JoeCarter

If they had an award for % of "good at-bats", Pedroia wins it going away imo. Noticed it earlier in the season. Always goes up there with a plan. Changes approach along with the count. Ultimate gamer. Intense as fk. Still hope he steps on a rusty nail and gets tetanus. But every team in baseball should want a guy like that.

*Shaw not hannigan:) p.s. does MLB have rules about those oven mitts baserunners like Pillar wear to protect their fingers on slides? An extra 3 inches on a bang-bang steal attempt seems...not ok.

Seriously. One of those pitches to *Shaw should have ended up in the seats.

Who else would rather see Biagini in the 8th than Grilli?

You are correct. Rule 5.09((6): Runner is out if "he or the next base is tagged before he touches the next base, after he has been forced to advance by reason of the batter becoming a runner" - http://mlb.mlb.com/mlb/downloads/y2015/official_baseball_rules.pdf You may also be interest to know that a runner will be called out if "after he has acquired legal possession of a base, he runs the bases in reverse order for the purpose of confusing the defense or making a travesty of the game."

You might be correct but....I'm not so sure. Can he be tagged out standing on a base even if there's a ground ball? I truly don't know...once of those plays I've never seen in 30 yrs of watching BB.

Actually, we haven't heard an explanation of the rule yet: if Young stays on first (or makes it back to 1st, as was the case) is he out if Smoak tags him? Or is the only way to turn that DP (if Young is standing on the 1st base bag) with a force throw to 2nd (and then a relay back to 1st)? If he can't be tagged out while standing on the bag then f***, great heads-up play from Young.

JFC Smoak, you're finding new ways to be terrible. And no, Buck & Pat, that was NOT great baserunning by Young. Much better to dig for 2nd and hope Jays f*** up the 3-6-3 DP than hoping for Smoak to make a retarded mental mistake. Jeez.

"If calls are confirmed or overturned, the technician will then forward the decisive angle to the stadium so that it can be shown on the scoreboard as well as on the television broadcasts. To further add transparency and fan-friendliness, a written explanation of the decision will be posted on MLB.com. Uh...does this actually happen in practice? I know this article was written 3 years ago at the very beginning of the replay system, so maybe this is how they once ENVISIONED it would work in a perfect world...but not once have I seen a broadcast where i heard broadcasters say "so THIS is the angle NY tells us they used to overturn it"...i've only heard them scratch their heads wondering if NYC had an angle that they didn't.

Does anyone know / have an article that explains re: replay - what actually happens once the umps put the headsets on? - Are there ONE or MULTIPLE replay officials back in NYC who huddle to discuss, and if there are more than 1, is there a 'vote' amongst them? - Do the on-field umps have ANY input after they put on the headsets? Like do they converse with the video officials saying things like "well, what I saw was X, and I made my call b/c Y, so be sure you look at Z"? Or do they just shut up and let the booth officials tell them what they saw?

1) that was like quickest overturned call ever; gonna assume they had obvious conclusive evidence but fk would be nice if SN would actually show it - did Fox show it? 2) Even if he was called safe, terrible decision by Travis to run. Terrible. Terrible.

I'll be more pissed off if they bring back Saunders than if they DON'T bring back Edwin. That's not recency bias, I've been ragging on him since we acquired him (taking considerable flak from most of my friends earlier in the year.) Saunders is a barely rosterable 4th outfielder. Always has been. Had a flukey good first half (thanks .377 BABIP!) He's better than his gross 2nd half #'s (FU .232 BABIP), but not by much. Look, he's a lifetime .237 hitter over an injury-plagued career that's consisted of just 4 full season's worth of games. He was marginably better than replacement value when he was younger due to providing adequate defense, but if you've watched any games this year you know he's just awful out there now: slow, takes terrible lines to balls, misplays galore. And sorry, at almost 30, he's not gonna get better in the field. Oh, but it's cool because he's Canadian. OMG JUST LIKE US!!!!!!!!! Some poor team out there will probably throw him 4/$50M. Please let it not be us.

Silver lining: w/ Tigers + Orioles playing each other, we're still guaranteed to be in a Wild Card slot at the end of this series.

For the last time, Martin's injured. He's not playing today. Stop being dumb and asking for a 1-legged catcher who we need down the stretch.

Estrada's command not good at all, but honestly consider that in the first 3 innings: - Saunders badly misplays a single allowing Pedroia to score - Navarro lazy on blocking a ball in the dirt, allowing Bradley to advance to 2B and then score on a single. - Pedroia's hard ground ball gets by Travis only b/c he was off-balance from feigning runner - Estrada completely forgetting to back up a throw home a Little Leaguer would know to do - Upton takes terrible line on a line drive and lets it drop for a single. - Ramirez hits what should be a pop-up that drops in no man's land b/c Edwin + Saunders suck on D. - Donaldson flat-out drops a pick-off throw that had Betts dead to rights. - Upton with worst error of the year. Yeah, Estrada looked terrible and needed to get yanked, but the clown car of mistakes and mental mistakes in the first 3 innings alone has been truly disgusting. Just inexcusably bad.

