TedYazPapiMookie

If someone wrote a book about the normal progression of prospects that get promoted to the MLB it would suggest that Campbell is experiencing a normal promotion. Think back to many of the Red Sox promoted over the years and even guys like Griffey and Trout. Here are the steps: 1 - Player gets promoted and starts out hot because pitchers don't have a book on him. 2- A book gets developed with teams cooperating in sharing their experience with regard to the player. 3- The players stats drop dramatically as teams adjust to what they've learned about him. 4- The hitting coaches work with the player to help him make his adjustments to what the opponents have learned about him and his stats start to rise. 5- Repeat the cycle the rest of his career. This is why when fans beg for Anthony and Mayer and start discounting guys like Campbell and Rafaela and even Duran, it's just wrong. The cycle happens to everyone. The great ones make adjustments down the road and suddenly have break out seasons like Duran did and Mookie did and Devers did. The better the farm system history of the player the more likely they will break out. Campbell had a Mookie-like farm system experience so he will bounce back and have a break-out sometime down the road. Hopefully, sooner rather than later. Duran has already made adjustments, and his numbers are climbing again. When Anthony and Mayer arrive expect the same initial hot streak followed by the same cold streak and watch the adjustment process occur. The breakout when it comes will dictate at what level the player will create a standard plateau for his skills. Mookie jumped to elite all-star. Devers jumped to above league average hitter but never repaired his defense. Duran improved on defense and jumped to a near perennial all-star offensive level. I think you are seeing Rafaela maturing into an above league average player with upside that could lead to being an all-star level player. His defense is already JBJ-like, his Ks dropped dramatically, and his run production is returning to his 2024 level as third best on the team while hitting out of the 9 hole. This team has a ton of talent that should mature in 2026 or 2027. Give the young guys time to experience the cycle of development and come out the other end with their break-out years.

Again, baseball acumen. Your words show how much you don't understand about the game. I wrote a long explanation of the difference between statcast BS and statistics created from baseball games. Educate yourself and provide feedback on it because you might simply have not met real baseball people just other young naive people who call themselves fans due to their interest but never really played or understood what is important in the game. I like what-if scenarios as much as the next guy, but I also realize that it's just a gross estimate and not a reality like a batting average or fielding percentage. Let me ask you one simple two-part question to measure your understanding of the game of baseball. What is the goal of a fielder, and which aspect of his job is the most critical to measure? I probably should make this multiple choice, but it won't tell me as much about your concept of the game.

