example1

I think that my assessment of the FO has been fair overall. In most instances--including not spending talent to get older talent--I think they are right to play it conservatively. In the instance of Drew, I think they needed to get someone who was a middle of the order-type bat to solidify the outfield. If Drew is the example of a 'mistake' that you and I can agree on, then I would say that their mistakes have been pretty minimal overall. Drew would be a middle of the order bat on other teams and he would help any club, assuming that cost isn't taken into account. The biggest reason you and I agree that he was a mistake is because of the cost--something you usually say you don't think twice about. Apparently JD Drew is where you draw you line. If he were paid MLB minimum and were a rookie then he would be a really promising young player. His WARP, though not too impressive, is better than Ellsbury's (and that accounts for defense). If Reddick were starting on this team and did what JD has been doing then we would probably think it was pretty good. It is just a let down for a top pick FA acquisition who gets paid more than Beckett or Youkilis. We all know this FO can do better with 14m. That said, I don't lose much sleep over it.

I guess we agree about the Yin then... the Yang, however... I do hold him accountable for missing time as much as I hold Theo accountable for having signed him. His injuries haven't been severe or career threatening, just nagging. Here's how I see it. Every player can be reasonably expected to miss a certain number of games every year. Nobody should expect a Ripken Jr performance from most of our players. If Pedroia or Youkilis play 140-150 games a year then that's pretty good. I know their schedule is grueling. The problem is that Drew seems to have nagging injuries that require him to miss a certain number of games per-year, and then he wants to use his "sick time" too, just taking days off here and there with slight soreness etc., If we (or he) knows that he's going to miss 20 games with his nagging injuries, should he also be given the ability to miss another 10-15 games because he wants days off? Maybe so, but if I were the highest paid person in my office I would be more conscientious about taking days off. Yes, it is partly Theo's fault. I also imagine that Scott Boras didn't highlight Drew's injury history or propensity for days off when he sat with Theo and pushed for Henry to sign the check. I bet they insisted he was healthy and durable and young and able to offer a fair amount of production. I can't say it enough, the WARP totals put him consistently in the middle of the team's totals. Not at the top, not at the bottom. Near the middle. This affords Drew the protection of those who argue "he's not that bad!" against those who say "he's a huge disappointment". In reality he seems in between, which is probably how he wants it. He gets his days off, and his money. He doesn't get ripped a new one because he's moderately successful. In Boston it's a big deal to not be feasted upon by the media at every turn.

I'm not worried about being called a Drew hater. He makes the MOST MONEY ON THIS TEAM and finishes consistently around 7th to 10th in WARP. That's not a good use of money for a team that wants to spend wisely. That said, his middle-of-the-road production on a world championship caliber team can be wiped away pretty quickly with another World Series or two. Historically he compares well with "power hitters" (in eras where 20+ HRs was good).

His WARP totals haven't justified him being the highest paid player on the team. I don't know how people can spend this much time arguing about Drew. Anyone arguing that he's great needs to take his lack of playing time, his injury proneness and his actual lack of counting stats as something significant. I'm a "moneyball" guy (for lack of a badly-needed better term), but I too am dismayed at his consistently low RBI totals. Even though RBI are a s***** way of measuring a player's overall value, for some reason there ARE players who can both put up .385 OBP and 100+ RBI, and their production is represented in WARP, VORP, Win Shares, whatever... Drew doesn't light up any of those categories. In his 3 seasons with Boston he's had 64, 64 and 48 RBI. That really isn't that impressive. His high in a season in BOS is 126 H. I like when guys get on base, but sometimes you just need someone to hit the f***ing ball. That said, anyone arguing that he sucks needs to step back and look at his career averages and his high OBP and realize that he actually does a nice job of not making outs. It just doesn't seem that hard to me. Like ORS said (and I said before) Im' always happy when he's playing, and I'm disappointed when he's not. His pay doesn't jusitify itself but he's not a complete waste. He's right in the middle between expectations and disappointments. When he's done in Boston we will likely give him a resounding "meh".

