Dojji

That poem I've been quoting all night by Dylan Thomas. http://www.talksox.com/forum/talk-sox-forum/11420-do-not-go-gentle-into-good-night.html

RAGE! RAGE!!!!!

PH4TEK

DO NOT GO GENTLY INTO THAT GOOD NIGHT! RAGE!!! RAGE AGAINST THE DYING OF THE LIGHT!!

DROOOOOOOOO! NOT DEAD!!!

MAN ON BASE@

Right. If we're in the game at all, you HAVE to call on Masterson.

Ride Paps til his riverdancing arm falls off. Let's g et some men on base.

Not dead? NOT dead! I'ma gonna keep digging myself a hole thoug and hope I fall into it.

Stop topping this thread. (he says as he tops the thread) Seriously. DFTT

The tone on the forum at the moment has been surprisingly civil... all things considered. Trolls will be trolls, but I don't see a lot of cussing and knee-jerk screaming that we need to release him, cut him, trade him. I guess I chalk it up to a sense that we understand, or at least hope we do, that the FO has a playbook it's working out of and that we'll be back in the thick of things once again next year.,

These prospects are not now what they always will be. If I freeze-framed Youks in 2007 the conesus would have been thaht at 27, he was done developing and that while he'd gained some power he would never really have enough to justify his position permanently as a 1B. In fact both in '06 and '07 there was a loud argument that this team needed to go get a REAL offensive 1B. Lo and behold, he took not a step but a quantum leap forward and IIRC leads all qualifying American League 1Bmen in OPS this year (note: Teixeira did not qualify) The only assessment I'm not going to argue right now is Buchholz. "Average" from SS is a big step up from what we were used to since the end of '04. And while his OBP needs to come up in succeeding seasons, I wouldn't call the league leader in stolen bases "garbage" by any stretch of the imagination. And if you think Masterson is average you seriously need to get a grip, Gom. What part of a 145 ERA+, 3.12 ERA, 1.22 WHIP, over 88 2/3 innings is average?

Because having a lot of prospects is pretty useful too, especially when they're pretty close to MLB-ready. We kinda didn't regret not trading Lowrie and Masterson in the Santana deal after all. That, and most quality veteran catchers are franchise centerpieces and not to be had for love nor money. That pretty much leaves the Lo Duca/Schnieder/Kendall set as the best veteran trade targets. Oh, and we've got a couple catching prospects that are pretty close too. Not all of Exposito, Wagner, and Still are going to become quality big league catchers but we only need one.

Probably to rile us up. We dumped a lot of crap on him earlier for his predictions so now he gets to savor the rare privellege of Being Right. I know I'd want my day in the sun.

