Wait Till.....

[yeszir]

Originally posted by Old Hoss@Jun 25 2004, 12:42 AM
I truly hope that I'm wrong but this team doesn't appear to be any different from all the other Red Sox teams that have disappointed the fans in the past. They've just lost the last three series and it doesn't seem to bother them one bit. Must be nice to be millionaires..... :angry:

It is the same team as last year pretty much. The same one that really showed no emotion after losing you know what against you know who, except for Trot who killed that water cooler.

I guess they just have the little league "at least we had fun" mentality. Kevin Millar may be at fault here.

[Zenny]

Originally posted by yeszir+Jun 25 2004, 12:42 PM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td>QUOTE (yeszir @ Jun 25 2004, 12:42 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'> <!--QuoteBegin-Old Hoss@Jun 25 2004, 12:42 AM
I truly hope that I&#39;m wrong but this team doesn&#39;t appear to be any different from all the other Red Sox teams that have disappointed the fans in the past. They&#39;ve just lost the last three series and it doesn&#39;t seem to bother them one bit. Must be nice to be millionaires..... :angry:

It is the same team as last year pretty much. The same one that really showed no emotion after losing you know what against you know who, except for Trot who killed that water cooler.

I guess they just have the little league "at least we had fun" mentality. Kevin Millar may be at fault here. [/b][/quote]
That&#39;s why you gotta love Trot.

I am very disappointed in Millar this season, especially offensively. This really started about half way through last season, but he is pulling everything. You give him a fastball on the outside corner and he&#39;s going to turn it over to the shortstop. You give him a curveball or changeup in the same location and he&#39;s going to flail at it and miss. Varitek has also been a slouch at the plate. Popups, groundouts and K&#39;s have been his specialty so far this season.

[elsrbueno]

I agree. The big killer with Tek has been his performance with RISP.

It can be summed up in one word: "Pathetic."

[sarasoxfan]

"Sometimes, quite simply, it looks like they&#39;re coasting. Like they are going through the motions and biding their time. Like they expect to win just by showing up. "

I thought I&#39;d add this quote from the herald into the mix. I agree with most of you.

No clutch hitting, bad middle relief, poor managing.

UNfortunately, Francona is another in a series of nice guys that let the players manage themselves. The Cowboy Up theme highlighted by Kevin Millar, sounds silly when Millar is hitting like a Dallas Cowgirl.

I seem to remember feeling like this last year at some point last summer after a coiuple of horrible games in baltimore and Tampa...and that worked out.

Wouldnt lou pinella look good in the dugout?

[Tek04]

Varitek is the most important player on the team you fools, hes the number 1 priority, without someone like varitek behind the plate we&#39;d be in last place right now

[Zenny]

Originally posted by Tek04@Jun 26 2004, 12:51 PM
Varitek is the most important player on the team you fools, hes the number 1 priority, without someone like varitek behind the plate we&#39;d be in last place right now

Please, that is the most overrated excuse I have ever heard, not just from you, but from the media as well. All catchers have to prepare with their pitching staff, it&#39;s not like Varitek is some ingenious god who is developing this revolutionary method.

He doesn&#39;t hit with RISP, he doesn&#39;t have a career grand-slam (that&#39;s a little tid-bit for you), I have been seriously questioning some of the calls he has made behind the plate, he has stupid contract demands and we have a better, cheaper replacement waiting at AAA for next season.

The Sox might be in first if they had a better hitter with RISP and game-caller. I am fed up with Varitek. I&#39;ve never been a fan and I&#39;m glad to see he&#39;ll be gone after the season. We should save our money on real priorities.

[Tek04]

Originally posted by Zenny+Jun 26 2004, 01:08 PM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td>QUOTE (Zenny @ Jun 26 2004, 01:08 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'> <!--QuoteBegin-Tek04@Jun 26 2004, 12:51 PM
Varitek is the most important player on the team you fools, hes the number 1 priority, without someone like varitek behind the plate we&#39;d be in last place right now

Please, that is the most overrated excuse I have ever heard, not just from you, but from the media as well. All catchers have to prepare with their pitching staff, it&#39;s not like Varitek is some ingenious god who is developing this revolutionary method.