Sigh... Swisher? What an unexciting discussion. What to make of JD Drew. Every time he's at the plate or in the field it is obvious that he is a Sox-type player. He has a great swing and a great eye. He's a good fielder. He's also very expensive and doesn't play as much or as intensely as Sox fans would like for a marquee player. He's not a marquee player. He's a role player on a good team. Unfortunately, he's expensive--more expensive than a role player on the Sox should be. He hasn't developed into the middle-of-the-order bat the Sox tried to purchase, but he is a great hitter lower in the order in a very good lineup. He's nothing but gray area. He's not great, he's not horrible. You have to be able to tolerate some middle ground to be able to appreciate what he contributes. According to the discussion above, some people can accept gray others need black and white.

I don't know how you usually use this word, but to me a lie usually has to be intentional. It only irritates me because I want to reserve the use of the word "lie" for when someone knowingly presents information they know to be wrong. It requires not only being wrong, but also the subjective act of knowing you are wrong when making a claim, in an effort to convince others that the truth is not true, or that what is not true is true... Thinking that lugo may have been playing alright D is not only a subjective claim, but something that is fuzzy even when measured quantitatively. Just saying, it's a bit inflamatory to impune someone's integrity like that. Otherwise, Lugo sucks.

This is unrelated to Papi per-se, but I'm curious whether BABIP expectations should be adjusted due to "the shift". When a defense can predictably set up to cover only 65% of the field and a hitter plays into that, doesn't that mess with the expected number of hits that are likely to find grass? I think it would. Anyway, Papi has looked markedly better the last few weeks and his ABs have been better as well. I think he is still succeptable to good fastballs (which wasn't the case in years past) but his eye still seems pretty acute and when pitchers make mistakes he can still rip the ball. If he were to reemerge as even a .900 OPS kind of guy (with almost .400 of that from OBP) this team would be in much better shape. Let's keep our fingers crossed.

Remy and Eckersley are both very good color guys. I would love to see both of them work for this team on a regular basis. Eck breaks down pitching better than most announcers do (even other pitchers) and Remy can really be funny sometimes and has a pretty broad knowledge of the game and a deep knowledge of the last decade or so of Red Sox baseball (having done most of the games). I would hate for either of those guys to have a lesser role in the future.

The Cardinals should try being in a division with the Rays and the Yankees and then see how long they would wait before pulling the plug on a guy like Smoltz. I wonder how the Sox would do if faced with Pittsburgh and Cinci repeatedly.

Yeah, he wasn't going to get that. They signed everyone around him though.

Reddick. He's got some nice pop in his bat and I think he's a better fielder than he showed in his first few games.

It's not like they have avoided HS players in recent years. They are just spending more aggressively on them now. They are using above slot money to load their system and ensure that they will have plenty of trading chips for the next few years. FA is pretty weak the next few years. I think that they drafted younger last year and this year so they have lots of young high-ceiling talent to include in big deals for the next 3-4 years.

Add Kendal Volz to the list: http://www.baseballamerica.com/blog/draft/?p=1671 http://www.mlb.com/mlb/events/draft/y2009/reports.jsp?content=volz A power arm who many projected to be among the best college arms in the nation this year. He had a somewhat disappointing season and didn't pitch great in the Cape League, but few seem to doubt that his stuff is there. It looks like many scouts believe he might be able to stretch out into a starter, but I hope the Sox just focus on letting him succeed in short relief. Having a deep, hard throwing pen has been a really nice change.

