a700hitter

Agreed. Hitting is always better than not hitting, unless it is against your team's pitching. That said, I still don't think that he is a good SS. He needs to improve his lateral movement on balls up the middle and he needs to get better at charging balls.

Rusney is not looking too hot. Hopefully, he is just shaking off some rust. It would be a nightmare if he and Bradley ended up forming some sub-Mendoza line platoon next season. LOL!! Seriously, if Rusney is a bust, the organization will need to clearout the scouting and talent development operations. They would be much better off hiring our Doji.

Maybe or or maybe Septemmber performances mean nothing. I learned that lesson many years ago when I purchased a bunch of Kevin Maas baseball cards.

Bell, you are a great poster, and I think that you are about my age, so I have to ask whether you grew up under a rock when it comes to OBP. I undertand the punk ass kids thinking they invented OBP along with sex. LOL! But I can't understand how you think it is a new concept. My dad told me about it when I was a kid. Every great hitter that I ever heard talk about hitting stressed the importance of getting a good pitch to hit and taking their walks. GMs had basic math available to them in the 50's and 60's and they understood the importance of being a patient hitter. There just wasn't an obsession with OBP, because it is not the be all and end all in winning baseball. Sometimes the hitter needs to hack at a 3-1 pitch that is questionable if there are runners in scoring position with 2 out or when there is a man on third with 1 out and Joe McDoofus (AKA Bradley) is on deck and Steven Drew McDoofus is up after him. That would be winning smart baseball. Adding to your OBP there would be pointless. Situational baseball is still the best way to win games, but it doesn't build money stats and OBP has become a money stat rehgardless of production, I.e. Runs score and the popularly hated RBI. OBP has always been around as an important factor. It just wasn't cited as the bible. I laugh when people think that Billy Beane invented it. It is now an overdone statistic, because so much emphasis has been put on it that it is no longer a means to an end but rather the objective of a lot of players and GMs. The other thing that is ridiculously overdone is the shift. HOw's that working out for the genius Maddon this year.

And the data also shows that hitting with 2 strikes does not have a high probability of success. TeddyBallgame always preached getting a good pitch to hit and he rarely swung at the first pitch. He walked a lot in his day. I think he was second to Ruth when he retired. He also preached about getting into a good hitters count 2-0, 3-1. He knew that 1-2 or 0-2 put the hitter at a huge disadvantage. Driving up the pitch count is meaningless if the pitcher is consistently getting ahead of the hitters.

The only positive thing that I can say about Ranaudo is that he is tall.

He is at best average at the position.

If the skanks get eliminated, will Jeter take his last AB at Yankee Stadium and not make the trip to Boston?

He might hit, but he can't play SS.

We need a SS.

How would you rate those aspects of the team as the season comes to a close. I am not posting this as a gotcha, because no one disagreed with you at the time. No one could have foreseen this disaster.

It looks like I over-rated the Red Sox. LOL!

I could also live with Victor Martinez as our first baseman hitting behind Ortiz. Send Napoli, his 50 RBI, his .790 OPS, his beard, and his great clubhouse presence packing. Eat some of his salary to get it done. Get a premium bat like VMart back here or reacquire Beltre. Ortiz can't be our only offense next season. I like the addition of Cespedes, but he is not a 3,4, or 5 hitter.

I could live with an inning eating bulldog like Shields as our #2.

Bradley with another ohfer is at .200. He just keeps getting worse. If he plays anymore, he will likely sink under the Mendoza line. His OPS is .538 and sinking. He has had a season that could result in the ruination of his career. You would think that he would get an ocassional hit by accident -- a dribbler, a bloop, a seeing eye base-hit. Lol! He's hapless and hopeless. Middlestinks with his pathetic power output of 2 Home Runs is OPSing at an even lower .516. He has also wrecked his career prospects. Unlike Bradley, he is also not a stellar fielder, so he has got nothing going for him. I guess that his biggest plus over Bradley is that he gets injured a lot so we don't get subjected to watch him stink every day. Bradley is durable and could play every day. He is like the joke about bad resort food -- the food is bad, but the portions are big.

Another crap outing from Dr La Rosa. The young pitchers have not made a good impression.

Bradley is 1 for 24. He is not close to getting on track.

Craig is proving to be useless. He can't even find first base to take a throw.

He's awful.

Bogaerts was slow off the ball charging that grounder. A SS has to make that play.

I hope that when Holt is healthy that he plays second base the rest of the way. It is pointless to play Betts at second base. There isn't a snowball's chance in hell that he ever plays second base for the Sox. They should be seeing if Betts can handle third base. That is an open position for next season.

Our bright future will be on display. LOL!

You are always damned if you don't. A team full of home grown pre-free agent eligible. Players is a guaranteed last place team.

An incentive to trade him in his devalued state is that he would be clogging Checinni's (sp) path at AAA.

THey are just not very talented. The whole generation of our future stars-- Bradley, Middlebrooks, Bogaert, De La ROsa, Webster, Workman and Ranaudo have been tremendously over-rated by the organization. I think changes are needed to our scouting and talent development departments.