Grady Sizemore DFA'd at last

brandonchristensen

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I liked the concept of the signing and after game 1 it seemed great...
 
unfortunately it didn't pan out. It was a long shot, but it appears that Grady's best days are far behind him.
 

Reverend

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radsoxfan said:
People need to stop assuming he was healthy.  He didn't go on the DL, that doesn't mean he was healthy.  If his defense is any indication, Grady had reached some "new normal" in which he is just chronically diminished.  I'm not sure that counts as healthy, at least in any useful sense of the word. 
 
Dwyane Wade played every game in the NBA playoffs this year. His knees are still falling apart. 
I feel like there are two parts to this post that share almost no coherence.

Unless your point is that joint health in the long term view has no correlation with performance. Which I suppose could be true, but then I'd still be unsure as to what you were getting at.
 

lexrageorge

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Super Nomario said:
It's true that JBJ wouldn't have been on the roster without Ortiz' injury, but that wasn't the only reason Bradley made the team. They had other options. They elected to go with a guy who had 61 games above A-ball because he had a hot spring.
What other options?  I recall last spring, and the only other option I recall was Mauro Gomez.  That's hardly "other options".  And it all worked out anyway; Bradley got most of his at bats last year in AAA, and acquitted himself reasonably well.  And while I thought he could have used some more at bats at Pawtucket this year, it didn't work out that way for a number of reasons that have nothing to do with last season's "hot spring".  Both the decision process and the results in 2013 were sound when it came to JBJ. 
 

Maybe it's selective/faulty memory on my part, but it seems like we haven't had great success with oft-injured player reclamation projects since... Bill Mueller? Guys like Wade Miller, Andrew Bailey, and Grady Sizemore have been high profile busts. I know they don't cost a ton in terms of money or prospects (although Josh Reddick turned out decent), but the return value here seems to have been pretty poor. Maybe the Sox need to recalibrate their thinking towards these players, given the additional opportunity cost of not playing say, promising minor leaguers because their spots are blocked by these declining vets. Which is interesting as the Red Sox seem to be one of the more risk averse teams now relative to their budget.
 
Can people think of a team that has had a good run with these reclamation projects?
 
While not necessarily "reclamation projects", the Sox did have good luck last year with Napoli (limited to 108 games in 2012), Victorino (0.704 OPS while battling injury all 2012), and, most notably, Stephen Drew (who missed about half the season in both 2011 and 2012).  You could add guys like Saltalamacchia, Andrew Miller and, of course, Daniel Nava to the list of "low cost flyers" that did work out.  Granted, the latter were not "oft injured", but should be considered if you want to analyze the Sox track record on taking chances with so-called lottery ticket players.  
 
The Sizemore experiment did not work, but it's hardly the end of the world that some posters here are making it out to be.  The team has had other issues, and still has them to some extent.  
 

radsoxfan

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Reverend said:
I feel like there are two parts to this post that share almost no coherence.

Unless your point is that joint health in the long term view has no correlation with performance. Which I suppose could be true, but then I'd still be unsure as to what you were getting at.
 
I'm not sure what the confusion is, or why you are not understanding my post (did you misread it? or not realize Dwyane Wade sucked at the end of the year?). Certainly joint health is highly linked with performance. That's the whole point.
 
Athletes who get on the field/court are not automatically healthy.  Dwyane Wade managed to get on the court for every game of the playoffs, but he was terrible (particularly in the finals), mostly because he has degenerative knees and is a shell of his former self.  I suppose I should have made it more clear, to those non-NBA fans out there, that Wade has not been playing up to his capabilities.
 
Grady Sizemore not going on the DL doesn't mean he is healthy.  He looked terrible out there, and it seemed like more than just "getting his timing back".  He had lost all speed, quickness, and explosiveness. He had no strength from his lower half in his swing. That's not a healthy player.  That's a guy trying to adapt (unsuccessfully) to a chronically diminished and unhealthy new normal.  
 
I wish it had worked out, but it was always a longshot.  My only real issue with the whole idea was thinking he could be anything close to a full-time center fielder from the start of the season.  That seemed crazy optimistic. 
 

joe dokes

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radsoxfan said:
 
People need to stop assuming he was healthy.  He didn't go on the DL, that doesn't mean he was healthy.  If his defense is any indication, Grady had reached some "new normal" in which he is just chronically diminished.  I'm not sure that counts as healthy, at least in any useful sense of the word. 
 
Dwyane Wade played every game in the NBA playoffs this year. His knees are still falling apart. 
 
 
That's a fair point. My use of "healthy" was meant to mean "uninjured" in the traumatic sense.  Like I would describe a relative as being a "healthy" 80-year old (or maybe describe sizemore the same way :)
 
 But to your point, the Sox waited til mid-June to determine that the "new normal" wasn't good enough.  It forced Nava to spend 24 games at AAA.  Its possible that Nava would have improved his performance without going to AAA.  It's possible that Nava had played in Boston for some of those games, the team's results might have been different.  (Sizemore hit .231 while Nava was at Pawtucket).  I doubt either was probable.  The Sox took a shot that Sizemore's first dozen games and his brief stretch in the first half of May were sustainable. They weren't.  I still think it was a reasonable signing and a reasonable approach.   
 

