a700hitter

This thumb injury to Bailey is turning out to be a chronic thing? Isn't this something he had at the beginning of camp?

It's a so-so pen with Bailey. Without him, it is very weak. There isn't a single major arm in the pen without him. The starters are going to need to go deep into games.

These two predictions seem to be well on their way.

Did Dice K pitch?

U.N. must be a real prick to work for. I've known a lot of tough corporate managers in my career that micromanaged and closely supervised. I worked for a non-tax guy a few years ago that tried that on me. I told him that I wouldn't stand for it from someone who didn't understand my area of expertise, so I invited him to get comfortable with my level of competence by talking to my clients and then to leave me alone. Most people don't have that luxury. He would have loved to fire me, but he couldn't. He respects me for having stood up to him, but he was the type of person that hated losing and anything other than full subjugation is losing for him. Every hard ass manager that I have met in my long career had their careers end prematurely by getting their throats cut, and people loved seeing them get theirs.

He finished the Spring with a 6.57 ERA, and that was after throwing 3 scoreless frames in his first 2 outings. It was a disappointing Spring forBard, but he was improving at the end.

Toward what end?

Well, you should clearly know this is not me. I will level criticism at the outset. I'm not a 20-20 hindsight guy when it comes to criticism. Have you read the off season thread? However, once the results are in, there is accountability in my book. I wouldn't call it criticism at that point. They own the results, and there are no excuses. I have been proved wrong by some players, and when they prove me wrong, I own it. I like to criticize or praise moves when they are made. I am probably one of the most consistent posters in that regard. I am usually out on a limb well before a player takes the field for us. There are a lot of other posters who wait until the final tallies are in before they criticize, but that isn't me. So, I am not the guy who is rubbing you the wrong way. It must be that inflatable donut you are sitting on that is making you cranky.

and Albers.

Like I said, I would not have been critical had it not been for the attempt to provide an excuse. In my last post, I acknowledged that it might not be fair to criticize for not having foresight with regard to Ellsbury. However, if someone is going to use that as an excuse for management, there is plenty of criticism that can be leveled at them. In your last post you mentioned that they would not have gone after top tier pitching with Beckett, Lester, Buchholz, Dice K and Lackey. Well, a lot of criticism can be leveled at the acquisitions of Dice k and Lackey. An excuse viewed in a vacuum like "the no one could foresee" argument is both irrelevant and misleading. It rubs me the wrong way. Bad moves are bad moves. If someone could easily foresee that he was making a bad move, he'd have to be an idiot or a saboteur to go ahead with it. IMO, what separates the good FO guys from the also rans are the deals that work out that the others did not foresee, so the "could not have foreseen" excuse means nothing to me.. Here's my first response to the excuse.

At least he worked out of his own jam today with limited damage. That is something that he had not done up to this point of the pre-season.

I'm not the one that started the discussion about this. The fact is that at this point in time Crawford's acquisition was unnecessary. The money would have been better spent on top tier pitching. That's just the way it is. No criticism is leveled by acknowledging that. However, in acknowledging that, another poster built in an excuse for them with the "no one could see it coming" remark. Just as it may not be fair to level criticism at them for not foreseeing Ellsbury breakout year, I am not big on building in excuses for anyone either. If anyone should have known Ell's ceiling, it is the Red Sox organization. I'm not criticizing, but I am not building in an excuse either. As I said earlier in my first post in response to the built in excuse, it isn't relevant to the state of our team today. There was no criticism in that statement either. How the Sox got here isn't relevant to anything. The guy that made the move is gone. The fact is that we are over-weighted on speedsters and shorthanded on pitchers. There are no excuses. If people make excuses, I'll counter by finding fault.

Let me clarify. It is not relevant now. It happened and they clearly misjudged the situation. It doesn't matter that other people didn't see it coming. They are paid to know their own organization talent better than "other people". They blew it. The money should have been spent on pitching.

I'm just a little west and north of you-- Farmingdale/Massapequa.

If this wasn't Schilling, some one else would be doing and saying the same stuff bout Bobby V. This has nothing to do with Schill. I told you guys that Bobby V is a good baseball guy, but not a likeable guy. He's a lightning rod-- and I think that he is deliberately a lightning rod. He likes the attention.

I grew up in Brooklyn, but I have been living on LI for the last 23 years. What town are you ii?

Guys that have been in locker rooms for around 20 years and been personally successful and played on winners usually have something valid to offer on the topic. They know how managers get guys to respond and they also know how managers can lose guys.

When a pitcher is trying to win a spot in the rotation, his spring stats and performance mean something. He doesn't have the luxury of working on certain pitches etc. They are not veteran starters wqho have locked up spots. Doubront stepped up, but the rest have not. It's not a good sign.

Aceves only had one bad outing. It was a terrible outing, but the others were good in my recollection. Bard hasn't had one good outing.

I said it earlier in this thread. If anyone on the Sox is affected by Schilling's or anyone else's comments, they are just losers looking for excuses. None of this matters. He's free to hate Bobby V. There's a long line for that. LOL!

Whether anyone saw it coming isn't relevant. It did happen, and to a great extent it made Crawford an unecessary acquisition. The money would have been better used on pitching.

Hey Pumpsie, welcome back for the start of the season.