seabeachfred

Maybe, maybe not. For the record, when I was a coach I was about as upbeat a person as you could imagine.....Of course, I had some control over the situation. Here I have not a shred of power to do anything so when things seem to go South all I can do is show frustration. Of course, I could say you take optimism to some extreme heights as I remember from Sawxheads, but I won't say that.

I take it that as a man of some intelligence you don't believe everything you hear.

Keep the good thoughts coming BSN......That's the kind of talk I like to hear. I just hope you are close to being right on the mark.

Here's what we can pray for Kimmi and the Man upstairs won't think we trying for an unfair advantage. How about we keep our fingers crossed and hope for good health for our starting rotation and see what they can do. They could all prosper, they could all flop, there could be a 3-2 split with a rookie like Owens coming up and rousing the league. What we don't need are injuries besetting the pitching staff. I think all things being equal we could put together a successful season.

I know it's being cynical but it does seem to always be about the money. I sometimes wonder if baseball wouldn't be better off with a salary cap as they have in football and basketball, but with the MLBPA so powerful that isn't coming to pass in my lifetime and maybe not yours either. What we need this coming season is a team all pulling together on the same rope, the pitchers over-achieving, the offense doing what we think they should do, and an airtight defense that smothers hits along with a bullpen that shuts the doors. A lot to ask for but let's hope it gets done. I'd love to see us go real deep in the playoffs this year.....you know, last to first to last to first again.

You know USER, the more I keep thinking about it the more it is dawning on me that you could be absolutely right about the Red Sox not wanting to sign Lester. Too many weird things went down from the time we won the WS in October of 2013 when Jon said he wanted to stay in Boston and would gladly give Boston a home discount. Henry never moved at that time when it would have seemed the perfect time to do so. Then that lowball offer from Lucchino, followed by no progress and talks of any kind and then the trade. Lester could have been ours with a concerted effort so I think you hit upon something. I hate to admit it----no, not that you were right but that I might have had it figured wrong all along and that Henry and Co. took me and others for a ride when we tried to convince ourselves that they really wanted to keep him. What you've been saying seems to make more sense as each day goes by.

Are you kidding Spud? The lowballed Lester and lost him and they will not pay big money for pitching otherwise they would have done it THIS off season when the AL East is up for grabs. The only way your take on things can happen is that our team has another disastrous season like two of the last three and the media and press and fans absolutely go off the deep end and plaster Prune Face and his cohorts into embarrassment along with a lot of cancelled season tickets. And with so many pink hats around who don't s*** about the game or the team just the fact that they can get a ticket to Fenway will be enough for that. Good God, some of those types have been too frequent at Red Sox games the past half-dozen years and they're starting to act like those stupid and baseball ignorant fans we have our here in LA.

For all our sakes you better hope you've got Miley pegged better than the rest of us, and while offense in the AL isn't as good as before it's a helluva lot better than that miserable NL West with stiffs like the Padres, Rockies and D'Backs cavort......and while I'm about it the Giants didn't look like a Murderer's Row offense either while the Dodger one was vastly overrated. I hope Miley does well.....and he's going to have to for us to make a real move upward this season. We'll see.

Yes it is.....and there is a lot less of that too.

About an hour after I got home a few hours back I did a cursory check of what you predicted and though far from scientific, I came up with the things listed and came to the conclusion that you are thinking between 86-92 wins this season. True, I only checked and cross checked for about 30 minutes but that's what I came up with. Am I anywhere in the ballpark? If so, that number could spell an AL East Title this year. Is that where you are?

Those stats might be a bit skewed Bellhorn. Remember Shields pitched in the American League. Miley in the National League. Big difference in hitting ability between the two, big difference.

No Kimmi, the FO did not do a very good job of rebuilding the rotation at all. Read what Jacko wrote. He was pretty precise. Masterson and Buchholz are not pitchers you can count on, and Miley may wind up becoming a piñata in the American League. I still insist we really need one more very good pitcher......I would even like two if possible and time is running out.

Ted---On the Red Sox website they showed Blake soon after they signed him taking batting practice at his New Mexico High School. It showed him batting from both sides of the plate. Now all I saw was what I witnessed on my computer but I swear the guy had a terrific stroke----from both sides. Good hand action and he stayed inside the ball and kept his head in. I was deeply impressed. Even if Vasquez becomes our regular catcher we must keep Swihart because he was once a third baseman, can play first or the outfield and I think the guy will be a good hitter. Also, as much as so many people are saying we can get by with a weak hitter at catcher, we cannot if two or three other players who we depend on have off years or start to decline, and I cannot ever remember a Red Sox team since 2003 that had a lineup of solid hitters throughout the lineup. In '04, Mueller, Bellhorn and Nixon (injured too) were very inconsistent, in '07 Crisp, Lugo and Drew had off years, and iin 2013 we didn't exactly get all that much from Middlebrooks, Drew, or even Salty in a matter of consistency. With our pitching I'm looking to get every hitter we can in the lineup this year, next year and in the rest of the teens until we f inally come up with a pitching staff that can pitch and dominate games.

