Out Out, Brief Panda: Pablo To Have Shoulder Surgery

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Van Everyman

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If the Redsox clinch and have a couple of meaningless games at the end of the year, what can it hurt to have Pablo play? I guess he could do really well and you could be fooled into adding him to the playoff roster. You'd have to cut someone from the 40 man though, as Pablo isn't on it atm due to his place on the 60 day DL.
If Panda is even playing half decently I would consider swapping him for Hill whose only real asset is that he can play multiple positions competently. But he'd have to show something both with the bat and glove and I'm not sure he'll have enough games to do either.
 

Buzzkill Pauley

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If the Redsox clinch and have a couple of meaningless games at the end of the year, what can it hurt to have Pablo play? I guess he could do really well and you could be fooled into adding him to the playoff roster. You'd have to cut someone from the 40 man though, as Pablo isn't on it atm due to his place on the 60 day DL.

I'd guess nothing short of an injury would actually see him activated, though. But the bar isn't hard to surpass at 3b and if he really has slimmed down, maybe he has a revert to form like Hanley did. He was a pretty good player until last year.
I'm not sure there are going to be any meaningless games at the end of the year.

The AL won the All-Star Game, so if the Sox keep winning, they're looking at possibly attaining Fenway home-field throughout the entire playoffs.

The Rangers' built-in scheduling advantage means that's going to come down to the wire, even if CLE's Detroit series and serious need to line up the rotation just right means Tito takes his foot off the gas.
 

Cesar Crespo

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I'm not sure there are going to be any meaningless games at the end of the year.

The AL won the All-Star Game, so if the Sox keep winning, they're looking at possibly attaining Fenway home-field throughout the entire playoffs.

The Rangers' built-in scheduling advantage means that's going to come down to the wire, even if CLE's Detroit series and serious need to line up the rotation just right means Tito takes his foot off the gas.
It's looking that way. A's are up 7-0, so after today we will be in a first place tie.
 

SpaceMan37

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The Sandoval talk probably has to do with the Red Sox trying to reward him for working hard and/or trying to motivate Shaw. I can't imagine that a player with 2 rehab games in Ft. Meyers against 28 year old A+ pitchers who can't get a job is going to prepare him for major league pitching in October after missing the entire season. I also don't see how Sandoval's baserunning or defense could have improved from beyond terrible that it was in spring training and last season. As bad as Shaw has been, Sandoval has a mountain to climb to being even at that level. If no one can hit, you go with the best defense, which is Shaw.
 

lexrageorge

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If anything, I see Farrell's comments as a way to keep Sandoval on his current track and continue rehabbing. The team may as well keep all options open in case of injury.
 

geoduck no quahog

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I see it as a commentary on Shaw-suck.

It seems to me that every time Shaw gets to 2 strikes, it's time to fast forward to the next hitter. Don't know if that's true - but here's Mr. Shaw since his good game on 2 Sep:

3-6 (0 K)
0-1 (1 K)
2-3 (1 K)
1-5 (0 K)
0-1 (1 K)
0-5 (1 K)
0-1 (1 K)
3-4 (0 K)
0-3 (1 K)
0-3 (0 K)
1-3 (0 K)
0-4 (1 K)
1-4 (0 K)
0-4 (0 K)
1-4 (2 K)
0-3 (2 K)
0-4 (1 K)
0-4 (3 K)


He'a had a grand total of 4 walks this month.

Those last 4 games are brutal.
 

DrBoston

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The Sandoval talk probably has to do with the Red Sox trying to reward him for working hard and/or trying to motivate Shaw. I can't imagine that a player with 2 rehab games in Ft. Meyers against 28 year old A+ pitchers who can't get a job is going to prepare him for major league pitching in October after missing the entire season. I also don't see how Sandoval's baserunning or defense could have improved from beyond terrible that it was in spring training and last season. As bad as Shaw has been, Sandoval has a mountain to climb to being even at that level. If no one can hit, you go with the best defense, which is Shaw.
I get the motivating Shaw bit, but rewarding him? For getting a little bit closer to the shape he should've been in 6 months ago (and is still a long ways from)? This has the faint whiff of the yacht rides and free headphones from 5 years ago...
 

joe dokes

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I get the motivating Shaw bit, but rewarding him? For getting a little bit closer to the shape he should've been in 6 months ago (and is still a long ways from)? This has the faint whiff of the yacht rides and free headphones from 5 years ago...
How about rewarding him for (apparently) working hard to recover from serious shoulder surgery? At least that's the subtext I got from hearing that he was well ahead of schedule. Presumably, that's at least partly a result of his efforts.

And its barely a "reward" at all. Its little more than an acknowledgement that he isn't dead.
 

uncannymanny

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Maybe you don't understand. If a guy is a disappointment you treat him like shit and let the media know he sucks until he gets better. This is baseball ops 101.
 