Jesus can we stop arguing over whether this team should pick up Padilla? What difference would it make? He's got a better ERA than Penny, a worse WHIP, gives up slightly fewer hits per game, and slightly fewer HRs. He walks more and strikes out fewer. Padilla does it in a weaker division. Frankly, I don't see much difference or much optimism in either case. The fact that we are all scouting the waiver wire for options is indicative of where this season has gone. I don't think its a complete loss yet, but without Dice-K we are really scratching the bottom of the barrell in an otherwise deep rotation. Who figured that with Beckett, Lester, Dice-K, Wakefield, Penny, Smoltz, Buchholz, Masterson, Tazawa and Bowden this team would be really hurting for a reasonable starting pitching option? I would argue that the FO did plan for pitching depth and they actually built up a good pitching staff when everyone was healthy. Few teams succeed when 40% of their rotation misses a big chunk of the season. I think the FO assumed that Dice-K might be less lucky and less effective than he was last year, but not that he wouldn't be able to battle through it and make something effective of the season. Instead he was out of shape and didn't make good adjustments. Despite his experience and success at high levels, he had to be benched. That's tough to plan for. I'm fine if they get Padilla or not, I don't care either way.

I disagree with this too. I think Theo is someone who goes out of his way to take emotions out of the equation. I don't think anyone can be perfectly objective but he does a good job of evaluating players on actual numbers instead of feelings. If Ortiz wasn't owed so much money next year he might have been released, depending on who else would have been available at the time. Now they're not going to get a whole lot for him in trade and aren't going to get any FAs in August.

If it is a matter of percentage then the Sox are 6th, not 2nd.

I love Papi as much as anyone and really wish he didn't suck. However, through June, July and August he's been: .250/.339/.523/.862. That's okay, nothing great. Remove June and he's been: .213/.300/.454/.754. That's worse than we tolerate from our catchers. This team is too good to accept that as a regular part of the middle of their order.

If Papi's semi-reasonable deal ends up being an albatross is there still reason for people to scream at Theo for not signing enormous 8 year deals with guys costing more than 20m per year? We acknowledge that the team would struggle to just 'swallow' contracts of 12m a year, so more than 20 would actually hurt this team. Personally, I think they can afford to just let Papi go after this season. If they let him go and traded for, say, Adam Dunn, the lineup would look different and they would pay those two guys something like 24m for a season and then be on the hook for neither the year after. Yeah, its a big chunk of change, but Dunn's OPS is better than Teixeira's and I'd offer that offensively he's about as good (without the switch hitting and gg defense, of course). He'd be a fine DH IMO. They could trade for Dunn and get Holliday or Bay without too much difficulty. Overall I too expect the lineup to look very similar, but I don't see how they can expect anything offensively from Papi and, therefore, how they can plan on keeping him around, even with his pricetag. At this point they can cut him knowing that at least they only have ONE year remaining. Even at 20 HR and 85 RBI he's a big hole on this team because he can't do anything else. I think this completely justifies the FO's general reluctance to go long on contracts or to pay extreme costs for players who are producing at a top level now but who may flame out with years remaining. It doesn't always happen, but when a player sucks after 4 years of a 6 or 7 year deal it can really cripple a team like this. let's face it, there's only one team that can truly afford to swallow longterm deals. As much as Gom or Jacko would love to say "See, the Sox are a big market team too! Stop whining about money!" they can't defend the fact that teams that are "big market" like the Sox or Angels or Mets truly cannot afford to have 14-20m players sitting on their bench or needing to be released. They just can't.

Wakefield and Penny could have a "steal off me"-off. A gimpy Wake, unable to do swift moves to 1st, will be especially vulnerable. Sadly, Penny will be better at preventing steals. Yikes.

Harden is too injury prone for the Sox to go after him, and he's too good to be available on a cheap 'reclaimation project' type short term deal that Theo overpays for. Some team will buy the lottery ticket and sign him to a 4-5 year deal.

