I’m betting Pedroia sees a lot of DH time to keep him out of the field diving around on a newly repaired knee.
Hanley DFA'd (5/25 Update)
- Thread starter Pozo the Clown
- Start date
This is shocking. But I am also surprised that Cora never moved him down in the order during his "slump". Kind of makes you wonder if DD and Cora are on the same page in regards to Hanley.
I don't think this move has all that much to do with Swihart either. I'll be shocked if he's still on the roster August 1st.
Moreland's fantastic start has as much to do with it as anything. I couldn't have been more wrong about Mitch's signing.
Moreland's fantastic start has as much to do with it as anything. I couldn't have been more wrong about Mitch's signing.
Moreland gets exposed against lefties -- career .677 OPS. Even this reduced Hanley, this year had an .854 OPS (SSS admittedly in 45 PA) against lefties. A platoon might have made sense. But that wouldn't have solved the roster problem and maybe Hanley wouldn't have handled the reduced role well.
It goes back further than Cherington when it comes to free agent signings. Brian MacPherson had a tweet thread today where he pointed out that since 2008, the Red Sox have signed 16 players to multi-year free agent contracts and only two of them have finished their deals in a Red Sox uniform: Chris Young and David Ross. All the rest, except David Price and this year's signees who are obviously still playing, were dealt or cut before their contract expired. Among those being Hanley, Sandoval, Dempster, Gomes, Victorino, Crawford, Lackey, Cameron, and Scutaro.
The last free agent player signed by the Red Sox to a contract of more than two years who played out the whole thing in Boston: JD Drew.
Free agency hasn't worked well for the Sox for years, dating back to before Ben Cherington. Maybe it's not entirely on him.
The last free agent player signed by the Red Sox to a contract of more than two years who played out the whole thing in Boston: JD Drew.
Free agency hasn't worked well for the Sox for years, dating back to before Ben Cherington. Maybe it's not entirely on him.
If this is you not trying, then boy am I excited.
I'm a bit disconnected due to location and quality of internet... any reactions from Ramirez himself yet?
really?
I think the fondness for him and surprise on this thread is much weirder.
the guy has been an absolute bum in 3 of his 4 seasons here....and not an especially diligent or hardworking bum. He has been a disastrous signing.
At least JBJ can play a gold-glove quality centerfield, and will probably have one of his patented hot streaks during the summer.
I doubt the team will be rueful of this decision.
I'm going to push back on this a little bit: getting traded during their contracts isn't necessarily an indictment of the FA signing itself. Gomes, Vic, Crawford, Lackey, Scutaro, Cameron were all traded, some because they were just getting moved off the roster, others as part of a bigger deal or because in 2014-15 the team was selling off older assets.
You'd really have to look around the league and figure out how common it is in baseball for a FA to finish out his whole contract with the signing team.
Dempster retired due to family considerations, that one's not on Ben.
Hanley and Sandoval, yes, didn't work out anywhere near what they were hoping for.
Castillo, Sandoval, & Ramirez. Cherington was good at holding on to the prospects, but absolutely terrible at signing free agents.
Theo wasn't all that great at it either. I doubt many GMs are. Big Ticket FAs are usually bad signings.
Who knew that Nelson Cruz would be the only good free agent signing across three offseasons?
As an unabashed Hanley fanboy, I hate this. I understand the economics, but I'll miss him. I do think that Moreland will pumpkin, and I feel strongly that this team's best chance this year was with April Hanley's bat in the playoffs. But May Hanley has been terrible and if they were going to cut him, it had to be during a cold spell.
Really?! You're worried about those teams picking him up? As someone else has mentioned, the MFY have significant depth at 1B.
It appears it was moved to the last Monday in May in 1971, so presumably around then. The real question though, which is unreported at this point, is why the Front Office would choose Memorial Day to make everyone forget the move. Surely Forgetial Day would have been more effective. JH and Co are clearly incompetent.
Source:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memorial_Day
This is factually untrue. By all accounts he spent a ton of time working on improving his fielding in LF, and when that didn't work he spent a ton of time working on improving his fielding at 1B to the point where he was actually pretty solid there.
You and anyone else who followed baseball.
Curtis Granderson to the Mets was the other widely lampooned move IIRC, and that turned out pretty well too.
That's good to see. It sounds like Ramirez knew this was coming. If he was as blindsided as us SOSH folks were then I'm sure we would hear about it.
lol. So now the Pedroia surgical recovery timeline is part of the Hanley "sneaky holiday weekend DFA" conspiracy?
It's odd that the coach would have the confidence to bat someone regularly in the three-hole, but the GM would think him worthless enough to drop him. Is there any precedent of a team DFA-ing their 3-hole hitter? Did DD get so tired of watching AC bat him third that he took matters into his own hands?
It's the typical "brown people don't work hard" dogwhistle we've been hearing since the days of Manny, and it's complete bullshit.
Dan Butler is basically Sandy Leon without being a switch "hitter." Like the other guys ahead of him, he lacks options.
Very surprised to see Hanley go, but I think it's the right move. I don't think whatever path they take from here will really make the 2018 team better, but I also don't think they'll be any worse. He was a league average bat with little-to-no defensive value. The economics of it make sense. I am a little sad to see him go - he's been entertaining (as well as maddening when he doesn't hustle) to watch, and he's really been a team-first guy from the moment he came back to Boston. When he does get on a streak, he's still fun to see hit, but he just isn't worth his price tag anymore.
Hanley has negative WAR (-0.1) and Moreland ranks 4th among MLB first basmen in WAR (1.2) right now even though he has about half the ABs of the three guys in front of him.
If only hitting lefties and playing first base were something that approximated Swihart's skillset.
Holy cow dude calm down. It can just as easily be a rabid fan base that expects all star performances from all their players and says mean things about them regardless of their skin color when they don't perform. I couldn't tell you which is which since it was two lines of text but that seems like a hell of a conclusion to jump to .
Also consider that the Red Sox barely acknowledged that Max Scherzer existed that offseason only to give Price a similar deal a year later.
This is the right move for dozens of reasons, and the Sox handled it very well. Giving up Swihart when he covers the OF and catcher, considering Bradley and Vazquez have struggled, would be a mistake. Ramirez covers 1B only, and the Sox have a better player at the position.
Wouldn't be surprised at Devers getting some DH time too when they want to get JBJ out of the lineup. They'll shift Nunez to 3B and JDM to LF on those days. This would be after Pedey is back playing 2B every day of course.
Who gets to pen the ol' kick'em on the way out of town article?
Unfortunate end to tenure that I believe was quietly marred by early season injuries for the past three seasons. It's easy to forget that he looked really locked in at the plate to start the year and then got absolutely smoked in the wrist, which in real time looked very serious. For whatever reason healing up on the DL wasn't an option and gritting through the injuries seemed to cost him production.
Unfortunate end to tenure that I believe was quietly marred by early season injuries for the past three seasons. It's easy to forget that he looked really locked in at the plate to start the year and then got absolutely smoked in the wrist, which in real time looked very serious. For whatever reason healing up on the DL wasn't an option and gritting through the injuries seemed to cost him production.