I grew up in an era with Sandberg and Ripken and I played infield so my perspective is different than yours. I never thought Jeter was a good defender, I preferred AROD and thought Jeter should have played 2B due to AROD being a better athlete with a better arm, better range and a willingness to be less conservative in his actions while playing the infield. Your example is an excellent one because of who you chose and his fielding philosophy. Sandberg and Ripken were very smart students of the game. They used all the information they had to determine prior to the pitch the likeliness where the ball would be hit. They were not right every time but they were right most of the time. The impact of knowing the pitch was a low inside curveball to a righty allowed him to start in a spot that was a neutral position at SS and move forward as the pitcher was preparing to throw his pitch and then move to the most likely location for the ball to go, in this case, he would cheat to his right. Ripken did not have the footspeed of an Ozzie Smith but he got to balls that Smith might not have gotten to because of his understanding of the game. Now fast forward to today when a bunch of nerds who don't get the game of baseball but like measuring things took it upon themselves to measure every aspect of the game of baseball out of context. Also, have them misuse the statistical concept of averaging to try to create an index to evaluate players. Poof you have statcast the guru of mismeasuring events in baseball. Defensive measures are probably the least effective in their set of estimates. I use the word estimate because a statistic doesn't involve guessing. It can involve incorrect measurements like a financially incented score keeper who ignores errors but the data still gets recorded and remains the facts about a baseball game. The estimates generated by statcast are inaccurate because they measure ONE TIME events that get inaccurately summarized across all of baseball so they can try to create an index representing a measuring system that simply doesn't apply to baseball. Example - The fielding percentage STATISTIC measures the success rate of a player fielding a baseball. Score keepers may not be 100% accurate which is a huge deficiency in the game today that should be fixed by the commissioner by making all error/non-error decisions reviewed in slow motion with a standard set of rules to evaluate errors but regardless of the minor inaccuracies the error/non error data gets recorded as part of the game. If a player fields at a rate of .970 and the league average is .965 then they have been more effective doing their job than the average player at the position. When you consider range to evaluate a player the concept of range does nothing but add inaccuracy. One - the distance of the range recorded for the play is just like the decision of whether it's an error, there is lots of accuracy in the data and the concept. Lets take one play. A ball is hit 15 feet to the right of a player. Does the player have ANY control over where the ball is going? NO. Is the player measured from the same point to where the ball meets his glove? NO Do players get positive results from shortening the distance to the ball by using some of that Sandberg and Ripken pre-pitch logic to shorten the distance they need to run for the ball? NO, just the opposite. Their range gets dinged due to their baseball acumen being applied. If a player is able to reduce his distance to the baseball by 5 feet using his baseball acumen as an average on all balls played during a seasons, does he get rewarded as a great fielder? No, he gets downgraded by statcast estimates. What if in a season the ball is hit 8 feet away from him then the next year the average is 6 and the last year of three years it's 10 feet but his fielding percentage stays at .970 each of the three years? Fielding percentage suggests this player is a consistent performer and his skill in fielding is .970 to be compared with others. With statcast they estimate the player by creating an indexed number for season. His first year the index includes a range of 8 feet. In year two his range drops to 6 feet and he's downgraded. Is he a worse fielder that year? No. Circumstances out of his control led to his downgrade. Is that worse than a score keeper cheating a bit? Absolutely because the key words are circumstances out of his control. The good news is by year three his range goes to 10 and he's suddenly a much better defender and could possibly win a gold glove. The fact is his defense never changed, the circumstances defining the statcast numbers did. Now, add the averaging across all players of the circumstances that are out of the control of the player. Does that improve or deteriorate the results shown by statcast? Yep, it makes those numbers even farther from the truth and virtually irrelevant because they don't reflect reality, they are normalized numbers using poor normalizing techniques. So, despite score keepers making bad judgements a percentage of the time I'll take that number over the completely contrived statcast number. The concept of considering the range of the player is theoretically a good idea but it simply can't be measured effectively due to the myriads of factors that contribute to the actual measurement of the distance. Think about the fact that surfaces vary across the league, rain or no rain impact the distance, distance between players impact the measurement. The list could go on and on. All that is taken into account by fielding percentage because it's a binary result. Either you did your job and caught the ball and got the out or you didn't. That's so much more effective than incorporating artificially created parameters that are inconclusive or maybe just irrelevant due to their inaccuracy. The art of fielding is all about the binary result because that impacts the pitcher and the team's chances of winning which is what the game is all about. I think of Belichick and his do your job quote. The fielding percentage shows how well you did your job, it may not measure athleticism, but it does allow you to fairly compare players and then build in the athleticism for selecting the preferred result. Wider range or surer hands? I'll always take the surer hands unless the wider range is ridiculously greater. Then the trick is to weigh added runners from the shorter-range guy versus added runners from the less effective fielder. Statcast completely fails to provide the details necessary to pick the better player among two teammates. Also, stat cast's focus on athleticism creates speed bias and power power bias. More importantly the measures are often irrelevant to the event they are measuring. Statcast suggests the player that hits the ball 100 mph directly at a player is better than the player who hits it at 95 mph at the player. The result is all that matters so they are comparable as their batting average shows. Statcast emphasizes the importance of velocity off the bat. Again, like most statcast data. The data only suggests potential for better results. Actual performance tells you if that skill was actually meaningful and it's clearly not meaningful universally across all players but statcast does not distinguish or acknowledge the insignificance of that distinction. Statcast is irrelevant data that is assembled with a lack of understanding about the game of baseball. It gets jammed down the fans' throats as facts and their data is NOT factual. The data is an estimate with respect to past events and a fabricated estimate if you try to use it to predict the future. Statcast counts on young people who grew up in the computer game world to buy into their BS about the accuracy and relevance of their data. They teach fans who don't get the game to discredit the actual facts produced by the game. In a world where Democrats and Republicans claim their ideas are right constantly, stat cast uses similar techniques to disparage the true statistics of baseball. Average is not meaningless if you truly know the game. Fielding percentage is not meaningless if you truly know the game. How far a home run travels IS MEANINGLESS. What only matters is that it was a HR. That impacts the score and the outcome of the game and that's WHY you play the game. To win. The purpose of statistics as opposed to estimates is to measure the success of the players and teams. ESTIMATES are attempts at guessing the results of what MIGHT have happened in the past or in the future. Fans should stay grounded in the facts and enjoy the estimates as colorful anecdotes asking what-if.

Not a baseball fan. Why use this website if you don't understand the game?

If you watched today's game you got to see why Devers can't be the 1B. The play where Campbell caught a routine ground ball to his left and the 1B took one too many steps to his right to get back to 1B but then decided to try and messed up the pitcher who was supposed to cover the base. That confusion represents what it's like to use a non 1B at 1B. The whole situation is ridiculous. Cora stated boldly that Devers can retire his gloves and he was correct in saying that. Breslow just minutes before that in an interview said Devers would move to 1B. Cora has the owners in his corner and Breslow needs to listen to Cora. Words I NEVER thought I would say. Breslow needs to make another excellent trade for a young high ceiling 1B who will replace Casas as the long term solution by giving them the injured Casas and a significant pre-arb player like Abreu who is a platoon player that could be used full time by other teams without as much depth as the Red Sox. Also, the goofy stat cast defensive numbers need to be banned from baseball for their inaccuracy. The highest fielding percentage in the infield is Campbell. The faulty DRS number for Campbell is -6 and he has made 3 errors in 136 chances. Bregman has 5 errors in 129 total chances, Story has 5 in 162 total chances and Hamilton has 2 errors in just 74 total chances. Fielding percentages in 2025 includes Campbell at .978, Gonzalez at .977, Hamilton at .973, Story .969 and Bregman at .961. Since historically Story is the best SS with Campbell the second best, it makes sense to leave Campbell at 2B and Story at SS with Campbell next up at SS should something happen to Story. Mayer has played bad defense in the minors but has improved in 2024 at hitting so why not move Mayer to 1B since he's a power hitter, 6'3", lacks defensive skills at SS compared to Story and Campbell and no place to play until Story's contract is up at the end of the 2028 season if the team option makes sense in 2028. The log jam goes away except for Casas if Mayer trains to be the 1B of the future for the Red Sox. Mayer is said to be athletic so he might become an outstanding 1B faster than other internal alternatives. Also, there is lots of depth at SS in the farm system so why not promote Mayer at 1B as soon as they can get him ready? That way you can have Anthony be the full time right fielder, Rafaela the full time CF and Duran the full-time left fielder and Mayer at 1B, Campbell at 2B, Story at SS and Bregman at 3B. Abreu becomes the 4th outfielder/late inning pinch hitter since he's by far the weakest defender of the outfielders listed above and he's significantly worse facing left handed pitchers.. If the team needs more pitching going forward they have Casas, Yoshida and Abreu to trade for improved pitching. They might not have great value now except for Abreu but teams would be lucky to add Casas and Yoshida as depth. Abreu clearly would command the most value in the group. I believe the window for Mayer at SS has passed based on his bad defense and his injuries. Maybe he can refocus at 1B and see if he can maintain his power hitting status for the power hitting position. That would be best for the ballclub.

