Dojji

I can not STAND inconsistency in pitchers. Buchholz has been as inconsistent as they come for his entire career. Even when he's good you never know if he's going to pull up lame or suddenly Bad Buchholz shows up for 2-3 months and makes everyone else's job harder. The man is a walking hole in the rotation and an outright liability to the franchise -- hell, half the time we needed to bring in a starting pitcher at the deadline over the last 8 years it's been to pitch innings that we went into the season expecting Buchholz to pitch. Add up the opportunity cost of all the talent we've had to deal for deadline starters during his tenure. He gets to eat some of the blame for losing those guys. How much more talent are we going to have to hemorrhage, over and over again, in order to bring in starting pitchers to do this guy's job before we stop freaking giving him that job and fill it some other way in the offseason when we can do so for just money? I will be glad when he's gone. I don't know how he keeps fooling otherwise intelligent fans into buying the Good Buchholz hype -- even the ones that usually know not to ignore bad numbers or to cherry pick just the good numbers from a player's performance. But somehow Buchholz Is Different, apparently. If the team is committed to keeping Buchholz purely as a depth option, that's one thing. And by that I mean the first starter pulled and the last starter put back whenever there's a logjam. If not, if they insist on rolling him out there as a full member of the rotation, especially at the expense of Wright, Pomeranz, or E-Rod, then I'm out. And when it comes to Buchholz and his Amazing Potential (Buchholz is, apparently, the only 32 year old top prospect in the world) I do not trust the Red Sox to handle it this way. Just because we need more starting depth does not by any means indicate that that depth needs to be Buchholz. And I do agree that Buchholz or no we should probably be signing at least 1 more professional big league starter, nothing flashy just a 4-5 guy, to supplement the starting depth so we don't wind up with the Sean O'Sullivans of the world getting regular playing time. But if we're going after one of those guys we might as well pick up 2.

He'd been trying since at least 2005. He gutted it out with this unideal situation where he was in permanent conflict with Lucchino for 6 years. 6 years is a long time. How long was he supposed to tough it out when other franchises were willing to offer him full and exclusive control? Especially after 07 when the team won the Series despite their big offseason acquisitions, because Theo had built the team so well. And if Henry saw the damage Lucky was doing to Theo's plans, he didn't acknowledge it in any particular way, and kept giving Lucchino equal say in the team to Theo, which is exactly where the problem lay. Even if Henry thought Lucchino was an equal genius in building the team financially, to Theo's baseball acumen, a front office is too small for 2 Indian chiefs. You either subordinate Theo to Lucky or Lucky to Theo so the team and FO are both moving in the same direction. Pick one. Either one being subordinate to the other is better than this thing where they're both struggling for overall control. That way lies utter dysfunction. Ultimately this is on John Henry. He tried to have it both ways and wound up losing both Theo and Lucky in the end.

Of course there's clutch. Clutch is like the lighthouse fallacy -- you define clutch by plays not botched and moves not screwed up because a player was calm in a highly emotional situation.

Yes, you've described the only valid reason why relievers are paid less than starters. Good job. Now, what does that have to do with the fact that a rising tide is floating all boats, including those of relief pitchers? Not too bloody well much. There's more money and more demand in baseball than ever and salary prices will reflect that. Relievers deserve their share of the pie. Basic economics. The relievers you talk about rarely make more than league minimum anyway, the ones that get paid are the guys who *have* shown some consistency. (I do agree that the years are more important when it comes to RP. But that has nothing to do with the salary component per se).

The fact that there are other, better SS out there doesn't take one thing away from the fact that Xander Bogaerts is very, very good. Not too many shortstops blasted 21, drive in 89 runs or OPS over .800. We have a rare talent at short, and that talent has the potential to exceed his present performance (already excellent) if he can gain some consistency. That's not a reason to dump on Bogaerts. In fact that's freaking exciting. He had an All Star appearance that he thoroughly earned, and there's something beyond that that he can aspire to in terms overall performance? Sign me the HELL up! I'm beginning to sense a trend here about people who have no memory whatsoever of events before August or so. Bogaerts was selected over Lindor because at the time, Bogaerts was hitting better than Lindor. At the end of the day Bogaerts deserves his All star nomination and he doesn't deserve to be nitpicked by fair weather fans who can't put the last 2 months of the season in proper perspective.

We really aren't. As you yourself are pointing out we have an embarrassment of options behind Shaw for a fill-in guy. I just happen to believe Shaw is the best one available -- until Sandoval has an opportunity to state his case, that's a fact.

