Dojji

Never faced big league pitching? He's barely faced pitching at the AA level or better. I doubt if you combine this spring with last season you'd still get a number greater than 150AB. People are getting WAY premature here. EDIT: Alright, it's not as bad as that, he had about 250 PA in AA last year, but his numbers took a huge dip from his A ball rates and that's the sum total of his experience above A ball. Not as bad as I thought, but still jumping the gun.

The media exacerbated each of these issues and kept stirring the pot, even months afterwards in both Manny's case and Thomas's. They may not have pulled the trigger on the moves that put any of these people out of town, they may be able to hide behind plausible deniability on any one thing, but they were a huge factor in why their implosions were as big and permanent as they were.

Anyone else kind of hoping that JC Linares gets a chance to win a bench role? As much as I'm on record as a member of the Daniel Nava Defense Team, Linares can do some things Nava really can't. Like back up centerfield. He's not starter material, not in Boston anyway, but since he's older, it's kind of bigs-or-bust over the nest couple years, and I'd like to see if there's enough there that he might be worth a short term flier. IMHO he's shown enough offensive talent in the minors that I think he deserves a chance to see whether he can or can't hit well enough to play on the bench in the majors. Not a bad spring either. I'd like to hope he gets a chance rather than just mouldering away in AAA for the rest of his career.

Agreed. I see a number of solid prospects supported well by good AAAA types. Pawtucket isn't going to be a bad place for any prospect to develop I think.

And if that becomes too big of a problem I expect Farrell to deal with it. By which I mean I expect him to deal with what Aceves actually does and is, not what he seems to be and the media speculates he did. I really, really hate the way the media gets hold of certain athletes and shakes them until their teeth fall out, then acts all offended when they protest or retaliate. It cost us Manny, it cost us Tim Thomas, cost us Kevin Youkilis, may have cost us Josh Beckett, who knows who the hell else it's cost over the years. If you want to know why this team hasn't been attracting the bigtime FA talent, I have to think the incredibly antagonistic media environment is a big factor. Even in New York the shark fins don't swirl this aggressively. Anyway, point being, I am inclined to resist any momentum the beat writers are trying to build up against yet another intended victim until I see a good reason not to.

Not when it's phrased in a way that singles out Aceves it's not. This team has seen innumerable characters in its bullpen as crazy or crazier than Aceves. Julian Tavarez anyone? It's hypocritical to talk about Aceves' temper and ego problems like it's something we've never experienced before. I agree that there's a definite threshold of nonsense beyond which the guy should be moved along. Generating a little drama with an HBP is nowhere near that threshold.

He's 2 years removed from that surgery. I don't think it's that unreasonable to expect at least average defense and a decent amount of pop out of Drew last year.

Correction: If they knew they could count on Iggy to hit .240, they wouldn't have signed Drew. If they merely thought it was possible, they still sign a veteran and make Iggy win his job, the same way they tried to do with Mike Aviles (except Iglesias failed to play along by making poor progress).

A baseball player is arrogant and egotistical. Oh my. Such a thing has never happened before. However shall we react to this completely unprecedented situation.

Vazquez is going to stay in the minors because he has at least an outside chance of developing a borderline starting caliber bat if he does, which combined with his arm makes him a starting catcher. Think Yadier Molina's early years. They're not going to throw a shot at getting that guy away in order to rush Vazquez to the big leagues 2 years too early. He has a truly impressive arm, and if I didn't think he could develop offensively I'd be calling for him to supplant Ross this year because I think the kid could easily back up in the bigs right now. But that bat is good enough that if he works on it hard enough he could get into position where he could let his arm carry his bat as a starter. Right now he's not there. The team has got to let him work and get there if he can. The upside is worth the wait.

http://www.weei.com/sports/boston/ba...tian-vazquez-c So he came from the same region as the Molinas, Benito Santiago, and Pudge Rodriguez. And idolized and carefully studied Pudge's technique growing up. Logged hours and hours of hard work every day before he was drafted. And has trained and practiced with the Molinas in the offseason in the last couple years, doing the same things they themselves did to get ready for the season and probably soaked up as much about what it actually took to make and stick in the big leagues as he could. That's 4 different world series champion catchers, 3 of them known for their own defense (sorry Bengie), from which to draw inspiration and technical advice as well as advice on a million little things about how to make the big leagues and stick and thrive there. An embarrassment of riches in terms of mentorship. Sounds like a kid who really gets it and has plenty of access to a great wealth of big league experience even outside the organization. And is putting the work in himself to take advantage of his chances. I'm impressed. Very good groundwork by the EEI reporters. And a lot of stuff to hear there that will get you excited about Vazquez. Great stuff to hear to be sure.

So it's unusually good mechanics and a great arm. Awesome. Hope he stays healthy.

It's not a vain hope. He did well in Salem against age appropriate competition, then struggled as a 21 year old in AA. if he can hit as well as Josh Thole usually does, or as well as he did before this last year, that's all I'd expect of him, that plus the laser guided missle launcher on his shoulder would be more than enough for me. That's how Yadier Molina got started, and Molina was elite even before his stick came around. Course, full disclaimer, definitely not saying Christian Vazquez is Yadier Molina. But I'm not saying he isn't either. This kid is an underrated talent. He could peak as the pre-breakout version of Yadier Molina, and I'd be perfectly good with that. That level of performance is within Christian Vazquez's talent, if he can harness it.

Yeah, I noticed that and fixed it in edit. I do think that Vazquez is one of those weird cases where a lack of offensive success might warrant a callup. If he isn't going to hit well enough to start, he's already clearly able to live off his one elite tool and probably beat out Ross as a backup right now.

