example1

There is a 2011 club option. Not that he's available, but I imagine Pujols is the type of impact player the Sox would offer upwards of $30m to if given the opportunity.

We got this guy understanding that he was unlikely to contribute much offensively and be great defensively. I agree that his defense has not been as advertised because he's made a few key misplays, but he's made some good plays defensively too which are all too easily forgotten. You can dislike defensive metrics, but none of them are saying he's been great, merely that he's been okay. That seems about right to me. Whatever the case with his defense he's got a 0.9 WAR (fangraphs) and a 1.0 WARP (BP). Fangraphs has him as the 8th most valuable 3B in baseball so far in 2010, ahead of players like Pablo Sandoval, Miguel Tejada, Placido Polanco, A-Rod, Casey Blake, Chipper Jones, Michael Young and Aramis Ramirez. By the same measure he's been the 3rd most valueable non-pitcher on the Sox in 2010. The team has been pretty bad, but I don't think Beltre deserves a lot of the blame. I expect his defense will improve and his offense will diminish; in the end he'll the player most thought he would be.

Bard is the least of this team's concerns. I have been cautious about having a first-year setup man with so much responsibility in an otherwise weak pen, but in a game like this Bard is just trying to get outs. As for agreeing with you, yes, it is a remarkable thing. You and I watch the same team and these same games and clearly we've come to the same conclusion. I think most reasonable fans have. I agree with you that a good run is imminent, and it may even put them into contention. However, this team is just filled with old guys, journeymen, and young guys trying to establish themselves. I would say that of the entire team, only a few players don't fit that category. Pedroia, Youkilis, Martinez, Beckett, Lackey, Lester, Papelbon and maybe Drew. Just about every other player on the team is either over the hill and looking toward retirement, or is young and just trying to prove themselves. We have two mediocre DH options (who can't really play any other position and are owed tons of money), a non-cemented 3B, CF and SS position, and no elite batters in their prime who can carry a team. I knew all of these problems before the season started, but I didn't anticipate that Tampa Bay would be this good, or that the pitching would be this bad or erratic. A very frustrating team to watch and root for.

Theo has a lot of work to do overall a700. In fact, I'm not convinced that there are any moves that would save this team's season. Even getting Adrian Gonzalez wouldn't change the overall complexion of this team. If that's the case then trading a bunch of potentially valuable players to get someone who is around for another year might be foolish. Ride out the storm and be ready to capitalize when the winds change in the Sox favor? That's what I would promote.

Perhaps Will Farrell can join the softball team

I have no idea how Hughes is going to do tonight (it's the bottom of the 1st as I type this) but the above statement is pretty bold. I'm one of Buchholz's biggest fans, but he has been wildly inconsistent throughout his career. I think he's finally started to put it together, but I would say Hughes is in almost the exact same position. Both pitchers had great minor league production and both have great command of multiple plus pitches. I'm a huge Buchholz fan and have always defended him, but I would be very happy if the Red Sox had Phil Hughes too; any team would be. Whatever the results this weekend, both are good pitchers and their performance this weekend will not be the final say in the matter.

Hughes is a beast.

I have maintained that this team is a 90+ win team as it is constructed. I am not optimistic about their playoff chances, but all they can do is win the games in front of them. The pitching on this club is really, really good. The first few weeks it was hard to get a feel for what that would look like, but now it is as I imagined it would be. Unlike years past, the 5 pitchers seem to rotate through quickly. In the past it felt like it would take 2 weeks between Beckett/Lester starts, now it seems like there's a dominant pitcher on the mound every night. I'm still optimistic about Matsuzaka too, though that may be blind optimism more than anything.

Uplifting thing: Daniel Bard is occasionally dominant and seems to be getting better. If he can execute his pitches consistently he could be an elite closer. He can make guys look silly when his secondary stuff is on.

I wouldn't expect any other response. I don't know about a divide between old and new, as I'm not in the clubhouse. I can see frustration with Beltre, and Cameron not being around (and making that one key error) doesn't help. Meanwhile the "guys who have been around awhile" still include people like Lowell, Ortiz, Beckett, Lester and Drew, who all have had relatively slow starts. I'm not going to rush to judgment about the new guys being responsible for the losses. I observe that this team has a lack of cohesion that--as Theo says--clearly cannot remain the way it is. It either changes itself or it will be changed. Cameron, Scutaro, Lackey and Beltre are all veterans who have played on numerous teams without reputation for being s***** clubhouse guys. Meanwhile, Ortiz and Lowell are trying to share a spot in the lineup, the vaunted pitching staff hasn't performed, the catchers can't keep singles from turning into doubles, the bullpen can't hold a lead, and there are injuries to key players like Ellsbury and Cameron. The intent was for this team to gel with a foundation of a solid team and a competent pitching staff. Instead the gelling needs to happen while the team is struggling and filled with guys like Darnell McDonald and JVE. It's like the end of 2006 in April.

