seabeachfred

The only way we have any chance to climb back into contention next season is if we get two stalwart starting pitchers and two decent relievers including a solid closer if we are going to let Koji walk. Our rotation is crappy and we cannot count on Buchholz taking charge as the ace---no way in hell. He cannot be depended on what with his injury history and Kelly is at best a solid No. 3. I think DeLaRosa finally proved what I said about him earlier, that he is inconsistent and has a strong tendency to get his rear end handed to him. Webster came on strong at the end but that does not make up for his shoddy and ineffective pitching for most of the season he was with us. No, instead of signing a third baseman for four or five years from upwards of $75 to $100 million let's put that money into pitching and use the extra money we save from contracts ending or not being extended to get us those two solid starting pitchers we need. The front office brought all this on with their cheap and parsimonious ways with Lester and Lackey and they owe it to the fans to rectify their miserable mistakes. That is the way to do it.

Navafan---You're probably too young to remember but there was a time about five or six decades ago when baseball was so popular there wasn't even a pro football game on TV many Sundays, and only one college game on Saturday. Football came of age for the first time in that overtime NFL Title game in 1958 between the Giants and the Colts and with a decade they were ready to pass baseball as our sport sat on their hands and took the Saturday Game of the Week off the air in the afternoon and soon put playoff games on mostly at night. Baseball is great if we don't get saturated with it and, face it, it is not the TV game football is. Baseball is best heard on radio or seen in person. There isn't a person alive who could tell me that our sport is second to football in person or on radio. Unfortunately, fans want to see the action and not think about it. Football does that; in baseball you have to think and plan ahead trying to outfox what the pitcher and catcher are going to do, and not only that the pace is slower. This may sound blasphemous but I find football boring. I do. They will pass or run and there is a whole lot of dead time in between in huddles and time outs. Action consumes only a fraction of the time and fans aren't forced to do much thinking in between. In baseball you have to be thinking all the time to wonder what is coming next and that is the beauty of baseball. I venture to say if the game can be speeded up a tad and playoff and WS games take place in the afternoon as they did back in the late 40's, 50's and well into the 60's we'll pick a lot of new fans. In short we have the greatest game in the world, the only one where the defense holds the ball and where any time a pitch is thrown dozens of things can happen. Give me baseball any day of the week.

I was thinking the same thing Ted. I am pretty convinced that if there had been a seventh game last year we might have ended up on the wrong end of it. I remember very well how ineffective Peavy was from the get-go in Game 3 of that series. Still the Giants have Bumgarner lurking in the weeds for tomorrow night's game. Glad my prediction of the Giants in six turned to mush---but it is not enough. I want the Royals to get game seven and the WS Title. I'm hoping I'll be smiling tomorrow evening at this time----and I think you know why I want KC to win it all.

To get Stanton we would have to deal BOTH Bogaerts and Betts to get a heavyweight slugger like that----and that is not going to happen in my opinion. If I'm wrong and we can swing a trade for him, Prune Face is going to have to get a brain for a change and open his damn vault and be sure to sign him to a humongous extension. Two years of Stanton would be ok for either one of them but not two. OTOH, sign him to a large extension and I would make the trade in a flash. Tough for me because I love Mookie Betts. Again OTOH, I still have deep doubts about Bogaerts. He may need two more seasons to get untracked but what does that get us? Stanton could be the offensive leader to a team that could challenge for a WS Title.

I never liked the Lester trade anyway Spud and thought it was the worst move we made in a season of bad moves. That I would rate it even higher than that pathetic Drew signing tells you just how much I hated trading Jon away. We may be feeling that for the next few years unless we get two top quality pitchers for the rotation and not some retreads or any of this buy low and hope high nonsense. Still, why would the Red Sox even be dumber to blare to all the other teams how they hate Cespedes, don't want him and will put him up for trade? If the guy is an A-hole, wouldn't someone in the organization have had known this guy had attitude problems, was weak defensively save for a strong arm, was not going to resign with the Red Sox, etc, etc? Looks to me as if the front office is still shooting themselves in the foot with their strange moves and conduct. Time for them to turn the cannon on the opposition instead of themselves, don't you think?

What a miserable piece of news to hear. Two young lives snuffed out just like that. What a waste. I hope there aren't any booby traps around how he and his girl met their end. No drugs, alcohol from either side of that tragedy. My heart goes out to his and her family.

I taught American History, US Government and Speech Communication. I also taught some electives like Civil War History, Modern European History and American Presidency. I also coached baseball and football. Thirty five years of it and I enjoyed thirty four and four-fifths of it. There were only a few bad days., mostly when I was dealing with administrators.

