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Not as a catcher. We already have a guy who cant catch. When the Sox thought they acquired him for Mike Lowell last year, he was supposed to convert to 1B and play a little DH, while serving as an EMERGENCY catcher. He comes with a poor defensive reputation.

Dojii.....really? This coming from a guy who claims that EVERY sox prospect/draftee/minor league free agent will become a future hall of famer? BTW, Molina just being Molina is 100 times better than Salty being Salty. Who is Salty blocking in the minors? Every catcher in the system, thats who. Saltalamacchia is absolutely useless. He blocks every other guy in the organization from getting their chance if they send him down to AAA as a project (yet again). The ONLY thing Salty doesnt block......are pitches in the dirt.

I would love to see Iglesias do well, but I am afraid it is wayyyyyyy to early for him. Lowrie should see most of the time with Iglesias filling in. He just hasnt produced enough offensively to merit the promotion, even if he is Ozzie with the glove. The lineup is already weak enough at this point.

Saltys last 10 games...... .188 Batting average with zero power, and zero plate discipline. Defense is still craptastic. Also, you cant give him credit for the pitching staff pitching so well if you are not willing to blame him for how s***** theyve looked as well. Obviously not the reason they have been garbage the last 2 nights, just following the lack of progress.

Is it really that breathtaking, or are you just "messing around" again? Martin and Vmart are both 10x better than Salty on all levels. Even if we could compare Dunn to Crawford on any type of metric, the fact that Martin and Vmart are that much better than Salty would suggest that those options are better than Salty and Crawford. Where is the shock? Keep in mind that I like Crawford although I was against the signing. In fact I am pulling that he breaks out of his rut, even if I am unsure whether or not he really fits in the lineup. Dunn has been a bag of crap for the WS thus far, but Crawford has underperformed as well. In the end, Crawford might outperform Dunn......but I am talking about how I was thinking in the off season, not today. Regardless, this thread, and my argument has been about Salty.....not whether or not Dunn should be here instead of Crawford....so lets not confuse the topic.

Nobody expected Salty to compare to Varitek. At best, they wanted him to be below average defensively....which is what Vmart was. Varitek also didnt do s*** early in his career, because of his whole drafting process and contract hold out because of Scott Boras. He essentially started his career almost 4-5 years later than someone drafted out of college. See article paraphrase here: Jason was drafted by the Seattle Mariners in the first round of the 1994 amateur draft, and the 14th pick overall. A pioneer of the loopholes in the draft process (see article here), he signed with a small team in the independent Northern League before agreeing to terms with the Mariners. He did not enter the Mariners minor league system until 1995, playing for the Port City Roosters. Varitek was 23 years old before he got his first professional plate appearance in AA. Salty was 18 years old when he got his first professional game appearances. Varitek was also a 3B who hit right handed who MADE himself a catcher and a switch hitter in college at Georgia Tech, which is pretty spectacular considering how good he ended up being. Salty was a catcher the whole way through, and sucked the whole way through. You also have to take in account what his pitchers thought of him. Curt Schilling came to Boston because of Varitek. Beckett will only throw to Varitek, his "binky", and in Japan Varitek is seen as some sort of hero that Dice-K couldnt wait to pitch to (even though it hasnt worked out as planned).Pedro was an advocate for Varitek....is it any coincidence that our elite pitchers have all wanted to throw to him? This isnt ass kissing for Varitek, its just that we want a catcher who can catch, block balls, frame pitches and call a game.....and do the simple things, like make a nice snap throw back to the mound rather than lob it back to them at an area thats anyones guess. Salty cannot even do the most basic of his defensive responsibilities and its inexcusable at this level, they have already tried working with him and has spent significant time in the minors trying to fix it. The experiment needs to end before it becomes an achilles heel, even if that means Varitek catches more than he has to and hits .150.

