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Good one VA. That really did make me laugh.:D

Unbelievable.......they will either pitch or not pitch. All the rest including JBJ is noise. Look at the schedule. Nasty first half. If they don't pitch in the first half I don't care if the thaw out Teddy Baseball and bring him back....it ain't happenin'

In the first place I don't think this particular team of players believes it has anything to prove relative to last year's team. It might want to prove itself to be a good team but no less or more than any other team. In the second place, I think the reason so many fans yesterday were less than thrilled with the April concessions deal is twofold: - it feels like it was conceived off of an actuarial table. This many beers in that many April games at this price vs that price will yield this many more tickets at the gate etc etc - The Sox insisted on calling it a "fan appreciation" instigated effort when every fan with a brain knows it is not I suspect they would have been better served announcing the discounts without tagging them with an official designation like "fan appreciation". If they were asked they could simply have said, we want to make it easier for people to decide to come visit us. End of story.

The Sox will need a big middle of the order bat and pretty quickly. It is none of these young system guys that we are currently drooling over. It was not going to be Lavs even if he was hitting. I just wish they had paid less for Victorino and even for Gomes for that matter. I know about the whole short contract thing but that is a lotta' money to have tossed at those two guys...Victornio especially. I thought I saw why they did it at the time. Thy got a multi-position outfielder who could cover for Ells if he had another of his injury plagued years. But beyond this year, we really did not need Victorino to protect for Ells and JBJ would have to make a hard right turn directly into the gutter to not be next year's CF.

Who knows who they might try to deal as they get closer to having to finalize the 40 man roster. There are still guys that are not on the 40 man that are possibilities. Hate to see Ciriaco go if it is him. I do think they know his ceiling though.

Can't believe I missed the Monday game. Have tried to catch all of them. Who pitched for the Sox? Any news there?

Funny 13, I had noticed the same thing but really did not think I had even seen JBJ getting that many breaking balls to look at to make a judgement. However he has ola ola'ed the few that I have seen him get. Did not get to see today's game at all. So I don't know what he got to swing at today. As I have mentioned before I think the whole ST performance thing is so overblown its ridiculous. We have had so many guys have big springs and then disappear. Lavarnway a couple years ago hit over .400 in spring ball...Mike Cameron hit over .400 in ST his one year. Even D-mac hit over .400 one ST....D-mac for crying out loud! The only dif is that the Boston Media machine did not get all wound up behind them. Talk about an overblown media creation. Every time I hear one of these media pukes tell me how ready JBJ is or simply ignore the fact that he has actually been pretty shaky in LF so far, I want to throw something at the radio or TV....based on what.... a hitting performance in Spring Baseball...you have got to be kidding me. I know some of us want to consider the injury situation starting the season but that simply should not even be relevant. It should not even be part of the discussion unless you want to talk about Kalish. His is the only injury even remotely relevant to JBJ. Oh the hell with it. I feel like I am pissing into the wind.

I don't know if I would recommend that a guy with the size, strength, quickness and speed to play football and the hand/eye coordination to play baseball go try to make in the NFL right now. I think I understand why the NFL PA has gone in the direction they have gone in. But it is a scary time. The NFL PA is motivated to move off the dime because such a high percentage of the additional money that has gone into payroll has just gone to making the richest players richer. That is a real problem for a union boss dealing with rank and file all having one vote. In fact I suspect the ML PA feels that hot breadth of the rank and file on its neck as well. Agreeing to the flat hard cap may well move the NFL money deeper into the roster but since the contracts are not guaranteed unless the player if franchised, they are really creating disposable football players. We are going to use your ass up and then you are gone. Chances are it will move the NFL money deeper into the roster but guys are going to end up getting paid for a shorter period of time. I don't think guys that really have the talent to play baseball are motivated to play football. I am more inclined to think that if a guy is on a dual path and chooses football, it is because he simply does not think he can make it through the multiple tiers of baseball and the tremendous number of guys trying to get to the ML. Whatever we might think of them, whatever I might think of them as people at some point in their careers the guys that make it to the ML are phenomenal baseball players, so much better than even the average superstar high school ballplayer that the two are separated by light years. The number of things that stop the average superstar high school ballplayer dead in his tracks are just too numerous to mention. You can identify the guys you play against in high school that have a shot at making it to a major college football program. Frankly, if you can get there you have a shot at the NFL. A guy getting to minor league baseball has a greater chance of never getting to the big leagues. The process just culls out so many guys. So many of our US baseball players face real stiff competition from the Dominican kids, the Puerto Rican kids, the Mexican kids....they are coming from everywhere these days. You stand a much better chance at knowing your competition for major college and then NFL spots.