Nice if we could trade places with them next season. Sounds good to me.

Great defense and great bullpen. However, they have to win tonight because they face Madison Bumgarner tomorrow. I don't think KC wants to return home down three games to two.

I notice a lot of people, including you, really throw dirt on the managers in the AL East, Maddon, Showalter and Girardi. I've heard it as much as you've heard me batter Farrell this year and Francona his last year with the Sox. Fact is Farrell did a crappy job this past season no matter how you look at it. First of all the team was put through a country club type of Spring Training in March and many posters here and elsewhere were aware of it from the start. He was holding this guy out, taking it slowly with that guy, and going at it like he had all the time in the world. The team WAS NOT READY for the season. During the regular campaign he simply couldn't bring himself to realize that Jackie Bradley was a total drag on a team that suddenly couldn't score, and even when he said he was benching him it was for a game or two at the most and then BOOM, right back in the lineup to zap it even more. He jerked Bogaerts around saying he was the shortstop for sure, then not so sure, then maybe, then the disastrous, totally disastrous signing of Stephen Drew who he kept playing despite hitting dozen of points below the Mendoza Line while Xander's confidence took a tumble. The guy simply couldn't make up his mind who should play and who shouldn't. Now was it just a bad year for him and maybe he will get it together next year as he did in 2013? We'll see---but let's be frank about this. In his four years as a Major League manager he has had three crappy seasons, two of the worst in Toronto's last decade of competition. It is only MY opinion but I think either Girardi (not available), Showalter (not available) or Maddon (available) would be a much better fit for the Sox than Farrell is. We'll see next season if he proves me and others who feel the same way about him wrong.

I always support our service men---and for the record they did their job there when Bush launched the surge. We won the war and then Obama undid everything and efed everything up with his ineptness. There I go again.....ruining a nice Friday evening by mentioning that SOB. You are a police officer, though, aren't you?

SK---if the Red Sox opt for pitching via the trade mart and have chance to pick up a solid pitcher with one or two years left on their respective contract, it might cost us a Cespedes to get that pitcher. If might cost us someone like him anyway if he is part of a big trade for Cole Hamels. Unless Henry is prepared to spend a shitload of money on two top notch free agent pitchers it will cost us personnel and good players at that in order to get what we believe we need. Nothing is going to come cheap, either in trades or free agency.

Whoa SCM!!!! Are you a police officer and a veteran Marine? s***, I never knew that, that or I didn't pay attention. I was in the Army back in the 60's so I'm a veteran as well, and almost went to Police Academy in Los Angeles way back when before I opted to become a teacher and sports coach. As 700 said, keep a keen eye and watch out for those rotten sneaky bastards.

If the Red Sox could envision doing something great that would set them up for the next decade or so they would find a way to create a job for Farrell by kicking him upstairs and then inking one of the two or three best managers in baseball. Of course, we know that will never happen because the Red Sox want a skipper they can control to a point and Maddon would never allow himself to be jerked around by a ******** like Lucchino. It is a nice thought though.

As I said, I hope I am wrong about Bogaerts and would be delighted if I am. I don't think he was helped by the constant droning on about whether he could play short, play third or what have you. The key was the signing of Stephen Drew, which, BTW, I called from the start and said it would be a disaster---which it most certainly was. Drew hadn't played since October and was coming off a miserable offensive post-season. Signing him in May after almost seven months of inactivity was written in failure for anyone with a half a brain to see it. It was the worst mistake the front office and management made in a season that was chock full of them. Bogey will get another chance and I hope this time he learns how to handle pressure when he is at bat and there are runners on the bases. I also called it as early as April that from what I saw in the Home Opening Series alone that this guy could be a choker. He was certainly that this season....a very big choker.

The question is will the Red Sox put up or shut up for solid pitching. Our starting rotation right now is little more than dog poo, and don't anyone with a sound and functioning mind try to tell me that Clay Buchholz is a good choice to be our "ace". Ass yes, ace, NO, NEIN, NYET, NO MAS!!!!! Kelly is a number three at best and De La Rosa showed the last month why I have always maintained he is s*** on a roll. Good stuff, nothing upstairs and that means problems down the road. Webster? The guy with the deer in the headlights look? Are you freakin' kidding me. Henry and Lucchino brought this all on themselves when they low balled our ace and let him go, then traded away John Lackey. It is going to cost money and or players to get the two top notch pitchers we need because if we don't plan on having another dry spell circa 2009-2012. BTW, by two top notch pitchers I don't mean Masterson, Hammels or Santana.

