jung

If Pedey finally gets a dinger we will know the thumb is no longer throbbing.

Salty decides to give us a rest tonight:D:D

Well nobody throws "straight" at any velo in the ML and gets away with it. But I have often commented here that for whatever reason it takes Hanrahan about 3-6 FB's before it starts to move around for him. 3 FB could be OK but 6 flat, straight FB's could leave you with two on and nobody out right quick.

Well I think we all remember that our view of it was that the decision to bring in the players that were brought in by the Sox was in effect a decision to drop kick decisions on more costly FA's down the road in favor of putting together a team built from short term contract players at somewhat higher salaries. While I was one of those that questioned the wisdom of making what appeared to be such a unilateral decision it could not have worked out better for the Sox brass. Clearly the Sox have done enough in April to whet the fan's appetite and will very likely be enough to bolster ticket dales and future TV revenues to the sorts of levels that make guys like LL and JW go all warm and fuzzy. Regardless of what happens from here on out, those numbers will likely make the grade for the business side of the house. The Sox fan's psyche has been much bolstered by the early faltering of the Jays as well. At the rate the Jays are piling up lose column numbers, they will soon be irrelevant as anything more than a late season spoiler.

What would prevent the Jays from simply not making the "we are sellers" decision. A team can decide that they don't think their chances very good to get into the post-season in a given year and not make wholesale changes to their team. The whole thrust of the league's rules changes has been to keep more teams in the mix and have more teams gamble on being in the mix. We have had a grand total of one year with the two wild card system.....talk about a small sample size. For example, I would consider attendance more critical to a team's decision to be a seller at the deadline than the raw lose column numbers. Attendance is a leading indicator of future TV revenue fluctuations. I for one think there are bigger issues for the Jays that are having an impact on their on field performance. However just deciding that the Jays or any team for that matter MUST decide they are sellers at the earlier date is just logic that we come by too easily. The Jays may decide that they are sellers and they may not. They like every other team will more likely make the decision to be sellers or not based on a set of dynamics that is particular to them, coupled with the likelihood of making the post season just based on the raw lose column numbers. I do think the Jays are in a lotta' trouble and I for one don't think they are just going to snap out of it. They are surely one of the more interesting stories to watch from afar this season.

Isn't King Albert's one of the last of the long term contracts., out at 10 years I think and one of the last everyday players to get it as I recall. In that sense Bell has a point. It may even be a worse contract than Aroids although that would seem hard to accomplish. But the years just stretch out in front of the Angels on Albert's contract. He is signed through 2021 making monster money the whole way. He is 33 now looking like he will be sorta' all done by 37-38 maybe. That leaves 4 years hung off the back of that contract where he may well be totally useless. Maybe that is about right then to rank up there with Aroids but not actually worse in productive years. But the Angels will be paying Albert more during his decline than the Yanks are actually paying Aroid and the dif is not small. Aroid is surely headed toward 3-4 years of uselessness at the end of his deal. No doubt Albert will hit this year. What is he going to be doing even as a DH past 37-38 years old at any sort of rate of decline? Both Aroid and Albert are sliding at a rate of about 50 points of OPS per season and have been since 2008. Based on his start Albert looks like he will be on track to slide at about the same rate this year. In fact, once again he will have to have big numbers during the remainder of this season just to climb up to a 50 point slide off of 2012.

Don't know how many saw Cabrera Sunday night. Tigers are now only one back of the Royals and Cabrera is pretty insane. 26 RBI so far this season. Had two on and a 3-0 count. You could see him probing and judging where the pitcher was going to go with the 3-0 pitch. Pitch was up and not quite middle but middle out. Cabrera took it right back the way it came but with his power it ended up 20 rows back in the RF grandstands. Had guessed right. Game over.

We are going to be on pins and needles with the heels all year. I hope David does not get into many situations when he feels like he has to push it. Clearly when the heels really go on him it can put him on the shelf for awhile......and then there is the real career ender...the Achilles if that ever really goes. The issue was never should the Sox sign him. The issues was always could he get two years anywhere else and given the situation with his heels and mostly the Achilles, he probably could not. We have made some noise here about the Rangers possibly being serious about Ortiz. But they were showing no interest in Napoli for a contract he had any interest in signing. Ya' think they knew something? So just based on how they handled Napoli wrongly or rightly, I doubt they would have jumped on Ortiz. In fact, I think the Ryan turmoil makes it less likely the Rangers would have made a serious bid for Ortiz.