No, I was saying that a FLY OUT in some cases would be worse for your team if the runners advance versus a strike out but if they don't then as you stated the two results have the same impact.

Not sure why you wrote what you wrote. Most a players life means from childhood when he started playing baseball, through Little League, High School, Select Perfect Game teams and then in College he was forced to move to 2nd for ONE SEASON due to being behind the incumbent SS at his college. Was the comment meant to be funny? If so, great. If not, I don't get the comment.

What you stated CAN be true but isn't a defacto truth. A fielder's choice doesn't advance the runner unless there are more than one runner on base. There is a set of times when each of the three types of outs is best for the team. Many people errantly believe the strike out is significantly worse than the ground out or fly out. That's simply not true. It's all situational. A ground out is the worst when there is a runner on first or first and second and the possibility of a double play looms. A strike out is less dangerous than a ground out in this situation. A fly out could lead to a runner advancing or it may not depending on where it is hit to and where the runner(s) are located. Yep, the strike out is the least risky of the three under these scenarios. You mentioned a scenario where a strike out with runners is worse than a ground out or fly out that moves the runners forward. That's why the concept of an out is an out applies. Every situation has a probability to whether the damage will be greater or less. As a former pitcher, if I had 1 out or no outs I preferred a ground out to a strike out because of the possibility of a double play or at least a fielder's choice but with 2 outs I preferred a strike out. That's why rules of thumbs like strike outs matter more than other outs is incorrect. It can matter more but the statement isn't necessarily true.

First, I want to thank you for starting with an insult. That's a very ignorant approach. Next, let me suggest you actually look at the stats provided. They tell the story you are missing. While the two players have played against the same opponents, Abreu has had over 100 less at bats against left-handed pitchers than Rafaela. Does that seem like he's a full-time player against both lefties and righties? Are you thinking when he gets a day off against lefties it's a coincidence? That data is indisputable. You just have to understand the data. FYI... Today Boston faces Sale and once again Abreu is NOT in the starting line-up. THUS, NOT FULL-TIME PLAYER. Also having 30 more total bases means he's more of a power hitter not that he's playing more than the next guy. The walk rate also doesn't make him a full-time player. It means he walks more. The GG was a joke because it wasn't against the same level of competition. You can thank the MLB for segmenting the OF positions when awarding GGs, otherwise a right fielder like Abreu would NEVER get a GG. FYI... Rafaela finished 8th in the AL at all positions in Defensive WAR with a 1.9. Duran was 3rd with a 2.5 and Abreu didn't make the top 10. Daulton Varsho was the GG in Centerfield with a Defensive War of 3.0. Duran was the second highest outfielder at Defensive WAR but was a Centerfielder too. Rafaela was the third highest outfielder but he too was a Centerfielder so the real GG recipients should have been Varsho, Duran and Rafaela. This is why Abreu's GG was a joke. Centerfield is the strongest outfield position on defense. So my so called Schtick isn't really wild after all. It's a fact.

I've been following the Red Sox since the 60s and there have been many political issues related to the team. One big one relates to race and how long it took the organization to integrate it's ball players. Another one in my opinion is the history of the minor league coaching staffs. As the farm system integrated over time the coaching staff seemed to become stagnant and a bit of a good old boy club. Coaches remained for decades and their influence on who got promoted and when seemed to be heavily influenced by a small set of resources within the organization. Think about the fact that some players are part of the inner circle of supported players and others are not. We brought Papi to Boston by having Pedro recommend him. Fortunately, Pedro was right and it all worked out great. We watched issues with players like Garciaparra, Fisk and Lester. Maybe you remember more recently that Mookie wasn't in the top 100 prospects in Baseball America or the MLB listings but Blake Swihart was. That's an example of a front office/farm system preferred player getting recognition thanks to the politics. Mookie proved how good he was and was already in the MLB before he ever made the top 100. Swihart was a bust who broke the top 50 like Jeter Downs. These are examples of the politics that have endured in Boston for ages. Recently, Duran was promoted to the MLB and looked to be on a fast track but he struggled for a bit and got sent back to the minors. When Devers struggled in 2018 he not only got to play a position he wasn't qualified to play but they carried him with an average under .240 most of the year. The politics of the front office and ownership dictates who is supposed to be great versus who is actually great. Campbell is a great example. He won the Minor League Player of the Year by being phenomenal in 2024 yet both Anthony and Mayer who got beaten out for the award are both ranked higher than Campbell and the marketing department swoons over the 3 at AAA last year but Campbell received the least media support despite being the best player. Campbell played SS his whole life until he went to college for a season and he had to move to 2B because an incumbent best player was blocking him from playing SS. He's a better shortstop than Mayer but the marketing of Mayer suggests he's the SS of the future because he was the fourth pick. What it doesn't mention is that every season was a disappointment until 2024. Campbell on the other hand, got drafted in 2023 and arrived in Boston in 2025 whereas Mayer was drafted in 2021 and has yet to arrive. Politics. It's a big part of the Red Sox legacy. I hope that better defines what I meant or was referencing.

