jung

Not only was I surprised that AJ was not PH for, I don't like AJ where he is in the lineup. I know Farrell loves the left/right thing and he is stubborn as a mule. But XB is the real deal. Because of where XB is, if AJ stays there he is going to come up to the plate with plenty of opportunity. He is going to drive people absolutely up the wall in short order IMO. We are going to watch him time and time again come up with opportunity only to hack at some lousy pitch that go sit back down again. Farrell has not shown much faith in WMB. But I would push WMB past AJ and get AJ out of that spot in the order unless there is an opponent pitcher going that AJ has had great success against.

Didn't do much right today expect for the pitchers. As long s they are pitching like this we are in every game. Did not like Carp where he was in the order. Don't like Nava leading off either but i can see it. I would stick AJ on the other side of WMB.

I know Farrell does not have much faith in WMB, at least has not shown much last year and this. I would still have him hitting in front of AJ. It won't be long before AJ is driving us nuts.

AJ never met a pitch he didn't like

Tillman's location is not that great so far

Davis with that rocking chair swing.....

Maybe some of this is perspective. McCann may not be worth more because park factoring applies. However the Skanks may have been willing to pay him more because he is a LH hitter. But if that is the case, then you would also have to say that the Skanks would be willing to pay more for any LH batter vs a RH batter. That may well be true.

There is no discounting what Pedey means to the Sox fan either. Even if Pedey fell apart physically for the last two years of his career, he would likely set records for fasted wheelchair down the first base line and we all know that.

I know I said this about the really long ten year deals last year and I am not contending that we will not see 10 year deals ever again. But, If we do see them I think they will be for very young players that are also so good that a team wants to tie themselves to the player for terms like ten years. Doesn't it feel like the whole discussion has been ratcheted back at least one notch now though? Seven years now seems like a really long contract, five seems long and even four and three seem like terms teams are dragged to as opposed to seeking. Now it seems like two years is the sweet spot, with some players deemed worthy of three and near deity status required to get teams talking about five or six years.

No way......They still may come out of this smelling like roses but I get the impression that if Cano had stayed with Boras, he could just as easily have ended up in NY where he clearly wants to be and quite possibly would have gotten more money out of the Skanks than he is going to get sailing on the good ship J-zee. I am just guessing but I would bet that Boras would have not turned this into a carnival event leaving Cano looking like somebody you just cannot take seriously. The Skanks look like they are waiting for an adult to show up and clear up this mess before they do anything. It is fun to watch as anything whacky out of NY that does not really have an impact on us one way or the other is fun to watch.

IMO once the Cano mess is finally resolved, Boras will be left wearing a cat that at the canary grin for weeks. By rights it should mark the end of J-zee's budding sports management career.....good riddance!!!!

NY literally set the market for this year's FA catchers though. We tend to almost think of this as play money but IMO GM's would consider $1-$2M per year over the market a big overpay. Heck these guys squabble over $250k in a contract.

It will really be interesting to see how Cano pans out as you guys have mentioned. At the heart of it, ya' gotta' think these two NY guys that clearly have a friendship outside of their business relationship (J-zee and Cano) have just talked themselves into this fiasco. While the buzz about the whole J-zee thing was that professional management was going to handle Cano with J-zee doing....I don't know what....PR I guess, I think J-zee's PR influence has been greater than would be in Robby's best interest. I think he ends up back in NY with his tail between his legs and Boras laughing his butt off.

I really wasn't thinking about Cano because at the end of the day, I don't think he ends up leaving New York. Ells I think will draw legit offers from teams and offers that he will consider seriously. I don't think Cano leaves NY unless the Skanks virtually ignore him.

More rumblings and rumors overnight. A report out of NY has the Skanks with more interest in Beltran than Ells. However I would have to think that Beltran's money would be more attractive than Ells money regardless of the difference in their power numbers, mainly because of age (36) for Beltran and those balky knees of his. The two guys really are not comparable unless you want to talk about both being outfielders. If the where there is smoke there is fire thing means anything it does seem kind of odd that Ells seems to be the only guy out there in FA for whom the numbers seem to be going the wrong way at least from his perspective. People are tossing around term for Naps that would be tough to swallow and there appears to be enough teams with interest in Salty to help him get some sort of a deal that in the end will look like an overpay. Ells is the one really big FA out there for whom the buzz all seems to be headed south. This might mean he is actually the biggest fish in the pond after all and teams are all being very cagy about how they deal with their interest in him or it may mean the money is headed a bit south of expectations for Ells.

I don't care who he is, he is not likely catching more than 80 games his first year. As I posted earlier even Tek only caught 75 games his rookie season.

