a700hitter

Boy, you have worn out your welcome all over the country.

i started as a700hitter and I remain. You coward.

So, it will be okay if I throw it up to you periodically when we are arguing?

Fred, as fans, we all want hope as the season starts. I have picked up on your optimism as the season has approached. I read your posts and don't read into them preconceived notions. Last year, I let my hopes work their way into my predictions, even though I knew they were unrealistic. This year I didn't let hope cloud my predictions. I still have hope, and I did make some positive individual predictions. I am looking forward to opening day. Happy Easter!

Okay, the season starts tomorrow. Here are my predictions: First out of the box, this team will finish last for the second year in a row, possibly 4th place if one of the other teams blows up. You don't replace Josh Beckett with Ryan Dempster on a bottom 3 starting pitching staff on a last place team and your team will not improve appreciably. Lester and Buccholz should rebound and pitch well. Lackey, at best, will return to his 2010 performance level. Dempster will pitch to a 4.50 ERA and a .500 record. The starting staff will improve from a bottom 3 staff to a middle of the pack staff -- a little below the middle. I expect them to start well but an injury or 2 will hit and the lack of depth will cause the pitching to spiral downward and it will burn out the bullpen by the middle of August. The end of game bullpen will be much improved from last year's terrible showing. It will finish in the top half of the league. It will be in the top 3 earlier in the year, but injuries to the starting staff and a lack of adequate depth will stress the pen and hurt their performance. The staff will perform much worse pitching to Salty than our other catchers. Ortiz will miss significant playing time and the offense will have trouble scoring runs. Middlebrooks hits 25 HRs and knocks in 90 runs.

I thought "ignore" was for cowards?

Nava's best tool is his small strike zone.

The guy is just not good. He is a bush leaguer with no major league tools. If you like him, fine, but you are deluding yourselves about his abilities and usefulness at the MLB level, iMO. When he played for us in 2010, I predicted that if we ever saw him at Fenway again, it would be a sign that the team was in a lot of trouble. 2012 spoke volumes about trouble. Having Nava come north as 1 of 25 to start the season indicates to me that this isn't a very strong squad, but that is just my opinion. It's like walking into a restaurant and seeing paper napkins. You know you are not in a 4 star place. Nava is paper napkins and plastic salt and pepper shakers.

He slugged at .295 with a .659 OPS. Pretty bad numbers.

Facing major league pitching separates the men from the midgets.

The pattern was the same in 2010. He started red hot and after once through the league his performance fell off a cliff. He wasn't injured then. The guy has very very limited skill.

His OBP was .284 in the second half of the season. Hardly, a monster OBP. The pitchers figured him out.

The pitchers figure him out after one time through the league and he falls to below average at that too. Can his enormous heart and work ethic overcome his puny physical skills? Possibly, but the odds are against it.

He has a nice story, and it's easy to root for him, but not the type of player that good teams carry on their roster. He is a glorified bush leaguer. He is very very limited in his abilities. He's small with little power, runs like a wounded duck, and has a weak arm. He's got a lot of heart, but otherwise, he's a zero.

But these guys can also take you deep into the playoffs to the promised land.

The Mariners drew more than 1 million fans less than the Brewers and they signed King Felix long term. The mariners drew less than the the Pirates which were 15th in NL attendance. The tendency lately has been for teams to resign their aces-- even the small and medium market teams.

Teams pay their aces to keep them. We are dreaming if we think that we will be able to poach an ace.

I watched his no-hit game last season. I believe that he set a personal record for number of pitches in that game. I had the feeling as his pitch count mounted that it would cost him down the road, but I didn't think it would be this bad.

Fred, I agree that Iglesias could crash and burn at the plate, but I would prefer that he get his shot with this team so we know once and for all if he has a future as an MLB starting SS or whether he is just a utility type player. I don't think the prospects for this team are very good, so now is the time to give him his shot. By next year, he will have Bogaerts pushing him, so Iggy's window of opportunity. The season is about to start and I sense that you are getting optimistic about the team's chances so you want to play the guys that give us the best chance of winning. Maybe I am wrong about that. I'd like to see some of the kids get a shot this year. This has a lot of TalkSox people confused because they have convinced themselves that I am anti-prospect. LOL!! I told them that I wasn't anti-prospect, but the circumstances have to be right to hand them jobs without safety nets. This season is one of those times.

Glass jaw = fragile I hate Jeter, but he would have shook off that glancing blow like a bug bite.

A well run organization, but what do we know.

Gomes will lumber in LF at Fenway too.

It's also ridiculous to be comparing Drew and Beltre under any circumstances. You should admit that too.

I hope people don't expect too much from Bradley. He is definitely better than our other options, but that is a pretty low bar. He will hit some bumps, but he is talented and he does hustle. I don't think people should expect him to take off like a meteor.

No fire on my end.