The television interview had Cora telling everyone that he was working diligently with his pitching coaches on fixing Sale's mechanics. So he takes credit but gives the pitching coaches a small part in it. Sound like Cora? I think it did when I watched the interview. My first thought was poor Sale. Cora knows nothing about pitching mechanics and he clearly knows nothing about how long it takes to make significant changes in arm angle, stride and release point during a season. My experience has always suggested that all major mechanical changes should happen in the off season or you are libel to create an elbow injury. With Sales exaggerated mechanics, the TJ surgery created from this change was highly predictable. You have a very, very valid point and it cost Sale two years of service which may cost him a shot at the HOF.

fWAR is not a recognized estimate to me. Why not use real stats? Rafaela 810 PA, 763 AB, 188 hits (.246 avg), 280 OBP, .387 SLG, .667 OPS 105 Runs, 98 RBIs 36 2Bs, 7 3Bs, 19 HRs, 29 SBs HBP 10 Abreu VS Right Handed pitchers 599 PA, 530 AB, 149 hits (.281 avg), .356 OBP, .521 SLG, .876 OPS 87 Runs, 91 RBIs, 42 2Bs, 2 3Bs, 27 HRs, 14 SBs HBP 2 VS Left Handed pitchers 102 PA, 92 AB, 17 hits (.185 avg), .265 OBP, .261 SLG, .526 OPS 6 Runs, 8 RBIs, 4 2Bs, 0 3Bs, 1 HR, 1 SB, 1 HBP THE ABOVE STATS SHOW WHY ABREU IS NOT A FULL TIME PLAYER!! Rafaela's numbers show that he faces lefties about 26.6% of the time. That means that the really bad stats of Abreu facing lefties would more than double if he was full time. While Abreu's numbers are very good when he faces right-handed pitchers his numbers are very bad when he faces left-handed pitchers. So how can a one-dimensional hitter command so much respect when you can't play him in roughly 25 percent of the games? Now consider his defense being compared to the right fielders in the AL and Rafaela being compared to the center fielders in the AL. It's a joke to call Abreu the GG outfielder simply because he's competing at a weak defensive position. If Rafaela had played right field he might have won the platinum glove not just the gold glove. Yet nobody acknowledges the misleading honor Abreu received. I hope that explains why Abreu gets too much respect compared to Rafaela. Rafaela is the better all-around player and far more valuable on defense than Abreu. That's not an insult to Abreu because Rafaela is an outstanding player and hopefully, he'll get his recognition someday soon. If Abreu could learn to hit lefties, then the WAR value might actually have more meaning. FYI... Baseball Reference has the 162-game adjusted WAR as 3.3 for Rafaela and 5.0 for Abreu. That's why I throw out all fabricated estimates from all sources. Multiple sources can't even agree on the definition of the ESTIMATES. Also, please note they are estimations not real stats.

I think you should check your facts. Dombrowski DID NOT pick Cora he was forced on him by ownership and that's why Cora went behind DD's back to create a direct line of communication with the owners that circumvented Dombrowski. Cora discussed many things directly with owners which did not go over well with DD. Things like the Media Room cheating scandal saved Cora's career because he bragged about it to Henry and others making them liable when the Commissioner wanted to assess blame to the owners like they did in Houston. Cora took the fifth with the commissioner and got the team to resind all comments about what had happened leaving the commissioner without proof of what they did. That saved the owners embarrassment, fines and lost draft choices so they rewarded the cheater with an extension after he got out of baseball jail The Eckersley incident happened in 2017 and Mookie was upset as a black team leader that ownership said disparaging things in public rather than keeping them in house about his teammate Price who was one of just a few black players on the team. The ownership had long been called racist but for a player to challenge them on their actions against a minority player was unheard of. It's been suggested that ownership's viewpoint of Betts being the franchise player changed after that. Also, the ownership declared they were becoming more diverse and fired Farrell and hired Cora at the end of the 2017 season. That was a direct response to the public allegations about their diversity issues and rumors of Mookie's meeting. Dombrowski had a plan with respect to salary bumps for Sale who was on a very team friendly contract, for Mookie who was the franchise player and for Bogaerts who accepted a team friendly contract with an opt out if Bogaerts performed well. The timetable was Sale's new contract was to happen in Spring Training of 2019, Mookie's new contract was to happen in Spring Training of 2020 and Bogaert's new contract was to happen in Spring Training of 2021. Each contract was to be completed 18 months prior to the players reaching free agency. The Sale deal was executed during the Spring Training screw-up by Cora in 2019. Unfortunately, the Dombrowski schedule got destroyed when DD went to ownership to get Mookie a $9Million dollar raise for 2020 that would extend him 10 to 12 years. Ownership said no. Dombrowski said he can't GM a team that doesn't want it's best player and if he was going to remain as GM Mookie needed to be signed. Instead, the ownership group and DD parted ways with DD signing an NDA that simply had him walk away without discussing why. Ownership chose to suggest that it was his spending despite the fact that the CAP was exceeded by the Retained Salaries from Cherington. I apologize for not being clearer on the sequence of the events. Bloom was NOT hired to do anything other than tear down the 2018 champions and rebuild a roster more like Tampa Bay's. What ownership didn't know was that all the great deals made by Tampa Bay were assembled by his staff who were not allowed to follow him to Boston. As a result, we got a GM with the best drafting slots in years, and they were used on players who were bad choices and young. The youth factor extended the length of time it was to take to rebuild the torn down champions. That's why Mayer has been such a disappointment considering who Bloom passed up to pick him and how much they have helped their teams already. Cowser was the 5th pick in that draft and others not taken who have already helped their MLB teams are - Bednar PIT RP, M McLain CIN 2B, Connor Norby 3B, Spencer Schwellenback ATL SP and James Wood WAS OF. All these players arrived to the MLB team long before now and Mayer still hasn't been promoted to the MLB. That shows Bloom's plan of a long rebuilding process should not have been chosen by ownership since it is not tolerable to Boston Red Sox fans, especially roughly a year after winning a ring. Can I ask why you think Dombrowski picked Cora?

