Random Musings, Red Sox Style…

More bullet points!

*I know the Sox have the best record in baseball.  And maybe this alone gives Manager Alex Cora some leeway to “experiment”, if you will.  Because don’t you get the feeling he is doing that sometimes?

Well, other than with Blake Swihart…but we will chat about him in more detail later.

A couple of recent examples here.  Robby Scott has been buried in the minors all year.  He had options remaining.  But he isn’t very good either.  Cora brought him into a tie game last week in the eighth inning…when the rest of the “good” relievers were rested and available.  Scott promptly hit a guy and walked another.  Next thing you know, the game is lost.

Xander Bogaerts hurts a finger and for depth (and since the Sox were carrying 13 pitchers and only 12 position players), the team brings up Tzu-Wei Lin from Pawtucket.  Cora sticks Lin in the leadoff spot and Tzu-Wei promptly goes 0-4 with 2 K’s.  Oh, and Lin didn’t hit in his first go around here this year.  And…wait, he was at .299 in the minors?  A couple of weeks ago he was around .214.  Ok, so maybe he got hot.  But that doesn’t always translate to the majors of course.  Leadoff?!

I don’t know, sometimes it seems Cora is pulling stuff out of his arse like this often.  Like Brock Holt batting fifth in the same game as Lin hitting leadoff.  Just hope it doesn’t cost the team a game and then they lose the division by that game and as a result have to play in the Wild Card game.

*That all being said, I can’t say I have too many complaints about Cora overall this season.  Seems to be doing a pretty good job.  Of course, the league stinks.  But still…

*If there is anyone in the organization to complain about, it may be Dave Dombrowski.  The cupboard is bare in the minor leagues.  How are they going to get reinforcements for this stretch run?

Listen, I know guys like Chris Sale and Craig Kimbrel are here because prospects were dealt to get them.  I also know that a proven major league player is better than a random prospect.  Many of these much-ballyhooed Red Sox prospects over the years end up being garbage.  Some are dealt before they become that.  Unfortunately, many have stayed in the Sox’ system too long and become garbage before they are moved.  But I’ll take a proven stud over a question mark most days of the week.

But damn, there appears to be less than zero left!  Their two best prospects are Jay Groome and Michael Chavis.  Groome had Tommy John surgery and Chavis got popped for PEDs.

So who is next?  Rusney Castillo?  Ugh…you just don’t hear any names for real prospects in the Sox’ system.  Does anyone have value?

I imagine we will find out over the next month or so leading up to the trading deadline.

*As for Castillo, I agree with some of the local talk radio hosts…Rusney deserves another chance in the bigs.  Well, “deserve” may be a strong word.  But have you seen the OPS’s in this lineup?

Jackie Bradley Jr., .581, Eduardo Nunez, .634, Christian Vazquez, .538…and on and on.

Can Rusney be worse?  And they are paying him like 11 mil this year anyway.  Bring him up and see what happens.

I don’t care if Bradley had three hits Sunday and Tuesday.  He has been abysmal.  And apparently has options remaining.  Yeah, the team has been winning and he plays great defense.  But enough is enough already.  Send him down to find his swing.  If he can.  I’ve said it before and will say it again:  He should have been dealt after his “All-Star” season in 2016.  Didn’t we know that’s the best we were going to get?  And that he is so damn streaky, it could only go downhill from there?  I did.  Sorry.  I did.

*If the Sox won’t bring up Castillo because they don’t want his contract to count against the luxury tax, which is what some believe, then do something else.  I say that something else is to play Blake Swihart every day for 3-4 weeks and give him a chance to get going.  Sure, his OPS of .388 is worse than everyone.  But I suppose that can happen when you are given a mere 80 plate appearances in 79 games up to this point.  While also being asked to play positions you’ve rarely played before.

I have no idea if this kid can play in the major leagues.  I have no idea why I seem to like him and really want him to play.  Perhaps because the Sox have kind of ruined his career by jerking him around?  Specifically in 2016, when he is the Opening Day catcher, drops a couple of foul balls in like the first 8 games, then they panic and dispatch him to Pawtucket (while also bringing up Vazquez, who missed the entire 2015 season due to Tommy John surgery and clearly wasn’t ready to be back in the bigs at that point).  Then bring him back up later in the year and shoehorn him in the outfield and he busts his ankle in the summer.

This year, Cora says he wants Blake to be like Marwin Gonzalez…play all over the diamond and get close to 500 AB’s.  Yup…hasn’t happened.  In fact, Cora started him at catcher in one game then kind of blamed him for the pitch selection after the game.  Yup, that’s why Jalen Beeks got hammered.  Maybe he shouldn’t have given Blake the start behind the plate for the first time this year with a kid making his major league debut on the mound?

