jung

DD is drawing on his experience. This is his MO: Empty the owners bank account. Empty the farm system. Hope it pays off. AND THEN WHAT? Whether it has paid off or not, DD's MO has been to go back to the owner for more money because the owner cannot mystically build DD a new farm system and guess what....Neither can DD. Suppose the owner feels like he has given DD enough money? Do you think Henry has given DD enough money? I DO! DD did his job here. TIME TO GO. Let him be a lame duck for 2020. If he makes moves that pay off with limited money and no farm system to speak of extend DD if Henry wants to....if not....he should be on his way and Henry needs to bring in somebody that CAN rebuild.

I think the whole think is hysterically funny myself and sooooo typically Red Sox no matter who owns the team.

Within the perspective of a Yankmee fan that means actually making a run at the title. I actually think making a legit run at a title without raping your farm system is harder than making a legit run every four or five years, overspending for talent and plundering your farm along the way to get there. That said the problem with overspending and plundering the farm is that realistically, you have to fire the President of Baseball ops that got you your championship doing that because he is absolutely the wrong guy to take you to the next cycle of overpay and plunder. Though leaving a DD as a lame duck is frowned upon, what can a DD-like Baseball Ops guy do with little to no money to spend. DD has already f***ed up royally in the premature Sale extension and his WS 2018 binky rehires. If I were Henry I would let DD spend up to the 1st tier limit for 2020. See what he can get out of a 2020 run and then bring somebody else in for 2021. Our problem IMO is that Henry does not trust anybody. He hired DD because he knew him, knew his failings, knew his strong points. How many guys does Henry know? He knows enough about Cherries to know he never wants to see his glowing visage again (at least he better know it). He knows Theo. Problem is Theo knows him! He knows Mike Hazen. What does he think of Hazen?

I know....these guys are driving my cynicism to new lows.

If you can stay competitive and keep your farm system going at the same time....hard to complain.

Does he now....how about pitch better!

He has done his job. Helped bring us a championship. A baseball ops guy with a shelf life....OBVIOUSLY! Time to go Dave. Henry would be out of his mind to extend him.

Also, while IMO X is the man and Rafi is the man-child, it should be clear that the single most significant influence on Rafi and the one year leaps and bounds he has made and those that he has made even in this year has been.........X.

Not by that buncha' slugs in red hose we saw last night. Let them crawl into the last AL spot and get bounced out in the ALDS if they want to. However, they don't deserve to make it and if there are not 5 more deserving teams in the AL, then that is yet another indicator of what a mess MLB is today.

X is my hero. He is the only guy mature enough and talented enough and deeply committed to the game itself enough to play it the way it should be played. Rafi is still too young to do that and that was evident in the last two Rays games. Not complaining about Rafi. Just pointing out that X is the man at present. Rafi is the man-child. X has slumps that last about a game and a half before he picks this team up, puts it on his back again and tries to carry it across the threshold. The rest of them should be ashamed of themselves. Vaz falls in line after X. Rafi next. You can have the entire rest of them for my money.

