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If he goes 5 with 5 earned, they'll use him twice, that sort of thing.
Another one like the last, he gets dropped.
He's on a short leash.
I like Aceves a lot. In fact, when the laundry was different, you and I had a real disagreement about whether he would even be an effective reliever long-term. I don't think he has the stuff to be a big league starter, at least, not in the AL East. He's really smart on the mound and gets a lot out of what he has to work with, but I don't see him making it through a lineup three times each time out. Of course, Ivan Nova fakes starting well enough without being able to do this either.
I'm also not sure how he would react physically to being in the rotation for an extended period of time. He hasn't started regularly since 2008.
For the record, I still wish he was on the Yankees.
I think people are jumping on Matsuzaka to be booted to the curb far too quickly. He had one OK start and one horrendous start. The combination of money invested in him and his track record says to me that he is going to get a lot more than one or two chances. It seems like the "Daisuke annoys Red Sox brass" story gets written on an annual basis but despite some less than stellar results the Sox keep rolling him out there.
Obviously if he completely collapses the Sox will pull him but I don't think his demise is as imminent as being reported.
On a related note, is Aceves really the guy who would step into the rotation first? I would prefer it be Doubront and Aceves has not started much the last couple of years.
It's certainly possible that DiceK can do that, too. I'm not saying I think DiceK is toast. I'm saying that he's exhibited enough signs of not being right that it wouldn't shock me if the Red Sox do determine he shouldn't be starting. Sudden DL trips for only loosely specified shoulder ailments have been common during his Red Sox tenure.
From what I've seen of them, I think Aceves is the best of the 6th starter options, and he's been used more aggressively than either Wake or Doubront. I could be wrong about that, though - the Sox may see Aceves as possibly their 4th reliever rather than their 6th starter.
Aceves will be a fine choice if they need a 6th starter. He doesn't need to be their 4th reliever--they have Atchinson, Okajima, and other options there.
After Aceves, I'd like them to go to Bowden, who I think they really messed up when they tried to make him add a slider. I think Doubront's ahead of him, though, and he's a good choice too. Wake has not been a good pitcher for a while now--I don't want to see him pitch meaningful innings.
Aceves will take his place. It would have been Wake, but he's been as bad as can be.
EDIT: To respond to #9, a demotion for Dice or Lackey would be high-leverage, and would be fairly classified as panic if it weren't fully justified or didn't turn out well. I would expect, though, that any demotion would take the form of a loosely specified DL trip, which isn't quite the same thing.
haha I was going to post the same thing. Sometimes it's damned if you do and damned if you don't with these impartial observers.
Amy I the only one who thinks that Wake would get starts if/when Matsuzaka loses them?
Would you be panicked if the Sox were 4.5 games back on August 1st? No, of course not. (Or, I certainly hope not). Not even if they were 4.5 games back and looking up at the entire division. It's not ideal -- you'd rather the Sox be 4.5 games up than 4.5 games back -- but it's far from being an insurmountable deficit. Any panic is the result of not liking the current slope of the hill (of thinking that if they don't ever win a game, they're not going to come back -- this IS true), it has nothing to do with the hill itself (which suggests that they are too far back to catch up even if they do start winning games).
And for some people, it's praised if you do and praised if you don't. Keep the same lineup? You're not panicking. Shuffle constantly? You're mixing things up and keeping them loose. Joe Torre was treated this way for a very long time.
I agree that a DL trip would not qualify as the kind of demotion I was talking about. They could claim a physical issue and we'd have no way of knowing how serious it was.
Fair enough. But was there really anyone on this site agreeing with Torre when he dropped A-Rod to 8th (or whatever) in the playoffs?
He's the closer at PAW now, no?
Well, there's probably karlmangus (or is it karlmagnus?).
