Dojji

Jed Lowrie is destroying baseballs in Spring Training. .406/.459/.781/1.240 in 32 AB's. Julio Who?

Gedman was overrated. His peak consisted of his age 24 to 26 seasons whereupon it looks like he just got exposed. He was also an on-base nightmare. His one really good season is also the only season in which he had more than 40 walks.

Alright, but command is part of makeup just like selection, break and velocity is. It doesn't matter how good his stuff is if he doesn't know where it's going. That's why it's important to have more than one pitching "tool." You need to have good command and control, good deception, and good stuff to last a long time in the big leagues. Right now Bard has fantastic stuff and above average deception but the command is just not there. My fear is that he gets away with not developing his command working against AAA and AAAA hitters and it bites him in the backside when he debuts. You won't hear me bashing Bard's potential, but the guy's 23 and still hasn't developed even average command at the AA level. He's very, very volatile right now, and could just as easily take a step backwards as another step forward. If he fulfils his potential he's going to be dominant, and even in his downside he'll probably get major league innings to pitch. But his window is shrinking to really be that guy we're seeing right now for an entire career. Who cares? it's Spring Training. The ultimate celebration of the small sample size. There's a fair few other pitchers in this system that I think are more likely to reach their potential than Dan Bard. But then, I was never as wowed by velocity as some. Maybe Bard proves me wrong. I hope so.

I'm sure the Cubs would love it if we saved them from Soriano at the price of Bay, but the fact is that Bay fits the Sox hitting philosophy and Soriano doesn't and never did. And if we want to "get something" out of Bay that option is open to us even if we do nothing -- since Bay would really have to suck this year to not be a Type A free agent. 1 + 1s picks >>>>>>>>> Soriano and his injuries, his mammoth contract and his insistence on leading off despite being best suited as a 6 hitter.

Sure, except that'd never happen. Varitek has a guaranteed contract for 2009 and the team isn't going to embarrass themselved by eating it without giving him some April at bats. By then one of Bard and Kot is gone.

I think you have to ask the same question of Bard, and with much more reason. At least Kottaras handled Charlie ZInk pretty well last year. That makes him as close as we have right now to a safe pick in that regard.

OK we've had a chance to see some Spring Training at bats from both catchers, it's time to try for a serious conversation of which one of our options we actually want the team to go with. We can talk about other catching options but really, it cones down to Bard and Kot. Trying to pass a catcher who hit 22 home runs in AAA last year through waivers is basically kissing him goodbye, and Bard's contract is IIRC not guaranteed. Meaning that if we pick anyone but Kot, we lose Kot, and if we pick anyone but Bard, we lose Bard. We could pick a third option, and Brown's tearing it up, but if we break camp with him we will have to eaive or trade both Bard and Kottaras. And again, given how hard it is to find a catcher who can hit I have a hard time believing either would pass through waivers. Given Varitek's age and Theo's usual approach to the roster, even if we have to throw away two catchers with possible big league utility we won't be getting rid of two. So realistically speaking, it's between Kottaras and Bard. So with that said, my preference is Kottaras. Bard is having a nice Spring, but he doesn't have Kottaras upside with the bat and he has had a very inconsistent career. Also Bard would be a switch hitter playing behind a switch hitter, meaning going with Bard means we lose a chance to end one of the great evils of mankind (you know, pestilence, war, famine, death, and Varitek batting lefthanded). With Kottaras behind Varitek, that'll eat up a lot of lefthanded at bats, especially if he hits. And it'll do it in a way that Tito can explain to Varitek without wounding his pride. With Bard you could do that, but you don't have that built-in excuse. In other words having Kottaras behind Varitek might make Varitek's numbers better. That's at least a tiebreaker if all else was equal. Personally I think it should be a major factor consideration. Goodness knows Varitek's gonna need help.

They buy Bay at 32 they've just bought a player who will be 35+ for more than half the life of his deal. Unless you REALLY think Bay's gonna get short years? Yeah that'll happen.

Yeah, but that's true of mediocre pens too. You'd be hard pressed to deny that we have depth at a near unprecedented level-- 4-5 different pitchers need to fail -- hard -- for us not to have a quality setup corps and an elite closer. I definitely like having a guy like Hunter Jones or Daniel Bard in reserve too. Bard isn't ready yet and whether he's worth a callup depends on whether he can harness his command, but Hunter Jones was probably ready last year, is an innings horse, and while his stuff isn't Dan Bard caliber he's got enough to get by at the big league level. If I had to pick who the next Masterson level pleasant surprise would be it'd probably be Jones. Add to that the fact that Masterson himself might be in the wings as a reserve starter and that's 7 different pitchers that need to blow it bigtime before we're even in trouble. There's reason for a certain optimism.

