seabeachfred

Let me clear this up once and for all so that you and Jacko and anyone else who thinks I'm berating Lester can rest easily. I'm now convinced that beyond just a slight doubt that Jon is bidding the Red Sox a fair adieu. He has a right to seek out the best deal for himself and his family and Prune Face stands convicted for his stingy and tight waded offer last Spring. However, I would have more respect for Lester if he just told the Red Sox he is not interested now in coming back. That would be honest and it wouldn't impede his ability to get a big paying contract. Simply put, he has no intention of returning to the Red Sox and should be honest enough to say it to them.....IMHO.

Right now Lester is busily on his "greed" tour and it occurred to me that this is the tipoff that he is going elsewhere and is going to give Henry a big middle finger.....and that is why I take a different tack and want the Red Sox to make a full rush for Cole Hamels. If we come up empty with both Jon (most definitely) and Hamels ( very likely unless we get off the dime) we are left trying to outbid the Yankees for Scherzer, a sure defeat, or Cueto. Mediocrities like Santana, Liiano, Masterson, Hummel are not going to get it done, and that is why I hoped the Red Sox would call it a halt after signing Pablo and let Hanley go somewhere else because his money could impede us from signing Lester. Yes, I know the Sox have a lot of money and say they are willing to spend it but I've seen them spend big for hot shots before and then close the vault---as in 2011 with Gonzales and Crawford and wound up with a weak pitching staff when injuries hit late in the season.

It wouldn't hurt the Red Sox to inquire about Longoria. Chances are the Rays would not trade him inside the AL East but anytime you're competing with the Yankees it doesn't hurt to ask.

The Red Sox seem determined to the core to give Bogaerts every chance to win and hold the shortstop position----and if he can rebound from his miserable season this year the team will have been vindicated. However, they had better be aware of the kids pathetic flailing with RISP and on base generally, and if this continues next season and his defense takes any kind of a tumble the team has to be ready to trade this guy post haste or we'll have another white elephant on our hands as we do now have with Middlebrooks and Bradley. And if it take Bogaerts to get either Cueto or Hamels, especially the later, I would jump at that chance. We could try Marrero at SS or sign Jed Lowrie for a year or two and let Holt play some there. Bogaerts is no use to us as the player he was this season because he stunk.

You say that Bogaerts was outclassed repeatedly when batting with runners on base......that could be because he was young and was rushed to the Bigs. Perhaps the front office was really taken in buy his performance in the 2013 Playoffs where he really looked outstanding, working the count well and getting some hits and playing third pretty well. Whatever, he didn't do it this season at all, and here's the rub. He didn't look good at short early, he didn't look good at third either and was disjointed on the bases. If he sharpens up next season and lives up to some of his hype he may emerge as a solid player for us.....but I do not think he is a middle of the order hitter yet and he may never be unless he starts driving in runs when they're out there on the bases. A warning, though. If he is having deep problems hitting and fielding next season it better dawn on the Sox to try and peddle him somewhere before his stock craters as it did with Bradley and Middlebrooks who right now couldn't return a crate of oranges for either of them----and I really thought WMB would emerge this past season and didn't.

Let me admit something Ted. I thought the Red Sox would not repeat in 2014 and I was fine with that going forward because I felt that three good young players making the grade could be covered by the solid vets returning. Had Victorino, Napoli, Pedroia, Ortiz, Nava-Gomes done their jobs and played to their ability instead of getting hurt, slumping and falling apart, we might have gotten away with it but we all saw what happened to Vic, how Napoli was injured, now Pedey nursed injuries most of the season, how Nava failed bitterly until the summer and how Gomes just collapsed----well there's most of the story right there. What was worse was that Bradley was a total washout, Middlebrooks couldn't stay in one piece and when he was healthy sucked badly while the fair haired boy Bogaerts was perhaps the worst player in the league trying to hit with men on base. Those three caused the front office to s*** in their pants, possibly ruining chances for young prospects like Swihart, Cecchini, Coyle and a few others to ever break into the Red Sox lineup while they go elsewhere and become perhaps standout players while the ones we counted on just crater. JB and WMB already have done that-----Bogaerts, unless he has a 100% reversal from last year, may be on his way to becoming one of our biggest busts on record.

The Red Sox had better not be holding out for a king's ransom for Cepedes because if they do he will be with the team next season and with the outfield as crowded as it is you will have a dissension problem enough to blow up the team from the get-go. The Dodgers had four OF for three positions and it was disquieting out here all summer as that choke-up team tried to lie their way out of it and said all was copasetic. Think of what having six OF demanding to play could cause. Cespedes has one year on his contract and no one gets a draft pick when he goes free agent. Get Porcello for him right now and fit into the No. 3 or 4 slot. They need to shake a few of those OF out of Boston or the clubhouse could be a distraction and fire zone next season.

