Dojji

Because I think there's some issues people aren't separating properly. No one's saying Nava's good enough to beat out Ellsbury or a healthy Crawford to be a starting outfielder, but he has some skills I find useful in backups. He's probably a better platoon hitter than McDonald for example.

I think Youk is. Middlebrooks at 3B, Youk at DH, Agon at 1B, Lavs at catcher, Salty backing him up.

I don't get this fascination with moving Salty at all. He's flawed, but he's an average catcher or better by every measurement I've seen. You move him you risk having a hole. Not good logic there.

Actually I don't think it hurts them that much. It might even help them. All Burnett has to do is pitch well in about 5 starts. He has less room to fluctuate as per his usual inconsistency.

Depends on what you mean by Good. He isn't going to have any 35 HR seasons. but if all you need is a guy who could hit .270 off the bench from the right side, he can probably do that for you.

BABIP doesn't equalize like that. High BABIP isn't that surprising for a guy with legit speed. He's got the legs to beat some hits out. if it's been that consistently high, maybe it just stays high. What that tells me is that he makes a lot of sharp contact and legs out some infield hits. Neither is surprising given his general profile. And both are very useful. Frankly, what seems to be holding back Hazelbaker, is his reads defensively -- that and the fact that we have an elite 5 tool CF and a 20 mil contract in his 2 positions here. I agree that Hazelbaker isn't a top prospect, but he's a very interesting dark horse candidate because of his potential roleplaying utility. He's a guy, like Youks, who could legitimately start out on the bench and work his way from there.

I took a look at Soxprospects' projected 2012 rosters and was struck by the talent we look like we'll have in the outfield in AA. Left to right Alex Hassan, Jeremy Hazelbaker, Bryce Brentz. Solid. All 3 are college bats that have produced pretty consistently and all 3 could have at least some big league roleplaying utility. LF Alex Hassan hit .291/.404/.456 in AA last year. That's a pretty solid number. Unfortunately, his range in left is mediocre and offensively he is probably going to top out somewhere between Matt Murton and Troy O'Leary, which is a kind of player we don't have room for. Most likely gets traded but is good enough young enough at a high enough level to get some kind of return. RF Bryce Brentz, easily the least experienced, is the most projectable. Legit high end power, 19 HR's last year in Salem, big righthanded hitter who ought to get some attention to make the roster sometime in the next couple years - *IF* he can clean up his hitting approach and control the at bat better, a .336 OBP in A ball at age 22 doesn't inspire confidence. IIRC that's a big improvement from where he was in midseason though, so there's that. CF Jeremy Hazelbaker is interesting. Looks a lot like Brett Gardner only with a bit more power than Gardner displayed in the minors. Legit speed by any standard, and a good OBP to go with it -- that's a good start. Hazelbaker also has the power to do more with the ball than dribble it up the third base line and hope for the best. If he can hit consistently, cut down on strikeouts, hit quality line drives and keep his OBP high as he advanced up the levels, this guy could be your Ellsbury replacement. He's the oldest of the three at 24 though -- running out of time. With his speed, he definitely makes the blg leagues, but is he a definite starter or a bench guy? He's going to answer that question over the next couple years. Anyway, I figure those 3 guys are worth keeping an eye on this year, especially Brentz and Hazelbaker. If they're cooking, and Ross and whatsisface aren't, we could see some callups in the outfield and after Kalish it's pretty much those three, I wouldn't trust anyone in AAA but Nava, and you all disagree on Nava. So there's a legit chance to see any or all of these 3 for at least a cup or two of coffee by September.

Everyone's a contender in March.

You know who might play himself into consideration that no one's mentioned yet? Jeremy Hazelbaker. You look at his numbers, he's not that far off. Legit elite speed too. Realistically he's probably 36 months away, but he's played well enough in AA should get some attention. He is, as they say, "in range."

I think we have a big need to have our long man be a great one. I think Aceves is the best long man we've had in a long, LOOOONG time and with op to 2 untried starters and 2 more injury prone guys. The only guy I'd count on to start and finish the year is Lester. I'd like to be able to start Aceves in the bullpen to create the illusion of depth.

I wanted Pedroia at SS. But then, I always think a player should play at the top position on the spectrum that they can conceivably play and move down from there if necessary.

Fair enough, then you can't put where you hit the ball in golf into the equation either. The fact remains that golf involves hitting a stationary object. And so *should* punting and field goal kicking. So that takes them right out of the running. In my mind this is between hitting a baseball, returning a serve in tennis, and certain plays in ice hockey that require so much sheer athleticism that it puts them here if a player can do them consistently Hockey, though, suffers from a lack of discrete plays so it's hard to pinpoint which part of hockey is hardest.

The lack of defenders radically reduces the number of moving parts in a golf drive compared to getting a hit in baseball. Doing what a guy like Marc Savard could do with a pass comes close just because of how much whole-body coordination it takes. Hockey is easily the most purely athletic of the major sports. But if we're talking sheer hand-eye coordination, sheer having to one extremely difficult thing at a very high level, hitting the baseball is still right there because unlike hockey you can't make up for doing one thing poorly by doing another thing well.

That's too many things to be one action and the redirection tends to amount to sticking your stick out there and hoping for a happy accident, so no, I'd say probably not.

Doesn't help us much, but I'm down with it. If we don't beat the Yanks for the division, we don't deserve equal footing with them.

Tek diminished to a replacement level catcher in 2008, and then to a backup in 10-11. The team was consistently a year behind doing what it should have done with the man, but at least they got him in there to mentor Saltalamacchia for 1 season and 2 offseasons. That might help us in the long run. I hope.

Played his heart out in September, played his body out in 07. Sorry but it's the truth.

It's a poll of people who have some idea what they're talking about. Of the things a player needs to be able to do consistently in order to be adequate at their profession, hitting a baseball is right up there in difficulty, since coordination is much harder and pitchers are much more able to impact the event. I could see returning a 100 MPH serve being right up there with it, but you have a much wider surface to make contact with and I believe you actually have more time to respond. Also the serve is hit and not thrown, so the server has less control over the release than the pitcher does.

I tried to make it clear I was talking about Lavarnway.

Depends on just how much of a catcher he needs to be. He could probably be a bad catcher who makes up for it at the plate pretty much right now. IF he needs to be solid defensively, I dunno if he'll get there. I think the best you're going to get from Lavs is a Victor Martinez type. A guy who plays catcher because that's the best way to get his bat in the lineup. Maybe a bit below average in a good year. but good enough offensively that catching purists just deal with it.

Padilla is this year's Millwood. Expect him to put up gaudy numbers in Pawtucket and never see a single big league inning.

Question: If he's a placeholder, who is he holding place for?

If you were Tek, wouldn't you want to be in harness rather than in neutral?