Dojji

I guess that means Americans are more patient and have a longer attention span than Brits, then. If I need my gerbil-twitch attention span validated, there's always hockey. Now there's a fast-paced game, at least when it's done right. Hockey is soccer on fast forward with sanctioned fistfights, what's not like to love?

Everyone hates the Yankees. Even most Yankee fans hate the Yankees. At least once you stop talking teams and start talking individual players it's clear that most Yankee fans have a list of 5-10 players on their 25 man roster that they'd prefer to do without. And while Boston is a big market, holy crap do the Yankees spend a lot of cash. They blew $400M worth of money on their team in 2009, and it got them a World Series championship with the sales slip still attached. Our payroll is enormous, but it's about 2/3 of theirs or less. They've spent $240M/year in the past and are close on that this year.

You guys do need to bear in mind that I'm the official forum optimist, I've predicted 20 HR's a year from a large assortment of scrubs over my time here. Nonetheless I don't think I'm too far off the mark here. Two major factors Liverpool FC fans will be glad to see. 1: Henry is a hands-off owner. He'll turn his franchises over to people far more qualified to run them than him and the most you'll see of him is an occasional cameo in the owner's box. If he shows up in the day to day operation of his franchise, someone is either fired or about to be fired -- which has happened exactly once in his Boston tenure, when manager Grady Little had an infamous gaffe that cost the Red Sox a chance to advance to the World Series in 2003. For the most part in other words, if Liverpool FC is under his ownership, it will be the best football people he can find and hire that are actually running things. 2: Henry is not afraid to spend money to make money, or to establish the kind of credibility that leads to money. You might find Liverpool FC to be a bit overmarketed after awhile, I know some people thought the Sox were/are, but the team will be generating as much revenue as it ought for the most part, and the payroll ought to be on the high side. As long as the club does its side of the bargain and actually fields a watchable team, the marketing will not lag behind and the stadium will be full and pulsating. That counts for a lot.

What's so fun about watching a bunch of people running around chasing an inflated rubber pig's bladder? It's all in the presentation, mes amis.

Thanks. I really hope Henry both gets your team and is the same kind of positive influence for Liverpool FC that he has been in Boston. And who knows, you might find that fans of either team start to cross over and we'll see LFC jerseys on the Monster. It's been known to happen.

Quite alright, this is if anything a much more emotional situation for Liverpool fans. After all, it's your team involved, and it's only our team's owner on a separate venture. Hijack away.

Be interesting to see if we could swap stadiums for a game or to during exhibition season, pretty sure Liverpool does something at least tangentially related to baseball's spring training, and it'd be enteraining if they could play the Revs at the Fens or the Blade and maybe the Sox could take a B squad that was desperate enough to prove that they were willing to do anything to make the team and play whatever Britain has for baseball.

Someone's never heard a rendition of "Tessie" or "Sweet Caroline" in the seventh inning stretch. It's a different culture though, American fans are by and large more orderly than British ones, much like our Congresscritters don't shout and interrupt the speaker and other such minor cultural variations.

You make it sound like you can click your heels and bang, instant fixed bullpen. Besides, the bullpen was very solid in 2009 betwee Paps, Bard, Oki, and Saito, so your statement is in error.

Crawford is not a great leadoff man. The stolen bases are great, but his OBP is up and down and that's the last thing you really need from the first guy the pitcher faces in a game. I'd be OK with bringing him in, but not as a leadoff hitter.

The fragile crybaby is the one who just posted the above. The man recovering from multiple rib fractures that he repeatedly reaggravated trying to come back quickly and help his team will man center for us in the coming season.

This thread should be named The Official Talksox Bored G. M.'s Thread

I actually think that for the most part we don't need any radical changes. We need to bring back Beltre, but it would be premature to do a major overhaul at this point. Besides which, the talent pool is relatively feeble at this time and if we overhaul right now it's to go into rebuilding mode, which we don't have the prospects for.

I wonder how much we'd have to pile on top of Daisule to bring in Justin Smoak. Too much, probably.

I don't think he'll waive it to play on the east coast ppl. Daisuke in Seattle is the only rumor we have any reason to suspect he'll waive for. Focus all trade attentions there.

Don't be a dick, it's Sox-related news, it's worth a one-liner or two. This guy's only 22, if he starts at Salem (ambitious, but possible) he'd be on track agewise, if he starts in greenville he's only a year behind. Either way he's young enough that you can let the tools and performance sort out what he is, and it's nice to see at the very least that Theo's still doing whatever he can to bring talent into the minor league system. Realistically this guy's probably a Joey Gathright redux, but why not give him a chance to prove if maybe he's a little more?

I could actually see a kind of platoon at short, especially if Scoot has to have surgery. The idea will be twofold. On paper it's to ease Scutaro in, but in all likelihood it's going to be more like the Cora-Pedroia situation at second back in '07. You know, let 'em both play and then give the job to the guy who's producing.

But he's also put up only about a .720 OPS for his career, and he's going into his age 36 year. This guy doesn't have far to decline before he becomes useless offensively and he himself is hurt. The upside there is nonexistent other than one fluke year with the Jays. Lowrie on the other hand has solid upside, even you've got to admit that. Since they're already both on the 25-man, starting Lowrie doesn't involve cutting Scutaro, he'll be there if the experiment fails. There is literally nothing to lose.

If the supersub outproduces the regular, even if that production is less than he would do as a sub, you still put the best guy in the lineup whenever possible.

If you think the most he will be is .740 OPS, fine, but I'd like to hear from you what factors you think will limit him from producing at his current level as a starter, especially since he's gone stretches of starting 6 out of 7 games and hasn't shown much signs of damage. This is not a guy with a huge situational gap in his approach. He's a switch hitter and while he's having a little trouble batting lefty, it's not a fatal flaw -- he's hitting on his weak hand at the level you seem to believe he'll never hit any better than overall. Moreover, his BABIP as a lefty suggests that that number will go up -- if he gets it up into the ~.750 range, which is a rather modest improvement, then we revert to the .800 OPS standard even if his numbers against lefties (who he murders this year) do fall back a little as well. If that's the issue then you're majorly exaggerating the extent of the problem. His discipline is more than good, he's got at least strong doubles power, so if you want to project him as just a. 740 guy you're pretty much predicting that he'll be nursing a wrist injury every year like he was in 08 and 09. you seem to be laboring under the misapprehension that I've given this no thought and that I'm reacting just because I like Jed. I do like Jed, and I'll defend him until he gives me a reason not to, but the fact is that you're way underselling the guy if you project him as just a .740 OPS player at the moment, because you're taking a rookie campaign and an injured year and assuming those, and not the numbers he's putting up now while healthy, are going to be the norm, which is frankly just a little ridiculous. Not that protecting a career of absolutely smooth sailing is any less ridiculous, but there's a middle ground here. Besides, to be perfectly honest? .740 OPS still beats out Scutaro's .721, so even assuming everything you say is exactly true, you should still start Lowrie over Scutaro.

I disagree on Oki. His chances of a bounceback year aren't bad. I wouldn't count on him as a setup man unless he can prove he can come back, but I think I'd like to see him get one more look in middle innings.

http://news.soxprospects.com/2010/09/red-sox-sign-independant-leaguer-matty.html Sounds like an iinteresting longshot. Seems to have some tools at any rate. We'll see I guess.

Dipre: No, I'm not. The aggregate of samples and each individual sample are better than Scutaro's sample both offensively and defensively. What exactly is wrong with finding out whether the kid can sustain it or not? I'm just asking for a chance to DEVELOP a decent sample size and I have no idea why you think that's such a wierd thing to suggest.