I know it's impossible and won't happen, but I'd love to see them somehow ditch the fat panda, put Hanley back at third, put Rusney in left, and give JBJ the rest of the season in right.
johnnywayback said:I'm amazed by how little has gone unexpectedly right.
For a minute there, it was the prospect of a Mookie Betts breakout.
soxhop411 said:Would it shock anyone if the sox dangle Ortiz to see what offers are out there? (That is if they give up on the season)
Savin Hillbilly said:There's still the possibility of a Xander Bogaerts breakout, too. He keeps tantalizing and slipping back. The one thing that could revive this season and make it exciting is for either him or Betts to get really, really hot for a while, and I think he's just as good a candidate as Mookie.
Montana Fan said:Maybe I'm Charlie Brown but I'm still optimistic. Other than catcher, the lineup they ran out there yesterday is the one most posters were advocating for prior to the season starting.
RF - Rusney
CF - Betts
LF - Hanley
1B - Napoli
2B - Pedroia
SS - Xander
3B - Sandoval
DH - Ortiz
C - Swihart
If I'm Ferrell, I'm telling these guys that I'll be running this lineup out there (with a dose of Holt) for the foreseeable future. That lineup has to hit at some point and while the thought of maximizing David Ortiz' trade value makes for an awesome discussion, he's not going anywhere.
Montana Fan said:Maybe I'm Charlie Brown but I'm still optimistic. Other than catcher, the lineup they ran out there yesterday is the one most posters were advocating for prior to the season starting.
RF - Rusney
CF - Betts
LF - Hanley
1B - Napoli
2B - Pedroia
SS - Xander
3B - Sandoval
DH - Ortiz
C - Swihart
If I'm Ferrell, I'm telling these guys that I'll be running this lineup out there (with a dose of Holt) for the foreseeable future. That lineup has to hit at some point and while the thought of maximizing David Ortiz' trade value makes for an awesome discussion, he's not going anywhere.
P'tucket said:If, as the hypothetical GM here who has decided he's at the end of the line, In a heartbeat. You generously offer him the opportunity to close out his career with a ring. If he can't read the writing on the wall, all the more reason to have him in someone else's locker room rather than yours. It'll all be good when he comes back for his number retirement a few years down the line.
It would be a pretty limited market, for sure. But $2-4m and a lottery ticket for a lethal LH DH/PH during the playoff drive? Let's put it this way: he's not clearing waivers down the stretch.
Rovin Romine said:
Agreed. Either time will fix this team (they'll start scoring) or it won't.
This team has had something of the 2014 "Don't worry - it's early and we'll put it together" vibe about them. Even if they do start scoring, and improve to a .500 club, it's possible they've buried themselves. While they're only 4 games out, the fact is that they need to play better than every other AL East team going forward - no cushion, no future slumps, no bad road trips.
On the other hand, in terms of how they've played relative to the division, they've really only had a bad month. And even that month hasn't put them completely out of contention. It's possible for the Sox to hang in there, make the playoffs, and be dangerous in the post season. (There's a long time to go and a few key players could raise their game by then.)
I think the upcoming two weeks will be crucial. MIN and OAK at home. BAL away. TOR at home. If the Sox squander their chance to raise themselves in the standings against these (relatively) weak teams, they're probably going to be in a hole they're not going to dig themselves out of, no matter how much they gel in late summer. (FWIW, I think MIN is playing over their heads - the Sox should be able to at least split those games.
Farrell can't bat for these guys, but there needs to be a team sit-down/closed door meeting. Something has to change.
ivanvamp said:
That's true. There's no chance David Ortiz would clear waivers. Some contending team absolutely would take a shot at him. Does that mean the Sox could get something useful for him? Uh….I don't know. Signing a guy on waivers is different than giving up something of value for him. Of course, the latter assures you get him while waivers means it's quite possible you don't.
JBJ_HOF said:
He's not. Betts has the 56th best batted ball velocity in baseball, Bogaerts the 264th. Betts swings at 23% pitches outside the zone, Bogaerts 35%. Betts' swinging strike rate is 4.4%, Bogaerts' is 7.9%.
I'm not the one advocating trading Ortiz, though I understand the sentiment. One reason the Patriots are so consistently good is that Belichick isn't afraid to send veteran stalwarts on their way at the right time.BCsMightyJoeYoung said:
It boggles the mind how little this board cares for the history and traditions and legacy of the Red Sox and its great players. Y'all would have traded Williams or Yastrzemski or Rice at the end of their careers. I still regret having Dewey spending his last year in Baltimore.