Every single team of hitters I can think of falls prey now to the same thing. Every count is 2-1. Every pitch of every AB no matter what the actual count they treat as if its 2-1. Does not matter if they just need a skimpy single to score a RISP or a ground ball to the right side of the infield. It simply does not matter. A 1-2 count looks like 2-1 to them and they are swinging out of their shoelaces. IT IS RIDICULOUS. THIS IS NOT BASEBALL. I really have gotten to the point where I simply don't care how many of you think this is baseball, this is not baseball. A league or entire MLB full of hitters that don't hit and pitchers that don't pitch is not baseball. Oddly enough, since Sam Travis has somehow figured out that nobody AND I DO MEAN NOBODY or close enough to nobody for practical purposes pitches inside anymore he is just reaching across the plate and doinking balls into RF with complete impunity. BELIEVE IT OR NOT, at the present time we would do just as will to have Sam Travis come to the plate every time we have RISP. Some in baseball admire the Rays for the statistical merits of their approach particularly to pitching. It makes little sense to believe they don't have their computing geeks grinding away at offense as much as they are grinding away at pitching. Yet they are K-ing at a rate often as high as 15-20 K's per game AND STILL WINNING because the opposing team is also K-ing 15-20 times a game. Last night was an oddity in that regard in that the Sox pitching staff only generated 4 K's out of 27 outs, a staggering anomaly in today's game. Watch if you want. Enjoy what you can of this mess. I watch as much now as I would find a hysterically funny and laughably absurd comedy show interesting, interesting to a baseball geek like me, but not entertaining as a human sports endeavor, as a true test of human skills which is what an athletic enterprise should be. THIS IS NOT BASEBALL and I no longer even know anymore if I would be happier if the whole thing simply fell in a heap around Rob Manfred's ears or if we took a clean piece of paper and just started from scratch and leave this mess to Manfred and the computer geeks. In case you are wondering, I blame the players themselves least of all for this mess. They are just reacting to the changes to the very baseball itself, the emphasis on velo and spin rate and other idiotic orders of merit for pitchers from the MLB and media and US, rules changes and the shift. The players are simply trying to play within the boundaries we have defined for them and do what they have tried to do for decades, play a game that at its heart is still something they love for as long as they can. Just as an aside, do we not understand how utterly absurd it is to have broadcasters heralding exit velocity off the bat and distance covered when you still just get 1 run once the ball goes over the fence. Wouldn't "he really tagged that one" be a refreshing change from the now all too common, "exit velocity was 105 mph and the projected distance was 451 ft". Who gives a crap when we all know they are blasting golf balls over the fence! Does your heart skip a beat when the play by play idiot tells you it exited at 105.3 mph as opposed to 104.2 mph?

I will only do it if nobody has done it by game time. I am far too cynical, far too old a dog and that comes through my posts I know. So I am sure nobody really even wants me starting the game thread. Heck even I don't want me starting the game thread.

Cora with the usual: "We have to play better" The post game for game 162 and Cora will be saying "We have to play better" But Alex, the season is over.

What an embarrassment for the team and the team execs....all of them including uniformed Management in the form of Cora. All the crap they spewed today to the media and fans about the high spirits and confidence and willingness to grind the team was going to exhibit post trade deadline and the team itself just comes out and gives management the big middle finger, leaves the entire bunch of them standing their with their pants around their ankles and their asses hung out in the breeze. Tomorrow DD, Kennedy and Cora are going to be left claiming those were imposters that stood in front of the cameras today. Just hysterical....So Red Sox that its about the only comforting thing about this whole mess. From Yawkey to today this is soooooooo Red Sox. Thank God we have championships now. You younger fans are soooooo lucky. We had to put up with this crap...just like this with no championships, no nothing and f***ing Yankmee fans laughing at us every day.

Mookie trying to hit a 6 run HR.

You think thats bad? They paid fat panda $19M this year.....last year we are on the hook for him.

You mean they have been awake these last three days! I a betting a few of them have moved their golf clubs into the clubhouse.

DD has done his job. He has a shelf life though. He always has. Once we got our championship out of him Henry should be planning on what to do next. I would not under any circumstances extend DD. As usual he has used everything up along the way. That is fine because at least we got a WS out of it. But DD is not the guy you want trying to build back your organization, not by a long shot and that is what this organization will need while still remaining competitive. Either building from scratch or building while remaining competitive are not DD strong suits....never has been.

Score now: Rays-7, X-3 I guess we have to hope for X to come up again.

If DH is lucky we will trade him to somebody that knows what they are doing.

Well this is going well. Lets have a shot of dead pan Dave up in the team suite. I am sure he is wearing his usual stone face.

Score: Rays-5, X-3

If there is anything funny about this mess its that the team has just pulled the pants down on the entire business and baseball ops leadership team and the Manager since they all went out there today obviously talking out their *******s about the team's mental attitude after the trade deadline. What a laugh. I don't have a problem with DD and Kennedy walking around with their pants around their ankles. That is par for the course for Sox execs. Wish they had kept Cora out of it.

The Sox media machine spent at least an hour today including game time claiming that "there is no quit in this team. They see no signings as a vote of confidence." Made me give up on the NESN booth crew and turn on the radio.

This team has given up. That much should be obvious. Kennedy and Cora and DD can yammer all they want to....they are done.