He doesn&#39;t hit with RISP, he doesn&#39;t have a career grand-slam (that&#39;s a little tid-bit for you), I have been seriously questioning some of the calls he has made behind the plate, he has stupid contract demands and we have a better, cheaper replacement waiting at AAA for next season.

The Sox might be in first if they had a better hitter with RISP and game-caller. I am fed up with Varitek. I&#39;ve never been a fan and I&#39;m glad to see he&#39;ll be gone after the season. We should save our money on real priorities. [/b][/quote]
ill say it again....varitek is the most important player on this team...hes the best at what he does...you can ask anybody who knows baseball that

[Tek04]

No career grand slams? who the hell cares...im sure if a team is looking at varitek they are not gonna say "hmm no grand slams, i dont want him now"

[Zenny]

Varitek is not the best at what he does. He has never won a Gold Glove and he&#39;s never been worthy of it. He&#39;s never lead major league catchers in any major offensive category either. He&#39;s a solid major league catcher, but to put him in Ausmus&#39;, Matheny&#39;s or I-Rod&#39;s league defensively is rediculous and to mention him as an offensive player like Piazza, I-Rod, Posada or even Victor Martinez is also way out of line.

I just watched that first inning and I seriously question a lot of the calls that he made behind the plate. In that Abreu at bat, all he did was throw outside. Bronson obviously wasn&#39;t spotting the outside fastball well, yet Tek made him throw three of them all for balls well off of the plate. Bronson didn&#39;t throw one changeup in that at bat, yet that is (or should be if Varitek was competent) his main weapon against left-handed hitters. He didn&#39;t throw one and it resulted in a walk. In the Rollins at bat, the Sox are lucky that Rollins isn&#39;t a strong guy, because any of the other left-handers in that line-up would&#39;ve sent that offering into the bullpen.

As far as the grand slam comment, that was to emphasize his inability to hit with RISP. He&#39;s never done it in the past and he&#39;s not going to start doing it this season.

If you would take Varitek over Manny, Trot, Ortiz, Pedro, Foulke, Nomar or Schilling, I think I need to question your knowledge of baseball, not you of mine like you did two posts back.

[noonanberg]

Whoa, whoa, whoa. What is this? A bad stretch in the early part of the season and we&#39;re all ready to toss in the towel? The Sox have a lot of home games until the break, and they are much better at the Fen. Let&#39;s also not forget a little thing called the Wild Card. No other team will compete with us for that. The West is in a collapse after Texas, and the Central is a joke. If I am correct, and I am, both the Marlins and Angels went all the way from the Wild Card slot. Hell, we were a Grady Little away from it last year. Our team is better than last year&#39;s brand and they still have a more TEAMlike environment than before. As always the only thin standing in our way is the Evil Empire. The path to the Series will go through them one way or another. We&#39;ve dominated them to this point and they no longer have the pitching that can compete with us. Even if they did, let&#39;s not forget that last year we outmuscled two All- Star and future Hall- of- Fame pitchers (Mussina and Clemens) to get 5 outs away. Let&#39;s also not forget that there was little optimism for the &#39;pen last year since Williamson was shaky, the Kim breakdown and we had no closer. So what happened? Williamson and Timlin were lights out the entire playoffs, we battled back from a 2-0 deficit to go to the ALCS and Wakefield was dominant except for one pitch. Pedro pitched well, Lowe was actually good and Arroyo was lights out. Ortiz was only 2 for 21 in the ALDS, but one hit saved our playoff hopes. This team pulled it together when they needed to last year and they&#39;ll do it again this year, only this time with more talent.

[Zenny]

noonanberg, I completely agree. This team is too talented not too win. Let&#39;s give them a shot and see what they can do.

Back to my Varitek ramblings, here are some of this season&#39;s splits for "The Golden Boy":

Runners in Scoring Position: .254
Bases Loaded: .091
RISP, 2 outs: .235
Close and Late: .216

NOTE: Close and late is defined as, "results in the 7th inning or later with the batting team either ahead by one run, tied or with the potential tying run at least on deck."

