jung

I take your point wyo. Not proud of the fact that at least informally, my too/to rules are crumbling to dust. I have to check myself in formal writing to catch the too rule for "very". Both formally and informally, the too rule for "also" still sticks. So, NO I don't make that mistake every time even informally. Wish I could say that my too/to rules were the only things crumbling to dust. Would be a lie though. I try to keep it informal here and even use colloquialism just for that purpose and in part to make it obvious that I am just hammerin' along. It is a discussion forum about baseball for crying out loud. Web sites, facebook pages, all of it really exists on two polar opposites. There is a massive amount of factual information...for the most part accurate and a massive amount of opinion with very little in between and so far, societally we have just not gotten the hang of it yet. Unfortunately the truly factual information exists on a level something like metric conversion and is really not much better than that. Some of us take it wayyyy too seriously especially in this country. We crucify people for what they post on their that is "their" Facebook pages. Wrong platform to take that seriously, IMO. Criticism may be fine in some instances... but as we all surely know....we are crucifying people for what they post up there or for what ends up on Twitter. We are firing people...taking their livelihoods away for what ends up on a Facebook page or on Twitter. People feel free to ripe each other to shreds mainly because of the anonymity that a forum or web site allows and consider that just fine. However we tar and feather somebody for letting a bit of political incorrectness slip. Its all ********. I needed some information quickly regarding the need for some immediate first aid for one of our pets over the holidays. I figured I knew what to do but at the same time was not willing to trust it with the internet just a few mouse clicks away. I found information from qualified Vets that was all over the map. The "professional" opinions offered were so disparate one to the next that I simply decided to trust my own original judgement about what to do. I could have done almost anything within reason and would have found a "professional" opinion that would support it. Until and unless we finally get security protocols that are meaningful and that bring about changes in the Internet that will flow downstream from there it is little better than a digital playground. I keep thinking we are almost there and then the next instant get the uneasy feeling that we are only one hack away from another really embarrassing setback. Take it more seriously if you must but don't expect me to take you too seriously if you do.

Don't put words in my mouth or my keyboard Doj. I did not say I don't care one way or the other. I wrote that there is adequate evidence to me that bringing him up now may actually be the key that unlocks his full potential at the plate ala' other players that did not flourish until they actually got the ML job. I wrote that in this particular instance, I did not think the player in question would lose either time or quality of development here as opposed to Pawtucket. Further my position has been that IMO, the downside risk to player, team and season are acceptable given the potential gain. That is a far cry from "I don't care one way or the other". Butler is going to ST. Maybe he gets into a televised game.

Well just to be clear, sbf, I don't think it is a trade or not trade question regarding Lavs just yet, at least I hope not. But I do see things in Lavs plate appearances especially last year that remind of Riddick in his stint up here before being traded to Oakland. Some players just do not handle the idea that each mistake may be the one that lands them on the pine and they don't show you want they really have at the ML level until somebody tells them "its your job kid" .....meaning feeling confident that this plate appearance, this chance in the lineup will not be their last with the big club if they make out or look bad doing it. So much of what Lavs did at the plate last year reminds me of Riddick in the same situation....lots of bad swings....swings that had the player walking out of the batter's box shaking his head, looking like he was asking himself "what the hell did I think I was going to do with that pitch". Riddick is not the first player that did not flourish under those conditions and he will not be the last. There are other things that make me think Lavs may be the same sort of player but the kinds of mistakes he made at the plate last year and their similarity to Riddick's.... mistakes that looked like mistakes born of anxiety, nervous mistakes is the most obvious one to me. I could be wrong but I have already explained why I think on balance I would rather go with Lavs sooner rather than later. The fact that all the experts seem to agree that Lavs needs to get settled into a role to show his best at any level, let alone the ML level would smack of the same sort of thing to me.