Could be but people are talking about JBJ in left like he immediately improves the entire outfield and I just don't see it. It is not easy to overcome the requirements for LF by substituting physical prowess for a lack of judgement. CF and RF are the outfield positions where physical prowess elements sit at the top of the pyramid. The two mistakes he has made out there so far have been errors in judgement....what a surprise. So, do we really want to see JBJ, all 180 lbs of him soaking wet crashing into Ells or WMB or the wall out there. Those kinds of judgements are not even a large sampling of the judgement calls a LF must make that a CF or RF does not have to make. For example, the LFer is basically the only outfielder that can err and really throw behind the runner. Even if a RF throws to the wrong base, he has no choice but to throw it back to the infield unless he decides to turn his body left and throw the ball into the RF grandstands. A RFer can't throw it that far wrong no matter what he does and the CF would have to throw to 1st to be really wrong. Not so for a LFer. Ballpark configurations allow a RF to let the ball careen around the wall. He can judge if he should wait for the ball to come to him. A LFer must judge if the ball is going to hit up against some odd angle and shoot out into mid-outfield or if it will go all the way to the wall and stick there in what will often be a hard corner. The ball is not careening anywhere in LF in any ML ballpark. Then in Fenway you have the Monster itself.Then also the possibility of three fielders converging is greater in LF than it is in either CF or RF. So I just don't buy the argument that the outfield is immediately upgraded cause JBJ is in LF. I can believe he can hold his own for a limited period of time at an elevated chance of injury. So far his judgements in LF even for the limited exposure he has had so far in ST has been what I would call "shaky".

But that won't be the story we will be reading if they don't get this "thing" out of the way now, especially if the JBJ does start looking like a budding superstar as opposed to just a star. We will be reading over and over again how the dead between the ears FO traded away a full year of control for really what amounts to 9 games in April of 2013.....4 of them probably against LH pitchers for that matter looking at the schedule.

JBJ has already proven not to be a "strong" LFer. He is in fact not a LFer. Again I am inclined not to think this final injury element is a blessing but may turn out to at least resolve this discussion. I think Ells is going to resolve this discussion for everybody.....maybe not on April 1 though.

I am not saying that is what they should do. I am already on record as saying they should not have him on the opening day roster to begin with. We are talking about the first 9 games of the season for crying out load. If they do that there is no pressure on them to do anything. They retain all the flexibility in the world to do whatever they want, whenever they want. If they do not get this out of the way now, if they don't have the stones to get this out of the way now, I believe they will not have the stones to send him down later regardless of what he is doing. It will be, they are giving up on him too early....they are going to destroy the kid's confidence. We are already using convoluted logic to justify having him here for the first 9 games of the season. You don't think we will continue the convoluted logic trend later on? Also as I have already said, if this team does not have the nuts to win meaningful games in September when the focus is sharper and the contending teams are at their peak of intensity, what you did in those first 9 games will fade to insignificance. As I have stated before here, that is not at all the same thing as saying a lost game in April is less important than a lost game in September.

I should also mention that if in fact Iggy can keep this up and perform at something like .240-.250 for a BA, I could not be happy for the Sox either cause I think they would have ended up giving up on Iggy. It has only been ST stuff so far but at least I am not completely convinced that Iggy's future is elsewhere. Now I at least have some hope of seeing the Sox with a real live SS out there next to Pedey. Did you see Pedey yesterday....He was like go for it kid....get those balls up the middle. Pedey was like wow I am likin' this!

Well in the first place in the scenario as presented I don't think you get much for a combination of Drew and Bailey. If Iggy is getting the playing time, Drew won't have the means to make himself all that attractive and now he already has a contract. So for any team interested in him his money is set. I would prefer to see Drew and Iggy pushing each other, presuming Iggy can keep this up. If he can keep it up, I could not be happier for him. He has not gotten a break till now. Whoever got him onto that new swing really deserves a good deal of credit regardless of what happens from here. That new shorter swing has literally been breathing new life into his baseball career.

And I take all is lost if JBJ comes up at least 12 games into the season instead of April 1...staggering! Actually, I think we are going to see plenty of JBJ this season...why....because the word Ellsbury and the phrase, 162 games should never ever appear in the same sentence. If you want to call that good fortune,....I guess. However at least it would put JBJ at the position he should play, CF. People are also bringing up JBJ's performance against Cliff Lee as a factor cause he did well. Everybody and his brother hit Cliff Lee yesterday. In fact, everybody and his brother has hit Cliff Lee all spring so far.

Its idiotic. You may have noticed that our famous or infamous press corp is lining up in the "must have JBJ up here on opening day" camp. Why do you think that is? They absolutely love the idea of a story that they can MILK for four years. Some people think our press corp is overly aggressive, is cut throat, what have you. I have not ever really bought into that. They are however almost to a man, unscrupulous and will trade the good of the team for a story they can milk at the drop of a hat.

There is another aspect to gambling with JBJ in the opening day lineup to consider. Suppose JBJ is in the opening day lineup and the Sox still stumble out of the gate. What does the Sox fan have to look forward to then? What happens to ticket sales then? Another aspect of this discussion that is almost comical is that once here he will be sent down. It ain't happening folks. Once he is here he is here and that last year of control will be lost regardless of how little it will take to pick it up. If the Sox don't have the stones to deal with this now when all he has to show us is a hot ST at the plate, think about that, a hot ST, anybody that thinks the Sox will have the stones to deal with this at some later date has got "stones" if not "rocks" in his head.

