Dojji

Nothing wrong with Stephen Wright being considered as a good depth option. I know we're all excited about Eddie but it's too early to count on all that much from him anyway. At the moment he should be regarded as good depth and a kid who can learn how to get it done.

You're off base here Jung. you're right that he's by no means proficient, you're wrong that not being proficient after maybe a couple months worth of reps means he'll never get it, and super wrong that that would mean he doesn't care.

Considering that there was no reason we couldn't have had Papelbon and Koji, who only started to close with this team and would have probably been fine playing setup man, and considering that at least a couple of those years our bullpen was a sucking chest wound, I wonder how having the extra high quality arm in the pen would have affected the outcome of those seasons?

They kind of have to do that, especially if a direct translation would be culturally unacceptable, but whether they function as a deliberate publicity filter in all situations, I have no idea.

More to the poin t, we need the team to know from top to bottom exactly what they are trying to do. There's plenty of evidence that this isn't the case right now.

Good. He's valuable off the bench right now. Hanigan-Shaw-Holt-Young is a pretty solid all around bench.

Shaw may make the roster to sit on the bench no matter what. He's got some versatility at the corners and had a good campaign last year, putting up very respectable numbers over a sample size that was not particularly small (over 250 PA, a third of a season or so). look to see the team try Shaw in the outfield at some point this spring. If they do, it's because they're weighing the option of having him make the team in some capacity. Of course, once on the bench, he could have opportunities to make a job his own if Hanley or Sandoval fail to deliver. The possibility of going into May with Holt manning third and Shaw manning first certainly exists, especially if the team is otherwise doing well and the chucklehead duo holds them back.

And a very common age for a player to break out and come into his own as well. i think we'd better be prepared to make room for Travis because he may force the issue, and I'd rather have him on our team than keep our sunk cost contracts and have him traded to some other team for some short term gain over the course of the season.

He's 22, turns 23 this year Age: 22 Born: August 27, 1993 http://www.soxprospects.com/players/travis-sam.htm http://www.baseball-reference.com/register/player.cgi?id=travis000sam

Yeah Sam Travis is a very interesting prospect. I think he's under the radar a bit. The only reason I haven't been singing his praises on this forum is that I still think he's 12+ months away from being a full time contributor. He's been making a good start at suggesting otherwise! The rule of thumb this team used to operate under under Epstein, which applied to the development of guys like Jacoby Ellsbury and Jed Lowrie who I believe both jumped to the big league roster from Portland based on needs, was that if you had succeeded in Portland you could be up for consideration if the big league roster had an opening. Pawtucket is kind of seen as a holding tank for prospects, while you can play your way out of consideration at AAA, any developmental landmarks tend to be minimal. So yeah, Sam Travis is now on the radar, and a very interesting 1B prospect if he can sustain his success this year. If we have trouble at the corners, and we might, he could easily force his way onto the roster, maybe even as early as May or June.

You and I have different definitions of "not that good." Paps has been between above average and excellent for pretty much his entire career, he's very consistent, very durable, and performs at a reasonably high level. His power is down, but that's not really uncommon for a pitcher in his mid 30's, and he still has a good pitching arsenal even with the diminished heater, and he seems to have improved his command and control to compensate for ordinary mid 30's power loss, the way great pitchers do. Papelbon brings a pretty good set of assets to the table and that's a raw fact. If having an ego was enough to wipe that off the board I have my doubts he'd be the only closer who'd struggle to find work. See the difference between you and me UN, and this is kind of the whole big thing between us, is that I'm the only one of us that seems to be able to recognize that a player can have strengths AND weaknesses both at the same time, and that those flaws don't make a player trash any more than the strengths make him God. You tend to have a one track mind and never seem to be able to see both the good and the bad in the same player at the same time. I can.

How about you stop. Congratulations, you've found 3 pitchers that are arguably better than Papelbon, that doesn't contradict my statement in the slightest that I would take him over nearly every closer in the league. I contend that at this point it is you that is fixated. Frankly if I know which Davis you're referring to I write him out of the equation because his track record as an elite reliver is too damn short, shorter than a lot of 3-4 year wunderkind that happen all the blasted time and amount to nothing in the end, you really have to kind of ignore those guys when discussing great closers. So with Davis aside, you're basically telling me Kimbrel and Chapman are better than papelbon, but if the best you can do is 2 guys, then it's clear that Papelbon is exactly the elite closer I said he was and you're grasping at straws to argue just for the sake of argument. Third place out of 30 is still pretty damn elite even before you figure that Papelbon has a CV an order of magnitude better than either of Chapman or Kimbrel at the moment.