One thing I wonder about, looking at this team, is if it might be a good idea just to throw out the idea of a starting rotation. Figure out what sort of schedule works best for each individual pitcher, and try to hold them to that. Matsuzaka excelled in Japan pitching every 6-7 days and throwing a whole bunch of pitches, so maybe it's time to stop trying to put him on a five-day schedule and the same ~110-pitch count that the rest of the team is on. On the other hand, Lester and Lackey might be able to handle pitching a little more often. Figure out which starters out of the available pool are the best for a given series and schedule them, instead of just going in order.
(Not that I imagine any team will ever do this - the managers and GMs who cover their butts by using relief pitchers based on the save statistic will never expose themselves like that).
The difference is in team quality. I still believe this team is a 95 win caliber team.
However, if they are 65-50 on August 1st but 5 games back, no biggie, they have shown they are a 90-95 win team. This team is now 2-9, at some point it becomes fair to question if this team is legitimately as good as we thought. We are not there yet but already they have to play at a 95 win pace to win 90 games. If this gets to 4-15, well, the Sox are using up virtually all of their wiggle room before Patriots Day.
Would you be panicked if the Sox were 4.5 games back on August 1st? No, of course not. (Or, I certainly hope not). Not even if they were 4.5 games back and looking up at the entire division. It's not ideal -- you'd rather the Sox be 4.5 games up than 4.5 games back -- but it's far from being an insurmountable deficit. Any panic is the result of not liking the current slope of the hill (of thinking that if they don't ever win a game, they're not going to come back -- this IS true), it has nothing to do with the hill itself (which suggests that they are too far back to catch up even if they do start winning games).
Agree 10,000%
RLYW had the Sox dropping somewhat more, though they didn't give new playoff odds. My guess is the RLYW odds would put the Sox about 40% for the playoffs, but their simulations were very different from BP's, and the starting point was around 65% for the Red Sox.
I've wondered for a while if/when the Sox would try to do something along these lines, even if it's just a last-ditch attempt to salvage any kind of value out of him before they are forced to eat most of the contract and trade him.
My guess is it would not be easy to swing this, and you might even need a 6th starter on staff to occasionally fill-in/fix it so no one else started on less than 4 days' rest... But then the rest of the staff would face getting jumbled and sometimes pitching on 4 days' rest and sometimes pitching on 5 days' rest... It would be a bit of a nightmare to organize, and all for 4 starts a month out of Dice-K.
Now, if you knew that letting Dice-K operate as a "Sunday starter" would get you 7-8 IP and a sub-3.00 ERA effort from him, maybe you give it a try if the other starters are willing to deal with the jumbling and you have a good 6th starter you can rotate in/out as needed... but this seems like a stretch.
I confess in my head I've already written off Dice-K as basically a 5th starter who we'd be lucky to get 28 starts and a 5.00 ERA out of. It's Lackey who worries me more, in that I was counting on him to at least be a league-average innings-eater, and he seems poised to do neither of those things...
RLYW had the Sox dropping somewhat more, though they didn't give new playoff odds. My guess is the RLYW odds would put the Sox about 40% for the playoffs, but their simulations were very different from BP's, and the starting point was around 65% for the Red Sox.
Those odds seem way, way too high for the favorites: NYY 82%, Bos 71%, CWS 56%, Tex 84%, Phi 72%, SF 70%.
Meanwhile TB is only 10%?
That's what he was last year, except a little better than average, with an bit of an unlucky strand rate, and some poor OF defense behind him.
Heck, if Ells catches that ball in his first start, we're looking at an ERA of only 9!
Serioulsy, he's had two starts: Texas at home, the NYY's in Fenway. Those are tall orders. Most non-aces are gonna get knocked around in starts like that.
I'm hopeful.
Farnsworth closes games for TB.
4.5 games back of the Wild Card? With more than three teams between me and the goal? Yes, I'd think my team is in serious, serious trouble.
I do too, but there have been a fairly long series of moves like this (and moves that I disagreed with) that the Yankees have made in which it turned out that they were right and I was wrong.
