Grady Sizemore DFA'd at last
- Thread starter Corsi
- Start date
This is probably it's own valid topic.
Sad, I was really pulling for him (from a value proposition for the Sox and because he seems like a good dude who was really fun to watch), but the man just has no knees.
Sad, I was really pulling for him (from a value proposition for the Sox and because he seems like a good dude who was really fun to watch), but the man just has no knees.
soxhop411 said:
Andres Torres?
edit: looks like he hasn't even played in Lowell yet. What's up with that?
Our long national nightmare is over!
Seriously, what a bad bet this was. The FO really outsmarted themselves on this one. Obviously, the team's problems go deeper than just Sizemore, but the cascade of decisions that resulted from the bet on him have really hurt this team.
Seriously, what a bad bet this was. The FO really outsmarted themselves on this one. Obviously, the team's problems go deeper than just Sizemore, but the cascade of decisions that resulted from the bet on him have really hurt this team.
I was rooting for him too, remembering how good he was in Cleveland. Watching him play this year was painful but he always looked to be playing all out, not a guy who was protecting himself.uncannymanny said:
T&P, etc, etc, etc.
I don't think this is the case at all. Was he given too long of a leash? Yes. Was it a detriment to the team? No. It wasn't only Sizemore who has been unproductive. Remember Grady beat out JBJ as the opening day CF after ST. It looked like a pretty smart move then. Who else was going to take his place for the amount of money they had invested?Philip Jeff Frye said:
Would love to see Mookie called up to fill the 40 spot and play center/Ben Zobrist, have the Gomes and Brock Holt platoon in LF, and JBJ play right. If the Sox' brass is as adamant about a CF in RF as we think, JBJ prolifes well. Not as fast as Vic, but great jumps/reads and at least a comparable arm. If we can't score runs, let's prevent as many as possible
I think the issue is a general incoherence with regard to the CF position in the offseason. If JBJ was going to be the opening day CF, a hot spring from Sizemore shouldn't have changed that. If there was going to be an open competition, they should have brought in a better option than Sizemore. This is two springs in a row they've let a big March performance dictate their starting CF, and the result has been sub-replacement-level performance both times.Eck'sSneakyCheese said:
Have to say, it's amazing to me that he had nothing left. I know 3 years off, tons of injuries can do that, but I really thought he'd be productive if healthy.
At the very least, this is a win for the medical staff though, right? Having him fully healthy for nearly half a season is pretty impressive considering what he was coming in.
At the very least, this is a win for the medical staff though, right? Having him fully healthy for nearly half a season is pretty impressive considering what he was coming in.
I get no pleasure out of this. I really wanted it to work out with Sizemore. He seems like a great guy who got dealt a terrible hand. Making a move was the right thing to do because he's just not needed on this club, but I hope he's able to have some kind of resurgence. It's a shame what became of his once promising career.
Don't most teams let the play on the field dictate what they do personnel wise?Super Nomario said:
Too bad for Sizemore. I think the front office fell in love with this reclamation project even though it was a total long shot. People forget that it wasn't just a couple years out of baseball, but it had been 5 or 6 years since he was a productive baseball player at all. It was worth a flier, but unfortunately injuries to Victorino (and Carp) and the struggles of Nava and Bradley kept him around longer than his usefulness. It was too bad that he couldn't have spent a few months at AAA working some kinks out. Another lesson in making projections based on spring training statistics. I wonder if he catches on elsewhere.
Super Nomario said:
This ignores some pretty important context, IMO. JBJ had a hot spring in 2013 (I think that's who you mean) but ONLY made the team because Ortiz was on the DL. And he he wasn;t the starting CF. (I think that Ellsbury guy still played CF for most of 2013).
This year, it wasn't Sizemore's *performance* that got him the job, it was his *health,* from which they figured some semblance of performance would follow. They were wrong. It's obviously another part of Lucky's plan to punt the season.
Also an important point. If Nava and Victorino even come close to performing as expected this is just a small blip on the transaction wire. (To the extent that such a thing exists around here).
Ferm Sheller said:
Can he be worse than our 30/30 OPS from the CF position? Maybe Holt is an anomaly but he is green to the position and picked it up quickly. If Brock Holt can play all 3 outfield spots (including Fenway RF) without ever doing so before in pro ball, I fell there can be a decent semblance of confidence of a player who has at least sampled the position before the Majors with nothing but praise from his manager. I'm not trying to assert that Mookie is totally prepared to man CF (defensively) right now, though I feel if JBJ manned RF and Mookie in CF...we'd have close to the range of Vic and Ells
Interesting. It's a shame. It seems like every time I watched his at-bats it was always a good looking at-bat. If he could qualify, he was at 4.21 Pitches/PA. Which would be tied for 8th with Sin Hoo Choo (AL). The results never showed up.
