Twins out, Red Sox in on Pierzynski

[ILMOU]

I'd say so. I would be comfortable with it

 

Yes, and yes. Make it happen.

[greg775]

Very disappointing we moved away from the AJ era so fricking early!! Boston the Bill James team realizes AJ is special. Just very disappointing we elected to go away from AJ and lose, oh, 99 games or so. Really ticks me off. Flowers was so bad it's laughable. Hope Phegs has what it takes.

[SCCWS]

I'd say so. I would be comfortable with it

 

I would not be comfortable. Salty is one of the worse catchers defensively in baseball. His throws on attempted steals go everywhere but to the guy covering. He is supposedly good at working with pitchers. Lets not forget he lost his starting position in the playoffs to a .225 hitter in Ross.

Edited December 3, 2013 by SCCWS

[lasttriptotulsa]

Very disappointing we moved away from the AJ era so fricking early!! Boston the Bill James team realizes AJ is special. Just very disappointing we elected to go away from AJ and lose, oh, 99 games or so. Really ticks me off. Flowers was so bad it's laughable. Hope Phegs has what it takes.

 

What's laughable is the fact that you think the loss of AJ is the reason the Sox lost 99 games. You put the blame on guys like Flowers, but completely deflect all blame from Konerko who was more responsible for the Sox suckage than Flowers was. Honestly at this point you're just trolling right? I mean you have to be, nobody could possibly be that clueless.

Edited December 3, 2013 by lasttriptotulsa

[greg775]

Some of you guys that want Salty for 3 years over a catcher like AJP amaze me. I worship AJ but I do not want Salty. I'd prefer Flowers/Phegs over that guy as we storm past 90 losses again. It's pretty obvious Paulie is coming back. This team hasn't made enough moves yet to show it wants to match its excellent pitching staff with a good team behind it.

 

Anyhow ... please, no Salty!

[greg775]

What's laughable is the fact that you think the loss of AJ is the reason the Sox lost 99 games. You put the blame on guys like Flowers, but completely deflect all blame from Konerko who was more responsible for the Sox suckage than Flowers was. Honestly at this point you're just trolling right? I mean you have to be, nobody could possibly be that clueless.

 

I'm not trolling, I'm very angry that a team with Bill James as an adviser (admitted the best sabes talent evaluator) recognizes the value of an AJP and people on this board who actually got a WS title in large part because of AJP think Salty is a better option. Geez. I get the feeling some think AJ is some old hack who can't play, when he WAS A MAJOR LOSS to our team last season.

[Eminor3rd]

I'm not trolling, I'm very angry that a team with Bill James as an adviser (admitted the best sabes talent evaluator) recognizes the value of an AJP and people on this board who actually got a WS title in large part because of AJP think Salty is a better option. Geez. I get the feeling some think AJ is some old hack who can't play, when he WAS A MAJOR LOSS to our team last season.

 

Greg, his talent has nothing to do with it at all. We all like AJ, he's a decent player -- but our team blows and we needmore than a stopgap solution at C. The Red Sox, on the other hand, JUST won the world series and needed to replace a lefty platoon catcher to compete again next year. The deal makes sense for them, not us -- and it has nothing to do with disagreeing on AJ having value.

[lasttriptotulsa]

I'm not trolling, I'm very angry that a team with Bill James as an adviser (admitted the best sabes talent evaluator) recognizes the value of an AJP and people on this board who actually got a WS title in large part because of AJP think Salty is a better option. Geez. I get the feeling some think AJ is some old hack who can't play, when he WAS A MAJOR LOSS to our team last season.

 

Phegley and Flowers combined for a -.6 bWAR last year. Pierzynski had a 1.6 bWAR. But you're right, we should have kept him, paid him $7 million and lost 97 games instead of 99. That would have done us a lot of good.

[cabiness42]

I'm not trolling, I'm very angry that a team with Bill James as an adviser (admitted the best sabes talent evaluator) recognizes the value of an AJP and people on this board who actually got a WS title in large part because of AJP think Salty is a better option. Geez. I get the feeling some think AJ is some old hack who can't play, when he WAS A MAJOR LOSS to our team last season.

