Following Former Red Sox: 2015

Rovin Romine

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InsideTheParker said:
This gives me a headache. The heat is no explanation. What is?
 
Smiling Joe Hesketh said:
 
Familiar, hitter-friendly park for him. Or maybe he was just in a slump. These things happen.
 
And change of scenery.  And he's a FA in 2016.  
 
He loves Boston from all accounts, so perhaps he'll be back if there's a spot open for him (due to a trade/retirement/injury before the end of the year, etc.) 
 
Edit - Meanwhile Victorino is OPSing .562 in 57PAs for the Angels.  
 

Toe Nash

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Napoli has only started 6 games in a month for Texas and has a number of PH appearances, so the sample size is small (30 PA). He has basically had the equivalent of a hot week, and I would guess he has mostly faced lefties, so I wouldn't go wishing for him back just yet.
 

Toe Nash

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Lose Remerswaal said:
His numbers in games he's started have been very good.  Last I checked he was o'fer in pinch hitting attempts
Great. It's 6 games. If he goes 0-fer in like his next three games his numbers with Texas will be mediocre.
 

Philip Jeff Frye

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Why can't we get players like Yoenis Céspedes?
 
Could he pull a Rick Sutcliffe and end up the NL MVP?  Probably not, but there's not really other obvious candidates and he's been amazing since the Mets acquired him.  .312/.357/.675, mostly playing in center field.
 

GreyisGone

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Philip Jeff Frye said:
Why can't we get players like Yoenis Céspedes?
 
Could he pull a Rick Sutcliffe and end up the NL MVP?  Probably not, but there's not really other obvious candidates and he's been amazing since the Mets acquired him.  .312/.357/.675, mostly playing in center field.
Except for Harper having an historic year.
 

MakMan44

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Lose Remerswaal said:
Iglesias has a broken finger and will miss the next 2 weeks.  BA is at .300, I wonder if Detroit just shuts him down at this point.
Yeah, I don't see much of a point of bringing him back for the last week of so.
 

NDame616

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Van Everyman said:
 
 
@Buster_ESPN: Mike Napoli, playing left field for the Rangers, muffs an easy pop fly in front of him. Houston first and second, one out, leading 2-1.
 
 
WELL IF WE KNEW HE'D PLAY LEFT FIELD WE COULD'VE JUST SWITCHED HIM AND HANLEY!!!
 

BestGameEvah

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Some Napoli tidbits:
 
Bannister was quoted as saying he started working with Napoli in LF as soon as he got there!
(and apparently, we had him out there, too, in 2013...just in case) Naturally, he was out early yesterday working with Jayce Tingler.
 
This was his third game in LF vs. LHP, and the Rangers have gone 3-0 & scored 31 runs in those games! Since overhauling the team at the trade deadline (43 total trades in MLB) Texas run differential in +28.
 
He has supplied the team with something familiar:http://m.mlb.com/cutfour/2015/09/16/149853024/rangers-get-american-flag-shorts-from-mike-napoli?tcid=tw_article_149853024
 
Rob Bradford wrote a piece about working in the broadcast booth and mentioned that Ortiz is honoring his former teammate with the unbuttoned jersey:  
7:15: I really want to bring up a story about David Ortiz patterning his new uniform-unbuttoning after ex-teammate Mike Napoli, but I realize there are two outs
I am wondering if perhaps the dropping of the bat and shin guard at the plate by our younger players is also a tribute to their beloved teammate scooped up at the trade deadline.
 
Nap-o-li ringing out in Texas!  
 

CarolinaBeerGuy

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Since joining the Rangers, Napoli's line is .306/.394/.532 with 4 HR over 27 games. He's also played 36 innings in left field over his past 7 games. Somewhat amazingly, he's only had 4 chances in those 36 innings. He's made errors on 2 of those chances for an astounding fielding percentage of .500 in left field.
 

BestGameEvah

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So Middlebrooks finished out the AAA season in El Pasoand by the end of the year he was batting 9th.
There are now 35 of the 40 man roster in San Diego eligible to play, and he's not one of them.
Did not get a call up.  Hmmmm.
 