Quintanariffic

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So let me get this straight.  People are upset we didn't DFA Sizemore and his .216/.288/.324 line in favor of Daniel Nava and his .204/.301/.296 line?  Was the difference between those lines supposed to cubically transform the rest of the offense into not sucking?  Good grief.  The amount of ex-post facto dick-waving in this thread is ludicrous.  
 
Hey - look at me!  Look at how smart I am by pointing to a move that didn't work out for Cherrington!  Sure wish I didn't have this economics job holding me back, otherwise I'd be a shoo-in for the next important position to open up on Yawkey Way!
 
Get over yourselves people.  There's no evidence this move cost the Sox anything other than a million bucks.  Any attempt to prove otherwise is futile hindsight in an attempt to see one's screen name appear on the internet.  
 

radsoxfan

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joe dokes said:
 
 
That's a fair point. My use of "healthy" was meant to mean "uninjured" in the traumatic sense.  Like I would describe a relative as being a "healthy" 80-year old (or maybe describe sizemore the same way :).   
Ha, well I agree with you there. I have no problem describing Sizemore as healthy in that sense.

But in a Major League Baseball sense, until proven otherwise, a guy with 2 degenerative knees has a very good chance of being "unhealthy" in my opinion. These aren't broken bones or torn ligaments that can be fixed. The only surgical options (which Grady had) pretty much suck.
 

Eck'sSneakyCheese

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Quintanariffic said:
So let me get this straight.  People are upset we didn't DFA Sizemore and his .216/.288/.324 line in favor of Daniel Nava and his .204/.301/.296 line?  Was the difference between those lines supposed to cubically transform the rest of the offense into not sucking?  Good grief.  The amount of ex-post facto dick-waving in this thread is ludicrous.  
 
Hey - look at me!  Look at how smart I am by pointing to a move that didn't work out for Cherrington!  Sure wish I didn't have this economics job holding me back, otherwise I'd be a shoo-in for the next important position to open up on Yawkey Way!
 
Get over yourselves people.  There's no evidence this move cost the Sox anything other than a million bucks.  Any attempt to prove otherwise is futile hindsight in an attempt to see one's screen name appear on the internet.  
 
I was going to reply to some of the posts from last night but this about sums it up.
 

Red(s)HawksFan

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lexrageorge said:
What other options?  I recall last spring, and the only other option I recall was Mauro Gomez.  That's hardly "other options".  And it all worked out anyway; Bradley got most of his at bats last year in AAA, and acquitted himself reasonably well.  And while I thought he could have used some more at bats at Pawtucket this year, it didn't work out that way for a number of reasons that have nothing to do with last season's "hot spring".  Both the decision process and the results in 2013 were sound when it came to JBJ. 
 
They had another option that they DFAd to make room for JBJ on the 40-man roster, and his name was Ryan Sweeney.  Granted, he's not going to wow anyone, but Sweeney was and always has been a competent defensive outfielder who could have handled LF part time in those three weeks while Gomes and Nava were rotated through the DH spot in Ortiz's place.  And given JBJ's struggles, it's not like Sweeney's bat would have likely been any worse...arguably he might have been better.  At the very least, keeping him and leaving JBJ off the 40-man at the start of the year would have fit their general philosophy of maintaining control of as many assets as possible. But JBJ put up a 1.120 OPS in spring while Sweeney had a robust .547.  How can it be argued that JBJ didn't win the job based on his spring performance?
 

KillerBs

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Quintanariffic said:
So let me get this straight.  People are upset we didn't DFA Sizemore and his .216/.288/.324 line in favor of Daniel Nava and his .204/.301/.296 line?  Was the difference between those lines supposed to cubically transform the rest of the offense into not sucking?  Good grief.  The amount of ex-post facto dick-waving in this thread is ludicrous.  
 
Hey - look at me!  Look at how smart I am by pointing to a move that didn't work out for Cherrington!  Sure wish I didn't have this economics job holding me back, otherwise I'd be a shoo-in for the next important position to open up on Yawkey Way!
 
Get over yourselves people.  There's no evidence this move cost the Sox anything other than a million bucks.  Any attempt to prove otherwise is futile hindsight in an attempt to see one's screen name appear on the internet.  
This strikes me as a borderline hysterical reponse to some rather gentle criticism of the GM.
 
Every criticism of the front office does not imply I think I could do the job better. I have already said that I think the Sox front office is generally well run.
 
It is true that we do not know how much better the team would have been if the Sox would have obtained the legit major league reserve CF/RF they needed, instead of signing Sizemore. We don't kow what Nava or Carp would have hit at the ML level over the last 2 months, in the absence of Sizemore. We can't know what effect Sizemore winning the CF job had on Bradley. We don't know what the potential return was for Carp or Nava in the off season trade market or how the speculatively acquired right handed CF/RF would have performed. But I do not think that stands in the way of assessing ex ante the Sizemore acquisition, and the failure to deal Carp or Nava in the off season. 
 
