redsoxfan3

For those of you who are saying that chemistry does not have anything to do with winning or not that much to do with winning, you are incorrect. Psychological factors in baseball play a huge role in how a player does. If the team chemistry in the clubhouse is not good, then that will impact the way some guys are out there playing the game. Team chemistry has a more indirect impact on the game. If the team is communicating well and getting along, then the team will be out there having fun and will not be worrying about stuff like that. If the team chemistry is bad, then that will cause problems in several different ways. You want your teammates to be able to pick you up when you are down. If players in the clubhouse have something against each other, then most likely there is not much support for each other. That can be problematic. Let me make it clear that a team can be good with bad chemistry. I have seen that several times. My travelling baseball team in high school went undefeated in the regular season. The team was constructed with the best players from the local teams in my league. There were a bunch of guys on the team that hated each other and had rivalries going on. It was not a big deal at first because we had enough talent to win games, but as the season progressed and we made it to the playoffs, we lost to the last seed in the first round and were eliminated. That was because everyone was fighting in the dugout and no one was having fun. There was a lot of tension and frustration. Let's just hope that this does not translate to problems on the field for the Red Sox. It very well could, but I don't think it will be as big of an issue as this article is leading us to believe.

Youk will not get DFA'd. If we can't trade him, then he might see limited playing time the rest of the year. Bard is on his way back to the pen in AAA. He is not going to become our closer over night. His velocity dropped big time. His 98 MPH fastball was a big component of him being a set-up man. If he cannot regain that velocity, he might have some problems. Lavarnway should not be traded. BTW, it is Red Sox. They are two separate words.

This is a good thread and interesting to look at. If the team were to blow up, it would be interesting. I think Iglesias will be our starting SS next year. I also think that Salty will stick around and will split time with Lavarnway (that could all depend on what happens with Big Papi and the development of Lavarnway. I think Big Papi will still be our DH. I see him retiring as a member of the Boston Red Sox. I guess I am trying to say that I realistically see this team trying to mold a lineup out of the players on the current roster and out of players in AAA (Lavarnway and Iglesias). I could see us trying to trade Salty or Ellsbury this year. I don't think they will want to trade Ortiz. They will obviously try to trade Youk this year, but he is gone after this year no matter what. I do not see them picking up his option at $13 million. I think Lester sticks as well. I think we need to try to build our rotation around Lester, Buchholz, and Doubront. Lester hasn't had a great year, but the front office loves him and I think that they will not want to part ways with him. Beckett is the guy that is questionable. I hope Lackey goes. I kind of want Beckett to stay, but if he is a cancer in the clubhouse, then goodbye Mr. Beckett. The real question is, do we keep Lackey and hope that he can get things back together or do we try to trade him and hope that a team will hope he has something still left in the tank? If he is in Boston, they are going to start him and give him a chance. If they trade him, they have to probably eat a lot of his contract, which might be worth it so we do not have any more Lackaches. As of right now, with the circumstances that we given, this is how I see the lineup: Ellsbury- CF Pedroia- 2B Gonzalez- 1B Ortiz- DH Middlebrooks- 3B Crawford- LF Kalish - RF Lavarnway- C Iglesias- SS Bench- Punto/Aviles (Uti. IF), Ross (4th OF/platoon role with Kalish), Sweeney (5th OF), Salty (C/platoon role with Lavarnway) This depends on a lot of different factors. Punto is under contract next year. Will Aviles want out of Boston if he cannot start? I do not see room for both Punto and Aviles on this team next year. Will Ross and Sweeney want to stick around as backups? I think Sweeney would be more content in that role. Ross might not be big on wanting to be a 4th OF. What will happen with Salty? Will Lavarnway progress enough to be our starting C? There are a lot of questions, but I think this could be the best lineup for the Red Sox come opening day with all things considered.

I think that is one thing that the majority of us here agree on. We all knew that starting pitching was a priority going into the season. Instead we had to go through the Bard experiment instead of getting an established starter. We got lucky with Doubront. He has been a pleasant surprise. The problem is that the majority of teams in baseball have better pitching than us. We are fortunate to only be two games under .500.

This is so true. You always have someone trying to get money by selling tickets last minute because they can't go to the game for some reason. I got tickets to the Marlins vs. Red Sox game on Tuesday for $16 a piece and the face value is $50. I was stupid enough to buy Spring Training tickets at face value instead of waiting to go on StubHub a day or two before the game to get tickets cheaper.

His 2.11 ERA and 1.01 WHIP beg to differ. The only reason he is 3-3 is because he plays for the worst team in baseball. Dempster has been good this year. How can you say he is not that good? He has the third best ERA in baseball and is tied for the 12th best WHIP in baseball. He is one of the best pitchers in baseball. He has not given up a run in 22 innings. I hope you are not being serious saying that he is not that good. I don't know if he will be consistent all year, but right now he is one of the best pitchers in the game. I actually think Dice-K did okay today (take it for what it's worth because it is the Cubs). He only gave up 3 runs. He allowed us to stay in the game. The obvious thing is that we couldn't hit. That is not the starting pitcher's problem. You can't expect Dice-K to give up no runs, especially since this is only his second start this year and he is not that good to begin with.

At this point he is only decreasing his trade value by playing. Every GM in their right mind would not want to trade for him unless we pay the majority of his salary and get a s***** player or prospect in return. If a team is willing to pay the remainder of his contract and give us a bag of balls and couple broken bats in return, then I would be all for it.