HriniakPosterChild

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In the bottom of the eighth inning at Nationals Park on Sunday, Washington closer Jonathan Papelbon attacked Bryce Harper in the home dugout. Standing on the dugout stairs above Harper, Papelbon escalated a verbal altercation by lunging at Harper, placing his hand around his neck and slamming him into the wall.

Then, as if nothing had happened, Matt Williams let Papelbon go back out to pitch.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/28/sports/baseball/bryce-harper-and-jonathan-papelbon-come-to-blows-in-nationals-dugout.html
 

soxhop411

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[QUOTE="Hriniak]In the bottom of the eighth inning at Nationals Park on Sunday, Washington closer Jonathan Papelbon attacked Bryce Harper in the home dugout. Standing on the dugout stairs above Harper, Papelbon escalated a verbal altercation by lunging at Harper, placing his hand around his neck and slamming him into the wall.
Then, as if nothing had happened, Matt Williams let Papelbon go back out to pitch. http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/28/sports/baseball/bryce-harper-and-jonathan-papelbon-come-to-blows-in-nationals-dugout.html
[/QUOTE]

and Matt Williams say he was unaware that a fight occurred, otherwise he would not have sent him out…. And I am not joking… He really was unaware of the fight
 

1918stabbedbyfoulke

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Lose Remerswaal said:
Jake Peavy became the 5th SF Giants pitcher to hit a HR this season last night, in a 5-3 victory.
 
Giants pitchers have 9 HR, 2nd place is a few teams who have 2
Peavy can barely see pitch signals from his own catcher. How did he manage to hit a home run? Did he get corrective surgery for his vision? Does he wear glasses when batting? If he has done nothing to correct his vision, then his squaring up a major league pitch with a bat is astounding.
 

paulb0t

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Papelbon suspended by Nats for the rest of the year.
 
Couldn't happen to a nicer guy. Although the Bud Light hat in 2007 never fails to make me smile.
 
 

threecy

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paulb0t said:
Papelbon suspended by Nats for the rest of the year.
 
Couldn't happen to a nicer guy. Although the Bud Light hat in 2007 never fails to make me smile.
One can certainly argue that putting someone in a choke hold on camera in the dugout is not acceptable behavior., That aside, isn't this considered one of the intangibles of having a veteran on the team - being the enforcer when a young player is out of line (in Harper's case, not running when he flied out to left)?
 

Smiling Joe Hesketh

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threecy said:
One can certainly argue that putting someone in a choke hold on camera in the dugout is not acceptable behavior., That aside, isn't this considered one of the intangibles of having a veteran on the team - being the enforcer when a young player is out of line (in Harper's case, not running when he flied out to left)?
 
Rule number 1 in baseball is not to put the probable NL NVP into a choke hold.
 

Rovin Romine

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Smiling Joe Hesketh said:
 
Rule number 1 in baseball is not to put the probable NL NVP into a choke hold.
 
 
Wait - don't we do this with little leaguers to show them how to "play the game right?"  What am I missing here?
 

Rovin Romine

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I forgot the sarcasm tags.  Clearly, while there's a right way to play the game, there's also a right way to get a message across to someone like Harper.  A chokehold on national TV isn't one of them.  
 

santadevil

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1918stabbedbyfoulke said:
Peavy can barely see pitch signals from his own catcher. How did he manage to hit a home run? Did he get corrective surgery for his vision? Does he wear glasses when batting? If he has done nothing to correct his vision, then his squaring up a major league pitch with a bat is astounding.
He's legally blind, but wears corrective lenses. How did you think he pitched and defended himself when come backers were hit at him?
 

Red(s)HawksFan

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santadevil said:
He's legally blind, but wears corrective lenses. How did you think he pitched and defended himself when come backers were hit at him?
 
Even with the corrective lenses, he struggles to see the catcher's signs, especially during night games.  I recall Salty putting fluorescent paint on his nails so they'd stand out better from the shadows between his knees.  It's reasonable to wonder how a guy who struggles with signs from sixty feet away can see well enough in the batters box to recognize strike from ball out of the pitcher's hand, let alone square up a pitch well enough to take it out of the yard.
 
