mvp 78

Defensive master Salty launches a throw to the warning track.

s***** ump is s*****

Trade Pedroia!

Sandy is a rabbit

Wright loses the feel quicker than anything.

Wright is losing it. Get pen warming.

Ump show

All Uptons suck

Double play

#washedup

I agree.

No, not every, but the majority. I realize that it's extremely hard for catchers to play every day. Knowing that there are additional off days in the playoffs, a catcher could probably go 4 out of 5 games without much trouble.

Pablo will only be 30 next year. Wow. That's 30 years of hard living though.

No rain in sight today. Will be nice and warm today. I hope Wright can keep the sweat at bay.

Bryce is a known commodity right now. Benintendi is not. He is just as likely to bomb as Brentz is today.

Therein lies the problem. Middlebrooks was beyond damaged goods by the time the 2013 Postseason began. The weak links in that lineup were Salty's glove, Drew's bat and WMB's everything. In the Postseason, I would err on the side of defense and replace WMB and Salty with the backup options.

A guess anyone with an axe to grind could think that.

Didn't say you were.

At least Salty won the Montero debate for us.

Not to me. Tito is a great manager.

I never inferred he was. I was just stating that if he had been given a complete team that it would have been interesting to see the results. So far, his GM's have given him some very mediocre squads that he utilized well.

I'm with Bell.

1. Salty is still in the league because he's far younger than Ross was. 2. Ross' WAR was less because of the fewer games played. 3. Salty's defense was always suspect. That's not up for debate and some retrospective rose colored glasses treatment. 4. Your "very bold" decision was something that was more than obvious to a lot of people. Salty's terrible defense was a large part of the losses in Games 2 and 3. Hard to call it "brilliant" when you throw away 2 WS games. More like flying by the seat of your pants. 5. WMB wasn't all that more experienced than Xander at the time. WMB had been up and down in the organization that year and was a replacement level bat and worse for defense. Xander was seen as a more athletic guy who gave them a better chance of winning. WMB played a half season in 2012 before getting injured. In 2013 he was handed the 3b position for opening day and he just fumbled the opportunity away. He never adjusted to MLB pitching and was hitting .200 when sent down at the end of May. You can keep saying things like "it's beyond me why you thought this," but the fact of the matter is that in those examples I had the correct instinct. Farrell took too long to adjust. This team won in spite of Farrell thanks to a generational performance by Papi and Koji.

He took over a rough Yankees team and handed the keys over to Torre with the important pieces in place. Of his 3 years with Arizona, he only had Schilling for 1/2 of a year. The team won the WS the year after he left. The Rangers squad was pretty bad aside from ARod. They had a few prospects that they moved on from too early. The Orioles were a year in and year out bottom feeder until he came aboard. They have no pitching, but have had decent success. It would be interesting to see how he'd do with a stacked team. The 1999 Arizona team was his best team and they won 100 games by bashing the crap out of the ball. They were a team built for regular season success.

And yet there are people who still hold Manny's stunts against him...