This happens in every sport for every team. Babe Ruth ended his career on the Braves. Sentimentality doesn't win games.BCsMightyJoeYoung said:
It boggles the mind how little this board cares for the history and traditions and legacy of the Red Sox and its great players. Y'all would have traded Williams or Yastrzemski or Rice at the end of their careers. I still regret having Dewey spending his last year in Baltimore.
Savin Hillbilly said:
Your argument assumes that these deficiencies on Bogaerts' part are inherent and unfixable, rather than stages in a learning curve. What is your evidence for that assumption?
radsoxfan said:
I won't speak for JBJ_HOF, but I'm not sure you need to argue Xander's deficiencies are inherent and unfixable to think Mookie has a better shot than Xander of breaking out this year.
I certainly think both could, and it wouldn't shock me if Xander did, but the numbers he posted give some weight to the idea that Mookie has a better chance.
ivanvamp said:
I know we keep saying it, but one excellent two-week stretch (say, 11-2) puts this team right near the top of the division. They have plenty enough talent for that. Of course that doesn't mean it will happen, and I suspect pretty strongly that it won't. I think we'll just keep waiting for them to turn it on, without it ever happening.
glennhoffmania said:
Doesn't the fact that we can say this about a last place team and currently one of the worst in baseball suggest that the leadership may be a problem? No one seems to think the issue is lack of talent. So if it's not that Farrell is a terrible manager what is it?
So I like this post a lot, but here's my main problem. As of today, the Red Sox are:Red(s)HawksFan said:
I can't disagree with anything here. I'm less optimistic about a playoff berth than I was a couple weeks ago, but I'm still optimistic that the team is better than what they showed this past week and can finish the season respectably (and maybe make a run at a wildcard spot). That lineup, on paper, doesn't have a lot of holes. Question marks with the rookies, sure, but the vets should be producing more than they are and you have to think they will at some point.
Perhaps the way to get through this isn't shaking things up or drastic measures, it's going all Hackman and saying "my team is on the field" even if it seems flawed and letting these guys play their way out of it. They've got two months to the trade deadline. Shape up or it's deadline massacre time again and they bring up the kids like they did last year.
dynomite said:At what point do you question your overall assessment of them "on paper"? Or do you assume that there's not much to be done no matter what -- because of contracts and organizational depth the guys we have are the guys we have?
it's possible Brian Johnson can do that. certainly not a given, but I'd like to see if he can. but they'd still need to hit better.Clears Cleaver said:If these players' performances can be rationally explained and the team is one of the worst in the league, then the process of assembling a team is seriously flawed.
And, well, this will be third year in four that the team is in the bottom25% in the league yet has carried a payroll in the top 20 percent. Ben's process, particularly evaluating major league talent, appears fatally flawed.
Compounding this is the long term deals given to players who are either declining or not very good. It's remarkable. I'm guessing Farrell will be axed before Ben, but both should be sweating. What is unknown here is whether the FO pushed for signing Panda and Hanley in hopes of keeping season ticket holders happy.
How do u fix it? U have to hope Mookie, Castillo, swihart and bogaerts play better. They have most upside to baseline given we haven't established ceilings yet. Same for Eduardo and Barnes.
They need another starter who can pitch 7ipand give up 2-3 runs every start. No clue where that comes from.
Rudy Pemberton said:I dunno, you go through each player...and on a case by case basis, is any of this really all that surprising (even if we didn't predict or expect it). The performance of each player can be explained pretty rationally.
Maybe they can dig up Rick or Wes Ferrell to manage the team.Montana Fan said:Maybe I'm Charlie Brown but I'm still optimistic. Other than catcher, the lineup they ran out there yesterday is the one most posters were advocating for prior to the season starting.
RF - Rusney
CF - Betts
LF - Hanley
1B - Napoli
2B - Pedroia
SS - Xander
3B - Sandoval
DH - Ortiz
C - Swihart
If I'm Ferrell, I'm telling these guys that I'll be running this lineup out there (with a dose of Holt) for the foreseeable future. That lineup has to hit at some point and while the thought of maximizing David Ortiz' trade value makes for an awesome discussion, he's not going anywhere.
Rudy Pemberton said:
Napoli and Hanley are 33 and 31, doesn't it make sense that their production is below their career averages? Hanley isn't far off what he did last year, and better than a few years before that. Sandoval is only 28 (although it's an old 28, based on his condition), but players similar to him who swing at everything tend to age horribly- and his slugging has been in a major decline for the past few years.
Porcello will be better, for sure; his HR rate looks crazy high and that tends to be fluky. Perhaps there's something to be said for more variability among non-elite players....is it that shocking when a guy with a 96 ERA+ slides down to a 75? Or when Wade Miley has an 87 ERA+ in the NL, and then an 81 in the first few months in the AL? In hindsight, most of these performances don't seem all that hard to explain sadly.
