Following Former Red Sox 2017

simplicio

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Apr 11, 2012
4,711
I like to think the pitching coaches of the league are the ones perpetuating it. Everybody wants to be the one to pull the sword from the stone.
 

PC Drunken Friar

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Sep 12, 2003
14,540
South Boston
Will always be one of my own biggest disappointments. For years watching him in San Diego I thought he would be an incredible fit in Boston. When we finally got him I was over the moon. And then he got here and ....meh
Yea, leading the league in hits, top 10 MVP, all-star, gold glove and silver slugger. Damn, he sucked, didnt he?
 

LogansDad

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Nov 15, 2006
29,050
Alamogordo
Yea, leading the league in hits, top 10 MVP, all-star, gold glove and silver slugger. Damn, he sucked, didnt he?
I'm with you. He was great. I think the problem is that a lot of people associate him so much with the baseball disasters that were September 2011 and The Year of Bobby Valentine. Even in 2012 he was a pretty damn good player.
 

InsideTheParker

persists in error
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Jul 15, 2005
40,371
Pioneer Valley
Tyler Kepner has a nice piece about Travis Shaw in the NYT:
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/03/sports/baseball/for-brewers-travis-shaw-trade-was-a-blessing.html?_r=2&s_campaign=108stitches:newsletter
Shaw, meanwhile, looks a lot more like the budding star from the first half of last season than the hitter who struggled down the stretch. He batted .333 in May, and Saturday he went 3 for 4 with a grand slam, raising his average for the season to .296, with 10 home runs and 40 runs batted in — just the type of production the Red Sox have been missing.

“I miss the guys over there, but coming over here was a blessing for me,” Shaw said. “I get a chance to play every single day. They wanted me, the ballpark fits my strengths a little bit more, and so far everything’s gone very smoothly. I’m glad I’m over here.”. . . . . . .

“One of the things we set out to do was add some balance in our lineup,” Manager Craig Counsell said. “We were very heavy right-handed last year. Getting Eric Thames and Travis, we thought we could really serve to balance our lineup against right-handed pitching, especially.”

Shaw started well last season, too, but hit just .184 from Aug. 1 through the end of the season. Pitchers baited him with off-speed pitches away, and Shaw had trouble adjusting. He acknowledged that he had also been unnerved by Boston’s trade for a veteran third baseman, Aaron Hill, in July.

“I lost touch a little bit with hitting it the other way, and kind of became a dead pull hitter the second half of the season,” Shaw said, “It didn’t work, and you come to the field kind of pressing for results. After they made the trade for Aaron Hill, I knew I had to put up results to stay in the lineup. Everything kind of spiraled out of control.”
 

mt8thsw9th

anti-SoSHal
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Jul 17, 2005
17,120
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I'm with you. He was great. I think the problem is that a lot of people associate him so much with the baseball disasters that were September 2011 and The Year of Bobby Valentine. Even in 2012 he was a pretty damn good player.
He was great in 2011. I think people were expecting him to also show up in 2012, not the Mark Grace, rich man's Sean Casey version of him that did instead. Still a very good player, but not one anyone would give up Rizzo and Kelly, and $21MM a year for.
 

LogansDad

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Nov 15, 2006
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He was great in 2011. I think people were expecting him to also show up in 2012, not the Mark Grace, rich man's Sean Casey version of him that did instead. Still a very good player, but not one anyone would give up Rizzo and Kelly, and $21MM a year for.
Well, sure, but it feels like there is a disconnect between this, and the amount of vitriol that I sometimes see directed towards him from around here.
 

Flunky

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Well, sure, but it feels like there is a disconnect between this, and the amount of vitriol that I sometimes see directed towards him from around here.
For me it's that ultimately he did not appear to have any interest in leading the team when it seems that was an expected role for him given his 7 year contract. Then there's that fucking picture of the three of them on the plane to LA which sort of confirms his lack of buy in. It was a tumultuous time for the team and I get this sense he was just along for the ride and couldn't wait to get off.

I will always remember this at bat where he decided to imitate Ichiro... sort of makes looking back on what could have been bittersweet.

http://www.espn.com/blog/boston/red-sox/post/_/id/10804/ichiro-gonzalez-believe-it
 

Cesar Crespo

79
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Dec 22, 2002
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Well, sure, but it feels like there is a disconnect between this, and the amount of vitriol that I sometimes see directed towards him from around here.
There were stories surrounding him that he was a locker room lawyer and then he made the comment about how it was God's will that the Redsox didn't make the playoffs or whatever. Add in his salary, lack of power and the team not performing and there you have it. That and almost any player traded out of Boston goes through the hatchet job.

He could also be really hard to watch next year. He's been pretty awful this year and he's 35.
 

trekfan55

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Oct 29, 2004
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There were stories surrounding him that he was a locker room lawyer and then he made the comment about how it was God's will that the Redsox didn't make the playoffs or whatever. Add in his salary, lack of power and the team not performing and there you have it. That and almost any player traded out of Boston goes through the hatchet job.

He could also be really hard to watch next year. He's been pretty awful this year and he's 35.
There's that and the fact that the Sox were practically salivating for him. "He hits HRs out of Petco Park!" Also, he was supposed to have a swing made for Fenway.

Again, he was very good, just not what was expected. And, the G-d comment aside no one could complain about him as a teammate. I mean he played RF in Fenway Park to accomodate Youkilis until they decided to trade Youk, that cannot be easy.

For me the killer part is that they gave up Rizzo for him, and while he did not fit well in SD, it is clear that they ran out of patience too soon and Theo pounced on him.

And finally, I will always come back to this: Sign Beltre, keep Youk at 1st and upgrade Youk with Rizzo when appropriate, instead of trade for Agon, move Youk to 3rd where he wore down sooner and then have a hole in 3rd base that is yet to be fixed. I think the Beltre pick became JBJ though.
 

