Pretty sure he means Mookie must take his regular season awesomeness into the post season. The team has underperformed in the postseason offensively the past two seasons. Its not uncommon with young players trying to do too much on the big stage facing good pitchers
Yup, I think you`re right. Shocked me just to hear Mookie needs to do more. Context matters.
Thank you! This is what I meant when I was also surprised at the post you replied to. Regardless of how his performance tailed off or the contract he was given I don't understand why anyone would go with the good riddance, 3 useless years thing, that just felt weird and inappropriate
Huh?
I meant step up in the post-season. Mookie’s hitting in his two post seasons, small sample size as it is, wasn’t up to his regular season hitting. He may be a very different hitter now though and hopefully rakes to the max. And Ted was hurt.
The right handed power will likely come from the AL homerun leader and a guy who hit 45 last year.
You might be right. Or, it might be that the team did not want to be in a position where playing decisions were being explicitly being driven by contract vesting, which is frowned upon by players generally. So they pulled the trigger now.
How is he a victim of a bad contract? I wish I had 88 million weighing me down while I provided negative value to my job.
Yeah. He really should give the money back. I dont know why players sign for so much, they're not worth it. If I was an all star player, I'd ask for a $60k salary with benefits.
I don't know if I'd call him a victim, but if his option for 2019 was for 7 million, he would have never been DFA. Kinda like if Rusney Castillo made 1-2 mil a year instead of 12, he'd potentially be on the Boston Redsox instead of Pawtucket. Even more so last year, since this year he's kinda sucking again, but like always, is hitting well vs lefties.
I'd be playing baseball for several months, that is my vacation! I'd cover for Tom Werner while HE went on vacation.
But he gave them a really good baseball reason to play him less by hitting worse than their other 1B and DH options, and their other DH option helped by fielding worse than their other OF options.Releasing him to prevent his option from vesting looks at least as bad as playing him less would have, maybe worse.
* The season starts and the new TB12'ized HanRam is raking. Vesting concerns-- let it happen if he keeps this up!
Yeah, I think it's a combo of them needing to free up a spot and thinking he won't get better, and him not wanting to play part time. A platoon would have him at roughly 200-250 PAs the rest of the way (figuring 2 starts against lefties per week, plus a games' worth of PH per week), keeping pretty well under the threshold.
Is it really that hard to understand that I was talking about his DFA and not making an abstract statement?
Thanks, Terry, that is very likely what Cora meant when he said HR wasn't a bench player. Also, I don't think HR would be happy playing that role.
I actually was thinking they might option Velazquez or trade or DFA Brian Johnson and try going with12 pitchers for at least a few games to see if having both Steven Wright and Velazquez or Johnson in the pen to eat up innings could make up for carrying 1 less pitcher. Having all 3 of those 6th starter types in the pen seems like as much of a wasted roster spot as a bat only platoon bench player.
Hanley would have 22 million reasons not to be happy as a bench bat, and he’d be one who couldn’t be used as a pinch-runner or defensive replacement, and whose 2018 numbers show relatively poor production against power pitchers (63 OPS+ in 2018), in late-and-close situations (57 OPS+), and versus relief pitchers (63 OPS+).
The Millennials crack was especially stupid. My question upthread about who you’d rather have at bat (facing, say, Sabbathia, Chad Green or Chapman) in game 6 of a playoff game probably looks like a “myth of clutchiness” thing, but its more about the Sox needing a HR threat off the bench. (Dating myself,) I’m thinking Bernie Carbo. A lefty like Carbo might be better, but the Sox have plenty of bats-left in the lineup and on the bench. A strict L/R platoon with Moreland at first would have preserved a left and right power pinch hitter option, with Hanley getting the short end of the stick. Cora seems to think Hanley would have sulked in that role. Seems to me that Hanley has risen to the occasion when he’s had something to prove. Cora is in the clubhouse and I’m not, so he’d know better. I still think the decision was about the vesting option, which makes Shaughnessy right, even if he’s right in an assholeish CHB way.
I was critiquing the shitty poster attacking your post. Maybe if you posted here more lately you'd have recognized the sarcasm.
I was behind the curve on this. You're right, 10 of 15 AL teams are going with a 13 pitcher/12 position roster right now. This blows my mind a bit. I thought 12 pitchers was kind of the extreme that we weren't ever going to exceed.
Yes, the owners won't allow it without a major concession from the players' union.
In theory I understand your case.
Very ironic! Maybe this is why Torres also got plenty of games in the minors at short and third.
Yeah, but I still bet he wishes he was in the Majors. Not enough to terminate his contract, though. I'm sure he's not all that happy about playing in Pawtucket but he's being the good $$$oldier.
I was surprised there were that many too - but I think it's partially because most teams don't have full time DH's anymore so they can rotate guys in for "rest" days.
I was thinking that there would seem to be very easy contractual terms that owners could negotiate to mitigate the risk of a player falling off a cliff performance wise (not injury) but they never seem to do it. I wonder if they will start doing this.
That and other teams have their own versions of Holt and Nunez. It seems there are more super subs (maybe even out of necessity from carrying 13 pitchers) now than the last 2 decades, but I could be completely wrong.
I think there is no question that is how things are trending. And Cora talked a lot about how much more flexibility the roster would have now which is something he values.
Hanley had a good and a bad post season here. He wasn't good in 2016 after his best season and was great last year after being benched for game one for extreme ineffectiveness down the stretch. There is just no predictor of future success, especially from small sample sizes. If there is some hidden metric, then we can lick our chops at Sandy Leon's 4 for 8 last year and Holt's 4 for 10 in 2016.
This is a good question but are there union rules or some shit against it. Probably the reason why it's not in place - performance related perks is because the players and agents might start wanting to specify big cuts when they outplay their contract. That's why I think in general owners and teams should suck it. For every pujols trotting out there for a gazillion dollars worth of shit there are plenty of young players racking up WAR at ten cents on the dollar. Where is the clamor in general for more generic contracts with performance related clauses AT BOTH ENDS. I'd suggest that the smiling faces and big boats owned by your typical MLB owner indicates they're doing ok.
