Who plays right field for the Sox in 2023?

Who plays right field for the Sox in 2023?

  • Verdugo, current configuration (Pham re-ups with Sox)

    Votes: 16 11.0%
  • Verdugo, acquiring a different left fielder (explain who)

    Votes: 4 2.8%
  • Refsnyder

    Votes: 10 6.9%
  • Refsnyder platoon (with Cordero or Duran)

    Votes: 10 6.9%
  • Wilyer Abreu

    Votes: 2 1.4%
  • Judge

    Votes: 23 15.9%
  • Nimmo

    Votes: 15 10.3%
  • Third-tier FA right-fielder, Verdugo stays in LF (Duvall, Gallo, Haniger, Pederson, Pollock, et al.)

    Votes: 29 20.0%
  • Trade candidate (Garcia, Grisham, Kepler, Santander, Yastrzemski, et al.)

    Votes: 30 20.7%
  • Other (explain)

    Votes: 6 4.1%

  • Total voters
    145

Cesar Crespo

79
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Dec 22, 2002
21,588
Nevermind, I shouldn’t have bothered. Let’s just ignore as much information as possible and evaluate players by batting average and vibe, y’know, like we used to.
or we could judge him on his 726 PA where he hit .221/.290/.386 for an 84 OPS+ and a -0.6 WAR.

Or we could just make a million excuses for why he sucked in those 726 PA. You are the one who is actually ignoring the facts, aka the results. Not us. You.

You are so focused on the process you are willing to make any excuse to ignore the results. Keep pretending those 726 PA don't matter, or that the only ones that do are the good ones. You are doing an EV. Cherry picking.

edit: When he's bad, it's because he's injured or covid or something. When he's good, that's his real skill level. Got it.
 

chawson

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Aug 1, 2006
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or we could judge him on his 726 PA where he hit .221/.290/.386 for an 84 OPS+ and a -0.6 WAR.

Or we could just make a million excuses for why he sucked in those 726 PA. You are the one who is actually ignoring the facts, aka the results. Not us. You.

You are so focused on the process you are willing to make any excuse to ignore the results. Keep pretending those 726 PA don't matter, or that the only ones that do are the good ones. You are doing an EV. Cherry picking.

edit: When he's bad, it's because he's injured or covid or something. When he's good, that's his real skill level. Got it.
Yeah, respectfully and strongly disagree here. I'm parsing through the analytics and other advanced information we have about his hitting profile, noting that he lost several years of development time to injury, and noting that left-handed hitters the last few years have been negatively impacted by the rise of the shift.

Expected wOBA is based on strikeouts, walks, quality of contact and launch angle. If you're unable to handle references to any of that without reading them as "excuses," it sounds like a you problem.

I'll point you again to Sox Scout, who's several degrees more credible than you've proven to be on player evaluation.

View: https://twitter.com/redsoxstats/status/1531260037603250182?s=46&t=-MF5q-En4uECS3Wd3A0Rmw


View: https://twitter.com/redsoxstats/status/1530545515523461120?s=46&t=-MF5q-En4uECS3Wd3A0Rmw


View: https://twitter.com/redsoxstats/status/1542680228115496961?s=46&t=-MF5q-En4uECS3Wd3A0Rmw
 

Petagine in a Bottle

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I’m certainly no Franchy fan but the piling on here seems unnecessary. He should never play 1b again, but his 92 OPS+ this season was on par with Tommy Pham; much better than Kiki, Dalbec, Hosmer, and others. I certainly wouldn’t give him a major league roster spot and there’s probably a decent chance he gets DFA’d but he seems like acceptable minor league depth and a guy who could maybe be useful. It’s too bad he got hurt, would have been nice to see him get a bunch of at bats in September. It does seem quite likely that he needs a change of scenery, although he’s probably down to one more chance in the bigs.
 

Daniel_Son

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If they don't bring JD back, Franchy seems like a decent internal candidate for DH, no? Going outside the organization for BP help, RF, and SP should be a higher priority IMO.
 