This is an interesting topic. The Red Sox have the most plate appearances of any team in baseball with RISP (495) and their 123 strike outs also leads all teams. Also, their 103 hits is 6th most. Their 13 HRs is 3rd most. Their batting average of .242 ranks 19 out of 30. Their OBP is 19th. Their SLG is 13th best. Their OPS is 14th. So, overall, they get the most opportunities with RISP but their performance is average ranking near the middle of the pack. Only their strike outs standout BUT their hitting (AVG, OBP) is average, or middle of the pack so does their strike out rate matter? An out is an out and the rest of the stats suggest the Red Sox are pretty average with RISP so strike outs are NOT affecting their overall performance which is average. Now let's consider why an insignificant stat gets pointed out and who the criticism was directed at. Story is being criticized and Campbell the best rookie in the Red Sox organization is being highlighted. With Devers striking out a comparable number of times to Story, why pick on Story? Could it be to promote Mayer by creating a need for him to be promoted despite him not even being the best SS available in the organization? This theory seems very likely and to further it Campbell the best SS in the organization that is not named Story is also being attacked. Heck, many fans on this site dismiss Campbell despite all he has achieved and are trying to promote Mayer despite him being highly disappointing so far in the minors and being injury prone. It makes no sense. The Depth chart for the Red Sox at SS should be Story, Campbell and then Mayer since Meidroth got traded to Chicago. The depth chart for 2B should be Campbell, Hamilton and then Mayer assuming he can outplay guys like Grissom and Gonzalez. Anthony is the other prospect that people are trying to get promoted to the MLB, so they are bad mouthing Duran who has been in a slump after two great seasons and Rafaela who has gone from the worst at Ks to the best starter with respect to limiting his Ks. He's also the best defensive outfielder by a long shot despite Abreu winning a GG for competing against a very weak fielding group of right fielders versus the centerfielders Rafaela competed with. Abreu had double the errors of both Rafaela and Duran making him the weakest outfielder in the bunch. The politics of Boston baseball has always been a problem. Today, we are seeing both Rafaela and Campbell being treated without the respect they have earned and guys like Abreu (a part time player) getting far more respect than they deserve. In the minors we have Anthony who is deserving of his accolades and Mayer who has been hyped like Jeter Downs, to levels far beyond his performance. Why is the K rate with RISP a big concern? Because it provides an opportunity to bad mouth two players in front of Mayer in the pecking order. The BA and OBP show that there is no impact of Ks versus ground out and fly outs when it comes to scoring the runners on base. The real issue is that as the team with the highest rate of RISP Boston needs to be better hitters, so they move up in the overall rankings for productivity with RISP. That means not only less Ks but less ground outs and less fly outs. You can't assume if a player doesn't strike out that he's not going to ground out or fly out and that he will get a hit. It doesn't work that way. More hits and less outs need to be achieved. That's the issue here!!

