It wasn't much of a secret. He was a free agent who batted from the left hand side.JimD said:I'd love to see what Carmine spit out that convinced Ben and his braintrust that they absolutely had to sign this guy.
It wasn't much of a secret. He was a free agent who batted from the left hand side.JimD said:I'd love to see what Carmine spit out that convinced Ben and his braintrust that they absolutely had to sign this guy.
JimD said:I'd love to see what Carmine spit out that convinced Ben and his braintrust that they absolutely had to sign this guy.
MLB Free agent 3Bmen:
Third Basemen
Joaquin Arias (31)
Mike Aviles (35)
Gordon Beckham (29)
Willie Bloomquist (38)
Kevin Frandsen (34)
David Freese (33)
Jonathan Herrera (31)
Maicer Izturis (35) – $3MM club option with a $1MM buyout
Don Kelly (36)
Jeff Keppinger (36)
Casey McGehee (32)
Aramis Ramirez (38)
Sean Rodriguez (31)
Juan Uribe (37)
I believe the next two years have a weak 3B market. And if the sox had a near ready 3B prospect in the minors I doubt they sign panda and go for a stopgap. (Similar to drew)Lars The Wanderer said:It is true there weren't many options, but it used to be that the Sox established a dollar value on a player and refused to go over that amount. It was definitely the reason they gave during the Lester negotiations. I guess the question is, did the Sox value Pablo at 5/95?
Pandemonium67 said:
edit to add: The scenario we're moving toward in a year or so may be HR at DH and Panda at 1b. This might not be bad at all.
Pandemonium67 said:They figured (apparently incorrectly) that HR would be adequate defensively while helping reverse the pathetic offensive showing from their outfielders last year. Given this year's disappointing hitting, it's easy to forget just what a giant black hole of suck last year's offense was, particularly in the outfield. HR was signed to address that.
I think the long-range plans were for Panda and HR, in some combination, to take over at DH when Papi moved on. The hope was to see what happened in these two years -- was HR adequate or a liability in LF? was Panda's weight limiting him at 3b? -- and assign the DH role accordingly.
I don't think it's a bad plan, it's just that HR has been a virtual disaster in the field and every one of the power bats have underperformed to some extent.
FTR, I do think the offense will come around. I think Naps will be traded or axed, but Papi, Panda and HR will all have good second halves if they're healthy.
edit to add: The scenario we're moving toward in a year or so may be HR at DH and Panda at 1b. This might not be bad at all.
FanSinceBoggs said:I think this is a non-issue. Sandoval shouldn’t have done it, it was a mistake, but a minor one and he apologized. It’ll be blown way out of proportion by the media. I think Sandoval was a good signing by the Red Sox. It is worth noting that the best organization in baseball--the Giants--were willing to resign Sandoval for similar years and money.
I'm more concerned about Castillo. The Red Sox invested 72 million in him and is he anything more than a 4th OF? John Farrell doesn't seem to have any confidence in him, he either doesn't play Castillo or he bats him low in the order (if the Red Sox aren't going to play Castillo they should send him back to AAA). His approach at the plate leaves something to be desired. He has tools, but is he a quality major league hitter or are we looking at a sunk cost?
The Red Sox are adamant about not spending 200 million on a stud pitcher like Max Scherzer, but then foolishly blow money on players like Castillo and Masterson, not to mention grossly overpaying on Porcello's contract, taking on Craig's contract (although, he could have a comeback season in 2016), and signing Hanley, a player without a position. Investing 200 million dollars in a 30 year old stud pitcher seems like a better idea.
There's no reason to think they abandoned or exceeded their valuations in signing Sandoval. All reports at the time were that both the Giants and Padres had offers on the table in the same neighborhood as the Red Sox. I think I remember rumors that one of the offers was higher.Lars The Wanderer said:It is true there weren't many options, but it used to be that the Sox established a dollar value on a player and refused to go over that amount. It was definitely the reason they gave during the Lester negotiations. I guess the question is, did the Sox value Pablo at 5/95?
An email from Henry or Lucchino?JimD said:I'd love to see what Carmine spit out that convinced Ben and his braintrust that they absolutely had to sign this guy.
judyb said:Is it possible that getting hit on the knee is what messed up his fielding? Because I remember thinking he seemed okay before then.
soxhop411 said:time to change the thread title
Michael Silverman @MikeSilvermanBB 9m9 minutes ago
Sandoval left clubhouse in a walking boot. Without comment.