Cesar Crespo

79
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Dec 22, 2002
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Yeah, respectfully and strongly disagree here. I'm parsing through the analytics and other advanced information we have about his hitting profile, noting that he lost several years of development time to injury, and noting that left-handed hitters the last few years have been negatively impacted by the rise of the shift.

Expected wOBA is based on strikeouts, walks, quality of contact and launch angle. If you're unable to handle references to any of that without reading them as "excuses," it sounds like a you problem.

I'll point you again to Sox Scout, who's several degrees more credible than you've proven to be on player evaluation.

View: https://twitter.com/redsoxstats/status/1531260037603250182?s=46&t=-MF5q-En4uECS3Wd3A0Rmw


View: https://twitter.com/redsoxstats/status/1530545515523461120?s=46&t=-MF5q-En4uECS3Wd3A0Rmw


View: https://twitter.com/redsoxstats/status/1542680228115496961?s=46&t=-MF5q-En4uECS3Wd3A0Rmw
At some point you have to ignore what the expected results are and go with the actual results. Sometimes, things don't meet expectations.

Also, I'm not sure how sox scout has proven more credible than me? Show me all my non credible player evaluations please. You are talking out of your ass. Sox Scout is wrong, often. And all of those tweets are old. From June. He was sent back to the minors. Ignore that.

But yeah, Sox Scout is infallable with his player evaluations and so much more credible than me. You probably can't even name a player I was wrong about. You are just throwing crap at the wall and appealing to authority.. except they don't have any authority.

edit: Soxscout is a lot like you actually. He falls in love with incredibly small sample size and projects them out. I love watching trends in the minors because sometimes they can be predictable but you can't ignore the samples you don't like.
 
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Cesar Crespo

79
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Dec 22, 2002
21,588
If they don't bring JD back, Franchy seems like a decent internal candidate for DH, no? Going outside the organization for BP help, RF, and SP should be a higher priority IMO.
No, he doesn't hit enough to be the DH. If they were going with a pure DH option, they should be able to find a better bat for cheap. They'd be better off going with a rotating DH than having Cordero as a full time DH.
 

Sandy Leon Trotsky

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Expected results stats have a high rate of unexpected results.
I don’t think there’s really any question at this point- he’s injury prone. He’s streaky. Strikes out a ton. Is pretty bad defensively.
He has one last opportunity to make it with the Sox.
Likely some other team- probably Tampa- will grab him and he’ll have a great three week stretch, commit a ton of errors and general mistakes, then get injured, come back after a month and be terrible.
 

BaseballJones

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or we could judge him on his 726 PA where he hit .221/.290/.386 for an 84 OPS+ and a -0.6 WAR.

Or we could just make a million excuses for why he sucked in those 726 PA. You are the one who is actually ignoring the facts, aka the results. Not us. You.
I’ve got no dog in this fight between all of you (other than that I always want Sox players to do well), but two seeming disparate things can both be facts. Let’s look at a sample size of one.

With two runners on, a batter smokes a rocket to the right centerfield gap. The right fielder makes a spectacular diving catch, saving two runs.

Fact #1: the hitter went 0-1 in the at bat and failed to drive in a runner from second.

Fact #2: the hitter barreled up a ball and hit it 114.7 mph (say).

The first fact says he failed in his job. He went 0-1 after all and made an out.

The second fact says he succeeded because he hit the ball almost as hard as you can hit it, driving it to a good part of the park, and only “failed” due to a spectacular play by the defense.

Obviously Franchy wasn’t robbed in every PA. That’s not what I’m saying. What I AM saying is that you guys might both kinda be right. Both his actual results might be bad (a fact), AND the underlying realities of hard contact rate, etc, might be good (a fact).

His sample size is actually small enough that you could attribute SOME of the bad real life results on some bad luck, and maybe he’s actually a better hitter than his on field production might suggest.

Ok back to your regularly scheduled squabbling….
 

Auger34

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Yeah, respectfully and strongly disagree here. I'm parsing through the analytics and other advanced information we have about his hitting profile, noting that he lost several years of development time to injury, and noting that left-handed hitters the last few years have been negatively impacted by the rise of the shift.