I also don't think the Sox outsmarted themselves here. He was brought in as back-up to JBJ and they tried to play the hot hand. Which was fine the first week of the season, and then .... splat.
I also don't think the Sox outsmarted themselves here. He was brought in as back-up to JBJ and they tried to play the hot hand. Which was fine the first week of the season, and then .... splat.
Super Nomario said:
The 'better option' still might have sucked.
As much as some folks around here wish it to be true, Rajai Davis wasn't walking through that door. The team was not going to sign a veteran who would want a multiyear contract and expect regular playing time.
payne8567 said:
Contribution to the 2014 team is not the issue; the issue is not destroying Betts' confidence by rushing him.
It was a modest bet that didn't pay-off. But the risk was low, and it was assumed he'd be the 4th OF, not an every day guy, as the re-injury risk was always there. I think Farrell was a big backer dating back to Cleveland, but it didn't work. And the OF non-production shouldn't be hung on Sizemore. Vic's been a non-factor, Nava was brutal, Carp hurt, Gomes is Gomes, and JBJ an all-glove rookie. We can only hope that Vic gets healthy and Nava stays hot, as Rice, Lynn, and Dewey ain't walking through the clubhouse doors.Philip Jeff Frye said:
Ferm Sheller said:
I don't really understand this. Do professional athletes really have this attitude? If someone comes up too early and they get smashed are they likely to go "Oh man, I thought i was good, but I guess I actually suck. I should go back home and open an insurance office."?
If the Sox brass thought Betts could contribute to the major league roster they would bring him up and if they turned out to be wrong and he struggled I'm sure it wouldn't fracture his psyche.
BosRedSox5 said:
I don't know, but I do know that they're not in the habit of promoting guys who've only had a cup of coffee in AAA. Maybe that's the reason, or at least part of it, and maybe not.
Ferm Sheller said:
So the 2014 season is a loss already? I'm seeing a player down in Paw who has reached in 13 straight games SLG with who has the ability to play a position at which Boston has been the worst in the MLB. If Mookie has his confidence destroyed by <100AB after nearly 1000 AB in MiLB, that's a pretty good indicator IMO that he can't handle the ups and down of a MLB season. I'm not in the minds of AAA players, obviously, but each one of them on every organization has to be hoping that, maybe tomorrow is the day I get the call. If Mookie gets the call and
Of course you're right and it was LF, not CF in 2013.Papelbon's Poutine said:
Play on the field, fine, but not ~50 spring training ABs against uncertain competition.Eck'sSneakyCheese said:
We should judge the decision, not the result though. There was a real chance Victorino (who missed 40 games last year) would have periods of injury again. There was a real chance JBJ wasn't ready for the majors. There was a real chance Nava (who had a 97 OPS+ going into last year) would turn back into a pumpkin. That all these went disastrously wrong means in practical terms having a fifth real OF option wouldn't have mattered a ton, but that doesn't make the decision not to have one any smarter.Rudy Pemberton said:
Ferm Sheller said:
That's definitely true, they aren't in the habit of rushing people but I think they also do a really good job of not only selecting strongwilled players but of educating them on the realities of a life in baseball. They spend a lot of time coaching guys up and developing their mental toughness.
Super Nomario said:
You have to think the FO and the management team take that into consideration. The fact is that coming out of ST Sizemore looked like he was going to be a productive player if he stayed healthy. It's extremely disappointing that he stayed healthy and didn't produce.
As far as your last paragraph, you're correct, but it's still hindsight. Honestly, the lack of organizational depth in the OF is more damning right now.
FWIW, Ellsbury in 2007 had 484 PA in AA and AAA combined...Mookie has 310 PA at the same levels. Now, obviously Ells went to college and advanced to the CWS which represents a high level of competition relative to age which Mookie hasn't faced until AA/AAA, yet both players have roughly 1200 PA in the minors. Levels of competition obviously make a difference of stats, but when a player has an OPS over .900 thru his first exposures at AA and AAA, and especially at a premium defensive position...like Ben Cherington said "we have an obligation to challenge our players". FWIW I don't expect a promotion anytime soon with Vic coming back on the West coast trip but at minimum, Mookie could be our Sept/Oct Dave Roberts PR if we manage to compile some wins.
