Following Former Red Sox 2022 Edition

Leskanic's Thread

lost underscore
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Jul 16, 2005
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How do you say "grand opening, grand closing" in Korean?

fake edit: according to google, it's apparently 그랜드 오프닝 그랜드 클로징
 

The Gray Eagle

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Aug 1, 2001
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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.

 

Daniel_Son

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May 25, 2021
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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:



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

polka king
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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.
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

persists in error
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Jul 15, 2005
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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

has fancy plans, and pants to match
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Apr 12, 2001
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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.
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

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May 5, 2017
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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.