But maybe I have it all wrong. Maybe BC was right when, knowing that he needed a RH 4th/5th OFer who can play CF/RF and that he had a surplus of lefty 1b/LF, he decided to: 
 
1. sign a LHB OFer who hadnt played at all in the ML for 2+ years, and hadn't played well for 4+. 
2. put him in competition in spring for the starting CF job with the CF of the future.
3. give him the job based on 30-40 spring ABs.
4. only to realise by April 10 he could not really play CF.
5. then give him the LF job over, and send to the minors, one of the better LFers in baseball last year, based on Nava's poor initial 2014 67 PAs.
 

Stitch01

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I don't really get the handedness focus.  The Sox problems in CF, or the OF as a whole, aren't really a platoon/handedness thing.  A LH hitting CF that could actually hit would be a super useful piece for this team right now.
 
Just cant see how this move cost them more than a win or so if that.  Maybe the upside gamble wasn't worth it, but its a pretty marginal move and the thought process makes sense to me. 
 

glennhoffmania

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Quintanariffic said:
So let me get this straight.  People are upset we didn't DFA Sizemore and his .216/.288/.324 line in favor of Daniel Nava and his .204/.301/.296 line?  Was the difference between those lines supposed to cubically transform the rest of the offense into not sucking?  Good grief.  The amount of ex-post facto dick-waving in this thread is ludicrous.  
 
Hey - look at me!  Look at how smart I am by pointing to a move that didn't work out for Cherrington!  Sure wish I didn't have this economics job holding me back, otherwise I'd be a shoo-in for the next important position to open up on Yawkey Way!
 
Get over yourselves people.  There's no evidence this move cost the Sox anything other than a million bucks.  Any attempt to prove otherwise is futile hindsight in an attempt to see one's screen name appear on the internet.  
 
Well said.  The idea that Daniel Fucking Nava being sent down to get his shit together sank this team is laughable.  I swear, if someone read this thread and didn't know the stats or watch the games they'd think that Nava was playing great baseball and was demoted for no reason in the world.  Fortunately a lot of people do watch the games and saw a guy who looked totally lost at the plate, not to mention he's a below average defender.  But sure, let's go on a two day rant about how the FO is run by a bunch of idiots who look at triple slash lines over a 3 week period and make roster decisions accordingly.
 

joe dokes

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4. only to realise by April 10 he could not really play CF.
5. then give him the LF job over, and send to the minors, one of the better LFers in baseball last year, based on Nava's poor initial 2014 67 PAs
 
This, and other posts like it, would carry more credibility if they didn't say, "poor Danny Nava got sent down ONLY because of those 67 PAs." Nava also had an option and he caught the short end. He isn't the first guy and won't be the last.
 
 
They also wanted to see what Sizemore could bring to the bat.  As of April 10, it seemed like more than zero. And one of the only ways to do that was to take advantage of the fact that Nava had options, which they did on 4/23, which was also done with Victorino's return in sight.
 

lexrageorge

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Red(s)HawksFan said:
 
They had another option that they DFAd to make room for JBJ on the 40-man roster, and his name was Ryan Sweeney.  Granted, he's not going to wow anyone, but Sweeney was and always has been a competent defensive outfielder who could have handled LF part time in those three weeks while Gomes and Nava were rotated through the DH spot in Ortiz's place.  And given JBJ's struggles, it's not like Sweeney's bat would have likely been any worse...arguably he might have been better.  At the very least, keeping him and leaving JBJ off the 40-man at the start of the year would have fit their general philosophy of maintaining control of as many assets as possible. But JBJ put up a 1.120 OPS in spring while Sweeney had a robust .547.  How can it be argued that JBJ didn't win the job based on his spring performance?
Thanks, I did forget about Ryan Sweeney.  Duly noted.
 
Then again, I'm not sure deciding to give a roster spot to one of the club's top prospects over a declining, oft-injured veteran who's OPS did not crack 0.700 over the prior 2 seasons is such an egregious violation of the "spring training stats should be ignored no matter what the circumstances" rule.  Keep in mind that the team was very much looking towards the future at that point; noone expected them to contend for the playoffs.  
 

KillerBs

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joe dokes said:
This, and other posts like it, would carry more credibility if they didn't say, "poor Danny Nava got sent down ONLY because of those 67 PAs." Nava also had an option and he caught the short end. He isn't the first guy and won't be the last.
 
 
They also wanted to see what Sizemore could bring to the bat.  As of April 10, it seemed like more than zero. And one of the only ways to do that was to take advantage of the fact that Nava had options, which they did on 4/23, which was also done with Victorino's return in sight.
Actually, my main criticism is not with sending Nava down in the 3rd week of April, but with the signing of Sizemore, which led to a scenario where sending Nava down in the 3rd week of April became plausible on the off chance that Grady! was reborn.
 
But you raise a good point. I am struggling to think of other instances ever of a player coming off a 126 OPS+ type year in more or less full time duty getting sent to AAA that early in the following year. More or less unprecedented to my recall, but I could be wrong. 
 

Mike F

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Speaking of successful rehab signings
Looie Tiant comes to mind.
 

