drewski6

A good defense that isnt versatile isnt a good defense.

My point is simply this: versatility and depth are good. Having guys who can only play one position, and assigning every player to one position only = bad. We went out and got Durbin because he can play more than 1 position. It was like one of the first things Bres said that attracted him to the guy. Positions are suggestions. Versatility is great. We will use it.

Good thing we have so much defensive versatility.

But when its pitching, 8 starters isnt enough

I think if its July, and KC has been playing LF in Woo all year and has a .950 OPS. Then Story gets hurt (significantly), I think the obvious move will be to call up KC and to play either KC or Cedanne at infield and live with the defensive drop off. But I agree lets cross the bridge first. Its not like I think hes going to hit .950 OPS at Woo. Just that if he is, you find a spot for the bat, and I dont care where he plays. Put him at Catcher, dont care.

If KC is hitting .950 in AAA in July and all 4 outfielders are healthy, chances are youll see KC at 2b (or Cedanne)

But didnt you jsut say its his bat that will get him to the majors. If KC gets to the majors this year it will be because of two things, bat + opportunity. That opportunity might be in teh infield. He may be better overall second baseman than IKF and Romy but not as good an outfielder of the top 4 who may be healthy. Why not make the team better and have teh best available 2b play 2b? Could also move Cedanne to 2b if youd rather. But my point is simply that there is no reason to pigeon hole people and rule out potential defensive combinations on 3/4/26. We dont know the twists / turns of the season. I like being versatile and adaptable to whatever may be thrown at us. Especially with Breslow who I dont trust to make the move we need

My hunch is 40 years ago is enough time for it to change and then change back. But I dont fully disagree with some of these counter points. Especially not about prime Tony Gwynn. I say Roman is prime TG without the wheels and I do think Roman will have a .330 season (maybe not this year). Im not sure about Koufax, but I know that pitchers like DLowe never went upstairs. ANd that worked better than then I would expect it to work now. But that doesnt mean I dont think prime Dlowe in 2026 wouldnt have a spot in the middle of some MLB rotation. Maybe jsut more of a #3 than a #2. But keep in mid: the universe is shaped exactly like the earth, if you go straight long enough , you'll wind up where you were. Just becasue bell bottoms came back at some point doesnt mean they never left.

Because in a hitters era, both of those things are going to go up. Its a secondary correlation to having good hitters coming up behind you. You take more walks if your 3-4-5 are Ortiz, Manny, Lowell. Teams had monster lineups.

Because launch angles, and high fastballs and pull approaches and all that other stuff, but yeah. The game of baseball is nonstop adjustments and counters. E.g. back in the day, pitches never pitched upstairs, but launch angle science improved and teams started smashing low balls especially because they could look exlusively low. So pitchers started going upstairs to make a batter's eye cover more zone and also because the uppercut swing didnt work on high heat. Another change is the pitcher's are better now, so you can rely on the guy behind you less. So you want extra base hits because then you dont need 2 more hits (or a hr) to drive you in. You can score from second on any hit. So you want to capitalize on opportunities. So the difference in expected to score between a double and single increases. Its all downstream effects from the constant evolution of the game.

Agree. Its about buying time. There is no reason to trade Masa right now for 4m in salary relief. Lets first make sure we get everyone back healthy from WBC. Once the games start mattering, we can still survive some games with Masa as a non ideal bench player, again still buying more time (agreeing fully with you). As the season progresses, like for example jsut like you say happens, all outfielders are healthy, Casas is back or maybe someone else is forcing your hand. Maybe Eaton was up and Romy is coming back and Eaton you wanna keep over Masa and now Eaton needs to take Masas spot becuse he was before taking Romys spot but Romys healthy now....Or maybe its Ward or Monasterio.... But yeah, I agree, wait till someone forces you to move Masa out of their way. This is what Theo said to CLay B when I sent him down. Force my hand. Granted Clay had like a 1.6 ERA in AAA so it wasnt exactly fair or a great example...But with the suspects , I say "force us to clear you a path"

Most likely , he is a better OF than he is a 2b, but theres a chance Mayer flops, Durbin gets hurt and KC is called up as a second baseman because thats where the opportunity is, and makes the team better because of his defensive versatility.

Im less interested in singles and walks from players who dont steal than I use to be. Because the odds that you are going to get what you need to turn them into runs arent as high as they use to be. Im not anti walks from speedsters or from d first players trying to contribute anything they can on offense. Walks is inversely correlated to pull hitting, mr pull hitter. Because your swing decision, when pulling , has to be earlier. So you have to guess earlier and comit to what you see. Vs stay back hitters can wait , wait , wait and draw more walks. But they aint pulling or driving as much. Its hitter by hitter. BUt im not interested in staying back. Unless you got the wheels or arent a great hitter. If you want Casas to pull the ball, you want him to walk less. Ditto with KC.