Should we evaluate Cora like we do players? I get that he has this great reputation. In 2017 when the owners were taking heat for their lack of diversity, they promised things would change and a week later they hired a completely inexperience bench coach because he was bilingual and the Latin players complained about how strict Farrell was. That's a very bizarre set of qualifications to use to hire a big league manager, especially after Farrell's success working with Dombrowski. But politics are important in Boston as is the image of the Ownership group. Can we suggest Cora was responsible for the success of the 2018 Red Sox or was a very successful set of key acquisitions made by Dombrowski that significantly improved the skill level of the Red Sox the real reason for the 2018 success? I think it was the acquisitions. JD filled the hole left by Papi and Dombrowski added a Cy Young winner and a filthy lefty that looked to be a Cy Young winner soon. What did Cora add in 2018? Cora filled the role of bench coach by spending a major portion of his time coddling guys like Devers and other young Latin players. He didn't do much for JD, Benny or the other non-Latin players, he simply included the talented ones on his line-up card. Betts exploded, Benny exploded, JD was a godsend, Bogey was outstanding while Devers struggled at hitting and was once again a butcher at 3B. The chemistry on the team developed as JD and Bogey took over as the leaders on the team and Sale and Price headed up a very good starting rotation and a bullpen that had a great closer. I think you can describe the Red Sox in 2018 as the equivalent of the 1990s Bulls, all the manager had to do was write out the line-up and not get in the way. Cora's ego wouldn't let him only be the rudder of the ship, he chose to create a managerial style for in game and pre-game decisions that was highly questionable. 1 - He played the reserves more than he needed to because he buddied up to them since he identified with them as a player. He wasn't good and didn't start very often. In Houston, he coddled the bench players so it was in his wheelhouse to be that guy in the dugout and to make them appreciate him he provided them with more opportunities than they deserved if the team was to win. Good thing he had far more talent than any other team. 2 - He spent months quoting Hinch and explained his decisions mirrored what Hinch did. In April 2018 when the team had two open days in a week and a rain out he sat Mookie. When asked he said Hinch created a calendar that detailed when each starter should have a day off. He did the same. When asked why he didn't just give them a day off when they needed it, he said his way was better. The team lost the game that Mookie missed. 3 - Cora clearly had never managed a pitching staff. He took out Sale early on so many occasions and replaced him with weak relievers so he could keep Sale fresh. If not for the offense that mistake would have cost them many games but after the reliever gave the opposition the lead, the big four at the top of the order rallied late to pull out a win. Sale struggled with all of the coaching Cora provided. He suggested he shouldn't pitch with his hair on fire but rather throw slower in the early innings of a game. That didn't work for Sale. He tried to get Sale to pitch to contact to lessen his pitches. That didn't work for Sale either. After working the year before with Farrell, Sale was clearly frustrated by Cora's lack of knowledge, but he was a good soldier and did what Cora told him. By the end of 2018 many people gave credit to Cora for them winning but the fans that watched closely and had baseball backgrounds saw that they won despite Cora. His lack of experience destroyed the dynasty. In 2019 he told the starting pitchers to arrive at Spring Training two weeks later than usual because they had to pitch into November. Yes, it was an insane idea and all the pitchers ended up struggling in 2019 because of it. Eovaldi got injured. Price and Sale got lit up due to the shortened Spring Training and Cora actually changed Sale's mechanics in late April because he was struggling. The change in his mechanic led to his TJ surgery after multiple IL stints in 2019. Despite some players regressing back to their norms, the team was still over .500 but the pitching was really struggling. Then the future of the Red Sox turned on a dime. All his choices in 2019 lacked the luck of his bizarre choices for pinch hitters, relievers and line-ups that worked out in 2018 despite being illogical. In the middle of all this chaos, Eckersley and Price had a feud that led to the owners bad mouthing Price publicly, which led to Mookie meeting with owners calling them out for doing it and deeply offending them. Ownership decided Mookie needed to go and when Dombrowski tried to sign Mookie for 12 years at $36 Million a year (Only a $9 Million dollar raise) the owners refused, and the two parties decided to part ways, or so the story goes! To add to the huge mess created by Cora during Spring Training, word gets out that Cora cheated by creating a sign stealing operation in Houston that aided them in winning the World Series and-on-the-way eliminate more talented teams like the Red Sox, Yankees and Dodgers. By the time the owners shipped the two best black players on the team to the Dodgers using a unqualified pretender GM from Tampa Bay the organization was already going down the drain rapidly. 2020 was a disaster and it got worse because after the season the owners chose to bring back the cheater. Why? I don't think we will ever know what leverage existed that a cheater would be asked back and practically apologized to for being fired. Since Cora was brought back nothing has gone well. The team has been an embarrassment. And then the unexpected happened. Cora, the source of most issues with the team over the last 5 years, insists on doing the obvious move to help fix the team. Signing Bregman was a brilliant move and Breslow used Cora's leverage with ownership to make it happen. The Crochet deal was another addition that Breslow orchestrated and now Boston's talent level is getting close to the 2018 team Bloom dismantled. Is Cora on a hot seat? I don't think so. He is made of Teflon and it's ironic that when he's finally done something right fans might be calling for his head. Like everything else, it makes no sense. What a great topic to write about!!! It's going to be controversial because fans and the media are split on Cora. From where I'm sitting, I think of the last five years as an avalanche of destruction. I think Cora created the snowball that got rolled down the hill, Ownership dumped Mookie to dramatically grow the size of the problem, then Bloom brought the dynamite to bring the entire mountain of snow down to the valley. Breslow now must take what's left and bring it back up to the top of the mountain.

Mayer's stats in the minors are posted on another comment. What they show is that Soxprospects is a Red Sox team-controlled source that promotes its key players that they want to promote. 1 - It's not objective it's marketing and 2 - It doesn't reflect actual performance it's an OPINION by some writer about how a player looks. You can look really great but if your actual stats don't support it, then the observation is rendered meaningless. For me, I want the guy who actually performs at the level the writer is suggesting. I have nothing against Mayer except he's never lived up to his hype and all the marketing of him has suggested things that are not contributing to his performance. If you go to a horse race and one of the horses struts around with a great build, size, attitude and seems the most fit of all of them, his look only matters if he wins the race. Mayer is that horse. EVERYTHING looks good but when he plays, he doesn't execute to that level. So do you believe your eyes or the stats? I believe the stats represent his skills and his stats are mediocre for a 4th pick in the draft. Meidroth is starting in Chicago at SS (he was in the Crochet deal as the little-known SS). His minor league numbers were slightly better than Mayers in a similar time period and yet next to nobody knew who he was because Mayer gets all the limelight. The White Sox did their homework. Rather than asking for Teel and Mayer they asked for Teel, Montgomery who was just drafted with high upside and Meidroth who nobody knew. They came out way ahead in the deal compared to asking for Teel and Mayer. Stats matter. They are the factual documentation of performance versus the Statcast estimates that represent athleticism and try to simulate what-if scenarios that are based on the athleticism not actual performance. That's why the data I presented between Mayer and Campbell shows that while Mayer may look better in a showcase or on paper, Campbell produces far better results and that's what matters when you are trying to win baseball games.

