Dojji

I expect the team to give Bryce Brentz some reps at first as well actually. It seems like a no brainer. I'd hate to waste Brentz's arm, but if Brentz moved to first, he'd immediately be our best 1B prospect and have an easy path to the majors, so I can't see the team not trying him out there. Let him play first for a season or two then move to the outfield when a spot opens. They did the same thing with Brandon Moss years ago, and they had youk then.

I'd bet money that the team gives Bryce Brentz reps at first base this year. It'd be a pity to squander his arm there longterm, but there are definitely worse short term solutions and they did the same thing with Brandon Moss back in the day. If he can hack it at all defensively he immediately becomes our best 1B prospect and gets an easier path to the bigs, so he should be motivated. If only for the sake of giving themselves options, it's one move they absolutely need to be making.

You know, I wonder if you could solve this in part by playing Big Papi at first base for 60 games and piecing the rest together. He's aged since he did that on even a semi-regular basis, but as I recall he's a moderately competent 1B, health permitting. That would at least give you some flexibility to play around with the DH and other positions, and maybe work Lavarnway into the lineup.

I was typing that out as you posted your thing from minorleaguecentral. I deleted it since you came out with better information than I had available.

Didn't know about that website. Bookmarked. Thanks.

That rebuttal would work better if I hadn't already confirmed it was a SSS. Nonetheless, it's all the data we have. What we need right now is a RHH with a traditional platoon split.

May not work as well as you're hoping. Gomez showed a reverse split in SSS. (Yes, I realize that means that I was wrong too, I just went back to double-check and confirm with the Jones theory, and realized I'd gotten it backwards). He may not hold up against LHP, which puts pressure on Jones to be the bona fide starter -- not what he does best. What we need is a righthanded platoon bat at first base.

Looking more and more like Mauro and Salty fighting it out for the right to wear a first baseman's glove. Interesting point to consider: both have revealed a platoon split tendency. So the correct answer may well be "both of the above." Mauro against LHP, Salty against RHP.

He's right though. Or at least what he's saying is a distinct enough possibility that snarking him for it is likely unprofitable. A lot of little guys, when they start seriously declining the bottom just falls out between one season and another. Chone Figgins and David Eckstein both went from "great" to "well, OK I guess" to simply gone within 2-3 years. Granted, both Eckstein and Figgins are more dependent on the speed game than Pedroia, but that body type doesn't hold its peak as well, it's just the truth.

I don't see a sane move that seriously adds to the top of their pitching rotation, and as long as only the usual number of things go wrong they're pretty much set for depth. How much are you really gonna spend to upgrade the #4 spot in your rotation in a year where you already know you're betting against the odds to get anywhere??

He has the value related with being a half decent alternative in a market where most of the really good options are gone..

Of those options, the only one definitely better than Mauro Gomez is Napoli. Not many options here seem smarter to me than seeing what Salty could do with a year as the everyday first baseman. He has the power, maybe if he wasn't facing the rigors of catching every day he could be that little bit more consistent.

That is unfortunately a possibility. It's very very likely that that's what happened to Josh Bekett. If you favor your back, you're trying to get more velocity from your shoulder, and that's how careers end.

"I probably didn't tell a lot of it to the trainers, and probably should have gotten treatment on it pretty regularly, but at the same time I was trying to make the rotation and I didn't want to miss a start, which would have hurt my chances. I just kind of pitched through it. Normally it was fine. I wasn't thinking about it out on the mound, ever. But it was an issue between starts, and once your adrenaline kicked in you might forget about it. But there were probably still some issues there. I've had lower back stiffness throughout my whole career, this was just a little bit more." http://www.weei.com/sports/boston/baseball/red-sox/rob-bradford/2012/12/29/rediscovering-daniel-bard-reliever-ready-offe

Bard himself blames back issues.

