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I wonder if it really made sense for Sweeney to put the Sox backs up against the wall. Then again, maybe he just does not feel like he has a choice. Somebody will pick him up for sure if he does not make the team and he likely knows that. Given his age and tenure in baseball a ML squad somewhere has got to be better to him than a minor league assignment with the Sox.

Someone mentioned seeing Iggy on base I think and thought he might have gotten a walk that time at bat. For that poster, if you did not see the at bat I think he was on base cause he got a hit through the left side of the infield.

What you don't need much of to play LF for the Red Sox is athletic ability. That has been the dif I have been discussing the entire time. Judgement particularly and then experience are far more valuable assets in Fenway's LF than athletic fielding ability. In fact that would be the main similarity between the those three LFers in your post. None of them were athletic outfielders. The dif between Manny and the other two was that at the point the Sox got him, you would accept just about anything in the field to get his bat. In fact, Manny had nothing. He had no real athletic ability in the field nor did he exhibit particularly good judgement. While people will forever chid Manny for being Manny, there was a time when Manny worked at his game and he turned himself into a LFer that at least could survive out there and that rarely embarrassed himself. When he did embarrass himself it was usually a real stinker of a play but it was not all that common cause he did work at it. UN is correct however. Manny was most comfortable in Fenway's LF where he did the bulk of his work. If he did embarrass himself in LF it was usually on the road where he had little EXPERIENCE in the foreign ballpark.

Did not recognize that I had my tongue firmly lodged in cheek? I don't believe anybody would think someone would seriously suggest Manny was a terrific LFer. Don't be an ass. Here was the line in its entirety. So what did you think...I was saying that his great fielding was the trade off for his terrible hitting?

Iggy went up tonight hackin' away at the first pitch as usual and ground out. I like his new swing but if he just learned to give himself a chance to get a walk once and awhile, his life would be a heck of a lot easier.

Seriously, they had the three of them taking IN/OF. I did not see any smily faces in that initial post but I have to ask...this isn't somebody trying to add some humor to the discussion is it?

I did not use the term good at any point to describe Manny's play in LF. I said he turned himself into a "decent" LFer in time and that is as far as Manny ever got as a LFer. You were the guy that decided to use Manny as part of the discussion. I don't know what you were doing but whatever it was, it did not make any sense.

Nothing. I did not want to use a separate post on Schilling's comments. His comments are only relevant to the discussion of whether JBJ should start the season in Boston or Pawtucket. I am mostly down in the wood shop today so just posting in between working there. That said proponents of the "we need JBJ on day 1" argument have used his potential in LF as part of the justification for having him up here and I just think that argument is specious. Nava is the best LF on this team at the moment. Maybe Victorino is second but his talents are better suited to RF or CF. In truth any ballplayer is a combination of his various talents. Uttering JBJ's name in the same breadth with Manny, (not that you did UN) one of the acknowledged greatest hitters of all time who already was one of the greatest hitters of all time when he came to Boston is laughable. Manny by the way turned himself into a decent LFer in time. He was terrible at the start. But as a trade off to that, you had a staggeringly good, proven ML hitter right smack in the middle of your lineup and the rest was history. We want to compare that to a kid who on the hitting side of the equation has never hit ML pitching and would likely bat 7th or 8th in an opening day lineup were he here. So the JBJ combination is to me, a shaky LFer combined with what....a big question mark relative to ML pitching vs Manny who came here as a terrible LFer but who was already on track and in the discussion for the best hitter of all time and who is without question one of the top 10 best ML hitters of all time. As I said previously, I would start JBJ in Pawtucket but send a coach with him and work his ass off in LF. He gets a chance to continue to hone his skills at the plate and at least get comfortable in LF which he does not appear to be now and at least partially familiar with LF which he appears to not be at present. Then at some point after April 12, if they want to bring him up and put him in LF at least they will have given him an opportunity to get his bearings. Frankly on balance he is likely to see better pitching at AAA than he has seen in ST. Also, who knows, by then Ells could well be nursing his first injury of the season and the kid can go right to CF where he belongs. Back to the wood shop.

and Manny was a terrific LFer. At least with Manny you knew EXACTLY what you were getting against ML pitching as a trade off for his fielding. As Schill said today, nobody sees ML pitching in ST. You don't see real deal ML pitching until opening day. Schill also commented as many have here that a super ST at the plate is nothing new and nothing to get all excited about. As might guess, Schill thinks JBJ should start the season at AAA.

