If the 10th Player Award Still Existed, It Would Go To...

The Talented Allen Ripley

holden
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...in my mind, either Brasier or Pearce. Xander's had a very good year that may have exceeded expectations, but not so much that it surpasses the wholly unpredictable contributions of Brasier and Pearce.

Discuss.
 

Savin Hillbilly

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Yeah, gotta be Brockstar. 357 PA of above-average offense plus respectable-to-good defense at six positions. Pretty remarkable from a guy a lot of us [cough....thatwouldbeme....cough] were writing off before the season.
 

scottyno

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I don't remember the exact terms of who would qualify for the award, but David Price probably exceeded expectations more than anyone else.
 

tims4wins

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Did they play enough to count? I'd probably go with Brock Holt.
Yeah, gotta be Brockstar. 357 PA of above-average offense plus respectable-to-good defense at six positions. Pretty remarkable from a guy a lot of us [cough....thatwouldbeme....cough] were writing off before the season.
I too had written him off - especially after his 0-10 start (albeit with 4 walks). Since that 0-10 start, he is .281 AVG / .362 OBP / .411 SLG. Pretty pretty good.
 

edoug

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Ironically while watching Brasier pitch recently, I was thinking it was too bad they didn't give out the 10 th player award award.
 

Red(s)HawksFan

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I vote Holt. 10th player was always supposed to be about the player who most exceeded expectations (though half the time it seemed to end up with the season MVP), and Holt was a guy a lot of people were ready to DFA in spring training. Can't get much lower expectation-wise than that.

I can't get behind giving it to someone who's paid $30M, so I'm a no on Price. Maybe comeback player of the year for him, but not 10th player. Also not keen on giving it to someone acquired during the season, which eliminates Pearce. Brasier's been good and certainly exceeds expectations since most had never heard of him, but I question how much impact he's actually had.
 

E5 Yaz

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I vote Holt. 10th player was always supposed to be about the player who most exceeded expectations (though half the time it seemed to end up with the season MVP), and Holt was a guy a lot of people were ready to DFA in spring training. Can't get much lower expectation-wise than that.

I can't get behind giving it to someone who's paid $30M, so I'm a no on Price. Maybe comeback player of the year for him, but not 10th player. Also not keen on giving it to someone acquired during the season, which eliminates Pearce. Brasier's been good and certainly exceeds expectations since most had never heard of him, but I question how much impact he's actually had.
Ditto
 

E5 Yaz

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for the sake of posteriors

(found this list online; if it's wrong, feel free to amend.)

gaps indicate times when award was not given

1975 Fred Lynn
1976 Carl Yazstremski
1977 Butch Hobson
1978 Carlton Fisk
1979 Bob Watson
1980 Dave Stapleton
1981 Dwight Evans
1982 Wade Boggs
1983 Wade Boggs
1984 Marty Barrett
1985 Steve Lyons
1986 Roger Clemens
1987 Dwight Evans
1988 Dwight Evans
1989 Nick Esasky
1990 Jody Reed
1991 Joe Hesketh
1992 Bob Zupcic
1993 Mo Vaughn

1995 Tim Wakefield

2003 Bill Mueller
2004 Johnny Damon
2005 Mike Timlin

2011 Jacoby Ellsbury
2012 Cody Ross
2013 Koji Uehara
 

Savin Hillbilly

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You don't win 107+ games unless a bunch of unsung guys step up but for me, it's Holt.
I don't know if you can say "a bunch of unsung guys" stepped up this year. Holt and, to a lesser extent, Brasier and Pearce are the only ones who seem to qualify, and their contributions have all been pretty modest. The story of this year was a key group of the "sung" guys--Mookie, JDM, Xander, Sale, and to a lesser extent Price and Benintendi--stepping up and outperforming even our pretty elevated expectations. In that sense, it's the anti-2013.
 

williams_482

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Holt and Pearce both look like the best candidates on the position player side, sporting 1.2 and 1.1 fWAR respectively off the bench. I'd lean towards Holt, given the preseason DFA rumors and having a generally spottier track record before the season. Pearce loses points only by virtue of being a guy we all should have expected good production out of in the first place.

I agree that Brazier is probably the most deserving pitcher. Eovaldi deserves a mention with some great results as essentially the 5th starter.

Incidentally, who don't we have a 10th player award anymore? Do we need anything more than an end of season poll?
 

