a700hitter

I can't believe that it is not even September yet. This season has seemed like an eternity. This is what it is like when the last meaningful game you played was Opening Day. The wears on you. You can see wearing effect of losing on the field. They are playing sloppier ball lately. It is tough to play all out every night when the games have meant nothing for months.

We have a guy on our team that explodes your whole theory that heart and intangibles don't matter (if that is your point). That would be Dustin Pedroia who has no plus natural tool. He's not fast. He doesn't have a very stong arm. He doesn't have a lot of power. And his diminutive size doesn't help either. He was drafted with the 64th pick. No one projected him as an MVP type player. His physical abilities just did not dictate such a projection. However, when you watch the guy on a daily basis, you realize that his desire and his exceptional instincts make him a great player. Heart, desire and innate baseball IQ all matter and they are very difficult to scout.

The Yankees should not be messing around with an attempt to bring back Tanaka this season. Their only decision should be whether rest and rehab will heal him completely for next season. If not, he should be getting the TJ ASAP.

And Billy Beans has the world championships to validate his method;-) . Baseball is great for copycats. If someone has some success, other follow. The latest fad is the ridiculous overuse of the over- shift.

He's clueless. Last year, he benefitted from following the despised Bobby Valentine, so the players busted their asses for him.

I trust my dad who saw them all play. James probably never saw Snider. He definitely never saw DiMaggio.

Ortiz hard been one of the few bright spots for this team. It is a shame that they surrounded him with such garbage.

What just happened. Who went down?

He has terrible base running instincts.

Spud, you paint a bleak picture, but I think each of your concerns is valid.

He is one of the big reasons for the 2014 disaster.

Differentiating among great fielders is largely a matter of opinion as metrics are not reliable to make such differentiaion in a definitive manner, so there is no "proof". The metrics will separate the good from the bad and the bad from the average, but they don't reliably differentiate within those groups. Blair is right at the top of the list of CFers that I have seen. He did it for a long time too. The Orioles of that era had 3 fielders that were among the best ever at their positions-- Brooks Robinson at 3B and Mark Belanger at SS were the other 2. Back to CFers, Mays was amazing and I only saw his last 5 years with the Giants. Curt Flood was a great fielder too. Freddie Lynn was spectacular- a human highlight reel. Darren Lewis was outstanding too. Fred, I realize that being an NL guy in the 1950's that you probably didn,t get a chance to see much of Dom DiMaggio. My dad told me that he was better than Joe D. As for Duke Snider, anyone who thinks that he was just a one way player doesn't know what he is talking about. The debates in the 50's about Mantle , Mays and Snider were not just about hitting. While Mays was acknowledged to be the best fielder of the 3, it is my understanding that many considered Snider to be a better fielder than Mantle, and Mantle was pretty good at patrolling Yankee Stadium's expansive center field. Bradley will never get the chance to be considered in the company of these greats unless he can hit enough to stay on the field for a number of years.

He can pass it by the fans, but it will not get through the league. That rotation is a rotation for 100 + loss team

He is not going be returning anytime soon. He should have been getting the help he needed much earlier. The FO did him no favors keeping him up in the majors. He will not be handed the job next spring like it was handed to him this spring. He will have to win it. He is a great fielder, but I am quite a bit older than yu, so he is not the best CF that I have seen.

Fred, you rooted for Brooklyn through some tough times too. Was it Bart Giamatti that said that this game will break your heart?

Bradley has a full season of experiences at the major league level. He is is a few plate appearances away from 500. He has played in 149 games. He has a .586 OPS. That is atrocious. That is not a bumb in the road. They need to remake his swing. That is not going to be easy.

That is optimistic.

Orsillo put Remy on the spot with a tough question asking whether Bradley's demotion should have come much sooner. At first, Remy dodged the question, but then after acknowledging that he sounded like he was dodging, he stated that the move was overdue. He stated that a hitting coach could not give Bradley the one on one attention that he needs. He stated that Bradley probably needs more than a minor adjustment. He noted that his upper cut swing had produced only 1 home run, that he would have to learn to level out his swing, cover the plate better and keep the ball out the air. It has been my opinion for sometime that the kid was so screwed up that continuing to send him out there had zero chance of success. Watching him every day, it seemed very obvious that he needed help that he couldn't get in the big leagues. Bradley is not going through some ordinary struggles that young players go through. He has fallen flat on his face. I can't think of too many successful players that have flopped this badly at age 24 and then become productive offensive players. Back to Remy's anwer, we have played more than two thirds of the season with a lineup that had 4 dead spots. The results should be no surprise. The FO made no attempt to make the necessary and obvious adjustments to field a competitive team this year.

Middlebrooks, AOJ, and XB 0 for 11 tonight. Add the pitcher's spot in the lineup, almost half of the lineup is a black hole.

And we have managed to finish last in 2012 with a roster choked with high cost long term contracts and again in 2014 with no long term high cost players. There are lots of strategies that can be employed to build a winning team. Our current ownership has also demonstrated that you can build a last place team by poorly executing divergent strategies.

Yep, he's not going to get a lot more rope.

More likely that would be a last place team.

I agree, but he offers something that a guy with a low OBP, a lot of K's, and no power did not.

Middlebrooks is a big stiff. I can't see him as a consistently good mlb hitter, but he is so strong that he will hit 25 to 30 homers if he stays healthy. He has that aspect of the game that AOJ does not.

and he was a good teammate too. He also struck out too.