Leaving aside the fact that I said "nearly every," none of Kimbrel, Chapman or Davis have the kind of lengthy track record and long string of postseason success Papelbon can boast. Certainly Davis has a long way to go to establish a consistent field record, and if there's 2 guys you'd take over Papelbon, I'd say that matches my statement nicely. Also let's mention the fact that Papelbon, though somewhat more hittable than those two guys, blows them out of the water on command and control and is competitive with them in several statistics that I feel are crucial for a closer -- WHIP chief among them. He's also been extremely durable and consistent, especially for power reliever, with 10 years of very solid performances without a lot of time on the DL. very few big power arms last that long without a major injury. The fact is that Jonathan Papelbon is a damn good closer and a great pitcher in his own right and there are very few relivers in the league who can claim to be superior, and I would happily take him back on this team if he was willing to come and the team could make the numbers work financially.

I'd still bet on pap in the postseason over nearly every closer currently in the game today. the only reason he was never the top closer in the league was the fact that he was Mo's direct competition and there may never be a closer better than Mariano Rivera. As it is Papelbon held his own in that rivalry very well indeed and has not pulled the disappearing act many closers experience when hitters get familiar with theie schtick. If i has a choice of any closer in the league right now for a playoff run, I'd probably pick Pap. His track record merits a certain faith

There is a certain element of "well what did you expect?" going on here.

That would have been a tough play for most third basemen. He took an aggressive route to the ball to try to make a quick play and couldn't get in front of it. The comedy glove miss was the result of that fundamental error but doesn't actually matter as much as the overly aggressive route.

Meh. you see third basemen make that muff at least a couple times a year. NBD until it starts happening ALL the time.

Murphy is a good guy to grab and stash, but I suspect he'll have an out clause of some kind, it's pretty standard for a player who has maybe enough talent to catch on somewhere else. I'm actually surprised he didn't pick up a 5th OF gig somewhere.

It is great, but it's the eternal question with those two, which is better, to have the best possible offensive catcher playing defense, AKA Swihart, or the best possible defensive catcher playing offense, AKA Vazquez, and which combination of strengths and weaknesses is more likely to hurt you. Personally I feel like the defense guy is your best bet. No position player touches the ball more than the catcher, defensive greatness and defensive flaws are both severely magnified at that position simply due to the number of chances to make a mistake. A mediocre presence in the lineup is worth it for a great presence behing the plate, even though Swihart is also no slouch as a defensive backstop I'd rate Swihart to a below average catcher with above average potential defensively, and the capability to hit very well for his position, and compare that to Vazquez who can probably clear replacement level in a good year offensively, but is a generational defensive talent. Frankly the team could do a lot worse than letting CV win the catching job and moving Swihart to one of the 4 corners.

I would agree with that if "not completely healthy" wasn't the entire problem at the center of Pedroia's issues right now. He's a little guy who's getting older and who has a long and glorious history of pushing his small body very hard in order to perform at such a high level, and as he ages, his body will respond less and less well to this. Being too small isn't quite as bad as being too fat, ala Pablob, but it's not a good thing either, and waving off his health issues as if there was not a fundamental reason why they are very likely to keep happening isn't honest IMHO.

Without reading the rest of the thread, I think 85. We're going to have decent starting pitching and a strong bullpen, but I do believe that we will struggle at times to put men across home plate, and that will hold us back. Now of course if we have a surge from the youngsters, that could push us further than that, I'm kind of figuring without major progress from Castillo, Betts, Bradley, Eddie, Bogaerts and Swihart/Vazquez. if multiple of these players play up to their potential, this projection goes from "realistic" to "Eeyore" in a hurry and the team could be something special. But I think it's a little too much to hope for for all these young pieces to click at once.

Xander Bogaerts has another level that he's capable of. I think he hits 25 HR's this year and plays acceptable to good defense at SS to become a breakout player 2 years in a row. He's the right age, and he's the right kind of talent. I'm really excited to see what Bogaerts is going to do as he gets into his mid 20's and his body finishes filling out. He's got a power hitter's body and a good righthanded swing, and the numbers suggest that his approach is advanced for his age, I think we're just waiting for him to put it all together and see what he can be

It's really not that big a deal switching between centerfield and right. A lot of center fielders migrate to right field and do fine -- Shane Victorino springs to mind. I'd actually rather that we keep flexibility in the outfield and make sure that everyone who can play there gets a little experience