Or maybe my affinity for Blake is not to become another highly touted Sox prospect that has stayed in the organization too long and is eventually exposed and found to have no value.  Like…

*Brian Johnson!  His ship has sailed now that he is 27 years of age.  The last guy on the staff.  On top of that, clearly does not pitch well as a bullpen guy.  Maybe he wouldn’t as a regular rotation guy either.  But why bother?  Let him go to another team.

*And…Henry Owens!  Did you know Owens was completely out of baseball for a couple of weeks in May?  Me neither.  This guy was once “can’t miss”.  Boy did he miss…

*We covered Hanley a while back.  I was happy he was gone and that hasn’t changed.  But now with all this stuff coming out about him allegedly having major drug connections and all that, he has returned as a popular topic on the airwaves.  “With the Sox looking for a right-handed bat that can hit lefties, if this proves to be nothing, why wouldn’t they just re-sign him?” and “I don’t like the Sox releasing someone because of the money (if he got enough at-bats to vest his 2019 option)”…blah, blah, blah.

Hanley has not been good for most of his career here.  And not the greatest guy to have around, drug connections or no drug connections.  So please stop it!  They should have done everything they could to make sure that option didn’t vest.  It was stupid to play him every day right at the beginning of the season.

Let’s not all pretend we loved Hanley and NEED his bat.  For most of his tenure here it was “what bat?”.

*Joe Castiglione…we love you, man.  You’ve had a nice career.  But…I don’t know.  Sometimes I just can’t listen anymore.  Last week against the Twins, he was pointing out a fact that the Twins catchers had 17 RBI’s for the year.  And was seemingly surprised that the number could be so low.  Ummmmm, at the time, the Sox catchers had combined for 19 RBI’s on the year.  Just sayin’…

*I leave you with this:  With the Sox having some key contracts expire after 2018 & 2019, as well as some of their younger players due for big raises through the arbitration process.  Not to mention that barren farm system again.  My question is this:  Is it time to start taking offers on one Xander Bogaerts?  One more year of arbitration, then free agency after 2019.  Scott Boras as his agent.  A career that hasn’t taken off as many expected.

X has been decent.  But does the team break the bank to keep him under the circumstances?  Especially with the pitching staff in total flux over the next few years and no one coming from the farm?  And Mookie being due after 2020 on top of that?

I’m investigating this.  Are you?

Random Musings…

Time for that bullet point format again:

*Following up on the NBA draft…the Boston Celtics did exactly what I thought they would do.  Nothing.  But this may be a good thing.  Some dude named Robert Williams fell to them.  Is this good?  I don’t know.  But the pundits seem to like it.

He is 6’10” and is apparently a “rim runner”…there are new terms coming out every day, folks.  But he is also apparently a “rim protector”.  A term of which I am familiar with.  Never actually heard “rim runner” before.  But maybe I’m just stupid and it has been around forever.  Entirely possible.

In any event, he’s someone who can defend the basket but also score around the basket.  So they say.  After his freshman year at Texas A&M, he was supposedly a pretty good lottery pick but decided to stay his sophomore year.  Then, he was still supposedly a pretty good lottery pick but dropped to #27.

Maybe doing stuff like oversleeping introductory conference calls and the like had something to do with the plummet.  Hopefully, it’s as simple as that anyway.

In classic Jay Bilas-speak, Williams has great length and a tremendous wingspan.

Ok, enough of all that crap.  The way I see it, if Williams can play defense around the basket and REBOUND, then we would be all jacked and pumped about him.  If he kept Aron Baynes off the 2018-19 squad, we would be ecstatic.  But we will see.  Brad Stevens will probably have him working on his three-point game this offseason.

In any event, it looks like the C’s got someone out of the draft that could be at the very least a rotational player.  Hard to argue with that at the end of the first round.

*Aside:  There are 60 people drafted in each NBA draft.  How many of those “make it”?  15-20?  Half?  Not that many.  Add in some undrafted guys and you get a few more.

How did the draft used to be like 8 rounds?  With fewer teams in the league?  This has always confounded me.

*One dude who WASN’T drafted was LiAngelo Ball.  My heart breaks.  I wonder how LaVar really feels?  I mean, that was a solid Foot Locker “One and Done” commercial, wasn’t it?  Sigh…

*Speaking of undrafted dudes…we present you:  Brad Wanamaker!!  Seven years in Europe and now apparently heading to the Celtics.  No idea, so don’t even ask.

But so much for the C’s going into next season with all the band coming back together (plus Williams) I am still not ruling out a major move.  But wouldn’t shock me if there were many minor ones.  A lot may depend on if Marcus Smart is back in the fold.  I believe this will happen.  But of course, there is a chance some team blows things right out of the water with a huge offer to him.  We all know there are a lot of stupid teams out there…in every sport.