Wait, so teams only rebuild when they're winning? :dunno: The front office started flailing around blindly to maintain their place at the top and try to go over the top starting at the deadline in 2008 with the Victor Martinez trade. Every move between then and the Big Dump this year has been a failed attempt to extend the life of the old core. So what you're telling me is the fact that big trades and signings have failed to breathe new life into a dead team, is a perfect sign that we need more big trades and signings? :dunno: You tell me. How happy would you have been if we hadn't traded for all the sexy big names when we had a legitimate chance chance to win the World Series as recently as 2 years ago? The fact that something failed does not automatically mean it should never have been tried. This is the distinction that both you and a700 consistently fail to parse. That rot started happening during the 2007 season. Specifically the spectacular demise of Daisuke Matsuzaka around the latter 2 months of 2007, the loss of Schilling that there was nothing we could do about (an addendum to this is the absolute failure of Buccholz to be as effective as a 40 year old whose shoulder was held together with duct tape), and the ultimately shortsighted re-signing of Mike Lowell. We're lucky we got the ring when we did. Which is funny, because "this failure" came as a direct result of repeated efforts to get us back on top. We're already over the cliff and spreadeagled on the canyon below, and you demand we keep running forward in a straight line. . If you want guarantees, buy gold. Don't watch baseball. Baseball is not for the faint of heart, the weak of knee, and the fan who wants an easy life of guarantees. The amusing thing to me is that what you're suggesting the FO actually do, seems to be more or less what they're setting themselves up for. If they were doing what you seem to be railing against, we probably wouldn't have signed Dempster and Drew and tried to sign Napoli -- all of which were clearly signed to allow us to ease prospects in gradually around a core of experienced veterans.

I feel that Javier Vazquez is a poor bet to outperform any of the 5 current rotation options at this stage of his career. If you can invite him to ST and give him a chance to prove me wrong, fine, but he should be guaranteed nothing. Maybe when we know what we're going to see out of Lackey, the picture changes, but I honestly think the franchise is hoping that by the time they absolutely have to leave Lackey by the roadside, de la Rosa will make himself an option.

What part of my analysis makes any value judgment at all about the job the FO is doing? You made some specific, if broad, statements about what "business does." They were wrong, and I addressed them. I also cited the obvious reasoning behind the FO's actions, and tied them to the general points of business philsophy that I raised, which again were correct where yours were wrong. At no point did I make any obvious value judgment about whether the FO was executing those philosophies correctly. You know that I've had my own disagreements about the actions of the front office The fact is that there has been a philosophical switch in the FO and you're still floundering around in yesterday's paradigm. The fact that you have not caught up with the class doesn't mean that the class is wrong. It just means that you haven't caught up.

Pretty much. I mean which way would you rather do something, the quick way or the right way?

It depends on how deficient you are, and how much of a show-stopper it is that you are deficient. As with all things, there are two questions to ask when mulling over a solution to any deficiency: 1: What CAN you do? What are the sum of your actual options? 2: What will what you can do COST? Combine asset costs with opportunity costs. In any analysis, "nothing" is something you can do. In any analysis, the cost of doing "nothing" is quantifiable. It should be weighed next to the cost of other possible courses of action, and if you come to the conclusion that "nothing" is the most cost-effective thing to be doing, then as a business you should be doing nothing. These are very fundamental business concepts that I'm embarrassed for you that you aren't seeming to grasp in this environment That said, the Red Sox are not doing nothing. What they are doing, is letting some prior investments mature, and staying flexible in the meantime. They're gambling on the youth program to replace some of the core players they've lost over the last few years -- especially Youkilis who was a HUGE loss for the team. Without Youk, and with Beckett gone, no longterm options in RF or SS, and a catching situation in disarray, we don't have a core that's going to take us to the top no matter how we supplement it. Until that changes, assuming you can wave the Magic Wand Of Do Something, and make a 100 win team appear (you'd like to claim you're not doing this, but your attitude gives the lie to your words), is just delusional. There are too many fundamental problems with this team to call it anything else.

Apparently someone failed economics. Business is about holding when holding is the best way to build value. Buisness is about making moves when making moves is the best way to build value. Both are valid strategies depending on the situation.

It is when above all else you don't WANT to understand.

Oakland gets burnt on the trade market as often as not, but they make so many trades and are constantly restocking their farm, so they spring up like a bad weed pretty frequently on the basis of this or that move. It's not going to get them to the World Series but hey, it serves to make Billy Beane look good, so the entire point of the strategy of the Oakland Athletics is fulfilled. The A's are good at finding guys that work but can't keep them when they do. Sort of the opposite of our problem at the moment. What they need to do is figure out that in order to build up a critical mass of talent and win anything, they need to keep those guys and move guys along that don't work out, rather than constantly trading for underrated players to inflate the ego of their GM.

Not doing the wrong thing is better than doing the wrong thing. Is that really so difficult to comprehend? Sometimes taking the best immediate opportunity does not lead to the best long-term results. If you can't wait through a market correction to get the best possible deal, and you feel you must evaluate everything only on the basis of immediate gain, you're not much of a businessman

Well thanks for that non-sequitur.