Al Zarilla

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The internet wasn't around to scream at them for the complete lack of any standards. Seems like more of a "we really like this guy" award.
The NBA Sixth Man Award goes back to 82-83. That is a pretty well known award in sports and should set a theme for such awards, from then on anyway. So, in 1975 we should have seen Bernie Carbo or someone like that win the award.

Brock Holt gets my vote this year.
 

Savin Hillbilly

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For the sake of contrarianism I would go with E-Rod
I would argue that if his 2018 wasn't pretty much what you expected, you were unreasonably pessimistic on him. This year was only a modest step up from last year: he was a wee bit better at everything--K rate, BB rate, HR rate--and as a result his ERA came down half a run. That seems like exactly what you'd expect from a 25-year-old. He's a good pitcher, getting better. The only question marks around him are about durability.
 

bsj

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I would argue that if his 2018 wasn't pretty much what you expected, you were unreasonably pessimistic on him. This year was only a modest step up from last year: he was a wee bit better at everything--K rate, BB rate, HR rate--and as a result his ERA came down half a run. That seems like exactly what you'd expect from a 25-year-old. He's a good pitcher, getting better. The only question marks around him are about durability.
not pessimistic. But his jump was bigger than I expected.

This was 100% Moreland's award in June FWIW
 

E5 Yaz

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Really? Lynn was a rookie. I don't recall exactly, and I know he excelled in his 1974 call up, but I'm pretty sure no one was expecting him to win the MVP.
Hard to be the 10th Man when you're in the starting nine ... which became the problem with the award
 

BoSoxLady

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The TV38 Tenth Player Award went to the “player who performed above and beyond that which was expected of him.”

Brock Holt in 2018
 

E5 Yaz

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As pointed out, the official criteria for the award says nothing about coming off the bench. It was all about exceeding expectations.
Which is why it was awarded so many times to players in the starting lineup, when the intent by calling it the "10th Player" was to reward someone who was beyond the primary 9
 

RG33

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I had no idea the 10th Player Award wasn’t given out still!

Brock Holt. 2018
 

dbn

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If the criterium for the award is the player whose contributions most exceeded expectations, then it's Holt.

If I were able to define the criterium, it would be the player who contributed the most, regardless of expectation, but was not a "starter". Now how to decide who was a "starter" and who wasn't would have to be interpreted by the voter. On offense, according to BR, a Red Sox other than Holt played every position more than he did, which is good enough for me. Holt is 6th on the team in bWAR and tied for 6th oWAR. So, it'd still go to Holt.

Pitching is a lot harder to define "starter" when you consider bull pen, or even who was the 5th, or some seasons even the 4th starter.
 

tonyarmasjr

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My vote would be for Holt, as well, especially in light of the fact that I opined dropping him instead of Marrero in ST. My expectation was that he was a shell of his former self. I assumed the two would be of relatively equal value (Holt the slightly better player; Marrero the better fit for this team as a defensive alternative to Devers and Nunez), but Holt would cost $2.2M. Glad to have been wrong.

I'd offer Brasier, Johnson, and Velazquez on the pitching side.

Not exactly what's meant by “player who performed above and beyond that which was expected of him,” but looking at Velazquez: Here's a guy with 5.72 K/9, 2:1 K:BB, .326 BABIP against, 4.16 FIP, 4.62 xFIP. Yet, he went 7-2 with a 3.24 ERA for 0.5 fWAR in 83.1 IP in multiple different roles. That's certainly above and beyond what would be expected with those peripherals...
 

EdRalphRomero

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BrockHolt! is a former All Star which renders him ineligible under the ERR 10th Man Awards. If, in March, you took the Red Sox organization and said list the players in order of projected contribution how far down would you go before you got to 30 year old (at that time) Ryan Brasier? 50? 60? And he's been a huge 7th 8th inning guy for much of the season. We at ERR Enterprises are pleased to award the 2018 Red Sox 10th Man Award to 2017 Hiroshima Toyo Carp and 2018 Red Sox hero, Ryan Brasier.
 

dbn

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BrockHolt! is a former All Star which renders him ineligible under the ERR 10th Man Awards. If, in March, you took the Red Sox organization and said list the players in order of projected contribution how far down would you go before you got to 30 year old (at that time) Ryan Brasier? 50? 60? And he's been a huge 7th 8th inning guy for much of the season. We at ERR Enterprises are pleased to award the 2018 Red Sox 10th Man Award to 2017 Hiroshima Toyo Carp and 2018 Red Sox hero, Ryan Brasier.
I was starting to write: "Brasier has been great, but he's only pitched less than 33 innings so far, 15th on the Red Sox just behind Workman and ahead of Tyler Thornburg."

