Dojji

Annnd then we all remembered that the team made the same noises about Jarrod Saltalamacchia. They are not going to come out and say "we doubt this kid's future as a catcher" even if they doubt this kid's future as a catcher. He's a potential trade asset that they have no intention of deliberately devaluing, why would they? These puff pieces say less than nothing.

Because they're becoming a mess. When they started this it was a few Roman characters and gave the event a bit of class, these days it's really starting to become a lengthy numeral, so they're going to have to switch over eventually, now's as good a time as any. Besides, the percentage of the population that can accurately decipher a Roman numeral goes down with each passing generation. There will come a point where the vast majority of viewers have no idea what all those letters are under the title, and it might even be here now. It made sense back in the 50's when this stuff was still taught in public schools, but you have to search out how to decipher Roman numerals yourself these days, and it's hard to decide to bother since it just doesn't ever come up anymore. that makes roman numerals inaccessible for most of the population.

At a guess? Most of them. Xander is a premium product. There's only one player on this roster I would rather lock down than Bogaerts, and that's Sale. That may be a bit irrational of me, but IMHO, Betts has peaked, and Bogaerts has not, and Bogaerts is already providing high level production at one of the hardest positions in the league to find such. It would be a lot easier to find a RF to replace half of Betts' production than to find an SS on the market that could replace half of Bogaerts' Power hitting shortstops with no major holes in their game aren't easy to come by. Bogaerts earned his place in the All Star Team last year has every chance to break out and become a superstar this year, I wouldn't put huge money on Betts outperforming him by the end of the season. All Bogaerts really needs to do to become a superstud is stay out of the big slumps. If he can improve his approach at the plate and stop digging himself into trouble, or at least start digging himself out of it faster, the sky's the limit. Not anxious to move a guy like that, especially with no other premium SS talent in the high minors.

A lot, yes. A preponderance? That would need to be proven for me to believe it. The same pitcher can show up one day and get lit and show up the next day and mow the opposition down. Does the fact that we don't know which pitcher we'll get in any given start mean the results are random? Hardly. What it actually comes down to is a multiplicity of tiny factors we can't know or account for. Being intellectually lazy and unable to dig further, we dismiss that as "randomness" but it really really isn't. The fact that we need large sample sizes to sort out the noise is exactly because what happens on the baseball field is NOT random, and it takes the X factors a large group of responses to even out and give a real statistical perception of a person's average skill level. If the distribution were "random" we might expect true data in a much smaller dataset. Is it possible that Schilling had a personal X factor that made him far more likely to perform at a high level in a playoff situation? Yes, because we can't know or document all possible x factors affecting a ballplayer we HAVE to concede that possibility. And once you concede that possibility you CANNOT pretend that clutch is impossible, that there aren't x factors that may exist and impact a player in a way to make them more likely to be effective (or on the other side of the same coin, less likely to fail) in critical situations. And of course the counterpoint is also true, and x factors make a player less likely to succeed in those same situations. Baseball is driven by variables, many of which we still haven't identified. That's why the game is still entertaining after all these years. It's lazy to shorthand that into "driven by randomness" because the randomness isn't truly random. All factors of talent and skill are weighted by attitude and psychology and that will create individual variations in either direction in key situations. Ergo, clutch IS a thing, at least potentially. In fact before I doubted the existence of "clutch" I'd seriously doubt the existence of "random" as the concept of truly random numbers is still a source of serious debate in mathematical circles and has been for a very long time now.

3 more days

Sure. Clutch is a thing, I've never denied it. In fact in my mind clutch is directly related -- clutch IMHO is the absence of these psychological factors that can limit a player's success in intense situations.

Yes because the fact that something can't be proven definitely means we should ignore the possibility entirely. Absolutely this is the case anyway my big gripe with the fans isn't so much trying to get our guys down, as kicking them when they're down. Once a guy shows he has a weakness the fans are merciless, and I'm sure it shouldn't be that way.

So Papi was underpaid, that's cool

I'm beginning to wonder if the greatest weakness of the team this year might actually be... Us. The fans. Our expectations are going to be ridiculous this year. We're bad enough when we're expecting a pretty good year and then encounter a 2 week skid. A 2 week skid when the expectation is literally a championship and I don't even want to imagine the social-media carnage. The sportswriters will be ready with the long knives for the first time something goes seriously wrong. God help us if Sale is jumpy out the gate and has a couple of 4+ run starts to kick the season off because the level of ridiculousness from some of our twitchier fellow fans is going to be embarrassing, and there is a point when that starts to reflect back on the team, we've seen it (rarely, but seen it) before. I'm specifically a bit worried about Sale actually. We know from the jersey incident in Chicago last year that he's an emotional fellow. We as fans have ridden guys like that in the past pretty hard, and we already know Sale can be triggered, so I'm not sure how well he's going to be able to take it. Long and short is I could wish that we as a fanbase were a lot more welcoming and a lot less judgmental of new talent, and I'm worried that could bite us in the tail if things don't start strong.