That was not my point in the Riddick reference...not referring to trade or not trade. Referring to the fact that the Sox never really gave Riddick the job here in Boston. Riddick got some playing time but never got the job. I think the Sox undervalued Riddick because they thought they had seen all that Riddick had to offer. Once Oakland got their hands on him they simply gave Riddick the job and Riddick flourished. I even suspect that Riddick's excessive relish at digging at Boston in their head to head meetings and in any references to then vs now relates to that element of his time here. It is much more of a f*** you Boston feeling than what you get from other former players in similar situations All players like to show well against their former mates but there is an element to Riddick's references that go much deeper than that. The Sox never gave him the job...Oakland did and Oakland reaps the benefit. Some players force your hand in that regard. They simply do not show you their best if they are constantly looking over their shoulders waiting to get pulled out of the lineup for one reason or the other. I suspect that Lavs may well have gotten to that point with regard to his plate performances as well. I think there is a pretty good chance that Lavs is very similar to Riddick in that regard and I fear that we will at some point just give up on him without ever really finding out what he has to offer, only to find him flourishing somewhere else. So I am not referring to trading or not trading although if the Sox do undervalue Lavs it could eventually turn out to be a situation where Lavs gets traded without the Sox ever really seeing him at his best. Had the Sox good options at catcher it would not matter. However they don't have good options at catcher, I don't think Lavs continued development would be hindered being up with the big club and I don't think the big club's chances of doing anything this year suffer for Lavs being here. If anything it might be the key to unlocking Lavs potential at the plate.

Good catch 07...getting lazy in my old age.

I also resisted the urge to accept wyo...thought the post grad career opportunities to limited.:blink:

Obviously a comment from a Harvard grad.:D Hopefully you caught that I did not make anything even close to a definitive statement in that regard.

OK so what supports your argument that Lavs will not continue to develop if he is playing up here? What supports your claim that a "few more months of Salty gets Lavarnway over the hump" or will mean anything positive or negative about Lavs development? Since you are "tired" of hearing about the 25 HR's what supports your contention that Ross should get more reps up here if Lavs were here than Salty, if not the 25 HR's? What? that Salty calls a better game than Lavs...really? That Salty is a better receiver than Lavs....really? As I said, I can not do more than claim the issue of who calls a better game a wash between the two of them...but for the rest....all I need is a pair of eyes. Ya' know eyes.... the things you see and read with....not ears....the things you hear with. Big letters don't make your opinion any more right than mine by the way. I generally do not put much stock in ML coaches putting much time into helping a player come along with the exception this year that the Sox have hired on Tek. Do you think Tek will be spending more time with Salty if he is here or with Lavs and who would you rather Tek put that time? I would prefer Lavs myself, if for no other reason than that Lavs has better physical tools than Salty and can likely put the effort to better use than Salty. Maybe Lavs is a dolt and Salty is a genius, better able to absorb Tek's tutelage on the mental side of the game. I cannot tell anything about either as far as that goes. However Lavs did attend Yale. Salty did not go to college. So if you were a betting man which would you think had a better chance of absorbing Tek's tutelage on the mental aspects of being a catcher? Lav's having better physical skills than Salty as it relates to duties behind the plate is likely an opinion that many would share. That would at least be my guess as the dif is pretty obvious. I am not really claiming the season is washed out at this point although I don't have high hopes for it. I think they will achieve some level of respectability which would actually be a welcome relief from two seasons of utter and abysmal failure and embarrassment. However I don't have much hope for anything beyond that. I am claiming that the Sox do a great deal for optics, certainly more than I suspect any of us would like. I do suspect that the Sox would think the optics better keeping Salty than bringing up Lavs for any number of reasons. What they think and do is clearly more relevant than anything any of us think and do on a discussion forum. And on that score...so my preference is for Lavs to come up and yours is for Salty to stay....at the end of the day what either of us thinks on this topic does not make a dimes worth of dif one way or the other.

The thing I remember about the second half of the season for Jon was the phenomenal amount of concentration he seemed to be using up to get the ball to the plate. On the one hand it left little room for the on the mound and in the dugout antics we saw from him that grew to a be so obvious. I am less inclined to think he "learned" not to do that assuming that is one of the things Jon is quoted about in the article. I just think he was working so hard to get the ball to the plate that there was just no room for the ********. Assuming I am right about that, I would like to see Jon pitch more naturally again, not have to concentrate so hard just to get the ball to the plate but not have the antics as well. While agree that it was a terrible year for Lester...I really did not think he got enough credit for working like he did not to fall completely apart the later half of the year. We have seen pitchers fall completely apart. So it would not have been all that unusual for Lester to have just completely come apart. Throwing more naturally again may be a key to maintaining or gaining back some lost velo on his FB.