Could be a cross checker, that is, a scout that looks over Big League teams for his club to lay the groundwork for trades that might be in the offing come December or January. Of course, he could also just be a fan who likes baseball and has a Florida connection. When I take my wife to an Angels game, say against the A's, there I am in Red Sox regalia and I wonder what some fans at home think when they something like that. Probably what you're thinking about seeing that guy in a Marlins jacket. Those are the most likely possibilities.

Some of the nitwit writers we have our here in So. Cal have apparently either gotten stars in their eyes or have been sniffing stuff not good for them. One such character is Bill Shaikin, who writes the column "On Baseball" as the feature baseball scribe of the LA Times. He came out yesterday and predicted the Royals in four---pretty much of what you'd expect from a fuzzy headed Dodger fan who drank their Kool Aid all summer and previously predicted that team would win it all just before the playoffs began. There's always a chance one of us can make a prediction and wind up looking silly, but no one with a modicum of grey matter should have made that four sweep prediction. Fact is, I wouldn't be surprised if the Giants won the thing in five games, one better than my prediction of the Jints in six. Just be grateful that you have real baseball writers who know s*** from shinola in your neck of the woods (I'm thinking around Boston) than some of the dingbats we have out here. I'd be totally shocked if this thing went seven games and on stroke watch if the Royals won it even though I hope they would. After all, I want only our team to have three titles this century and not someone else to have to share it with.

I didn't say it Jacko, scouts said it and did so numerous times so take up your argument with them. My main point is that if we have a player who is weak with the bat and we have someone who is better offensively you go with that player. Anyone who saw what killed us this season and finds fault with that is in total denial. Swihart is a switch hitting catcher who has been likened to Posey. He can hit, he has power, he hits from sides of the plate and he has a very strong arm and calls a good game. I would take it you would rather have your team face Vazquez for the next ten years instead of Blake, but that's not the way I see it and hope that's not the way a few of our addled people in the front office see it either.

We're simpatico Spud. I want the Royals to win but I see the Giants in six as well. Odds are we'll be right.

There are many scouts and baseball people through the game that have likened Blake Swihart to Buster Posey. That should be enough for the Red Sox to get their heads out of their asses and make damn sure that, ONE, they do not trade him, and TWO, that he becomes their catcher when he is ready, and Three, if not that find a spot for him in the infield (1B or 3B). I would take number two. We can talk all we want about defense and how we can carry a batter or two who hits poorly because the other people will hit. That is pure unadulterated ********!!!!. We only have to look at this past season when we were talking the same tune. What happened? Bradley was prime horseshit, Bogaerts was lousy and ineffective, AJ was a disaster and Gomes didn't hit and Shane was hurt. You pack as many hitters as you can in the lineup and if for no other reason it might be wise to do this because there is no guarantee that Cherington is going to be able to get those two solid pitchers we need. Most likely he will screw things up badly again just as he did after 2011 and 2013. We may need all the offense we can get....hitters who can hit for average, some with ability to steal bases as well, some to hit with some power, and some who can hit with men on base. Swihart and Cecchini must be given spots when they are ready. My fear is that the front office has turned gun shy with young players because of how s***** Bradley and Bogaerts were this year. IMHO, Blake and Garin couldn't be as crappy as Bradley was if they tried to hit blindfolded, and pray that Bogaerts turns out to be the player the Red Sox envisioned and not the choker I believe we may have on our hands. I'd love to be proven wrong on that one.

As I said Pal, you were right. I just gave my opinion why this might be so---and put the blame on American athletes that could be playing baseball and go in a different direction. That wasn't the case back in the 40's and 50's and into the 60's.

It is not PC to say things like that but I'm not anywhere near PC and you are right. Cuban and DR players love baseball and have a lot of talent, but you have to be very careful when signing players from those places, and throughout LA for that matter. You may wind up with a Roberto Clemente or a David Ortiz, but you could wind up with some other types lacking discipline, bad fundamentals and poor attitudes. Then, again, if more African Americans played baseball or white American players were a little more hungry and determined we might not have as many players from those areas. Fact is, they are needed now since a lot of US athletes are going into other sports like soccer and even hockey, along with football and basketball.

Can we just for a moment shitcan this talk about Puig, and other outfielders which we don't need? We need pitching, two good starting pitchers and that should be our only concern until we get that settled. We could get a whole slew of hitters but you can only play three in the OF at a time and it still leaves us short on the mound. As we've seen in the Playoffs pitching wins. We need starting pitching. Besides Puig can be a real *******.

NS--I think it's a pretty fair assumption that you're in the majority there. I'm with you, so is 700 Hitter and I'm sure Spud, and others would fall into line on that one.