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And we're right back where we started... I don't want to exonerate Theo. You don't take the blame off the players or measure wins and losses as the only important thing... Watch out a700, by this time tomorrow we will be arguing that neither of us belives the things above. What's with us, anyway? Jesus. Agreement aside, I disagree with you about the 90 win thing. I am a strong believer in the Pythagorean Theorem. There's been plenty of research done on it, plenty of refining, and it is more than a mere idea. It's pretty solid at estimating what a team's success should have been, if not for luck or particularly stupid (outlier) execution. As far as luck and particularly stupid execution goes, it is a less reliable thing than a player's standard level of production. You (a700) can reasonably expect that David Ortiz is good for a high .300s OBP when given enough ABs. If he has an 0-10 stretch you see that as unlikely and an outlier--not a reflection of his true ability. In other words, his true ability clearly isn't .000 OBP, even though that size may say it is to the untrained eye. Similarly, Josh Beckett or Jon Lester being incapable of winning a game down the stretch is not a reflection of their actual abilities. It is a reflection of a slump. It shouldn't even be interpreted as a trait like "not being able to perform in the clutch", given that a player like Josh Beckett has shown that ability numerous times. Similarly, a SS who throws the ball away on a routine GB should not have that single sample be the main factor in whether he is "good enough" to manage the types of moments a SS needs to handle. Just because he doesn't handle one particular moment does not mean he can't handle those moments in general or that he would be a bad bet to do that moving forward. So, I hold Theo plenty accountable for the mistakes that have been made. There are plenty of poor signings and probably a number of things that could have been done to avoid the outcome this year. At the same time, I firmly believe that this team was good enough but it did not perform. Could it have been better? Absolutely. Would being better have widened their margin for error? Yes. Did this team have a margin for error that would have allowed them to make the playoffs? Yes. Their players squandered it with a combination of pathetic play and apparently s***** teamwork. If they can perform like most of them have for most of their careers, this team will win more than 90 games next year. As for replacing players vs. keeping the same team: I think if they kept the same team they would do better than they did this year. However, there are few opportunities to go in different directions and the Sox are presented with one now. Signing a few players to replace the 2011 team with the 2012 team would be one option, but the point of putting together a team is to put together a team for multiple years, not just one year. Players like Youkilis and maybe even Ellsbury or Beckett offer a chance to possibly make moves to improve the club moving forward and they should be explored. Ortiz and Papelbon are different cases that may have their own limitations (Ortiz: years, Papelbon: years/$$). It will undoubtedly be interesting.

Quick, someone tell all the statisticians. They've been wrong the whole time. The only measures worth looking at are wins and losses. There is nothing to mine deeper than that. Underappreciated talent, teams that under-perform. They don't exist. The best way to tell which teams are well constructed is to look at who made the playoffs and who didn't. Fangraphs and BIll James should hang 'em up. a700 has figured it out.

I'm going to keep trusting the assessment of statistical methods and things like Expected W-L over the opinions of those who struggle to take a nuanced view. The Sox had an Ex W-L of 94-68 this year. Ex W-L is one of the basics of sabermetric analysis. Look over the past few years. It is a very strong predictor (for the Sox and otherwise) of a team's outcomes. This team, as much as others don't like it, was an outlier. They underperformed their Ex W-L significantly. They scored enough runs and prevented enough runs over the course of a season that should have warranted them a playoff spot. Given that teams have to use actual information rather than the utility of hindsight to construct their teams, this club shouldn't scrap everything and start over. There's no need to re-evaluate the way that baseball is understood. You will not see sabermatricians re-writing their books due to the tremendous new data that the epic failure of the 2011 Sox provided. They will look for why the team under-performed the projections... why the team on the field did not perform as it should have. It just isn't as simple as saying that the team was poorly constructed and, in hindsight, never stood a chance. That's such a simplistic way of looking at a complex game it doesn't even do most of us justice to read it or spend any time lending it credence. I could find more intellectual gold by picking my nose for 3 hours and wiping it on a piece of graph paper. The circular argument of "they weren't good enough because they weren't good enough" doesn't get anybody anywhere. It doesn't move the discussion forward at all in terms of how to best evaluate players moving into a season. It's weak sauce and reductionistic. There were a ton of factors that went into it. To say the team wasn't good enough--and therefore the person who put it together needs to be fired--is reactionary and unintelligent. The argument can be made that there need to be changes, but the argument that it is "because they lost" is like saying that BB should be canned from the Patriots because they haven't won for a number of years despite their superior talent. It isn't convincing in and of itself.

I expect that Youk will be injured most of the year and your favorite player, Carl Crawford, will produce virtually nothing. Laughable.

a700 doesn't believe in luck. That pretty much explains it. "Breaks" don't go your way, or the other teams way. They even out and, therefore, don't exist.

