Dojji

By demographics, Boston is only like the 10th richest baseball market, and in terms of population it's less than that. Overall economics dictate that without brilliant work by the ownership and front office, to say nothing of the rabidity of Red Sox fans, this team should be sustaining about half the payroll it is in fact sustaining. I bring this up because some day, this franchise will be mismanaged, instead of managed at a brilliantly elite level as it's been over the last decade or so. Or some day ownership will lose the ability to finance an absurd payroll. And the difference will be very easy to spot. I don't think we'll ever be a poor team per se, but if Henry gets tired of losing money, or his heirs do, and insist that the Red Sox pay for themselves, we'll feel the difference. If the front office loses their feel for the pulse of the Nation, we'll feel the difference. We aren't always going to be able to keep up with the Yankees, and should appreciate it all the more when it happens for the times when it won't. Basically, this is a decade long summertime for the Sox. We always should be a good team, and we're at the zenith of our strength right now. But sustaining being one of the 2 best teams in the league in the league is a stretch we're managing because of great franchise leadership -- not good, great. So love it while it lasts. One day it will not be here.

You know, if what you want is a bottom of the rotation starter, and you're sick of Miller, give some thought to Bruce Chen of the Royals. He's been solid in the AL Central the last couple years, and while he pitches in a large ballpark, he also pitches for the Royals so I kinda figure that that balances out. I wouldn't call Chen a great pitcher, but he'd be a nice complimentary fit at the bottom of the rotation who'd help make sure we weren't rolling out total stiffs, and he appears healthy for the first time in awhile, so he might be worth a modest price at the deadline.

Of that list, I like Smith the best. BTW don't overlook some of the centerfielders. Melky Cabrera is a definite option if all you want is a roleplayer.

I haven't seen this much distilled passive-aggressive in one place since my last family reunion.

THey're trying to adjust his mechanics. Every now and again that has unforseen consequences. Think Buchholz 2008.

Depends. Strictly compared to playing MLB at one position vs. another, surely. Comparing the overall chance to get hurt as a big league first baseman or DH and as a big league catcher, I think it's less than people believe. The real danger to catching is wear and tear on the knees. Sure, someone can do a Buster Posey on a catcher at any time, and that happens, but when it comes to managing risk v. reward, it's not as big as people intimate.

That's deceptive. Lester and Miller were both in their 4th or 5th professional seasons. How many ways do I need to say "Miller was rushed?"

There's always going to be an injury risk. There's an injury risk just running the basepaths. There's an injury risk playing a premium defensive poisition surely, but since Lavarnway doesn't seem particularly unhealthy, I suspect that injury risk is the sort of thing that people fuss about far more than they should. As long as the kid knows the risk, and is on board, go ahead and run him out there at a position that will increase the prospect's earning power in the short and medium term.

No it didn't, but consider that our friend Jon Lester had some WHIPs not far shy of that in his early days. 1.6 in '06, 1.46 in '07. A high WHIP is not necessarily a bar to success. This is a kid who was rushed. His skills as a pitcher are still very raw, rawer than most guys who are just debuting this year. Someone decided he can get by on his raw stuff and only realized afterward that they couldn't. It's going to take some work to get him right. He might be ruined as a prospect. It was still worth taking the gamble considering the alternative was a collection of rookies who are likely to be equally inconsistent.

Not many really good two way catchers. Buster Posey and Brian McCann, along with Mauer who you mentioned, are the ones I can recall off the top of my head. Teams are obsessive about protecting any catcher who can hit by moving him to a "safer" position, in order to preserve their bats, which I think is part of what is destroying Lavarnway's chances. I consider that a mistake. If a guy can hit and play a premium position, ride him out if you have to. Let 'im gol.

His ERA took a jump because of one bad start in a small sample size. Did you really think he was any bet at all to finish the season with an ERA south of 4? That would have been incredibly fluky. And giving someone else a chance to do better involves losing Miller. We'd have to waive him, and too many people are anxious for pitching depth. I don't doubt we'll see Doubront at some point, and maybe Miller continues to pitch poorly and forces our hand, but he hasn't done it yet, and there's no sense in rushing into throwing value away.