Lavs is already better as a receiver than Salty. As for how they both call a game are we going to contend that Salty calls a great game??? I would call that a wash between the two of them. I repeat for the hard of reading....for my money....Lavs is already ahead of Salty on the developmental curve as a catcher and has better physical attributes, better tools to help him develop further...hence the better upside for Lavs not Salty. I don't see anything that Salty has that recommends him for more reps than Lavs vs Ross unless one overly factors for those 25 HR's but since this is Boston of course 25 HRs makes all the dif in the world. We will take any play here in Boston for the possibility of 25 HR's even if only achievable via a strong kid taking every swing for the fences...the classic flaw in the Boston thought process for as long as I can remember which predates the 67 WS run. Boston cares about pitching only occasionally, overall play almost never, but power.....give us a kid with some power and he could be a butcher even at one of the more important defensive positions on the field for all we care. So in this particular situation, I would opt for Lavs as there is nothing about the current Boston catching arrangement to recommend it and I don't in this instance see a downside to Lavs development if he is playing here. In fact if his issues are as Riddicks appear to have been, it might actually be the final key to unlocking Lavs full potential at the plate.

How....he is much quicker out of the crouch than Salty...much more agile than Salty....gets out in front of the plate to make plays better than Salty.....gives better targets than Salty......can frame the pitch better than Salty....in general receives the ball better than Salty, throws more consistently than Salty, blocks balls in the dirt better than Salty....he finds the ball in the air faster than Salty....finds and catches the ball from the outfield better than Salty....is ahead of Salty on the developmental curve as a catcher while still being 2.5 years younger. Is that enough? In some of these categories Lavs is already noticeably better while still having upside. Salty on the other hand is pretty terrible in all of these areas and because of his physical limitations (slow out of the crouch, stone hands etc) I simply do not see how Salty can be expected to improve much. All Salty has is those 25 HR's all hit because he is strong AND every single swing is a swing for the fences, which is why his 25 HR's comes at the expense of monster K's. Lavs is not at this point a fully developed catcher but he is better than Salty and I don't perceive developmental damage to Lavs in playing him now cause he should not lose reps to Ross. Ross should not play more games with Lavs here than he would be playing with Salty here.

Where by the way is this unwritten rule that Lavs would have to stop developing if he were playing up here....sure he would stop if he did not get enough reps....what Ross is going to rob reps from Lavs??? Sox would have to be nuts to let that happen.....even if they think they are going someplace this year.....Ross should not steal reps from Lavs. If nobody is stealing reps from him Lavs gets the benefit of ML seasoning in a year when the Sox need to get real about where they are going at least for the 2013 season.

The point is that Lavs is better than Salty now. All Salty has is those 25 home runs. The "lions share" of went wrong with Salty was ever thinking he was going to develop as a catcher in the first place. He simply does not have enough physical skill for the job. Not sure about his mental alacrity but I can see his physical skills with my own two eyes.

