Yep. We couldn't have asked for more at this point, night and day compared to last year. I think we are going to see a Hanley type resurrection too and his playoff track record speaks for itself once we get there.
New and Improved--Pablo Sandoval, 3B
- Thread starter Bob Montgomerys Helmet Hat
- Start date
I think that the reality is, the bar is so low that he doesn't need a Hanley-style resurrection to be our best option. I think we collectively blocked out just how bad the 3B position was for the Sox last year, because it hurts our minds. The average wRC+ for the position was well over 100, only 4 teams were below 90, and the Sox were dead last at... 78. The next team was at 86, meaning that we were 10% worse than the second-to-last team. And it wasn't like we traded that for an all-time defensive wizard. If Pablo can come back and put up a .250/.320/.380 line and play average-ish defense, even that would be an improvement. .270/.330/.420 would be a damn revelation, and maybe the best we can hope for, and while it would be a massive overpay on his contract for a .750 OPS, I would take it.
It's not the price of stars that kills you, it's the price of mediocrity.
I'd take it, too, FWIW.
Take it? If he can OPS .750 over a more or less full season while playing semi-passable defense, it'll be time for an offering to St. Jude.
I mean, that's pretty much what we got from Shaw and hated it (.720 OPS, slightly better defense), so I'm not sure I will be making any offerings to pay an extra $15 million for that 30 points of OPS...
I understand what you're saying, but I think many would have preferred a stable .720 OPS to Shaw's .860ish the first two months, .600ish thereafter.
It looked like the league had figured him out.
Even if he's exactly Travis Shaw it's better than lighting $19M on fire. And that's without even considering Thornburg.
A .750 OPS would make him about a league average hitter depending on the split. With average defense, that's probably worth close to 19m anyway. It put's him in line with his 12-14 seasons where he put up 7.8 WAR (2.1, 2.3, 3.4) and the player the Sox were probably expecting.
Exactly. My point was not that .750 + meh defense would be great, nor that it would necessarily be worth $19M (though as bosox79 points out, it probably wouldn't be that far off). I was just saying that it would exceed my expectations enormously.
Considering his trend line in those years (.789, .758, .739) I'd say that this is slightly above the player the Sox were expecting/hoping to get. Which is a pretty damnable indictment of their expectations, but whatever, not my money.
I'm glad Sandoval appears to be working hard and I'd sign up for a .750 OPS in a heartbeat. That is literally the nicest thing I can say about him at this point.
Some recent analysis in Baseball Prospectus (a couple of excerpts):
http://boston.locals.baseballprospectus.com/2017/02/15/pecota-and-the-panda/
Has anyone seen/heard reports from agility drills on how he's looking? I've seen nothing which is a bit odd.
If you adjust for ballpark, it's probably a little worse. One would think he'd have better offensive numbers playing half his games in Fenway as opposed to AT& Park but he has huge home/road splits. .310/.361/.480 to .267/.318/.425. It even carried over in Boston in 2015. Home: .288/.330/.428 Road: .208/.259/.314. Much has been made about his R/L splits (.298/.352/.484 - .259/.306/.368), but those home/road splits are interesting too.
That .288/.330/.428 line would make this board happy. If they can limit his AB vs L, that line is optimistic but not absurdly so. He's only one year removed from doing so and it was in his worst season to date if you exclude 2016. His monster 2009 was because of doing well vs L, and his 2011 was due to only 21.2% (career 27.6%) of his PA being vs LHP. He's still only 30 years old, in much better shape than last year, and most of his production drop off is batting average related. If he had 16 more over the course of 505 PA in 2015, his slash of .245/.292/.366 to .280/.323/.400. He hit .278/.341/.417 in 13, and .279/.324/.415 in 14. 120 games slashing .288/.330/.428 would project to roughly 2.5 WAR. 2.5 WAR is worth about 16.5 mil on the market. A more optimistic person could make the case if he was platooned carefully, he could outperform his contract if he's passable at 3rd.
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Position players start today with first workout tomorrow, so we may hear something soon.
http://fullcount.weei.com/sports/boston/baseball/red-sox/2017/02/16/what-should-we-make-of-pablo-sandovals-appearance-comments-too-early-to-tell/
Grain of salt and I know he had his worst year when he started off like a twig...
