Dojji

Yamaico Navarro is not slowing down. Current line .320/.440/.547 in 75 at bats. Not a lot of home runs but a lot of solid contact and no small number of walks, which had been a bugbear for him. Dude is doing everything he'd have to do statistically to be taken seriously as a SS or 3B prospect IMHO. As long as he's at least an adequate SS, I think you have to consider promoting him ahead of Iglesias if we need an infielder this year, considering Iglesias' own struggles. And either way he's giving himself trade value.

Impatient fans are impatient.

What we're seeing is demonstrated potential, which is at least a match for Varitek's. A little secret for your consideration: Varitek, while he has decent tools, was never an elite defensive catcher until he learned how to use them. The Jason Varitek who spent those first couple years platooning with Hatteberg is not the Jason Varitek we saw in his prime. He had to learn some things to get there from here. He was 3-4 years older than Salty is now before you can really say with any certainty that he got it all down. Before then he had a reputation for actually being a bit of a butcher behind the plate, being a relatively poor receiver and defender generally (he frequently DH'd over a guy who never caught again after he left), and made up for it with half decent switch hitting offense. Salty's arm is maybe not as accurate as Tek's was perhaps, but he's got all the talents Tek had and a reputation as a good hard worker. but it's going to take time -- years, probably -- for him to get it down and become the kind of real top flight pro he has in him, and fans are going to have to buckle down and actually show a trace amount of that vanishingly rare Boston sports fan virtue -- actual, genuine PATIENCE -- with the kid while he works his way through it. Oh, and the other thing we see is that we could score Saltalamacchia for a mid tier prospect. A fairly cheap, efficient acquisition of a young talent with upside is about the best way to go if you want a shot at keeping a good team on the field in the majors without destroying your ability to generate young cost-controlled talent in the minors. With elite catching being a practically unobtainable commodity, (I can't think of a single current MLB catcher not named Brian McCann who can do all three of Hit, Defend and Stay On The Field) anything someone else has developed is either not going to be available at all, or is going to be nearly as flawed as Salty without half the upside if it is. We got about as close as we could using big market muscle with VMart and it got us exactly nowhere. Going young is the best answer even if it doesn't bear immediate fruit, and if you're going to go young, a once highly touted catching prospect that is still on the young side makes a lot of sense. What it's going to take to get on the right side of the catching equation again isn't a trade -- that's incredibly unlikely given the state of the farm -- or even a FA signing (any real great quality catcher is going the be the first guy other teams free up money to keep). It's going to take picking up or developing a young talent with some potential, playing them in the major league for a few years -- yes, I said A FEW YEARS -- and letting them learn the business. We're used to being able to take big market shortcuts, and that's a habit we get to unlearn when it comes to catchers, because when it comes to catching those shortcuts tend to either not exist at all or be prohibitively inefficient.

Offer Tek a contract extension that transitions him into the coaching staff, and gives the team the option to make a bench coach and heir apparent out of him. Tito won't last forever, his health will eventually force him to retire. Tek is really very good potential manager material and I'd like to see him do it for Boston. And that way he'll still be around to mentor Salty.

The pitchers need to suck it up. Salty is what we have. They might feel better about Tek, but if they use that as a crutch or an excuse not to want to pitch to Salty, that's a problem with the pitchers, not with the young catcher. They have to accept that Tek is done and make the best of Saltalamacchia, in the hopes that he'll learn this stuff himself.

Corruption in baseball in the early 20th Century! Say it ain't so!

Awesome work by Bard.

Bard's back on form. GREAT news.

That ump definitely didn't do Buchholz any favors that inning.

I think Salty's the guy, at least for now. I want him to have a good long chance to learn the game alongside Varitek before we throw him to the wolves. Right now there are few real quality replacement catchers in their primes available -- one of the reasons I got real worked up this offseason when we passed Russel Martin up, as he was one of the few that at least maintained a solid OBP. Regardless, with Martin off the market for the forseeable future, pairing a veteran with a younger high potential guy is one of the less bad gambles out there. It might as well be Saltalamacchia because if it wasn't it'd be a guy very much like him but with less upside -- say Brayan Pena, or Jeff Clement, or Jason Jaramillo, or John Buck, or one of the universe of catchers like that that aren't great but have the potential to play up in a good year. Of those, Salty has about the best breakout potential so he sticks around unless we get incredibly lucky with one of our prospects.

