a700hitter

Not me. I'll insult the intelligence of our FO before they make any moves. I won't limit that criticism to our FO. There aren't a lot of intellectual giants in any FO. That being said, you don't need geniuses to make good baseball moves. Unfortunately, the FO people are the ones accountable for building the roster. If a move doesn't work out, they are the ones accountable. It doesn't matter how many fans agreed with the move. Two wrongs don't make a right, and the buck stops with the FO.

Crickets chirping.

The actual results are the only ones that count. Duh. That's what you get judged on. You don't get judged on "what ifs".

It doesn't matter how things looked at the time. You get judged on results. Larry Anderson for Jeff Bagwell didn't look bad at the time either, because Bagwell had showed little pop and was blocked in the Red Sox organization. We know the result. It can't be defended because of how it looked at the time.

This is completely incoherent gibberish, but I am sure that you know what you meant.

Name one ownership that spent as much money as the Red Sox over the last 3 years with a result of driving the team into last place.

They have had a competitive team for the last 5 years. They have been able to achieve that. They still need to build a fan base. Winning and being competitive hasn't done it. IMO their biggest hurdle is getting fostering an emotional bond to the team. They will not do that unless they have some generational heros associated with the team. They are keeping Longo. That is a good move. Getting a stud like Mike Stanton to let him go in a couple of years would not help their franchise IMO. If they get him, I think they will keep him and build around him.

It's quite a commute from where you live. How often do you get to Fenway?

I love Fenway, but it is not a very comfortable place to watch a game and the thousands of obstructed views is very frustrating. Warts and all, I still get a thrill every time I enter the place after all these 45+ years. I don't know if I could ever feel the same way about a new ballpark. That's just sentimentality on my part. I miss City of Palms Park in Ft. Myers, and I had gone there for only 8 years and the new park is beautiful ( although the seats are as small as they are at Fenway).

The fact that he didn't regain his velocity after 3 months of pitching in short relief and any semblance of command was lost leads me to think that there is something structurally wrong.

To think that people would argue about him at one time.

Our biggest opportunity to improve our starting pitching may be to get rid of Salty.

I wish I had a dollar for every time a pitching coach thought they had identified a mechanical flaw in a struggling pitcher's delivery, and he continued to struggle. I remember after cutting Allan Embree, the Yankees signed him and they were so excited to get a hard throwing lefty for their pen and Suzynne Waldman announced that Mel Stottlemyre had spotted a very fixable mechanical flaw that would straighten him out. He was horrible that season. I laughed at Stot straightening him out, because Stot never straightened out anyone's mechanics. Embree s*** all over himself for the Yankees. My recollection is that we had one official pitching coach last year and one unofficial pitching coach. Neither of them found Lester's flaw in enough time to salvage Lester's season. They had the video to review. I don't think Farrell is a guru compared to the others. If he was, he should have gotten Ricky Romero on track in Toronto last year. Lester may straighten himself out, but I think Bard is a complete lost cause. I think we will learn eventually that he has an injury.

Maybe he has already figured it out.

It may not be the best way to build a desperately needed fanbase by trading for one of the giant young talents of the game only to trade him away in 2 years.

Golfers like pitchers are always tinkering and no doubt their coaches are making suggestions, but at that pro-level finding a mechanical flaw that would transform a player's game would be rare. People shouldn't get there hopes up that Farrell is going to watch some video of Lester and turn him back into an All Star pitcher. I am sure that every pitching coach in the organization was studying that video last year. Whatever is wrong, he'll have to figure it out himself. Maybe Farrell can help rebuild his confidence and that is very important, but I am not expecting a magic bullet mechanical fix. Those are fairly rare. The one possible magic bullet fix could be a change of catchers-- the numbers seem to bear that out.

I wonder what kind of impact that instructor would have on Tiger Woods' game. Edit: I think that is the more accurate analogy.

More truth comes out from players about managers, coaches and other players over dinner and drinks as opposed to things said to the media. It's interesting that you picked a knuckleballer like Wilbur Wood to use as an example, when most pitching coaches acknowledge that they don't have a clue how to help a knuckle ball pitcher. You are right there is no point. You have your opinion about the issue and I have mine. I am not saying that they play no role in pitching mechanics. Obviously, they do. We differ on the impact that they have at the major league level in this regard. I don't think there is a definitive answer on it, so I don't know why you keep trying to invalidate my opinion on this. You have you opinion. I am fine with that.

10 wins from the 69 wins from last year. I see them finishing with between 79 and 84 wins. I think they will start fast and be competitive for most of the season, but the lack of starting pitching depth will catch up to them in August and things will start breaking down. My opinion is based on current personnel which hopefully will be improved before spring training.

Let's home for a fast start helped by the strengthened bullpen. Meaningless games at home against the Yankees turns my stomach.

I read that we don't play the Yankees at Fenway until July 19th. The scheduling is getting increasingly more ridiculous each year.

If Bailey can stay healthy and Hanrahan doesn't blow up, they should tream up to be a nice end of the game bullpen. It should be a huge improvement over last year's late inning debacle. This is the single biggest area of improvement made this off season IMO. I think it nets us a pickup of close to 10 games in the standings. I am not sure that our other moves net us any gain in the standings.

I read about Theo's remarks. He also predicted that 2012 would be a big year for the Red Sox. While I respect your research with regard to prospects, I have not held Theo in high regard for some time with regard to his ability at evaluating pitching talent.

Yes, that is a huge factor.

I was expressing an opinion based on conversations with pitchers who I have met. I said that this wasn't a scientific survey, and yes it is based merely on anectdotal first hand information. Your evidence is also anecdotal and none of it seems to be first hand information. Yes, you knew Sain, but how many pitchers told you that Sain straightened out their mechanical flaws. I was not making a blanket attack on the usefulness of MLB pitching coaches contrary to what you may be thinking. Yes, there are good, bad and average pitching coaches just like with everything else. However, it is my opinion that their value lies in areas other than spotting and correcting mechanical flaws, which at the MLB level is very hard to do especially with veterans. I don't buy into the notion of pitching gurus who can turn around pitchers careers. Yes, it happens at times, but not as often as people think IMO. Again, this is my opinion as I have stated over and over. I believe they make suggestions and try to help pitchers tinker all the the time, but rarely do they spot a mechanical flaw that turns a guy around. If there was a pitching coach who could do that, he'd be worth his weight in gold considering the importance of pitching and the Yankees would be collecting them like Free agents. There is no bidding war over pitching coaches. As for Farrell, I do not think he is a very good pitching coach. I didn't see the results when he was with us nor at Toronto. Of recent Sox pitching coaches, I think Wallace was the bet. Again, just my opinion, but I have as much proof of my opinion as you do. Edit: BTW, Norm Sherry was the backup catcher for the Dodgers when he helped out Koufax.