Just so this thread doesn't die (and neither does Jacko's post) this is potentially a very important draft for the Red Sox. The talent they got out of it appears to make it their deepest since 2005. Wilson, Renfroe and Younginer are all good bets to make it to the bigs eventually. I don't know enough about Fuentes, but from what I've read about him I assume that he may as well. Aside from those guys there are interesting stories to follow, Jeremy Hazelbaker who was 2nd in the nation in OBP at Ball State (a quicker OF version of Youkilis? We can hope); Shannon Wilkerson who was Div II player of the year and broke numerous records... I'm not banking on him, but his story could either be a really nice story or a harsh reminder that only the best of Div I ever make it; Brandon Jacobs, who turned down a chance to be a RB at Auburn to play for the Sox--another player unlikely to dominate at the MLB level, but his athleticism and story are worth following. There are great names too; Hazelbaker, Schwindenhammer, Younginer, Wilkerson, McGuiness, Parthemore, Head. All in all I think they have really nicely restocked some very high ceilings in their system. They didn't hold back the money and with the talent they now have in their system I think they should be primed to be part of some very big deals over the next few years. I say "deals" plural now because they have a lot of potential MLB talent in their system (Buchholz, Bowden, Bard, Anderson, Tazawa, Kelly, Renfroe, Reddick, Kalish, Westmoreland, Pimentel, Iglesias, Lin, Fuentes, Wilson etc.,) and you can make a lot of combinations of five of those 15 players and send very nice talent the other way.

Lee maybe, but Peavy most likely didn't get much interest from Boston. I will be interested to see how he does in Chicago (once he's healthy again), but his cost is prohibative for a team that prides itself on 'reasonable' deals. They have to step up to #3 levels, not to Lester's level. Lester is almost as good as most team's #1 pitchers.

You're wrong. Letting Cabrera go gave Theo draft picks that were used to get Ellsbury and Lowrie. I think this is actually a really stupid discussion. So much second guessing and grass-is-greenering. Giving out F grades and harsh criticism for the SS situation on a team that has won more than 95 games in 5 of the past 6 years, with 2 World Series and 2 ALCS losses seems like the ultimate in elitist fandom. A700, you talk about your experience with this team sucking for much of your life, of the difficulties of being a Red Sox fan in the past when this team disappointed you to no end, yet here we sit, with a very good team, a very good franchise and plenty of reason for optimism, and you're talking about the SS position as if there are either obvious answers or as if the job is an easy one. Every team has holes. Every GM has imperfections and weak spots upon examination of their past teams. The Yankees spend nearly twice as much as the Red Sox do and their bullpen has, except for Rivera, been pretty bad most years recently, their starting pitching suspect. They have had a lineup full of potential hall of famers yet they too missed the playoffs and don't have WS under their name this decade. Should we list every team and their persistent imperfections? Mets, Dodgers, Cubs, White Sox, Mariners? Are there teams you would rather be watching every day? Yeah, it is too bad they haven't been able to find their permenant SS but to pretend that someone would be available NOW, or even in the past year or two is absurd. You think there are lots of secret deals lying under the surface that we all would have accepted? You think Theo had access to, say, Stephen Drew or Troy Tulowitzki or Jose Reyes and didn't pull the trigger? I think he didn't pull the trigger because they are not available. I think we have seen what is available coming through BOston like a revolving door. Just like when the Yankees continue to struggle to upgrade their bullpen or starting pitching in years past, it wasn't for lack of trying, it was for lack of available talent. These GMs aren't kings sitting on their throne's able to demand talent like mutton. You refuse to give Theo the benefit of the doubt in just about every situation. Do you actually believe that he thinks Gonz is a better SS option than Tulo or Jeter or Reyes or Hanley? Of course he knows who the better players are and of course he covets them, but not at the expense of other positions. I would say that their success without the presence of a franchise SS indicates something important about the SS position; namely, that perhaps a patch-work approach to the shortstop position is a tenible option in the absence of that franchise player. I say we all should just hope that the SS the Sox need comes along in the near future. Nobody here is pretending that Gonzalez is the answer. He's clearly not. He's not Theo's answer, he's just another guy to have around who can field the ball and who has played SS in the past. I see no reason to think that if there were a better option available that Theo wouldn't have gone after him. **Let example1 as FO dogboy posts commence**