I remember them releasing Aaron Small. What?!?! Some other team will plug him into their rotation and he'll be league-average.
I remember them releasing Chien Ming-Wang. WHAT?!?!?! He'll beat up on us for years and years!
This looks like one of those moves. The Yankees knew that he had an option left, and they knew what kind of pitcher he could be when physically right. And they knew their own starting pitcher situation. Yet they let him go. It's entirely possible that it was a mistake. But I think it's more likely that they knew something about him, or thought they did.
Didn't they let him go when they figured they were gonna have at least one of Lee/Battle Cat?
Also, I read somewhere that they were not 100% happy with the way Aceves approached his injury rehab.
Even so, it doesn't make sense on its face. They could have put him on the Scranton shuttle if they had wanted; even if the Yankee starting pitching situation had shaken out the way they wanted it to, they'd be thin there. SP depth is always of value.
I did too. But rather than seeing that through the prism of a "get this guy outta here!" fit of irrational pique, that could also be part of why the Yankees clearly made a negative evaluation of that player. As I understand these things, someone in the Yankee decision chain made the determination that Aceves simply isn't worth the money, and the organization would be better off putting those resources someplace else.
I don't think it is at all like Small. He was a fluke, I didn't think there was a question about that. He was terrible his entire career except for one year and went right back to being terrible.
I think its also different from Wang in that Wang didn't pitch last year, Ace is already on the mound for the Sox, being fairly productive. For them to punt on Ace because of health reasons and then sign Feliciano seems silly. Hector Noesi, or Alfredo Aceves Jr. was the first bullpen call up this year.
I don't know what they saw over the winter, but its clear the Yanks are willing to take health risks on some pitchers, not even great ones. At the time, before we knew whether he would be able to pitch, dumping Aceves looked strange. Now that they dumped a guy for injury concerns and he opened the season pitching well for their rival is enough for me to think they ###### up.
I don't think Ace would be a great option for sixth starter, but this is the kind of team that with Hughes, Nova, and Garcia could use two long men. They can burn 40 man spots on Ryan Pope (24 and underwhelming in AA) and Kevin Russo but not on Aceves, who if hurt, they could throw on the 60 day DL? That seems like lousy roster management to me.
Btw, thank you Sox Therapy for having a baseball discussion today, unlike the rest of the board.
This isn't really true. Matsuzaka missed a third of his starts and ran an ERA+ of 93 -- "fine" for a #5 starter, pretty crappy for a #3 dude. Lackey was more reliable and somewhat better, but I still think you'd want better than a 99 ERA+ out of your #3 guy.
I think it's pretty clear that Matsuzaka, whatever he was in Japan and his first season in Boston, is no longer a very good pitcher. He walks way too many dudes, gives up too many dingers, and misses too many starts. Maybe he needs a change of scenery or a return to Japan, but I have no faith that he'll ever be much more than roster dross for the Red Sox.
If they lose 3 of 4 or worse, then folks can panic, but thats not going to happen, it just is not going to happen.
I'm sure Francona will continue to avoid blame from anyone besides me and Darren, despite the shitty lineups he's been using (particularly tonight's). No way a lineup with McDonald, Cameron, Varitek, and Lowrie could have scored 1 more run against a lefty starter, right??? Or even any of them? (I do understand starting Salty, Varitek and Buchholz don't really work together well, and Varitek is probably slated to catch Beckett tomorrow).
####### Buchholz tonight sucked. The guy couldn't throw a strike to save his life and holy ####### crap he gets behind Corey ####### All Star Patterson 2-0 and bang, 2 run triple.
And then Jesus ####### Christ how about a ####### break? Of course on the hit and run the ball goes right where Scutaro was. Of course the guy who has been throwing BBs comes out of the pen and pitches like ####. Darren is right about #### going wrong. Every ####### game one player seems to step up and #### things up.