Expected wOBA is based on strikeouts, walks, quality of contact and launch angle. If you're unable to handle references to any of that without reading them as "excuses," it sounds like a you problem.

I'll point you again to Sox Scout, who's several degrees more credible than you've proven to be on player evaluation.

View: https://twitter.com/redsoxstats/status/1531260037603250182?s=46&t=-MF5q-En4uECS3Wd3A0Rmw


View: https://twitter.com/redsoxstats/status/1530545515523461120?s=46&t=-MF5q-En4uECS3Wd3A0Rmw


View: https://twitter.com/redsoxstats/status/1542680228115496961?s=46&t=-MF5q-En4uECS3Wd3A0Rmw
I love the Red Sox Stats account. I loved his posts when he was posting here under SoxScout, he posts a lot of good information and has gained a big following.

However, he hasn’t proven to be several degrees better than Crespo. He’s proven to be pretty good at figuring out who the Sox might go after but I don’t think he’s proven to be some great evaluator.

He also tends to be pretty homer-ish (especially towards the Bloom and Cora administration)
 

chawson

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Aug 1, 2006
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And those posts were right after Franchy’s hottest streak, when even *I* was saying he might be for realz.
Okay, well let’s start there. If even *you* were on board at the time these tweets were postmarked on June 30, here’s what he did immediate after:

Next 14 games (July 2-17): 49 PA, 6.1 BB%, 53.1 K% rate, .179 wOBA, 4 wRC+
*All-Star Break*
Next 21 MLB games (July 22-Sep 5): 59 PA, 13.6 BB%, 37.3 K%, .337 wOBA, 115 wRC+

Or, his 2022:
First 49 games: .328 wOBA, 109 wRC+
Next 14 games: .179 wOBA, 4 wRC+
Next 21 games: .337 wOBA, 115 wRC+

Would you describe that as a bad player who got on a “hot streak”? Or someone playing well who had a miserably cold streak?
 

grimshaw

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May 16, 2007
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I'm trying to figure out Franchy's value and working backwards from there. He'll clear 7 figures since he's arbitration eligible, but not by much more than that. I do believe there is still break out potential and other teams would give him a shot, but that the Sox need to pay for certainty if they want to squeeze out every last win. Going in with him as anything more than plan C is a bad idea. Refysnyder should be plan B if they are serious about winning.

He's not netting any interesting prospects but maybe he's worth it to a bad team trying to trim a few mill like an ARB 2 or 3 guy or older veteran relievers on bad teams. Some random names - Luis Cessa, Jose Cisnero, Andrew Chafin, Dylan Floro, Erik Fedde. I am making this list to be the first poster ever to try and guess a Bloom deal.

Edit: I believe he has an option, in which case there is no reason to move him.
 
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Cesar Crespo

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Dec 22, 2002
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Okay, well let’s start there. If even *you* were on board at the time these tweets were postmarked on June 30, here’s what he did immediate after:

Next 14 games (July 2-17): 49 PA, 6.1 BB%, 53.1 K% rate, .179 wOBA, 4 wRC+
*All-Star Break*
Next 21 MLB games (July 22-Sep 5): 59 PA, 13.6 BB%, 37.3 K%, .337 wOBA, 115 wRC+

Or, his 2022:
First 49 games: .328 wOBA, 109 wRC+
Next 14 games: .179 wOBA, 4 wRC+
Next 21 games: .337 wOBA, 115 wRC+

Would you describe that as a bad player who got on a “hot streak”? Or someone playing well who had a miserably cold streak?
He's the player you get when you combine all those games, just like every other player in baseball who goes through hot and cold streaks. You want to write off the cold streaks and only give weight to the hot streaks. He's a sum of the 2 parts. If you take away everyone's miserable cold streaks, they are all all stars.

Didn't Devers just go throw a terrible slump too? Xander? Lets eliminate their worst stretch and lets see what their numbers look like.
 

grimshaw

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Even Sandy Leon was Mike Piazza for two months once. 10 years from now I will do a retrospective on that run he had.
 