They'll rehab it by moving the buffet further away from where he sits...derekson said:
Somehow I feel like he isn't going to get any thinner if he's off of his feet for a few weeks...
So, if two people jump off the Golden Gate Bridge, we should follow?Red(s)HawksFan said:There's no reason to think they abandoned or exceeded their valuations in signing Sandoval. All reports at the time were that both the Giants and Padres had offers on the table in the same neighborhood as the Red Sox. I think I remember rumors that one of the offers was higher.
So if they were wrong, they weren't alone.
jscola85 said:Sandoval's bat is not the problem. He's been a bit worse than advertised thus far in that regard but another hot week or two and he could easily normalize to his typical 110-115 wRC+ range. The problem is his defense has been an abject disaster. It's not just the errors - his range rating looks like an atrocity per UZR and the eye test suggests the same. Don't know if it is weight or decline in athleticism or effort but he's definitely not covering much territory on the hot corner. His UZR/150 is almost unfathomably bad at this point. For a guy who has been a career net positive defensively (+2.3 per season according to Fangraphs), that is a swing I don't think any projection model could have predicted. 28 year olds, even rotund ones, don't fall off a cliff like that out of nowhere. Hopefully this suggests its at least partly some random variance / bad luck.
Thelobsterroll said:I think I recall Remy mention that since he was benched for a few days he has been batting 391. Wouldn't that indicate he has come around?
I don't wish badly on anyone's career, but the Giants are to be commended for moving quickly to DFA Casey McGehee, whom they brought in to replace Sandoval for the start of the year. McGehee was doing a poor job hitting, fielding and baserunning, and got hurt, giving Duffy his chance in a sort of micro-Wally Pipp thing. Duffy looks like he'll be superior to McGehee in all phases of the game. It is still early with Duffy and note that he has yet to play a single game in AAA. He came up from AA Richmond last year when the Giants had already had to use about five guys at second base.gaelgirl said:From the local CSN Bay Area anchor:
Ahmed Fareed @AhmedFareedCSN 13m13 minutes ago
Pablo Sandoval: .279/.329/.416 - $17.6M
Matt Duffy: .291/.340/.429 - $0.5M
9:25 PM - 23 Jun 2015 · Details
The Giants are very, very high on Matt Duffy at the moment. He's had a nice start to the season. Sometimes the answer comes from a very unexpected source. I don't think the Giants predicted that their backup second baseman would become their very good starting third baseman before the All-Star break.
As for Pablo, I think he'll come around a bit. He's always been streaky. I suspect the Red Sox are going to be a lot more critical of his body and conditioning, though. At this point, I think they have to be. He's never really demonstrated an ability to manage this himself for any meaningful length of time.
Al Zarilla said:I don't wish badly on anyone's career, but the Giants are to be commended for moving quickly to DFA Casey McGehee, whom they brought in to replace Sandoval for the start of the year. McGehee was doing a poor job hitting, fielding and baserunning, and got hurt, giving Duffy his chance in a sort of micro-Wally Pipp thing. Duffy looks like he'll be superior to McGehee in all phases of the game. It is still early with Duffy and note that he has yet to play a single game in AAA. He came up from AA Richmond last year when the Giants had already had to use about five guys at second base.
McGehee is back on the team and gets an occasional start and pinch hits. But what you say is true. They'd probably rather be using the McGehee money elsewhere.Smiling Joe Hesketh said:
Plus that above tweet re: Duffy is totally misleading, since they're also paying McGahee $4.8 million NOT to play 3B for them while Duffy plays there. So they're really out $5.3 million for 3B, not 500K.
The point still holds for the Giants in that they're paying a lot less to get similar production at third, but details kinda matter.
soxhop411 said:More at the link
pdub said:Oddly enough, Panda has been playing offensively the way I expected him to. He's currently at a .736OPS, I was always expecting something in the .725-.790 range. Its just his defense that has taken a huge dive, though I suppose that has to do with his surge in weight. Was never a fan of the signing but I hope he can rebound defensively.
In 81 games at 3rd base this season, Pablo has already committed 12 errors, one more than he did all of last season in 151 games.
...
Between May 31st and June 12th, a total of nine games, Pablo picked up exactly half of his current errors. Before and after that defensive conflagration, Sandoval has been extremely steady. From April 25 to May 30th, he did not commit a single error, and between June 13th and July 17th, he only committed the single error noted above.
