User Comments, Suggestions, or Complaints | Privacy Policy | Terms of Service | Advertising
|
Demarini, Easton and TPX Baseball Bats
|
AllianceTickets.com has cheap MLB Tickets. Get all your Colorado Rockies Tickets, Seattle Mariners Tickets, San Francisco Giants Tickets and all your favorite baseball tickets here. We also carry cheap Denver Broncos Tickets, Seattle Seahawks Tickets and Denver Nuggets Tickets. |
For wholesale prices on baseball gifts and equipment, check these stores out! |
Page rendered in 0.6142 seconds
42 querie(s) executed
Reader Comments and Retorts
Go to end of page
Statements posted here are those of our readers and do not represent the BaseballThinkFactory. Names are provided by the poster and are not verified. We ask that posters follow our submission policy. Please report any inappropriate comments.
What is going on with Fangraphs and B-Ref on Swisher? I didn't check Fangraphs because the B-Ref numbers felt right to me, but I should have checked anyhow. It's not just a defensive thing. There's also a larger gap in the offensive evaluation.
Fangraphs WAR 2010-2012
Batting: +60
Running: -5
Fielding: +10
Replacement: +58
Positional: -20
Total: +103
Batting: +47
Running: -10
Fielding: -6
Replacement: +59
Positional: -22
Total: +69
I think that B-Ref looks more correct on fielding - a touch below average instead of nicely a bit above - but I don't know what to do with the rest of the numbers.
It's a good thing that Boston has loads of cash, because at some point free agents might ask for a premium in exchange for the nearly inevitable public smearing before they are run out of town.
But his salary was already counted as a negative earlier in the sentence - saying his contract is nine figures and he's having a shitty season is counting it twice. It's not worth arguing over, but that sentence just doesn't reflect reality. Gonzalez wasn't the problem with this team.
Gonzales is athletic but to my very distant eye he is very much not in shape. His face is doughy and inflamed which is a tell tale sign of latent fat-assness
Beckett getting claimed, hey, you just collect the waiver fee and move on. Win. In the past I haven't been as down on Beckett's personality as y'all seem to be, but hearing him talk this year he sounds much more... uh, grounded. He doesn't let anything get to him, because he has a wife and kids and they remind him of what's truly important. While all of that is absolutely true, it also seems to have extinguished the fire in his belly, covered it in dirt, and planted a nice crop of lavender*, which is not the best way to ensure he delivers value commensurate with his contract.
Gonzalez getting claimed, you pull it back unless the Dodgers can offer a reasonable trade. And so you have them take on Crawford, too, with his contract, and Punto. And take Loney because you need someone at 1B in the short term. And take most of their top prospects. If I look at the trade in that sense, it looks like a great trade.
This could work out very well for both teams. As mentioned earlier, Boston isn't solving their problems with $15 million to spend. Gonzalez and Crawford can provide reasonably good production in 2013, but are a decent bet at this point not to be nearly worth their contracts. Whatever you think of the prospects the Red Sox got in return, and their chances for turning into MLB-caliber players, it would seem that Boston's minor-league system just went from pretty good to stocked. Those players can be exchanged for the right MLB talent.
Sure, they could screw this up by trading their entire farm for Alfonso Soriano, if he is indeed available. Let's wait and see on that.
* With a special treatment to keep slugs away.
A slg-heavy 113 OPS+ isn't a shitty season? From a first baseman who used to, you know, walk and hit homers? I'm sorry, but that's just starry-eyed ########. These things are relative to (A) position and (B) history, and by both standards it's a shitty season.
As to gonzalez's athleticism, it's like we're watching different players. He's a reasonably good fielder but he moves like he's got lead in his shoes. A slow guy who has quit walking does not have the "broad base of skills", to coin a phrase from Bill James, that is the hallmark of athleticism and leads to gentle aging. Calling him a fatass was an exaggeration for the purposes of making a point, but asserting that he's athletic is silly. He's not.
Please reverse all gender references.
No, I'm just adjusting for context and you're not.
David Ortiz recovered! Woohoo! Most guys don't.
Look, I agree that it's quite likely that Gonzo will be better next year than this. I think it's also obvious that he probably will never be as good again as he was when he was 28. Since when is it controversial to contend that a 31 year old 1B coming off a down year is unlikely to be as good as his 28 year old self?
As for the text message thing, I didn't know about that until about an hour ago, soooo .... no, not a factor.