AB in DC

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Still trying to figure out how Verdugo (105 wRC+ going into today) and Kike (76 wRC+) are absolute locks for the 2023 starting lineup. but Corder (92 wRC+) is a DFA candidate.
 

Cesar Crespo

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Dec 22, 2002
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Still trying to figure out how Verdugo (105 wRC+ going into today) and Kike (76 wRC+) are absolute locks for the 2023 starting lineup. but Corder (92 wRC+) is a DFA candidate.
The former 2 have proven themselves at the MLB level and Enrique has defensive value. The hope is Enrique rebounds, and to a lesser extent Verdugo.

What exactly does a rebound for Cordero look like? He's never done anything. What, is he going to rebound from his -0.2 WAR this year to his career high of 0.2?
 

mikcou

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May 13, 2007
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He's the player you get when you combine all those games, just like every other player in baseball who goes through hot and cold streaks. You want to write off the cold streaks and only give weight to the hot streaks. He's a sum of the 2 parts. If you take away everyone's miserable cold streaks, they are all all stars.

Didn't Devers just go throw a terrible slump too? Xander? Lets eliminate their worst stretch and lets see what their numbers look like.
There's at least some explanation to Devers shit streak - he clearly wasnt healthy and is still kinda hobbled a month later so maybe you could hope that it wont recur. Even with that, it still happened; you cant just pretend it didnt. With Franchy these streaks are a constant - there is absolutely no reason to believe that he's the guy who is only hot - he's the culmination of the hot and cold, which is a clearly below average hitter.

He doesnt really do anything else so he becomes a replacement level player.

As to the comparison with Kike and Verdugo. Kike is the only guy on the roster who has any hope of playing center on a daily basis (and when hes healthy hes a clear plus defender there). For that reason alone he isnt like the other two; given the rest of the roster, the only real hope of competing next year is that he bounces back. 2021 was likely a career year, but his career has been all over the place so theres a pretty decent change hes an above average regular next year as he likely wont be as bad a hitter as he was this year and hes a solid bet to be at least above average defensively in center. That said, Kike's question mark is another pretty good reason to bring in a guy like Nimmo - they really need someone who is a clearly above average player in the OF and can project to be that for the next few years and its worth overpaying a bit to make sure they have that on the roster.

Verdugo is a pretty limited player and isnt who you would target to bring in to be a core player - he really is a LF only guy (or at least hes not playing Fenway's RF) who is *only* a solid average hitter - that's nothing special but ithe totality is still a fringe average regular. I say *only* because Franchy has never been a solid average hitter in his career (fringe average would be a generous characterization) so while thats not much on the sprectrum of LFs in this comparison it is meaningful. Franchy, in his relatively limited reps in the OF, also seems even more limited defensively than Verdugo so there isnt much hope that hes a better player than Verdugo.
 

AB in DC

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The former 2 have proven themselves at the MLB level and Enrique has defensive value. The hope is Enrique rebounds, and to a lesser extent Verdugo.

What exactly does a rebound for Cordero look like? He's never done anything. What, is he going to rebound from his -0.2 WAR this year to his career high of 0.2?
Ah yes, you've already proven that you have no idea how WAR works. I had forgotten. For everyone else -- unless you expect Cordero to play 1B again, it's a completely useless measure of his value going forward.

Here's his actual offensive value.
2018: 104 wRC+
2019: 134 wRC+
2020: 93 wRC+
2021: 31 wRC+
2022: 92 wRC+

Yes, 2021 was a terrible year. No question. But he's been a useful bat in for most of his career.
 

Cesar Crespo

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Dec 22, 2002
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Ah yes, you've already proven that you have no idea how WAR works. I had forgotten. For everyone else -- unless you expect Cordero to play 1B again, it's a completely useless measure of his value going forward.

Here's his actual offensive value.
2018: 104 wRC+
2019: 134 wRC+
2020: 93 wRC+
2021: 31 wRC+
2022: 92 wRC+

Yes, 2021 was a terrible year. No question. But he's been a useful bat in for most of his career.
2019 was a sample size of 20 PA. He has been a below average hitter since then with little to no defensive value. Lets start him in RF!