I never go to funerals. If given the option I'd avoid my own. A lot of bad options here, no clearly good choices. Let's start with the obvious: I would not re-sign Varitek. I would not offer Varitek arbitration. He has no arm anymore and it's time to find a new answer there. I would love it if he just hung them up this offseason but I think we can forget about that. Someone will pay Jason Varitek to be their catcher. I just don't want it to be us. A lot of people blame Wakekfield for the need for a knuckleball catching specialist, but someone at SoSH (Yecul) finally got it right when they said the real problem isn't the knuckler itself or Wakefield but the fact that Varitek cannot handle the pitch effectively. The caddy isn't for Wake, it's for TEK. With a new catcher we get to expand our options with Wakefield enormously. That said, our options at catcer itself are not good. The only FA catchers I'd touch out there are Pudge and Rod Barajas and neither of them are likely to be that much of an upgrade over what we have, particularly in the OBP department. There's a rumor that Miguel Olivo might get out of his option in Kansas City, but that's not really a much better option than Barajas. If I had to choose between 'Tek, Irod, Barajas and Olivo I'd be inclined to go back to the devil I know. Maybe, just maybe, if you're desperate, you look at Kendall too, but Kendall looked cooked just last year in the AL so I certainly wouldn't take any big, expensive chances on the guy. Besides, he has a chance to re-up with a contender -- not a huge likelihood Kendall's even available. Also in the mix are our Pawtucket duo. Kottaras and Brown did a great job sharing a platoon in AAA and both of them are young enough that they might be able to adjust to the big league game. Both of them are more likely to be the style of hitter we want our Red Sox to be (as in, walk-takers and count-workers) than anyone on the free agent market. The question there is whether you really want to trust the pitching staff to a pair of rookies, when only Lester, and Buchholz if he makes the squad, are likely to have seen them before outside ST and them not much. On the other hand I've heard nothing but praise for the gamecalling skills of the man who would receive theh majority of playing time in the platoon (Kot) so perhaps that's not as big an issue as it sounds. Third choice is to acquire a man via trade. We've got a few possibilities there. Jeff Clement or Kenji Johjima of the Mariners, depending on who wins the full-time catching job (Johjima hit well 2 of his 3 years in MLB, I'll write off 2008 as a fluke). A deal with the Mariners is attractive because they need just about everything so it's not hard to find a matchup. They were burned recently on Bedard though so I'm guessing they're likely to be too greedy in compensation. An underdiscussed option is Bryan Anderson of the Cardinals, Not the best year in AAA this year but very young, talented, good on base skills, and stuck behind Yadier Molina who Tony LaRussa really likes. Not the best trade fit as rosters go though -- our disposable parts don't really overlap well with the spots STL really needs to fill just now so we'd have to pay for a top prospect with pure pitching. And once again, you'd be trusting the pitching staff to a rookie you knew even less about than Kottaras and Brown. And then... Texas. 4 catchers at or near major league ready. Teagarden, Salty, Ramirez, Laird. I'm going to go out on a limb and say the "defensive maestro" who did most of the gamecalling for some of the worst pitching in recent major league memory is not a guy we're interested in pursuing to call pitches for our staff. So that writes off Laird and leaves us looing at the trio of Saltalamacchia, Teagarden, and Ramirez. Of our remaining candidates, we're likely to get the one Texas doesn't want (presuming they also don't want Laird) Likely, that measn the catcher we're getting from the Rangers is either Teagarden or Saltalamacchia -- Teagarden as a possible health risk if used as a fulltime catcher, Saltalamacchia because he's not that good defensively and has some adjustments to make to reach his potential as a big league hitter. Of those two, Salty is the one who will be approaching his last year of options so I guess the tie would go to him. Not sure though. Either way we go here, Texas is going to be looking for one thing and one thing only: quality pitching. In all likelihood, that means one of our 3 MLB-ready young arms will go, and in terms of Texas' preference it would likely be first Masterson, then Buchholz, then Bowden. I don't know right now if we can afford to part with any of the three, but the ones we want to keep are going to be the ones Texas holds out for and we cann't take all 3 of them off thhe table. In the positions, their weaknesses are also our weakesses (3B, mostly) so unless we propose to trade them Youks or pay them to take Mike Lowell off our hands I don't now how we're going to get a satisfactory deal here either. It seems to me that the least expensive solution also has the advantage of being the best, least risky and simplest: give Kottaras and Brown the two catching slots next year and whoever handles Wakefield best handles Wakefield (they're about equal on Zink but Wake's knuckler dances more) and use them as an ordinary lefty-righty platoon, which worked well as a test case in Pawtucket.

Gom, seriously, you could be a lot more respected here if you didn't pull crap like this. You don't have to troll to rub salt in the wounds. All you gotta do is be sympathetic. That's even worse than all this hullaballoo, and it'll keep ya around here.

Yeah, so it's a legitimate criticism of Sox fans if we boo Big Papi, but the last people in a position to make that call are Yankee fans.

Nah, don't ban Gom. He's obnoxious, but he does add something to the board. Do suspend him until we've got a chance to scab over the wounds from this postseason. The last thing we need after something like this is some joker from the outside rubbing salt on it.

And A-Rod And Sheffield. And Mussina And Giambi And Pettitte And I seem to recall near the end in '05 you guys even booed Bernie. If he finally loses it has a bad year, you guys will be booing Rivera by July.

Yeah, well it's a pity a certain team from New York (well, both of them really) didn't hold up their end of the bargain. We ran smack into a squad steaming into the playoffs with all the mojo and momentum of the the '67 Impossible Dream team without the late-season injury to a major offensive contributor.

For the record, it's low odds but if we do somehow come back to win game 5, this thread will be hilarious in the AM.

As title defenses go, this was the best one since 2001. Most teams that win or lose the WS don't even make the playoffs the following year. Hey, we got through the first round against a very good team. Once we get a bit of distance and can look at this season properly, not a half bad performance. We just ran smack into the wrong team at the wrong time. It happens. That's why they play the games. And, heh, it's not even like we lost to an inferior team. Anyone who wants to make something of the fact that we lost to the Rays, I invite them to look at the AL East standings.

Game.