Ten years ago today, Marlins starter A.J. Burnett pitched a no-hitter against the Padres despite walking nine batters. Now a member of the Yankees' rotation, Burnett is off to a strong start after a disappointing 2010 season. Here's the latest on the Yankees' division rivals…
- Josh Rupe cleared waivers and was outrighted to Triple-A, according to Jeff Zrebiec of the Baltimore Sun. The Orioles designated the reliever for assignment on Tuesday.
- John Tomase of the Boston Herald notes that the Red Sox inquired about Jose Bautista during the offseason, only to hear that the Blue Jays weren't interested in moving him. Talks never went anywhere, as the Blue Jays were in the process of trading Vernon Wells and extending Bautista (on a deal that’s looking shrewd in the early going).
- John Lackey is in a major rut and he knows it, as Tomase writes. “Everything went wrong that could go wrong,” Lackey said of his start against the Blue Jays last night. “It’s pretty much the story of the whole damn year.”
- Don Connolly of the Baltimore Sun looks back at the 2008 trade that sent Erik Bedard to Seattle for Adam Jones, Chris Tillman and others and concludes that it was one of the top five deals in Orioles history, but not quite as good as it seemed a year or two ago.
- James Shields has re-emerged as a top pitcher and is pitching with a sense of purpose, according to ESPN.com's Jerry Crasnick, who spoke to the Rays right-hander about his 2011 success.
- In today's Insider-only blog post, ESPN's Buster Olney notes that Rays ace David Price is relying heavily on his fastball. Price threw 103 fastballs out of 112 pitches yesterday, though he averaged a season-high 95.3 mph with the pitch and threw it to both sides of the plate.
I dont like Lackey very much…Now that I think more about it, I do not like him at all!
I do feel bad for the guy, I think he was quoted saying ” Everything sucks in my life right now to be honest with you.”
Maybe they should give him some time off and bring in doubront. Give slackey some time to get his life together.
His wife has breast cancer
even more reason why he needs time off. he’s not mentally where he needs to be to pitch well.
Burnett > Lackey
Who cares??? The Jays beat up on both of them with regularity!
don’t taunt the play off teams
How does this add to the conversation?
It doesnt, that was supposed to be the point… Where is Burnett listed anywhere is this posing that a Yankee fan felt obligated to say that he was better than Lackey?
He is kinda mentioned in the heading paragraph, and they are in the same division. But it’s more like Burnett = Lackey.
I really didn’t like what Lackey said about Johnnymac. It may be true but you keep stuff like that to yourself.
EDIT:
This is what Lackey said about Johnnymac:
“Everybody has had success with him in the past. Let’s be honest,” Lackey said. “You can’t give up hits to him when you’ve got other guys in that lineup that can hurt you.”
I saw that too… and honestly Lackey thats shamefull
You got beat plain and simple, there is ZERO need to call out an imposing player. Its not like Johnny Mac is a hot dog who taunted him or walk around the bases during his trot.
Really didn’t like that, but he’s trying to grasp anything he can he goes down. Pathetic really. Worry about yourself and helping your team.
Whoa, whoa, whoa. McDonald may have had the aduacity to break the game open, but let’s not start saying he was imposing.
crap! lol
ofcourse I meant opposing..
Since I hate when I correct someone and then they edit their post I will leave it, give you a like, and accept defeat.
Boom! I win at context!
I cant believe I was had by a guy who has comment/like ratio such as yours! argghh
see what I did there? 😉
he’s wasn’t wrong, and i think he was actually intending to be self-critical there as opposed to critical of john. he’s just not a very thoughtful guy in his responses
same goes for showing up crawford last night on the ball he misplayed. yes, it should have been an out and crawford made the mistake. no, you don’t respond like a pissy little leaguer when that stuff happens – even though you happen to be pitching like a little leaguer that night
i think (and hope) lackey’s at rock bottom right now. doesn’t help his team and they’ve got to find a way to get his head on straight
What did he say?
excerpted from the article by Tomase
— Lackey managed to redefine ungracious by blasting the Jays’ John McDonald — who homered and knocked him from the game with a two-run double in the seventh — when asked about his previous success against the infielder.
“Everybody has had success with him in the past. Let’s be honest,” Lackey said. “You can’t give up hits to him when you’ve got other guys in that lineup that can hurt you.” —
Oh, thanks. Didn’t realize that link was to an article.
Yeah, he probably should have kept that to himself, even if it is the truth. He was probably so irritated at that point that it just came out.