From 2018 to 2022, that's an OPS+/wRC+ of 83. Useful? Compared to what? Do you think his production would be hard to replace? Keep making excuses for the guy though.

In 2019 when he had an OPS+ of 134 in 20 PA, he sure was useful. You clearly don't know how stats work... or you do and you didn't bother to check sample sizes because it proves your false narrative.

He's the definition of easily replaceable.
 

Cesar Crespo

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Also, in his best hitting year (2018), he only played in the OF. In 37 games in the OF (not 1b) he put up -1.0 WAR. Awesome!

So unless you expect him to DH... you can probably expect negative value at defense.
 

ponch73

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At the risk of putting my head in the lion's mouth here, what's the downside of cobbling together a relatively inexpensive Franchy / Dalbec platoon as one DH option for the 2023 season? I'm not saying don't have a contingency plan given the streakiness and futility both guys have shown at times, but they'll be relatively inexpensive and both are probably in the prime of their careers, age-wise (as modest as that might be).

Franchy bats only against righties. His career stats against them in 593 PA is .298/.403/.701.

Dalbec bats only against lefties. His career stats against them in 330 PA is .333/.522/.855.

You get roughly the following composite performance out of Franchy/Dalbec: .319/.445/.764, which may not seem phenomenal, but it would have been the 8th best DH OPS contribution by MLB team in 2022 (4th in AL). It's basically a tick below the production J.D. Martinez put up in 2022 for $19+ million. And this approach gives you the optionality of seeing whether Franchy's occasionally-promising peripheral stats can translate into improved production. It may also help keep an injury-prone Franchy off the shelf given that he won't bat every day and won't see the field.

Boston's 2022 DH contribution was 9th best in MLB (5th in AL) at .756, but, as we all know, cost way too much, and helped to financially crowd out other upgrades across the diamond.

Who wouldn't sign up for cheap DH production in exchange for a massive offensive upgrade in RF or some top flight front-line starters?

Bogaerts SS (R)
Judge RF (R)
Devers 3B (L)
Story 2B (R)
Verdugo LF (L)
Hernandez CF (R)
Casas 1B (L)
Cordero/Dalbec DH (S)
McGuire/Wong C (S)

Refsnyder (OF)
Arroyo (IF)

P.S. Hosmer/Dalbec could be an even better platoon than Franchy/Dalbec based on career stats, but Hosmer's 2022 OPS splits against RHB were discouraging. Franchy's 2022 OPS splits against RHB, in contrast, were higher than his career numbers.
 
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chawson

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I’d say he is a bad player who had two hot streaks. That is what his results, in total, tell me.
I recognize I’m not going to convince you of anything, but let’s play this out.

For your statement to be true, his “hot streak” included a stretch of 167 plate appearances and 105 batted-ball events during which he hit the ball 95 mph or more in 51.4% of the occasions he came to the plate. That mark is 17th-highest in MLB, about as frequently as Bryce Harper (16th, 52.1%) squares up a baseball.

For that to be a hot streak, you’re saying that his baseline talent level is not being able to do that. Which is absurd, because he can, and did so over a reasonably long stretch (100 BBE is fairly normalized).

“Hot” and “cold” streaks aren’t two sides of the same coin. Hitters who can hit the ball that hard that frequently have cold streaks where they don’t, but hitters that cannot hit the ball that hard that frequently do not have “hot streaks” where they do.

What Cordero has is rare ability. With that kind of ability, there are fewer ways to make an out if you put the ball in play. His challenge is being able to make enough contact (SwStr%, K%), and the right kind of contact (launch angle, GB%), so that his ability can translate into on-field production. There’s a K rate ceiling that a player who hits the ball that hard can approach while still being valuable. Don’t like Trayce Thompson? Look at J.D. Davis with the Giants.

Also, I don’t want to overstate it, but it hasn’t helped that he has also had a handicap relative to many of his peers, which is hitting from a side of the plate that fielders can shift to further suppress that production. It’s good for him (and my ‘23 Sox RF target Max Kepler) that that handicap is being lifted next year.

