Following Former Red Sox 2022 Edition

The Gray Eagle

The Gray Eagle

Member
SoSH Member
Aug 1, 2001
17,957
Joe Posnanski has a nice little public article about Mike Napoli on his substack (it's below the one about RA Dickey-- he is writing about players on the Hall of Fame ballot that he isn't voting for):
https://joeposnanski.substack.com/p/32bb207c-5263-427b-bc7b-ef8eb39b8f40

Interesting take on Napoli's first base defense:
But, here’s the even more remarkable thing to me: Napoli developed into a damn good first baseman. Like really good — like Gold Glove good. I mean, maybe you could have seen the hitting coming, but when you put a struggling defensive catcher at first base, you are not expecting to get Wes Parker. But Napoli flashed some good defense with the Rangers and even better defense after he signed as a free agent with the Red Sox.

I remember Bill James telling me something to the effect of: You need to watch Napoli play first base, he’s excellent out there. So I started paying attention, and it was really remarkable. He always seemed to be in the right place. He was brilliant at saving bad throws. His range was excellent — and this was a guy who everybody knew couldn’t run at all. And the defensive stats back all of this up.

Napoli never had an offensive season nearly as good as he did in 2011, but he slugged, and he played good defense and teams seemed to rally around him. He was not only a pivotal player for the 2011 World Series Rangers and the 2013 world champion Red Sox, but also for the 2016 Clevelanders.
Click to expand...

 
Daniel_Son

Daniel_Son

Member
SoSH Member
May 25, 2021
2,152
San Diego
The Gray Eagle said:
Joe Posnanski has a nice little public article about Mike Napoli on his substack (it's below the one about RA Dickey-- he is writing about players on the Hall of Fame ballot that he isn't voting for):
https://joeposnanski.substack.com/p/32bb207c-5263-427b-bc7b-ef8eb39b8f40

Interesting take on Napoli's first base defense:



Click to expand...
That whole 2013 team was full of guys who had career (or close to career) years. It really is remarkable. Like Mike Carp and Daniel Nava both hitting ~.300. Obviously '04 is its own thing, but for my money, 2013 was my favorite Sox team ever. Just completely improbable.
 
E5 Yaz

E5 Yaz

polka king
Lifetime Member
SoSH Member
Apr 25, 2002
96,777
Oregon
Daniel_Son said:
That whole 2013 team was full of guys who had career (or close to career) years. It really is remarkable. Like Mike Carp and Daniel Nava both hitting ~.300. Obviously '04 is its own thing, but for my money, 2013 was my favorite Sox team ever. Just completely improbable.
Click to expand...
67 was my favorite team, and like you say 04 is in its own category. But I don't think I ever enjoyed watching a team more than that 2013 group.
 
InsideTheParker

InsideTheParker

persists in error
SoSH Member
Jul 15, 2005
42,583
Pioneer Valley
I didn't hear the discussion, only saw the crawl at the bottom of the screen, but MLBN listed Hunter Renfroe as the tenth best outfielder in baseball. That surprised me.
 
John Marzano Olympic Hero

John Marzano Olympic Hero

has fancy plans, and pants to match
Dope
SoSH Member
Apr 12, 2001
25,983
InsideTheParker said:
I didn't hear the discussion, only saw the crawl at the bottom of the screen, but MLBN listed Hunter Renfroe as the tenth best outfielder in baseball. That surprised me.
Click to expand...
I bet it was tenth best RF. MLBN has a show on called the "Ten Best ..." and last night, I believe they were on right fielders.
 
Sad Sam Jones

Sad Sam Jones

Member
SoSH Member
May 5, 2017
3,113
Cleveland acquired Tinsley in 1991 as the better of two prospects they received from Oakland for my childhood favorite Brook Jacoby. He was at AA so he joined the Canton-Akron Indians, which was the only minor league team in NE Ohio at the time and a team I followed from childhood through my teens before they moved from a low-rate field outside Canton (Thurman Munson Stadium) to downtown Akron.

Anyway, Tinsley was seen as the top candidate at the time to be Cleveland's leadoff hitter for the rebuild -- as former phenom Alex Cole was making an artform out of getting picked off and caught stealing. Just over four months later, Cleveland made another trade that brought in a former college basketball star named Kenny Lofton and Tinsley's fate was sealed.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top Bottom