SCM33

http://espn.go.com/mlb/story/_/id/7452132/manny-ramirez-teams-take-chance-role-model

Shame on the voters who costed Morris another year. The guy(s) who voted for Eric Young (1), Javy Lopez (2), Brad Radke (2), and Billy Mueller (4) should lose their HOF votes. What a friggin joke. If they want to make a mockery of the HOF vote, then let someone else who gives a s*** vote. Eric Friggin Young, are you kidding me? Obviously some writers have agendas and dont want to see certain people voted in....why else would you vote for players who shouldnt get votes?

Borderline HOF? LOL.....he was a pretty good offensive catcher, thats it.....nothing more. He was a good catcher who played for a good team. If he played for the Pirates we wouldnt even be having this conversation. If Mike Piazza isnt a HOF'er, Posadas name shouldnt even be mentioned......neither could play defense and Piazza was WORLDS better offensively. Below average at his position, no 2000 hits, no 300 HRs. Baseball Reference HOF monitor: Gray Ink........................Batting - 17, Average HOFer ≈ 144 Hall of Fame Monitor......Batting - 98, Likely HOFer ≈ 100 Hall of Fame Standards..Batting - 40, Average HOFer ≈ 50 Good player. Not a HOF and its not close.

Asinine argument if it works. Spot on if it doesnt. Hindsight is great isnt it? Funny thing about hindsight.....if you point out possible problems/issues before they happen you are called negative or cynical. If you do so after the fact, the argument is hindsight. If you drink the kool-aid you are a homer/fanboy. Everyone is allowed to have their opinion, regardless of where your opinion stands....in the end, every point of view one has.....is already pre-determined and labeled. Neither one of us knows today how it will turn out. Asinine? Sure, if thats what you prefer. I prefer realistic, as it is the the realm of possibility just as much as the move is to being a success. Just because my opinion is different from yours prior to a single pitch thrown does not make it wrong though and name calling adds nothing to the conversation.

Three items to discuss. 1: What is his role? 2: What are the expectations? 3: What does his final output line look like?

I agree. If hes got his s*** under control, its a great deal. Some of those red flags make me a little nervous though especially if hes having weight problems which directly leads to injury. In the end, I think they were just trying to save a few bucks so it puts more profit in the owners pockets.....$400,000 for Bailey rather than $10,000,000 for Madsen or 12,500,000 for Papelbon. If this works out.....well, then thats great. If he gets hurt and/or struggles with his weight, injuries and the big market, people are going to be pretty pissed off they didnt spend the money on the better options (Madsen, Papelbon). So far we have replaced Bard and Papelbon with Melancon and Bailey. Right now, as contructed....our pitching staff has taken a significant step back. Through January, with spring training right around the corner.....its safe to say this has been very a disappointing offseason.

The whole issue of not using a slide step began WAY before Tito and Farrell. Joe Kerrigan was strongly against it. http://articles.courant.com/2001-07-27/features/0107271414_1_lester-erwin-black-betsy-bat/2 (from 2001)

Theo doesnt want Iglesias.....he sucks. Rey Ordonez, part 2.

Anyone pay for that Lesnar fight? What a waste of money, thank god I watched it for free. Brock Lesnar retired at the conclusion of the match.

As long as hes not the closer Im ok with it. So far though, we have replaced Bard in the bullpen with Melancon since Bard is in the rotation. We still another another BP arm to replace the hole of Aceves moving to the rotation and we still need a closer. If this kid is the closer, I am going to be ******** about it. Scary comparison....look at Ramon Ramirez's numbers the year before Boston acquired him and compare them to Melancons numbers from last year.

I know that this is a loaded question, but I will try to answer it as sincere as possible even though I know you will spin it and it will blow up on me haha. Wilson would have been nice. Actually I wanted them to improve their BP first and foremost. They are moving Bard and Aceves in to the rotation. My problem is not with that. My problem is that that are dealing from a position of weakness to another position of weakness which is creating an even bigger hole as they have nothing of value in the 7th,8th and 9th innings as I type this. Madson could change that but I would really like to see them addressing the BP situation. As far as the closer is concerned, I am actually being a hypocrite as I have said in the past that both DH's and CP's are dying breed and are easily replaceable. I was against the Ortiz signing so I SHOULD NOT be against letting Papelbon go. I guess that the fanboy in me would rather see him finish his career here as Mariano did in NY.

Hes been a closer for 1 year. Many setup guys cant close. Fact. Its not "magical qualites", rather....its consistency. Brad Lidge has gone from the best, to the worst, to the best......to the, well you get it. Some closers can be roller coaster rides. If there is anything that Papelbon was, it was consistent. Even his "bad" years were still pretty good.