That’s what statements like these…

He's the player you get when you combine all those games, just like every other player in baseball who goes through hot and cold streaks. You want to write off the cold streaks and only give weight to the hot streaks. He's a sum of the 2 parts. If you take away everyone's miserable cold streaks, they are all all stars.

Didn't Devers just go throw a terrible slump too? Xander? Lets eliminate their worst stretch and lets see what their numbers look like.
are an unhelpful way to think about this.

There are a ton of hitters who can do what Cordero did from July 2-17 and strike out half the time. There are very, very few MLB hitters who can do what he did over those first 167 PAs, especially with an above-average walk rate.

The language of “hot and cold streaks” generally does not describe ability. Often, it describes outcomes often based on factors outside a hitter’s control. Luck.

To be clear, hitting the ball very hard in game settings at an elite frequency is not some kind of party trick or trivial novelty. It is strongly correlated with getting on base, with “doing damage,” in today’s parlance. If we know that Cordero can hit the ball that hard as a general baseline, then the thing he needs to control for is contact. And it is a lot easier to learn how to recognize and lay off changeups tailing out of the zone than it is to teach a guy to hit the ball harder.

Brayan Bello had a 8.14 ERA in his first five major league starts. Was he an 8.14 ERA pitcher? In a narrow sense, yes. But anyone watching the games, or looking at xStats, could tell he was mostly unlucky (and the victim of bad umpiring).

By contrast, Sandy León did not unlock some newfound ability in 2016. He got lucky. It could have happened to a ton of hitters who had the same unremarkable hitting traits as he did.

Now, I don’t know what happened to Cordero to contribute to that collapse in July. I don’t see that he was being pitched especially different, but I haven’t looked that deeply. It may have something to do with spin rates spiking again that month; it may not. But I suspect it had more to do with your example of Devers’ sudden incapacity at hitting fastballs for a month from early May to early June, 2021. For a minute there, Devers was hitting fastballs as well as I could. But he didn’t lose the ability; it needed a mechanical fix.

Of course, Devers is a better player than Cordero. But I don’t think it makes sense that the latter’s sudden three-week incapacity, where he looked like a completely different player and every metric affirmed he was, is his actual true talent level. Nor does it mean that the elite ability he showed for a reasonable period is gone.
 
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snowmanny

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Franchy bats only against righties. His career stats against them in 593 PA is .298/.403/.701.

Dalbec bats only against lefties. His career stats against them in 330 PA is .333/.522/.855.
How close to "only" can these platoons get in the age of openers and bullpen games? Honest question.

Waiting on Cordero and Bradley and Hernandez to set the world blazing with one of their cicada-frequency hot streaks was kind of a drag this year. Although I do have more belief in Kiké and am happy to have him in the lineup in 2023.

Is this still the RF thread?
 

grimshaw

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At the risk of putting my head in the lion's mouth here, what's the downside of cobbling together a relatively inexpensive Franchy / Dalbec platoon as one DH option for the 2023 season? I'm not saying don't have a contingency plan given the streakiness and futility both guys have shown at times, but they'll be relatively inexpensive and both are probably in the prime of their careers, age-wise (as modest as that might be).

Franchy bats only against righties. His career stats against them in 593 PA is .298/.403/.701.
I thought the triple slash meant he slugged .701 vs them but that's his actual OPS. He'd be dead last among all DH's this season with 200 PA or more in wRC+ and unrosterable if that's where you stuck him.

I don't own a hat but would preheat the oven, go get one, broil it up and then feast if they went that route, not because the front office is necessarily thinking that way, but because eating hats suddenly made sense.

You could justify keeping him up if he only played OF since he can also play CF in a pinch but even then Refsnyder is showing more at this point.

Really though, we're picking at the bones and not the bigger picture. Arroyo, Refsnyder, Dalbec and Franchy are all guys who should be fighting for that 26th spot and not be heavily featured on a playoff contender. They have all had hot streaks where they looked like all-stars, but all have career sample sizes as close to replacement level. They have gotten extended looks because contention wasn't imminent but I get the feeling will have shorter rope soon.