I'm going to try to take this as an honest comment, not a veiled charge that I only see the team the way the FO wants me to see them. I don't think it is absurd to think that there is talent intheir system or that the talent will manifest iteslf in the next year on the MLB level a bit. Plenty of people see the specific players you noted above as MLB caliber contributers. I think the thing that goes unsaid is just how skeptical everyone was about Pedroia and Ellsbury when they came up. There was a lot of the same criticism and skepticism. Some players in the minors are better than most of their peers, and those guys tend to do well at the MLB level, even if they take a year or two to mature. Anyway, I do see you as a realist and as objective as possible. Wasn't referring to you.

His production was so above and beyond what anyone expected that it is very hard to pencil him in for that moving forwad. So he's just going to be HOF caliber from here on out? Albert Pujols has had ONE better season (according to Fangraphs WAR). Hanley Ramirez has never had a season like that. Neither has Josh Hamilton, Evan Longoria, or Miguel Cabrera. A-Rod had a few that were better. Bonds had a few that were better. At their peak, those guys wouldn't be traded for anyone. A guy like Willie Mays put up seasons like that over and over and over again. Just for points of reference. Ellsbury is a tremendous athlete. He might be a once in a generation talent capable of putting up HOF caliber numbers. Or, he may regress to a 3-5 WAR caliber player. The later is more likely, but the possibility of the former would make trading him really, really risky. It's probably safe to assume the Sox aren't going to move him. If Crawford becomes the 4-5 WAR guy he was for most of his career then this team easily has the best offense in baseball regardless of what happens with Ortiz.

The offseason is the best time to discuss baseball, IMO. That said, I feel like I'm on a freaking island these days. I miss a lot of the old optimists who don't really post here anymore.

Ryan Kalish gets no love. He's one of the Sox best prospects. http://mlb.mlb.com/video/play.jsp?content_id=11469235 http://mlb.mlb.com/video/play.jsp?content_id=11936405 http://mlb.mlb.com/video/play.jsp?content_id=12500479 Ryan Lavarnway gets no love either. Even if he's just a DH, he will be a cheap, legitimate power-threat next year from the right side. Iglesias is 21 and at AAA. It doesn't need to be repeated (but apparently it does), his glove would be among the best in the majors right now, at the position where that matters most. Most scouting reports say that his bat should be able to catch up. He's 5-6 years away from his prime. He could have an impact next year at SS. I'm afraid the common narrative on this site lately is: 1) The sky is falling. 2) This team isn't just bad, they completely broken. Probably worse than the Blue Jays. 3) The player development program won't produce anything for at least 3-4 years I'm not wearing rose-colored glasses when I say that none of the above is true. The 2012 Sox will be picked by many to win the Wild Card and nobody will be shocked if they win the division. Stop with the chicken-little s***, jesus.

I'm assuming the next manager isn't on this list. Maybe he is but until there is a more significant list (those who are actually interviewing) I'm not going to vote.

The discussion was about the Beckett for Hanley trade, not about bringing Hanley back in. Just to be sure you guys were aware of that...

You and I will never agree. I have written, erased, and re-written post after post in response to this, but most of them are a lot meaner than I actually want to be. I don't want to get into a pissing match with you. We've done it dozens of times and it simply isn't worth it right now. I resent your constant claims that somehow I will be personally hurt if the Sox let Theo go. As if he and I are lovers or something. I won't be hurt. You will find me here, posting as I always have, supporting my team and a lot of the same players who you are currently calling not good enough. I will continue watching and rooting for my team. The main difference between the two of us is that I think this team is much closer to winning than you do. We will see how that plays itself out. I think the best person to help the team move forward is Theo Epstein, you don't. We can agree to disagree, that's fine. If they hire someone else to do it I will immediately become a fan of theirs and try to understand how they see the game and think about team construction. That's just how I roll.

Let's just play this one out for a minute... What kind of player do you trade Beckett for? And to what team? My first thought would be that Texas would probably love to have a guy like Beckett, given that they are losing Wilson. So who on their roster or in their minors would possibly justify giving up the team's signed ace to move forward? What positional need could be addressed with a move like this? Suppose they signed Buehrle, but didn't improve the rotation otherwise... Lester Buchholz Buehrle Lackey Doubront/Aceves? Would a rotation like that be good enough to compete? In theory, it would free up some money so that wouldn't be a bad thing. I guess I just think that losing pitchers is the last thing this team needs right now. Unless they can move Lackey somehow. Also, while I agree that Texas is a hard place to pitch, there's a reason why so many good MLB pitchers come from Texas. You can play there year round and the weather rarely sucks. It is also tough to be a pitcher in the rainy spring of the Northeast, just for different reasons.

