a700hitter

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.

Check his stats. Romero had two very good seasons in a row topping more than 200 innings each of those seasons. His game fell apart with the great Guru Farrell at the helm. I think those teams have the best talent evaluators for pitching. They do a much better job of identifying pitching talent and drafting it. Their secret is not their pitching coach. We had Curt Young for a year. His results are much better in Oakland for reasons other than the climate.

It worries me greatly that Ortiz is still not fully healed. Without a healthy Ortiz, the team will struggle to score.

Jacko, I wholeheartedly agree with your post. I acknowledge that it is much more difficult to spot flaws at the ML level which is why the major league pitching coaches have less of an impact than coaches at lower levels. If I had a dollar for every time that I heard that coaches spotted something in the mechanics of a struggling pitcher only to have the guy continue to struggle. I don't buy into the pitching coach guru theory. Leo Mazone was nothing when he left the Braves. I remember that people thought that Joe Kerrigan was a guru because the Sox staff put up good numbers under him. Of course they were led by Pedro who was other-worldly. Kerrigan never found success again. He was no guru. I am not saying that pitching coaches add nothing at the ML level. They help with preparedness and philosophies on attacking hitters etc., but Farrell was no big whiz straightening out mechanics his first time around. He's not going to watch some video of Lester and solve his problems. Lester will be helped much much more by pitching to a catcher other than Salty IMO.

By the time they reach the majors and certainly by the time they have reached Lester's level of experience and success in the majors they have mastered the fundamental mechanics. The refinement at the major league level is incredible as these guys have repeated their deliveries thousand upon thousands of times. The major league pitching coaches are doing far less tinkering with mechanics than coaches at lower levels. If pitching coaches made such a big difference, they would make a lot more money and they would be more valuable than the managers. The fact is that they make modest money and they show up in one organization after another like a game of musical chairs. They are very interchangeable. The teams with great pitching talent had the best talent evaluators who do a better job of identifying and drafting the talent. The organizations are not do ing such a great job developing the Matt Cains and Lincecums and so forth. They are doing a great job at finding them and drafting them.

I think the biggest role played by pitching coaches is keeping pitchers ready by making sure that they gets their work in, and he provides information to the manager with regard to how a guy looks. As for helping pitchers figure things out, I think that does not happen very often. I have not taken a scientific survey, but I have spoken with a number of former pitchers. When I asked Seaver and Koosman about the Met organization's philosophy on developing pitchers they laughed. I noted how many of them had similar deliveries and mechanics. They told me that they learned from each other-- that Joe Pignatano was busy tending to his tomato plants. By and large, the pitchers watch each other and learn from each other. There are exceptions. Dave Duncan has been a success, but on each of his staffs he has had some great pitchers who were good teachers starting with Dave Stewart on the A's. A fellow pitcher, Larry Sherry has been credited by Sandy Koufax with turning Koufax's career around. I don't have a lot of faith in Farrell turning guys around. He didn't do such a great job in Toronto. Ricky Romero's promising career took a nose dive under Farrell, and Alvarez flopped too. When the highly regarded Leo Mazzone went to Baltimore he couldn't accomplish a thing. No one improved. Mazzone looked like a genius because of Maddox, Glavine and Smoltz et al. IMO, the bigger impact will come from losing Salty.

I am not a big believer in the notion that pitching coaches have anything more than a nominal influence. I am not counting on that. I am starting to believe that the staff would markedly improve if Salty is traded. Of course, if Salty is traded and the staff improves, everyone will attribute it to the positive influence of Farrell. IMO, they would be mistaken.

Two holes in the rotation usually spells disaster for a team, because it puts pressure on the other 3 to win nearly every start. It also puts an enormous strain on the pen which would likely reduce its effectiveness as a result of over use. I leave open the possibility that we could survive if Lester and Buch pitch to their potential, but it would be tight. If one of them falters, I don't see any other combination of 3 that could have us survive 2 holes in the rotation. It's just too much to overcome. With regard to the possibility of filling a hole during the season, that is not easy to do, and the organization has not shown an inclination to do what it takes to make such an acquisition during the season. Also, if there are 2 holes in the rotation, the team could be in such a deep hole at the trading deadline that it wouldn't matter.

We should have a moratorium on this. We all like Nava, but he is just not a major league outfielder. He doesn't have major league skills. If he is on the opening day roster, it wouldn't signal disaster, but IMO it would not be a good signal.

I never said anything otherwise. However, I do think that almost all of the question marks need to be answered on the positive side in order for the team to compete. That is unlikely. At least 3 of the 5 need to come through and in that 3 of 5 scenario Buchholz and Lester performing would be a must to compete. If one of them falters, we would need 4 of 5 to perform. That is not impossible, but highly unikely.

Not yet.

Why would Napoli keep it quiet? He would want to generate interest in himself. ^ This is not plausible.