a700hitter

Youk works like a mad man, but the guy is too thick. As he is getting up in age, he will need to trim some weight off his frame to help his durability. Aceves lost about 30 lbs and this year he had no back problems.

Here's a link to one of the stories. http://www.bostonherald.com/sports/columnists/view/2011_0901papi_calms_the_waters_defends_teammatefor_salty_language/ I am sure that the clubhouse problems were identified by Tito in the meeting before he was fired. I think the big culprit was probably Lackey, since he had lost all control of his emotions and discretion. His behavior was on full display. As for everyone else, I think we would just be guessing. If Ortiz comes back in 2012, I think that will confirm that he was not part of the problem.

Obviously, no one stepped up and said anything. No one got in the players faces., not even Pedroia. That doesn't mean they were all cancers. If you are gonna load Ortiz on the moving van, because he didn't speak up then you'd have to load everyone in the truck with him. Not speaking up doesn't equate to being a clubhouse cancer. Most players are very reluctant to do that. Derek Jeter would never do it. I don't think he is a clubhouse cancer.

I don't think it spells clubhouse cancer either. He always had the backs of his team mates. When Salty stuck his foot in his mouth about hispanic players, Ortiz had his back and said that Salty was right and that he was a good guy who didn't mean anything bad. More stories are going to have to leak to make me think he was a clubhouse problem. I've never read or heard anything negative about Ortiz coming from the other players or from the manager all through the years. Maybe Salty should be shown the door for his negative comments about Hispanic players.

As a pure DH, I don't think he has a leverage. I'm not sure where this "Ortiz as a clubhouse problem" is coming from. The RBI thing was such a big deal.

Where are the reports on Ortiz being a problem? I don't think the RBI thing was a real big thing.

So, if you could get Ortiz for 2 years $15 million you would pass on that to pay $13-15 million for one year to get another premium bat. I'm not sure that I see the value in that.

It will not set back the Sox. Theo set them back with some terrible long term contracts that are going to hard to get by.

If the owners are giving him permission to talk to the Cubs, they must be willing to let him walk. I was suspicious about the leaking of the Cubs rumor during the season. The ice may have been thin before the collapse. You can't blame the owners. Theo wasted a truckload of their money.

A similar premium quality bat might cost as much for 1 season as Ortiz would for 2. If that would be the case, would you be okay with giving him 2 years?

I agree that mental preparedness is very important, but Ortiz and Youkilis have always been two of the most well-prepared players on the team. I really think you are engaging in scapegoating, and the two guys you are scapegoating have never been problems. To now be accusing them of being clubhouse cancers is really off base. The only problem with Youkilis in all of this is that he was out of the lineup.

Then give a 1 year contract.

No, I am not exonerrating them. I am acknowledging that they weren't good enough. You are making some sort of insinuation that they weren't trying. I don't believe that for a second. They tried, but they weren't good enough. I thought they were built to win, but I was wrong. They weren't good enough and the season proved it to be the case. It wasn't luck, injuries, attitudes or some other boogeyman. They simply weren't good enough. Are the players to blame? Certainly, they are. They weren't good enough. Did they try? Yes, they did. Who put together a roster of players that weren't good enough? You know the answer. Sorry, your boy Theo messed up. Just because we all thought it was a great team doesn't make him right.

Actually he did change his approach and it was talked about a lot during the season. He had become pull happy and he made a conscious effort to take lefties to the opposite field. That's what he used to do when he as at his best. He adjusted his approach. Are you insinuating that he started juicing and that's the reason? Do you really want to go down that road? If he is juicing, that should help keep him young and he should produce at a high level for years to come, so I don't get the point of your insinuation. Edit: If the FO wants to go in a different direction than Ortiz, because they think he is too old, I am fine with that, but they need to replace him with a premium bat, and as I said before, that will be very expensive. If they are cutting ties with him because of his attitude, that's just ridiculous. I have never read or heard one story where any team mate thought he was anything other than a positive personality.

You are in denial. You loved Theo because he was going to build a strong organization from the bottom up. He was going to put in place a scouting and development system that would churn out stars and it would be the envy of baseball. For a time that was true. They churned out top talent that became stars, but after Ellsbury and Buchholz there has been nothing. I am curious what personnel changes there have been in the scouting and player development organization, because they obviously lost a key component of that successful organization. Not only isn't our scouting and player development not the envy of baseball, it is only the third best organization in our own division. The Yankees and Rays are kicking our ass in that aspect. We hate the Yankees for all their money and buying Championships, but their minor league system and their scouting is burying ours. In the last few years the FO has given us a bloated payroll of overpaid under producing players and a farm system without any top talent. That's a bad job. Theo got credit for this team when things were going well, so he has to take the hits as well. He needs to rebuild his scouting and player development team. That might be the most important development of the offseason, but it will be hard to evaluate for the fans. Attitude was not the issue. It's so ridiculous to think that guys who were winners and clutch players like Youk and Ortiz have become clubhouse cancers that caused this debacle. It's absurd and a bigger copout than blaming injuries. They weren't good enough. That's the reason. We all need to stop whining and hope that the organization is making the changes off the field that are necessary to get back to where they were.

No, but the gullible posters read them and you are effective at misleading them, and then I have to argue with them. That is why they have to be warned that you are totally full of s***.

Our great player development and scouting departments are not churning out pitchers like the Rays. In fact, the Rays acquired Garza by a trade, and he was very useful for them. He helped make the Rays a winning organization. The Sox FO gave us Lackey and Dice k. Yuk!! The best offseason move the Sox could make would be to raid the Rays FO and get their GM.

What's different this time is that he is not directing the hate at the guy who just got kicked out the door. This time he is showing some balls and directing it at the people who remained behind- the ass-covering FO and owner.

I did question his toughness, but I never questioned his talent... ever. And he has surpassed even my high opinion of his talent. Edit: i didn't want him run out of town, if for no other reason than his value was at a low after 2010.

Wearing down at age 26 is not understandable.

I've never read where any teammates have had a problem with Ortiz. He always seems to be genuinely supportive of his team mates. He stepped up for Salty when he put his foot in his mouth about Latin players. When teams lose, they fracture internally, because desperation sets in. I think it is ridiculous to lay off this collapse on poor clubhouse chemistry. Let me state this clearly. The problem with the 2011 Red Sox was that they didn't have the horses. It was a poorly constructed team that collapsed after a few key injuries. I became very concerned during interleague play when I saw how the offense crumbled from taking Ortiz bat out of the lineup. Ortiz is getting older. I think he can be very productive for another year, and because he is just a DH, his value is artificially low. If they let him walk, they need to bring in a premium bat to replace him, and that will not be cheap. I have to laugh how people are so willing to throw Ortiz under the bus. In 2008 and 2009 he slumped at the beginning of the season and people were writing his obit and recommending that he be DFA'd. The team collapses in 2011 and all of a sudden he is a clubhouse cancer? I'm not convinced. You just don't want the finger of blame pointed where it belongs-- the Front Office. Bad attitudes and beer drinking didn't cause this collapse. If the FO thinks it will repair this team by replacing the manager and weeding out a few negative personalities, they are kidding themselves. If they want to get rid of Ortiz, because they are going to bring in a premium bat, fine. If they want to trade Youk because he is declining physically, fine, but they will need to bring in a premium bat to replace him. I'm not onboard with getting rid of either of these guys because of their attitudes. They are both intensely competitive on the field. Youk leaves everything on the field., and Ortiz has worked extremely hard to recapture his offensive production, especially against lefties. Attitude did not cause the team to collapse, not even lackey's *******ness. You are barking up the wrong tree.