As good as Machado is there's always the question of how he will produce under pressure after playing in a relaxed atmosphere the last few years.
My opinion, the Red Sox are just taking advantage of the All Star Break to get Devers a bit of extra rest. Everything about this trip to the DL sounds precautionary to me. If it was later in the season or the Red Sox were battling for a playoff spot he'd probably be asked to play through it.
If history tells us anything, the path to redeption for any bad baseball team is marked with a deep rotation of durable starters, a world class defense in both infield and outfield, a lineup that can generate runs in more than one way, a bullpen that won't steal defeat from the jaws of victory, and a top end catcher to hold the whole package together. These are the conditions by which victory is achieved, anything that does not accomplish these objectives is a waste of resources.
“The louder he talked of his honor, the faster we counted our spoons.” -Ralph Waldo Emerson
"When you're dead, you don't know you're dead.
It's only difficult for other people.
It works the same way for stupid."
We are through with more than half the season and Devers has had time to develop at the plate and in the field. I see him still making throwing errors and chasing pitches. It mght do him good to get more seasoning in the minors to work on his weaknesses. If we had a Beltre, we might be able to try a development assignment on Devers as he doesn't seem to me to be making substantial improvement.
Devers is still a net plus. He's on the big club to stay.
Plus, we have no better options.
If DD can fix second base, there should be enough to chose from to mix and match at 3rd base from Devers, Nunez and Holt. Maybe Devers or Nunez gets hot like they did down the stretch last season. How has Phillips been developing in the minors. Is he almost ready to come up?
I'm not really concerned about Devers... maybe his defense, but it's mostly the throwing, which seems easier to fix.
Our highest need area is probably a top set-up man, then maybe 2B, but I'd be fine with just some really good pen help.
If our starters are still hurt by the dealine, maybe we look there.
Phillips is hitting .227 in AAA... if we're evaluating him as a prospect, NWIH he's ready yet. If they think all he needs is some live time to get back into the swing of things, we'll see I guess
The guy I've got my eye on right now in the minors is Michael Chavis. If he can shake the rust of his suspension off over the next couple weeks he could put himself in a position to become very useful very quickly
At the moment if there's a gap in the infield I'm all for giving Tzu-Wei Lin a good long look. He impressed me last year and I want some time to see if that was a mirage or not.
Last edited by Dojji; 07-22-2018 at 05:51 AM.
If history tells us anything, the path to redeption for any bad baseball team is marked with a deep rotation of durable starters, a world class defense in both infield and outfield, a lineup that can generate runs in more than one way, a bullpen that won't steal defeat from the jaws of victory, and a top end catcher to hold the whole package together. These are the conditions by which victory is achieved, anything that does not accomplish these objectives is a waste of resources.