Don't judge that in a vacuum, just compare how you feel about that to how you felt a week ago. Better, no?
No. Less wins this year, less wins next year...and a bunch of money.
Am I supposed to find charming every person who has ever dated an attractive lady?
Not at all. You're supposed to figure out that people are just joking around a little.
I like to see my team win?
I think the problem were the people above the players* and those people are still there. Shock and Awe isn't a great plan, and the Red Sox have no exit strategy, and don't strike me as being good at improv.
*You live with Beckett, poke around in the off-season. Sox HAD a chance to offload Crawford for Hanley and Bell and didn't even considerate it. You shop Crawford around some in the off-season. Trading AGon isn't cutting off your face to spite your nose, it's being Hannibal Lecter.
Completly 100% honestly: I get enraged that people are dancing in the cinders without a plan, and trying to poo-poo Adrian Gonzalez. I get mad when Harold Reynolds says "They're the Sox! They'll reload! They'll be back next year."
....and everytime my blood pressure lowers enough for me to go "Hmmm. Let's pretend that AGon suffered a career-ending injury and the Red Sox received a crapload of money as insurance" Somebody says something dumb, I'm reminded that we lost Beltre, Youk and Rizzo for AGon. And the same people that made those decisions (Luchhino) and more dumb ones (Cherington) are still in command.
And again, what if Papi tells the Sox to eff off over this? That doesn't effect 2014 or 2015 much unless it engenders more panic moves. I think Jim really hit it on the head in his blurb for the article he posted.
Well, I said joking around a little. I'm sure you'd have gotten it if it had been funnier.
What sort of $/win value do you use in the numbers above? I haven't followed such things so much in the past few years, I'm wondering about the effect of the most recent CBA. My uninformed guess is that it's going to push up the $/win on the free agent market.
I still think this is a good baseball move by the Sox, but I share some of the other posters' concerns about the Red Sox actually being able to convert those freed up $'s into W's.
I'm also sad as hell that A-Gon is gone, and dreading the possibility that Bobby V is back for next year. As far as I can tell he hasn't done a single aspect of his job well, and if this move convinces management to keep him around longer than they were otherwise planning that also dampens my enthusiasm for it.
No, you already adjusted for context when you said his contract was "nine figures". Look, presumably the point of bad-mouthing him was to say they're better off with him gone. In your favor on that point is the first half of the season. Working against you is his entire career up until then, and his performance in the second half of the season. A fatass having a shitty season is simply not an accurate description of Adrian Gonzalez. It's not even an exaggeration - it does not have enough truth to it to be useful to us in any way, except to voice our frustrations and anger with the team as a whole.
I'm not saying he's currently on the most favorable contract imaginable, but he's still a 5-win player, and I don't see how they're going to replace his production. They have a pile of money, but who are they going to spend it on? It seems to me that this team has sucked for about a year, the ownership and media have managed to pin a ton of the blame on other people, and then cut their expenses by a ####-ton. I'm not going to gobble that up as unabashedly good news until I see them convert that money back into wins, and stop smearing everyone that gets in their way in the meantime.
As to the front office stuff, I think there's a big logical gap in the "I don't trust Lucchino and Cherington" argument. They were in charge before the trade, they're in charge after the trade. The question is whether you think they're more likely to build a winning team with very little payroll room or a lot of payroll room but less talent. Given that the Sox projected to overpay by ~$40M for the three guys they traded away, I think the current situation is better than the previous.
That would actually be a great plan. If playing shitty minor leaguers and shutting down pitchers (e.g. Lester) could get them a top-5 draft pick, they almost certainly should do it.
Unfortunately for the Sox, Houston, Cubs, Colorado, Minnesota and Cleveland all look "uncatchable". Plus Tor., KC, Mets, Miami and SD have 3+ game "leads" in the draft sweepstakes.
The difference between a #11 and #8 pick isn't worth a totally embarrassing Sept.
I also think there's a good chance that Dan Haren will be available one way or another.
That's my understanding of the Ortiz situation as well. The Sox will, at minimum, extend him a qualifying offer for compensation. Whether that's all they offer or maybe they offer a 2 year deal or some kind of vesting option, etc, isn't clear. But I don't see any team looking to spend $14M and a draft pick for a year of David Ortiz.