Poof = also not being able to keep up as his stuff declined, which will happen to anyone injuries or not if they can't learn how to pitch and get those clutch strikes. Beckett was a good thrower, but he was a thrower. He couldn't survive once his stuff declined from "awesome, among the best in the league" to merely "pretty good." Curt Schilling in his years in our uniform would have sold his soul to have the stuff Josh Beckett could throw in his worst year. Worth pointing out that you can track Beckett's decline with Boston alongside Jason Varitek's to a certain extent. Beckett's great years in Boston were at least partly a product of Varitek, and his championship in Florida was partly a product of Ivan Rodriguez. That's not necessarily a knock on Beckett, but it is an incidation that he isn't the most creative or intelligent guy and needs some help with pitch selection. When he got it he was deadly, when he didn't... 2010.

When starters can earn upwards to $30M, $10M for top relievers is not that much of a stretch. By comparison when top starters were making $15M 10 years ago (yes just 10) and the salary cap was barely over half what it is today, closers were making around 6-8. If anything the ratio favors starters more than it ever has. There is more money in baseball right now than there pretty much ever was. Salaries are going to scale accordingly. I recommend that people get used to the idea.

I feel better about your criticisms of DD right now because brother, you have some INSANELY overoptimistic takes about the value of our guys and what we can trade them for.

This is the opposite of Grady Little. Lester was still dealing and there wasn't a pressing need to pull him. If they let Lester finish that inning off, he probably accomplishes it, and probably wins the World Series MVP. Champan comes into his own inning and probably has a rocky 9th but gets the last out and the Cubs win 6-3 or 6-4. every problem Maddon had to deal with after that point was one he made for himself.

Not just that. Curt Schilling demonstrated that it's the ability to throw a clutch strike whenever you need one that will keep getting starters out of trouble even when most of their best stuff has gone the way of the dinosaur. Pitching 3 wins in the 2007 playoffs with his arm held together by 2 fraying threads and about a gallon of Cortisone -- that happened because he was able to throw key strikes when he needed them, that's always been Schilling's calling card and the most important skill a starter can possibly have. Koji demonstrates that it isn't just starters, either. So yeah, it's not necessarily just about finding the strike zone in general (strike/ball ratio) but about being able to make exactly the pitch you need exactly when you need it. A hard thrower will only go so far if he can't learn to do that (see also Beckett, Josh)

He is looking. Specifically he's looking at Moncada and Devers. Shaw is fine as a bridge guy until one of those two is ready to take over. Hopefully Moncada as he's closer. Remember though -- plan A with Shaw is a bench guy who can give you versatility at the corners. That's still Plan A. The problem is the guy ahead of Shaw vanished in a puff of lard. I think Shaw's an adequate 3B if you don't count on 3B to be what carries your team. He can hold down the fort until one of the prospects is ready. Hopefully Moncada is working hard.

And if I thought that the team would actually put Buchholz in the 6 spot, I would have no problem with the option being picked up. It's the fact that I know he's going to find a way to fool us and supplant a patently more deserving starter and put THEM in the 6th spot that's making me unhappy. Buchholz has always been about doing just enough to get a job and not enough to DO the job. Any time his job is threatened he magically improves and any time he's secure he either pulls up lame or starts sucking -- it's actually remarkable how often he's pulled that crap and people still don't see it coming when he does it again.. I don't mind having Clay on the team but I want him to spend all year having to earn every start he gets. Maybe that's the way to finally get good-Buchholz all year. But we already know that won't happen, the staff is too in love with the prospect he used to be. He's going to sucker the staff into his "ace potential" and become secure in his job and the whole mess will start again.-- he's the only 32 year old pitcher in the world that can still sell himself on potential, and he's going to do it again, just you watch

Which was also about Theo vs Lucky. Lucky wanted to promote the team and had too much power so he was always forcing name brand trades and name brand signings. Name brand moves have their place, but not as often as Lucky wanted to do them. The problem that cost us Theo is that Luccino absolutely would not and could not subordinate promotional tasks to a second rank, below franchise building. As long as Lucchino was going to be that way about it we were never going to keep Theo indefinitely. A two way power struggle in the head office is never a good thing, especially when one of the two is a baseball deity and the other one very much is not.

He's worth the option if we do the intelligent thing and start him in the bullpen on Opening Day. We will not do that, so honestly I'd rather move him.

Good. Glad to see DD is doing his due dilligence there. Papi's probably gone for good, but what this does is, if he changes his mind for some reason a few months into retirement and wants to come back, he can only come here. I doubt he'd go anywhere else anyway, but it pays to go through the technicalities.

Theo just earned himself a spot in the Hall of Fame for sure. And he's so young! He has decades ahead of him as a GM. Imagine how far he could go!

This postseason has been fantastic for the sport of baseball in general. People who are normally completely tuned out of baseball were talking about game 7.

Benintendi blew right by Margot. We made the right decision here.

And they actually CAME BACK from the signature Cubs epic last minute choke. When does THAT ever happen?

Game. Chicago Wins

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Umm... Maddon.... is that really your best option? An untested rookie? EDIT: Well he's throwing strikes I suppose

Now now -- this IS the Cubs after all

Tito stayed with Shaw a little too long, looks like I get my wish.