TL/DR Nimmo.
 
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Max Power

thai good. you like shirt?
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Jul 20, 2005
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I recognize I’m not going to convince you of anything, but let’s play this out.

For your statement to be true, his “hot streak” included a stretch of 167 plate appearances and 105 batted-ball events during which he hit the ball 95 mph or more in 51.4% of the occasions he came to the plate. That mark is 17th-highest in MLB, about as frequently as Bryce Harper (16th, 52.1%) squares up a baseball.
But at the end of the season, his hard hit percentage, barrel percentage, and exit velocity were all right in line with his career marks. His slash line was also right in line with his career numbers, too. You can slice and dice and cherry pick all you want, but the entire Franchy Cordero experience ends up with a .220/.300/.400 slash line, which is not acceptable at DH or corner outfielder. That's to say nothing of his defense, which does not include the ability to catch a baseball.

Sure, give him a shot as the 26th man on the roster, but penciling him in for any starting position is not a way to build a team that wins real baseball games.
 

Sandy Leon Trotsky

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I’m hoping that we can filter both Mookie Betts trade grievance posts and any future discussion about Frenchy into some sort of trash thread. Good god both topics have been chopped up, ground up, smashed and smeared so many times over. The posts for and against I’m pretty certain are copied and pasted from ones initially writ months if not years ago (for Mookie).
I’m much more interested in how Duran could possibly make it on the roster next season, especially with his relative decent ability to get on base and his speed. I’m thinking that the shift ban could really play into his offensive skill set.
 

Lose Remerswaal

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I’m hoping that we can filter both Mookie Betts trade grievance posts and any future discussion about Frenchy into some sort of trash thread. Good god both topics have been chopped up, ground up, smashed and smeared so many times over. The posts for and against I’m pretty certain are copied and pasted from ones initially writ months if not years ago (for Mookie).
I’m much more interested in how Duran could possibly make it on the roster next season, especially with his relative decent ability to get on base and his speed. I’m thinking that the shift ban could really play into his offensive skill set.
So is Mookie a candidate for RF in 2023? Or will he sit until Franchy gets hurt or Covid?
 

Coachster

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I’m much more interested in how Duran could possibly make it on the roster next season, especially with his relative decent ability to get on base and his speed. I’m thinking that the shift ban could really play into his offensive skill set.
If the 4 page Franchy digression has taught us anything, it’s that numbers ultimately don’t lie.
Duran is a crappy player, and a worse human being. I hope they pass on that asshole.
 

nvalvo

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Franchy is an interesting player. His performance has been mostly poor, but the metrics on his tools are amazing. He’s not the first such player, and would neither be the first to tantalize and disappoint nor the first to scuffle until something clicks.

It happens a lot to Latin players because they sometimes get rushed due to minor league service time considerations, due to generally signing at 16 instead of 18 or 20.

I think it’s clear that if Franchy is our starting right fielder Opening Day, something has probably gone wrong (…barring some unlikely outlier situation like acquiring Robert Hassell III and starting him in Worcester for a month for service time reasons). But as the OF4 in an outfield with two RHH? I wouldn’t mind that.
 

chawson

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If the 4 page Franchy digression has taught us anything, it’s that numbers ultimately don’t lie.
Which numbers, though?
That's to say nothing of his defense, which does not include the ability to catch a baseball.
Where is this coming from? He’s a dead average defensive outfielder, per Fielding Bible.

https://fieldingbible.com/FieldingBiblePlayerTotals

He’s a below-average first baseman, but according to defensive runs saved (DRS) stats, so were the other guys supposedly here to save the day.