Clay Buchholz. Also, Jon Lester, Josh Beckett, and John Lackey are all signed for the next few years. Also, this FO isn't stupid. They know they have to put a winning product on the field and haven't done that with the 2010 club.

While I appreciate a700s point about the defense and bullpen having blown a number of games, I still think a big piece of the problem rests on Ortiz... or, to put it another way, the problem is with not having a guy who can kill other teams offensively when they did in the past. It isn't Ortiz per-se, but rather the lack of the role that he is supposed to play. That may be a FO issue, it may be a timing issue (i.e., they can't get rid of/replace Ortiz quickly enough) and it is certainly a performance issue (the entire offense has started off poorly). I don't expect him to bounce back. He may bounce back, but I don't expect it. As others have said, he's missing on average MLB fastballs and struggling to foul off offspeed stuff. He hasn't driven the ball in a long time and doesn't do it consistently. The season is either going to slip away in the first half, or they're going to have to do something about this problem. i think they need to address BOTH the offense and the bullpen. They are nowhere near as strong in the pen as they were last year and it is hurting them. Part of me doesn't mind seeing them struggle because I think it will motivate the FO to do something more drastic than if they were on track to win 95 games and still be "not good enough". In 2008 and 2009 I was confident that they would make the playoffs and that they were also not close to the best team in baseball. If they expect the infusion of young talent to have any foundation on which to build, they are going to need to be aggressive and get some bonafide mashers into the lineup to supplement their great pitching.

Past performance aside, there is nothing dangerous about him as a hitter right now. The guy can't hit good FBs (he can foul them off) and he's baffled by offspeed pitches. This team is too talent-rich to let itself coast along in its current form. As much as I like him, Ortiz has been disasterously bad.

If there is no reason to think Beltre will ultimately perform more or less at career average defensively, why are you assuming that Victor Martinez will do so offensively? Martinez has a .639. OPS, Beltre is at .745. Who is further from their career avg so far? Martinez offensively or Beltre defensively? Why would Martinez get the free pass and Beltre not? I personally agree with you because I think Martinez is the better hitter. I don't agree that Beltre's defensive performance thus far has precluded him from having a productive season. His road OPS of .842 (.371 OBP) mirrors his prior success as a hitter on the road, so that seems consistent. He may play less time than the average 3B starter, but he will see a lot of time if he's healthy. That said, I see this as a one-year relationship no matter what. If he sucks he can't stay, if he's good he'll want more than they want to pay.

I agree with ORS about the format of this thread. I also think that Buchholz should probably just have some useful thread dedicated to his performance and development--currently this is the best active one we have so I will use it to discuss Clay until another one is created. I'm not going to create one, I'm just sayin'. There aren't many "guys like" Buchholz as far as I'm concerned. I'm not counting chickens, but he currently has the best FB and changeup on the starting staff and he has dominated at every other level and he can make it look easy when he's on. Moving forward I will continue to expect him to perform like he has been as he regains his confidence. He's got a really live arm and his stuff is simply too good to expect anything else.

Who is Darnell McDonald?

If this is a guy who can put up a .900 OPS and is talented though to play C, 3B, and 2B at a high level, I imagine moving him to 1B is a logical move. Despite a lack of details, we know that he was signed to a major league deal for a fair chunk of change. That tells us that the Sox think he's close enough to warrant using those as incentives to sign with them instead of someone else. This also fits with their mission to develop players internally rather than through the FA market if possible. All things being equal, I see nothing wrong with having a mlb ready bat in a 23 year old who can catch. That's a good addition for this club.

http://sports.espn.go.com/boston/mlb/news/story?id=5137450 Apparently its going to be a Major League contract for $4.3 and he's going to be on the 40 man roster immediately... if ESPN is right. In the mold of the Jose Iglesias deal. Clearly the Sox see him with the big club soon. This is surprising to me if they're looking at him as a catcher. He doesn't have a whole lot of experience there. I think this guy is a potential 3B or 1B ultimately, with ability to catch he probably has a ceiling as a good MLB catcher, but I wouldn't expect it. They can't throw catching defense out the window entirely if they want to succeed in this division, yet they signed this guy aggressively. That tells me he must have a good bat.

What makes the veracity of them be in question? The many years of playoff appearances, or the fact that they don't win the WS every year?

Unless the Sox private metrics had the same flaw, there's reason to believe they still didn't think Bay was worth the price he was asking.