Edit to add: wasn't that supposedly one of the big knocks on Will Middlebrooks?  That he had vision problems but refused to the wear glasses/contacts that could have fixed them and maybe allowed him to be a capable major league hitter.
 

John Marzano Olympic Hero

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Rovin Romine said:
I forgot the sarcasm tags.  Clearly, while there's a right way to play the game, there's also a right way to get a message across to someone like Harper.  A chokehold on national TV isn't one of them.  
 
Wait. Do you think that Harper should have been called out? For what, exactly? What message are you (or your proxy) trying to get across to "someone like Harper"?
 

Rovin Romine

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John Marzano Olympic Hero said:
 
Wait. Do you think that Harper should have been called out? For what, exactly? What message are you (or your proxy) trying to get across to "someone like Harper"?
 
Harper apparently ran slowly to 1st.   If true, that's "call out able."  It's call out able for any player, who, like Harper, does something similar.   But I don't think you do that with a chokehold.  
 
Nothing to see here.  Move along.  Move along. 
 

John Marzano Olympic Hero

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Rovin Romine said:
 
Harper apparently ran slowly to 1st.   If true, that's "call out able."  It's call out able for any player, who, like Harper, does something similar.   But I don't think you do that with a chokehold.  
 
Nothing to see here.  Move along.  Move along. 
You know he was literally standing on first base when his fly ball was caught, right? How fast do you (or Pappelbon) want him to run?
 

Lowrielicious

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DeRosa covers the ridiculousness of Papelbon calling out a position player for not busting his ass to 1B on every single play fairly well.
 
https://twitter.com/_JakeRussell/status/648502495761854464
 
 

HriniakPosterChild

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Red(s)HawksFan said:
 
Even with the corrective lenses, he struggles to see the catcher's signs, especially during night games.  I recall Salty putting fluorescent paint on his nails so they'd stand out better from the shadows between his knees.  It's reasonable to wonder how a guy who struggles with signs from sixty feet away can see well enough in the batters box to recognize strike from ball out of the pitcher's hand, let alone square up a pitch well enough to take it out of the yard.
 
Edit to add: wasn't that supposedly one of the big knocks on Will Middlebrooks?  That he had vision problems but refused to the wear glasses/contacts that could have fixed them and maybe allowed him to be a capable major league hitter.
 
Per an old NESN article:
 
 
The most glaring example of Peavy’s eyesight causing issues came during last season’s ALCS against the Detroit Tigers, when the veteran hurler struggled to see signs during Game 4. According to Peavy, struggling to see signs represents the only side effect of his poor eyesight.
 
“I see the ball well enough off the bat and everything else,” Peavy said Monday. “It’s just the fingers are so small and so dark and we’re trying to hide them from the other team. Everybody — from third and first base coaches — are trying to steal those signs.”
 
Peavy isn’t a candidate for laser eye surgery because of astigmatisms. The 33-year-old has corrective lenses, but they only improve his vision to 20/40.
 
I can't imagine facing MLB pitching with 20/40 vision, let alone putting the ball into play.
 

Red(s)HawksFan

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Alejandro De Aza and David Murphy both picked up walk-off RBI for their respective teams last night.  De Aza with a sac fly in the 12th in San Fran, Murphy with a single in the 9th in Anaheim.
 

threecy

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soup17 said:
Justin Masterson had arthroscopic surgery on his right shoulder - may explain his velocity drop, though not sure why it took him so damned long to get it done. 
 
http://espn.go.com/mlb/story/_/id/13785968/justin-masterson-arthroscopic-surgery-right-shoulder
I suspect the injury happened during the last year of his contract, so the scenario was probably a) get some sort of payday (ie $9.5M from the Red Sox) or b) get surgery and then attempt to get a contract once recovered, with the risk of ending up with a minor league/spring training invite type of deal.

Who knows what the long term result will be, but short term, the way he did it probably worked out for the best for him financially.