I swear I'm more pissed now than I was after 19-8. At least then I could say "hey, great year, Schilling got hurt at a crappy time, Yankees have a great team." This year, no, we're losing to ####### Jayson ####### Nix and Travis ####### Snider and Sam ############# Fuld and Josh Who The #### Is This Guy Tomlin. ########.
Sorry about anything the nanny missed but I'm pissed (obviously) and I had to vent or I wasn't going to sleep tonight.
Yes, we're men. Men is what we are.
If it helps, I felt that bad leaving the park tonight.
Also, I can see the clock from my seats, but not from the 2 other places I watched games this week.
If TB were 11-2 and NY were 10-2 it might be a different story, even this early.
It is early, but 90 wins may mean something different in this year's AL East than it usually does.
The first quote illustrates the problem they will have even trying to get to 90. They have to start playing well. Now. Winning 2/3 series. Now. I wouldn't write them off, but they have dug quite the hole from themselves. It's not like they have been unlucky either. Their 3rd order wins suck almost as much as their actual record.
But even though no one is running away with the division (or the wild card), the Red Sox still need to get on a hot streak soon.
I'm actually curious, because I don't have a lot of managerial experience with this kind of thing, and I wonder if this sort of situation might come up. These are some highly motivated, serious professionals. I don't get the sense that anyone isn't trying hard on this team. What do you do with a seriously underachieving group of established professionals?
**At some point you just have to call a spade a spade. Those two teams combined have 5 dead men walking in their rotations (3 in NY, 2 in Bos), and anyone who thinks that Burnett is already "back" is kidding themselves---he's been a slightly better version of last year's Ivan Nova, with plenty of nasty stuff but command that goes on and off like a light bulb during a hurricane.
ATN, from 8pm till close, is the worst bar in the city. Before a Sox game, and before 11:30 on Patriot's day, it's a shockingly average bar, where I know the bartender and I get the occasional free drink. They also have those windows that open in the front, and are on the correct side of Beacon for marathon watching.
Edit: Also, because of the more downscale reputation compared to Audubon Circle, it gets more of a gameday crowd. On a game day, I appreciate that.
You get rid of one or two. Not that they've done anything wrong, per se, but it's clear that the mix is not working. That's in a normal organization with at-will employees that you can fire or find ways to help them vacate to other departments. When you have something like a big-league club with guaranteed contract employees that can't simply be moved to other parts (Salty as the most highly-paid accountant of all time as the guy who gives Fenway tours to fourth-graders squats behind the dish), I think the only move is to fire the manager.
Due to his previous historic success, I think Francona has survived longer than any other manager with this group of players and these results would have. But I think that Theo and crew are foolish if they're not even considering letting him go, or at least pushing him upstairs. The Yankees of twenty years ago would fire the hitting coach or some such nonsense; I don't think that ever has any real effect.
As a Yankee fan it's no skin off my back what the Red Sox want to do, but as a Yankee fan I can also remember all too well the poisonous effect of scapegoating managers, and one of the many things about the Red Sox that I've come to respect is the way that they've avoided that.
*Yes, he drives me nuts. Too loyal to vets, closes the barndoor one batter too late, doesn't think outside the box enough. But results are results and he should get at least one losing season. I mean so what if it's going to be a stretch of at least 4 years since the Sox won a playoff game? Right?....ok, fire him.
lowrie. he needs to start playing every day.
Somebody may indeed think this, but this somebody is not me. But I think that practicality dictates that you don't DFA players signed to major-league contracts, particularly those who will most likely perform in a way consistent with the numbers on the back of their baseball cards. Carl Crawford will be a big part of the next great Red Sox team. Hell, I assumed that it would be this year, but at this time, it probably won't. Accountability should be given to the decision-makers who signed Dice and Lackey and who figured that a Salty/Tek job-sharing program would get 'er done. But honestly, a decisive move against mid-level executives in the Red Sox FO will not have the dramatic, earth-shattering, potentially game-changing effect that may be necessary to get this group of players to begin performing in an acceptable way.
What does that leave you with, practically? Considering an action against the manager.