Old school stats are new school stats again, and former new school stats are old now. I wanna see R's and RBI's. OPS can be misleading if you are drawing walks and getting stranded on first base. Now if you are hitting gappers and runners are scoring from first, thats production. If you are hitting gappers and getting to 2nd and 3rd with less than 2 outs and getting home as a result , thats production. The OBP is king days are from teh days when you were almost always going to be knocked in because it was such a hitters era. Im less about "dont create an out" and IM more about "capitalize your opportunities" than I use to be because of changes in the game.

Most roster decisions are not made for a single reason. Theres usually a multiple of reasons/variables considered and who can be sent down does get taken into account.

Maybe for a little bit of time though. Anyone you can send down you can call back up. If you jettison Masa that cant be undone. EVery year guys get sent down because teams can send them down on every team. They had to change the rules and create prospect promotion incentives jsut becasue. Theres secondary reasons too....E.g. delaying KC service time counter to get his prime years cheap and not have to extend him for bigger money. This stuff plays in, but I agree its never the "only reason"

Well, looking at the bottom of the graphic, deathball can mean knuckle-curve or put-away pitch. If its the former, we do need a new name for the knuckle-curve, but deathball aint it. Or maybe we dont need to have all 15 curveball variations to have their own name. Maybe we just call a knuckle-curve a curveball. Maybe we can jsut call a slurve a curveball too.

I disagree with this. The more positions he can play, the more likely he is to find a spot on the team. I dont think they permanently ruined his ability to play 2b by playing him in the of 15 games or ruined his ability to play of by playing him at 2b 15 games. He'll find his level defensively.

I will accept this, I am satisfied with the help I received from you and moon on trying to figure it out.

I agree, but ty (sincerely) for the "more than anything else" - thats the level of nuance I appreciate. I can agree with this. But I would add that while I agree the 18m is the primary reason, a secondary reason that shouldnt be dismissed is that he cnat be sent down. A lot of times team send down the player who they can send down (i.e. has options remaining). Like if a prospect slightly outplayed a vet, but you cant send that vet down and you are not sure which one will be the guy come playoffs, you send down the kid to buy yourself time. Postpone decisions and hoard talent. Obviously, its case by case - so you dont always send down the player who you can, but you take into account who you can send down. If Anthony was out of options last year, he would have broke with the big club.

Well considering multiple people are telling me this, maybe he just had a couple good swings in the few games ive seen and its throwing off my opinion, which Im starting to thikn is probable and he hasnt been swinging it well this season, just maybe in like 3 of the 5 at-bats ive seen. Ive seen him get robbed of a base hit on 2 occasions this spring, and i may be putting too much into that.

Ive seen some good swings from him, and I dont like some of these obp and obp derivative stats.

But it may be for now

I wonder why it wasnt, and im glad you brought that up. Maybe hes honorable and was like listen guys, i havent lived up to my contract to date and im ashamed so the last thing im going to do is file a grievance against the team thats been overpaying me. But Im also not sure if its up to Yoshida or if grievances can be filed on his behalf. I wonder if the fact that hes minority made MLBPA slightly less likely to take his case. Hope not.

TY, this helps. Im not sure the bidding war would matter because of reasons I said. For exmpale, if a team offer him 8m and he accepts after released, I think that would save the red sox 8m but yoshida would still only get 18. Or im wrong, but you are correct that its not relevant. Because if a team is willing to pay him 8, it makes more sense to trade him. I went down the rabbit hole to try to gauge if we can park him in AAA which I would rather do than flip him at this point in time for 4m of salary relief. And Id rather keep him on the 26 at this point in time rather than flip him for salary relief. But if its entering May and we're healthy and mayer, Kc, eaton, Montaserio, ward are all proving to be better ballplayers, at that point in time, it may make sense to trade out masa to clear a spot on the 26. Regarding parking him in aaa at that point (may) if we can, sure. Put I feel like he put that clause in teh contract for a reason. And that reason was if this doesnt work out, i get to take my bag and go back to japan, so i think most likely if we wanted to kick him off 26 man roster in may, its either trade him or release him and in which case hes prob going back to japan (and still getting the 18m this year and next). I guess when I think about it, he put that in there for a reason (cant send me to AAA) and that reason is most likely because "Id rather be in japan than AAA"