But God damn it Sandoval. I was for the signing and defended him for much of that first year. The god damn is b/c look at the shape he's in now. Not even compared to his first year but just last when it was ghastly how he came in.
and the numbers... 280! last year. Unreal.
Per Lauber
Hearing that Pablo Sandoval reported to camp "in the 240s," which is about 40 pounds less than his peak weight last season. Asked how much weight he's lost, Sandoval said, "I don't focus on the scale."
I mean it would be pretty much impossible not to be a better 3rd baseman defensively when he's carrying around 40 pounds less. ( lackey didn't lose 40 lbs) The Sox are going to need it too b/c Holt defensively is under the radar pretty meh.
I think he can be above average 750 ops maybe better with how Fenway theoretically is supposed to play to his spray doubles strengths. Now if he can't hit LHP again the margins for effectiveness become thinner. Not that Shaw did either.
Grain of salt and I know he had his worst year when he started off like a twig...
But God damn it Sandoval. I was for the signing and defended him for much of that first year. The god damn is b/c look at the shape he's in now. Not even compared to his first year but just last when it was ghastly how he came in.
and the numbers... 280! last year. Unreal.
Per Lauber
Hearing that Pablo Sandoval reported to camp "in the 240s," which is about 40 pounds less than his peak weight last season. Asked how much weight he's lost, Sandoval said, "I don't focus on the scale."
I mean it would be pretty much impossible not to be a better 3rd baseman defensively when he's carrying around 40 pounds less. ( lackey didn't lose 40 lbs) The Sox are going to need it too b/c Holt defensively is under the radar pretty meh.
I think he can be above average 750 ops maybe better with how Fenway theoretically is supposed to play to his spray doubles strengths. Now if he can't hit LHP again the margins for effectiveness become thinner. Not that Shaw did either.
I'm sure we will. And I look forward with bated breath to the bounce by bounce reportage of each and every ground ball hit his way during workouts.
(No, I dont. If he's healthy and in reasonable shape he will field competently over the course of the season. If he isn't both, he won't. And if the throws the first 5 grounders in tomorrow's AM drill into the Caloosahatchee River, it wont matter, as long as he's healthy and in reasonable shape, as those are the only two things that ST can tell you about a player -- health and fitness.)
I don't know how to link it, but there's an embedded video in this article that shows Panda working out with a boxing coach. I'm not sure that real boxers have anything to fear from him, but judging from his t-shirt, he's at least putting the work in...
http://www.espn.com/blog/boston/red-sox/post/_/id/51779/his-career-on-the-ropes-papa-panda-comes-out-punching
http://www.espn.com/blog/boston/red-sox/post/_/id/51779/his-career-on-the-ropes-papa-panda-comes-out-punching
From Alex Speier in the Globe https://www.bostonglobe.com/sports/redsox/2017/02/21/pablo-sandoval-labrum-surgery-could-huge-factor/9TEI1Ahpq5qZ8NOR1qTyjN/story.html regarding some of the challenges facing Sandoval after labrum surgery:
with some insights from Mike Reinold, DPT.
and Chili Davis
There is a table (which did not format well when I tried to post it here) with a list of players comparing their stats before and after labrum surgery.
This has been my concern despite his apparent offseason conditioning. Didn't Adrian Gonzalez have this injury?
Edit: yes
Here's an article that suggests his timeline. https://www.google.com/amp/www.masslive.com/articles/5785132/red_sox_links_1.amp?client=safari
Edit: yes
Here's an article that suggests his timeline. https://www.google.com/amp/www.masslive.com/articles/5785132/red_sox_links_1.amp?client=safari
What percentage got back to prior levels? What percent improved and same for decreased?
If Panda can hit anywhere close to spitting distance of 2011 Adrian Gonzalez levels, that would be incredible.
Mostly because Panda hasn't hit that well since 2011, either.
If he can hit anywhere close to spitting distance of 2016 Adrian Gonzalez levels, that would be slightly less than incredible but awesome nonetheless.
Mostly because Panda hasn't hit that well since 2014.
I'd be doing cartwheels for 2014 Pablo. If we got 2011 Pablo for a full season, he's have earned like 40% of his contract in one season. Granted, he'd still be a net loss over those 3 years.