Classless thing to say, but he’s not exactly wrong. The guy has a career OPS+ of 61.
Maybe Lackey should learn to pitch better haha.
true, but John Macdonald currently isn’t hurting his team.
He should worry about himself and trying to improve his own performance, absolutely no need to call out a classy good hard working player
just to reiterate, that comment was in all likelihood intended to be a criticism of himself (lackey)
i’m not excusing him; he should be called out for that comment. just saying his language command is as bad as his pitching command right now
Nothing can be as bad as Lackey on the mound right now. Although I suppose Lackey off the mound does merit a close second.
do you realize that is a direct challenge to daisuke matsuzaka’s honor
Dice-K is bad, but he has those gems like that one outing earlier this year, that makes you realize he probably COULD be better, and its more mental than physical. He’s more frustrating than Lackey, but personally I think Lackey is just consistently crappier.
lackey actually has a track record with more overall success and more recent success than daisuke; he has more upside going forward imo. bottom line though is that they are both borderline unwatchable right now without blood pressure meds
Good point on the track record. I guess it’s just that for me, it seems like Lackey has just aged overnight since 2009, and has lost his touch completely. Dice-K has always had this aura of “will he or won’t he?” and while it’s definitely stuck more on “won’t” than “will”, there’s always this lurking possibility to me. He’s not experienced quite as dramatic a change in stuff as Lackey has, he just can’t get it together mentally to USE his stuff.
Then again, maybe it’s Lackey’s tough personal issues at the moment that are weighing on his mind. Dunno anymore.
has only homered against Boston and Tampa so far this year…both were game winning RBIs…very terrible for a utility SS
Edit – McDonald had a .career .450 slugging PCT vs Lackey at the start of the game. It is now up to .522
I think Jose Bautista needs a drug test!!! Just saying this guy had power but cmon…
They all have been taking drug tests since 2004.
Well I think someone found a way to beat them.
Well that’s a childish conclusion.
Thinking there are no undetectable PEDs is more childish.
I would be surprised if Bautista is doping though.
That’s not what I think, it’s just sad to me that Mike is so desperate to find something wrong with Bautista that he starts making these baseless accusations.
I just suggested that after watching him for years. I mean here is a guy who has hit 16 HR’s as a high in a season up until last year. Then he bust out with 54? Maybe he just developed all of a sudden.
Excuse me? So HGH makes you go from an utility player to a guy that OPS 1300. Does HGH help Bautista have the most amazing batting eye in the league? If HGH turns you into the next Barry Bonds don’t you think EVERY PLAYER would be taking it and destroying like Bautista? Stop embarrassing yourself.
baseball-reference.com/players/b/bautijo02.shtml
No reason to even suggest such a thing would ever happen in MLB!!! I dont care if he is. I think it might as well be allowed because some players use it. However I think if your looking for it this guys stats alone put up a red flag.
No HGH would give you power… Which would lead to guys not wanting to pitch to you. It’s really not that hard to figure out. Like I said maybe he’s just a late bloomer. Which is fine because it gives me hope that Ronny Cedneo might start hitting 50 HR’s in a year or two!!!
have you even watched a Bautista at bat? Half the time pitchers don’t even want to pitch to him, half the time Bautista just lays off the real good pitches. He has an incredible batting eye.
plus look at all the power hitters that took PED’s they looked like they could crush someone’s head with their barehands. Bautista isn’t a big guy, he’s juts a damn good hitter.
It’s true, when u look at Barry Bonds on the pirates he was thin and athletic, when he was on the giants his head grew like 5 inches and he his body was huge, that’s steroids
u look at jbau when he was on the pirates he looks the same as he does now except now he has one of the sweetest swings in baseball
It wasn’t steroids it was Murphy the Magician
Rafael Palmeiro begs to differ
He did develop all of a sudden: In late August ’09 he reworked his swing.
Apr-Aug 09: 3HR in 83 games
Sep-Oct 09: 10HR in 30 games
Combine that with sustained excellence through 2010 and into 2011, and I think the reason is clear.
…you know, unless he took a metric ton of steroids over Labor Day weekend 2009 and gained 20 pounds of muscle mass and developed a hitters eye overnight.
Oh you mean like David Ortiz?
Or any big slugger of that era. Lets not get whiny and just pick the players we don’t like, now.
I think Dave Johnson took steroids in 1973 after Baltimore traded him to Atlanta. Went from 5 to 43 HRs….at age 30!! Never hit 20 HRs before in his career.