I understand why you want these changes but for me they can't be justified due to the risk increase of losing Devers for a significant time period. Here is the line-up you are suggesting: C - Narvaez 1B - Devers (HUGE RISK) 2B - Campbell SS - Story 3B - Bregman LF - Duran (2/3) Anthony (1/3) CF - Rafaela RF - Abreu (2/3) Anthony (1/3) DH - Abreu (1/3) Duran (1/3) Anthony (1/3) Your split in the outfield is excellent out of the box thinking that gives Anthony time at both corners and keeps Abreu in the line-up beyond sitting for left-handed pitchers. Maybe he'll show he can be a full-time player this year. I only have ONE issue with this line-up. Devers can't be effective on defense at any position and the risk of injury ratchets up a lot if he's fielding. There is not reason to absorb this risk as a team so the biggest assumption that needs to be made was stated boldly by Cora. DEVERS IS THE DH FOREVER going forward. With that assumption I think their best team both defensively and offensively is: C - Narvaez (weakest position) 1B - Mayer 2B - Campbell SS - Story 3B - Bregman LF - Duran CF - Anthony (1/2) Rafaela (1/2) RF - Anthony (1/2) Abreu (1/2) DH - Devers Rafaela plays vs lefty starters, Abreu plays against righty starters. By end of season we'll see where Anthony is best suited to play full time, RF or CF. Devers risk is minimized so he should lead the team in ABs with Bregman right behind him along with Duran if he starts hitting. If Anthony is ready, I would hit Duran 1, Bregman 2, Devers 3, Campbell 4, Anthony 5, Story 6, Mayer 7, Catcher 8 and Rafaela 9 and when Abreu you plays he hits 7 and Mayer hits 9. That is a long line-up if the young guys can hit .250 or higher during their first season. That's a lot to ask but they are all talented hitters. I think with Mayer being an injury prone player it is risky to play him at 1B but he's supposed to be very athletic so that should lower his risk a bit. Devers is not athletic which significantly adds to his risk at 1B. I think we are pretty close in our thinking and I really like the way you mixed LF, RF and DH. Great out of the box thinking.

Agreed!! This team needs both Anthony and Mayer on the MLB roster and some of the retreads removed. I posted Mayer's fielding stats in the minors in a different response. They are pretty ugly. Fans want him to be great but he hasn't lived up to it yet. Even in 2024 his breakout hitting season, his defense was lacking. If you put Mayer and Campbell's stats next to each other, Campbell is both the better offensive player and defensive player. Story's arm has been a concern since he arrived but it's improved enough to keep him at SS. If he got moved to 2B then Campbell is the logical replacement SS because his history shows he's a better defender at both SS and 2B than Mayer. People hate hearing that but the facts are laid out in my other response. I also agree with you that Anthony needs to come up. He has nothing left to prove and if he's as good as his stats suggest, his clock being started today may actually be to Boston's advantage if Campbell wins the ROY and gets a shortened timeframe before free agency. That way both Campbell and Anthony don't get it back to back years and both lost control time for the Red Sox. Mayer is tall, athletic and thinks very highly of himself. Put him at 1B and see he can handle it. His chances of being a long term SS hinge on him significantly improving his defense and we went down that road with Devers and he simply couldn't improve. So maybe Mayer becomes the 1B of the future and we get to incorporate Campbell, Anthony and Mayer into the batting order to go with Bregman, Devers, Story, Duran, Rafaela/Abreu and Narvaez. By the end of 2025, that could be a very potent hitting team.

The best defensive shortstop is Story in my opinion and then Campbell. Obviously you think it's Mayer but his rate of making errors shows he's missing the fundamental skill of being a shortstop. You can reference some of the contrived estimates made by stat cast but that's all crap because defense is fundamental. A ball gets hit to you and you catch it and throw out the runner. If you are bad at the most fundamental part of the action, I can't consider him good let alone the best. I think we are going to disagree on this one because you sound like a statcast guy. I'm old school. If you can't catch the ball and throw the runner out more than the next guy, then the next guy can't make up for it by being faster or having a better arm. OUTS are all that matter to me and the performance of getting outs defines your defensive skills. TEAM, WINNING and EXECUTION are the three fundaments of a good player and a good team. Statcast refocus people to athleticism but without the three fundamentals the athleticism is simply wasted. Statcast measures things related to individuals that aren't best for the team, they don't result in winning, and they don't focus on successful execution, they measure athleticism. There is nothing wrong with honoring a player with a great exit velocity or arm strength, but that player isn't the guy you want to idolize as a player just as an athlete. The guy who wins games for your team is the guy kids should be looking up to. That's why Campbell is a far more valuable player than Mayer and was rewarded for it last year. Mayer might be what I call a showcase player who tests out great in statcast estimates but Campbell has a history of executing his skills better, more effectively and more often as shown by his actual STATS not the statcast estimates. I'll take the guy whose performance as documented by Baseball Reference is superior over the guy who has better statcast numbers. FYI...here is a comparison of Mayer and Campbell: FIELDING CAMPBELL Age 21 the year he was drafted - at 2B in ROK and Hi-A - 43 total chances and 1 error FPCT - .977 at OF in ROK and Hi-A - 16 total chances and 2 errors FPCT - .875 Age 22 his Minor League Player of the Year season at SS in AA and AAA - 105 total chances 3 errors FPCT - .971 at 2B in Hi-A, AA and AAA - 150 total chances 3 errors FPCT - .980 at 3B in Hi-A, AA and AAA - 11 total chances 0 errors FPCT - 1.000 at OF in Hi-A, AA and AAA - 53 total chances 0 errors FPCT - 1.000 FIELDING MAYER at SS Age 18 in ROK - 70 total chances 10 errors FPCT - .857 at SS Age 19 in A and Hi-A - 306 total chances 12 errors FPCT - .961 at SS Age 20 in Hi-a and AA - 236 total chances 10 errors FPCT - .958 (injured so partial season) at SS age 21 in AA - 212 total chances 10 errors FPCT - .953 (injured again when promoted to AAA) at 3B age 21 in AA - 4 total chances 1 error FPCT - .750 at SS age 22 in AAA - 92 total chances 2 errors - .978 at 2B age 22 in AAA - 21 total chances 1 error - .952 at 3B age 22 in AAA - 7 total chances 0 errors - 1.000 NOTE - at SS ages 18 to 21 (through 2024) he had 824 Total Chances with 42 errors - FPCT - .949 Rafeal Devers fielding percentage in the minors was .937 Campbell's fielding percentage in the minors was at 2B was .979, at SS was .971 Really hard to consider Mayer a better SS than Campbell based on what they ACTUALLY did Mayer's fielding percentage is 12 points higher than Devers who is the worst 3B in history and it's 22 points lower than Campbell's!! I don't dislike Mayer, I simply read his performance stats and find him lacking defensive skills no matter how fast he is or how powerful his arm is, he's simply not getting it done at a rate that would help Boston win games.