Wow, a700, that's a big paragraph. I agree with everything you write here. That said, Theo got s*** for NOT wanting to do the Beckett trade. Lucchino pulled the trigger on that deal. Theo would have preferred building around Hanley Ramirez. Since that trade, Hanley has been the more valuable player. He's probably also a prima donna so I can't say he would be the clubhouse leader this club needs, but he's a hell of a SS and still in his prime. The only place I disagree with you is that CJ Wilson isn't a horse. He's not Cliff Lee or Roy Halladay or CC Sabathia. He's just not. He's been good for 2 years but he's over 30 and has bad contract written all over him. Maybe for a Lackey-type deal, but we shouldn't be shocked if he provides Lackey-type results accordingly. I still like Mark Buehrle as an option. He's an actual "horse" in that he throws tons of innings, pitches quickly and clearly has had success for many, many years. He also might cost less than a lot of other guys. EDIT: How much worse off would this team be with trading Beckett for an every day player and just singing Buehrle? I think that could still be a really solid club...

If Albert Pujols goes 3-21 in a 5 game series, does that mean he wasn't "good enough" to help his team win? If Roy Halladay loses a game in a 5 game series and his team loses the series, does that mean he wasn't "good enough" to help them win, or just that his performance during that stretch wasn't good enough. We're talking about team construction here, not performance over a short period. Any team with Pujols or Halladay would be right to say that the cleanup spot or the #1 rotation spot were sufficient (good enough) to get them a win, but for whatever reason it didn't work out. I contend it is the same with the Sox #1 and #2 down the stretch. Neither was overloaded from the season. They both just choked when it mattered. They weren't good enough down the stretch. Does that mean they weren't good enough pitchers to accomplish the task before them? No. Nobody thinks Lester and Beckett were too bad to bring this team to the playoffs. Frankly, if Lester and Beckett were pitching like they can this team could have made a run in the playoffs. They had the best offense in baseball.

If that's the case then it is due simply to a lack of accountability above him. It is absurd to think that LL and TW and JH haven't had any oversight of the "candy store", given that they are dumping hundreds of millions of dollars into it. I don't think that's the case, which is why they aren't anxious to dump him (at least according to Warner, who made that clear at the presser the other day).

Your real issue. Not necessarily "the" real issue. By every measure available prior to and during the season--by every indication that people use to measure these things--this team was good enough. People agreed, the numbers agreed, the previous performance agreed. I don't see any reason to make it more complicated than it has to be. We could say either: (a) all of the pundits, computers and experts were wrong (in which case a massive reexamination of the methods used to determine these things is necessary), or ( there was something unique and particular about the Sox clubhouse and this version of this team. The thing most people are focusing on is a unique combination of s***** clubhouse issues, a high douchebag quotient, and an epic fail of key players during a key stretch. (A) requires a reexamination of what people know about baseball, even though the same analysis was right about teams like the Phillies, Yankees, Rangers, Rays, and Brewers. (A) even correctly predicted the Sox stellar record of over 40 games over .500 for a good portion of the season. (B ) requires only finding people who identify the dynamics in the clubhosue as a detremental factor and looking for some outlier performances by players who should have done better, based on the predictions of (A). So far, there have been players, reporters, and a deposed manager who are identifying clubhouse factors as a key contributer to a historic (see: not typical) collapse. Furthermore, we can pinpoint specific performances by otherwise good players that sank the team. Josh Beckett had 193 IP and faced the 4th most batters in his career. Hardly an enormous workload by his standards. Furthermore, he had the best season in his career (1.02 WHIP) but was unable to win any of the key games that would have made the difference. In September he had a 5.48 ERA and a 1.348 WHIP. Jon Lester had the fewest IP and fewest batters faced since he was a full-time pitcher. Yet he looked exhausted down the stretch and was ineffective (5.4ERA and 1.611 WHIP in September) when it mattered. "Not good enough" is when you don't have a Beckett or Lester to pitch key games that can put you over the top, or when you don't have the offense that scored the most runs in baseball or a bullpen whose ERA was better than 3 other AL playoff teams and two NL playoff teams. The achilles heel for this team was starting pitching, down the stretch. They missed their #3 and #5 starters, and their #1 and #2 were good enough, they just didn't come though when it mattered. I bet they would be the first ones to acknowledge this.

Tito noted players that he had been able to get through to in the past but who he was struggling with presently. To me that potentially signals guys like Beckett, Lester, youkilis, Ortiz, Tek, and probably Wakefield ad included in the group of potential culprits. You could be absolutely right about Lackey, but he specifically indicated guys who had been around and reachable before. The question for me is how they can set up the team so guys like Ellsbury and pedroia can take over as leaders. Does that require moving some of the old guard out? Team dynamics and on field production might not be the sane thing here.