Road: .248/.374/.376/.750; only 8 extra-base hits (5 2B, 3 HR)

Let&#39;s not forget at how bad he is at throwing runners out. Only 28.3% this season and that is best of his career.

Is that worth &#036;10 million dollars a season? He&#39;s already making &#036;7 million this season and there&#39;s no chance in hell that he takes a pay-cut. A catcher at the age that is typical for the beginning of a catcher&#39;s decline who has a .750 OPS outside of Fenway Park and has been questionable in his game-calling. No thank you.

[Tek04]

you can ramble and ramble all you want...but varitek is the best catcher for this team and in the league in my opinion, he is simply in a big slump lately...and i hate to tell you but varitek is the number 1 priority to sign, eveybody in the redsox organzation knows that

[Tek04]

oh yea what team is I-rod on? oh yea the tigers, nobody cares about the tigers cause they suck, sure they are better than last year but they are not gonna make the playoffs so forget about i-rod....martinez is on the indians, they suck, ausmus is on the 4th place astros...none of these teams will make the playoffs excpet the yankees and redsox....so who cares what all these other players do? cuz i dont give a rats ass cuz i know varitek is better than all of them

[Zenny]

Look, I&#39;m not going to fight with another Sox fan over this. I fight with enough Yankee fans about other things. I&#39;m just going to add a few more bits of logic, reasoning and statistics to the debate and then I&#39;m done. You can say that Varitek is the best without truly backing it up or refuting anything I say, that is your right. Sox Brass knows what they are doing and Jason Varitek doesn&#39;t appear to be high on their list, nor should he be.

If Varitek was the number one priority to sign, why hasn&#39;t he even been extended a contract offer yet? Hell, even Lowe has gotten contract offers.

A .750 road OPS is really fantastic, huh. Yeah, best catcher in the league material.

A player&#39;s team has nothing to do with how good they are. Ausmus, I-Rod and Matheny are all far and away superior to Varitek defensively. Look into their stats and them compare them to Varitek&#39;s. Huge difference. He&#39;s not even in the same universe. He&#39;s 18th in baseball in caught stealing percent, 10th in range factor, 14th in fielding percentage, 14th in passed balls and his individual catcher&#39;s ERA is higher than the team&#39;s overall ERA.

Pudge Rodriguez, Jorge Posada, Victor Martinez and Johnny Estrada are all having clear-cut superior seasons at the plate, while it could be argued that Jason Kendall, Paul Lo Duca and Javy Lopez have been just as good or better.

You see, Sox Brass looks at all these things, not just the fact that some people really like him. There is no justifying making him the highest paid catcher in the league when a superior long-term replacement is waiting at AAA for 3% of the money Varitek is requesting. I really don&#39;t give a good shit what the media thinks, because they are all a bunch of blow-hards anyway. If Jason Varitek can be brought back at a reasonable price, fantastic. As it stands right now, he should be loooooooooong gone next season.

[Old Hoss]

As I&#39;m sure all Red Sox fans feel, I just want what&#39;s best for the team. I like Varitek&#39;s grittiness for lack of a better word. One thing bothers me though (actually more than one); why is it when a Sox pitcher has a good game, he usually credits Varitek with calling a GREAT game but when a pitcher has a lousy game, people generally say, "Wallace needs to work with this guy"? Varitek usually gets a lot of credit but rarely takes any blame for any of the negative things that happen. Just an observation....

I&#39;ve been a fan of the Sox for many, many, many years. I will be a fan until I go for the big dirt nap. One thing I have learned over the years is, don&#39;t become too obsessed with "the player" because he will never care about the team as much as you do.

I&#39;ve seen where certain fans become so angry that a particular player was traded or let go as a FA that they dessert that team and follow the player. I was a big Bruce Hurst fan but when he left I didn&#39;t become a Padres follower. As it turned out, Hurst said leaving Boston was the worst move he ever made. Same with Mo Vaughn. This whole Red Sox Nation thing is unbelieveable and I&#39;m happy to be a part of it. The Sox may never win it all in my lifetime, or yours for that matter. Although I would feel terrible about that, at least when I drop dead I&#39;ll know I remained loyal since day one.

Sorry for the ramble........