a700hitter

This should be a good matchup for us, but you never know. That's why they play the games.

He will have to do that exceptionally and consistently well above average to make up for the lack of his other skills. Hitters go into slumps. Speed and fielding don't slump. On your bench, a guy with a good OBP who can't run, throw or field is not useful, because he may slump just when you need him. If he had some serious HR power, that would help him, but he doesn't. OBP is not enough to keep him here, unless it is significantly above average.

We really don't know Curt's capital situation. Also, there is no indication that the employees were not paid for the time they worked at the venture. There is no obligation moral or otherwise to pay people after they have stopped performing service for you, nor is there any obligation to pay health insurance premiums for people after they have been discharged, except for federally imposed COBRA subsidies. These people didn't devote entire careers to this venture. It flopped rather quickly. If you favor a regulatory system where the employer has to pay these types of benefits, you would have an environment where no one would take this type of risk. Most ventures fail. If you subject the entrepreneur to personal liability for ongoing employee expenses after the venture has gone bust, people will not take those risks. If this venture had been successful, those employees would have been in on the ground floor of something that could have made them a lot of money. They took a risk too. If they wanted job security, a startup software development firm is not a good choice. Curt owes the employees nothing, and no, I don't feel sorry for them. They got paid to do a job, and now the job no longer exists. As to your last point, it would be a good point, except it lacks context. Let me be more precise. I only care about baseball players for what they do on the field. What they do in their personal lives doesn't matter to me. Nothing in their personal lives would change my opinion of a player, because I really only care about how they played. I don't know them as individuals, so I am not going to pass judgment on them. Those who are criticizing him don't know him as a person or all his charitable work, so they shouldn't be condemning him either. Is Curt always right? I don' t know and I don't care, and anyone that thinks they know whether Curt has been right or wrong based on some press reports is sadly mistaken.

I am not judging how he got here. I am judging him by his talent. He has no major league skills. He will have to get on base at a much higher rate than other players to have a place in this game. He has been with the organization for some time already. it's not like they just discovered this kid. How he got here is irrelevant at this point. They still didn't think enough of his tools to give him a Spring Training invite this season. It doesn't matter how he got here. He's here now and no one in baseball is impressed. He is with the Sox now because we are down to about plan D on OFers. Mike Piazza was drafted in the 62 round by the Dodgers. At age 29, he was a star. it doesn't matter how you get there. In the end, you will make it to the majors and stick if you have talent. Not getting a Spring Training invitation in 2012 speaks volumes about Nava's standing in the organization. Last year they DFA's him twice, and no one claimed him.

I think it is proving to be a mistake. Reddick has a very live bat. I've said it before that the ball jumps off his bat. When he is going well, he looks like a young star. His problem has been consistency. Maybe the consistency issue is the reason why he never had a lot of trade value. Other teams have looked at and asked about other Sox prospects much more than Reddick. He was a guy who might never have amounted to anything more than a bench OFer. On the other hand, if he could find consistency, he could be a starting OFer and possibly an All Star. Did they sell low on him? That's hard to say, because he never had a lot of market value and his pedigree didn't indicate otherwise. If they had moved one of the more highly touted guys like Kallish or Lavarnway, they are not sure fire successes either, but the Sox would have gotten more in return than a sore armed pitcher and an OFer with no power. They opted to keep the guys with more trade value and now it is turning out bad for them, because Kallish is still injured and Lavarnway is still in the minors and Reddick is coming into his own. It's hard to second guess them on this, but then again, they get paid a lot of money to figure out who will make it and who will be a bust.

In 3 years Daniel Nava will not ever sniff the majors again.

Which is why the hostility aimed a Schill from Red Sox fans is bizarre and irrational. I'm not sure what people are mad about. The guy went into a business venture that he apparently worked very hard to make successful, but it flopped. People are angry at him about that? That makes no sense.

I wouldn't go that far. A lot of players listen and play fundamentally sound baseball, but not all of them do. You are a Dad. I don't know if you are planning on additional kids, but if you do, you may have the experience that some will heed your advice and others will not. Sometime they learn the hard way by making avoidable mistakes. Bobby V is, by all accounts, a very good manager when it comes to teaching fundamentals. At the beginning of the season when Al Leiter was asked about Bobby V, he said that Bobby could get on your nerves, but if the players listened to him they would bw better players.

Teaching fundamentals is one thing. The player has to put it into practice. Bobby V tells the story that he had dinner with the Twins second baseman from Japan. He knew him from his managing days in Japan. He warned him about the way he took the throw at second base, telling him that if he took the throw that way in the US he would get his leg broken. According to Bobby V, the guy gave him that "yeah right" look, and in the first week of the season a base runner took him out and broke his leg. He'll never again take a throw like that, but he had to learn the hard way. I doubt that we will ever see that kind of slide from Ellsbury.

I'm sure that he would rather have had the business be profitable.

Fred, you have done a lot of coaching. While you were on your self-imposed exile, I made the assertion that Ellsbury was responsible for getting injured because his slide was fundamentally flawed. We were taught that when you go into the bag to take out a fielder that you go in feet first on your backside. In those drills they taught us to throw our hands up so they didn't get caught under our body or the fielders body. With our hands up like that we could fend off a knee or other body part coming toward our face. Ells went in on his side and stomach with his arm extended behind him and his palm flat to the ground. He created the perfect situation for his shoulder to pop out or to sprain or break a wrist. They used to teach us to grab two handfuls of dirt and hold them in our fists to avoid having our hand on the ground with an open palm. Am I wrong about this? It is my contention that had his slide had been fundamentally sound, he never would have sustained this injury.

We're still waiting for things to change direction. His velocity has been deteriorating.

If the plan was to convert an elite late inning bull pen guy into a capable, but average 5th starter, they have succeeded. I don't think that is a good plan.

He would really help stabilize their starting pitching. He would bring some legitimacy to them as a contender.

Neither have I. In fact, I said in a prior post that his skill level falls just short of major league standards. He doesn't miss by much, but he misses.

He couldn't put away Davis with 2 strikes and a runner on 3rd. That spoke volumes to me. Davis would miss a ball on a tee 40% of the time. He's a 200 k/ season guy. Bard couldn't reach back for something and blow him away to keep the run from scoring.