Puffy

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KillerBs said:
Actually, my main criticism is not with sending Nava down in the 3rd week of April, but with the signing of Sizemore, which led to a scenario where sending Nava down in the 3rd week of April became plausible on the off chance that Grady! was reborn.
 
This is my take. It was a nice idea, but ill-advised. You had a collection of question marks in the outfield (Victorino - health and regression risk, Nava - regression risk and platoon splits, Gomes - platoon splits and defense, JBJ - rookie struggles, Carp - defense) and the answer was to bring in Sizemore - one more question mark. 
 
Of course, the situation was exacerbated by a combination of injuries, underperformance, and the options status of various players, so I understand why Sizemore stuck around as long as he did. It was a low risk move in a certain sense, but there is the opportunity cost of trying to stick with Sizemore, when the better bet might have been a more reliable OF option with a lower ceiling, but less performance or injury risk. I suppose if there was no such outfielder out there for the Sox, Sizemore was a sexy alternative that we could all dream on.
 

Plympton91

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Quintanariffic said:
So let me get this straight.  People are upset we didn't DFA Sizemore and his .216/.288/.324 line in favor of Daniel Nava and his .204/.301/.296 line?  Was the difference between those lines supposed to cubically transform the rest of the offense into not sucking?  Good grief.  The amount of ex-post facto dick-waving in this thread is ludicrous.  
 
Hey - look at me!  Look at how smart I am by pointing to a move that didn't work out for Cherrington!  Sure wish I didn't have this economics job holding me back, otherwise I'd be a shoo-in for the next important position to open up on Yawkey Way!
 
Get over yourselves people.  There's no evidence this move cost the Sox anything other than a million bucks.  Any attempt to prove otherwise is futile hindsight in an attempt to see one's screen name appear on the internet.  
I think most of the people pointing to this as an avoidable mistake said it was a mistake ex ante, are confused by the Pro-Sizemore group's insistence on using a 3 week slump by Nava as their justification for putting up with the mistake, are concerned about how the choice of Sizemore over Nava fits into what is seemingly becoming a pattern of John Farrell's use of small sample sizes and streaks as key decision factors rather than the more SABR approach that has been the hallmark of the front office's biggest successes, and for that matter don't see how giving at bats to a guy who was unlikely to succeed and unlikely to be here in 2015 if he did fits with the "bridge year" philosophy.
 

joe dokes

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KillerBs said:
Actually, my main criticism is not with sending Nava down in the 3rd week of April, but with the signing of Sizemore, which led to a scenario where sending Nava down in the 3rd week of April became plausible on the off chance that Grady! was reborn.
 
But you raise a good point. I am struggling to think of other instances ever of a player coming off a 126 OPS+ type year in more or less full time duty getting sent to AAA that early in the following year. More or less unprecedented to my recall, but I could be wrong. 
 
Not 126, but Ed Kranepool was a Met regular (avg about 130 games/yr) from 64-69 with OPS+ ranging from 87-100, and spent most of 1970 in AAA after hitting .118 through mid June. Came back in 1971 to have his best year of a very long career (124)
 

Super Nomario

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lexrageorge said:
What other options?  I recall last spring, and the only other option I recall was Mauro Gomez.  That's hardly "other options".  
Gomez (or Ryan Sweeney, mentioned above) were more major league ready and almost certainly would have bested Bradley's .392 OPS. And Bradley was a guy who had to play every day for development reasons. A guy like Gomez or Sweeney could have just filled in and would have let them start Carp (who got only 7 PA through 4/20) at DH.
 
lexrageorge said:
And it all worked out anyway; Bradley got most of his at bats last year in AAA, and acquitted himself reasonably well.  And while I thought he could have used some more at bats at Pawtucket this year, it didn't work out that way for a number of reasons that have nothing to do with last season's "hot spring".  Both the decision process and the results in 2013 were sound when it came to JBJ. 
It was almost immediately obvious starting Bradley was a mistake (he was relegated to the bench after just 10 starts), but of course they won the World Series anyway. It was a rare mis-step in a year full of good FO moves. What's concerning is it seems like they made an almost identical mistake with Sizemore this spring.
 

MakMan44

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Super Nomario said:
It was almost immediately obvious starting Bradley was a mistake (he was relegated to the bench after just 10 starts), but of course they won the World Series anyway. It was a rare mis-step in a year full of good FO moves. What's concerning is it seems like they made an almost identical mistake with Sizemore this spring.
That's simply not true. Sizemore had shown he had the ability to hit ML pitching, it was his health that was the major concern going into spring training. He ended ST "healthy" (hat tip to radsox) and that's what won him the job. 
 

joe dokes

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Plympton91 said:
I think most of the people pointing to this as an avoidable mistake said it was a mistake ex ante, are confused by the Pro-Sizemore group's insistence on using a 3 week slump by Nava as their justification for putting up with the mistake, are concerned about how the choice of Sizemore over Nava fits into what is seemingly becoming a pattern of John Farrell's use of small sample sizes and streaks as key decision factors rather than the more SABR approach that has been the hallmark of the front office's biggest successes, and for that matter don't see how giving at bats to a guy who was unlikely to succeed and unlikely to be here in 2015 if he did fits with the "bridge year" philosophy.
 
