Dojji

Yeah, there's a lot of unproven potential in this team. If you're an optimist this team looks really really good, if you're a pessimist, at least 6 players in the opening day lineup will have proven little or nothing on either the offensive side, the defensive side, or both, for the positions they're occupying. Hanley hasn't proven much at first base, Shaw is unproven at third, left field is a potential mess, Betts has been shifted to a somewhat new position in right field, JBJ needs to prove he can hit, and Swihart looks promising at catcher but has a long way to go and may be challenged by Vazquez later in the year if he struggles. Add to that the very real likelihood that Pedroia gets hurt (again) and the only players in the lineup you can fully count on are Ortiz and Bogaerts. We have good potential in other positions but potential is iall it is Pitching is mostlythe same, with the bullpen and the rotation both having 1 stalwart and a whole lot of swingin' possibilities. Add it all up and you have one of the more interesting seasons we've seen in awhile with a lot of storylines to watch. Team could be great, or we could be in the basement again if we have some bad luck and players aren't as good as we hope they are.

We have some pretty decent green arms ourselves, but of course they somehow don't count, right?

It's got the potential, but very little certainly. It could certainly happen.

And be prepared to sit there and take the unpopularity that would follow from the twitchy, unreasonable, panicky, short sighted mass of ignorant humanity that makes up nearly all of a fanbased and occasionally sits in upper management too.

Actually Kimmi's dead on correct. Ben got fired over his management of the MLB roster but the long term health of the franchise is dependent on its farm, and our farm system was one of the best in the league, still is despite a couple expensive trades.

lol true, I'm looking just at numbers. I do have an optimistic feeling about Shaw's ability to hit like a corner infielder, he's demonstrated that he has that potential. Let's see how he adjusts to full time hitting and pitchers game planning how to beat him.

#4 is the Mirabelli trade. It used to be undisputed #1, but then the Theo era ended and strange things started happening at Fenway

I'm not quite that confident, I'm gonna stay with Shea Hillenbrand level production which would actually be exceptionally good. I think shaw's going to be mostly valuable, but have some slumps that keep him away from the .800 OPS gold standard.

Could have and should have. Letting Lester walk over a couple million dollars is probably the single most baffling thing this franchise has done in the John Henry era. It's not like Pedro where the guy was already showing visible signs of slowing down, Lester was still a horse, and is still a horse for the Cubs. Something should have been arranged.

OK yeah you've sold me. That money could have been used to keep Lester, you're absolutely right.

So if we do assume that Shaw winds up starting at third base all year what kind of production do we see happening here? Do we see a Shea Hillenbrand level between .750 and .800? Is there room to hope for more? Is that a little over exuberant? What do people see Shaw doing if he's given his head at third all year for some reason?

I can't think who we would have signed with the same money. I agree that signing both Sandoval and Hanley looked stupid from day 1 though.

When your strength is in the pen, quantity of innings from the starters is almost more important than quality. If we get a little lucky, we could have a very strong bullpen this year and a highly durable rotation is enough to compliment a good offense and a strong backend -- the Royals established that last year

I think Castillo is worth one last try, and let's make the point that $11M is not exactly top producer money these days. It's far less than half of what an all star makes as a starting LF. if Rusney can turn it around and start putting the bat on the ball a little more frequently, he has every chance to be worth $11M. Or he could wind up as an overpaid 4th OF which would be a pity but not the end of the world. I suspect that we will be looking at a deadline deal for a left fielder. I do not really believe in Castillo. but I do feel he should get a good chance to prove me wrong this April.

more to the point, the Boston sports scene has enjoyed a recent mighty swagger, having teams from all 4 sports go deep into the playoffs from time to time, and the Patriots and Red Sox have recent championships to boast about. The golden age may be technically over, but there's still a highly entertaining product in at least 3 of our preeminent franchises (pity the poor Celtics). In a flat economy, sports revenue can still skyrocket if the sports scene is the entertainment "place to be." basically the Red Sox are successfully competing for an increased share in New Englanders' entertainment budget and enjoying the windfall of that successful competition. And nationwide, baseball is actually doing a similar thing, with more media exposure and a new baseball parity that have seen former "outsider" teams like the Royals, Orioles, Rays and Pirates in the playoffs in recent years, baseball is simply more interesting to more people than it has been in awhile. you can hate Bud Selig all you want, but he left the league in absolutely fantastic shape and that was his job at the end of the day.

