Dojji

The Giants would be fully justified in going after a second premium catcher, especially if they could leverage one of them to play another position. Failing that, flip the guy you don't need. Take the BPA when dealing for prospects, and do it regardless of actual needs. Right now, the BPA in terms of value is easily Lavarnway.

Any trade for premium pitching talent begins and ends with Lavarnway right now. Other teams have been watching as he was one of the few guys to stand up and be counted this September, and his minor league numbers are absurd. Teams will push for him to be in the deal.

Again, put another good year behind him, and you'll get no argument for me, but teams will be skeptical this offseason, especially since skepticism gives them an angle to bargain down the price.

I have. And according to what I've heard, the primary culprit was a certain Texan mouthbreather. No source though so take it with about a truckload of salt. If it was Lackey that cost us Tito then so help me...

I'm nowhere near as sure as I used to be that Theo SHOULD survive this. This revelation about the clubhouse is a gamechanger. Tito loses the clubhouse. Let me repeat that. TITO, the guy known around the league as one of the best managers at keeping a clubhouse together, and with a longstanding relationship with several of the team's leading players, he loses the clubhouse. If it was a lesser clubouse manager maybe you blame him, but Tito makes his bread and butter keeping the clubhouse loose, and if he can't do his job, it's because he hasn't been given the material to work with. That's on Theo, and it's huge. As for who I'd replace Theo with? Some might find it an odd choice, but I look ti Mike Arbuckle, the Royals' player development guy. He's done a very good job guiding the current wave of extremely highly rated Royals prospects into the big league roster, and you saw some of them come into their own nicely this year -- Moustakas, Hosmer, Salvador Perez, etc. It's the sort of thing we need to be able to do a little better in order to have a complete team. So I'd definitely look there first and see if he was interested.

Not sure a team would pay Ellsbury's real value right now because it's only the one good year in a hitter's park. This has all the hallmarks of a Mauer MVP season. Teams aren't likely to be fooled.

I'll ask it again because I think it got missed the last time: What about Ken Macha?

I don't think he could do that from a position of being the boss, not as well as he did when he was a player. It's not a terrible idea, but I don't think it reflects the reality of the situation.

How about Millar actually gets some managerial experience in the minors, and we'll talk about this if he turns out to be 100)% better than I expect at it and actually does an adequate job. I'm not one of those redneck accent = idiot people, but Millar never struck me as anything resembling an intellectual titan, and managing is about 500% mental. I just can't see it in him. Bill Mueller on the other hand... well, that might be more interesting.

God no. I can not possibly see that ending well. Millar was a good comrade, a good teammate, but as a manager? Please no. Our new manager is almost definitely not going to be a former Red Sox player. Francona wasn't, Little wasn't, not too many of the guys before were either. Not in our nature to shop locally when it comes to managerial talent. If it was I'd just suggest Tek and say be done with it.

In all reality, we're probably looking for a retread, a guy who failed in another bad organization but has ideas the FO likes. It's tempting to try the fresh face, but we all know how effective Trey Hillman turned out to be. That being the case, what's Ken Macha doing these days? The ownership has had ties with him in the past a couple different ways, and he's been a successful big league manater in the past, he might be a viable option now.

I see the logic of that. In all honesty, we're probably looking too close to home for a good manager anyway.

This is just a complete off the wall idea, but what about Curt Schilling? Seriously, we might just need a guy with an ego to face down all the egos, and that's Curt's thing. And Schill was a leader on and off the field in both 04 and 07. It's a crazy idea, but there's crazier ones in this very thread (Valentine? Seriously?)

Bravo, Tito! You had a fine Red Sox career no matter how it ended. Best of luck in the next step in your career. As to who we bring in? We need a disciplinarian. Badly. One who can get the team thinking like a team again. Tito's grandfatherly approach was fine when the team had internal leadership to keep them focused, this squad clearly doesn't, so they need a manager to do that. How would you feel about Bobby Cox?

I don't think 2009 eats into any grace period, and 2008 darn sure doesn't.

These factors are more than countered by the fact that the Mariners are already well settled into a much better ballpark than Sun Life, and have been prepared all along to spend money on talent. Their problem had been identifying what to spend it on. Again, this is more a factor for why the Marlins would be more willing to trade Hanley than the Mariners would to trade Felix, or insist on more talent in any return. It really doesn't help you that much. The best way the Mariners can get value out of Felix right now is by holding onto him. No team is going to pay what Felix would really be worth on the trade market at this time. Maybe in a year or two, but Felix is a prime example of a player who is priced out of the market right now.

Sure it does. Do you really think the dynamics are any different here? If anything, the differences would make a Hanley trade more likely, considering the number of interesting young players the Mariners have grouped around Felix recently.

I really disagree. Tito has been more than adequate and is one of the most successful managers we've ever had. I have a hard time believing that it's worth rolling the dice with a new guy unless the new guy is maybe someone internal, like Tek or DeMarlo Hale.

Not yet. He gets one more year to try and figure this out. Two rings, 2 years grace period.

No no no no no. You don't fire any staff out of revenge for a failed season. That is ridiculous. It's the way good teams become bad teams and bad teams become jokes. The end of a lost season does not need to be a witch hunt, and it shouldn't. You only fire staff because you can do better, or because you'd have a hard time doing worse. Neither are true of Theo or Tito. Bogar on the other hand may want to update his resume.

Beckett for Lincecum is not happening. That's not even close to reciprocal value for a pitcher like Lincecum. Beckett is too wildly inconsistent year to year to be anywhere near that level of value. Besides, the Giants are in the playoff hunt recently, even with their lack of offense and I'm sure they aren't going to give Lincecum up while that is true.

Torii Hunter, Alfonso Soriano, Ken Griffy -- heck, even your counterexample of Damon isn't burning the basepaths like he used to. Hasn't swiped 20 in 3 years, that's certainly not the old Damon. Either because they're savvy about timing pitchers, or because they were that danged fast to begin with, there are a number of older players who can still play the speed game. No that does not mean speed outlasts power, as these players represent exceptions. For every Kenny Lofton there's 2-3 Frank Thomases.

You couldn't possibly be more wrong. In fact you have it exactly backwards.