JBJ hitting .420 = Sox winning a lotta' ballgames??? Since when? This is my problem with this whole discussion. In the first place there is no guarantee that they will win a single game more out of such a small sample as 12 because JBJ is here, if he is here. Once again the historical flaw in everything Sox comes right to the top. If he hits .420 and they pitch like s***, they are not winning a lotta' ballgames. If he hits .420 and nobody hits around him, they are not winning a lotta' ballgames, at least not because of him. As a rook he may not even have a lineup spot that will make his production whatever it is all that meaningful over such a small sample size. Then you have the issue of where you play him. As he has already proved more than once this spring, he is not a LFer. We need to disavow ourselves of this idea that all of the outfield positions are the same position. They are not and they never were. By the way, if JBJ were to be able effect the outcome of even one game in April, if this team does not have the nuts to win meaningful games in September when the intensity is turned way up and the focus is sharpened by all the contending teams, whatever he does in April will not matter one lick.

Virtually every post WS interview from the retired ballplayer/TV analysts said that the Giants played much better as a team than the Tigers did, had a much more identifiable team approach to their offense and just drove it down the Tigers throat. The Giants did not eke out a win there. They completely destroyed the Tigers. They could have played that series on Mars and the result would not have been different. Getting on base and letting somebody drive you home is as old as the hills. It is surely as old as Weaver's three run homer Orioles. That is no excuse for simply allowing guys to go up to the plate completely independent of the circumstance just hacking away and it is definitely no excuse for the utter lack of plate discipline exhibited during much of the post season particularly by AL teams. The AL hitters were cannon fodder for the AL pitchers in the post season and they were cannon fodder for the NL pitchers in the WS.

Bard is very quickly out of pitches without that change and I think his FB is not as lively as it was at one time. Not sure where it is going sometimes but it does not seem to move like it did. Good chance of Bard being cannon fodder even if he is not sending every other batter to a waiting ambulance if he cannot do something with that change.

And that is exactly what I have been talking about with JBJ in LF. That is the second error in judgement he has made in LF this spring. CF is all about legs and secondarily an arm. RF is all about an arm and secondarily it would nice to have legs. LF is about judgement. All kinds of judgement plays for a LF especially in Fenway.

I just found the info on Lee although not in splits. Before today he has given up 15 hits and 10 runs, 7 earned in 11.1 innings pitched recording a 5.56 ERA. Today's performance is surely not going to make those numbers look any better.

While the added strength is likely also aiding Iggy, I still think the shorter swing allowing for a quicker bat is really what might turn out to be the key for him. That swing looks nothing like the swing he started with last year (just terrible) or ended with last year (not terrible is the best I can say for that one).

Geez don't we wish we had spent a scadzillion $$$$ on Cliff Lee when we had the chance? Holly Cow. Any idea what kind of a spring Lee has been having?

The Sox mouthpieces.....I mean NESN broadcast team has been peddling the idea that team play and offensive strategy is down across baseball, meaning that "everybody is doing it" according to them. Nobody is stealing bases, running hit and run, going to the plate with a plan that fits into an overall team philosophy or that even fits the circumstance (guy on second and one out etc etc). This Spring is the first time I have heard them make that claim. I tend to agree that it is generally down. The teams that do field an actual recognizable offensive strategy that you can identify do seem to be fewer and fewer. I can't deny it since I have been saying it here for over a year at least. However I think they are overstating this case. In the NL for example you just cannot ignore that big hole down there in the 9 spot. So is it any wonder that the Giants looked way more like a team working behind an offensive strategy than their opposite number from the AL. I for one was really alarmed at the lack of general plate discipline exhibited in the AL last year and the relative ease with which hitters just got totally dominated by the pitching once we got to crunch time in September and then the post season. More often you see the level of play elevated on both ends with good pitching still able to undo good hitting but with more balance than we saw last year. The post season performance by the AL hitters was generally a total embarrassment last year. It was like none of them had ever seen a slider before...just terrible and to me boring as hell for the most part. Now the NESN guys seem to be trying to provide me an answer to a question that I have posted here on several occasions this off season. Will this trend continue this year? They seem to be saying yes. I really hope not. I thought what we saw last year was downright terrifying if that is where we are going. I had been hoping that MLB would finally come up with a way to control PED's forcing teams to give up what looks insane to me. Allowing guys to just go up to the plate and just hack away seems to me to be a disaster waiting to happen and not what we would actually want for baseball. Do we really want to get to a day where a big part of that game that takes place between the pitches just goes away? To me this is critical time for baseball if this is actually what is going on. The NFL is much more popular and has a financial formula that is probably much more realistic although the NFL players have made concessions this last time that may really spin around and bite them in the butt. MLB was fortunate to have the NHL turn out to be too dumb for its own good forcing yet another work stoppage on its fans. To me MLB may have begun to rely too heavily on the peripheral aspects of being a fan. Oh goody, its a nice sunny day and I get to go sit in the bleachers, drink bear and watch the Red Sox. Really????? Watch them do what exactly......go to the plate, take three quick hacks and go sit down again? Most of the games are now at night anyway. So for the most part they are competing with "Dancing with the Stars" and whatever horse s*** reality TV mess is currently popular.