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I don't know how effective the stalking of Crawford was frankly. Did they send competent people down there? Myself, I did not have a clue on Carl. My only comment at the time was, "what the hell do they need this guy for?" Seemed excessive and late...both things I don't like even without having a hard view on the player himself. But I do remember how immediate the response was from the beat writers who that same day were talking about "how is this guy going to survive up here". Seems like it would be natural for me to not really know. But if the beat writers knew it was an issue, who the heck was stalking Crawford and maybe stalking him was not the right sort of due diligence anyway. The question was not whether he was running in town to score crack every night. The question was can he survive baseball in this town.

Well what I posted is that I think they would wish that the situation was reversed and that Sam was the prospect for 3rd and Shaw the prospect for 1st because I think they don't trust Sam to have the power expected of a 1st base bat and are conversely more confident that Shaw does. But I see no effort on their part to actually bring something like that into being. Shaw does not seem to be getting much time at 3rd and Sam is getting no time at 3rd that I can identify. The other potential problem for Sam is just that.....Shaw gives them a guy that apparently could fill in at either position and Sam doesn't give them that. Teams are carrying so many pitchers now that bench everyday players are being pushed off to the side. Any time a team can find a guy able to play multiple positions that seems to be a big plus these days.

Sort of an aside to my comment about OB and critical observations or the lack of them.....Leigh Montvale was on radio tonight. He said that with so many news outlets shutting down their branch offices and the lack of real reporting going on, once Dan Shaughnessy hangs it up in Boston that will be it for reporters asking tough questions. Reporters will just end up as assets to PR departments. Dan has been a provocative figure. But if we no longer have independent reporters nothing they write will be worth reading.

You are right. But it has to be the Sox that are pushing Shaw at 1st. He would not do it on his own. Yet Sam is right there. I think it quite possible that the Sox do not trust Sam's power and that on that score, Shaw is catching him on the depth chart. If the Sox really had their way I suspect that Sam would be the 3rd base prospect and Shaw the 1st base prospect.

Missing the cut off play is the kind of mistake Remy has made more and more even mid season. Everybody gets old....I seem to remember some press release that Remy was not going to be doing every game this year by design....and the number surprised me when I read it. This it was something like a little more than half the broadcasts. But I never saw a follow up. So I don't know where that is. The FL/AZ thing really was funny. That might have been OB knocking the baseball rust off. There is no other sport he would announce that is like baseball. It was really a Tim moment. The tire pumping got pretty obnoxious I thought, certainly worthy of The Hawk in Chicago and that is pretty bad. I am inclined to think OB is not going to be anywhere near where Don was willing to go in using black, white or any other color of humor to be critical of what he is seeing on the field. There were times last year where I had visions of Warner sticking pins in his Orsillo Voodoo doll.

I get it...they are not off to a good start. - Remy insisting that the Sox cut a ball off from the outfield when it clearly got all the way to Leon the Catcher - they have been ridiculous in the amount of time they have spent in one game pumping the tires - the FL/AZ comment is such a good example of unintended humor. You caught that for sure. But you know what else this broadcast seems to suggest. OB is NOT going to be the critic in the booth that Don had become. Don became pretty caustic in his black humor by the later part of last season and I just don't think there is any chance that went unnoticed. OB who did not impress me this way on radio has been at least for this one day....a lap dog in comparison.

Shaw seems to be more focused on 1st at present. Just hope Shaw gets enough time to keep his bat warm and prove himself.

JBJ to CF and Mookie to RF is the dumbest idea I have heard in a long time. Looking at things within the context of this team it makes no sense whatsoever. One of the best things the Royals had and have going for them is a team tailored to the place they play 81 games. We seem to want to fight that for some reason....dumb.

Craig looks terrible....does not even look like he has any wheels left. Pablo's 1st chance....can't get the glove down to the ball....nice Pablo. He is definitely bigger than he was at the start of last season....quite possibly not as large as he ended last season. We are unfortunately coming into his gorging season. He is like a bear standing in a steam of water waiting for the next fat salmon to come along during the baseball season.

