Running Red Sox thread

Yankees-Sox, one-game playoff at Fenway, Oct. 1.

 

Really? So these are blanket statements? Mickey Mantle was benched and sent back down in 1951, how'd that turn out? A-Rod was called up for about 20 games in 1994, and was the backup in 1995. 1996 he won the batting title.

Now, I'll admit those two were 19 and 20 years old when this happened. Mo Vaughn came out of Seton Hall and was called up to Boston the next season. 1991, he shit the bed was demoted back to Pawtucket, sat on the bench some too. 1995 he was AL MVP, and became the heart and soul on the most pressure packed baseball team in America.

Not saying some guys haven't been screwed up by getting benched or "cut bait" as you call it, but it sure as hell isn't an automatic career killer.

Owned.

 

Good Lord. You can't even understand the difference between benching him and sending him down. Young guys need to play to prove that they can make it in the majors.

 

Vaughn batted .260 with four homers and 32 RBIs in 74 games in 1991. Not fabulous numbers, but not really shitting the bed either, especially for a 23-year-old rook. Carlos Quintana was pretty much entrenched at first that year, so it made sense to give Vaughn every day at-bats at Pawtucket. THis year's team is a lot deeper and more talented than the 1991 squad (obvious, I know), so Boston this year could more afford to let someone like Pedroia take his lumps in the bigs than it could with Vaughn in 1991.

 

just got tickets to see the pawsox July 8 at Frontier Field in rochester. crossing my fingers that Buccholz gets promoted before then and pitches that day. 12 rows up the homeplate side of the visitors dugout. At the very least, I should be able to see Craig Hansen get shelled.

 

By writing "even worse", you are implying that seding a young player back down is awful also. But then you said I can't tell the difference between seding a player down or benching him/ making him the backup?

So, A-Rod played in about 50 games in 1995. He played in about 40 something in Triple A. I'm going to assume he didn't ride the bench in PCL, so he "wasn't playing every day" while on the ML roster. First ballot Hall of Famer?

 

Curt, the stopper. 1-0, one hit, beautiful. Kind of like Clemens twenty years and 50 pounds ago.

 

Correction. Vaughn was a first round pick in 1990. July 1991 he had three homers in his first ten games, I was at Fenway the day after the third. "MO!!! MO!!! MO!!" Pretty cool. Only hit one more in the next fifty or so.

Mo started the 1992 season hitting .185 through April/early May (sound familiar?) and was sent to Pawtucket. He came back up and pulled his numbers up for the remainder of the season.

The ultimate surprise looking at his career has to be the 11 steals during his MVP year.

 

There are exceptions to every rule.

The fact is that Dustin started to produce and is now playing pretty well. And your approach most likely would not have resulted in that.

 

The sky is blue.

Have at it.