a700hitter

I am jst wondering who the new crop will be. We heard about Buchholz, Pedroia, Lester, Ellsbury and Papelbon long before they got here and the high hopes that the organization had for them. Bard was considered a bust for a while until he righted his ship. I don't see the same type of optimism from the FO in the press about any of the prospects other than Kelly and Kalish, and Kelly will not be here next season. I think the Westmoreland thing had a big impact on the organizational plans going forward. He was at the head of the list of guys who they expected to burst onto the scene in the next year or two. Without him, the foundation on the other side of the bridge doesn't look very firm.

Good point. Maybe Derek Lee or Aramis Ramirez? Mark Reynolds?

I understand that payroll money will be freed up after this season, but at the beginning of this season we were reading and hearing that the FO was expecting a new crop of young players to hit the big club by 2012. That's what I am not seeing. After Kalish and possibly Dubront, I'm not seeing a lot of promise. I am certainly not seeing the type of promise that would convince the FO that 2010 and 2011 are just bridge seasons.

Ah, the bridge season. I still don't understand what is on the other side of the bridge or if 2011 will still be part of the bridge. Who are the big impact players that the organization expects will be with the big club next season or 2012 who will take this team back to championship caliber. I'm not seeing the potential.

Saying that the FO bears responsibility is not a condemnation. It is part of being accountable. Papelbon will end up with 3 or 4 more blown saves than usual. If we miss the playoffs by 3 or 4 games, he bears responsibility too. Does that mean that I think he stinks and I want him off the team? No, I'd like to see him at the end of the bullpen with Bard until we start having to pay Bard big $. The same thing with the FO. I think they do an overall fine job, but with the 2010 club they seriously miscalculated on their balancing act of winning now vs. long term. They should have done more. I don't think they need to do a lot more, but let's face it, they did nothing.

It drove me crazy that they actually thought Schoenweiss and Embry were options early in the season. I saw Schoenweiss a lot when he was with the Mets. He stinks. Even the mets won't touch him anymore and they stink. Schoenweiss is so bad that I was rooting for Embree to take his place. The FO approach to getting the lefty was to go to the Dollar store to get damaged and spoiled goods. It was a mistake. If cost the team wins. Period.

This team has the potential to be very dangerous in the post season. The problem is that they probably will not make it to the post season due to injuries and other reasons. Yes, I said other reasons. The failure of this team is not due entirely to injuries. Sure they are a major factor-- by themselves they are probably a deciding factor. In the end, we will probably miss the playoffs by a small handful of games. Had it not been for the injuries, they certainly would have closed the gap. Despite the injuries, I think this team still could have made the playoffs, but other mistakes were made. Our third base coach easily cost this team 3-4 victories with his terrible decision making. A third base coach should never have such a negative impact on a team. If we miss the playoffs by 3 or 4 games, Bogar shares the blame and that is sad. There were a number of games early in the season that were handed to inferior opposing teams due to bad defense, bone headed plays and general sloppy play. Good teams let bad teams give away games, not the other way around. Sloppy, fundamentally unsound play against inferior opponents leads to a conclusion that the 2010 Sox are not a very good team. They are a very talented team, but not a very good team. There is a difference. Their record against the weakest teams bears this out. Injuries is not an excuse for that. They have themselves to blame for the poor performance against those teams. If they had taken care of business against those teams, they would have 3 or 4 more wins. The FO doesn't escape responsibility either. They did virtually nothing to build a bullpen during the season even though the need for a left handed pitcher was obvious in April. The bullpen cost us 3 or 4 games more than it should have. As the string of long term devastating occurred, they did nothing helpful to reinforce the team. We have seen weeks and months of AAAA players, who have performed admirably, but we depended too much on them. The acquisition of Patterson was a joke. Expecting Cash to be the starting catcher for weeks after Tek and VMart went down was also a very poor decision. They acted much too slowly to get Salty or someone else to step in. We went for a good couple of weeks rolling out lineups with 4 or more substandard ML hitters. Yes, blame the injuries. The FO could not have replaced everyone, but one more good bat might have changed the outcome of a couple or 3 of those games. That 2 week tailspin was devastating to the team's prospects. Yes, the FO gets a share of blame too. Injuries were the major reason, but they are part of the game and they do not excuse everything else. All that being said, if this team gets hot and gets a few breaks, they will make it to the post season, and none of this will matter. We need Pedroia to come out of the gates smoking next week. That could be the jump start we need.

That's why he asked for his divine guidance. What a f***ing hypocrite, and a rat too as he sold his friend down the river, and he did it in such a cowardly way -- by an affidavit-- so he didn't have to stare Clemen's in the eye in front of Congress and tell the truth. He's a piece of s***. Yet, it is Clemen's and others that have taken all the heat and bad publicity.

Now, this makes sense.

You do realize that we did end up winning that war?

It's time for Andy to say a prayer and give himself an injection. It wouldn't be cheating. He'd just be trying to get back on the field.

I think people are too quick to disregard the significance and luxury of having two studs at the end of the pen. We've spent $45 million on the likes of Lugo and $60 mil on Renteria and $100 mil on Dice K. There's no guarantee that the money saved on Papelbon will get us an upgrade elsewhere. One thing would be for certain. It would result in a huge downgrade in the 8th inning guy. Would the other upgrades more than make up for that downgrade? I'm not so sure.

You are right. They complicate things even further.

Since 2000, Halladay has had one off year (2004). Other than that he has been damn good every other year. He was awesome in 2002 and 2003 and 2005 - 2007 were pretty darn good too. In each of those years he k'd less than 7 per 9 innings. That's 5 of the 9 years in which he has been a full-time starter. If you look at all the pitching greats throughout the ages, many did n't have k/9 ratios of 8. Many were around 5, 6, or 7. That doesn't mean that they were not strikeout pitchers. They got the k's when they needed them. Bob Gibson was one of the best strikeout pitchers of all time. He could get a k whenever he wanted to get one, but his career ratio was 7.2. Seaver's was 6.8. Buchholz's k ratio is just fine. He's learning how to pitch not throw, and that is what is most important.

If we take a step back and objectively realize that the playoff hopes for this team effectively ended when Youkilis went down, this loss is not quite so painful. The Sox have never come from behind by this many games at this juncture in theseason to get into the playoffs. I'm not giving up all hope, but the odds are long. We need Tampa to go into a tailspin. They are circling the drain, but if they pull out of it, we will not catch them. We need for them to lose 7 of their next 10, and they have been playing lousy for 10 games already. They maybe ready to pull out of their slump.

Yes, pitch to contact, usually with the bases empty, and get the K when needed. Getting taken deep is not a big deal if it is a solo shot. Plenty of HOF pitchers had high HR totals, but not 3-run HR totals. For example, Jim Palmer gave up a fair share HRs, but in his long career, he never gave up a Grand Slam.

Yes, 8th inning arms like Bard's grow on trees.

More k's are not worth it if it comes at the expense of a higher pitch count and shorter outings. Bullpens make me cringe.

and you are looking forward to the 8th inning guy being?