It could also be the first half of a bad plan. I'm trying to figure out which it is. For it to be a good plan, they're going to have to be able to replace these guys with better players (unless this is going to be addition by subtraction). My first instinct is that's going to be tough to do, especially since one of the players they traded away is really good, three months of this season notwithstanding. There are plenty of people who know more about the trade/free agent markets than I do, so I'm ready to be convinced that there could be a good plan.
I wasn't particularly pessimistic about the team before, so I didn't think they needed to blow it up. I think it's going to be really hard to be as competitive in 2013 now, and that upsets me.
A change of speed, a change of style.
A change of scene, with no regrets,
A chance to watch, admire the distance,
Still occupied, though you forget.
Different colors, different shades,
Over each mistakes were made.
I took the blame.
Directionless so plain to see,
A loaded gun won't set you free.
So you say.
We'll share a drink and step outside,
An angry voice and one who cried,
'We'll give you everything and more,
The strain's too much, can't take much more.'
Oh, I've walked on water, run through fire,
Can't seem to feel it anymore.
It was me, waiting for me,
Hoping for something more,
Me, seeing me this time, hoping for something else.
My understanding is that the signing team loses the pick, but instead of that pick going directly to the team losing the player, that team only gets the sandwich pick.
Atrocity Exhibition.
Asylums with doors open wide,
Where people had paid to see inside,
For entertainment they watch his body twist
Behind his eyes he says, 'I still exist.'
This is the way, step inside.
In arenas he kills for a prize,
Wins a minute to add to his life.
But the sickness is drowned by cries for more,
Pray to God, make it quick, watch him fall.
This is the way, step inside.
This is the way.
This is the way, step inside.
You'll see the horrors of a faraway place,
Meet the architects of law face to face.
See mass murder on a scale you've never seen,
And all the ones who try hard to succeed.
This is the way, step inside.
And I picked on the whims of a thousand or more,
Still pursuing the path that's been buried for years,
All the dead wood from jungles and cities on fire,
Can't replace or relate, can't release or repair,
Take my hand and I'll show you what was and will be.
Source: MLB.com
All of a sudden I understand why they haven't already sacked Valentine!
The SoxProspects podcast the other day was talking about September 1 call ups and touched on this specific issue. Long story short they think the Sox want Kalish playing every day rather than being in and out of the lineup in Boston. Obviously he COULD play every day in Boston but that theory made a fair amount of sense to me.
I'm thrilled about Iglesias. That looks like a no brainer to me.
In all seriousness I expect they're waiting to jettison Scotty Pods in a waiver deal before bringing Kalish back.
The point in bad-mouthing him was to match Dale's silly hyperbole with something similar.
But here's this: there's more context than just money: there's the fact that Adrian Gonzalez is at an age when players of his type begin to decline. He's a 1B with declining numbers. I don't really see why this is so hard for you to grasp. I'm not "double adjusting" for anything: I'm adjusting for both of the big negatives involved in signing
30+ sluggers to long contracts. Part one: they get worse, often quickly. Part two: they restrict payroll flexibility. You're trying to ding me for noticing that Gonzalez hasn't been very good this year? Whatever.
I don't luuuurrrrve this move, but I can see its benefits. I didn't much care for the Gonzo extension when it happened, but it seemed cool because his better years would come when the Sox were presumably trying to win with the Pedroia-Lester-Ellsbury core. If this really is a 2-year rebuild, Gonzo will be in his mid-30s and likely to be deminished as a ballplayer by the time the team is gunning for the WS again. I see no problem with letting someone else pay him -- and play him -- from now on.
The tendency of players to decline in their 30s is one of the fundamental tenets of sabermetrics, and it hasn't really changed. I feel kind of like I'm talking to a brick wall right now.
1. Scott Podsednik (L) LF
2. Dustin Pedroia (R) 2B
3. Jacoby Ellsbury (L) CF
4. Cody Ross (R) RF
5. Mauro Gomez (R) 1B
6. Jarrod Saltalamacchia (S) C
7. Ryan Lavarnway (R) DH
8. Mike Aviles (R) SS
9. Pedro Ciriaco (R) 3B
Kinda surprised to see Ortiz sitting after his first game back last night, but I guess they might want to ease him back. I was also sorta expecting to see Iglesias jumping right in at SS.
####.
Oh well, Cook will pitch poorly enough that I'll get a chance to boo Valentine at some point.
Who'd pay the freight back?
I think it's pretty easy to overstate it. How many qualifying offers do you think there are going to be, anyway? And how many of those are the Red Sox going to be able to sign? And if they do manage to sign three or four qualifying FA who get qualifying offers, they still lose three or four picks.