 

Nobody thinks that AJ is an old hack who can't play, no does anybody dispute that AJ is better than just about any other available option for 2014. What you're failing to see is that the current team is far away from being competitive in 2014 and spending money on any player AJ's age is foolish right now.

 

I guess a better way to look at it is that in almost every case, it's really stupid for a 63 win team to sign 37 year old players. Every dollar spent needs to go towards players who are going to help the team win in 2015-16.

 

Salty is a better option than AJ because Salty will be better than AJ in 2016, not because people think he will be better than AJ in 2014.

[hogan873]

Some of you guys that want Salty for 3 years over a catcher like AJP amaze me. I worship AJ but I do not want Salty. I'd prefer Flowers/Phegs over that guy as we storm past 90 losses again. It's pretty obvious Paulie is coming back. This team hasn't made enough moves yet to show it wants to match its excellent pitching staff with a good team behind it.

 

Anyhow ... please, no Salty!

 

 

I'm not trolling, I'm very angry that a team with Bill James as an adviser (admitted the best sabes talent evaluator) recognizes the value of an AJP and people on this board who actually got a WS title in large part because of AJP think Salty is a better option. Geez. I get the feeling some think AJ is some old hack who can't play, when he WAS A MAJOR LOSS to our team last season.

Saltalamacchia may not be THE answer, but he's a better option than AJ right now. Salty is 28. AJ will be 37 soon. Pay AJ $8.5 million for a year and go through the circus of finding a catcher again next year or pay Salty $27 million over 3 years.

 

Look, I like AJ, too, but I'm also a realist. Stop talking about the World Series. That was over 8 years ago! AJ was 29 when he had a large part in the winning of the Series.

[greg775]

Phegley and Flowers combined for a -.6 bWAR last year. Pierzynski had a 1.6 bWAR. But you're right, we should have kept him, paid him $7 million and lost 97 games instead of 99. That would have done us a lot of good.

 

I'm sure the Red Sox are worried about AJP's bWAR paying him that kind of jack. They just know they want him cause he can play.

Grobstien had another rant against sabermetrics on the Score last night BTW. I can go both ways. Except I will tell you I know AJP is a good catcher/player/contributer without looking at bWAR. And I know some of our other players are horses*** by sight alone as well, sabes be darned.

[cabiness42]

I'm sure the Red Sox are worried about AJP's bWAR paying him that kind of jack. They just know they want him cause he can play.

Grobstien had another rant against sabermetrics on the Score last night BTW. I can go both ways. Except I will tell you I know AJP is a good catcher/player/contributer without looking at bWAR. And I know some of our other players are horses*** by sight alone as well, sabes be darned.

 

OK, forget bWAR or whatever for the moment. The 2014 Sox are still, at best, a 74 win team. Even if you think AJP is worth 7 wins (which is insane, but whatever), that still makes the 2014 Sox a .500 team and you've spent $8.5M just to suck a little bit less and still not have a catcher for 2015 and beyond.

[Harry Chappas]

Phegley and Flowers combined for a -.6 bWAR last year. Pierzynski had a 1.6 bWAR. But you're right, we should have kept him, paid him $7 million and lost 97 games instead of 99. That would have done us a lot of good.

 

TWTW

[greg775]

OK, forget bWAR or whatever for the moment. The 2014 Sox are still, at best, a 74 win team. Even if you think AJP is worth 7 wins (which is insane, but whatever), that still makes the 2014 Sox a .500 team and you've spent $8.5M just to suck a little bit less and still not have a catcher for 2015 and beyond.

 

You know what, I understand your argument when you tell me that even if I think AJ is worth 5-7 wins that still makes the Sox just a .500 team and we'd be better off looking down the road. I do understand that. My feeling is it all contributes to the puzzle. Add an AJP with a Garcia and an Abreu and maybe make another deal and get a decent 3B and another bullpen arm and we might have something now. We allegedly do have a very good pitching staff and are "wasting" it.

