But I do recommend Swiss Chard.
  13. Noah Song could still be an ace, even if he never throws another pitch. It all depends on how many balloons he gets to shoot down. The trend is to pop them over water, some of which is the Navy's domain.
  14. How about scouting other teams' farm system for scouts and developmental peeps? Do you think Tito would recommend Boston as an upgrade relocation to a few of his pitching pipeline gurus?
  15. The only one remotely close is Porcello, based entirely on being voted the Cy Young in 2016. But that was also the year Dombro gave Price the most dough ever, specifically to be the ace. Oh, and Steven Wright made the All-Star team that summer. A lot of fans, however, have no idea that Porcello was the top winner on the staff of the greatest team in Red Sox history two years later...
  16. Lackey's Boston contract had a clause that he agreed to for a season of minimum wage, if he missed an entire year due to injury. But on the verge of that reality, the Red Sox realized what a joy his sourpuss would be that last year, and dumped him for the corpse of Allen Craig, and the unharnessed arm of Joe Kelly. Kelly, of course, was lights out in the '18 postseason -- so there's a chance the Sox don't win in '13 or '18 without signing Lackey.
  17. Rodon was just an immediate example, because every time you defend Bloom by saying he doesn't have the budget for quality, I just think of all the mediocrity he keeps paying for instead. To me, this is also a rebuttal to those who keep reminding fans that the Red Sox are #5 in the MLB in payroll. No fans really care where we rank, if the guys they're paying aren't very good. If this is indeed Bloom's flashpoint winter, then he seems to be gambling on too many longshots -- if his job was truly on the line (which I don't think is the case; smart GMs with deliberate plans don't rely on past-their-primetimers and more rehab projects in a make-or-break year).
  18. Prospects don't have to be traded, nor does anyone when competing for quality free agents. Here are just a few expenditures the Sox chose this winter over signing a guy like Rodon (feel free to substitute another TOTR free agent starter from the past four winters) Kluber, Turner, Duvall instead of Rodon. Sox could've platooned youngsters at DH and used it to rest regulars -- like they said was planned -- and picked up an inexpensive glove-first actual CF. Or... Kluber and Jansen instead of Rodon. Sox could've made Houck or Whitlock the official closer. They still might by the end of the year if Jansen pulls a Kimbrel. Or... I'll be radical here: Kluber, Arroyo, Verdugo, McGuire, Pivetta, Braiser instead of Rodon. The last five signed for a combined $17M. None are sure things -- except Pivetta -- and Verdugo is a board favorite to get traded. Nobody cares about Braiser, while neither Arroyo nor McGuire has ever played a full season.
  19. Please clarify. Do you mean Bloom never found someone to replace Sale as the projected ace in the rotation? If so, can I paraphrase that he never signed or traded for a #1 starter?
  20. I think the pick-off limits -- not the size of the bases -- will result in more stolen bases for certain players... or more balks until skittish pitchers adapt.
  21. With Wil E Coyote and the Acme anvil. But at least their GM will never get to say, "If we signed Bogaerts, we could'nt have added Carpenter and Wacha, and extended Yu!"
  22. The Red Sox need more exclamation points this spring. I'd also give them an ellipsis, if I ever get off my asterisk;
  23. But the paper you're reading is the Sports Page from 2017...
  24. Not our clever classics majors. The Sox would rather put a guy with a bad elbow -- who didn't have TJ, but just a special brace -- go back to the position where he hurt his elbow... to make the longest throws in the infield.
  25. I would rank on them all. I do recall in the first ST in '20 that ERod and Nate both looked great. Then a pandemic happened. As for new guys, Perez wasn't a sure thing, but was coming off at least one decent half in '19. The only guy we really know what to expect from this season is our #5...
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