Cesar Crespo

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If he's really lost the weight, I'd be cautiously optimistic of a return to form. At the least, with Moncada's struggles batting R, Sandoval would be a good platoon partner. Of course that assumes Moncada is going to start the year in Boston, which I don't see. I wonder what they'll do at 3b this offseason. Shaw, Holt, Moncada and Sandoval are all options but none that inspire great confidence. Is there a Chris Young of 3b? I guess you could also try Dubon there, as he has the type of profile that would suggest a smooth transition to the Majors, but his ceiling is limited.

OPS wise, Boston is 15th out of 15 teams in the AL at 3b. .247/.310/.389.
 
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Laser Show

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This really jumped out at me in my twitter feed. Almost didn't recognize him - looks like he's in pretty good shape right now.

 

moondog80

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Wow, he does look good. Given his history and the nature of weight loss in general I'm skeptical it will stay that way, but I have more hope now than I did yesterday.
 

Rovin Romine

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Wow, he does look good. Given his history and the nature of weight loss in general I'm skeptical it will stay that way, but I have more hope now than I did yesterday.
IIRC, he had a history of dropping a lot of weight at opportune times. But it's October. Maybe he's slimmer because he drove himself, thinking he'd get into the post season. Maybe he's slimmer due to some more fundamental change he's made that he intends to carry over the winter and into spring training. Whether temporary or more permanent, as you say, it's a very encouraging sign.
 

Al Zarilla

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Just Google Pablo Sandoval loses weight and pictures of him come up from several different years when he "dropped" to 235 pounds or so from 275-280. We shall see.
 

Papelbon's Poutine

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Healthy shoulder and he stays in that shape and the contract isn't a complete waste of $. Encouraging news.

Edit: I'll add that that's impressive in six months. I wonder if he had a lap band or something.
 
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JBJ_HOF

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Same thing happened a week before spring training, twitter picture came out where he looked awesome, less than a week later he reported and his gut was the most viewed picture on the internet.
 

Reverend

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I don't remember the pic, but there was some oft repeated lines in many, many stories--repeated uncritically--about how much weight he had lost and what his body fat percentage was.

It was absurd. According to the "reports" he had a body fat percentage a little higher than Tom Hardy's when he filmed Warrior. It was weird to watch people even reporting it.
 

soxhop411

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Same thing happened a week before spring training, twitter picture came out where he looked awesome, less than a week later he reported and his gut was the most viewed picture on the internet.
Not familiar with that. Link?
I don't remember the pic, but there was some oft repeated lines in many, many stories--repeated uncritically--about how much weight he had lost and what his body fat percentage was.

It was absurd. According to the "reports" he had a body fat percentage a little higher than Tom Hardy's when he filmed Warrior. It was weird to watch people even reporting it.




http://sonsofsamhorn.net/index.php?threads/which-type-of-plate-discipline-is-eating-panda.12128/page-3
 

Papelbon's Poutine

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I remember the lines about his body fat percentage.

Can't speak to the first pic but pretty sure the one in the pool was not while he was in Boston. Thought I remembered seeing that cited as proof of his previous weight loss, but could be mistaken.
 

JimD

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I'm going to try and take an optimistic view that Sandoval may be more motivated this time to make a lasting change. His weight issues with the Giants may not be as predictive now because he always managed to make it back into the lineup there no matter what happened. Here in Boston, he was demoted after utterly embarrassed himself and lost his job to a rookie, then got injured and had to watch his team have a terrific season and make the playoffs without him. Yeah, he's got the big guaranteed contract and could just coast but he doesn't seem to be that kind of guy - I think he genuinely enjoys playing baseball and being part of a team. He's got one more chance to do this right or he is likely going to be out of MLB for good.
 

chrisfont9

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I'm going to try and take an optimistic view that Sandoval may be more motivated this time to make a lasting change. His weight issues with the Giants may not be as predictive now because he always managed to make it back into the lineup there no matter what happened. Here in Boston, he was demoted after utterly embarrassed himself and lost his job to a rookie, then got injured and had to watch his team have a terrific season and make the playoffs without him. Yeah, he's got the big guaranteed contract and could just coast but he doesn't seem to be that kind of guy - I think he genuinely enjoys playing baseball and being part of a team. He's got one more chance to do this right or he is likely going to be out of MLB for good.
Agree, he's in uncharted territory for him, having to win over a skeptical fan base with a huge contract behind him. I too hold out hope that he finds the right motivation, a sustainable one, and it all works out decently enough. But tbd.
 

joe dokes

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can the thread title be changed? It doesn't have to be, "Move Over Mike Schmidt....."
 
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