a700hitter

During the last series against the O's, the team was shell shocked. By that point, they look stunned and defeated. They had done so much losing up to that point that they were running out of explanations and positive statements, so they beat it out of the clubhouse. I mean really what could they say at that point. They probably were expecting the worst, but couldn't say it, so they bailed. It wasn't the right thing to do, but I understand why they did it.

True Lucchino could also be on thin ice, but the next level up is ownership, and they don't get fired.

Some one call the Commissioner's Office immediately and tell him that there has been a mistake. The Red Sox are supposed to be in the playoffs and probably the World Series. All of the predictive models prove it beyond a shadow of a doubt. We wuz robbed!! You are making less and less sense as you go on trying to prove that Theo did a bang up job. You blame the players, but now you are saying that there isn't that much wrong with the team and that it doesn't need an overhaul. By saying that they were not good enough, I am not simplistically explaining the reasons for the failure of the 2011 team. I have been repeating that in response to all of the cop out excuses of injury, poor attitude, and drinking light beer. Of course there are a lot of reasons for the failure and of course numbers and statistical models will be used to fix a good deal of it, but the complexity of the problem doesn't change the responsibility for it. Theo is responsible for the failure. You are the one arguing in circles to exonerate him. As to your assertion that the team is pretty close to being a winning team, this is not even consistent with your prior attempts to get Boy Wonder off the hook. When you were scapegoating players on alleged attitude issues, you were willing to say that they should weed out the problems going forward. You were assuming that Youk and Ortiz were bad for team chemistry, and there were the stories of the light beer drinking pitchers. Assume you were right about the bad seeds, you don't think it would be a major overhaul to part ways with the teams cleanup hitter and it's #5 hitter, guys who routinely have OPS around .900? Add to that parting ways with one of the starters for drinking-- even if that starter is Lackey. We'd have to get 2 major sticks and a starter at the very least before they even start building a bullpen. Those are major changes. You are not even being consistent in your arguments, because you are still trying to do anything you can to exonerate the Boy Wonder. BTW: He's now almost the Middle Aged Wonder.

Yes, and they do such a great job of keeping their pitchers healthy.

Even if Crawford becomes Carl Crawford again and Youkilis is healthy for the entire season, other injuries will happen-- to position players and pitchers. When is the last time that the Sox had a rotation where at least one starter didn't miss a good chunk of the season? 2004 was the last time. Getting the injured guys healthy for next year will put us in the same situation when other guys go down next season. They need to get deeper. A few BP pieces will not do the job. I think it is laughable that you don't think they have significant work to do this off season.

If he used $174 million and didn't build he team to win, well that would have been a big waste of money. Unfortunately, he failed in his task, because they didn't win. It doesn't matter that the computer projections, the pundits and fans like me picked them to win, they were all wrong. Unfortunately, it goes on Theo's record.

It would be pointless to sig it, because the cast of characters will be very different than the roster at the end of the season.

They don't have enough to win next season. We are kidding ourselves if we think the return of Buchholz and a couple BP pieces will return this team to prominence.

Theo fine tuned the 2004 team. He didn't build it. I give him almost all of the credit for 2007. In 2008, we would have had back to back titles, but Beckett got injured and they stuck with Buchholz too long. He wasn't ready. He went 2-9 and cost us the Division Title. In the end the 2008 team wasn't good enough. The same goes for 2011. The team wasn't good enough. You say that the team had all the tools, but the players didn't come through. Of course the players are at fault. They lost it on the field. They weren't good enough, and Theo put together the roster of players that were not good enough. Saying that they were good enough but just didn't win is a cop out. If they didn't lose because they weren't good enough, then why did they lose? Injuries? That's another cop out. Injuries are part of the game. Underperformance? Another cop out. Every roster has guys that over perform and under perform. We got a break out season from Ellsbury that no one expected. Beckett outperformed, so did Papelbon, and so did Ortiz. Are you saying that the players didn't give it their best? I'm not buying in on that one. On the whole the team just wasn't good enough over 162 games. That fault is at Theo's doorstep.

You take extraordinary efforts to exonerate Theo from blame. I don't think the team needs to be blown up, and I agree with you that they are close to being winners, but Theo's record doesn't warrant another chance, and I think that a new GM can step in and make the choices that will make this team a winner in 2012. Theo is not indispensable. He has made a bit of a mess, and someone else can clean it up.

You are on an island because you think Theo has done a good job and that he is not part of the problem. The majority fo the people feel differently. Every poll in every paper puts Theo at the top of the list of causes for the 2011 collapse. if the owners give him the right to talk to the Cubs, they obviously would think he is expendable. You are looking for bogeymen and scapegoats. The truth is that the team wasn't good enough, and Theo is responsible for putting together the team.

How does Garcia get by throwing that slop?

I voted for LaRussa, because he would come along with Dave Duncan, who has done amazing thing with pitchers. I hate LaRussa.

