Protecting the Shields -- The Nick Cafardo Thread

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Humphrey

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I can't decide whether to be in the "every time that a Sox manager says someone is a little hurt he ends up being a LOT hurt" camp or the "Nick is full of shit and this is just a minor injury" camp.
 

John Marzano Olympic Hero

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I can't decide whether to be in the "every time that a Sox manager says someone is a little hurt he ends up being a LOT hurt" camp or the "Nick is full of shit and this is just a minor injury" camp.
I couldn't either and kudos to Nick for writing, what, 1000 words and never being able to convey any sort of conclusion to his piece. That's actually a pretty good skill. I literally have no idea whether Rodriguez will be okay after the All-Star Break, will be on the DL for 15 days or will miss the regular season. Because the way Cafardo wrote it, it sounds like all three are possibilities.

And the cherry on top is how Wilbur is "frustrated" by Rodriguez' injuries and wonders whether this should be a concern. I think that most of his injuries have been freak things, no?
 

Red(s)HawksFan

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And the cherry on top is how Wilbur is "frustrated" by Rodriguez' injuries and wonders whether this should be a concern. I think that most of his injuries have been freak things, no?
Most injuries, period, are freak things. It's always incredible to me when people, both media and fans, get worked about a player having an "injury problem". Unless the guy is preternaturally clumsy or something, injuries are next to impossible to control. Sure sometimes things become chronic, like a knee or a back, but because a guy hurts his knee one year, then his ankle another, then his wrist another, that doesn't make him an injury concern. It makes him unlucky.

I swear, the Cafardos of the world think Cal Ripken Jr is the standard rather than the insanely fortunate exception when it comes to avoiding injuries. That is...frustrating.
 

GreenMonster49

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Nick writes:
"Could Kevin Cash be Manager of the Year in the AL?" I don't know. He was ranked #20 in a certain scribe's annual rankings four months ago. What has he done since then to go from #20 to somewhere in the #1 to #5 range? Followed the organizational script of having a bullpen day or two every five games?

"Bob Melvin could be the best manager in baseball" because he has "had to adapt to so many situations in Oakland--from rebuilding to building--and he's survived and thrived in every situation." These reasons were surely valid in March, when a certain scribe rated him at #8 out of 30.
 

Humphrey

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I'm not sure how the Sox gain an advantage by Machado being traded vis-à-vis the Yankees. Each team has 9 games left with them. Plus the Sox were 9-1 with Machado present (the Yanks 5-5). How can they do better than that (only if the Yanks do WORSE, which is unlikely)?
The rest of today's article is the same trade rumors from Sunday. I think he and Shank did a lot of cutting and pasting this week.
 

The Gray Eagle

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As of yesterday afternoon, Cafardo's latest mess on the Glob still said that Hembree is a lefty. It's been fixed now though.
 

Humphrey

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I assume he has a pipeline to Lucchino and the Pawsox are Wustah bound? Or LL is still hoping he can hold up Pawtucket/RI for a better deal
 

Humphrey

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I wish this thread were still named after Gary Sanchez after his ever-hustling performance last night.
 

John Marzano Olympic Hero

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Don't worry, Nick will mentally bend himself into a pretzel coming up with reasons why Sanchez jogged out of the batter's box.
 

The Gray Eagle

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Sanchez is too classy to run hard-- that would be showing up the other team. Red Sox players would probably run hard, because they don't have the classyness of Yankee players, who always Respect The Game.
 

John Marzano Olympic Hero

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One American League scout tells me that this whole Sanchez-not-running-out-a-grounder "controversy" is much to do about nothing. "The guy is a catcher, okay? His legs are very tired after nine innings of squatting. You can't expect a person to run full speed when your team is down a run with the bases loaded in the ninth inning. That's not the way baseball is played." Good enough for me. Gary Sanchez is the heart and soul of an unstoppable Yankee team that has zero flaws, if he doesn't feel like running out a ball, I say let him; the man has earned his position with games and games of hustle.
 

Humphrey

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Yeah, if the Rays didn't have that shift on no one would have noticed how he jogged to first ...would have been a routine grounder to short that he would have been out by 20 feet. Or a simple force at second
 

Humphrey

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"For weeks, we heard the Red Sox say that they were fine with their starting pitching".

I think,Nick, it's called having a guy who the Sox grew to depend upon (E Rod) get injured.
 

Humphrey

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What does the Yanks losing to Baltimore do to Nick's "the Sox will gain a big advantage playing the depleted O's" theory? Looks like it didn't make any difference to anyone.
 

joe dokes

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All things considered, a 15-7 win against the Yankees on a night when Johnson had to replace Sale was a pretty sweet ending. Maybe it was the team rallying behind the loss of Sale to support Johnson. Who knows what psychology was at play in this 19-hit barrage that had Red Sox fans singing, partying and shouting their favorite chant very early in this one, like during the fourth inning when the offense put up eight runs to break it open.
Maybe the better team won.
 