What exactly is your point ORS? That it's all about the money? Sure, if youwant to play with definitions long enough to make it that way.. Every facet of a sport people pay to watch is going to have a financial underpinning, but the fact that a move might bring economic benefits does not mean the economic benefits are always the primary facet explaining why a thing is done. Example: When we first posted for Daisuke there was an undercurrent that the reason we signed him was because of all the Japanese exposure, which brings greater revenue to our poor, cash-starved team. . Eventually people had to step in and point out the fact that the real reason they outbid themselves for him was that he was a 26 year old pitcher with a lot of talent. Doesn't make the economic argument invalid per se, just means it wasn't the first reason to go after a guy. Especially because the economic argument goes away if Daisuke turns out to be the next Hideki Irabu. Similar here. Sure there's money in it, but there's money in it because of these other factors as well as because of the chance to see players from nations that aren't well represented in MLB show what they can do. Yeah you can focus on the money, but the money is only there when these factors are strong enough, otherwise it's just a big financial dud, especially considering how expensive a tournament like this can be to run.

Seriously. A team with an IMMENSE AMOUNT OF PITCHING DEPTH doesn't sign Sidney Ponson.

National pride? Not for Americans perhaps but certainly for everyone else -- especially nations like the Dominican and Venezuela who can use the opportunuty to remind America that MLB isn't strictly and American institution. Or are you making the mistake of viewing the WBC from an entirely American perspective?

Uggh, I feel dirty now.

he wasn't facing big league hitters and allowed himself to pitch confidently. He needs to overcome his awe of the big leagues and realize that at the core the duel of hitter and pitcher is the same as it is in Japan.

No, command became the biggest issue with these guys. The success stories are the guys who mastered it. Baseball hitters are cunning and excel at timing a pitcher. Bard could throw a baseball through a steel pylon but if he can't put it where he wants to, it's still going back out twice as fast as it's coming in once guys have seen him a few times. I don't particularly care if a guy is injury prone. You can work around that given adequate depth as long as a guy isn't Glass Carl. If a pitcher cannot command his pitches, throw strikes, find the holes in a hitter's swing, and make adjustments to the hitter as he adjusts to the pitcher, all of which require a big league level of command and control that Bard doesn't have yet, he isn't going to thrive at the big league level for very long. THat's not half of what made Rivera, Hoffman, and Papelbon so dominant. All three of these pitchers have superb command and control, enough to compensate for a lack of overpowering stuff in any given outing. Papelbon might top out at 98 can get big league hitters out even when he's only hitting 91 on the radar gun -- we've seen it several times. Rivera and Hoffmann don't regularly top out above 92 anymore. Bard is going to have to be at his best just to get people out, if he doesn't have his 100 in a given outing he has a far better chance of being lit up. That's why he belongs in the minors. If he's walking 4 batters per 9 innings in AA he's walking a whole HECK of a lot more than that if he comes to the big leagues now and giving up HR's when he has to overpitch the fastall too. I understand the lure of the power reliever guys -- believe me, I do. I'm grateful that we have 3 very good ones on our roster right now. But the downside of the power reliever is always and will always be the walks, and Bard needs to prove that he can overcome that problem before he should sniff the big leagues, overpowering stuff or not.

They're not that far short of him though, Hughes hits 96 regularly and Cabrera can get into the high 90's as well. And we know Aardsma himself hits 97. All three of them can overpower big league hitters -- when they can hit the strike zone that is. It'll be the same way with Bard unless he can get his BB/9 south of 3.

You're conveniently ignoring the fact that we dismiss Aardsma types as Aardsma types after age 26 or so. He doesn't have 6 or 7 years. He has maybe three. If he's age 26 and still in the minors he's probably staying there other than a couple cameos. Don't think that happens to guys who can throw as hard as Bard? Two words: Travis Hughes. See also: Fernando Cabrera.

Really? When he's going into his age 24 season with Aardsma type command? And might still start the year in Portland because of it? Bard has more than enough talent to pull it off, but you can't deny his window is getting smaller can you?

Bard has definitely come a long way, but he also has a long way to go yet, and he's running out of time. I don't think that we would be as excited about Bard a month into his MLB tenure as we are now if we actually brought him up in midseason this year.

Ridiculously bad third period for the Bruins. I thought they had this one. Awful. And don't be too quick to blame Thomas. Look at the box score. This was very much a team loss.

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