SBF to Amaro----You want Swihart? Get lost!!!!!!!

I still agree with you my friend that we need another top quality pitcher but right now it looks like that's not going to happen. The front office is taking a big chance doing that. If it works out and we win the division they will look like pretty smart cookies. It the season unravels Red Sox fans will be very angry along with disappointed. My wish is that Amaro gets a reality check and decides to sell Hamels for a plethora of Red Sox prospects not named Swihart or Betts. What might be even better long term is if Owens lights up Pawtucket, is brought up in June or so and sets the league on fire. Right now I am worried about the five we have and IMHO three of them need to really step up this season.

You know mvp, I have a color photo of Jon Lester sitting in the tray next to my computer in a Cubs top. I will miss him and I do not wish him harm but only the best. Sometime, say 2018, we will meet the Cubs in the WS and beat them again as we did in 1918. That would be a real hoot. Still, I'll be rooting for the guy when he opens the season for the his new team on Sunday Night Baseball to open the season.

First about that sign about you being crazy.....you're not except for loving the Red Sox, but then if that's the benchmark then we're all nuts. As for pissing contest, I think things are going to quiet down for awhile. Look, none of us want to be suspended for a month, banned for two, and turn this board into a brawling cauldron. Stay on here Ogden.....you will find that the positives far outweigh the negatives. As for your take on Lester, even if you are right, the market dictates the prices and as long as teams are throwing out that kind of money the prices will only go higher until sanity prevails.

I liked this post by you 700. It was a happy one and obviously you're elated by the turn of events yesterday. It is also a very vanilla post and I'll keep my eyes open to see if it brings forth comments on the negative side. If it does then I'm convinced that nothing on this board is safe from attack. Congrats on your new found wealth. And may I have the temerity to make a simple suggestion? How about we try tomorrow for one day at least of no nasty exchanges between the posters on this board. Kimmi and I went through this crap back in 2011 and it led to a split in the Sawxheads Board, and, truth be told, though the Jacobins and Pollyannas or the FOM and San Fans United if you prefer that, went their own way there was some bitterness for awhile. Please, let's not let that happen here. Kimmi's message was a wake-up call, so can we just talk Red Sox baseball and let this crap wind down? Can we do that? Yes, 700 Hitter and iortiz are two of my best buddies on this board but I don't want that to cause me to get any enemies either. We can all come together. I want this board to prosper because it is a great one and I enjoy being on it.

Well for one thing, your Shtick sounds very Bostonian or New Yorker. Hard for me to decipher that you are foreign......and I don't mean that in a negative way. You just seem American.

Whoa!!!!! Let me back up because I may have missed something here. Are you a Dominican???????

Damn it User, I am NOT taking a shot at you.....far from it.....I want this s*** to stop and if you read my posts I told iortiz to stop bugging you. I did wonder if you even knew you were being caustic or biting. Hell, I don't know because I don't know you personally. Frankly, I thought that could be the case because I can be a little sarcastic myself without even knowing that I'm being that. Sometimes we don't know ourselves as think we might. Perhaps that's not your MO.....But as one person wrote on this board, we all have our schtick (SIC). At any rate, I want this pissing contest to stop........at least until we see how the team is doing by June. Thank you for listening.

Well hooray for Farrell. The idea of Workman as a starter is a sickening thought. All last season he would start an by the second time around the lineup would be little but cannon fodder for the hitters. A good one or two inning relief pitcher is what he could be, and probably an effective one as he showed in the 6th Game of the WS in 2013.

SeanJohn----Actually I did do some "unofficial" scouting. I scouted some players for regular scouts when I was a coach. Being a real scout is a tiresome process and you better like it or you will fail. You're required sometimes to go to parts of three or four games a day, watch for two innings for a particular player and then go elsewhere for another game. And those reports you have to write. Writer's cramp, constant travel, away from your family-----I take my hat off to full time scouts. They're not paid nearly what they're worth. I had it best. I could coach my team and when I had time to a favor or two for five or six scouts that I knew and give them what help I could.....and I never took a penny for it.

mvp---like I told my friend to stop bugging User, your friend.....why don't you tell User to stop bugging iortiz, my friend. Fairness cuts both ways, and the language has been crappy all around.