JimBoSox9 said:
One thing that we don't look at enough with defense is clustering, even though we do it a ton for hitting with hot/cold streaks. Especially when narrowed down to looking at errors, this is a pretty discrete data set and it's not overwhelming to get down to the data point level if needed. From the link abs posted:
6 errors in 9 games is an extreme outlier that's spiking his defensive numbers, and his other 'rough' period was his introduction to playing regularly in AL stadiums. It was about 10 days prior to that when he got drilled in the knee. While the timing overlap isn't perfect, there's a lot of noise there. He's also been a little unlucky in the timing of his errors, it seems like every one has been a killer, and that impacts perception. A dispassionate look at the full run of play to date really doesn't support the notion of a defensive 'huge dive'.
BosRedSox5 said:
So playing in AL stadiums hurt his defensive abilities? The batter is still ~90 feet away and hitting the ball from home plate right? That must be why it's so difficult to judge a prospect's defensive ability. "Well, sure he looks like a great shortstop in the International League, but the AL has a whole different set of infields with different dirt and different grass lengths. There's no telling how he'll adjust!"
BosRedSox5 said:Counting stats might have limited value, but the number of errors he's made in the number of games he's played in relation to last year seems to indicate he's making a higher number of mistakes than he previously has. Right?
absintheofmalaise said:How about some Panda love. Cuzittt writes about Sandoval on the .com today.
I dunno, I don't see the word "range" mentioned in the article. Why are we only looking at errors?soxfan121 said:
This is some good context.
absintheofmalaise said:How about some Panda love. Cuzittt writes about Sandoval on the .com today.
JimBoSox9 said:
Yes, it may shock you to find that infields are different, infielders are picky about the details, and switching home parks and leagues can come along with a learning curve, just the same as for pitchers and outfielders. Crazy, rite?
What I take from the article is that what was once a switch-hitter who stayed healthy and played solid defense has become a lefty hitter who might be adequate lefty-on-lefty and whose defense falls apart when he gets hurt, which will happen more frequently as he gets heavier and older.absintheofmalaise said:How about some Panda love. Cuzittt writes about Sandoval on the .com today.
Lars The Wanderer said:If anything, leaving AT&T Park should have given Pablo a bump offensively. The Giants play in probably the worst hitting environment in baseball.
soxfan121 said:
Not right. Context matters. And counting stats in any context are useless.
This is some good context.
Toe Nash said:I dunno, I don't see the word "range" mentioned in the article. Why are we only looking at errors?
According to his admittedly-SSS UZR, the portion based on errors is just 1 run below average, while his range is 11 runs below average.
Whether or not that is predictive remains to be seen. But the problem really isn't the errors, though those have been annoying.
Edit: Was asked for clarification. UZR provides a value JUST based on errors (balls that the player fielded) and a value just based on range (which assigns negative credit for balls missed that the "average" player would get to and positive credit for balls fielded that the "average" player wouldn't get to). They describe it this way:
"With UZR, if a fielder makes an out, and the UZR engine estimates that it was a difficult ball to field (and turn into an out) by an average fielder at that position, then the fielder will get more credit than if the UZR engine determined that it was an easy ball to field. Likewise, if a batted ball drops for a hit, a fielder will get more negative credit if UZR determined that it was an easy ball to field (for that fielding position) and less negative credit if it was a difficult ball to field. If a fielder makes an error, UZR automatically assumes that it was a relatively easy ball to field, since that is presumably the definition of an error in the first place, so there is no need to incorporate the speed and location of the batted ball and other factors that can influence how difficult a batted ball is to field. In other words, in UZR, errors are treated as balls that are normally fielded by that fielder and that fielder only (the one who made the error), 95% of the time, or whatever the average error rate is for that position and that type of ball"
As noted, Panda's error rate isn't too far below average, and so UZR's translation into a run value gives him just 1 run below average due to errors. But UZR's batted ball data thinks that he is getting to far fewer balls than the average third baseman, and is dinging him a lot (11 runs) for it. Roughly, this fits with the eye test and it's misleading to not consider range when discussing a player's defense as it's usually far more important.
Or when he's in the upper part of his weight swings (broken record). This is worse, because he gets fatter more often than he gets hurt.nattysez said:What I take from the article is that what was once a switch-hitter who stayed healthy and played solid defense has become a lefty hitter who might be adequate lefty-on-lefty and whose defense falls apart when he gets hurt, which will happen more frequently as he gets heavier and older.
I'm not sure I see the case for much optimism there.