With our franchise's ability to actually field a competitive team in the next few years looking more doubtful every day, do people really think the brain trust will pass up the payday of the Jeteresque Big Papi Farewell Tour in exchange for some middling prospect?ivanvamp said:I'm not the one advocating trading Ortiz, though I understand the sentiment. One reason the Patriots are so consistently good is that Belichick isn't afraid to send veteran stalwarts on their way at the right time.
glennhoffmania said:
You may be right. I'm more searching for answers than offering any at this point. Some of it seems odd to me, however. Yes, Napoli is 33. But his wRC+ the last four years are 116, 129, 124, 102. Is this due to age? Maybe. He can also certainly still end up closer to last year if he continues to improve. But I don't buy that a 33 year old all of the sudden lost the ability to hit.
Hanley at 31 should not be on a decline. And maybe he isn't, and he just went through a slump. But he's looked awful at times and it took Pedroia to fix his swing apparently. Same with Napoli. Both of these cases suggest a coaching issue, not an age issue.
Porcello's HR% is up and his GB% is way down. He's not having bad BABIP luck. When a ground ball pitcher starts giving up a bunch of homers and fewer ground balls, shouldn't someone notice and fix that?
Who the hell knows. If you have low expectations, like I did in 2012, and the team sucks, no big deal. This is easily the most frustrating season I've ever watched.
Here's the thread, it was more than one or twoAl Zarilla said:Maybe they can dig up Rick or Wes Ferrell to manage the team.
I'm surprised that the one or two, or was it more SOSHers that predicted that getting Sandoval was a bad move haven't shown up with the told you sos.
I might be mistaken - please, feel free to correct if I am - but I seem to recall the conventional wisdom being that lumbering sluggers over thirty are the exact type of players who age poorly, particularly if they were injury-prone to begin with. I guess I am just wondering if it really is (or was, I guess, if his struggles really are behind him) all that surprising that Napoli looked so done earlier in the year?The X Man Cometh said:
Not even going to touch Napoli. I'll grant that one to the "bad luck" crowd. Him looking cooked is just weird.
1. The season is basically over after two months; only a handful of teams who started 22-29 have made the playoffs, and none with as bad a run differential have in history. They basically have to hope that they can completely turn around their run differential and that the rest of the division stays bad. They should be looking to next year right now.Plympton91 said:The organization had a philosophy for putting together a winning team this year. You have to give it more than two months to work out.
[snip]
In Ben C's case, to me the two biggest flaws in his 2015 team building strategy were signing Pablo Sandoval and not acquiring or signing a relief ace.
dynomite said:So I like this post a lot, but here's my main problem. As of today, the Red Sox are:
- 21st in baseball in runs scored.
- 28th in baseball in runs allowed.
Through two months of the season, the Red Sox have just been a bad team. If we're extrapolating from small samples, the game yesterday was emblematic of a team that just isn't very good at anything: batting, pitching, fielding, base running.
At what point do you question your overall assessment of them "on paper"? Or do you assume that there's not much to be done no matter what -- because of contracts and organizational depth the guys we have are the guys we have?
Danny_Darwin said:I might be mistaken - please, feel free to correct if I am - but I seem to recall the conventional wisdom being that lumbering sluggers over thirty are the exact type of players who age poorly, particularly if they were injury-prone to begin with. I guess I am just wondering if it really is (or was, I guess, if his struggles really are behind him) all that surprising that Napoli looked so done earlier in the year?
The X Man Cometh said:
Hanley is hurt. His shoulder injury coincided very neatly with his regression. And even then he's got a more-than-respectable 115 wRC+ on the year. Has Hanley regressed at the plate at all? Or are his contributions there getting neutralized by bumbling elsewhere?
Isn't it possible that Porcello's 2015 approach is different than before? His strikeout rate is higher than ever and he's giving up more lasers than ever. Maybe the Red Sox are trying to change Porcello into a more valuable pitcher and its blowing up in their faces? I dunno, he does seem to be elevating a lot of fastballs for a guy who was advertised to be a groundball pitcher.
Not even going to touch Napoli. I'll grant that one to the "bad luck" crowd. Him looking cooked is just weird.
Toe Nash said:1. The season is basically over after two months; only a handful of teams who started 22-29 have made the playoffs, and none with as bad a run differential have in history. They basically have to hope that they can completely turn around their run differential and that the rest of the division stays bad. They should be looking to next year right now.
Plympton91 said:The organization had a philosophy for putting together a winning team this year. You have to give it more than two months to work out. Players slump; line drives don't find holes on offense while bleeders get through on defense. Everyone has shown signs: Hanley started out great before nicking his shoulder; Napoli won player of the week; Ortiz is still hitting righties fine, Pedroia has been great once you adjust for the new lower offensive environment, Betts is killing the ball but not finding holes, and Swihart has shown some signs of life. Buchholz is going for his 5th consecutive quality start, Porcello had a nice run before his two clunkers, Miley has stabilized, and Kelly is inconsistent; in the bullpen, Uehara has been great.