Adding Lobaton is very very depressing over AJ in my opinion even if AJ was here just one more year. I mean add a few pieces here and there and we don't waste the pitching staff possibly.

Adding Lobaton means our catching platoon looks like that of a cellar dwellar on paper. I want to upgrade positions and win. Chicago is too big a city to have teams in this rebuilding crap mode. Let's UPGRADE!

Edited December 3, 2013 by greg775

[cabiness42]

You know what, I understand your argument when you tell me that even if I think AJ is worth 5-7 wins that still makes the Sox a .500 team" and we'd be better off looking down the road. I do understand that. My feeling is it all contributes to the puzzle. Add an AJP with a Garcia and an Abreu and maybe make another deal and get a decent 3B and another bullpen arm and we might have something now. We allegedly do have a very good pitching staff and are "wasting" it.

Adding Lobaton is very very depressing over AJ in my opinion even if AJ was here just one more year.

 

Like I said earlier, if the other moves are already in place to make the Sox a competitive team and a 37 year old guy is the piece that puts you over the top that's fine, but you don't go spending $8.5M on the 37 year old guy first and then hope that you get the rest of the pieces.

[witesoxfan]

I'm sure the Red Sox are worried about AJP's bWAR paying him that kind of jack. They just know they want him cause he can play.

Grobstien had another rant against sabermetrics on the Score last night BTW. I can go both ways. Except I will tell you I know AJP is a good catcher/player/contributer without looking at bWAR. And I know some of our other players are horses*** by sight alone as well, sabes be darned.

 

I agree, I can see that AJ is a good player just the way that I saw that Erstad and Timo and Kotsay were good players too

[ILMOU]

Greg, his talent has nothing to do with it at all. We all like AJ, he's a decent player -- but our team blows and we needmore than a stopgap solution at C. The Red Sox, on the other hand, JUST won the world series and needed to replace a lefty platoon catcher to compete again next year. The deal makes sense for them, not us -- and it has nothing to do with disagreeing on AJ having value.

 

This, exactly. And the hate for Salty is just silly. He's not some loser who's never won before. He was benched in the WS because he was in a slump. Slumps happen, and managers have to go with their gut in short series.

 

He was good enough to have just played 119 games for the World Champions, and he brings the kind of on-base skills we severely need. He is much better in this regard than AJ ever was. His career caught stealing percentage is similar to AJ. But this isn't the most important fielding stat, especially for our pitching staff.

 

It has been discussed frequently in various recent articles that pitchers actions have much more to do with preventing stolen bases than catchers' actions. Any ardent fan of Hawk, or frequent listener to Hawk's telecasts knows this. Left handed pitchers, historically, are much, much better at preventing stolen bases than right handed pitchers, and our starting staff, with one caveat, is no exception. Danks, Quintana, and Santiago are all excellent in regards to very lower SB/inning and high CS%. Sale, because of a longish delivery time, is not, but overall we figure to be very good in this area, regardless of who is behind the dish. And we need Lexi to field catchers' throws closer to the bag, but I digress.

 

There was a statistic displayed a few years ago about AJ's CS% in his years with the Sox. No lie, it was something like 55% when MB56 was on the mound, and slightly below 20% for everybody else combined. That should tell a Buehrle fan what he should know already. Since AJ has likely caught more innings of Mark than any other pitcher, subtracting out those numbers would probably give Salty the slight nod. But that would be unfair - AJ also caught Gavin in '08 when he was the worst runner-holder in the game, so there's that

 

More important to our defensive needs at catcher, imo, is limiting the total of PB's and WP's - balls that get past the catcher. In this area, Salty is historically a bit better than AJ, with the anomaly of 2011, when I believe Salty was catching Wakefield. He's also slightly better than Flowers, and a lot better than Phegley, who is simply horrid in this area.

Edited December 3, 2013 by Stan Bahnsen

[Texsox]

AJ should have signed with the Bo Sox at any price they offered him. It is that good of a fit, and perfect for both. If the ChiSox (to avoid confusion) were even close to contending this would be a bad thing. I'd be happy to see AJ get another WS win.