You are an obvious Mayer fan. I'm not. Of all the players that you mentioned he is the weakest defender based on past performance. That's my measuring stick for success - facts. He's the weakest hitter among Campbell, Story, Bregman and Mayer and he's the weakest defender. Frankly, he still has a lot more success that needs to be documented for me to believe he is as good as you think. Maybe it will happen or maybe he'll continue to be league average like he was in the minors in all seasons except 2024. I hope he proves to have the skills his hype forecast but as of yet, I have very little evidence of any success or stardom by him. If you are a fan, then I'm sure these words will aggravate you but if you go to the baseball bible (Baseball Reference) his performance is clearly documented. An excellent 2024 and he played well in Spring Training this year then shot off his mouth about how good he was alienating many fans like me. As good as he was in 2024, Campbell was better. Campbell also proved his promotion to the MLB first was justified based on performance. Anthony is now performing at a level suitable for promotion and if Mayer can continue his recent hot streak, he might EARN a spot on the major league roster as a back-up or 1B. All I care about is documented performance. Everything else is a projection based on a bias. That does not stop me from rooting for all the Red Sox including Mayer, it just keeps things real by using only actual performance to judge players. Are you aware Mayer's minor league defensive stats at SS are slightly better than Devers' were and nowhere near what Campbell did? Heck, Boston traded Meidroth in the Crochet deal and his numbers in the minors were slightly better than Mayer's yet nobody knew his name other than hard core fans. Why? Mayer has had a spotlight on him since the 2021 draft when Bloom could have taken players like Colton Cowser, Jordan Lawler, Kumar Rocker, Brady House, Andrew Painter, WIll Bednar, Sal Frelick, Khalil Watson, Matt McLain, Gunner Hoglund, Trey Sweeney, Gavin Williams or Jackson Merrill, all of whom have done far more for their ballclub than Mayer. If Mayer has the talent you think he does he needs to start catching up to his draft mates in contributing to his ballclub. As the fourth pick, his performance to date is very disappointing considering the other options that Bloom had. Sorry I can't agree with you on the topic of Mayer at this time. Maybe in the future.

The concept of controlling the clock has changed with the last CBA. I don't think we have experienced this yet but doesn't the CBA provide for a shortening of the clock if a player reaches some specific thresholds? How does a team balance that against starting the clock too early? Say Campbell makes ROY this year, doesn't he get rewarded with the advancement of his clock? So, while I agree not starting the Anthony clock sooner might be a good goal does it make more sense to start it now? If Anthony is able to perform like Campbell at a higher level than the players at his position now. that might make for a two-man ROY race in Boston which would remove the chance that each could win in 2025 and 2026 and Boston would lose clock time for both players? I'm interested in what you think about that because since the new CBA I've wonder how the new benefits to players would be handled by organizations.

Nope. Just looking for baseball people to talk baseball with and avoiding the proud unenlightened masses that lead with insults when someone disagrees..

I agree that 1B is not a strong defensive position like in the past. I also agree that promoting both Anthony and Mayer to support the current roster makes sense because they are better than the alternatives and provide flexibility. I think Campbell is a better defender than Mayer at 2B so I would put Mayer at 1B. I think Anthony could move into a rotation as 4th outfielder playing RF when Abreu sits for lefties and giving both Duran and Rafaela a day off occasionally plus he could pinch hit late in the game. Lastly, the chances for Dever having a career are much higher as DH so amen to that suggestion because making the playoffs only happens if he does.

I agree with your assessment of Devers' skills. The reaction time to me was less positive because I watched replays of his fielding and compared it to other 3Bs like Bregman. I stop the video when I saw his first movement and checked to see where in the infield the ball was. Consistently, the ball was far closer to Devers than Bregman and others when freeze framed meaning it traveled farther before the player reacted. I concluded a slow reaction time from that. For me, I just keep asking why does anyone want to force this move when so many other choices are available. Anyone else at 1B reduces Devers' overall risk of getting hurt, but like so many have pointed out he could get hurt anyway. That's true but everyone should be able to see all that is being sought is less risk for a top hitter on the team and no urgency to make the 1B spot a placibo for Devers' ego. It's what's best for the team so I favor him being a DH forever.

Anyone that starts with insults isn't worth my time. Based on your moniker I believe I have read your ignorant comments on other sites like this one.