Wombat Returns!
- Thread starter absintheofmalaise
- Start date
If I'm reading it correctly, WMB was 0 for 10 in Pawtucket with 5Ks and no BBs. http://m.milb.com/milb/player/519025/#nav_last_ten
I think they should have stuck with Holt for a bit.
I think they should have stuck with Holt for a bit.
I really liked what Holt brought to the team at the plate too.
Based on Farrell's comments on the line up, I think we might see this tonight against Buehrle. I could see them going with Ross instead of AJP because of the match up.
Pedroia 2B
Victorino RF
Ortiz DH
Napoli 1B
Gomes LF
AJP C
WMB 3B
Bogaerts SS
JBJ CF
Based on Farrell's comments on the line up, I think we might see this tonight against Buehrle. I could see them going with Ross instead of AJP because of the match up.
Pedroia 2B
Victorino RF
Ortiz DH
Napoli 1B
Gomes LF
AJP C
WMB 3B
Bogaerts SS
JBJ CF
Rovin Romine said:
At this point, I'm just happy to have an actual 3Bman playing 3B again. If they can stop playing the field like the Bad News BoSox maybe the starting pitchers can get through the 5th inning a little more often.
The less Herrera we see, the better.
Pretty much full strength now, yes? Assuming Buchholz isn't injured, that is.
Pretty much full strength now, yes? Assuming Buchholz isn't injured, that is.
Opening Day lineup, before May! But yeah, it's a little surprising that they didn't let Will knock the rust off a bit in AAA, give him a low-pressure situation to get a few hits and some confidence before getting back into the lineup. Or maybe they just thought that he could hit 3 HR off Buehrle.
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Having Bogaerts and his ~.400 OBP bat lower in the order than AJP or WMB is virtually indefensible.absintheofmalaise said:
pokey_reese said:
Well, he is 6 for 15 off Buehrle. No HR yet, but a double. The only pitcher he has more hits off is Chen.
More generally, Buehrle is the kind of pitcher he has hit well so far in his brief career:
vs. LHP: .288/.342/.502
vs. finesse pitchers: .294/.328/.516
absintheofmalaise said:
Glad to see WMB back, but too bad it came at Holt's expense. This isn't a bad lineup. Now if we only had a catcher.
Joe Shlabotnick said:
Indeed, it is a pretty darn good lineup - when 8/9th of it isn't slumping or hurt/rusty. Good thing Ortiz (OPS up 0.148 over the last week) and Pedroia (OPS up 0.152 over past ~10 days) are showing signs of heating up.
And we do have a catcher and his name is David Ross. Sox are winning at a 116 win pace when he plays!
Ross was so uncharacteristically bad behind the plate last night that I wondered if he is injured/ill.dbn said:
trekfan55 said:
Maybe later in the season, but he's only played 16 games at the AAA level so far. For now, I suspect they'll stick with status quo and call up Dan Butler is one of the catchers gets injured.
I'm ready. SSS but Vazquez has 0 passed balls and a 50% caught stealing rate so far at Pawtucket this year. But, do you carry three catchers?trekfan55 said:
I hope WMB gets it all going this time.
Al Zarilla said:
You don't. If you're calling up Vazquez (or Butler or Lavarnway for that matter), it's because Pierzynski or Ross is injured or DFA. Only way I can see them carrying three catchers is if they jettison Carp and bring up Lavarnway to back up 1B, C, and DH. Not something likely to happen unless Lavarnway suddenly starts lighting the world on fire with his bat.
InsideTheParker said:
This is officially unrelated to Wombat, but the steals early were completely on Doubront. He wasn't even paying attention to what was happening or who was on base.
I agree the wild pitches and passed ball were uncharacteristically bad for Ross.
Harold Reynolds on MLB Tonight about tonight's game: The thing about Mark Buehrle, he's around the plate too much, and when you have a club like the Red Sox who are free swingers, who will be hackin...
To me, Reynolds makes Tim McCarver sound like a guy with a BS from Harvard and an MS from Stanford.
To me, Reynolds makes Tim McCarver sound like a guy with a BS from Harvard and an MS from Stanford.
Joe Shlabotnick said:
I'm drifting off topic, but as Wombat puts together what should be a better defense and we look for other places to improve:
Yadier Molina was called up 150 Triple-A plate appearances at .759 OPS as a 21 year old.
Our 23 year old Christian Vazquez has a .744 OPS through 65 Triple-A plate appearances.