Cesar Crespo

79
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Dec 22, 2002
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I'm not sure why Rizzo was slept on so much as a prospect to begin with and I "hated" the trade. I thought he would be the next huge thing in Boston. He hit 20 HRs as a 20 year old in AA, and 25HR for the season. First baseman are generally underrated as prospects anyway but all the signs were there for him to be a stud.

I thought Fuentes was going to develop into a starting OF too though. I was never sold on Kelly.
 

Smiling Joe Hesketh

Throw Momma From the Train
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May 20, 2003
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Gonzalez put up an OPS+ of 155 in 2011, which was an improvement from his last year in SD (152) and in fact is the second-highest mark of his career. I'm not entirely sure what people were hoping for from him but 2011 was a great season for him in terms of production.
 

Red(s)HawksFan

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Jan 23, 2009
20,674
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Gonzalez put up an OPS+ of 155 in 2011, which was an improvement from his last year in SD (152) and in fact is the second-highest mark of his career. I'm not entirely sure what people were hoping for from him but 2011 was a great season for him in terms of production.
Often overlooked as well is that David Ortiz often credited Gonzalez with helping him with his swing against lefties (Ortiz's OPS vs LHP from 2009-2012: .716, .599, .989, .985). That and a general return to health had a lot to do with Papi's resurgence in the latter half of his career.

Gonzalez was the unfortunate price that had to be paid to clear Crawford and Beckett from the decks. To me, the only positive about moving him out was it opened the door for 2013 Napoli which is an experience for which we're all better off for having witnessed.
 

ngruz25

Bibby
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Sep 20, 2005
18,972
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Wow, I completely forgot about Gonzalez playing RF. That memory feels like a fever dream. He was the slowest runner I've seen in a Red Sox uniform who wasn't Sean Casey. How did that ever happen?! Yikes.

Anyways, I think the expectations for Gonzalez were a little... impossible. There were so, so many posts overlaying his Petco spray chart with Fenway, and then mentioning that his shoulder was healthy now, and landing on a 70 homer projection. His first season was great, but it wasn't what people were expecting. He didn't hit 30 homers, he had a ton of singles, and his BABIP was through the roof. His first season reminds me of that one great Daisuke season. You want to call it a great season, but at the same time, I remember him wiggling out of an impossible, unsustainable number of bases loaded jams.
 

Lose Remerswaal

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BuellMiller

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Mar 25, 2015
449
And, behold, they brought to him a man sick of the wildness, sitting in a bullpen: and Tebow seeing their faith said unto the sick of the wildness; Son, be of good cheer; thy sins be forgiven thee...Arise, take up thy bed, and go unto thine clubhouse. And he arose, and departed to his clubhouse.
 

E5 Yaz

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Cesar Crespo

79
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Dec 22, 2002
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I'd be tempted to sign Light to Pawtucket. He does have a live arm and gets ground balls. He's also only been a MR for 2 1/2 years and he's still just 26.
 

Cesar Crespo

79
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Dec 22, 2002
21,588
Yoan Moncada's last 21 games: 93 PA, .143/.280/.234 with 32k/15bb. Brings his season line to .272/.369/.426 in 236 PA. 69k/32bb.
 

mt8thsw9th

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Jul 17, 2005
17,120
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Yoan Moncada's last 21 games: 93 PA, .143/.280/.234 with 32k/15bb. Brings his season line to .272/.369/.426 in 236 PA. 69k/32bb.
Basically a 200 strikeout pace over a full season, in the minors. It would be one thing is he was tearing the cover off the ball as well, but that shit won't fly once he's in the majors. I'd compare him to Javier Baez, but not even Baez struck out that much.
 

Al Zarilla

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Dec 8, 2005
58,867
San Andreas Fault
Victor Martinez to the 10 day DL - had to come out of the game last night with irregular heartbeat and dizziness, and is spending his second night in the hospital. Get better Wiktor.
 

Van Everyman

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Apr 30, 2009
26,992
Newton
Those of you who watched tonight's game probably already saw this, but Bronson Arroyo's comeback seems like it might be just about over due to shoulder issues: http://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/19673733/bronson-arroyo-cincinnati-reds-says-shoulder-pain-end-career
I liked this from Arroyo:

"I've been dealing with the same two arm issues for a while," Arroyo said, according to the Cincinnati Enquirer. "The elbow -- Tommy John is like a chain out on a bicycle. It doesn't matter how bad the chain is, if the rest of the bike is OK, you change out the chain and you continue to move forward.

"But a shoulder is more like your favorite shirt you've been wearing for the last 15 years and it's been washed too many times. So it gets brittle, right? You have some tears in there and there's really not a whole lot you can do about it.
 

O Captain! My Captain!

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Mar 3, 2009
3,532
I'm not sure why Rizzo was slept on so much as a prospect to begin with and I "hated" the trade. I thought he would be the next huge thing in Boston. He hit 20 HRs as a 20 year old in AA, and 25HR for the season. First baseman are generally underrated as prospects anyway but all the signs were there for him to be a stud.

I thought Fuentes was going to develop into a starting OF too though. I was never sold on Kelly.
Not sure if this counts for the purposes of this thread, but former Future Red Sox Great Rey Fuentes hit his first career home run for other former RS Torey Lovullo's DBacks team on Sunday

http://m.mlb.com/news/article/237274968/rey-fuentes-comes-up-big-on-fathers-day/
 

ledsox

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Nov 14, 2005
398
Margot and Asuaje are back with up with the Padres. Margot is healthy again and scored 3 runs last night. Asuaje had his first 3 hit game.