I think your  use of the terms "SABR approach", and "bridge year philosophy"  are your own, and probably do little more than occasionally overlap at a few points with what the actual FO and management actually do on a day-to-day or long-term basis in the real world.  It sounds like the mirror image of Harold Reynolds braying that "they fired all the scouts."  The Sox dont run the team like its Strat-o-matic.  Nor should they. Maybe Nava wasn't even hitting line drives in batting practice.
 
Perhaps you would be less confused if you stopped saying "using a 3 week slump by Nava as their justification for putting up with the mistake."  Your continued use of "small sample size" with respect to the Nava demotion is just comical at this point.
 

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MakMan44 said:
That's simply not true. Sizemore had shown he had the ability to hit ML pitching, it was his health that was the major concern going into spring training. He ended ST "healthy" (hat tip to radsox) and that's what won him the job. 
I don't understand how an intelligent person can speak in absolutes like "that's simply not true." Are you 100% convinced that if Sizemore had given the same indications of "health" but had hit .220/.280/.379 (as he did in his last 435 MLB PAs across 2010-2011) or .216/.288/.324 (as he did this year once the games started counting) instead of .310/.356/.429, that he still would have made the squad? I'm dubious.
 

joe dokes

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Super Nomario said:
I don't understand how an intelligent person can speak in absolutes like "that's simply not true." Are you 100% convinced that if Sizemore had given the same indications of "health" but had hit .220/.280/.379 (as he did in his last 435 MLB PAs across 2010-2011) or .216/.288/.324 (as he did this year once the games started counting) instead of .310/.356/.429, that he still would have made the squad? I'm dubious.
 
Actually, I think he would have.  I dont think the Sox are fooled by ST performance against often tenth-rate pitching. For Sizemore, it was a gauge of his "health" and ability to withstand the rigors of a long season, which they thought would allow some semblance of his skill to re-emerge.  They were wrong. And Nava paid the ultimate price for that with his exile to Elba Pawtucket.
 

Eck'sSneakyCheese

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Plympton91 said:
I think most of the people pointing to this as an avoidable mistake said it was a mistake ex ante, are confused by the Pro-Sizemore group's insistence on using a 3 week slump by Nava as their justification for putting up with the mistake, are concerned about how the choice of Sizemore over Nava fits into what is seemingly becoming a pattern of John Farrell's use of small sample sizes and streaks as key decision factors rather than the more SABR approach that has been the hallmark of the front office's biggest successes, and for that matter don't see how giving at bats to a guy who was unlikely to succeed and unlikely to be here in 2015 if he did fits with the "bridge year" philosophy.
 
Are you really this obtuse?  ;)
 
Sizemore has a much larger career sample of being a .880 OPS hitter vs RHP (2566 PAs)
 
Nava has a smaller sample of being a .818 OPS hitter vs RHP (866 PAs)
 
Nava had an option to go to AAA after starting the year with a .509 OPS and a WPA of -1.24.
 
Sizemore was given the opportunity due to his long track record and the fact that at the time he was better in the field and hitting better than Nava. (WPA of -.024)
 
People get promoted and demoted due to small samples all the time. Sometimes that means moving down the order or to the bench and sometimes that means getting sent down. Nava was only helped by going to AAA. He found his swing and is playing like Narver again. 
 
I don't see this as a pro-Sizemore/anti-Nava debate although that's what you're trying to advocate.
 

MakMan44

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Super Nomario said:
I don't understand how an intelligent person can speak in absolutes like "that's simply not true." Are you 100% convinced that if Sizemore had given the same indications of "health" but had hit .220/.280/.379 (as he did in his last 435 MLB PAs across 2010-2011) or .216/.288/.324 (as he did this year once the games started counting) instead of .310/.356/.429, that he still would have made the squad? I'm dubious.
Probably, maybe as a back up instead of the opening day CF, since Victorino opened the season on the DL and JBJ had a .476 OPS in ST.
 
Regardless, my point was (and is) that health was the major concern for Sizemore going into 2014 spring training while JBJ's concern in 2013 was more his ability to handle ML pitching. Calling the two situations "almost identical" is a fallacy.
 

Plympton91

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joe dokes said:
 
I think your  use of the terms "SABR approach", and "bridge year philosophy"  are your own, and probably do little more than occasionally overlap at a few points with what the actual FO and management actually do on a day-to-day or long-term basis in the real world.  It sounds like the mirror image of Harold Reynolds braying that "they fired all the scouts."  The Sox dont run the team like its Strat-o-matic.  Nor should they. Maybe Nava wasn't even hitting line drives in batting practice.
 
Perhaps you would be less confused if you stopped saying "using a 3 week slump by Nava as their justification for putting up with the mistake."  Your continued use of "small sample size" with respect to the Nava demotion is just comical at this point.
I don't consider Nava's option as relevant both because Sizemore never should have been given the LF job in the first place, and because at the end of spring training the Red Sox demoted Bradley to make room for the gimp. Then after Nava had a 3 week slump and gimp predictably couldn't play CF, they changed their mind and send down Nava to make room for the gimp in LF.
 