That and it comes along right around the time people are experiencing that eclectic Februrary mix of winter fatigue and cabin fever, and it's nice to think of summer sports kicking off soonish.

issed him sorry, it was super late when I posted that and I was very tired.

Randy Wolf

Sid Bream Catfish Hunter Callix Crabbe

http://www.nbcboston.com/news/local/Boston-Red-Sox-Truck-Day-Spring-Training-Exhibition-Games-2017-400844811.html February 6 the equipment truck departs from Fenway for Fort Myers. The official prequel of the beginning of the start of the preseason is almost upon us! Get hyped!

I think you're using the wrong word. Regression is the word to describe a young player, decline is a completely different thing. Decline suggests his core talent isn't what it was, and that's absurd for a kid that young. He's got all the talent he needs to be a good defensive SS, and the worst we've seen from him is still a level of defense his bat can easily atone for.

I'm not talking about expectations, no one's putting Nomar on Bogaerts here. I'm talking about potential based on what he's already shown himself to be capable of. Bogey showed us something the first half last year, he's capable of production at a very, very high level when he's going good. If he can make adjustments sooner and stay out of the big awful half-season slumps, his numbers could be Godly in any given year.

Bogaerts always feels like he's a little more consistency from a major breakthrough. He's already great, but the potential for more is obvious. He could pick up a lot of the slack himself ie he can tighten his approach at the plate and stop falling into those extended slumps.

You mean other than the fact that that's an "if" so large it qualifies as the worlds 8th continent?

I voted other, though my issue is tangentially related to Ortiz' departure. Do you realize we just lost our last 2004 guy? The wealth of postseason experience that man has is now lost to the field team. I think Pedroia and Bogaerts are the only 2 players we have with direct World Series experience, and Bogaerts was a rookie at the time and he barely counts. What I'm saying is this team is going to have issues figuring out its identity in a way our teams haven't in a long time. The loss of Ortiz is part of that but the bigger issue is the final loss of identity from the Epstein-era core. It's going to be up to the coaching and the new core to reforge a new identity, and it may or may not happen, we'll see. If they can establish an identity and an esprit du corps, I have no other doubts that this team is geared for a deep playoff run. I'm gonna need to see if Farrell, who won in 2013 with a strong existing core and managed the Blue Jays and their strong existing core, can build an actual team out of the pieces he's given. This will be the first time he's had to do it, and with the huge investment we made on the 2017 roster, the stakes couldn't be higher.

So did BC. A large portion of that farm system was built up in the 2011 draft.

Only in a vacuum. I actually 100% disagree with this statement, any average offense should be scoring 4 runs more often than not, and if your starter is going 7.2 IP on a regular basis, the bullpen shouldn't be allowing too many subsequent runs (one every few games or so with that few innings going around), so a starter that goes nearly 8 innings and allows 4 runs has put an average team in a position to win the game in each and every one of those starts.

One of the first and most obvious rules of being a GM is to meet the needs of ownership. That means making the right decisions and following the correct strategy, and executing it in such a way, that ownership's needs are met. Ben Cherington's overall strategy was geared towards a small market team that can afford to be patient and accept rebuilding years. The Boston Red Sox are not a small market team. Winning now matters in this city and it matters with this ownership. He was a poor GM who did not adjust his thinking to the situation or prioritize the needs of the ownership over the needs of the franchise, and that's why he's gone. BC was replaced because the dignity and pride of the Boston Red Sox franchise collapsed under Ben Cherington. The prestige BC cost us with his overly-passive approach, and worse, his repeated decisions that took on dead money for no gain, took money out of ownership's pocket. In a smaller market BC's strategy would have been a good one, but this is a large market that needs to win to maintain peak profibability, and BC was not meeting ownershi's needs in this era. The first year of DD it's clear that he has an ownership mandate to restore the prestige of the big league team first and foremost -- so he did. ANd to his credit, unlike Cherington, he has done a good job so far of getting the right man, sometimes, especially for big market franchises, that's a lot more important than avoiding an overpay. When a team like the Red Sox or Yankees opens their wallet or empties their reserves, it's more important that the guy they get performs than how much he costs. Especially when the #1 goal is a return to relevance. Sustainability is only ever the goal when there's something to sustain, after all, and Theo did the same thing to rebuild the roster with a 2 year string of deals when he came in as well (and then did the same again in Chicago). DD now has 3 years to rebuild the farm system and move from a win-now model to a win-sustainably model. He's one of the more ingenious GM's in the business, I don't know why you guys are so unalterably convinced he won't manage to make that transition.

I disagree slightly. I think Vaz may break camp as the backup, but the door is open so he can win more playing time than the conventional backup or even take over for the "starter" if he's doing well enough.

How I interpreted this: Vaz is either the starter or the backup, either way his job is secure. Vaz is good enough to provide positive value as a backup catcher even if not hitting. Leon is not secure, if he can't replicate last year, o9r at least provide enough positive value to avoid tantalizing the team with Swihart's potential, he's gone in favor of Swihart.

The pathetic thing is that this question even needs to be asked by serious people.