It doesn't mean s*** what someone on some other team might be in the post-season...What matters is how our guys do....THE RED SOX. Hanley is a problem and cancer waiting to spring. The Dodgers didn't want him anymore, the Marlins couldn't get rid of him fast enough. You think Bell that suddenly he is going to become a choir boy for the Red Sox? This was a very bad move.

Jacko, I live only a few miles from Los Angeles and I think I know what's going on here better than most posters on this board because of my locality. Let me tell you all this BS about Ramirez turning a new leaf in LA is a pile of rubbish. He was called out my his manager, called out for loafing on ground balls and not running out grounders and his fielding was abysmal. Red Sox fans are turning handstands because "their Hanley is back". What we got is a loser who the Dodgers were more than glad to discard even though the two guys they have to replace him at short next season don't even chance out as decent utility players. They will have to trade for a shortstop for the next year or two. Hanley is not going to be any answer for the Red Sox unless he hits a ton, keeps his stupid mouth shut, hustles on every play and miraculously turns into an acceptable fielder. Now in the OF, you will see him routinely replaced for a defensive replacement in the seventh inning or even the sixth a lot of times next year which means we won't have his bat the last three innings of every game at home.

I have no idea why you brought in Francona when I never mentioned him once in my post. As for the 2011 season it WAS a miserable failure because that record might look good on paper keep in mind that the Red Sox suffered the biggest collapse in baseball history that September. We went from 1.5 games in first place on the first of that month to a hideous 8-22 mark that month, not only dropping out of first place but failing to make the playoffs at all. It doesn't matter who was at fault, the result was the same. When it counted most we sucked. You know I coined a phrase on another board that might be just timely for this discussion and whenever losing teams and disappointing seasons are discussed and here goes...... Defeat has all sorts of excuses, rationalizations and worthless meanings and statements but victory doesn't have any of these, nor do they need it because victory speaks for itself.

If Victorino shows up healthy and ready to play, unless he is traded, he will win a starting position. It amazes me how so many of my friends here have written him off. I haven't---and keep in mind if we blow the Lester talks we will have to trade for two pitchers and that is going to cost us plenty. Let's not be so quick to kiss Shane off.

Whether these are excuses, rationalizations and lame reasons, the fact that in 2012 and 2014 the Boston Red Sox stunk like a sewer at high tide. Nothing can be used to excuse it. The FO did a totally s***** job both off seasons to get us in that unsavory position but I wonder if fans and posters here would trade two such years for one like 2013 over a period of a decade? I think some might but not me. There is no excuse in hell to warrant the Red Sox finishing last two out of the last three seasons, but I see the front office once again choking on their own words and trying to buy a title the way they tried and FAILED miserably in 2011, and now after BSN filled me in on Boras and Scherzer the pitching dominoes will all be hanging like over-ripe fruit on a tree until one of those morsels falls. In the meantime we have visions of Buchholz and DeLaRosa and Webster dancing in our heads until the fruit falls. Sorry, those visions should have been nightmares.

Right Ted, and let me tell some of our fellow posters something I don't have to tell you since you and Pal and Spud are aware of it. Latos is not any No. 2 pitcher under any circumstances. He's a three or a four and he doesn't perform well in big games. He never has lived up to what was predicted for him by the "experts". Cueto? Be prepared to way big for him.

If it's just Cespedes it is most likely NOT Cueto but either Leake or Latos----and that does not solve our need for a good No. 2 because neither is equipped with the stuff, the guts and the where-with-all to compete in the AL. If it is Cueto I'll break my tee totaling way and have a brewski.

Well said do. Betts is a keeper unless we have to include him on the very best of pitchers----which I don't think we'll have to do if Cherington can sign Lester (somewhat doubtful) and trade for Cueto or Zimmerman. Bradley, OTOH, is through in Boston. He failed so miserably with the bat and was so uncoachable that they finally had to send him down to Pawtucket where he failed miserably there as well, hitting only 2004. Betts for a long career with the Red Sox and Bradley out of town for a crate of lemons.

Trade Napoli, a good power hitter and very good defensive first baseman to put Sandoval, who has never played first base, on that bag and a total sieve defensively on third? You usually come up with some very good ideas Dojii but that was not one of them.