Jeez, I feel so bad that they handed him the starting catcher position on one of the best teams in baseball. That must really suck to be him. How dare they do that? He didnt ask for it, he would have rather sat in AAA trying to figure out how to return a throw to the pitcher. He was given slack, and he proceeded to hang himself with that slack. You are right about not "asking to be put on the hot seat". He didnt ask for it. The Redsox asked him to be below average defensively and adequate with the bat. Hes been brutally terrible at both. Sad thing is, he never earned that responsibility because he was always a TERRIBLLLLEEEEEE defensive catcher. We should not feel bad for him. He should be lucky he still has a big league job. The person we should feel bad for is one of the guys in the farm (a REAL catcher) that he currently blocking from the big leagues. Really? The fact that the pitching staff was lights out with Varitek behind the plate wasnt telling? The fact that our catcher cannot catch/throw and/or handle a pitching staff is not important? The guy cant even make a crisp return throw to the pitcher. He is friggin brutal. If my memory serves me correctly, they won 5 straight games without many Salty sightings. Tito put this idiot back in the lineup and BOOOOOM, back to losing ways. He is absolutely horrid. He is not a catcher, hes a butcher. He doesnt hit enough to justify his spot on the roster.

Please. Please find another catcher. Its getting painful watching him lob the ball back to the pitcher. Its getting painful watching him butcher balls behind the plate (Jenks was bad, but one of those balls should have been blocked, regardless of the fact it was ball 4). Its getting painful watching him go 0-3/0-4 with 1 or 2 strikeouts every game. Please, find a real catcher.

One, it wont matter, the players are getting paid either way. Two, they (Tampa Bay) have a roster full of mostly young talented players. Maddon has done an admirable job with those young players (since they have drafted high for almost a decade). I compare that with a college coach getting the most out of a talented group of college players who are looking for the big pay day. I do not compare that with a group of established major leaguers who already make the big bucks like the Red Sox. The Red Sox already have a great manager capable of managing their personalities. This is on the players. They have to decide whether or not they want to earn their salaries. The talent is already there. Why does a manager decide whether or not they want the most out of their abilities? Lineups doesnt change that. You think Joe Madden would change JD Drews approach? The players like to play for Tito, he is a players manager. You think they would play better for a guy like Showalter because he runs his mouth? This is on the players. If they fire Tito, more bad than good will come of it as they will feel they failed the guy who believed in their million dollar abilities.

No. I dont care what he does with the bat. Anything he does with the bat is still going to be crap compared to the alternative that we had. If they wanted to replace Vmart because of his defensive deficiencies then they should have gotten a guy who could catch, not hand the position to a butcher. He came here with a bad defensive reputation and that reputation is just what weve gotten in terms of results. Its not a shock that he cant catch/throw/block balls. The shock was that they didnt address it.

I think first of all, the pitchers have to respect the catchers defensive reputation before they start worrying about what he is throwing down for signs. It doesnt matter what Salty is calling for signs if the pitchers are concerned about his ability to block balls, frame pitches and throw out runners....you know...the thing that catchers are supposed to do. I think this is more about their lack of confidence in him as a whole rather than their concerns about his ability to call a game. I do not think Salty is the answer. Bring up one of their homegrown catchers with defensive skill which is already developed and allow Varitek to mentor him with the game calling aspect of catching. Who cares if the homegrown catcher hits .180 as long as the pitchers are comfortable throwing to him and are successful. We have enough bats in the lineup to make up for the kids offensive ineptness and the arms to shut down opposing teams offenses to make up the difference if they are confident throwing to him and succeeding.

im so sick of salty, find a real f***ing catcher, enough of this clown.

I disagree, I think he looks like s***.

warm someone up please

If Jenks gets out of this unscathed, I could see Wakefield warming up for the 9th.

Id rather see another inning of Albers than Jenks

Bengie Molina should be on the other end of a Theo phone call. Salty is a trainwreck.

LOL....they have no respect for Salty......stealing 3B from a standup position. GROSS.

That was probably the shittiest series of events I have ever seen in a Sox half of an inning. That was brutal.

that was terrible coaching btw. Ellsbury should have been running early, and Cameron should have been bunting him over to third....we are playing for 1 run in the 8th..STUPID. Now Salty is up, inning over....