I agree. Let's finish out interleage play strong. Winning the next two games and winning the Marlins series would be a huge boost to this team. Ross is coming back soon. Ells hopefully within a month (3 weeks would be nice). Crawford hopefully a month and a half. If we can keep our s*** together by the All-Star game, then that will be a plus. Gonzalez needs to stay at 1B. He is slow in the OF. He can make the routine plays, but nothing more. He needs to go back to his comfort zone. I admire the fact that he is a team player and is willing to play RF. I want Middlebrooks to start regularly at 3B. It is not helping his timing at the plate by sitting almost every other game so we can watch Youk s*** his pants at the plate. Either trade Youk for almost nothing or bench his ass and let him be a backup/pinch hitter. If Youk continues to suck and Middlebrooks gets sent to AAA, then I will be pissed. I do agree with you that Middlebrooks does need to play full time in either AAA or the majors, hopefully that will be the majors.

Like I said, my point before was that Pedroia was putting up better numbers than Cano before he got injured. At that time the All-Star voting was going on. I said I am pretty pissed because Pedroia is third. How does that make me an unrealistic fan? I know Pedroia's numbers are not as good as Cano's right now, I stated that. Pedroia is better defensively than Cano. There is more to baseball than just offensive numbers. A lot of fans really only pay attention to the offensive numbers. Cano's OPS is significantly better than Kinsler's and Pedroia's, but Pedroia and Kinsler are in the same neighborhood. It is actually funny that you say that "there is zero chance that you'd fine any fan outside of Boston who would say that Pedroia fits that bill this season." It was a Yankees fan that brought it up to me at a baseball game. He was the one saying that Pedroia is better than Cano defensively and that he thinks the votes should be closer. I don't typically care about All-Star games, but I was just surprised the votes are not closer. I never once said that I think he should have more votes than Cano. I also was just pointing out that there are a lot of people on the Texas bandwagon now that they are playing well. You can call me a homer if you want, but I am actually a pretty realistic fan. I don't go around saying the Red Sox are the best team in baseball when we are one game under .500. We have all had our moments of being a homer. You like to compare every Red Sox situation to a Yankees situation. We sign a new prospect, what do you do? You find a Yankee player to compare him to. We sign a free agent, what do you do? You compare that free agent to the Yankees and somehow bring the Yankees into it. A Red Sox player is struggling, what do you do? You compare that player to a Yankees player. I do not mind Yankees fans one bit. I actually have several friends who are Yankees fans. A lot of them are really intelligent baseball fans and they are fun to talk to. This is a Red Sox forum. I do not mind you posting here at all, because like I said, I don't mind Yankees fan. However, it can get annoying when you bring up the Yankees all the time during Red Sox threads, but I have never once brought it up until now. Before you start going around calling someone a homer and saying I am redefining "homerific," maybe you should take a look in the mirror.

This is crazy. Bobby V gets a lot of love and a lot of hate. I think he has done a decent job with the cards he was dealt. Boston has a lot of pressure and the team has had a lot of injuries. We are only one game under .500 with 99 games left to be played and with a lot of impact players coming back within the next couple of months. I still am pretty optimistic that we will turn this season around.

I'm pretty pissed about Pedroia being third. He was having a good season before he got that thumb injury. He was batting somewhere around .310 to .315 before he hurt it. He played hurt with it for three weeks and it brought his BA down to somewhere close to .295, then he was out a week and was struggling with getting his timing back. There is no doubt in my mind that he will be a .290 or .300 hitter again before the season is over if he does not get injured again. He is starting to come around offensively again. There is usually a lot of love for Pedroia, but this season there are a lot of bandwagon Texas fans. The All-Star voting is usually a good indicator who the bandwagon fans are voting for. Cano and Kinsler are not having much better years than Pedroia. Cano has had better power numbers than both, but Pedroia is pretty comparable to both. Not to mention Pedroia is probably the best defensive second baseman out of the three. If it wasn't for Pedroia playing hurt for three weeks and struggling after his injury, he is probably batting over .300 with better power numbers. As of now it is just a popularity contest. Last year Pedroia was hitting s***** to start the year and really turned things around in the second half. I see him doing that again this year. I see him winning another GG.

That is true, but Youk and D-Mac bring almost nothing in terms of hitting as well. I would rather get rid of both D-Mac and Youk . I could deal with Iglesias as our starting SS. I think that Aviles would be a great utility infielder. He could give Pedroia and Middlebrooks days off on occasion and could maybe play every 5th game or something at SS. I know we have Punto as well and he had a solid night last night. He is a solid defensive replacement and can sometimes get hot offensively. I like having two utility infielders. That still allows us to have two catchers and five OF's.

We all know Epstein screwed up. That was a given. I just hope when Crawford comes back that we can keep him healthy from here on out and hopefully he can get close to producing at his career numbers. There is still some hope when Lackey returns, maybe he can be of some value before his contract is up.

We need to get rid of Youkilis. I want us to get a decent 5th starter. I do not know how realistic that is because of Matsuzaka, but I do not know how he will be able to do as the season progresses. He always seems to get injured, so I would love for us to get another option. Youkilis is just a problem in my opinion. He simply sucks this year. He is injury prone. I would be content with eating the majority of his salary this year and trading him for a prospect or two, unless he could be of some value in a package to trade for a starting pitcher. I am tired of watching Middlebrooks sit because of Youk. His .219 batting average is a joke. There is no room for him on this team.

Bullpen Reserved 40 right next to the Red Sox bullpen. What about you?

My fiancee's parents live in Fort Lauderdale, so I am heading over there tomorrow morning. It is only an hour and a half to where they live and only 30 to 40 minutes to downtown Miami. It is not too bad of a drive. I got tickets for $16 a piece off of StubHub in the OF right by the visitors bullpen. The seats are not bad. Face value is $50 a piece for the seats, so for three tickets I saved over $100. I think I got a good deal. Is RSFFL going to the game?