I do think there is something strange going on with him.....seems like too many forces opposing going on inside that one frame for my liking. Seems outgoing when everything is going well but shrinks away quickly intoning the usual platitudes if they are not. If I had to guess, he has a very very strange private life, almost a second life that nobody in baseball really sees very often. Not really meaning to psychoanalyze him and I know that is what I am doing. But man he seems to be an odd duck. That said the more money has played a roll in governing all things baseball, there is simply fewer of these guys that look anything close to what we might term NORMAL. There were apparently three guys in that SF clubhouse that basically kept Pablo going year after year. Without them, no telling where or what Pablo would be. On this team, Pedroia looks like a personality type that probably all of us have known or know...Mookie is too. Funny...Pedroia has a leadership role on this team and we have for the most part anointed Mookie to be the next guy that is ripe for that title. Maybe there is more to that than we even conscientiously know ourselves.

The only time Pablo exhibited any control of his eating habits was leading into the 2014 contract year season when he lost 30 lbs from 280 down to 250 and then did not gain as much weight in season as his been his habit. That's it. All the other years since becoming a pro his weight at the start of each season has been a bit higher year over year and he proceeds to pack it on in season. After getting BC to swallow the "new" Panda hook line and sinker Pablo has gone back to his usual standard and then some. So frankly it is hard for me to assign personal or medical issues to a circumstance where Pablo exhibited excellent control for 2014 and no control any other time. Looks more to me like a self centered, over pampered "athlete" that could control himself for periods as long as almost a full calendar year that will one day, unable to sate his excesses just eat himself onto an operating table....maybe too late.

"As an aside, I really don't like Pablo or Hanley for different reasons. With Pablo, you're getting paid that much money and getting to live your dream and you can't even be bothered to keep in shape. He's also very prickly when asked any half-way probing questions. He's got some issues that really need looking at or he's going to blow his career. Hanley annoys me with the way he always seems to be half-assing everything. Always strolling around. He never looks like he is putting his full focus and energy into anything. Maybe it's just his languid style that gives off an un-fair perception, but I don't think so. " These are interesting observations. I have gotten close to your point on Pablo myself. There is something strange going on there, maybe even dangerous but at least strange. With Hanley I don't think it is unfair at all to look at his attitude as odd even for a contemporary professional athlete. Manny being Manny does not get into the same stratosphere of as odd as Hanley with his pendulum that swings all the way from goofy, half-assed nonsense that just is so disrespectful of the game and so many of its players and the way he immediately swings all the way from there to pouting, shutting it down and off for one of his in season vacations. Yet the players love Hanley mainly because the players play for the PA more than they play for the teams who's laundry they wear and Hanley does advance the cause of lots of pay for little play about as much as it can be advanced. These aberrations are aberrations for the bulk of mankind but are unfortunately common in contemporary pro sports. It seems to take different forms depending on the sport. Pro football players seem to have a slightly different set of oddities going on than pro baseball players with pro basketball players slanted off a bit from the first two. But so many of all three are just slanted off from even what you would expect in the behavior of people that have been pampered to an extreme for a lifetime that it really calls into question the rational for giving these people all these accolades and all this money. What are we really doing here? Is this as much about us as about them in some sense? It seems that the farther away they have gotten from real people the more aberrations make their way to the surface. It has gotten to the point that the aberrations have a significant impact on their ability to perform and thus make you question why teams just shove all this money across the table. It seems like enabling more than anything else. This probably has hit home for me more because of Hanley/Panda. These two deals by themselves represent such bad decision making. Neither deal makes a hill of beans of sense no matter how you cut them if you look at them in human terms, in terms beyond some combination of statistical analysis and traditional scouting. If you look at both in human terms you would stop dead in your tracks and question why you should consider these deals for another minute. I actually think THIS is what John Henry was driving at in his comments about over dependence on statistical analysis in deciding who should get all this money and he just did not have a good way to truly broach the topic the way he wanted to broach it. How can he as the principle owner of a sports enterprise? But I think he left so many confused about where he was going with that because we were all groping for a Front Office kind of context in the traditional sense and we just did not get it. But I really think what he means is that his organization has got to look at these players as people as well as players. That goes beyond the mix of scouting and statistical analysis and "gee will player X mate up well with players Y and Z." I think his comments suggest that JH is questioning why we are not taking a harder look at these players as people and simply saying "what the f*** are we doing! Are we doing our team any good, our community any good or even the player any good by tossing millions of dollars at somebody that is such an incomplete person that he may not even be able to perform as a complete player any longer." I also think Henry decided to at least try to broach the topic because he either knew he was lying about Pablo's Body Fat % or he knew that somebody in his organization had cooked the numbers, had handed him cooked numbers to announce which makes that a half truth at best which is a half lie which is .....a lie. So there he was, a wealthy man financially, fairly satisfied I guess with his life, tossed to the wolves so to speak to protect this guy that is an incomplete. I really think that is why we got both the statement about Pablo's Body Fat % and about over dependence on statistical analysis at the same time in the very same announcement. Henry may not have even intended to broach the topic before he found the words actually coming to his lips. IMO Henry found himself at odds with the absurdity of having to stand there and tell such a laughably transparent lie to protect this guy that his organization should really have questioned using a more human standard....something that was totally ignored in both the Hanley and the Pablo signings. Two mistakes that were now costing him close to $40m per year and from which he has no escape.