Of course he had talent. I would hope they wouldnt have wasted all that money for the posting fee on a guy with no talent. At what cost? The Sox came out of winter meetings claiming poor and luxury tax. Spending all that money on an unknown sends a mixed message.

Well, apparently I am against the tide with this one. Nope, not god. Just reliable. Madson has done it for 1 year.....I am not saying he is a bad pitcher. I would just rather have the younger guy who has been doing it in this city for longer....even if hes a little more expensive. I dont give a s*** about RF. We will be fine with what we have....we will make do....but dont act like that is BC's call. He is LL's puppet. He will sign who LL wants to sign. The contracts he offers players that LL is not in agreement with, will be vetoed. For all we know BC has proposed 5-6 contracts to LL that have been turned down. Agree with RF. They didnt look or act desperate with Valentine, they looked pathetic. In the weeks since, they've looked apathetic. In terms of Madson/Papelbon and "ammunition", well...if they sign Madson, I want him to succeed. If I wanted him to fail, I wouldnt be a Redsox fan. If Madson does fail and Papelbon does well in PHI, you bet your ass I am going to talk about it.

Well, look at two guys who came over recently from Japan and were thrown in to big league rotations and were asked to change their pitching routines: Dice-K.....tommy john surgery last year, who knows what will happen. Chien Ming Wang.....tommy john surgery in 2008, never been the same since. Kuroda has done a nice job but he pitches in the AL west, pitches less innings per game (NL) and has made the change much later in his career. Im not saying ignore it, Im saying they shouldnt pay this kid all this money as an unknown. Didnt we learn our lessons with Dice-K? I have no problem going over there and finding talent.....but if they are going to spend all that money, then why didnt they go after Wilson, or re-sign Papelbon, or go after Aramis Ramirez. Why pay unknowns from Japan huge amounts of money when you can just sign guys over here who have already proven they can play here?

Bad comparison. The game is different in their country. Starting pitchers are used differently and they dont adjust well. Name a hyped pitcher from over there that has done well here. Nomo was pretty good if not extremely inconsistent and Kuroda has done well to finish his career off with the Dodgers (hes 36).... In end end, the only guy who had any kind of extended success if not extremely inconsistent was Nomo, who had a major league forkball and was a strikeout pitcher in the MLB, not just Japan. I am not against all players from Japan, just starting pitching. Any other position, bring them on.

I hope you are right. They way I see it, back to back third place finishes.....and they have not done a damn thing to improve themselves. I want to get excited, unfortunately......this is the same group, if not worse that they rolled out to end the season against Baltimore.

Yuck and yuck. Apparently the Redsox have not learned from the rest of baseballs mistakes by signing over hyped starting pitchers from Japan to huge lucrative deals. Apparently they havent learned from their own mistakes. ....and it makes a ton of sense to pay a guy 10M a year to close in Boston after a 1 year track record closing for his career, yeah that makes sense to pay him 10M. That makes a lot more sense than paying the younger Papelbon the extra dough he wanted after proving he could do it here for the last 6+ years. I guess track records mean nothing if you can save a couple extra bucks. What happens if Madson flops as the closer and hes making 10M per year? Instead of addressing our weakness......which was pitching, they are going to make 2 guys starting pitchers who have little to no experience in those roles. What happens if they get rocked every time they go out? Then we will have 3 SPs, no bullpen and no closer. Keep crying poor like you did coming out of winter meetings guys, dont want to go over that luxury tax threshold....oh no! Anything but that!...........then ownership has the balls to charge $75 dollars for a coffee table book. Stay classy Werner/Lucchini/Henry. BTW.....Valentine will not rejuvenate Dice-K....hes never had a good thing to say about the guy and predicted his failure.

It wasnt necessarily Mannys talents that allowed him to be tolerable. It was the talent and identity of the players that surrounded him. As the Damons, Millars, Muellers, Pedros, Schillings, Timlins and Embrees of the team faded away.....Manny could in fact really be Manny......which as it turned out, was an *******.

I think its a bad contract. Pujols is one of the greatest hitters of all time but playing in the AL West with all of those huge ballparks will knock down some of those numbers and by the end of this deal, it will not be pretty. BTW for all those saying he is "clean".....we know nothing to prove that. Hes innocent right now, but in terms of baseball players...Id rather say he just hasnt been caught yet. He could also be 35 years old right now for all we know.

For the love of god I hope they stay away from Darvish or any other player from that league. There are only 2 players who have come from that league who have lived up to their hype (somehwhat). Ichiro and Mastui. Who gives a s*** about oh-ah and mystery. Sign some friggin players who can play the game. Talk about laying a turd thus far in the offseason. The manager search took 3 months and we havent done a friggin thing since......except lose our closer and re-sign an aging DH for 15 million.