Pablo Sandoval has lost his starting role to Travis Shaw. Pablo will begin the season on the bench. Sandoval who struggled last season, arrived at camp at a less than ideal physical condition and has received a pretty relentless amount of criticism.
The debate has been swirling pretty much since Sandoval arrived at camp and immediately raised questions about his weight. The Red Sox went into spin control with owner John Henry even defending his third baseman’s shape by saying he came in with a 17 percent body fat ratio.
Sandoval’s underwhelming spring, including a sluggish performance at third base, opened the door for Shaw, who hit .474 with a 1.237 OPS in his first 14 games. Farrell was asked about the competition constantly and eventually acknowledged that the two were battling for the third base position.
Sandoval has had a fairly sub-par spring, especially for a guy who signed a 5 year, 95 Million contract.
He’s hit .244 with a .767 OPS in 43 plate appearances. He has two homers and six RBI. His defense, too, has been subpar. Sandoval committed four errors in his first 11 games. He also missed a couple of days with a sore back after injuring himself while diving for a ground ball.
The team is pointing to Sandoval’s terrible defense and limited range as the primary motivator toward his new role on the bench. With David Ortiz taking victory laps entrenched as the team’s DH, don’t expect Sandoval to get much action unless he can find a way to get back on the field.
Shaw, a 26 year old minor leaguer has hit .333 this spring with an OPS of .886 and offers above average defense at third.
Fan Interference 
i dunno. I am not a sandoval supporter as he made living in SF as an A’s fan a nightmare with all the “panda hats” fking everywhere. he has been a good to adequate defender his entire career. defensive numbers can fluctuate year to year.
this seems like an overreation.
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No! The sad panda is bad and he should feel bad and I hope he breaks his chair sitting on his useless ass and we just let the insurance company pay half his salary. Other than that. ..yay, the season starts next week!
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So, my Spring Training scouting report was on point. I’m waiting for a major league team to call any minute now. 😉
How much of a mistake was this signing?
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At the moment, he appears to be the worst deal in baseball.
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Don’t forget Rusny and Hanley. The Sox are on a roll!
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Ha, you’re not laughing at Rick Porcello now, are you?
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I hated the signing the day that they announced it! I beat you by a year. Hate that fat fucking fuck! And as others are saying. .Hanley, Rusny and the whole rotation is shit. I hope we’re going to win 82 games by a 14 to 11 score.
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But, but, Joe Kelly’s still gonna win that Cy Young, right? And, you’ve got Allen Craig somewhere.
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I won’t jump on the weight thing because he maintained a high level of production with the Giants at an above average BMI. Athletes come in a lot of shapes. However, the drop off in production is alarming. I liked Sandoval with the Giants. It’s the uniform he wears now that makes me wish for sub-optimal production. Nothing personal–conflict of interest with my rooting interest.
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The whole rotation? You got Price, although in a few years, you will be cursing that signing too.
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How much you bet his arm falls off this spring?
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He’s on my fantasy team. My fantasy pitchers never do that. I nurse them to health.
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That’s a gold-plated bench the Sox have there.
Seemed like an overpay at the time, but I didn’t expect it to go south quite so quickly.
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Castillo hitting below the Pete Kozma Line. Allen Craig officially assigned to minor league camp. And, the Sawks are over the lux tax line with the Price signing.
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Kozma!
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Oh, the additional fun part is that, by my calculations, they can’t trade him in a trade and eat more than 1/3 of his salary, because that would keep them above the lux tax line, counting league pension obligations, etc. that go into calculating where a team stands at in relation to $189M.
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