Pablo has got very strong legs. That asset is not only what allows him to play 3rd marginally I agree but it really is the asset that has allowed him to play at all at this weight. Imagine if he had weak legs or even average leg strength supporting all that tonnage. Often plays at 3rd can be a step and a dive. In Pablos case, he seems to be quick enough to take at least some sort of a first step and he can certainly dive though he lands like a plastic bag full of mashed potatoes. I have yet to see him at least as a Sox 3rd baseman, able to rise quickly and set up to make a throw to 1st. Heck there have been times when he can't set up to throw having never let his feet! Pedey pretty much runs this infield. XB is best going to his right and is in fact outstanding going to his right while not quite at his best around 2nd base. If Pablo is to play much 3rd this year, I would have XB shading toward 3rd every opportunity he can which would play to XB's strength and cover some for Pablo. The problem with doing it this way is that now Pedroia has Hanley over at 1st and I don't see Hanley much going in the hole to make plays. This is the sort of rock and hard place that does not make itself evident on the surface and that nobody making these "projections" in the media takes into account. But they become real and practical issues when you get around to seeing what an infield with significant weaknesses at both corners actually looks like.

But the DH thing and Hanley is not even an issue for 2016. My issue with Hanley even as a potential DH is that when and if he does finally slot into that role it will be because Ortiz is gone and we now actually need Hanley to be a hitter. Yet there is nothing to suggest that when and if that day comes, he will do what he needs to do to succeed at DH just as he has not for LF and appears to not for 1st. For example, lets take Hanley's 2015 hitting. The "story" is that after Hanley re-injured his shoulder (as an aside, keep in mind that both Hanley's shoulders are issues now) that Hanley suffered from much reduced power. Everybody says the same thing and I witnessed this very phenomenon all last year. Hanley swung for the fences every AB....every single AB for the entire season making himself easy meat for pitchers even if he did have the power to reach the fences. Now we can't have it both ways. We do know how much a shoulder issue can rob a hitter of power. So, either Hanley's shoulders were not an issue once he came back from the DL last year and his decision to swing for the fences every AB at least carried an expectation that he had the power to jack the ball over the wall. He was just such easy meat for opposing pitchers that he simply could not get pitches that allowed him to homer. OR His shoulder was an issue and he simply did not care that he really did not have enough power to justify swinging for the fences every AB...that is what Hanley wanted to do and Hanley always does what Hanley wants to do. IMO there is at least as much of a chance that in waiting for Hanley to adopt the DH role we are in fact waiting for ........NOTHING. Pablo is no kind of DH at all...he is simply not much of a 3rd baseman any longer.

I hate to say it but I don't think Hanley would make much of a 3rd baseman either. The only dif I think is that he would be less damaging potentially at 3rd. Apparently as I had predicted a few weeks ago, he has already let a ball go whizzing past his ear nearly killing three guys that were behind him somewhere and not expecting a ball to get past somebody at 1st with any glove at all. As usual, Hanley was not thinking and the ball was past him before he even knew what was going on. Nice Hanley...were you enjoying your nap? I am already pretty much resigned to us seeing lots of Shaw and Holt. In fact I am more at this point looking forward to it and hoping it does not take Farrell long to get frustrated with the Hanley/Panda assuming their play warrants a change.