Not really. Drugs are a big business and beating drug tests is part of that. The way I understand it is there’s some steroids where there’s no test for.
That said, I do find it pointless to accuse a player of juicing without any evidence. Some players just need a minor adjustment to hitting.
Also, steroids only allow your muscles to heal at a much faster rate than the norm. Players gain HR power by exposing the benefits of the healing by working out much, much more. Everyone knows this, and everyone knows that’s how McGwire got so huge in such a short period of time.
Bautista is the same size as he was in 2009, give or take a few pounds. I can’t imagine the healing abilities of steroids alone can increase a man’s HR total from 16 to 54.
you are clearly ignorant. he is very obviously taking a newfangled steroid that makes your muscles ten times as powerful without increasing in mass
jose bautista was an inside job
“jose bautista was an inside job”
meme time
Damn, you found out. I shall endeavor to be more shrewd in my ignorance. *hangs head in shame*
🙂
Jose bautista found a pair of Roy Halladays underwear in a back room of the Rogers Center in August of 2009… He hasn’t taken them off since
They were game worn too.
He’s got a great baseball mind and a great baseball eye. He didn’t walk 100+ times last year because he’s on drugs or because people were pitching around him.
Yea he found that last year…
Hmmm….maybe there is a steroid for eyes…how else can you explain the dramatic increase in walks?
I’m tired of these clowns accusing Bautista of using PED’s.. Do you not think MLB has looked into this?? Take a look at video from his early days and from now. Take a look at his swing and look at the complete difference of it. If you want to go and throw pointless banter out there, at least have something to back it up.. Now like a good little troll, go and get a life.
Like I said he’s a late bloomer and I’m done arguing we will find out after his career… I can only judge a guy on watching him and I never claimed to be a scout. The Blue Jays have nothing to do with my team so I would have very little reason to Troll Blue Jay fans. Good day
you don’t have to be a scout to be able to read. if you were genuinely curious about bautista’s development as a hitter, google would have filled you with knowledge by now
what are you instead of genuinely curious, then? i will kick the list off with boring. stop talking about it until you read more
It is the beard…Lose the beard….Lose the power….THE POWER!!!!
people like you are pathetic to say the least,
you have no talent, so you see someone who was pretty much casted away as being not good, but then improving and thinking HEY WAIT A SEC, you can’t just get better with out cheating! Theres no possible way, so he must be a cheater!
Newsflash, get off your couch and stop being such a tool, good things happen to talented people who work hard for it. Just because your a bum don’t be such a hater.
Pathetic is acting tough over a computer!!!
who’s acting tough? just because you can’t handle the truth and I’m calling you out doesn’t mean I’m acting tough.
You’re the one making falls allegations based on being uneducated.
I guess I’ll do the same.
Hey everyone Mike Adamson of Pittsburgh, PA spends his saturday nights enjoying a good cry while watching a bevy of Meg Ryan movies.
Meg Ryan is super ugly. I’m enjoying this conversation though, carry on.
Oh wow, she went downhill hard. She used to be cute and I was coming in here to say that despite not being my ideal woman, I probably wouldn’t turn her down, but good god, she looks like an even more drugged out Courtney Love at this point.
I kinda spit out my coffee on that one.. kudos…
Just imagine if the Sox did get Bautista though. Bautista + Gonzo back to back would just be obnoxious. lol.
There’s a lot of question on that. It’s highly unlikely the Sox would’ve had the pieces to trade for both of them. Many of the best pieces we have left right now are guys who either weren’t valued highly a few months ago or weren’t eligible to be traded yet. It was probably one or the other, and as great as Bautista is playing right now, I think I’d choose Gonzo in the long term.
Gonzo is definately the choice if money is no issue. But if the Sox could of signed Bautista for the 5/64 deal that Toronto did, then I think it could be debated.
Price to value, yeah, Bautista’s got the edge if he continues producing, but I honestly doubt the Sox would’ve gotten him for that price.
Early, but so far 2011:
Gonzalez: 1.7 WAR, 6.7% Walk Rate, 17% K Rate, .237 ISO and .410 wOBA… also doesn’t play a premium postion
Bautista: 3.2 WAR, 24.6% Walk Rate, 19% K Rate, .410 ISO and .541 wOBA
Definitely is the wrong word.
Small sample size. Unquestionably, Bautista is having a better season, but on their careers, Gonzalez has been the more valuable player AND he’s younger. Most indications are that Gonzalez will probably be the better player going forward.