Smiling Joe Hesketh

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Plympton91 said:
I don't consider Nava's option as relevant both because Sizemore never should have been given the LF job in the first place, and because at the end of spring training the Red Sox demoted Bradley to make room for the gimp. Then after Nava had a 3 week slump and gimp predictably couldn't play CF, they changed their mind and send down Nava to make room for the gimp in LF.
 
Charming.
 
Of course Nava's option was relevant, guys with options get sent down for mini-slumps all the time. Mark Melancon in 2012 was every bit the experienced player Nava was in 2014 and got banished to the minors for a much longer period of time because he started out the year very poorly and had an option left.
 

yecul

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There are two separate questions here.
 
1. Should they have signed Sizemore or a different player?
2. Should Nava have been demoted in favor of Sizemore?

For 1 I am fine with their decision. I am not overly convinced that slam dunk options were necessarily available. Davis was pointed to, but he said he wanted playing time. Could the Sox have gotten him? Other options have not shown to be superior.
 
As for 2, retaining assets was the primary focus, not 3 weeks of performance. Said performance, if better, may have overridden the asset concerns so Nava only has himself to blame there. But here we are several weeks later in the spot we would have been back then -- Sizemore gone, Nava up.
 
The larger point though is that if you never get anything wrong it means you are not taking any chances. Back end roster spots to cheap players is a good way to take chances.
 

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https://twitter.com/PeteAbe/status/479318876837392386
 
I'm assuming this was a handshake part of the deal that they wouldn't try to outright him, trade him or put him on waivers.  Now he's free to pursue a deal anywhere he wants to go.
 

alwyn96

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yecul said:
There are two separate questions here.
 
1. Should they have signed Sizemore or a different player?
2. Should Nava have been demoted in favor of Sizemore?

For 1 I am fine with their decision. I am not overly convinced that slam dunk options were necessarily available. Davis was pointed to, but he said he wanted playing time. Could the Sox have gotten him? Other options have not shown to be superior.
 
As for 2, retaining assets was the primary focus, not 3 weeks of performance. Said performance, if better, may have overridden the asset concerns so Nava only has himself to blame there. But here we are several weeks later in the spot we would have been back then -- Sizemore gone, Nava up.
 
The larger point though is that if you never get anything wrong it means you are not taking any chances. Back end roster spots to cheap players is a good way to take chances.
 
Yeah, I basically agree with this. My understanding was that Sizemore was signed as something like a 4th OF (or a 3/4/5 OF, or something) with the tantalizing possibility for more. When Sizemore was signed I didn't think he'd survive in one piece much past April, so the fact that he's still able to walk impresses me. I'm surprised at the amount of heat people seem to be bringing to this thread, but I assume that's more about how disappointing the team has been in general. Really, if Bradley is merely below average rather than one of the worst hitters in the league and Victorino is healthy, I think this move is less commented on. Sizemore's Spring really raised some hopes. 
 
I do feel like sending Nava down was a bit unfair, but unfair stuff happens in baseball all the time. He was hitting like crap when he was sent down, and on the spectrum of baseball unfairness, I'm not sure that brief incident registers very high.
 

Philip Jeff Frye

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Eck'sSneakyCheese said:
 
Are you really this obtuse?  ;)
 
Sizemore has a much larger career sample of being a .880 OPS hitter vs RHP (2566 PAs)
 
Nava has a smaller sample of being a .818 OPS hitter vs RHP (866 PAs)
 
Nava had an option to go to AAA after starting the year with a .509 OPS and a WPA of -1.24.
 
Sizemore was given the opportunity due to his long track record and the fact that at the time he was better in the field and hitting better than Nava. (WPA of -.024)
 
People get promoted and demoted due to small samples all the time. Sometimes that means moving down the order or to the bench and sometimes that means getting sent down. Nava was only helped by going to AAA. He found his swing and is playing like Narver again. 
 
I don't see this as a pro-Sizemore/anti-Nava debate although that's what you're trying to advocate.
And the Red Sox chose to ignore the sample size that is the entire history of baseball wherein nobody has ever returned to be a productive player after missing most of three seasons while being on the wrong side of 30.  That's my problem with this decision.
 

Otis Foster

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Philip Jeff Frye said:
And the Red Sox chose to ignore the sample size that is the entire history of baseball wherein nobody has ever returned to be a productive player after missing most of three seasons while being on the wrong side of 30.  That's my problem with this decision.
 
Shouldn't the FO be willing to take a shot at something that could be very productive even though the odds are long? After all, there's always a first time.
 
I do think that anger at the current mess is leading us to pull apart every personnel decision with 20-20 hindsight. Some of them didn't work out,but it's harder to establish a causal relationship with the current record because we have no way to determine how much better the alternative not pursued would have been.
 

Smiling Joe Hesketh

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Otis Foster said:
 
Shouldn't the FO be willing to take a shot at something that could be very productive even though the odds are long? After all, there's always a first time.
 
