Spudboy

Your opinion.

Luchino is a total self promoting slime bag. Has anyone followed his follies in Rhode Island? He is a giant turd.

Finally I understand!!! Thanks Jaybay.

Uh oh. Bye-bye birdies.

And it was all unnecessary. I have yet to hear a good justification for blowing up the 2014 rotation. Dumb.

Yup. One can argue that Drew was not worth the money to bring back but it can not be ignored that Drew was a better defensive SS at THAT time.

a700 never said HFA was more important than resting players and aligning the playoff rotation. All along he maintained HFA was desirable. That's it.

Go Tito!

So Hernandez ( who I like a lot ) and Swihart ( who I really like a lot ) have the ability to play better at positions that Holt has been playing? Really? Holt plays all three OF positions decently if not well. Neither of the other two does even that and only Swihart has any OF experience in MLB. Holt plays all four IF positions. Hernandez plays two and Swihart none. Swihart does play catcher, though.

While this is true, we live in a society that awards participation ribbons and trophies. It is not out of the realm of possibility that lesser players will eventually get these celebrations. Especially if it makes money.

No. If he f***s up enough to get his ass fired they will go get another body.

I have not given up on him. I agree that it would be best if he came back in decent shape and could provide at least most of what he was in SF. I have little confidence that he will be really good at any aspect of the game but he does deserve a chance and one way or another the Sox are better off he does play well. Got to get something for $95. mil.

Hayzuus. Kershaw is a bad man.

I went outside for a smoke and came back to that score. This happens a lot to me. Go outside for seven minutes and the complexion of the game changes entirely after being action free for most of a game or I come back and the Pat's have forced a turnover and scored a TD.

Why can't we get pitchers like Andrew Miller?

Why are we hung up on getting one of the big name relievers? Don't we have enough of those already? I think the key to building a good pen is scouting and finding guys that have the stuff or are about to have the stuff to get the job done. Every year we see tons of these types. I don't think that dropping a ton of money on even more Rps is a good idea. I say grab a few non-name types and see who pans out. I would be surprised if DD made a big move or just about any move at 3rd base. You can't have 3-6 WAR players in the entire lineup. I'd love to have a Machado at third but I don't see that happening with Fatboy's contract hovering. I think that this team has enough inventory of corner IFs to cover that spot. If DD is the type who does not make a move to replace the Ortiz production with a solid to comparable power bat or high OBP type because he worries about blocking a prospect then he is not qualified to run my team. The need is now, not one, two, or three years from now. I certainly don't want to wait for a prospect to come up and be Middlbrooks or Brentz types if I could have had a proven MLB bat doing the job and helping to strive toward a ring in 2017.

I probably would have started my conversation there. But my point would have been that the idea that HFA is a huge advantage ( held by most common fans ) may not be so. I was just a little alarmed that these so called pros did not even have any facts to support their ideas. We can scoff at the idea of HFA not being so important on Talksox, but at least we are discussing the topic from more than one side. It's easy to see how "old think" is perpetuated when the media and so called experts never discuss topics with facts.

Oddly, I listened to the WEEI pukes discussing HFA in absolutes this morning. I don't make a habit of listening to these guys but this morning I did for about ten minutes. They railed about all the things Farrell could have done to get HFA and said that Cleveland could have been forced into spending their front line starters if the Sox had played to secure HFA. Lol. I was tempted to call in and enlighten them about HFA as no one was talking about the 54/46 or 51.5% advantages.

Another post I agree with entirely. I will add that back when Crawford was about to be signed, the consensus here on Talksox was that Jason Werth would have been close to an ideal fit. I add this because I want those who were not here to know the pulse of this board back then. I have to admit that getting Crawford made me happy as I saw him as an exciting world class athlete that could change games. Sometimes I am wrong. Another reason the signing and commitment to long term big money to Castillo was dumb was his age. They must have known that he would need some work in the minor leagues. How does that work when a guy is his age? He had very little exposure to MLB type pitching so his failure to immediately hit well should have surprised no one. I don't buy that Castillo was a good idea that just did not work out. As with Fatboy, the commitment to this guy is hard to justify.

Go Tito!

This is consistent with what I remember. The radio and nightly show talking heads made a big deal of this when it seemed that Lackey was mum on the subject.

Hmm. All types of speculation about why he was shown the door. I can't get past the idea that if the Sox had offered an extension approximately in line with his current contract that he would have stayed in Boston. Mr. Ed smile and all. Money has a way of fixing things. I've seen plenty of FO f***-ups in Boston over the years. Red drafting Clarence Glover and Acie Earl were doozies. Purging Lester and Lackey take the cake in recent years.

The Guardians are a 54th percentile team.

f*** 'em.

In the local Boston / Eastern Mass market there was definitely a huge ramp-up of Papi related stuff on TV. It was kind of tiresome. But I don't know that it had any significant effect on the team's play.