I would think that the FO would take it into consideration ... except that they did the same thing in 2013, overreacting to JBJ's spring. Obviously there are a lot of things the FO does very well, but properly evaluating SSS performance doesn't seem to be one of them.Eck'sSneakyCheese said:
The decision to carry Sizemore as a 4th OF was both justifiable and low risk. Plus who did Sizemore block? Kemp? Ethier? Stanton?
JimD said:
This is the "what would we do with Willie McGee" argument, and it's meritless. They had injured Shane Vic, unknown JBJ and the Nava/Gomes tandem. If you don't think Farrell is capable of ensuring that Rajai Davis can get playing time within that group of OF, then you should fire him. At the very least, Davis could have platooned with JBJ and served as a back-up to Shane Vic. The failure to sign a guy like Davis resulted in Nava and Gomes playing too much and left them with no real options to help out JBJ in CF. Real "deep depth" requires a manager who can give everyone enough PT.
I also 100% agree that this is two years in a row that this team made lineup decisions based on spring training performance, which is mind-blowing. I continue to wonder where the "giving Bill James more influence" plan has gone when we see this kind of over-reliance on SSS stats and bunting.
How do you know this? So 2 years for $10MM is too much? So he would have cost $5MM this season as opposed to the $1.25MM we just wasted on 2 months of Sizemore. Rajai would have got plenty of time between RF and CF, so playing time is a non starter. The front office whiffed here, plain and simple.JimD said:
The bigger issue I have with the 'Sizemore experiment' was when they realized he was incapable of playing CF defensively, their answer was to demote Nava after 17 games and continue with Sizemore. A lot of people on this board talk about messing with players 'confidence', well the lack of confidence exhibited by Farrell in Nava has been astonishing after the way he produced last season.
Super Nomario said:
This is re-writing history. He *only* made the team because Ortiz was going on the DL. He was with the team for 14 games in April, until April 17. Ortiz's 1st game was 4/20
JBJ came back for a week in late May and another in July when Victorino had injury issues.
The idea that they overvalue ST performance is unsupported hindsight.
Rudy Pemberton said:
How's Emilio Bonifacio looked? How would Craig Gentry do with more playing time? The idea that Grady Sizemore was the best possible back-up OF option for a team with this payroll
Rudy Pemberton said:
Because he's from NE? Because the Sox could have outbid the Tigers for his services?
Shane Vic was clearly not 100% coming into the year.
is farcical.
nattysez said:
I love the Red Sox, but if I had the choice between riding the pine for the Old Town Team and starting for the Tigers, you bet your ass I'd move to Detroit.
benhogan said:
Nava had options. When he got sent down he was hitting 149 and looked like he had never played baseball before. He admitted that he used the time at AAA to make some adjustments. Sizemore's OPS was as high as 698 in mid-may, the end of a two-week stretch where he looked to be putting some solid play together. It didn;t last. Flowers for Algernon. Sizemore was out-playing Nava by a lot. And if nava keep it up, he will eventually get his OPS higher than Sizemore's this season. But he's not there yet.
I like Nava. I do. But he sucked and had options; Sizemore sucked a bit less and didn't.
Rajai could have been your starting CF this season instead of gambling on Grady Sizemore. And this isn't 'hindsight 20/20 crap' either this was a concern of mine and many others here.Rudy Pemberton said:
Drek717, on 19 Nov 2013 - 07:46 AM, said:
Agree, go with kids/in-house options. I would add that they could make a trade for another player in June/July of 2014 to fill holes where this strategy hasn't worked out.Drek717 said:
So with that in mind go after a RHH platoon partner in CF with JBJ this off season, maybe sign Chris Young, Rajai Davis, trade for Denorfia (pipe dream). Give Mike Carp the initial look at first base with Nava backing up and Hassan (and Brentz) working on 1st base skills at AAA.
Just think it may be easier to find a first basemen or corner OF that could play first (if Carp, Nava, Hassan, Brentz all don't work out) during the middle of the 2014 season then a RHH CF.
small sample size...17 games please...look at last season and the fact that Sizemore was unproductive or not playing for the last 5 seasons. Look the Front Office whiffed here, and today they finally admitted it...joe dokes said:
This is ridiculous. Faulting Farrell now? The Gomes, Nava platoon just won them a championship. They had 6 OF on the roster if you count Carp.nattysez said:
Nava had an awful start to the year. He was the only guy with an option. The Farrell has it out for Nava conspiracy theory has reached absurd levels.benhogan said: