chw42

Need a deep enough fly ball from Pollock here.

It's almost like a Nick Swisher effect. When you're going well and you do that, fine. But if you're not really earning your paycheck and showboating on every hit, it might irk some people.

Harrison high stepping into 2nd while hitting under .200 just feels kind of wrong.

I think so.

Fucking Isbel

Melendez looks like he'll be a decent hitter. His power in AAA last year was insane.

My proposal is to have Grandal catch the first 6-7 innings of a game and have McGuire catch the rest.

The ball boy was right in the middle of that play lol

He had a lower wRC+ in 2020 in 45 PAs.

Isbel is annoying as hell.

Leury got robbed, but if you're the bottom of the order, you can't be getting out in 1-2 pitches per AB. At least take some damn pitches.

Way to pitch around the double. Dylan probably has to pitch backwards to these guys. They're looking to swing early in the count.

Merrifield hit this one a lot harder than the one last night.

Maybe don't throw first pitch fastball every AB Dylan.

Benintendi made a nice play.

Not a good start for Dylan.

It's almost the exact opposite of last season. Last year we won by blowing teams out, but blew a lot of close games. This year, we don't blow anyone out and only win close games. Our run differential was really good last year because of our blowout wins, but that didn't exactly translate to playoff success.

You got me intrigued enough to look. Here's all the situations this year with a runner on third and how Liam threw his pitches. I'll also list who was catching at the time. I know this is a small sample and a very specific situation (also, I don't think I want to sift through more data than this at 1 AM), but I think the results kind of speak for themselves. 5/14 vs. NYY - 12 pitches, all fastballs. Grandal catching. 4/8 at DET - 9 pitches, all fastballs. Grandal catching. 4/16 vs. TBR - 9 pitches, 6 fastballs, 1 curveball, 2 sliders. McGuire catching. 4/24 at MIN - 4 pitches, 4 fastballs. Grandal catching. 5/7 at BOS - 4 pitches, 3 fastballs, 1 slider. Grandal catching. 4/13 vs. SEA - 2 pitches, all fastballs. Grandal catching. 5/9 vs. CLE - 1 pitch, 1 fastball. McGuire catching. Final count: Grandal - 31 pitches with a man on 3rd base, 30 fastballs, 1 slider. McGuire - 10 pitches with a man on 3rd base, 7 fastballs, 1 curveball, 2 sliders. FWIW, Hendriks with men off base, Liam throws 63% fastballs, 25% sliders, and 12% curve. With men on base, it goes to 76% fastballs, 14% sliders, 10% curve. With RISP, it goes to 81% fastballs, 11% slider, 9% curve. With a man on 3rd, it's 90% fastballs, 3% slider, 2% curve. I think the fact that Grandal has called 1 breaking pitch all season with a man on third speaks volumes about just how little confidence they have in him blocking pitches in the dirt. It's only 31 pitches, but these are all very high leverage pitches. You're basically telling opposing hitters to only expect fastball when there's a guy 90 feet away from scoring. McGuire's sample probably isn't big enough to make any real judgements on, but his ratio of pitches is much closer to what Liam's career numbers are with a man on third. I think this is a lot more telling of what the Sox think of Grandal as a defensive catcher right now.

Yeah his change up got a lot of whiffs in that game I linked up there.

I couldn't find a lot of information on the guy. His stuff seems better than it was just a year ago. You can see his pitches here: https://baseballsavant.mlb.com/gamefeed?gamePk=666242. This was his only start in Charlotte where they had Statcast. Fastball got all the way up to 96, sat close to 94. Throws his fastball about half the time, change up 25%, curveball 20% of the time, slider 5%. He also has a cutter and sinker but he rarely threw them. I think if he can exhibit some command he should do alright. His stuff seems better than Jimmy Lambert's.

FWIW, his defensive metrics the last 2 years have not been good cause his framing has gone back to more or less neutral. He lived off his framing with the Brewers. That's what the advanced metrics loved about his defense. The most annoying thing about him has to be the fact that he's bad at blocking pitches in the dirt and has issues catching the ball on tag plays at home. Liam threw nothing but fastballs with a runner on 3rd last Saturday. He didn't throw a breaking pitch until the bases were empty. That should tell you all about how much Yaz/Liam trust Yaz's ability to block breaking pitches. You could live with the boneheaded plays and the bad pitch calling when he's hitting like he usually does. But when he's got a .500 OPS, the bad defense really stands out.

1. No way Grandal calls for that many curves 2. No way Grandal blocks all of them.

Liam's curve is so much better this year.

It's been like this for a while. He's just not as good with guys on base. I think it's cause pitchers go after him differently with men on and his approach doesn't work as well.

We have 2 super utility players and TLR still doesn't play them correctly.