That said, there are things that just shouldn't be happening. Farrell can't pitch or hit, but the baserunning mistakes and defensive lapses (I'm not talking about physical errors) have to fall on the coaching staff and the motivation and general preparation of the team. Farrell also presided over two disappointing years in Toronto, in which a lot of young players underperformed. The 2013 team was veteran heavy; maybe, like Nieves, Farrell is a fine baseball man who is a bad fit for this group.
In Ben C's case, to me the two biggest flaws in his 2015 team building strategy were signing Pablo Sandoval and not acquiring or signing a relief ace. Sandoval has been good on offense against righties, but seems to be aging in dog years in year 1 of a 5 year disaster. I'm sure the number crunchers will say the lack of a relief ace has only cost them 0.65987432 wins so far, and that no reliever could ever be worth more than 3.5642394 wins over an entire season. But, those numbers assume that the performance of all other pitchers on the staff is independent of the quality of player in the role of relief ace, and that the manager would make the exact same moves with replacement-level relief-ace A as he would if he had stud relief-ace B (note, I don't mean using a replacement level pitcher as the relief ace, I mean using Ogando as the relief ace instead of Wade Davis).
koufax37 said:
If your data is correct it still is irrelevant because it doesn't account for a division as badly performing as ours (an historical rarity) and the second wildcard (a recent novelty). What this team does depends on what they can do over four months, not what they have done over two. If you think they are likely to be as bad as they have been, then by all means the season isn't going anywhere. ...
You also conclude that they *should* be looking to next year right now. ...
Hagios said:
Some good points. There are two questions:
1. What could be done to allow the team to sneak into the second wild card spot, or, given the weak division, perhaps an outright division win?
2. What does it take to get this team back to 90+ wins on a reasonably consistent basis?
I think the second question is going to take more than one offseason. You can't buy a 95 win team with a 300 to 500 million offseason anymore. Now that they have revenue sharing, fixed slot bonuses, and PED testing, baseball has become like the other major sports. You have to build your core through the draft and use free agency judiciously. And to that end, I think the Red Sox have no choice but to give the kids a longer leash and truly find out what they have. Selling low on them would merely let them buy some free agents and get to 80-85 wins.
Hagios said:
I think the second question is going to take more than one offseason. You can't buy a 95 win team with a 300 to 500 million offseason anymore. Now that they have revenue sharing, fixed slot bonuses, and PED testing, baseball has become like the other major sports. You have to build your core through the draft and use free agency judiciously. And to that end, I think the Red Sox have no choice but to give the kids a longer leash and truly find out what they have. Selling low on them would merely let them buy some free agents and get to 80-85 wins.
grimshaw said:To those advocating canning Farrell, who is out there to take his spot?
I'm not saying it isn't worth exploring, but there isn't a Joe Maddon or Buck Showalter out there. Love em or hate em, those guys are great tactical managers who the Red Sox haven't had in a while. PLAYOFF Tito was great, but overall he was known as the ultimate players manager.
I could see maybe Varitek down the line, but indications have been he isn't ready for full time baseball yet.
It seems like they could use a red ass like Matheny.
wade boggs chicken dinner said:
I agree with this and think it's the new normal, which is why I'm very much opposed to giving up prospects for Hamels. The Sox need to find some impact talent. They aren't going to be able to buy it on the FA market anymore, so the only way they are going to do that is to play a bunch of them and see which ones can succeed and which ones can't.
Sure I wish Betts, Bogaerts, Blake, BEdRod, BriJo, etc. etc. etc. would be immediate all-star level players. But the percentages say at least a few of them aren't going to be anything special, and at least a couple aren't even going to be major leaguers and fortunately or unfortunately, the only way to find out is to play them.
How many ex pitchers have been really successful managers.Aside from LaSorda.BCsMightyJoeYoung said:Well - first I think you have to identify what the failings of Farrell are. We all know that he's a poor in-game manager. But the issue here (presumably) seems to be a motivational problem. If the batters are pressing too much or have stopped listening to the coaches then the prime candidate would seem to be someone with good motivational skills. (or can scare the bejeebers out of them).
BCsMightyJoeYoung said:
Well - first I think you have to identify what the failings of Farrell are. We all know that he's a poor in-game manager. But the issue here (presumably) seems to be a motivational problem. If the batters are pressing too much or have stopped listening to the coaches then the prime candidate would seem to be someone with good motivational skills. (or can scare the bejeebers out of them).