Sox Therapy: The Wages of Losing

Some days, I don’t want to talk about baseball on the internet.  Sunday was one of those days.  I still don’t feel like recapping why.

I have been annoyed at some of the more histrionic proclamations of doom and gloom for the Sox, but I’ve come around to thinking that a moderate level of gloom and or doom is appropriate.  The Red Sox are 4-10, and a 90-95 win Sox team should have gone 7-7 or 8-6 over this period.  That’s a 3-4 game drop. 

Those three or four games matter particularly ...

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Hall of Merit: Most Meritorious Player: 1972 Discussion

The 1972 strike gave each team an uneven schedule; remember that when considering your ballots. Major League Baseball arrives in Dallas, TX and leaves Washington DC. Carlton Fisk and John Matlack make impressive debuts. Josh Gibson and Buck Leonard are elected to the Hall of Fame along with Sandy Koufax, Yogi Berra and Early Wynn. The Tigers, Athletics, Reds and Pirates made the playoffs with the A’s beating the Reds in a World Series I remember from Roger Angell’s vivid description in Five ...

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Hall of Merit: Most Meritorious Player: 1971 Results

Congratulations to Tom Seaver, 1971’s Most Meritorious Player!

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Sox Therapy: The Meaning of (Another!) Lousy Start

I’ll leave it to others to run the numbers on this and just want to throw out a general feeling about this start.  I think when the season opened most of us pegged the Sox as an 88-92 win team with some room on the margins. For two years running the Sox have shown that a bad record after two weeks does not necessarily doom a season.  I think the relevant question is has anything meaningful been learned since April 5th at 2:05PM to make us think that is going to not be attainable?  There are a ...

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Primate Studies: Nine (Year) Men Out:  Free El Duque!

Orlando Hernandez (“El Duque”), out of MLB for five years now, is up for election to the Hall of Fame in the next BBWAA election in 2013. Or rather, he should be. But the HOF does not consider his playing time sufficiently long to be eligible, despite a career spanning from 1987 to 2010. Huh? Unfortunately, Hernandez only played in nine seasons in MLB, one short of the ten years required to be considered for the ballot. We’ll explore the Hall’s 10-year rule and explain why it ought ...Read More...

Sox Therapy: Opening Day Thoughts

How the Red Sox are being viewed has been a topic of discussion for several months now dating back to the beer and chicken “revelations.”  I was fortunate enough to attend the home opener today and thought I’d share a few thoughts.  The thing that struck me was sitting in the Boston Beer Works with my mother (if she puts me up in her basement I can take her to Opening Day).  She said that she expected not to be excited after everything that went on but said that sitting there she was incredibly ...

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Hall of Merit: Most Meritorious Player: 1971 Ballot

Here are the specific rules for this election:
Candidate Eligibility: Any North American professional baseball player is eligible for the Most Meritorious Player (MMP) award including players in the top Negro Leagues or independent teams. Voters should consider the player’s on-field contribution to Major League Baseball (MLB) team(s) in that season only. If part of the season was spent outside MLB, that value may be considered as well. However, the player’s on-field contribution should be ...

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Gonfalon Cubs: Season Preview 2012

So is Jeff Samardzija really a Cy Young candidate?  Has Castro’s defense really improved or is he going to have the yips all year?  Is the bullpen really this bad?  Can the Cubs stay out of last place?  Feel free to discuss these, and anything else, here. 

I apologize for not having a more comprehensive preview ready this year, but I just haven’t had the time.  Feel free to submit anything to me via BBTF-mail that you would like posted.

Sox Therapy: Bullpen Hijinx 2: I don’t want to talk about it

I don’t really want to re-live that loss.  The Sox lost two games in four days on the last pitch, and sandwiched a sleepwalking blowout loss in between.  It’s bringing up memories of September ’11 I’d rather avoid.  The rational response to these games takes up what Dan has been repeating in the other thread – three games are not a predictive sample, and a whole bunch of competing clubs have started very slow this weekend.  I was not feeling terribly rational last night.  This morning I ...

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Sox Therapy: Minor League Thread: Jose on the Roster Assignments

When clubs announce their roster assignments for the minor leagues, they provide un-spun, objective information about their own evaluations of their minor league players.  You only get that level bump up to AA if the club really believes that you have the skills and talent to succeed at the higher level.  Along with the release of the prospect rankings, it’s one of the best collections of information we’re going to pick up.

Jose very helpfully ran through the roster assignments as listed ...

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