You're so full of s*** Mr Vanishing bootlicker that it's a wonder you can even move. Let's take it one at a time just from this season alone. One, I said the team was not ready for the season when it began. Judging by our lousy start and subsequent miserable season it looks like panned out. You challenged me on that immediately and now we hear that some players say the team was not physically nor mentally prepared. Secondly, I said I believed that Bogaerts could be a choker and we went around and around on that. He hit about 140 with RISP this past season. That's two for me and none for you. I kept saying that Bradley had severe structural weaknesses at the plate and would not hit for us after I saw him flounder in ST. You took the opposite argument. And FINALLY, the Stephen Drew soap opera. I said all along they were going to sign him and you and others said, no, that shipped had sailed. Who did he sign with? I also said that signing was wrong and would be a disaster and you kept arguing with me on that until the time you saw the light, were too gutless to admit you were wrong and disappeared like a fart in the wind just as you did midseason in 2012 when your pearls fell on their collective faces. Now tell me a couple of instances when YOU were right and I was wrong. I don't think you can. I don't know why I took your sad and sorry ass off of ignore. Figured you might have learned from your know it all mistakes and got a little humility. But you're still a big bloviating bag of wind. This time you stay on ignore.

No I get you BSN. Boras' palsied hands are on Scherzer-----and, yes, that means this pitching parley may play well into January with that crud holding things up as long as he can. He never worries about where a player might be most comfortable....with him it's always the dollar. Did a helluva good job with Drew and Kendrys this past season, didn't he? Well now it might be a longer wait that I wanted for that pitching---and we might just have to go the trade route for those two top pitchers we need. I don't know how long we can wait on Lester, sad to say, and I keep getting the feeling that it is he who stringing Henry along instead of the other way around. It wouldn't surprise me if he gave Prune Face, Lucchino, Cherington and, indirectly, us a big middle finger when he signs with some other team.

Oh vey, I actually totally agree with you on this. My God, what's next.....pigs fly? Here is where we may differ again. I really believe that the poor showing of our young players this past season has shaken the front office to the core about rebuilding or retooling with youth. I just hope we don't become like the Yankees and shitcan our farm system.

No Dojii, you're not afraid to admit you were wrong and neither am I, but there is someone who was wrong on at least a half-dozen things this past season and he still hasn't fessed up to it. OTOH, I wasn't much on Beltre either at the time but I was ignorant of just how badly playing in that airport in Seattle inhibited his production. Well for all of us that's water under the bridge. Now we have to hope that signing Sandoval and Ramirez is not Part Two of the Gonzales and Crawford caper. If we can get off the dime and sign Lester before he gets away and then swing a trade for Cueto we might be in business.

Good warning Spud and it would be wise for Cherington to take heed. It wouldn't be the first time we got ambushed by the Yankees, and this board will be on fire if that happens. The bootlickers and front office acolytes will then be wise to head for the hills. Still, you have to think and believe our front office has learned some lessons from seeing the Yankees continue to pick our pockets.

BSN. You keep mentioning Boras.....Who is he representing anyway? Scherzer or Hamels or Cueto? Please don't tell me he is now representing Lester. For the record, I can't see the Red Sox being that dense and ignoring their pitching but I do have a fear that we may get out-snookered and wind up with pitchers like Masterson, Hummel, Santana and McCarthy types which will make winning next season impossible. I still think if the Red Sox just tell Lester they want him and make him an offer without a bunch of ******** on the sides we may be able to get this done sooner rather than risk it later. BTW, Peter Gammons said today he feels the Red Sox will get Lester. To me that's the kiss of death because that ham-baloney hasn't been right about anything the past few years.

Then don't read my post stupid.....and you won't have that trouble......and if you don't respond to anything I write I will NOT respond to anything you write. What could be simpler....except you want to respond and take me on. So this will continue until you back off mr. #$%^ for brains.

Phil, I keep hitting my head against a brick wall but am totally convinced that before we did anything with regard to offense we needed to ante up big time to sign Jon Lester FIRST. IMHO, these signings we made yesterday will not work at all unless we get two top quality pitchers for our rotation and the more Lester keeps roaming along my fear is someone is going to make him an offer he can't refuse---and then we are s*** out of luck because rumor has it the Dodgers are hot on Hamels trail and Scherzer is going to the Yankees in my opinion. DAMN IT CHERINGTON, SIGN LESTER!!!!!!!!

sk---after his big 2011 season in the minors when he slammed 32 homers the Red Sox decided to have Ryan concentrate on his defense and not so much on his hitting. His hitting suffered. As for his defense behind the plate, there is some question in my mind whether he could have ever been he receiver the Red Sox hoped he would be. However, the team decided to go with Salty even though his catching left a lot to be desired, yet Jarrod did emerge as at least an adequate catcher his last year with us. It just seems, though, that in the last seven or eight years too many of our "prospects" have either been kept down to long or rushed and none have been able to really make a contribution to the team---Bogaerts and Bradley being the latest two to fall on their faces, though the former will get another chance to show he's not the choker and disappointment he was this season. Bradley should be traded for a bunch of bananas and apples.