Carp, Ciriaco and Nava and to some extent Vic are the guys that make this team look so deep in everyday players. Initially part of the attraction for Naps was that he could play 1st and Catch. Nava is a multi-position player by virtue of being such a good practitioner of the game of baseball. I suspect that if you needed him to do it, he could put on the tools if ignorance and a month later not embarrass himself for at least a few games. Ciriaco plays multiple infield positions and Carp plays 1st and LF. I don't think you would want to see Carp in RF too often and don't even think you want to see Nava there too often. Gomes could even have been a RH DH if they needed him to be. Depending on how Ortiz's heels hold up they may still need him to be. The Sox clearly set out to get these guys. So it is not happenstance that it is paying off for them. I have to admit that Carp has been a real surprise. He did not show any signs that he was going to hit as good as he has even over a short stretch.

At some point Soderberg should be a big deal.....I don't this will be there year. Once the Bruins started playing games at a pace with the rest of the league their legs got real heavy real fast and this just does not seem like Rask's year. Now he is going down almost instantly and has been burned coming out of his crease enough times that I think he has lost confidence. Don't think this will turn out to be the Bruins year.....2-5-2 going into the post season and now 3rd in the East behind the hated Canadians.

What you don't actually believe anybody thinks Bard caused all this for himself or that anybody would seriously claim that he did....do you?

Oh so that is it...the Sox CHANGED their organizational goals for a player they are paying $1.8m per year. Laughable .....just too funny.

The only part of that post that was accurate is the please. I had said all through last year that it was Bard's desire to be a starter and that IS common knowledge. That it fit the organizational goals for last year should also be common knowledge and finally and most certainly that the decision when push came to shove was way above Bard's pay grade should also be common knowledge. Laughable....this place is often utterly and completely laughable. And now that I think about it, Ace has been expressing a desire to be a starter before last season started....well in time for him to have been stretched out last year and if not last year certainly this year. Did he come into the season a starter and has he ever gotten anything more than a spot starter role here?

What is common knowledge...that Bard was the GM last year? That is news to me. A player can want to do something and it might be the wrong thing to do but he does not become a starter just because he wants to whether he starts the ball rolling or not, especially one that does not have his financial claws into the Sox in any meaningful way. If that were the case, Ace would have his way. Bard to the rotation fit what the Sox wanted to do last year organizationally. They really did not appear to want to spend the money to fill out the rotation properly. So Bard to the rotation really killed three birds with one stone. The Sox no longer thought Bard could be or should be a closer. So Bard to the rotation gave them a way to try to utilize Bard outside of the closers role. Plus it gave Bard his shot at what he wanted. Plus they could clap themselves on the back and say...job well done....we have our rotation filled out and did not spend much doing it. They did not spend much money doing it. However it sure as hell was not a job well done. This site is just amazing sometimes in what it can convince itself is reality. Bard as GM just about takes the cake for revisionist history.

Bobby V might have been a good manager at one time. He might have even been a decent human being at one time. Staggered by his ability to swear to one thing one minute and swear to something 180* opposed the next minute. Not a good trait for running a ball club. Too much of anything very often turns into a bad thing. At the end of the day I think too much Bobby V has actually turned out to be even too much for Bobby V himself and at least as a manager he had turned into a caricature of himself.

I really feel sorry for the Stro's. Teams are going to be so syked up to play them because nobody is going to want to lose ground by losing to the Stro's. they will not likely get any sort of a break from anybody. Maybe they have some hope down on the farm or something. You would think they would try to play a different brand of baseball. But they don't even seem to have enough talent to try to do that. It seems to me the only thing they will be able to count on is the law of averages. That will likely account for an occasional win by the Stro's or for a team on a winning streak an occasional lost game by the opponent.

I don't think any team will give Bobby V a MLB Manager's job again...not after the mess he made up here. Anybody who thinks being a disingenuous bastard is a path to motivating ball players should never be in a position of authority over ball players again, not unless the organizational ambition is to be a train wreck. Bobby V would likely have been the perfect managerial choice for the movie version of the Cleveland Guardians as depicted in Major League I and II since that owner wanted her team to blow up.

If Toronto's players looks as uninvolved and disinterested as they did the last time we were were up there I think there is a good chance it will turn to be coma before death as opposed to sleep.

That is a very difficult play to make in RF.....How do we arrange about 40 more games with the Stro's

Well there's a vote of Bard no confidence if I ever saw one.....probably only modest Miller confidence.

That spot thigh high to knee and off the plate outside to LH hitter seems to be a super blind spot for this ump. Has not gotten it right the whole game.

Talk about locked in.......Ortiz is just beyond locked in

Remy finally acknowledges that the wind is blowing to left

Damn...Ueh is up. Once he gets warm just as soon use him as he will have already lost the day of rest.

At 5-1 I would and try to spare Ueh or Taz....at 6-1 I definitely would.