*As for the other draft we wrote on last, the Boston Bruins did exactly what I thought they would do as well…draft a bunch of guys that no one has ever heard of.  And we will maybe or maybe not see some of them in 2 to 5 years.  I think I’ll leave my comments at that.  Since I have nothing else to say.

*In more positive news, the John Tavares talk has not quieted down.  He is apparently meeting with the B’s at some point.  I still see this whole union far-fetched.  But the longer it goes on, perhaps not?

The cap has increased and supposedly they would have room as the roster currently stands to actually sign Tavares to a deal.  Of course, they still need pieces, so players would still have to go.  But this is a positive development as far as I can tell.  I thought with all the bloated contracts the Bruins are carrying that they would no way in hell have space for a big-time addition.  Not to mention the fact that I doubted Don Sweeney would go after a megastar, but that’s beside the point.

I still don’t have any idea how in the hell they will be able to move guys like David Krejci, David Backes and Torey Krug (if they wish) with their no-trade and no-movement clauses.  I’ll let them figure that out on their own time though.

What a development that would be however if Tavares somehow actually came to town.  Again, I don’t see it.  But that just may be because I don’t want to get my hopes up.

*Thank God the NFL is kind of “off” for a while now.  I don’t want to hear any more of Tom Brady and Rob Gronkowski.  Gronk may be the greatest to ever play tight end in the history of the NFL.  Brady may be the best ever period.  But shut up about having fun.  5 championships under the Bill Belichick regime is not fun?  Tired of hearing about it.

It will be interesting to see how Brady does this upcoming year.  1.  He doesn’t have a threat to his job to help motivate him.  2.  He has skipped all voluntary work this offseason, which he does not typically do.  And therefore he has not established connections with the new receivers and backs like he had always pledged was very important.  3.  He is 41.  There simply is no evidence of quarterbacks succeeding much at or beyond this age.  Like it or not when we all talk about his age.  It has to be factored in.

Personally?  I think Brady will be fine.  Maybe it will take some work to build some rapport with some of the receivers.  But I’m convinced he’s doing the work he needs to do to be physically ready for the season.  Same with Gronk.  As much as Alex Guerrero appears to be a slimy dude, he got Gronk to stay healthy for an entire season last year.  THAT happens once every blue moon.  And Brady’s game was obviously MVP level last year.  Would he really fall that precipitously?  Doubtful…even at his age.

2019 though at 42?  I’m not making any guarantees.  That’s why I would have kept and franchised Jimmy Garoppolo last year, played him wherever possible this season and pretty much give him the keys to the operation next season.  But maybe that’s why I’m not in an NFL front office.  Actually, there are several reasons.  But we don’t need to go through those here.

*Speaking of “tired of hearing about it”, I’m not sure I want to relive Deflategate with this Julian Edelman appeal.  Jules is ready to battle to the end.  And probably eventually lose and serve the four games anyway.  Bud, you took something.  Everyone does.  You got caught.  Please take the penalty and save us all the nonsense.  Please…

Next:  Random musings, Red Sox style…

Draft Musings…

…NBA AND NHL!  Nice…although is there really a ton of interest in the NHL draft?  I don’t know…

But since the NBA draft is like an hour away, let’s start there.

The Boston Celtics have the 27th pick.  Quite a change from previous years where they had the #3, #3 and #6 picks in three of the last four years.  #16 in the other still is better than #27.  The players?  Jayson Tatum, Jaylen Brown, Marcus Smart and Terry Rozier, respectively, in the order of the above list.  Not a bad haul.

#27 doesn’t really excite me…or anyone else really.  But hey, Kyle Kuzma went #27 last year.  So maybe there is hope.

In any event, what do I expect “Trader Danny” Ainge to do?

Actually, nothing.

I know, there have been a gazillion rumors out there the past couple of weeks.  Ranging from Danny moving up in the draft by “only” giving up Rozier, Marcus Morris and all 4 (potential) first round picks in 2019.  To involving Jaylen Brown in a trade to move up.  To moving Brown as part of a package to San Antonio for Kawhi Leonard.  To trading Kyrie Irving to just about anywhere because of questions of Kyrie’s commitment to re-signing in Boston after next season.  And many more.

So I expect the C’s to stand pat at #27, or even possibly trade down and get more picks.  Gotta love second rounders!!

BUT…what do I WANT them to do?  Not exactly sure.  We here at the Blowhard love a good “splash”.  But I don’t want that “splash” to involve Tatum, Brown or Gordon Hayward.  Although, despite Danny’s reputation on trading anyone if the deal is right, I wouldn’t expect him to do so with Hayward regardless.  Gordo signed here the last offseason as a free agent, more than likely in large part due to his college coach, Brad Stevens, being in charge here.  Then he plays 5 minutes the whole year while suffering a major injury and then Ainge deals him?  I doubt it.  Then again, Danny traded Isaiah Thomas with his bum hip, after IT helped breathe some life back into basketball in the city and had a LARGE fan base.  Though…different circumstances, I will allow.