[Quin]

LMAO at Greg citing Bill James and Sabermetrics for the Red Sox signing AJ.

 

Is greg now a statnik?

[Dick Allen]

This, exactly. And the hate for Salty is just silly. He's not some loser who's never won before. He was benched in the WS because he was in a slump. Slumps happen, and managers have to go with their gut in short series.

 

He was good enough to have just played 119 games for the World Champions, and he brings the kind of on-base skills we severely need. He is much better in this regard than AJ ever was. His career caught stealing percentage is similar to AJ. But this isn't the most important fielding stat, especially for our pitching staff.

 

It has been discussed frequently in various recent articles that pitchers actions have much more to do with preventing stolen bases than catchers' actions. Any ardent fan of Hawk, or frequent listener to Hawk's telecasts knows this. Left handed pitchers, historically, are much, much better at preventing stolen bases than right handed pitchers, and our starting staff, with one caveat, is no exception. Danks, Quintana, and Santiago are all excellent in regards to very lower SB/inning and high CS%. Sale, because of a longish delivery time, is not, but overall we figure to be very good in this area, regardless of who is behind the dish. And we need Lexi to field catchers' throws closer to the bag, but I digress.

 

There was a statistic displayed a few years ago about AJ's CS% in his years with the Sox. No lie, it was something like 55% when MB56 was on the mound, and slightly below 20% for everybody else combined. That should tell a Buehrle fan what he should know already. Since AJ has likely caught more innings of Mark than any other pitcher, subtracting out those numbers would probably give Salty the slight nod. But that would be unfair - AJ also caught Gavin in '08 when he was the worst runner-holder in the game, so there's that

 

More important to our defensive needs at catcher, imo, is limiting the total of PB's and WP's - balls that get past the catcher. In this area, Salty is historically a bit better than AJ, with the anomaly of 2011, when I believe Salty was catching Wakefield. He's also slightly better than Flowers, and a lot better than Phegley, who is simply horrid in this area.

How are his on base skills better than AJ's ever was, yet AJ has a higher career OBP? Am I missing something?

[Balta1701]

How are his on base skills better than AJ's ever was, yet AJ has a higher career OBP? Am I missing something?

Clearly the assumption with Salty everyone is making is that he's closer to the player he was last year than the guy who hit .228 from 2009 to 2012. But he got less than 1/2 as many PA's as AJ over that stretch and had an identical number of walks.

[Dick Allen]

Clearly the assumption with Salty everyone is making is that he's closer to the player he was last year than the guy who hit .228 from 2009 to 2012. But he got less than 1/2 as many PA's as AJ over that stretch and had an identical number of walks.

 

I would take a guy who hit .270 with a .270 obp over a guy who hit .220 with a .270 obp.

[Balta1701]

I would take a guy who hit .270 with a .270 obp over a guy who hit .220 with a .270 obp.

Last year AJ hit .272 with a .297 OBP. Last year, Salty hit .273 with a .338 OBP. If I also note that Salty outslugged AJ...well then.

 

It all comes down to whether you think Salty's last year was a career year or whether you think that's actually who he is.

[ILMOU]

How are his on base skills better than AJ's ever was, yet AJ has a higher career OBP? Am I missing something?

 

Recent sample, Ok, but his '13 OBP of .338 was higher than any AJ year with the Sox. I was thinking of Jaso for the OBP actually , but Salty's OPS increase last year is encouraging - high BABIP in '13, but better line drive and lower pop-up rates, from what I read, so maybe not luck. Some folks think he was "lucky", some think he has figured something out. Maybe he was juicing in a contract year, for all I know. I'm in a gambling mood, and the Lobotomy (pre-coined nickname for Lobaton when he makes his 1st major Sox goof) upside isn't thrilling me.

Edited December 3, 2013 by Stan Bahnsen

[coco1997]

Billy Beane is wheelin' and dealin' right now. Maybe now would be a good time for Hahn to try for Jaso.