Francona was an extremely patient manager and his patience and nerves of steel rewarded us with 2 rings. He generally avoided panic moves and tended to push back against a GM who wanted to make them, preferring to trust his players to work things out on the field. That bore fruit as often as not, I'll give you the example of Dustin Pedroia who started out very VERY cold before putting on the laser show in his rookie season. The panic move would have been to swap roles and ride Alex Cora, who was super hot at the time, and sit Pedey for a few weeks until Cora cooled down. Instead, Cora did get some extra playing time because he was murdering the baseball, but Pedroia was never out of the lineup for multiple days in a row. It's one of the things I was actually very pleased with about Tito, his ability to judge how much adjustment is necessary and how much is overadjustment. A lot of our more panicky fans considered him to be asleep at the switch at times, and the "Francoma" nickname stuck, but that's because there's times when the smartest move is to make no move. What I'm worried about right now, is that there are a few situations where the smartest move is no move right now, and leadership's already getting twitchy. I'll give the example of Rusney castillo in left field which has not had the time to gel or give any positive answer about whether it will or will not work longterm, and they're already talking about a Young-Holt platoon. It's way too early for that. Some things do need to be tried under live fire before you know whether they will or will not work -- Castillo in left being one of them. it's one thing to light a fire under a rookie and another to leave them in perennial doubt whether they'll be on the lineup card tomorrow. The latter just stresses them out for no good reason, especially while they're still figuring it out, and make no mistake, castillo is still figuring it out. Give Castillo a good 2-3 week experiment this April, before rushing to judgment -- do have a plan on hand for what you're going to do if it fails but don't be a prat and make it public and add pressure to a guy who's still learning on the job how to play at the big league level..

if he's not busy doing Rusney Castillo's job.

Yeah but at least he's played the freaking position.

Moving Mookie Betts to second would be a 10,000% better idea than experimenting with Shaw there. Apparently Farrell has no idea that betts was playing second base as recently as 2014 and looked pretty good

Deven marrero? Smooth fielding shortstop who's never gonna play here because he will probably never hit but might be OK in the National League?

Who would trade anything for a guy like Pablo? The only way to get him off our roster right now is probably to DFA him.

bellhorn you're putting the cart before the horse. Fenway ticket and concession prices aren't charged based on meeting expenses. Expenses are set based on the money that the Red Sox have. No business survives very long basing its prices on expenses. Inevitably expenses will spike beyond what the market will bear if you do that. companies set their espenses based on the revenue and charge exactly what the market will bear and no less. If our payroll were 1/3 what it is right now and the team was somehow an exciting on field product and was winning enough to draw fans, the ticket prices and concessions would be right where they are right now, and ownership would pocket the difference. And next year, the team may look to add payroll to improve the product if possible. If demand went down due to a long string of terrible years, attendance flatlined and interest in the team waned, the prices and concessions would drop to try to fill the park even if payroll was 10 times what it is right now, and the owner would eat the difference. And next year the team would frantically shed payroll in an effort to break even That's the way this game is played, that's the way any business runs itself if it wants to survive. Questions about payroll are based on revenue -- questions of revenue are not based on payroll.

I'm with jacko on this one. This idea is detached from reality. The Padres have no possible incentive to trade a player who despite being overpaid, provides valuable innings, for a guy who, despite being overpaid, provides absolutely nothing, or close to it.

Shields is highly durable, but he's not a top of the rotation type anymore.

Done... to.... death!!!!