I do think that anger at the current mess is leading us to pull apart every personnel decision with 20-20 hindsight. Some of them didn't work out,but it's harder to establish a causal relationship with the current record because we have no way to determine how much better the alternative not pursued would have been.
 
Exactly. And it's hardly like Sizemore's lack of production has been the biggest problem with the team, or even the 5th biggest. Peavy, Buchholz and Dubront have delivered 33 combined starts at 5.36 ERA and a 5-12 record. Not one of the part-time/platoon position players has put up an OPS+ of 100 this year; last year they got tons of help from platoons and the bench. Ortiz' OPS is down 140 points from last year, Pedroia's is down 70 points.
 

MyDaughterLovesTomGordon

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It's so hard to know what would have happened had Victorino not had the hamstring issues. 
 
If, from day 1, the starting lineup could have been Nava/Gomes in left, JBJ/Sizemore in center, and Victorino in right, with Carp primarily backing up first and DH, I think it would have been more more apparent that Grady and JBJ were insurance for each other. If they both suck, then the 9 hole is where suck goes. If one of them grabs the position and runs with it, or if it turns into a real competition, that's great!
 
Unfortunately, Vic's been out the whole time, the Nava/Gomes dynamic never had time to set up, because Grady was in the mix in left and right, and the outfield just never settled the way anyone wanted it to. All of a sudden Nava is hitting against lefties, sucking and getting sent down, then Gomes is the "starter," etc. Of the 15 games Nava started at the beginning of the season, five were against lefties, and he put up a .334 OPS against them. Nava should NEVER start against a lefty, unless your roster is broken (which it obviously was).
 
Obviously, the front office has to have contingencies in place for injuries, and Vic's was somewhat foreseeable, but I think things would have worked out far differently if he had been able to stay on the field at any point. 
 

Plympton91

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Rudy Pemberton said:
It's funny to read how the sox were dumb to ignore history when giving Sizemore a chance, while those same people champion Nava. If they were really looking percentages and odds of success, would they have ever taken a chance on Nava?
That analogy would work if Sizemore had started the year in Greenville.
 

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Rudy Pemberton said:
It's funny to read how the sox were dumb to ignore history when giving Sizemore a chance, while those same people champion Nava. If they were really looking percentages and odds of success, would they have ever taken a chance on Nava?
 
This could apply to other players as well, some who worked out and some who didn't.  Certain people feel the need to bitch about the FO no matter what.  If they signed Ellsbury and he put up an OPS+ of 100 while Bradley hit the shit out of the ball in AAA they'd bitch about that.  The amount of attention that this one tiny factor is getting in a season full of shitty luck and shitty performances is absurd.
 

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MyDaughterLovesTomGordon said:
It's so hard to know what would have happened had Victorino not had the hamstring issues. 
 
If, from day 1, the starting lineup could have been Nava/Gomes in left, JBJ/Sizemore in center, and Victorino in right, with Carp primarily backing up first and DH, I think it would have been more more apparent that Grady and JBJ were insurance for each other. If they both suck, then the 9 hole is where suck goes. If one of them grabs the position and runs with it, or if it turns into a real competition, that's great!
 
Unfortunately, Vic's been out the whole time, the Nava/Gomes dynamic never had time to set up, because Grady was in the mix in left and right, and the outfield just never settled the way anyone wanted it to. All of a sudden Nava is hitting against lefties, sucking and getting sent down, then Gomes is the "starter," etc. Of the 15 games Nava started at the beginning of the season, five were against lefties, and he put up a .334 OPS against them. Nava should NEVER start against a lefty, unless your roster is broken (which it obviously was).
 
Obviously, the front office has to have contingencies in place for injuries, and Vic's was somewhat foreseeable, but I think things would have worked out far differently if he had been able to stay on the field at any point. 
 
Thing is, were Victorino healthy, we still wouldn't have seen JBJ and Sizemore together since the only reason JBJ made the roster Opening Day was due to Victorino being on the DL (JBJ was already optioned to Pawtucket).  They did not and never had the room to carry Victorino, Gomes, Nava, JBJ, Carp, and Sizemore on the same roster anyway.  First it was Victorino on the DL, then it was Nava optioned to make room for Victorino.  He only returned when Carp and then Victorino went to the DL.  And now Sizemore's gone altogether so it'll never happen.
 
I honestly believe that Sizemore was signed in part because they figured he was ticketed for extended spring and a protracted rehab outing before he set foot in Fenway.  He was the equivalent of a veteran signed to a minor league deal, only he got a big league contract.  He was supposed to be the guy stashed in the minors until at least May while they figured out what they had with JBJ.
 
Then he outperformed expectations in spring training by proving healthy enough to play regularly and giving them no valid reason to keep him in extended spring (since it would have required a DL stint).  So they were forced to do the simplest thing they could to maintain control of as many assets as they could, and optioned the one outfielder they could without risk of loss...JBJ.
 
I don't think Nava's April struggles had anything to do with Sizemore's presence.  Had Sizemore not been around, Nava still plays against the lefties since he'd still be the primary RF with Victorino on the shelf...just as he was for the majority of 2013.
 

