TedWilliams101

Not losing? NOT LOSING!!! WINNING!!! You play to win, not to "not lose". We will win tonight, we have to.

First of all, pitching and defense are just as important as offense. Second, we didn't let Bay walk because of his fielding, we let him walk because he wanted too much money and his knees weren't any good. 3rd, we didn't replace Bay with just Cameron, we replaced him with Beltre and Lackey too. I think having those 3 guys is more valuable than having just Bay. Finally, sabermetrics aren't perect, no one is arguing that they are. Defense is important, but it's just a piece of the puzzle. It's about balance and value. There isn't anyone on our team that can't hit. As for Randy Winn, yeah, I'd take dunn over him too, but you are talking about a .1 difference in WAR. It's insignificant and hardly a great example if that's the best "gap" the guy could come up with. It's not even that difficult to understand really, someone who is faster has more range and will get to more balls meaning less runs for opposing teams. Dunn is a little leaguer on defense compared to Winn. Winn's much faster, has a much greater range, much better glove, anticipation, can dive, etc etc. It could very well be the difference between winning a game 2-1 and losing 4-2. Now, i do believe Dunn's bat more than makes up for it, but I'm not actually all the surprised the value is so close. I do want to point out that having good pitching is vital to defense. If you can't pitch there is really no point trying to build a strong defense. I know it's obvious, but pitching and defense go hand in hand, weak one and the other will become weak as a result, and vice versa.

Trying to get through stacked, juiced lineups night in night out is not easy. Pedro made it look easy.

Yeah, I agree. I don't like how it's almost impossible for a pitcher to win the MVP. I think Pedro should have run away with the MVP in '99. 23-4, 2.07 ERA, 0.923 Whip, 313 K, 13.2 K/9, 8.46 K/BB, 213IP in the AL East in the height of the steroids era. That's beyond sublime.

I know a lot of journalists believe that ORS, I'm just wondering what you guys think. I think that the "best team" approach is fundamentally flawed. Take the 2002 MVP for example, if you swap Arod to Oak and Tejada to Texas, Oakland would have had an even better year and Arod would have won unanimously. That means that he didn't win when in Texas only because of his team-mates performances. That doesn't make sense. Most valuable means value to a team. Just take this theoretical example: Some player comes into the league and is beyond a monster, hits 100 HRs, drives in 250 RBIs, Bats .500, etc etc. He alone wins 40 games and is worth 60 wins overall. However, his teammates are AAA quality and the team manages to finish 3rd in their division. Clearly, this player is the best player and most valuable player to their team (or any team), yet is he to be disqualified because his team sucks? That just doesn't stand up to logic. It's an individual award in a team sport, you can't hold the player accountable for things he has no control over. Value doesn't have anything to do with standings. A players value is simply how many wins he contributes to his team, thus someone who contributes 20 wins on a losing team is more valuable than someone contributing 10 wins on a 1st place team. (Of course, then you have money value, which is something entirely different).

I was just looking through the past MVP winners and looked at all the head-scratching selections. In particular 2002 with Tejada winning over Arod. I'm wondering, what do people here think of the MVP award. I understand that the writers who vote aren't always objective and can be biased, but clearly people have much different opinions as to what the MVP award means. Also there's the fact that pitchers have virtually no chance at winning, do you guys think that's right? Some people think it should go to the guy with the best hitting stats, some think it should be the best overall player, the most valuable player to a team, only players on winning teams or 1st place teams, etc. What do you guys think about the MVP? Personally, I view it as value to a team. It doesn't matter if the team is a last place team, it's the wins the player contributes, not how many wins the rest of the team contributes.

I didn't become a die-hard Sox fan until '02, before that I was just a casual fan. Took me until high-school to really get into sports.

I'm wondering, does anyone know where his nickname "Greek God of Walks" comes from? I mean, the nickname doesn't really fit when you think about it. Sure, he gets some walks, but he isn't one of those 100+ walks every season types of guys, heck, he hasn't once passed 100 walks in a season, he averages 70-80 a season. I'm not knocking the guy or anything, he's definitely one of my favorite sox, I just realized tonight that his nickname isn't actually that fitting.

I don't defend Beckett. Beckett isn't getting paid to make decisions. He's been awful, no doubt about it. However, Tito has a history of leaving Beckett in WAY to late and allows the game to completely slip away. I'm not making excuses for Beckett, in fact, I'm saying that he was sucking so bad he needed to get out of the game ASAP, but that is a decision that Tito needs to make, not Beckett. Tito allowed Beckett to continue blowing up instead of pulling him when he started falling apart. Beckett hasn't earned the right to work through his struggles late in games yet this year. When it's May and Beckett has an ERA north of 7, his atrocity goes without saying.

What a terrible night, Bruins just fell behind again and the Celtics are getting blown out.

A manager is supposed to make decisions that gives his team the best chance at winning. Leaving Becket in the game when he's up to 100 pitches and is COMPLETELY wild is NOT a move that gives the team it's best chance to win. He loaded the bases, walked a guy and then hit a guy to bring in 2 runs. What more do you need to see to pull him? He should have been gone before he even loaded the bases.

My patience is waring thin for Tito. I've accepted his ineptitude at in-game decision making in the past because he seems to manage the team off-field so well, but he is costing us games now. This is a different team than the teams that won the WS, perhaps we should think about a different manager as well. I think at least a discussion is warranted at this point.

Why is he still out there? 6 run hole isn't enough, Tito? Lol. Tito is really pissing me off this season.

lol, 7 runs and now Tito comes out. Yep, thats Tito for yeah, wait until the pitcher has a complete meltdown to take him out.

On the bright side, at least he's hitting him

Alright, no more posting Goth pictures, I've had my quota filled enough for 3 lifetimes with those pics.

OMG, That thing is hideous! What is it! It almost looks human... but strange and messed up... very messed up. Jeez, I feel like a need a shower after just a glance at that.

Emo, lol. My sister listens to Emo music and I constantly make fun of her for it. Granted, she calls my Jazz "fairy music" but hey, at least people don't slit their wrists to the music I like.

Will this game ever end? I'll be at work tomorrow morning and this game will still be going. Live Morning Red Sox baseball to go with my French scrambled eggs.

Come on Manny, why did we get your evil twin tonight?

Nancy Drew! I could totally picture him in "Brokeback mountain", despite the fact that I haven't even seen the movie, I just know he'd fit right in.

That's not what it says! It says "I stayed at a Holiday Inn last night."

Only those on particular topics. Most of the standard stuff I don't care for as I pretty much tune out anything not essential to me or my interests.

What are you talking about? Of COURSE he is going to hit .346 for the entire season. What are you, an idiot! This is Adrian "Ruthian" Beltre we are talking about.

Oh well, he got the RBI at least.