Granite Sox

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Cafardo just pseudo-asked Alex Cora a question about Betts playing 2B (paraphrasing): “Alex, John Farrell didn’t want to have Mookie play second base... you... don’t have an issue with that?”

Cora kind of gave him a WTF look, shrugged, and said, “No. I’m a different manager. I respect John, but... no.”

Awkward, classic Cafardo.
 

Humphrey

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He replaced the word trade with "Waivers", crossed out all the guys who got traded; and, voila, another notes column whipped up.
 

Humphrey

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So does Nick make an impassioned defense of Scott Boras this weekend after Jayson Werth bitch-slapped him in the press this week?

Or does Nick praise Werth for knocking analytics in the same interview?

Me think Nick's head will explode having to choose.
 

Humphrey

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Did "pass ball" make the print copy today like it reads in "On Baseball"? Someone who's been a baseball reporter this long writes something like that?
 

joe dokes

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The recent trend has been to hire younger managers who can better relate to players, communicate better with them. That is why we have Alex Cora in Boston and Aaron Boone in New York.
Not long ago, being a bench coach for a winning team really meant something. That guy was always coveted when a team was searching for a new manager. Cora, in fact, was that bench coach with the World Series champion Astros, and so Red Sox president of baseball operationsDave Dombrowski figured Cora might be worth exploring. Dombrowski did, and he hired Cora.
So Cora is part of the recent trend? The old trend? A great hybrid? Nope. Just an indecipherable lead-in to why roenicke should get a manager's job.
 

joe dokes

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Not worth linking, but Nick seems to have suspended his Redsox Deathwatch. He apparently gets paid for channeling game thread worthy doom.

The Red Sox have been searching for bullpen help. They tried to acquire Zach Britton and Kelvin Herrera at the trade deadline.
Both have been mediocre at best for their new teams.
 
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Humphrey

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This was his second mention of eliminating extra innings; was the first time his own thoughts or was he parroting Boras?

I could see something along the lines of Japan where the game doesn't go more than 12...but cutting extras out altogether is absurd. The game builds up in suspense and you end it?
 

John Marzano Olympic Hero

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WTF does this mean, “Why is it that Yankee fans boo underperforming players and Red Sox fans (for the most part) don’t?”

Forget the passive aggressive, milquetoast language but is Cafardo calling on Sox fans to boo players? In particular, which players on a 94-win-by-September-2-team, does he suggest that we boo?

Wouldn’t that prompt a dozen think pieces by Wilbur about how Sox fans are cynical, miserable curs who never are happy? I mean isn’t this one time when Boston fans aren’t being assholes and this shithead is trying to take us to task for it?

Maybe he has a few unused “Boston Fans are the Worst” columns sitting on his hard drive waiting to see the light of day. Maybe he hasn’t scolded anyone lately and feels dizzy. Maybe he’s just a limp contrarian dickhead.

And BTW, I wish someone could ask him “why is it still me national baseball beat writers cheer for every Yankee move and those same writers boo every Red Sox move?”

Fuck this guy. If he loves New York so much, get a job at the Bergen Record and leave the Globe. Reading his weekly wanting of being a real New York reporter is getting positively exhausting.
 

richgedman'sghost

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Just a quick and quirky note John.. Every time you refer to Nick Cafardo as Wilbur I reflexatively think you are talking about Eric Wilbur who has his own problems as a writer. Probably just me though.
 

Smiling Joe Hesketh

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Just a quick and quirky note John.. Every time you refer to Nick Cafardo as Wilbur I reflexatively think you are talking about Eric Wilbur who has his own problems as a writer. Probably just me though.
Not just you. Every time he does it I get an eye twitch, because Eric Wilbur's been banned from any mention on this board.
 

John Marzano Olympic Hero

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Just a quick and quirky note John.. Every time you refer to Nick Cafardo as Wilbur I reflexatively think you are talking about Eric Wilbur who has his own problems as a writer. Probably just me though.
Sorry about that, I'm talking about Wilbur from Mary Worth. As you can see here, he's a dead ringer for everyone's least favorite baseball writer.






And this is what our esteemed columnist looks like:




 

Humphrey

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Lest we forget one of the former names of this thread, Gary Sanchez's performance yesterday in the first inning was beyond embarrassing. And Severino has been piss poor since Nick anointed him
 

Spelunker

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Holy shit. I saw the first panel and wondered who was so obsessed with Nick Cafardo that they drew him in a cartoon. That is dead-ringer territory.
It's the dead, yet still sad, eyes.

Personally I think they really capture his essence best in the panel where he's shamefully stuffing a cookie into his mouth.
 

MuzzyField

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How does his run end?

The next time he offers some semblance of sports journalism will be his first. Did the Globe just give up on this beat when they anointed him all things baseball?

Peter Gammons regularly pushes out butt tweets that are better than anything Nick has ever written or has spoken on camera as a deer staring at headlights fat head lawn gnome .
 
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