Not mapping out a one to one development correlation, but AJP better have a good next month because Vazquez sounds like a great June 1 call up.
Just remembering that young defensive catchers can contribute so much defensively, and avoid focusing on an inevitable 0-for-4, that I think his potential to come up and stick in a month exceeds WMB and JBJ.
In the meantime, as much David Ross as his body will allow, with a minimum of 51%.
Yeah, those three. I think Harold just says what comes into his head and feels good to him without considering the correctness of it. Buehrle may be around the plate too much at that and he doesn't have any heater at all.koufax37 said:
wolfe_boston said:
BBref splits.
To be fair to Reynolds, any team with AJ Pierzynski on it can be called a team of hackers without too much absurdity. He has the hack of many men.
What are we looking at there? Link goes to Middlebrooks' career splits. And, Will is so much better early in the count, or ahead in the count. But then, so is everybody.Savin Hillbilly said:
I think you're answering Wolfe's question, but thanks, I didn't know how to look that up either.judyb said:
My bad for not linking to WMB's splits page in my previous post. I think that would have prevented wolfe's question and thereby saved some confusion.
Yes, the link answered my question. I suppose that most batters would do better against finesse pitchers as most aces and closers are power pitchers.
Right. We don't want to discuss our opinions about baseball players.
Especially if it involves scrutiny.
Especially if it involves scrutiny.
I think revs point, and I agree, is that the scrutiny should be more than waaaah waaaah I think this guy sucks and have no tolerance for player development and the fo let a veteran go which proves they don't care about baseball, which is essentially the entirety of the JBJ conversation and the direction the XB conversation is going. The point is, if you want to discuss WMB and what may be "wrong" with him and what his upside/downside risk is, etc. etc. That's great. If you want to use "scrutiny of WMB" as a proxy for "another conversation about bringing Stephen Drew back"...less so.
MIddlebrooks only has 72 plate appearances this season, so I'd like to give him time to get hot, and then cool off before evaluation. Although I admit I go "waaaah, waaaah" in the privacy of my own home. He cause me great anxiety, since his success/failure is critical as to how the Red Sox build a lineup over the next couple of years, unless David Ortiz continues to perform past 40.
RedOctober3829 said:
Jesus. As if Tom Werner is in any position to say anything else. The guy isn't in baseball ops. I'm betting he isn't briefed on a regular basis as far as what is going on in baseball ops.
I'm assuming that Heyman is jumping the non-committal nature of a quote from a guy who isn't likely "in the know" and use it to generate clicks and discussion for his puppet-master's client. Heyman is such a hack.
I'm guessing that Werner is plugged into what the baseball ops guys are saying and that Will's .225 average last year and current Mendoza like average have him on a reasonably short leash. I also think that the fact that the Sox have some good options in the minors factors in.Red(s)HawksFan said:
I say that about Werner because it seems like the Trio is in regular contact with Ben and the other baseball guys.
WenZink said:
teddywingman said:
Right, he seems to be more patient and laying off shit pitches at least. I'd guess that like many sluggers with suspect plate discipline, he'll be a streaky hitter. He's had 2 fairly extended good periods and 2 fairly extended bad periods in the majors thus far, and we need to let this one play out to see what they have after it evens out again with a good streak.
For me, the question is whether he's Wilton Veras with better power (not very useful) or Shea HIllenbrand with better power and defense (very, very useful). We won't know until he gets at least another 400 or so consistent at bats. Which is about how much time he's got until Cecchini is ready. So, hopefully he's also keeping his first baseman mitt handy.
Bruce Olney weighed in on WMB during the Mutt & Merloni show, today. http://fullcount.weei.com/sports/boston/baseball/red-sox/2014/05/14/buster-olney-on-mm-al-east-hasnt-defined-itself/
The WMB content of the interview:
“I am curious about Will Middlebrooks. I’d love to be in the room and give truth serum to the guys making decisions to know what they are seeing and what they are feeling about him. Because of course they’ve seen times when he’s been a help with his power, but then they’ve seen times when he goes into an absolute funk. Before I came on with you guys I was looking at some of his numbers, and the thing that jumped out at me was his performance with two strikes. The numbers suggest that he’s been absolutely helpless: 5-for-33 in two-strike counts — and not [just] 0-2, but 0-2, 1-2, 2-2 and 3-2, with 19 strikeouts. … With 0-2 counts, for example, 0-for-11, nine punchouts. That makes you wonder exactly how he’s approaching his at-bats, and is he one of those guys that once the pitcher gets an arm up on him in the ball-strike count that he becomes a really vulnerable hitter.”