Then I noticed that, despite the low IP, he's nonetheless tied for 7th on the staff in bWAR with the only pitchers more than 0.2 ahead of him being Kimbrel, Porcello, ERod, Price, and Sale.

So maybe you are right.
 

chrisfont9

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The NBA Sixth Man Award goes back to 82-83. That is a pretty well known award in sports and should set a theme for such awards, from then on anyway. So, in 1975 we should have seen Bernie Carbo or someone like that win the award.

Brock Holt gets my vote this year.
I don't ever remember them insisting it go to a bench player, more like to an unsung hero. But history aside, your suggestion would make it a lot easier to understand and play along. Holt probably but Pearce gets a few votes.
 

phenweigh

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I recall Evan's speech after we won for the second year in a row. Paraphrasing ... Thank you, but maybe you should be expecting more from me.

I think it's a tough call between Holt and Braiser. I think ERR makes a decent point regarding Holt as a former All Star, maybe we should have been expecting more from him. Who would have predicted that Ryan Braiser would earn a playoff roster spot? So Braiser gets my vote.
 

section15

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I recall Evan's speech after we won for the second year in a row. Paraphrasing ... Thank you, but maybe you should be expecting more from me.
The 10th Man award was started when WSBK-TV carried the games - and it was a fan vote, by postcard.

This award had its roots in a similar award from WSBK ("TV38") - for the Bruins, the 7th Player Award. It started in the Bobby Orr era.

You would send in a postcard, and vote. The winning player would get a new car. So would a lucky fan who voted for him.

Somebody figured out, he could jimmy up the contest by voting for a guy thousands of times (Evans) who was not deserving that year. But he voted for him enough times so he'd win, and because very few other fans voted for him, HE won the car, too, because almost all the postcards sent in for Evans were from him.

After the award was given to a very embarrassed Dwight Evans, the general mgr. of WSBK took to the air and explained what had happened.

Being the gentleman that he was and is, Mr. Evans declined the car and requested it be given to a local charity that could use it.

If you're familiar with over-the-air broadcasting, one of the things the FCC will really get bent out of shape over, and it can put a license in jeopardy - is running a crooked contest. The rules have to be posted, and announced. And they cannot deviate from the posted rules.

They changed the rules after that - one winner from the whole lot of voters, if I recall correctly.

NESN, apparently, had been winding the contest down for a few years, after the Red Sox ended all free local TV and shunted all non-network games to NESN. In the last few years, they didn't even present the award on the field, and made the announcement in a low-key, pre-game interview that lasted 30 seconds.
 
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Savin Hillbilly

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The wrong side of the bridge....
I think it's a tough call between Holt and Braiser. I think ERR makes a decent point regarding Holt as a former All Star, maybe we should have been expecting more from him. Who would have predicted that Ryan Braiser would earn a playoff roster spot? So Braiser gets my vote.
Holt happened to have a good (not great) first half in a year when the Sox crapped the bed so badly that they had no real All-Star caliber first-half performances. His first-half OPS was .792. He finished at .727. It was a nice story, and showed that he could be a solid player for a sustained period, but calling him a "former All Star" is kind of stretching a point--true in particulars, but misleading in essence. And in the two years since then he's been mediocre and awful, respectively. Perhaps some of us overdid the pessimism a bit--a bounceback year wasn't an unreasonable thing to expect. But a career year?

And certainly, I think it's fair to say that no one was expecting Holt to play a key role in a postseason Yankees series by hitting for the cycle in the Bronx. I know 10th player is supposed to be a regular season award, but still...
 

Humphrey

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Lynn made sense. Yaz and Fisk not so much.
The 1978 Sox had no bench after dumping Bernie Carbo. So it was either a starter or a pitcher. None of the starters make much sense, including Fisk, who won it. I'd have given it to Bob Stanley, had a great year in a number of different roles.
 

phenweigh

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Holt happened to have a good (not great) first half in a year when the Sox crapped the bed so badly that they had no real All-Star caliber first-half performances. His first-half OPS was .792. He finished at .727. It was a nice story, and showed that he could be a solid player for a sustained period, but calling him a "former All Star" is kind of stretching a point--true in particulars, but misleading in essence. And in the two years since then he's been mediocre and awful, respectively. Perhaps some of us overdid the pessimism a bit--a bounceback year wasn't an unreasonable thing to expect. But a career year?