He's done a lot of great things, and should never have to pay for his own drink in a bar again. But you won't find a lot of successful managers in the modern era who have held onto one job for longer than Terry.
When it comes down to it, the Red Sox are an entertainment organization, and they owe their ticket-buying fanbase a competitive team. With respect to Dale, at some point in a 2-160 season, they are not competitive anymore, and people will stop buying tickets.
They could fire Bill James, an empty gesture* that would make a big splash.
*) Don't tell me he is vitally important for the RS FO.
Not everybody. Francona may be the most successful Sox manager, but just about every manager ends the same way, no matter what their success.
If you really think that a new manager can do all that, then it seems as if you think that a new manager is the solution, even if the old one wasn't the problem. I may be just dense (won't be the first time), but it's kind of hard for me to reconcile those two thoughts.
Of course firing whoever decided to spend all that money on Dice-K and Lackey might not work, either, since the barn door is already locked and the horses have escaped, plus it's always easy to have 20-20 hindsight and sometimes even the smartest people can make some pretty dumb moves. Quiet as it's kept, it's even been known to happen to the Yankees.
EDIT: If that "starting nine" doesn't brighten your day, nothing will. (smile)
No, the act of a job change would potentially have the effect I'm looking for. Make the players feel personally responsible for a good man losing his job, particularly if they feel that he should not have.
Sometimes good folk just don't work well together for reasons that are not apparent to outsiders, and a change of one of them could impact the whole group's performance. In this case, I don't think the manager is the problem. But don't you think Ortiz (for example) would be differently motivated knowing that he doesn't have a long, successful track record with the new guy?
No, the act of a job change would potentially have the effect I'm looking for. Make the players feel personally responsible for a good man losing his job, particularly if they feel that he should not have.
Sometimes good folk just don't work well together for reasons that are not apparent to outsiders, and a change of one of them could impact the whole group's performance. In this case, I don't think the manager is the problem. But don't you think Ortiz (for example) would be differently motivated knowing that he doesn't have a long, successful track record with the new guy?
If you think that the main problem lies with motivation rather than with more tangible (and in most cases temporary) factors, then I can see your point. I still think the long range problem for both EEs is much more in the fragility of the rotation than in their motivation, but admittedly I spend much more time directly observing the Bronx side of the equation. Just be grateful that you're not counting on Freddy Garcia, Ivan Nova and Mystery Man to go out there for 60% of your games.
I heard that Jeff Francoeur has a new approach at the plate this season. Can you confirm?
I think Varitek should be in ahead of Saltalamacchia but I was never a believer in Saltalamacchia. I'd like to see more of Lowrie too but that's more a "hot hand" thing than anything, I'm not one of the BBTF believers in Lowrie.
Well then wouldn't you be pretty peeved at a manager who was constantly juggling the lineup and rotation?
what does he have to do for you to become a believer? i mean, i think it's pretty clear that the guy can hit!
Based on what? He was OK in 2008, awful (in very short time in 2009) and very good last year in less than half a season. I'm not sold on his glove and I think his swing is long enough that as the season progresses he will be exposed.
Yup. I think it's clear that Francona, who to me has always appeared hyper-prepared, has looked a bit unprepared for his team this year. I think a lot of that is the pitiful job the players are doing though. I'm not comfortable being too critical of the manager when the players are so badly underperforming any set of reasonable forecasts.
I was at the game today. Who wants to buy me tickets so that the team will keep winning?
I'm happy with that. Let us play the guys who are helping our team win right now. Make 'em earn it. This means Lowrie every day, and Varitek as long as the staff pitches well with him behind the plate.
Okay, we're gonna pay HIM to go to the games. Can we ply him with beer?
How do you think mom got him to marry her?
Yeah I'm expecting something stupid like that.
Since I'm probably his main detractor around here, nope, he's looking great. Hope it continues and he doesn't revert back to the dumbass pn the mound he's too often resembled.
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