Again, I'm not sure if a 33 AB subset of a 72 plate appearance portion of a season is meaningful. Yes it's worse than in his 2012 BA with 2 outs (35/148 with 70 K's), but if he had gotten 3 more hits in those 33 0-2 counts this year, it would be the same. I don't know why Olney would use such a small sample, except to sound smart.
But, although a 2014 sample size of 400 PA's would be best to evaluate WMB, I don't think he has that much time left without showing some improvement. My guess is the Sox will have to make some sort of evaluation before the trading deadline. -- 2 months, 50 games, 225 more PA's or 300 PA total?
The WMB content of the interview:
“I am curious about Will Middlebrooks. I’d love to be in the room and give truth serum to the guys making decisions to know what they are seeing and what they are feeling about him. Because of course they’ve seen times when he’s been a help with his power, but then they’ve seen times when he goes into an absolute funk. Before I came on with you guys I was looking at some of his numbers, and the thing that jumped out at me was his performance with two strikes. The numbers suggest that he’s been absolutely helpless: 5-for-33 in two-strike counts — and not [just] 0-2, but 0-2, 1-2, 2-2 and 3-2, with 19 strikeouts. … With 0-2 counts, for example, 0-for-11, nine punchouts. That makes you wonder exactly how he’s approaching his at-bats, and is he one of those guys that once the pitcher gets an arm up on him in the ball-strike count that he becomes a really vulnerable hitter.”
Again, I'm not sure if a 33 AB subset of a 72 plate appearance portion of a season is meaningful. Yes it's worse than in his 2012 BA with 2 outs (35/148 with 70 K's), but if he had gotten 3 more hits in those 33 0-2 counts this year, it would be the same. I don't know why Olney would use such a small sample, except to sound smart.
But, although a 2014 sample size of 400 PA's would be best to evaluate WMB, I don't think he has that much time left without showing some improvement. My guess is the Sox will have to make some sort of evaluation before the trading deadline. -- 2 months, 50 games, 225 more PA's or 300 PA total?
WenZink said:
Yeah... the AL is batting 178/251/265 (515) with two strikes this year, compared to Will's 181/217/296 (512 OPS) career numbers.
kieckeredinthehead said:
In addition, Oakland as a team is hitting .090 / .106 / .108 in 0-2 counts - 10 for 111 with 63 punchouts - so does that mean the entire team is in an absolute funk?
WenZink said:
I don't think the Red Sox wait until the trade deadline. I think they give him to the All-Star break, and if he hasn't made marked progress, the Sox are going to figure out how to get someone else some of his ABs. Like maybe benching him against righties - currently in 40 ABs, he is .150 / .306 / .325.
His BABIP is a bit low at .250, and his LD/GB/FB rates are about normal (and healthy), so the numbers that really jump out are his infield pop up rate (23.5%, compared to a career average of 7%), and his HR/FB rate (11.8%, compared to a career rate of 18.3%). Both of his "problem" numbers scream small sample size, so those normalize a bit he should see his BABIP come up as well.
Leaving just the strike outs as his big issue. He is striking out about as much as Napoli/JBJ/Bogaerts, so it isn't like he can't sustain that level and be productive, but he will need the hits to start coming. If he can get a few of his fly balls to leave the yard, and a few of his pop ups on the infield to stay low, that shouldn't be unlikely.
I'm as worried as anyone, but those plate appearance numbers are still really low.
Leaving just the strike outs as his big issue. He is striking out about as much as Napoli/JBJ/Bogaerts, so it isn't like he can't sustain that level and be productive, but he will need the hits to start coming. If he can get a few of his fly balls to leave the yard, and a few of his pop ups on the infield to stay low, that shouldn't be unlikely.
I'm as worried as anyone, but those plate appearance numbers are still really low.
wade boggs chicken dinner said:
The All Star break is essentially the same as the trade deadline, since I assume the Sox evaluate WMB at least a couple weeks before they trade/promote/stay-with-status-quo.
As for benching WMB vs righties, who do they use at 3rd for about 75% of the at-bats? Herrera? And if they replace Herrara with, for instance, a LH Cecchini(to play 3rd), who backs up at SS and 2B?