No, I said he has been a shaky LF. JBJ is an athletic outfielder and and those athletic qualities are simply not very valuable in LF. He does not have experience nor has he so far exhibited good judgement in LF and has twice even in the short stints he has had in LF made poor judgements on hit baseballs. All of the comments in that piece are about JBJ's play in CF and I think he is/will be a terrific CF. Probably better than Ells cause Ells can run but can't throw. Speed is still the first order of business for a CF but an arm is next. Ells has the speed but no arm at all. Can't out-throw my 11 year old daughter. As I have stated several times, LF is less about athletic ability and more about judgement and experience. JBJ is not as yet a LFer and if he starts the year there as is, his lack of experience and judgement in LF will likely hurt him. Nava is just about the only experienced LF this team has got, maybe followed by Victorino and maybe Kalish once and or maybe if he gets back. Gomes is a mess.

Actually I just thought it was a good opportunity to insert a little humor while at the same time exposing those who are not gun owners to what might be a little known or understood fact. That being that it is really not at all uncommon for someone to forget to rack the slide. Sad but true none the less.

I have been concussed too many times myself during playing days that now seem neanderthal from the perspective of how concussion was handled not to have anything but empathy for players that are concussed. There is no real telling how hard the hit was because you don't really know where Drew was hit in the head nor how much force might have been involved. Could have been a particularly sensitive spot. Anyway, he clearly was concussed and that is really all I have to know. The battery of required tests now to get back on the field are excellent. I honest to God think that it took so long to change our perspective on concussion because we really did not want to know. We wanted the player back out on the field and those of us who played wanted to get back out on the field regardless of the consequences I am sorry to say.

The real mistake in shooting oneself in the leg is not the actual act but in forgetting to rack the slide to check for a round in the chamber before further handling of the pistol. That one is actually more common than you would think it. It is unfortunately, not even rare. The consequences range from "gee, I think I racked the slide but just in case, i am gonna' rack it again" only to find as the round pops out of the chamber usually hitting you in the head that you are not racking it a second time but the first time! ... to.... Shooting yourself. With possibilities for just about everything in between. If you recall, Sweeney picked a most unfortunate time to punch out inanimate objects as he was finally getting a chance to play and we reallllllly reallllly needed him to play. While the result of the handgun incident was worse, certainly for the player, I actually would rank Sweeney's move a bit higher on the dumbness scale given how common it is for people to forget to rack the slide and given that Sweeney blundered during regular season play leaving us at the time effectively up the creek without a paddle.

Sweeney has tossed his name in the "all time stupid move" hat more than once in his short Boston career. He has not done much to endear himself to Sox fans during a pretty tough stretch. On the other hand none of these ballplayers want to tread water in this era...See Bard and comments about the success of failure of his starting stint. The money that is at stake is just too great.

The Sox fixed this by scheduling three straight games with the Twins to finish out ST. If they can't get themselves an ego rush playing the Twins for three straight I don't know what else they can do.

Baseball park designers have been trying to design in some uniqueness but there appears an effort to make for similar corner play in the outfield. There is not that much difference these days between the LF and RF corners. Some are dead symmetrical. Some still have the soft, hockey rink RF corner and the hard angle LF corner like Fenway. They built Arlington stadium that way. Kauffman still has it as does Anaheim Stadium. They actually reversed it in new Comerica Park. The hard angle turn is in RF and the soft hockey rink corner is in left. Not sure how all that got started with the older ballparks....maybe to accommodate bullpens in right and center field and still get the right amount of seating.

You are talking about result...not degree of difficulty. A possible mistake yielding a more telling result has nothing to do with difficulty. The LFer has many more judgement calls to make in LF relative to the other two fields. Conversely he has far fewer athletic plays that he might make relative to the other two fields. A big arm is of far less value in LF than in RF. Speed is far less valuable in LF than in CF regardless of whether you are in Fenway or not. For example, any throw from RF will at least be headed in the right general direction as the play is always in front of you. You can err and throw behind the play from LF much easier as the only plays that are in front of you are plays at 3rd and home. Think it will cost you a run if the LF throws to 2nd when he really needed to be throwing to or through the cut-off man? Suppose the LFer looks up quickly after picking up the ball and sees the guy rounding 1st, losing track of the guy headed for home. Any chance at all of getting the guy at home if he throws to 2nd?