Don't think it made much sense to announce this early that Young would play against every LH pitcher and I think it makes more sense to just leave Mookie in CF. I have to check the ST schedule. I think the first games are the 29th. Hopefully they are televised or at least on radio.

I think Pablo actually looks worse in a uniform jersey. That thing is just stretched and straining over that massive gut. You have to believe that its a size XXXXXXXXXXL or whatever the largest sized jersey they have. There is simply no extra material anywhere in that jersey....it is all used up. Even last year, there was at least a little fabric left. It wasn't totally stretched out.

I can't say I am a Pablo aficionado but I have never seen a baseball jersey, not a T but a baseball jersey stretched over his paunch the way the jersey is this year. That is not camera angle either. Some what to argue that some of the photos are simply not taken at flattering angles. But a jersey stretched over a paunch like that is not camera angle. Flab is one thing, fabric is another.

He has not forgotten how to take AB's. He simply was unable to do it last year.....physically. I would love to know where he really topped out in weight last year because he looked for all the world like a guy that was dealing with a whole new set of numbers and simply could not adapt to them. 280 was the last and highest real number I knew about. Maybe he did end up higher than 280 after all or maybe he hit 280 again only two years after he had done it the last time.

All this backpedaling by management is not helping anything. It is like they are looking at the reactions to their backpedaling on Pablo's weight and decided to just trot out a bigger management figure to tell a bigger lie hoping people would stop believing their eyes and believe the bigger lie. Classic baseball management especially in this town. They have trotted everybody out now. So I expect they can't screw this up worse than they have. There is nobody else to trot out there. The biggest concern on his weight is not hard to understand. 1) His problem period regarding weight gain is in season 2) He starts this in-season period heavier than any other from what I can see in past material and current information 3) His weight was obviously an issue last year, probably more so than at any time in his career...also makes sense since it is weight/age that is the concern So he struggled with the weight last year. He is starting this year heavier and obviously older than at the start of any other season in his career. Seasonally, it is the baseball season itself that is the period when he tends to gain the most weight.

Sort of makes you wonder why people assume Hanley will make a good DH. DH is about as disconnected from the game as it gets. Good DH's don't just remember where they are in the batting order. They have to come up with a plan for succeeding at that position just like you have to have a plan to succeed at any position. Part of that plan is understanding how to stay engaged and focused when you are being asked not to play in the field, yet not to be ready for a pinch hitting role while staying as engaged as the guys playing in the field every half inning. So far I have not seen any indication that Hanley is willing to work at anything other than his biceps.

My expectation for Sandoval for 2016 is that he has a modest early season...not enough bad to cause more controversy than we have already seen but nothing spectacular either. The cooler spring weather combined with Pablo not having had enough time in season for his usual in season gorging to have caught up to him should make it possible for him to at least go out there and not fall apart early in the year. Remember also that the numbers that are in decline are the numbers he produced going into FA. So we can continue to blame the guys that are no longer here for having signed him and the guy that was their boss that is still here. But hard to hold Pablo responsible for those middling numbers. That is what he was and that is what they decided was worth close to $20m per. However it will be the warmer summer weather combined with having been back in season a long enough time for Pablo to be back in trouble again. In season is when Pablo puts on the bulk of his weight. Now he is starting each season at a different place, a notch higher on the fat ladder than the season before and is a year older again as he was last year. I expect it to start to catch up to him in early June. At that point he might end up completely off the table via injury or his play will be in full fledged decline again. Maybe he can take them deep enough into the season for somebody else to take them home playing 3rd. That is the best I can see happening.

You asked me the question...I answered it. You want me to not believe my own eyes and when I won't do that think a snide remark makes it all go away. SORRY!

Did Hanley go to the ground for batted balls in the nice soft OF grass of Fenway?....enough said.

Hanigan becomes even more valuable to keep around this year. He has to have caught Price at some point right?