Bautista is outWARing Pujols right now, too. Would you choose Bautista over Pujols, though?
you know exactly what you are going to get from gonzalez, no one had any clue what to expect from bautista..
as much as you pay for performance you also pay for consistancy
Gonzalez is the much safer choice moving forward.
• Everyone is outWARing Pujols at the moment (double-u tee eff?).
• If Bautista somehow manages to finish the year with a 10+ WAR, I will cry because that performance still won’t get the Jays into the post season (he’s on pace for something like 17.2 WAR – *sniff*).
• The mention that Gonzo doesn’t play a premiere position in the previous comment is moot since RF isn’t one either.
• Bautista is benefitting from a very weird BABIP, considering he’s a flyball hitter. The fan in me wants to see it stay around the .343 it’s currently at, but common sense says that it will go back down, along with his wOBA.
“The mention that Gonzo doesn’t play a premiere position in the previous comment is moot since RF isn’t one either.”
Additionally, his defense at said non-premiere position is open for debate. He’s only played one full season in right so far and it was sub-par. He’s off to good numbers this year, but time will tell if he keeps it up.
pitchers have tried to adjust to gonzalez over like 5 years now. each time, he has adjusted to their adjustments with a vengeance. watching that guy perform is just impressive
maybe bautista will do the same. i hope so; he’s fun to watch. but we’re a little over a year into his breakout, and those adjustments haven’t happened much yet. i think all other things being equal he’s the riskier bet over the next 5-7 seasons
All 3 HR’s that he hit against the Jays were downright impressive..
Not that Bautista doesn’t hit impressive pitches, but they differentiate because Gonzalez hit 2 pitches, arguably all 3 that should have been ground outs to the infield or foul balls, he when opposite field with power on them, where as Bautista has a really good eyes at the plate and is able to wait for mistakes and hit them with power.
Essentially, Gonzalez can take a pitchers pitch and turn in to a HR. Which possibly a handful of players have done with his consitency
He’s been so scary with the bat the last few days. How some of those pitches are making it out of the infield, much less over the wall, has been mind boggling. I am very pleased to have this guy locked up, regardless of how this season turns out.
the most impressive (and exciting) thing to me is that he didn’t hit any more than like 5 balls hard to the opposite field for the first month of the season. that doesn’t sound impressive or exciting at first, i know, but because much of the enthusiasm about having him in boston was based on that ability of his and the green monster in left, a reporter actually asked him about it a few weeks into the season
he said that everyone pretty much knew the book on him was that he liked to hit the ball hard the other way, and that pitchers were going to be trying to get in on his hands to stop him. so he wanted to spend awhile at first proving that he could hurt them on inside pitches, and then start going the other way once they readjusted
now i didn’t know whether to believe him at the time. it sounded smart, but it could have just been a rationalization he invented rather than an authentic strategy, right? he hadn’t shown much power, maybe his shoulder was weak. who knows. but sure enough, the last two weeks he has not just begun hitting the ball the other way, but mashing it. 6 HR in the last 9 games while hitting over .375 — and as you saw, all three in toronto were to left field
i have nothing negative to say about bautista. the guy somehow surprises me every time i see him play. end of story. but when you combine all gonzalez’s natural ability with the hitting IQ i just described and the proven performance of the past 4+ years? yeah, hard to ask for more
No doubt, as a Jays fan as much as it stung to have this guy come in to the division, its exciting because he really is one of the premier hitters in the game… For too long he was in pitchers paradise and ya he put up some good numbers, but putting him not in the AL East, not too many places a pitcher could run and hide. Plain and simple I would just not pitch to the guy.
Like I said, as a Jays fan I can’t help but be amazed with Bautista and be excited to watch him play.. but as a betting man pre 2011 season, if you had to bet on one or the other, its no contest.
I don’t know many realistic Jays fans who would have predicted Bautistas start, but even a modest Red Sox fan could have predicted Gonzalez’s start.
Any idea where I can find this story? I haven’t heard anything about it and it sounds very interesting.
That said, the concept of “I want to lull them into a false sense of confidence and then BAM! the ol’ fork in the eye!” essentially being his hitting strategy is mind bogglingly awesome.
it was a televised pregame interview at the end of the first homestand at fenway and yeah, i was holding back my enthusiasm when he first said it because it seemed to good to be true. in the wake of manny, i am accustomed to my elite hitters appearing to be dumb as a rock
Manny may have been dumb as a rock, but I would’ve absolutely believed that statement from him. “They think they going to get ‘e ball by me on ‘e inside, but then I hit ‘e ball to ‘e big green wall and then they look very, very sad.”
