a700hitter

Bailey is arbitration eligible and he is expected to get around $3.5 million in 2012. That is cheaper than Papelbon, but it is his full fair market value. He is a cheaper option but he is not a value acquisition.

This would never happen with Iglesias, because he can't hit anything.

That's a low bar that you are setting.

Some people continue to delude themselves that the 2011 team was a great team that had some horrible luck. Blaming luck is a loser's lament. I don't engage in excuses. Good luck and bad luck tend to even out over a 162 game season. Injuries are part of the game. The 2011 team didn't win for a wide variety of reasons and luck excuses none of them. The organization was dysfunctional from top to bottom-- from the owners to the GM to the managers, coaches, players and trainers. There's plenty of blame to go around. The 2011 Red Sox failure was not, as some people like to believe, a case of a great team that had some unlucky injuries and some players with bad attitudes that did not perform. It was a total organizational failure. To compare the 2011 team to the 2004 team diminishes the accomplishment of the 2004 team. The 2011 team had a lot of talent, but they were not a great team. They don't even compare favorably to the. 1972, 1977, 1978 or 1979 Red Sox teams.

Here's a portion of a poorly transcribed transcript of an interview with Merloni and McAdam. They mention that Farrell and Tito had a philosophy of discouraging the slide step. http://www.csnne.com/sportsnetNewEngland/search/v/38788028/sports-sunday-sox-angels-preview.htm Another negative remark about the slide step indicating Red Sox philosophy: http://blogs.providencejournal.com/sports/red-sox/2008/05/twins-7-red-sox-1.html#.TwdZIFaWmdE They hated the slide step. If pitchers used it, they tried to get them to stop.

I think it comes down to coaching in large part and after so many seasons of futility I am convinced that it was not a big priority for the coaching staff. The true slide step does compromise the quality of the pitch, but what it does is that it puts it in the head of the baserunner that he might have a lot less time in his attempt the steal. Opposing runners just need their 1st base coach to put the stop watch on our pitchers for a couple of pitches and he knows exactly how much time he has. I can't view those videos at work, but I would be surprised to see any slide step by any Sox pitcher. My recollection is that Remy has mentioned several times over the years that the Sox don't like using it. BTW: I was the one who brought up the issue of the coaches neglecting opposing runners. I didn't enter the discussion. I started it. I don't mind nit picky. However, even if you prove there is no formal philosophy of base runner neglect, you still come back to coaching inadequacy as the most likely explanation for consistent horrible performance in this aspect of the game. So, what are you winning in your argument... are you proving sloppiness and laziness over poor strategy as the reason? Either way, I want nothing to do with farrell as a future manager. He manages his current team's running game in reckless manner, and he has done nothing to impress me as being managerial timbre.

E1, I don't know what point you are trying to make. Let's assume that the Red Sox coaches and management flat out deny any philosophy to ignore the running game, how do you explain the fact that they are at or near the bottom of the league every year in controlling the running game? Is you your explanation to throw it off all on Wakefield, because I think we are still below average or near the bottom if Wakefield is taken out of the equation? Where does the blame lie? Are Sox pitchers and catchers just incapable of controlling the running game? Do we face faster runners than other teams face? You are arguing whether or not they have a formal philosophy to disregard the running game or whether a modified leg kick is a slidestep, but assume you are right about those things (and I am making no admission in this regard), what is your explanation of the consistently putrid results in controlling the running game? IMO it still comes back to the coaching.

I think you are right on that. The owners, players and fans I think appreciated his contribution to the building of the NFL.

I don't view Kuroda or Jackson or even an old injury prone Oswalt as top tier pitchers. They are IMO most definitely in the second tier, and we can't afford them. Once you dip into the third tier, you don't know what you are getting. They are just warm bodies who, if you are very lucky, can take the ball every 5th day. They are usually not good at all. Maholm is a warm body with a live arm, but he is not good. With regard to your optimistic outlook about Bard, we're all hoping that he transitions well to starting, but the truth is no one, not even Sox management, knows how this will turn out. He could be very solid. He could blow up. This could ruin his career like it did to Joba. We just don't know. We also don't know about Aceves. The odds are against both adapting well, pitching effectively and being durable enough to give us 175-200 innings. They need one more solid starter so they don't have to roll the dice on 2 relievers making the transition to starting. I don't think Maholm is the answer.

There is virtually no chance of making the post season with the staff as it is currently constructed. In past years when we had much deeper pitching, the season always tested that depth and it was never anywhere near as deep as we thought it was at the beginning of the season. Not only is the current staff thin, but it will have 2 newbie starters. That ain't gonna work out.

This had been predicted in an earlier press report. http://www.talksox.com/forum/damn-yankees/15886-2011-2012-offseason-thread-2.html#post714275

well then I would place Duckworth ahead of Wilson.

As much as I would love to add King Felix to the staff, I can't see parting with our only legitimate RH power hitter.

At least, the Yankees can't get them if they sign extensions.

Jenks is looking like a total zero again in 2012. Thanks Theo. Ben has one more BP slot to fill.

I have no desire at this point to see Farrell as a future Red Sox manager. I thought he was over rated as a pitching coach. As a manager, he manages his own team's running game in a reckless, borderline irrational manner. I didn't view his approach to his team's running game as merely aggressive or even innovative. It just made no sense at times.

The top tier FA pitchers are gone, except for Madson, and he's a reliever. We missed out on Gio Gonzalez. The Cubs want too much for Garza. It's being reported that Oswalt, Kuroda and Jackson are out of our price range. Where does this leave us? Where is this patient wait and see approach going to take us? At this point, I am really hoping that Benny has a rabbit in his hat that we don't know about, because none of the other publicly reported options, e.g Saunders are very encouraging.

E1, when a scout follows a team for a week maybe two and he puts together a scouting report that says you can run on these guys, their pitchers are slow to the plate don't use a slide step etc., do you think that scout's management asks if he has any documentation of that philosophy? I don't think so. That manager comes to Fenway and runs on the Sox like crazy based on the scouting report. I watch almost every game and I attend about 6 to 10 games every year. In Farrell's entire tenure, I cannot remember even one time a Sox pitcher using a slide step. That shows me that not only wasn't it taught or encouraged, but it was probably discouraged. In 4 years you think someone would have used it just out of pure frustration of our inability to keep runners out of scoring position. In addition to my own observations regarding this issue, I have heard the announcers discuss several times that the Sox did not use the slide step because it changed the pitchers delivery and they would tend to leave their pitches up in the zone out of the slide step delivery. Beyond my observation of more 500 games and my recollection of what the announcers said on several occasions, I have no documentary proof of this philosophy. However, if I were a scout, I would be quite comfortable in telling my team that they wouldn't have to worry about the slide step. I'd also be very comfortable as a scout telling my team that Dice K likes to nibble at the corners and he doesn't attack the zone. I have no documentation of that. I'd also have no problem telling my team that Beckett is completely gassed after 100 pitches and he hangs his curve ball. I don't need documentation for any of this.