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Rudy Pemberton said:
It's funny to read how the sox were dumb to ignore history when giving Sizemore a chance, while those same people champion Nava. If they were really looking percentages and odds of success, would they have ever taken a chance on Nava?
I'm not understanding this point. Nava had a relatively low chance of success, but they signed Nava for literally one dollar, and then he was then proving himself in the minors for 3.5 years before getting a shot on the MLB team, and then he was sent down for a year before getting a shot at major playing time. Sizemore had pretty much unknown odds of success but they gave him a MLB contract (even if a low one).
 
Put another way: teams take fliers on guys like Nava pretty frequently -- who a scout likes and whose acquisition cost (and opportunity cost) is minimal. If he sucked, you lose basically nothing. According to Alex Speier, Sizemore had one or two other MLB offers, so the Sox had to give him a pretty solid contract and a shot at playing time. That's orders of magnitude more cost than Nava.
 

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Toe Nash said:
I'm not understanding this point. Nava had a relatively low chance of success, but they signed Nava for literally one dollar, and then he was then proving himself in the minors for 3.5 years before getting a shot on the MLB team, and then he was sent down for a year before getting a shot at major playing time. Sizemore had pretty much unknown odds of success but they gave him a MLB contract (even if a low one).
 
Put another way: teams take fliers on guys like Nava pretty frequently -- who a scout likes and whose acquisition cost (and opportunity cost) is minimal. If he sucked, you lose basically nothing. According to Alex Speier, Sizemore had one or two other MLB offers, so the Sox had to give him a pretty solid contract and a shot at playing time. That's orders of magnitude more cost than Nava.
 
The money is insignificant in the greater scheme of things. The point is the same - this FO likes to take a long shot from time to time. Sometimes they work, sometimes they don't. Because Nava had a horrible start and Victorino was injured, no-one who could have contributed was blocked. End of story - time to move on.
 

alwyn96

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Toe Nash said:
I'm not understanding this point. Nava had a relatively low chance of success, but they signed Nava for literally one dollar, and then he was then proving himself in the minors for 3.5 years before getting a shot on the MLB team, and then he was sent down for a year before getting a shot at major playing time. Sizemore had pretty much unknown odds of success but they gave him a MLB contract (even if a low one).
 
Put another way: teams take fliers on guys like Nava pretty frequently -- who a scout likes and whose acquisition cost (and opportunity cost) is minimal. If he sucked, you lose basically nothing. According to Alex Speier, Sizemore had one or two other MLB offers, so the Sox had to give him a pretty solid contract and a shot at playing time. That's orders of magnitude more cost than Nava.
 
I think the idea is that Nava was passed on by every single major league team - no team thought he was worth even a 40th round pick, and that there were literally thousands of players with a better shot at being something than Daniel Nava. He was finally plucked out of the indy leagues at 25, when most players who are ever going to amount to anything are getting their first taste of big league action. At that point it's more about the value of the roster space on the minor league teams than it is about money. Guys who start on that career path almost never make it to the big leagues, let alone find success there. When Grady Sizemore was 25, he was playing in his 3rd All Star game and looked like a guy who could be a Hall of Famer if he kept doing what he was doing. It's a pretty stark contrast, although a lot has happened since 2008, and I'm not sure where they were then is quite as relevant now. Just kind of interesting to think about (for me, anyway). 
 

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Sure, but the value of a single-A roster space is a lot less than the value of a MLB roster space and everyday playing time. Teams churn through minor league filler guys all the time hoping to find someone who can contribute. Sometimes they are 40th-round picks, sometimes they are signed out of the independent leagues. The chance they took on Nava was far less than the chance they took on Sizemore.
 

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Toe Nash said:
I'm not understanding this point. Nava had a relatively low chance of success, but they signed Nava for literally one dollar, and then he was then proving himself in the minors for 3.5 years before getting a shot on the MLB team, and then he was sent down for a year before getting a shot at major playing time. Sizemore had pretty much unknown odds of success but they gave him a MLB contract (even if a low one).
 
Put another way: teams take fliers on guys like Nava pretty frequently -- who a scout likes and whose acquisition cost (and opportunity cost) is minimal. If he sucked, you lose basically nothing. According to Alex Speier, Sizemore had one or two other MLB offers, so the Sox had to give him a pretty solid contract and a shot at playing time. That's orders of magnitude more cost than Nava.
This post makes so much sense, I find it amazing anyone can argue with it. 
 

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benhogan said:
This post makes so much sense, I find it amazing anyone can argue with it. 
 
I think the original point was this (although I'm not totally sure - I wasn't the one making it): at the time Nava was signed, he was a very, very long shot. The longest of longshots. The odds of Sizemore being a decent acquisition when he was signed were better than the odds of Nava being a useful player when he was signed. I think that's what the point was.  If you're the type of person who judges a signing by the odds of that person being a productive major leaguer, then you should like the odds on Sizemore (albeit on a large scale) and Nava. Neither of them were signed for money that would materially effect an important team decision. 
 
I think it's kind of a niche argument, but generally I'm in favor of bringing in guys with upside, and at the time it seemed like Sizemore could have some.