If it is your position that your statement was silly hyperbole, then we're in agreement. Why you needed to spend the next page defending it, I have no idea.
And he's throwing 94-96 again tonight with an 88 MPH splitter that just falls off the table. Holy cow.
2009: "We got Lackey!! We're gonna rock!"
2010: "We got AGon and Crawford! We're gonna rock! 100 Wins!"
2012: "We blew up the team! We're gonna rock!!"
Big moves, that's all the lemmings in RSN care about. And all of a sudden all the bad moves are washed away. "WHo cares if an elite 1B was washed away, not to mention it costing Beltre, Rizzo and Youk too...we got money! Me likey the big explosions!!"
Yeah, this team suckity sucks right now. You know what? They ####### sucked two days ago too.
Besides, your personal worst case scenario here is that you get to spend the next few years reminding everybody that you knew they would suck.
They've done nothing to earn a grace period. And I'm not going to shut-up until the people dancing in the cinders over this "Hope and Change" ######## wise up and start holding Cherington and Lucky L accountable.
Why did Ross come out of the game? Did he get hurt or did Valentine just close the barn door after the horse was out on the two defensive misplays? I'm not sure how it played on TV but the route he took on Butler's pop fly double was absolutely horrific. Terernce Long would have watched that and said "geez, he kind of took a circular route there didn't he?" I was none too pleased to see Lin batting in the 10th instead of Ross with the game on the line.
My first reaction to the trade was that Lucchino et. al. are getting rid of Theo's troublemakers, except for Pedroia. And what do I find to my dismay but Phil Rogers agrees. So with vacation over I really had better yank my head out of my butt because I hope it's the last time this year that I am on the same page as him. In any event, I'm not sure that rational thinking is at work in the Sox front office. This is a hunch, that's all, and not worth a damn.
I did get to see the Sea Dogs thrash Binghampton 14-9. Bogaerts homered and looked very good at bat and in the field until he was HBP and came out of the game shortly thereafter. Shaw, Brentz and Gentile (pronounced Jentilly, with a purty face, no ponytail however) hit well and Hazelbaker pounded the Mets' pitching. I'm not sure of prospect status beyond Bogaerts, so take my typically paltry contribution to Sox Therapy with the usual salt shaker.
I'm still for shitcanning the manager at the end of the season. This drama BS has to stop.
Soooo, you're going to turn into KM?
Very occasionally there's a situation where that person, by failing to shut up, might actually accomplish something toward his goal. I can't imagine how this would be one of those situations.
True in theory; in practice they have a weak GM and a poor and meddling ownership (Lucchino is our Angelos), so are most unlikely to get anywhere spending less.
The reality I think is that Henry's hedge fund business, declining for several years, now stinks, and they need to generate cash flow. Putting a $50 million team out on the field, hyping the hell out of all the rookies and charging top dollar for seats is the best way to do that.
The Sox will contend again and win again, but not till they've got rid of this ownership.
Who said anything about a grace period? I just think you should wait until the 2013 team is, you know, assembled before declaring it worse than the 2012 edition.
And I'm not going to shut-up until the people dancing in the cinders over this "Hope and Change" ######## wise up and start holding Cherington and Lucky L accountable.
As soon as I find anyone dancing in the cinders, I'll let them know they should knock it off.
As MCOA has been pointing out, you seem to have been on the record as thinking the Red Sox of three days ago were a 75-win ballclub or thereabouts. That roster was pretty close to the soft cap on payroll, and obviously had significant work to do to improve. Other than hoping really, really hard that their star players stopped getting injured and playing like crap, what options did the FO have here? And exactly what about this completely dysfunctional clusterf**k of a season gave you any optimism that going into 2013 with the core of the team intact was going to result in a 15- to 20-win improvement in performance?
The FO hasn't done much to inspire a great deal of confidence, that's for sure. But now that they've finally done something that acknowledges some of the past mistakes and gives them more options to fix things going forward, I have to take that as a positive. It doesn't wipe away all the misgivings we have about the organization, but it's better than doubling down on a plan that clearly wasn't working. Baby steps.
On a more productive note, since this season is toast, can we start on a wish-list of FA pickups using this newfound "flexibility"? I don't see anyone who can come close to replacing Gonzalez, but maybe there are enough solutions at a variety of positions to make up for that. We should know enough about the free agent class to deal in specifics.