At least 18 teams in this league would be over the moon ecstatic if their catcher hit .250. Especially if there were as much power behind it as Salty's flashed so far.

And that's overly harsh. His catching skills are raw and he has some bad habits, but he's also showing a good arm, and has the bat to make up for some mistakes behind the dish. I've never believed that framing pitches was that big a deal, and blocking pitches never struck me as a problem a catcher couldn't hit their way around unless they were just absurdly bad at it. Worse, they aren't really giving him the repetitions to improve in the minors, which for a guy who could project to be a catcher, I consider a cardinal sin. Don't make up your mind beyond the ability of a player to prove you wrong. That's just absurd.

Nope. And I still say that by and large Miller has been a positive for the Sox. He just had a bad outing against a pretty decent lineup tonight. Happens to every young pitcher from time to time. Heck you knew Lester was good because he had a knack for wriggling out of these, and he still got lit up from time to time.

Yes, let's wave the magic wand of get-a-catcher. That will fix everything. You realize that in order to "get a catcher" someone actually has to have one to give up. You aren't going to find a guy much better than Salty that way. Sooner or later you're going to have to get accept the fact that Varitek spoiled us for years, and that Salty, by the ordinary standards everyone else uses for what a catcher is, is a prefectly acceptable big league catcher. There simply aren't guys out there to acquire that are much better than Salty right now.

Lavarnway's skills as a catcher are underrated IMHO. A worse problem is that he just isn't getting a lot of reps in Pawtucket. It seems clear that they're grooming him for a Matthew LeCroy role more than a starting catcher role.

He got that number IN PAWTUCKET. You know, the league Miller was flat out dominating? For God's sake, do you think a guy who's putching to a mid 4's ERA for the FREAKING PAWSOX is going to put up the same numbers in Boston? Please be sane . Tony Pena, Jr. is a better option than Kevin Millwood.

Agreed. If you're looking for a solution at catcher, the situation in the minors is highly ambiguous. The guys who can field won't be hitting much, and the guys who can hit are all projected as DH's.

Millwood was 48-46 with a 4.5 ERA with the Rangers. And consider that that's ballasted by exactly one really competent year in which he was in the mid 3's with 13 wins. And this year he's got a 4.5 ERA in Pawtucket. Fool's gold. Stay away from Millwood. I don't want him pitching an inning in Boston.

Correction: Millwood knows how to get people out with a mid 90's fastball. And even that's debatable. And he doesn't have one of those anymore anyway. Fool's gold.

But it is working. Miller is providing about what you should expect out of a #7 starter. Maybe a little more, since he's only on the hook for his second loss. You don't get pretty numbers out of a replacement guy.

Not really. But I recognize that with 2 starters out, you're going to get into some unpleasant depth options. Miller is far from the worst replacement starter pitching right now. and one thing I do know. One bad start shouldn't influence your decision about a player any more than one good start. I don't think Miller has really been that far off what you could have expected him to be, taking him as a whole. Kid's 3-2 and has pitched well at times, his baseline is 5 IP 3 ER and that's acceptable for a depth starter. Anyone who honestly thinks that you're going to get ace caliber performances out of the 7th best starter on the depth chart is deluding themselves. We just saw the ugly side of it today, but as a whole, considering where he is on the depth chart, what we've seen from Miller is par for the course or better.

NWIH on Millwood. He's pure fool's gold, worse than Miller was in the minors. At least Miller still had his projectable stuff. Millwood doesn't even have that. Doubront is a possibility, but I don't think he's that much better a bet to be consistent than Miller. You're going to get bad starts and short starts from young pitchers.

The Tigers traded him for Miggy Cabrera, that doesn't remotely count as "giving up" on him. As for the Marlins, they're notorious for rushing their prospects. What did Miller cost us? Someone answer that question. And tell me whether you would have really preferred Kyle Weiland to take this start. We're this far down on the depth chart, our starter options are going to look pretty craptacular. Comes with the territory.