“weening!”
Yeah but then they wouldn’t have had Buchholz or Ellsbury.
I like Buch and think he’ll progress to a MOR guy, but god would he get killed in Toronto.
I wish I could understand Boston’s season thus far. Sure, they were probably overhyped, but still. I’m a bit shocked as to how much they’ve struggled to find any sort of rhythm. What’s most frustrating is their inability to bat in runs; we’ve got tons of guys hitting, with Ellsbury, A-Gon, and Crawford all really heating up, but still leaving a bunch of guys on base. And then of course, the pitching is just all over the place. Disappointing is the best word to describe it.
You said it in the last sentence. The pitching outside of Lester and maybe Buckholz, is downright awful. you can score 7 runs a game but if you are giving up 8 runs, 3 out of every 5 starts, you arent going to win much.
And before anyone says it, I know those arent the Red Sox stats of runs scored vs ERA, just using it as a to illustrate my point. As of now, the Sox are 26th in ERA…
I’d agree with you on Lester, but Beckett has a 1.99 ERA right now. Buchholz hasn’t shown an inning of what he was last year.
Lester and Buchholz? Heh, someone isn’t paying as much attention as it seems. Buchholz has been consistently mediocre so far; while he hasn’t been blown out like Lackey or Dice-K yet, he’s also not really had a decent start yet either. Lester and -Beckett- may have been what you meant, as so far Josh as really been our best starter. And the relief corp hasn’t been helping much either, although you’re right to be putting the blame on the starters.
What bugs me though is there not really scoring as much as they should either..I just guess they’re all around playing badly.
Have you actually followed the Sox at all? This is a sincere question, not a dig. Beckett’s been an absolute beast this year:
2.97 FIP, 1.99 ERA 0.88 WHIP, averaging 6.5 innings per start. Outside of his debut, he’s been downright filthy. Now, his numbers are going to normalize, eventually, his BABIP is ridiculously low and his strand rate is ridiculously high. His K/9 is down a bit, too. Really, time will tell on him and it may be he’s been extraordinarily lucky, but with how sick his curve has looked, it’s just as possible he’s simply pitching to contact to solid results like Sabathia did last year.
Calm down everyone, I meant Beckett, not Buckholz. My bad… But the point of the pitching being their biggest issue still stands.
The mixup aside, saying the rest of their pitching’s “downright awful” is a pretty decent exaggeration too. Lackey’s been downright awful, but Buchholz and Matsuzaka have been average to mediocre (With some flashes of brilliance from Matsuzaka a few weeks ago).
Additionally, Bard and Papelbon have both been solid, Okajima’s been surprisingly good (Three runs in his first outing back up and only one since), Albers has been good, Hill’s been good in limited appearances, Aceves has been alright and Wakefield’s been passable out of the pen (One awful outing and a bad start have really hurt his numbers).
By and large, our pitching’s honestly not that bad, it’s been primarily dragged down by downright terrible performances by three guys: Lackey, Jenks and Wheeler. All told, our pitching staff’s been at least decent, but marred by a few bad eggs.
Yeah you’re right. JB’s been a beast all year. His BaBIP and LOB % are too high to sustain but he’s not beating himself why walking a ton and serving up hrs. He seems a lot more confident and aware of what he wants to do vs hitters.
He’s obviously going to regress a bit with that BABIP and strand rate, but even with a bit of regression, if he’s managed to reinvent himself as a finesse guy as he seems to have, I’ll be very pleased.
timing
sometimes good pitching performs badly. sometimes good hitting performs badly. teams hope these slumps are spread out enough that a balance is struck and games can still be won. that hasn’t happened for boston so far. add some bad luck in a few crucial situations (no more than the average team has) and you have an ugly record for a very good team
How does Lackey not have a negative WAR? (It’s 0.0)
ERA- 8.01
FIP- 5.31
xFIP- 5.59
BABIP- .329
GB rate 33.6%
K/9- 4.35
BB/9 – 4.12
K/BB- 1.06
HR/9 – 1.14
And I know before last night’s start, his WAR was 0.1
Meanwhile, Colby Lewis has a -0.3 WAR. His stats:
ERA- 4.57
FIP- 5.95
xFIP- 4.35
BABIP- .237
GB rate- 35.2%
K/9- 6.15
BB/9- 2.58
K/BB – 2.38
HR/9 – 2.38
Is WAR is soley based on FIP and HR/9, I don’t see how Lackey thusfar has been more “valuable” than Lewis. These are the only 2 stats Lackey leads Lewis in.