The article identifies 9 players with a date of surgery between 2005 -2012 and gives the BA/OBP/SLG for each player in the year of the surgery and the year immediately following the labrum repair. I expanded that and show the OPS for each player for 4 years to get a better idea of the trends. (sorry for the formatting).
Date of surgery is in parentheses
Hanley Ramirez (Oct 2011) OPS 2010-2013: .853 / .712 / .759 / 1.040
Adrian Gonzalez (Oct 2010) OPS 2009-2012: .958 / .904 / .957 / .806
Adam LaRoche: (June 2011) OPS 2010-2013: .788 / .546 / .853 / .735
Coco Crisp (June 2009) OPS 2008-2011: .714 / .779 / .693 /.742
Melvin Upton Jr. (Nov 2008) OPS 2007-2010: .894 / .784 / .686 / .745
Matt Kemp (October 2012) OPS 2011-2014: .986 / .906 / .723 /.852
Luke Scott (July 2011) OPS 2010-2013: .902 / .703 / .724 / .721
Brian McCann (October 2012) OPS 2011-2014: .817 / .698 / .796 / .692
Scott Rolen (August 2005) OPS 2004-2007: 1.007 / .706 / .887 / .729
I legitimately thought the guy had no pride, no shame. I thought he figured he got paid, his contract is guaranteed, and now he can just shut it down for the rest of his career. He'd have to endure the embarrassment of coming to spring training every year for ridicule but he'd just laugh all the way to the bank.
“My family. My baby. I want to play eight more years to show my son, so he can see his dad play growing up.
At least he found something to play for, I guess.
Watching the Sox-Phils game and Pablo just hit a homer from the left side. Also, he definitely looks fat to me.
Have you noticed how enthusiastic Lyons and Caron are about his defense? To me, it's been barely adequate, but I'm still hoping for improvement.
He is fat, he has always been fat, he will always be fat. The question is "how fat?". And the answer apparently is, not too fat to start a nifty DP. I'll take it.
There's fat and there's FAT with this guy. The clip with him falling down rounding first with the big piece of chocolate cake enticing him, or him sitting down to the huge sundae could be brought in here. Those were FAT times for him, but a piece on NESN today showed him making some nice plays at 3B, and just fat. We'll see. Most controversial Red Sox since ever?
I think they're being given talking points. He's made a couple nice plays, but he's also made some big mistakes. They're acting like he's going to win a GG this year.
Pablo's defense at 3B and Travis's defense at 1B were some of the lowlights from the past week of ST.
Thanks. I'd seen it, just posted in the wrong thread. Not in regular season posting form I guess.
Have to say I saw Pablo hit two homers and I was encouraged, then watching the video what stands out is how fat he is. I thought he looked better a month ago.
You may not like it, but this is what he looked like in his productive years with the Giants. Exception was in 2011 when he came to camp in great shape after Bochy benched him for most of the 2010 post season. That shape didn't last though. What you see is what you get (hopefully he doesn't blow back up to 270 - 280, which is the other exception). Ah, why didn't they just go out and get Nolan Arenado instead.
Just because I was interested and maybe someone else is, that's Burgess's 1967 card, when he was 40 years old. Baseball Almanac says he was 187 pounds. !
Fahrenheit or Celsius?
I first read that blurb about Smoky B. in the Great American Baseball Card . . . Book more than 40 years ago when I got it as a birthday present. That one and one about Hector Lopez have stuck with me like lines from Jaws or Animal House. (But I will probably get lost on the way home tonight).
Interesting piece (Jon Heyman) on Sandoval turn around, left agent and falling out with brother to get better.
https://www.fanragsports.com/mlb/red-sox/heyman-pablo-sandoval-sheds-personal-problems-pounds/
https://www.fanragsports.com/mlb/red-sox/heyman-pablo-sandoval-sheds-personal-problems-pounds/
It's difficult not to read that signature as anything other than "Smoky Burgers".
Back to Pablo, he blasted his 5th homer of the spring today. He's hitting .350 and raking everything. A return to form seems entirely possible.
He had a 3% BB rate and nearly 20% K rate this spring, and piled up a lot of ABs by staying into spring games longer (thus likely against inferior competition). His HR rate for his career is 2.9%, and this spring it was 8.1%. While I agree that he looks good when he is connecting with the ball, I worry that his luck seems fluky right now and that his contact rates are worse than ever...