I still think the really big FA signing (of which Ells is one) will be very late in coming this year. Nobody really big is going to take the first thing offered or likely even the second thing offered unless it hits their numbers. On the other hand the teams are afraid that they will be making the market for the player...something of a stalemate. Obviously McCann went because the Yanks hit his number and they probably even gave him a time frame to accept or they would pull it back.

I would bet anything that the Sox will be looking to deal Lavarnway at some point pretty near term, either this year or next. I don't think he is progressing fast enough and the guys behind him are starting to catch up pretty quickly. If in fact the stories of his believing his own press clippings about being a HR hitter are true then that is a real shame. It surely did set him back offensively at a time when the Sox appeared willing to allow him to continue to grow into the catching roll as long as he could hit. He is a nice enough guy and all but I just think the Sox are going to see him as the guy left without a chair when the music stops given the number of catchers they have in the organization.

Which is why I think you trust JBJ and XB. Put them out there and don't look back. But you start treating catching like that and now you are monkeying around with a whole nuther' aspect of the game, the pitching staff. I still would not mind it if Ross were a legit safety net but he is not...just too old to catch that many games. The only other thing that makes any sense...just barely, would be to toss Lavs out there and hope he shows something over the course of the year that adds to his trade value. Then try to turn that into something meaningful in trade for 2015. Lavs might be able to struggle through 2014 and you might just have something to trade at the end of it. Other than that there is no formula that really works for 2014 at this point at least within the organization as it is today. By the way, Jason Varitek caught 75 games in his rookie season....just about right for a young catcher trying to learn the ropes. If Ross could catch the other end of a guy catching 75 games, we would be in business.

I don't see the Sox turning over the pitching staff to one of these young catchers with Ross's playing time considerably curtailed by his age. I think the chances of that are slim and none which is why I would not be surprised to see the Sox go after Hanigan and try to kill two birds with one stone. As I said earlier I think the Sox would bite the bullet and bring Salty back on some sort of two year deal before they would turn over the entire pitching staff to some young kid that has either played a very limited number of ML games or that has played none at all. If Ross were just a tad younger they could probably pull that one off. Ross could be the teacher to whatever young catcher is the pupil but Ross would probably have to catch something like 80 regular season games or so to make that work. He is probably about two years past being able to do something like that. Two years ago Ross caught 62 and a little more than half that last year. That is just not enough playing time to turn the staff over to one of these younger guys. Lavs is the closest and he is a waste of time IMO. I suspect Lavs ends up trade bait at some point.

In my opinion the Sox would bring back Salty before they would leave the pitching staff in the hands of a Butler with Ross unable to play that many games behind the plate. Both Butler and Larvarnway probably end up trade bait if Vasquez and Swihart continue to come along...at least Lavarnway. If I had my choice I would keep Butler with Lavarnway turning into part of some trade package at some point in time.

Maybe Hanigan is the "something" the Sox will do to get some experience out there every day between him and Ross. Catcher would be a perfect spot for the Sox to do that. Makes sense as I really think they would like to go with XB and JBJ at SS and CF at least for a goodly number of 2014 games. XB at SS, JBJ in CF and Lavarnway behind the plate does nothing for me. Lavarnway still does not know what he is doing back there.

I gotta' believe the Sox would try to get some experience somewhere in there as that is just too much inexperience up the middle to be believable. Having guys get experience in 2014 would bode well for 2015 but would make it pretty tough on the 2014 season. Maybe it will end up being a concession they are willing to make. As it is it looks like the Sox are trying to use LF to get some additional pop in the lineup. That would still leave them trying to do something to supplement all that youth up the middle.

I believe one thing that helps the Yankees make a decision like McCann is that it works for them on a number of different levels. Overpaying for talent has become an expectation in NY and I even think it is as much a source of pride for the Yankee fan as having a solid, FO that spends its money effectively and efficiently is for a Red Sox fan. Sure we expect the Red Sox to act like a big market team because it is a big market team. However we don't "expect" our FO to overpay and I don't think we much consider that we can a source of pride. I don't get that same feeling when it comes to the Yankees and Yankee fans generally. I think overpaying is all wrapped up in the same "pinstripes and shaves" thing they have going on down there much like Beards and BC works for us up here.

High draft picks generally are playing minor league ball under contract to a ML team, like Iggy was for the Sox. Those guys are doing fine. Guys on the 40 man roster are doing fine. But MLB really does not work without a minor league system and the minor leagues don't work without those journeymen players that may never see more than a week if that in an ML uni. Those guys are playing for the love of the game while living on the thin thread of a hope that they will get a shot someday.