Pitchers fWAR takes FIP heavily into account (K, BB and HR rates combined). It also helps to know the formula for FIP:
xxHR + xxBB – xxSO ÷ IP = x.xx
The higher FIP that Lewis has makes the difference entirely. Pitcher’s WAR is pretty hard to take with a straight face anyway, since there’s so many inconsistancies.
I know the formula for FIP and I”m not a fan of it since it doesn’t penalize pitchers for hits (except HR). Yes a pitcher is not responsible for all hits he allows but a vast majority so. It’s fair to say not all hits are created equal, but I can say the same about walks and strikeouts because of the various umpires in the game.
FIP doesn’t purport to reflect performance independent of umpiring, so i don’t know why that’s even worth pointing out. it is specifically attempting to isolate pitching from fielding; the name should give that away
what work can you show or cite showing that a pitcher is responsible for “a vast majority” of the hits he surrenders? lots and lots of DIPS-theory work has been done
and if you hate FIP so much why aren’t you at least using tERA (i prefer
tRA or SIERA), which is available on the same site. tERA has lackey at
5.79 and lewis 5.70. there’s just really no reason at all to be appealing to ERA at this point
SMH, not again please!
I haven’t checked tERA or SIERA, so maybe I will start to. Thank you.
It’s definitely not the best formula to find the true value of a pitcher. If someone made a pitchers WAR with SIERA or tRA, I’d be ecstatic. I could be wrong, but I believe SIERA is only available at BPros. Just a heads up.
edit, posted in the wrong spot
You know the Miami Heat were really over hyped when they got Lebron and they stumbled out of the gate and everyone was laughing, and then they got really hot and then crushed everyone and eventually went on to the playoffs…..Just saying.
I thought of this too a couple of weeks ago. That’s why I am still not writing off the Sox, and as a Jays fan, this scares me.
with elsbury looking like he’s returning to form their offense is a beast
I mean, Gonz’s swing is just ridiculous like absolutely disgusting the way he goes opposite field, you literally cant pitch him anywhere
Once Crawford, pedroia and Youk get in to the mix they’ll be scoring 7 a game
Crawford’s actually been hot all month and and Youk’s got a respectable .850 OPS on the season (He’s getting on base at a .394 clip and slugging well, despite his low BA). Between Ortiz actually hitting well and the man, the myth, Jed “Williams” Lowrie, the Sox’s offensive problem is timely hitting.
hey .850 is great, but he’s OPS’d .950 or better 3 years in a row.
On a different team then the main 5 or so, the Adam Jones trade still boils my blood, he was in an interview at their spring training complex and then he told a reporter he had to fly to Baltimore to do a physical and the reporter said it all…”Please God don’t tell me they traded you Adam.” He shook it off and the next few days it was announced we have Bedard to be injured the next few years, this is another reason Bill Bavasi is a cancer to baseball.
And the Red Sox never had a chance to get Bautista, that is the most ridiculous thing I have ever heard, might as well of thrown the Cubs in there, everyone knew Bautista liked Toronto and Toronto liked him, what was the back and forth between Bautista and Toronto? Something like this “Hey want to play here for 5 years for 54 million?” “Well twist my arms you little rascals.”
that is easily the greatest negotiation scene i have ever read
Who said otherwise?
“Talks never went anywhere”
That seems pretty clear. It’s just that the Sox tried that’s notable.
Jose Bautista + Fenway=:o
he hits a lot of LD HR’s I think his HR count would be way down, but his 2B count way up
green monster would be in the way…lots of loud doubles and singles
with how hard he hits the ball they would prob bounce back to the infield and he’d get throw out at 1st by the SS
I think Fenway would be terrible for him. He hits tons of line drives homeruns instead of long towering homeruns and green monster would just get in the way of that.
Gotta say, re-signing Bautista looks like an absolute genius move from AA. I was skeptical of the signing when it happened simply because Bautista was unproven and I was expecting him to regress to 30-40 homeruns but it looks like he is getting even better and better.
“regress to 30-40 homeruns”
nice problem to have
If he did “regress” to 30-40 HR’s, he would still be worth $100 mil plus in the off season. $13mil is a steal for 30-40 HR
Josh Rupe made it through waivers? To be honest Diane, I’m surprised.
At least Lackey is owning up to it.