2022 Red Sox 1B by Fielding Bible:

Travis Shaw: -1 (26 innings)
Triston Casas: -2 (184 innings)
Franchy Cordero: -4 (362 innings)
Eric Hosmer: -5 (847.1 innings w/ SD+BOS)
Bobby Dalbec : -6 (635 innings)

https://fieldingbible.com/DRSLeaderboard
 

Jason Bae

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He just doesn't make enough contact for his StatCast metrics to really play up. Career 65.3% contact rate (66% this year) and 17.2% SwStr% (16.4% in 2022). His 2022 marks would be among the worst among qualified hitters. Patrick Wisdom has been pretty similar this year in regards to BB%/K%/Contact%/SwStr%, albeit with better power numbers.
 

Max Power

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Where is this coming from? He’s a dead average defensive outfielder, per Fielding Bible.
It's coming from watching him miss catches and bobble balls all year. His career fielding percentage in the outfield is .954. That's terrible. Alex Verdugo is .980. Aaron Judge is .991. A competent outfielder shouldn't boot 1 in 20 balls hit to him, no matter how great the fielding bible guys think his range is.
 

chawson

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It's coming from watching him miss catches and bobble balls all year. His career fielding percentage in the outfield is .954. That's terrible. Alex Verdugo is .980. Aaron Judge is .991. A competent outfielder shouldn't boot 1 in 20 balls hit to him, no matter how great the fielding bible guys think his range is.
I hadn’t noticed his fielding percentage in the outfield. Fielding percentage is a pretty flawed and archaic stat, but that is fairly low. Still, we’re talking two errors per season while playing maybe once a week at the position. One was a soft grounder through the hole he charged and overran while trying to throw out a runner at home, and the other was a sinking line drive he lost in the sun in right.

Meanwhile, Hunter Renfroe’s fielding percentage was .956 for us last year and I don’t remember anyone calling him incompetent.
 

HangingW/ScottCooper

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Brandon Nimmo seems to make a lot of sense. The only wildcard here would be if they decide to enter the Judge or Shohei sweepstakes.

I could see Gallo being a buy low candidate ahead of the shift change rules as well.
 

Sandy Leon Trotsky

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I hadn’t noticed his fielding percentage in the outfield. Fielding percentage is a pretty flawed and archaic stat, but that is fairly low. Still, we’re talking two errors per season while playing maybe once a week at the position. One was a soft grounder through the hole he charged and overran while trying to throw out a runner at home, and the other was a sinking line drive he lost in the sun in right.

Meanwhile, Hunter Renfroe’s fielding percentage was .956 for us last year and I don’t remember anyone calling him incompetent.
Well actually i do recall a lot of “incompetent” calls. Lots of people thought he should’ve been traded as his defensive reputation (good arm but questionable usage of it) was overrated and he was likely at a career zenith at the plate too.*

*not wanting to wade into the JBJ/Binelas trade details again…. Just that there definitely was a lot of kvetching about his defense
 

Sandy Leon Trotsky

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Brandon Nimmo seems to make a lot of sense. The only wildcard here would be if they decide to enter the Judge or Shohei sweepstakes.

I could see Gallo being a buy low candidate ahead of the shift change rules as well.
I’d bet on Yellich bouncing back to an above average (defense included) player than on Gallo.
Given the choices of- a) sign Gallo or B) trade for Brewers pitcher and Yellich -get Milwaukee to eat $3per year…. I go with B.
Nimno I’m honestly not sure about. I don’t love him and think he’s going to cost more than he should
 

Red(s)HawksFan

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Well actually i do recall a lot of “incompetent” calls. Lots of people thought he should’ve been traded as his defensive reputation (good arm but questionable usage of it) was overrated and he was likely at a career zenith at the plate too.*

*not wanting to wade into the JBJ/Binelas trade details again…. Just that there definitely was a lot of kvetching about his defense
Renfroe has an arm and that got him the accolades (16 outfield assists in 2021) but for as many guys as he threw out, he too often unnecessarily let runners advance by overthrowing cut-off men or throwing to the wrong base trying to be the hero. That alone was enough for me to call him overrated defensively, but he also isn't all that great instinctively with some slow jumps and poor routes to balls. FWIW, Total Zone had him at -11 in 2021 while BIS had him at 0. Hardly a consensus statistically but when the best one shows him as neutral, it's hard to argue that he's good.