a700hitter

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.

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.