Thanks VA.

Is today's game on TBS?

It would take him 6 weeks of Spring Training to be more effective than Wakefield or Miller.

I count big Schill. He was a horse and a winner. I don't think we'll ever find another player who will be willing to put his career on the line by having surgery before a game. He pitched that year from May until the end by taking lydocaine shots in his ankle befor and during the game to numb the pain. Guys just don't do that anymore. We haven't had a horse since big Schill, and it's been a long time. CJ is not Sabathia or Halladay, but the guy has pitched deep into games for 2 years in Texas. That is not easy to do. The Texas heat is a pitcher killer. CJ is a horse, and he will not command $ anywhere near Sabathia or Halladay $.

Players that don't work hard enough to stay in shape are not good players. Yaz always said that as he came up, he saw lots of guys with more physical talent than him, but they never made it. The reason was that they didn't work as hard as him, and after he hit 30 he stepped up his conditioning to a manic level. The players that didn't work hard weren't good players. They didn't have good careers. They weren't good enough, but they just needed some conditioning and hard work. Good players work hard and the results take care of themselves. You are looking for the bogeyman. Sports is actually one business where it is easy to differentiate the good teams from the bad teams and the good players from the bad players. The wins and loses and the stats tell the story. The 2011 Red Sox won 90 games. They were simply not good enough. It doesn't matter what the pundits and the computer models showed. They predict outcomes, but the outcomes either confirm the models and projections or prove them wrong. This time all the projections were wrong. Honestly, you'd be pummeled down here in NY as whiner. You are making all these excuses, when the fact is that over the long haul of 162 games the Sox were just not good enough. Again, you are in denial, looking for anyone or any bogeyman to blame, rather than to admit that the team wasn't good enough, because your boy was responsible for putting together the team. You say blame the players. I say, yes blame the players. They lost it. They weren't good enough. It still comes back to who put together the team full of players that weren't good enough. What are you trying to establish, that the players were good enough, but didn't try hard enough so you can exonerate Theo. Seriously, I think you are going to cry if Theo goes to the Cubs. If they let him walk, it will be because Theo is just not good enough to keep.

Theo did a good job of putting finishing touches on the team in 2004 and he made additional fine tunings in 2007, but he is not good at building his own roster. He doesn't have a clue as to how to build a bullpen, and he has not given the team a single horse for the starting rotation. All of our pitchers are pretty much 5-6 inning types, and that would wear on a bullpen. It makes a poor bullpen into a disaster. I thought Lester would be a horse, but this season he regressed with his command. He threw way too many pitches, often in the first inning, so he was forced to routinely leave the pen with 3-4 innings of work. That is not acceptable from a #1. Lester is a good #2, but this team has no #1. Beckett gets gassed after 100 pitches and hangs his curve and leaves the FB over the plate. His conditioning was better this season, but not where it needs to be. He needs a kick in the ass. He showed himself to be a me-first guy to me in 2008. Everyone jumped all-over me when I criticized him for being soft and hypochondriacal. If you remember that he was complaining about some tingling in his fingers from sleeping on his arm. It wasn't affecting his pitching. He was having a very successful season. He expressed concern about his career. The Sox shut him down, had him checked by all their doctors who confirmed it was nothing. They built him a contraption to put his precious arm when he was sleeping. That still wasn't good enough. He was still concerned and wouldn't take the ball. He insisted on going to one of the big arm specialists, Altchek I think. The specialist ran every possible test and concluded that not only wasn't he injured, but that his arm showed much less wear and tear than most pitchers his age. That could be as a result of the pampering. Anyway, after being shutdown for a month in a pennant race, he came back. He was out of pitching condition from being shutdown for a month, so he pulled his oblique and he was useless for the playoffs. That whole thing didn't sit well with me. The docs checked him out and cleared him, but he kept whining that he had to be concerned about his career. Wait a freaking minute, he was under contract for 2 more seasons with the Red Sox and he was already whining about his next contract. He was healthy. He should have been pitching. That was a me-first attitude. people dumped on me for criticizing him. They told me that he should be concerned about his career. My point was that he was healthy and under contract to pitch for the Sox for 2 more years at $10 million/yr. If he blew out his arm the next day, the Sox would owe him $20 million. While he was healthy, he owed it to the Sox to pitch. I have had it with him. His conditioning sucks. He was the one that should have called Lackey on his s***, but instead he took Lackey's side. My recommendation to the FO: Trade Beckett for an every day player. His value will never be higher, and the guy is a dog. Fill his spot with a horse like CJ Wilson.

They are not going to back up the truck and clear out the clubhouse. While clubhouse issues may have made things more difficult for Tito, I'm not going to divert the attention away from the real issue-- that this team was not good enough. The pitching is thin and lacks depth. Maybe they clear out 1 or 2 culprits. Hopefully, one of them is Lackey. Another may have been Wake who still has an ego even though his tank is empty. We're just guessing about the rest of them.