Plus, the Red Sox staked a big bet on this roster after the disaster of 9/'11. Do you really want to stake another bet on the same players after 2012? I didn't see significant cause for confidence about the near future before the trade. This seems better than that.
By all means. There are plenty of reasons to be upset about this trade. For one thing, I am massively irritated that the club put itself in a position where I react in a positive way to dealing away what should be three star players. Moreover, I am quite confident that at least two of those three guys will, in the short term, perform better in LA next season than they did in Boston this season. And that will make us look like chumps. None of that means this wasn't the right thing to do under the circumstances, though.
On a more productive note, since this season is toast, can we start on a wish-list of FA pickups using this newfound "flexibility"? I don't see anyone who can come close to replacing Gonzalez, but maybe there are enough solutions at a variety of positions to make up for that.
I agree. Looking at the pending FA class and trying to tease out 1-to-1 replacements for the three departing stars is too simplistic. For one thing, I expect the Red Sox signature off-season move will be in the trade market rather than free agency. I hope that move is Justin Upton. For another thing, there is going to be a lot more turnover in the roster than just 1B, SP, and LF this winter.
Developing a wish list would require more time than I have available just at the moment, as I have a few more preparations to make with Isaac seemingly en route to my neck of the woods. It will be fun to think about, though. A lot more fun than figuring out how to stretch $10-15M would have been.
It's clearly in the Red Sox best interest to get into the top 10 draft picks. I don't think that means anyone who isn't sad to see the team lose games at this point is "dancing in the cinders". It's simply a fact that they need that protected pick if they're going to reinvest the saved cash in free agency.
Even if that is true (which is far from clear), winning should be entirely secondary at this point to evaluating guys like Iglesias and Kalish in the time left with an eye towards seeing what kind of role they can play on the 2013 team. This is a lost season, and has been for weeks.
Jose Iglesias isn't good enough to be any more than a UIF.
He had a 266/318/306 line at AAA this year (.293 wOBA, 78 RC+) following a 235/289/269 (.260 wOBA, 54 RC+) at AAA in 2011. What's the MLE on that?
Why wouldn't you make this guy hit at least a little in AAA before promoting him? Based on the evidence to date, Iglesias' dream is to be as good as Mike Aviles.
There is of course a strong case for pessimism on Iglesias. Anyone can get hot for a month. But since there's zero value for the Red Sox in maximizing their utility infield position, and since there is value in working out Iglesias and seeing if he can become a borderline-competent hitter, the one thing he shouldn't be doing is riding the bench in the majors.
That is, you've made a perfectly cogent case for leaving Iglesias in AAA. I have no real quibble with that argument. But since he has been called up, he should be playing.
- If you let Iglesias play every day at SS, is his bat tolerable enough to take advantage of the great defense (and cheap salary for the next several years)? For that matter, can we watch him long enough to see this defense we've been hearing about for three years?
- What is going to happen at 1B in 2013? Could Lavarnway play some first? Any of the outfielders?
- How many ABs can we give young outfielders the rest of the year? I don't really give a crap about Cody Ross - thank you for helping us in 2012, I hope you get a decent multi-year deal off of it somewhere else. I just want to find out if Kalish can play or not.
- David Ortiz? Shut it down. Use the DH position to give lots of guys a chance to play the field, while keeping our better bats (Pedroia, Middlebrooks, Ross, whatever) in the lineup. Use it to play Lavarnway, at some position, everyday.
- Let some young pitchers already on the 40-man pitch in Boston next month. Give Drake Britton a start. Let Carpenter and Beato come out of the bullpen several times each. I like Tazawa a lot - let him pitch in meaningful situations.
- I'm very curious about Morales as s starter going into 2013 - he's been a pleasant surprise most of this season. Let him pitch in the rotation the rest of this season, and leave him alone.
- Daniel Bard- remember him? Bring him up, and let's get him on track out of the pen.
From 2010 though this year there have been 65 player seasons of 100 games with 80% of them at first. Gonzalez's 114 OPS+ is the exact median in 33rd place. Go back 3 more years and he's tied with Paul Konerko for 81st place out of 145. If he's having a shitty season, then half of the firstbasemen do as well.
Posted: August 26, 2012 at 01:37 PM (#4218567)
The trade is ####### great. The Dodger's unique situation presented the Sox with a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity and thankfully they took it.
This team needed a massive douching and still needs a hows your father but this is a great start
You must be Registered and Logged In to post comments.
<< Back to main