a700hitter

I agree. LaRoche is a better hitter than Napoli and a far superior first base man. As for Fenway hurting LaRoche, I am not convinced of that. I have seen him hit a few absolute bombs at Citifield which is bigger in RF than Fenway. He crushes his HRs. I would have been fine with Napoli because of his ability to catch 60 games and he is right handed. If his physical condition is such that he will be unable to catch, the Sox should have run away from him already.

The difference in stuff between Hanrahan and Melancon is huge.

Plus, the Jays got rid of their loser of a manager.

I wonder if Soriano will sign with the Yankee for less than the contract that he opted out of.

Do we have a lot of those?

Have there been any rumors about teams interested in Marcum. It would be a huge boost to our chances if they shocked us and obtained Santana. I might actually log on for some GamePax.

What do people think of him as a starter?

The Angels logjam was not that bad. We cannot carry 4 catchers. The Angels probably could have DH'd Morales. Trumbo played some 3B last year and without Tori Hunter, Trumbo would still get OF time. They did get a nice return for Morales, and you are right that we will not get anywhere near that return for Salty. I think that a 6th inning reliever is about the best we can do. More likely, I think we get a low level prospect like Pedro Beato.

You would think that he'd do the world a favor and throw himself off of a bluff.

If they want to trade Ellsbury, they should move on that before they sign Ross. It is never good to put yourself in a position where you have excess baggage to trade. Look at the catching situation. When they finalize Napoli's deal, we will have 4 catchers. Someone has to go. Ross was just signed so he will be staying as will Napoi. Unless they are willing to let Lavarnway rot in AAA, Salty will have to go. No one will offer us dick for him. They'll wait for him to DFA him and then throw us a low level prospect. It's also possible that they trade Lavarnway. Either way, other teams know that we have to move one of them. The ruined whatever value Salty had as a trade chip.

I am not downplaying it, but a guy who has reached Lester's level of sustained success at the MLB level got there by working out all the kinks over several seasons. He maintained his success by repeating his delivery thousands of times. He has built up muscle memory that is robotic like every other successful ballplayer. I don't think that he could have strayed from his mechanics so radically that he would have to rebuild the whole thing. Usually, after achieving his level of sustained success, it is a minor fine tuning situation as opposed to a major overhaul. He should have worked it out over the course of a season. I think there is very possibly something else at work whether it be mental or damage to his arm. People think that he will regain his old stuff if he abandons the cutter. I don't think it works that way. Dick Radatz used to tell an interesting story about adding a pitch to his arsenal. He was at the height of his success when one Spring Teddy Ballgame suggested that he had the perfect motion for a sinker. Teddy Ballgame was like a walking god at Spring camp. If he talked to you, you listened. Radatz worked on the sinker all spring and it was coming along really well, but when they broke camp and Radatz reached for his bread and butter, the big heat wasn't the same. He had lost a foot off his fastball and he never regained it. He had no discernable arm injury. I don't believe that he ever had arm trouble, but his dominating gas was gone. He went from being an intimidating overpowering force to a punching bag seemingly over night. I am sure someone will research this and my recollection could be faulty on Radatz. Maybe William s suggested a slider and not a sinker, and he may have hit the DL at some point, but the main point stands. Lester's 4 seamer is not what it had been. Others have inferred that the cutter could have a negative impact on other pitchers. I am just saying that abandoning the cutter may not bring back the fastball.

Lester is going to have to figure this out on his own. If it is simply a mechanical problem, he will have to figure it out on his own. I am not convinced that this is simply a mechanical issue, because his problems lasted too long.

Home or away didn't matter. Last year, the old Lester didn't show up anywhere. I also don't buy the Fenway Park bugaboo explanation.

So, but for a few starts in one stretch, you think he was the Lester of old? I can't agree with that. Whenever I hear such cherry-picking of a players performance, I answer with a question: What do you call a pitcher that has one bad inning every game giving up 5 runs in that inning? The answer is that he is a bad pitcher even if he puts up goose eggs in every other innings. The same goes for a season. Lester is what his final stats showed. He stunk. What is most concerning is that he didn't appear to return to anything close to a dominating form by the end of the season.

SFF, you are one of my favorite posters and you are solid on player evaluations, but this ^ is an untenable statement. I am not saying this to pick nits or to argue, but we all need to feel the cold slap of reality of 2012. It was the year that opened our eyes to the fact that this is a bad organization on all levels of its baseball operations. Their marketing department is top shelf, and they have a great established fan base that stretches around the globe. The baseball operations needs an overhaul. Hopefully, we will see that they have made some progress in that regard in the next few years. I really think they need to get some people in the organization who know and can evaluate pitching at all levels.

Is the alternative that it is a physical issue as opposed to a mental issue? Is a physical issue less problematic?

The "Farrell Effect" on Lester or Buchholz is wishful thinking. I don't think pitching coaches have much effect on performance at all.

They made the right call with Bay, but it had nothing to do with their injury assessment which was for his knee and shoulder. Neither have caused him a problem. He runs as hard and fast as when he was with the Sox. His game fell apart after the cumulative effect of two concussions.

Are you interested in the signature bet?

In he ALE poll, out of 19 votes so far, only 1 person voted that the Red Sox would win the division. Either the positive posters don't think the team has much of a chance or they didn't vote. There's no reason not to vote, because the votes are anonymous.

Stop with the hedging about injuries. Durability is baked into your prediction, so we will hold you to it if he gets injured. How about a signature bet? I post my projections and whoever comes closer on more categories win.

Be a little more specific. Do your best Bill James. What kind of numbers are you projecting?

And his WHIP is atrocious. He really isn't that much better than Happ at this point. He could be better, but he is yet to prove it. De La Rosa is good depth? Based on what track record. Throwing hard is not enough.

I though Drabeck had the TJS in June last year, so he would be a depth option after the ASB. No one said Happ was good, but he is probably better than our depth options. Doubront is not much better and he is in our rotation.