WTF Estrada - a little leaguer knows to back up the throw home. Bailed out by dumb baserunning no excuse.

Lulz, you're talking about "pipelines" when 75% of their offense is cheap, controllable, and penciled into their starting lineup through 2020? K.

Sox young core + ages + year of free agency Bogaerts (SS), 23.9, 2020 Moncada (2B, eventually), 21.3, 2023 Shaw (3B), 26.3, 2022 Leon ©, 27.5, 2020 Holt (INF/OF), 28.2, 2020 Betts (RF), 23.9, 2021 Bradley Jr (CF), 26.4, 2021 Benintendi (LF), 22.1, 2023 I mean what in the actual fugg. Young, cheap talent + willingness to overpay for established superstars. Who cares if they've got question marks on the mound - they have at least 3 more years of good Price, Pomeranz is a good SP3 and cheap through 2019, and they'll just buy the rest. The AL East is basically F'd for the next 4 years.

While it's a defeatist way to consider the question, the way I think about it is this: who could I "stand" losing with? i.e. Which guy(s) would I not have any misgivings about having started, even if he goes out there and gets lit up? For me that quickly narrows it down to Stroman or Sanchez. Start either of those guys and I'll live with the result, without second guessing whether I gave the ball to the right guy. And God bless Estrada / Happ for what they've given us this year -- we don't even sniff the playoffs without them, knock on wood -- but with Marco's wonky back and Happ's peripherals not being as impressive as his W-L, I don't think I could stomach the thought of a bad start from one of those 2 guys being the last memory of our 2016 season. I give it to Stro.

I watched the clip a dozen times, and took some slow-mo screen-caps. You be the judge. You can get a pretty good look at the moment the ball impacts 1B's glove, captured in pic below. Given angle of Saunders' foot and the fact that ball would have touched the inside-back of the glove a few microseconds before the bulge is visible from the back of the glove...you know what? If I were being impartial, I'd tell you that I think it's more likely than not that he was out. But That's. Not. The. Standard. required to overturn a call on the field. That video angle isn't "clear and convincing" by any native English speaker's standard.

Those are ballpark #'s that I'd tend to agree with in approx terms based on what I've seen. And that's a big problem. Why? Because the rules governing baseball replay say that "in the absence of “clear and convincing evidence” the original ruling should stand." 'Clear and convincing' is, unsurprisingly, not defined. But while the Saunders play is close (in real-time i thought he was out), there is absolutely no way that the angle on mlb.com meets a reasonable understanding of "clear and convincing." There just isn't.

ps Has anyone heard of any methods being discussed to automate calls at 1st base. It's one of the most frequently-challenged calls, but also one with very few variables that we honestly should be able to solve within a few years max: 1) Measuring when a runners foot hits the bag seems like child's play: some type of motion/impact sensor I'm sure we already have the technology for. 2) Judging when a ball impacts the back of a first baseman's glove is a little trickier, but I can't imagine is all that difficult; perhaps some kind of Smart insert sewn into the glove with some kind of NFC tech that syncs with the data from the base sensor. Remember: it doesn't have to be perfect to be a massive leap forward in accuracy (and gameplay time-savings) over our comically limited real-time eyesight judgments. I honestly wouldn't be surprised to see automated calls at 1B implemented before computerized balls/strikes.

When I brought up the following with some sports-watching friends, I was surprised with how quickly they all were to agree: it seems like the standard for conclusiveness is measurably lower in baseball replay than in football. In the NFL, fans have become accustomed to calls only getting overturned if there's an angle that shows with virtual certainty that the on-field call is wrong. "Pretty sure" is never good enough. I can only recall a tiny # of plays where something was overturned when we didn't have something that a reasonable non-partisan fan would consider conclusive. (And in those plays, I typically assumed the video replay booth may have had angles the TV cameras didn't...though that may not be the case.) Baseball's standard for conclusiveness is just all over the map. We've seen a DOZEN+ calls this year get upheld against the Jays when the evidence pointed very strongly to the wrong call having been made. I'm not necessarily saying the NFL has it right and MLB has it wrong...I think there's even a rather strong case you could make that video review officials should use a 'more likely than not' standard. But the standard needs to be clearly stated and consistently applied, which it currently is not. Not even close.

Thought he was out in real-time, surprised called safe. But there's absolutely no way in effing hell that was CONCLUSIVE on replay. There just isn't. Jays have time and again this season had calls upheld against them when there was far more favorable evidence than that.

I'm beyond sick of our offense making every damn AAAA pitcher look like Sandy MF'ing Koufax.