I would be ecstatic if someone overpaid for Rozier.  I like the guy, but we’ve been through this before.  I look at Terry as no more than a third guard.  He probably looks at himself as a max contract player.  This will eventually be a problem.  Not to mention that if Kyrie does indeed play for the C’s next season and then Smart also comes back, how many minutes is Rozier going to get?  That could be a problem as well.  Trade him while the value is high…and maybe highest it will ever be.  Here, for sure anyway.

I wouldn’t mind trading Morris either.  Not sure you will get much for him.  And although he will be cheap next year at 5.375 mil, what happens when he doesn’t get his minutes next season as well?  This guy is liable to go off the deep end.  Never know with him.

Now, I am not packaging Morris and Rozier to move up from #27 to say, #15.  But I am sure Ainge has investigated some options.

And I don’t necessarily want to trade them regardless either.  Especially since Rozier is cheap too, at a shade over 3 mil for next season.  But I am investigating realistic options for trades.  And also considering that these two players are going into the last season of their respective contracts.  And if everyone comes back, their minutes (and therefore, their value) will markedly decrease.  And you ain’t re-signing either after next year to a fat contract that they will likely demand…unless some things change (ie:  Kyrie actually does leave).

That being said, I am not opposed to bringing the whole gang back next season.  With everyone healthy, can they compete for a title?  I think so, while also adding a few minor bench tweaks.

The problem is, I strongly believe there is another shoe to drop with Ainge.  I really do think he has one more big move up his sleeve.  It may not be tonight.  But I believe it is coming.

Kyrie?  Sure, if he says he is taking off somewhere after this season.  Absolutely in that case.  We all understand why he isn’t re-upping this offseason.  But he is noncommittal on his future.  Now, that could be because he has a few screws loose (the Earth is flat?).  No one knows what he is saying privately.  Hopefully, Danny does know.

Kawhi?  I don’t know.  He has the one year left on his contract too.  How last year went down with him individually seems a little mysterious.  I doubt he would re-sign here, but I guess I don’t know.  Worth the risk?  Not sure for me.

As usual, I think Danny’s big move will come out of nowhere.  Guess we just have to wait.

So please stay tuned…

As for the Boston Bruins, not sure the draft is anything exciting to talk about.  I mean, they don’t have a first-round pick.  And who knows anything about hockey first rounders anyway?

It’s not like the B’s have the #13, #14 & #15 picks like they had in the 2015 NHL draft.  Where they took D Jakub Zboril, LW Jake DeBrusk and RW Zachary Senyshyn.  Although DeBrusk may become a stud, that haul may end up being somewhat underwhelming.  Ok, the other two are still developing.  But let’s consider they are 2 of only 3 first rounders from that year that have yet to log a single minute of NHL action.  Let’s also consider that the dude that went #16, Mathew Barzal, just won the Calder Trophy last night as NHL Rookie of the Year.  Sigh…

In any event, rumors are that Don Sweeney wants to perhaps trade back up into the first round.  I don’t know.  They have enough kids in the pipeline, do they need to give up assets to get another?  Maybe if that prospect is in the top-5 and is a potential first pairing defenseman.  But otherwise, I am not sure it’s worth it.  And I don’t even think that the above scenario is realistic anyway.  Allegedly, the B’s had tried to trade those aforementioned 2015 picks into the top-5 that year and nab defenseman Noah Hanifan.  That clearly didn’t work.

What can Donnie Hockey do?  He can certainly trade some veteran assets, as discussed in the last Blowhard piece.  But good luck with that.  They all have some sort of no movement clauses it appears.

Heard a great rumor today.  Unload David Krejci and David Backes.  Then sign John Tavares to a mega deal.  And either Ilya Kovalchuk or Rick Nash to a shorter, but likely still lucrative, deal.

Pipe dream?  I think so.  Who is going to take Backes’ and Krejci’s salaries?  And they have no-movements.  They can be convinced to waive those?  Maybe there are certain teams they can be moved to, I honestly don’t know the details.  But getting rid of those two contracts would seem to be far-fetched.

Another popular one is now moving Torey Krug because the team just re-signed Matt Grzelcyk to a new deal and the two of them have similar skill sets.  Let’s not forget Krug has a full no-trade clause.  So how is that all going to work?

Sweeney should do something…even involving the draft.  But I simply do not see how he can pull it off.  We’ve been through all this in detail before too.

I’d be shocked to see anything come of certainly draft night for the B’s.  And even through free agency, other than losing some pieces and signing some small pieces to replace those players.

But then again, I don’t work in the front office for the B’s…there’s probably a good reason for that, I guess…