And certainly, I think it's fair to say that no one was expecting Holt to play a key role in a postseason Yankees series by hitting for the cycle in the Bronx. I know 10th player is supposed to be a regular season award, but still...
Completely agree that calling Holt a former all-star was hyperbole. But the point stands that it showed he could be a solid player, as you say. Ryan Braiser had no such history, and though it doesn't compare to last night's cycle, Braiser also gets hypothetical points for telling Sanchez to get the fuck back in the box.
 

The Talented Allen Ripley

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Yeah, if we're counting the postseason when considering this award, Brasier barking at Sanchez and then ringing him up holds more value to me than Holt hitting a home run off a catcher to earn a cycle.

I love the statistical anomaly of Holt's cycle (hard to believe it's the first one in postseason history), and I'm not diminishing the accomplishment, but the Brasier/Sanchez exchange was a higher leverage situation by far.
 

EdRalphRomero

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Completely agree that calling Holt a former all-star was hyperbole. But the point stands that it showed he could be a solid player, as you say. Ryan Braiser had no such history, and though it doesn't compare to last night's cycle, Braiser also gets hypothetical points for telling Sanchez to get the fuck back in the box.
I mean, it certainly wasn't hyperbole. It was an out-of-context borderline misleading fact presented tongue in cheek, but the guy was an All-Star. For me, the problem with the 10th Player Award was always that the definition was so squishy and left an awful lot of room for subjective grading. My response reflected my subjective feeling about an award that really can only be decided based on subjective feelings. The one thing we do know, however, is that Brock Holt was an All-Star (and Chewbacca was not from Endor).
 

Cesar Crespo

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Brock Holt:
start-Aug 9: 74 games, 260 PA, .253/.335/.341, 15 doubles, 1 triple, 1 HR, 24bb/45k, .308 BAbip
8/10-Current: 36 games, 113 PA, .357/.442/.653, 4 doubles, 2 triples, 7 HR, 13bb/28k .432+ Babip (all of this includes his cycle except BAbip)


It's pretty ridiculous just how hot Holt has been. For reference, Betts season line was .346/.438/.640, so Holt has basically turned into Mookie Betts. The big difference in his 2 lines is clearly the power. His ISO jumped from .088 to .296. He went from 1 HR every 229 AB (1 in 229) to 1 HR every 14 AB (7 in 98).

In 2016, Holt hit a career high 7 HRs in 290 AB. He tied that this year in 321 despite only having 1 in his first 229. Hell, he only has 20 career HRs in 1778 AB... To put it in the most extreme terms, Brock Holt hit 30% of his career HRs in 5.2% of his career ABs.

Give Sandy Leon a bat, Markus.
 

bankshot1

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Yeah, if we're counting the postseason when considering this award, Brasier barking at Sanchez and then ringing him up holds more value to me than Holt hitting a home run off a catcher to earn a cycle.

The Brasier F bomb was funny as hell, and a younger generation's version of Tek feeding ARod his glove to spark the '04 team, and maybe it had the same effect this year.

But let's not diminish Holt's cycle because his dinger was a cheapie. There was also 3 other hits, and the runs he produced.

As to the 10th player award, IIRC, Holt or Brasier were the type of player the award was originally intended for, and in that regard, I'd give the edge to BrockStar.
 

The Raccoon

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I agree with most in here, that it's Brasier or the BrockStar and it's close between them.
But looking back at the last games/weeks as well as looking forward to the next series, who would the Sox miss more if he had been out for the season?
Holt had a great offensive year and is very versatile in the field, but they could replace his defensive with Lin/Nunez and they have a good offense in place without him. But loosing Brasier would be a huge hit to the already shaky bullpen. Therefore Brasier gets my vote.
 

dbn

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I agree with most in here, that it's Brasier or the BrockStar and it's close between them.
But looking back at the last games/weeks as well as looking forward to the next series, who would the Sox miss more if he had been out for the season?
Holt had a great offensive year and is very versatile in the field, but they could replace his defensive with Lin/Nunez and they have a good offense in place without him. But loosing Brasier would be a huge hit to the already shaky bullpen. Therefore Brasier gets my vote.
I think I'm still team Brock, but this is good reasoning.