I'm not sure that moving the incumbent to make room for the prospect is a MO Theo is fond of. I mean if you have a guy, and he's getting it done, why go through the all the risks of promoting a rookie? Lowrie would be a more than adequate full time starting SS if his body can hold up to a 120+ start schedule, and since he's still an arb player himself, it's not like you're realizing significant cash savings. There's no shame in making Iglesias earn the job in a shared time situation, and there's nothing wrong with trading Iglesias either, if the return is right. and you think Lowrie has turned the corner and can handle the workload with only a guy like Navarro behind him. It'll come down to what Jed proves he can handle, if he does well this year and shows the injury bug is in his rear view mirror, I don't think Iglesias should be presumed to automatically supplant him. Let the two fight it out. After all, you pick up the kind of veteran 1-5 rotation we've got on the theory that then you don't have to sacrifice offense for defense as much just to get by, because you have high level pro pitchers.

I don't know why you guys think Iglesias is going to come right up and dominate. That almost never happens. Even Pedroia had a short adjustment period. Lowrie's useful for at least the next few years, until it becomes obvious that Iglesias is the better player, and will be especially useful if that doesn't happen for some reason.

I think that at this point you have to wait until Lowrie slumps or gets hurt to slip Scutaro a start. Any standard you want to throw at Lowrie to make him beat Scoot, he's meeting it right now. He's carried us the last couple games, time to come along for the ride.

Lester and Beckett are back on form. If one other Sox pitcher follows suit (hoping for Buchholz) it doesn't matter what the other 2 do.

Salty just got done catching a fairly well pitched game. But yeah, Tek's the master of handling pitchers.

What exactly is Tito supposed to do here? It's up to the guys on the field, and particularly on the mound, to sort this out, and if they can't, the ball is in Theo's court. Tito's done this in slumps before, and we've all seen threads like this when it happens. Boston's hair trigger panic button is nearly legendary at this point. I happen to agree with him, the team is playing way below its talent level and will sort itself out. The only thing I'm really worried about at all is whether Salty's skills as a reciever might be a contributing factor. If pitchers are throwing better to Tek, then they need to grit their teeth and push Tek back into the lineup until things settle down a bit. Otherwise, other than maybe shuffling the lineup and playing the bench guys more, I don't see what Tito's supposed to do to make this better.

23 year old SS, already has some MLB experience as a utility guy, nice start to the year (.313/.350./.500). I know the guy is considered not to have a great ceiling, and you know me and my dark horses, and I'll say with all honesty, I think he's a cut above most of the guys you'll normally see me defending. I don't think he needs to hit .313 on the season to break into the league as a useful shortstop, and given his age and the fact that he got it done pretty well between AA and AAA last year, this guy has a lot of the conventional signs of a potential surprise breakout at some point in the future, and he's given himself options by learning how to play 2B and 3B. So, yeah, not an epic talent, conceded, but he's a pretty good 2B, a pretty good 3B, and a pretty good SS, with pretty good contact, and pretty good power. All the guy pretty much needs to do is not regress and he becomes a good secondary trade chip, and if he can improve his plate discipline at least a little, he could become a competent starting SS, so it's worth keeping an eye on him for now.

Bout time.

He's shown over the last few games that he can get the job done, the question is consistency, and that can only be answered over a long sample. I think you all know where I stand on Scutaro v. Lowrie. The fact that Scutaro has started every game at shortstop is making me bleed out the eyes. There is no justification for it other than veteranositude, and that is just an awful way to run a baseball franchise. At the very least you give him a chance to blow the doors off the hinges. That can only happen, though, IF HE PLAYS.

No. He used to be a lock, but the drugs combined with the attitude problem takes a lot of points off.

Just got here and you already have Jacko pegged. Pull up a barstool and stick around.

They'll still make the playoffs. But I'd really love to see them break the ice with a couple nice wins soon. We have stretches like this all the time over a year, but I've never seen it happen for the first 6 games. Just a bit taken aback, but it hasn't shaken my convictions that this is a team that's going to wind up going into the postseason and making noise there.

The one thing of all things you can't afford to let a pinch runner do. Shaping up to be one of those seasons. Anyone who was a fan before 2004 knows what I mean

All you have to do is get one hit with a RISP. Which means it's an insurmountable lead.