Christian Vazquez has my attention for sure. I look at Vazquez and I see our future backup catcher for a lot of years. I see his upside as Josh Thole-esque offensively, that plus an elite arm can get you a starting gig. What I don't know is if it can get you one on the Red Sox. They like their hitting catchers. I'd like to think they're not immune to the obvious though. I'm sure that Vazquez has their attention at this point. Actually if I had to pick one of the spring training guys to crack the roster, and had to pick between Bradley and Vazquez, I'd take Vazquez hands down. Vazquez as a backup/LIDR with his arm could be an absolutely tremendous asset late in close games. Bring out the closing pitcher and the closing catcher, both with high octane arms. Only the fact that I think he does have the talent, with luck, to develop enough offensive ability to allow his D to carry him as a starter, keeps me from calling for him to break camp with the team, or at least be up on april 12 or whenever it was people were talking of Bradley.

If he's doing it in a season where the team isn't likely to go the distance and so there's little to gain in the bigger picture from taking that kind of risk, I might can him as well. And I tend to be a very forgiving sort, at least when I'm not confronted by terminal stupidity. If a GM doesn't have the stones to disappoint fans looking for a quick fix and run the team with his eyes on the team's medium to long term goals, he's not the right person to manage any ballteam I happened to own.

I see no reason not to exhibit due patience with Bradley. We're not prime candidates to make the World Series this year, so taking long term risks to try to beef up the team now doesn't make a world of sense for anyone but the fans. I except Bradley to be on the big league club at least a few times for cups of coffee, and if he gets a chance to prove something and manages to stick, great. The exuberance needs to be dialed back just a bit though. This kid is not Willie Mays.

Good for him. I'm sure he'll help the Sea Dogs a great deal and will quickly be promoted to AAA once he's proven he should be there, by early May at the latest would be my guess. From there, he has all summer to prove he should be a September callup, and would obviously be the first guy up if someone got hurt. If there's such a thing as a playoff roster for the Red Sox, I don't hate his chances to be on it. But the question of whether he should be called up out of camp or in May is juuuuuust a bit premature. It's Spring Training people. Taking what you see in the Spring at face value is not wise. People talking about JBJ as if he was some sure thing right now are getting ahead of themselves. I see no reason not to let the system play out as normal.

Inconsistent playing time was exactly Wily Mo's problem. What you're ignoring is that that problem didn't start in 2007. In a perfect universe he should have debuted for the first time in roughly the 2006 season. He was brought up way too young and it killed him. He was asked to develop almost entirely at the big league level and was far too raw for that. I don't think JBJ is anywhere near as raw as Pena, but the idea that you can just shove a prospect into the 4th OF slot should have died with Pena anyway, because what Pena gives is a career that is a literal case study in exactly why young, extremely talented players shouldn't be brought to the big leagues to play bench roles. I don't see anywhere near enough to be gained in terms of season objectives, long term objectives, or career progress for Bradley, to make me think he should be up before September unless he blows the doors off and forces the organization's hand in Pawtucket. And to be perfectly blunt, my personal prediction is that he starts the year with the Sea Dogs. I see a kid that still has some work to do in AA.

I won't. Perhaps it's because I don't get the chance to watch the games because of my work schedule at the moment, but when I think about calling up Bradley I can't help but think of the fact that he only managed about a .800 OPS in AA ball -- the level Ellsbury blew away prior to being called up. I'm mostly with Jung on this one. If I was judging his talent I'd call him an exciting prospect who would benefit a great deal from a full year in the minors. In my mind, Bradley and Bogaerts, along with at least one of Webster and DLR, should be slated to cameo in September with an eye towards evaluating them for starting roles next year. To move any faster than that is to take unnecessary risks at a time when there is little to gain.

right. The team is certainly not going to put itself in a position where it has to COUNT on Bradley. They should have learned that lesson with Kalish, even if they didn't learn it with Coco Crisp (seriously, I loved Covelli, he was dynamite in 07, but to pretend he was as advertized at the time of trade is to engage in a delusion).

That worked really well when we tried it with Willy Mo Pena. Seriously. Sure, Wily Mo brought a lot of his own problems with him, but let's not pretend that the inconsistent playing time he got early in 07 didn't hurt him either. He was coming off a great year in 06, and wound up relegated to the bench for most of the year because he couldn't get started and a team fighting for the World Series wasn't about to risk that by letting him play for multiple consecutive weeks to see if he could get it going. I wonder how his career would have gone if he had. if JBJ gets himself into a situation where the manager is reluctant to give him at bats because he hasn't been doing much with them and the 3 starters have, which is very possible and in fact more likely than not given his lack of seasoning, this could quickly fester and turn into a disaster. I would much rather have an inferior player backup the outfield and leave JBJ in the minors than do anything permanent to that kid's career. The risk is not worth the reward unless you're willing to ante up and bet large that the kid is going to be a productive regular this year.

Hanley was promoted by the most penny-wise and pound-foolish franchise in baseball. The Marlins are not anyone's model franchise. It is ridiculous to make any claim of whether Kalish would or would not have gotten hurt at MLB vs AAA.

If JBJ has that kind of arm, then should we be examining him as a possible RF for the second half, if Kalish can't stay healthy and Ellsbury is traded? I mean NWIH he's in the bigs to break camp, but he's looking like he might be poised to push up quickly once he gets a chance to lay down some consistency in AAA.

Uhh yeah, especially since we're talking about a BRAIN INJURY here. Because that's what even the mildest concussion is. I don't care how macho you are. You screw with the structural integrity of your own brain at your peril.