But that was my point. I don't care about offenses that "scare the pitching staff". That is their problem. I care about teams that can beat us. Once you get to the schedule you are talking about games. The outcome of games for the most part relies on the cumulative impact from more than just one aspect of the game. So, we have 12 games with the Rays before June 30th. The Rays kill us. They feature sharp pitching and limited offense. The games usually end up low scoring but even when they are slug feasts, the overall strength of their pitching top to bottom tends to pull them through. They tend to have enough offense when combined with their pitching to put up more runs against our pitching than we can put up against theirs. So I don't care that they don't feature much of an offense. I only care about whether they have enough team to beat us or if we have enough team to beat them. At the end of the day, if they beat us who gives a damn whether they generally don't field much of an offense. They are generally a tough team to beat and we have 12 games with them before June 30th. As for not breaking down the schedule this way Bell we or I am not really breaking down the schedule. Half a season is a hell of a sample size. You are really not breaking down the schedule anyway. You are breaking down teams that are on your schedule. At this stage that is about all you can do. I think the combination of Lester and Buch can and likely will come back. My real concern is that this Sox team is relatively light offensively. Lester and Buch will have to both perform well and perform well all season. In fact the Sox really have no answer if even one of the rotation guys goes down to injury. Ace is not an answer and the kids are too young at this point. The Sox might be able to cover up for an injured starter for a week or two but that is about it. The higher up the rotation any injury comes, the less likely they will be able to cover for it. Injury generally should be a big concern for this year's Sox whether to pitchers or everyday players. There is not much backing these guys up. That is not unusual for the Sox. The only dif is that this year the gap between starters and bench players is somewhat reduced.

Sweeney has announced that he will not take a minor league assignment from the Sox. So Sweeney who is not on the 40 man yet has already thrown down the gauntlet. Ya' want your double AA kid to play for the big club and gain the marketing sizzle from that move....not over my hump.

For once the talking radio heads are right. The Sox should have made the concessions thing especially for the free stuff for kids up to the third inning for the whole year. As usual the totally oblivious knuckleheads down at Fenway have it wrong again. They backed themselves into this dilemma by calling this April gesture a "Fan Appreciation" effort for past support. So.....we give you a years long sell out streak and you give us..... cheaper beer (lowest quality only) and free stuff for the kids for 17 home games in April. The whole year would have really sent the right message....about the first right message they would have sent in at least two years if not three. They USED to be good at marketing down at Fenway. I no longer know what the hell they are good at when you combine this fiasco with the total mess they made of the 100 year Fenway thing. Bringing back the past stars was by far their finest moment of the past three years. I will give them that although even that could have been done better.

Yea', would a split with Royals be a complete surprise to anybody?

In the first half..... I did not say look at the April/May schedule. I said look at the first half. In the second place, and I am tired of the sound of my own keyboard on this one. This is not the old days of the juggernaut Sox and Yanks. The rest of the league has made improvements if anything the Sox and Yanks have gone backwards if not way backwards. I am not judging teams on offensive firepower alone. I am judging the ability of other teams to beat this Sox team. In my view, while there are Twins and Royals games mixed into the first half, looking at the games and teams above, the 7 with the Guardians and the 6 with the Yanks might be the easiest of the bunch. None of them will be pushovers.

Putting JBJ in LF discounts his strengths and exacerbates his weaknesses. LF is not about athleticism. It is about judgement. The player is forced to make more critical judgements and decisions about how to position himself, how to play a ball and where to throw it and is involved in more close contact with the other fielders than any of the other outfield positions. He has the hard corner of left field to deal with instead of the soft hockey rink corner of right and in Fenway.....the wall itself. The difference is not harder vs easier. The difference between LF and the other OF positions is experience and judgement (LF) vs athleticism (CF-RF).

What??? The 82nd game of the season is on June 30th not May 30th. They have: 13 with the Jays (nuf said) 12 with the Rays (discount them all you want, they kick our asses regularly doing what they do, low scoring games) 7 with the Orioles (we want to bury them but not so fast) 6 with the Yanks (might actually be a break in the first half) 7 with the rejuvenated Guardians 4 with the Tigers 3 with the Angles 3 with the White Sox and 4 interleague games with the Phillies Just the heavy Jays/Rays content makes the first have tough. The Jays at least on paper look like they could beat us all kinds of ways and the Rays always have the same approach. Low scoring, frustrating games. I can barely stand 3 game stands with the Rays. By the 4th game of a 4 game stand we are usually so demoralized that you might decide to bet the farm on its outcome....unless the Rays have already won the first 3 games and feel like they have already had their way with us.

Well and that is my other problem. I don't put that pitch fork with baseball glove on one tine called Gomes out there in left and based on how he has looked out there I don't put JBJ out there either. And this is the problem with all of this. This is what I have described as a patchwork team of broken down/recovering vets let by Mr. Bootie himself Ortiz and they and we have been forced to deal with this mess before the first pitch can even be tossed. and now you want to load the kid with all the pressure of resolving that mess on his own when he is clearly uncomfortable in LF. I think I would be forced to start the year with Nava in LF. He has had a pretty good spring though completely unnoticed in the JBJ uproar. I would send JBJ down for those first nine games but I would send a coach with him and work his ass off in LF. Then I would see where I was. Heck by then Ells will likely be nursing his first injury of the year and JBJ can come up and play the position he should be in, CF.