You cannot look at any ballplayer in your system without considering the other options in your system. That is just plain lunacy. I don't spend much time on Lavs because what he has should be easy for anybody with a pair of eyes to see. If we had a good option at catcher I would say, leave Lavarnway where he is or move him. We don't have a good option at catcher. We have the ever hideous Salty and his back up which dooms us to Salty getting most of the work......Why?... For the possibility of those 25 HR even at the expense of 200K's....terrific....how Red Sox is that! Lets not forget that Salty generated those 25 HR's by swinging for the fences on every swing...a final concession on his part to the fact that a more balanced hitting posture would not yield enough walks and hits to be a reasonable approach. So Salty has already hoisted the white flag on a more balanced hitting posture. As for Lavarnway's deficiencies....he is still ahead of Salty on the developmental curve and 2.5 years younger. He is already a better defensive catcher that has way more upside to become an even better catcher than Salty could ever hope to become. He is much quicker moving around behind the plate...much more agile, faster and capable of getting up out of his crouch to make plays. His agility alone makes it easier for him to make plays that are just beyond Salty's capability and makes his tasks from the crouch easier than they will ever be for Salty. I don't think Lavarnway has a great arm but at least he already throws with a natural rhythm. He does not have to think about throwing in rhythm unlike the aforementioned Salty. Visibly Lavs is already better as a battery mate as Salty is...clearly gives the pitchers better targets than Salty which would not be hard since Salty gives the worst targets of any supposed front line catcher I have ever seen. Lavs has a much more supple glove hand making it easier for him to receive the ball and frame pitches as he can catch the ball without jerking his glove all over creation....again something that is beyond Salty's physical capabilities. Lavs has not had much success at the plate as yet at the major league level which is why the Reddick comment is relevant. The Sox NEVER simply determine that there are often guys who they have had faith in....have confidence in....have invested in that do not finally bloom until they gets the job....that is the only difference between Riddick/Oakland and Riddick/Boston and it makes no sense if what you have already is Salty. That is particularly true when LL himself has already anointed this as a bridge year. Bridge to what....at this rate. Is this what bridge means to the Red Sox.....you bring in a bunch of broken down, on the mend vets without letting one single guy in the system move up including Lavs! Fine I can take the broken down vets but I can't take another year of Salty. Why isn't Salty down there in the minors since he is less developed as a catcher than even Lavs......why because its the Red Sox, the idiots that suckered themselves into thinking they were going to turn Salty into a catcher in what three years...four years....any number of years! Anybody who thinks Salty is going to overcome his liabilities in one more year is drinking the same tonic that the Sox were drinking when they signed him. The optics are better that this team is actually going someplace this season if Salty, the catcher of residence in the Red Sox system remains the catcher this season and because of the potential of another 25 HR performance.... and we wonder why we can only generate two championships in a zillion years. For the record.....Tek was NEVER a good defensive catcher. Tek was a fantastic handler of pitchers.....he was a terrific battery mate but he was never more than adequate as a defensive catcher and later in his career turned into a terrible defensive catcher. So Tek did not turn into a good defensive catcher in five years, ten years or one hundred years. Salty is neither a good battery mate nor is he a good defensive catcher. Lavs is already better in both categories though not fully developed in either. All Salty has to recommend him is those 25 home runs....as I have often said before....only in Boston!

The Salty "project" is an effort to fit a square peg in a round hole. They should send him packing so somebody else can enjoy the project. At this rate when is he actually going to become a catcher? He will be 28 in May. That makes him 2.5 years older than Lavarnway and Lavarnway is ahead of him on the developmental path even with all the seasoning Salty has gotten at the major league level. And where are those HR's going to go once Salty's legs start to go? Then what will you have....a guy that does not possess some of the basic rudimentary skills of a catcher that no longer even hits HR's but probably still K's about has much as Salty K's now. Is anybody going to try to make the case that we will be someday be pining for Jarrod Saltamachia? If that happens the Sox FO is even more inept than even its most vocal critics suggest.

I have more faith in our rotation than I have in Salty if that tells you anything about my opinion of Salty. I don't put much stock in the BC comment beyond a pretty strong suggestion that the Sox will start the season with Salty and Ross and I just think that is the wrong thing to do. The Sox are barking up the same damn tree with Lavs that they did with Riddick. They will just never learn. In addition, as I mentioned in another post if they start the season with Salty and Ross, they will not easily conclude that they need to move Salty later in the season for the reasons I mentioned in my other post. Moving a guy they started the season with to bring a younger guy up smacks of throwing in the towel on the season and the Sox simply won't do it unless the season has totally fallen apart. I really don't think Salty can improve much more than he has although if somebody concentrates on what there is between his ears and not what is at the end of his glove hand, he might improve some. Some of what is left for Satly boils down to physical skills that he just does not seem to have which is why I am not expecting much improvement. I even think Salty's propensity to hold the glove over the middle of the plate or an inch or so either side of middle is a matter of his comfort level with the way he receives the ball...another issue for him.

Leave it to the Sox to hang with the guy that is known to suck (Salty) and leave the guy that could be better even this year to wallow around in the minors (Lavs). This is so like the Red Sox and so predictable it hurts.

Shot through the leg cleaning his gun!! Sounds like there was one in the chamber he did not know about. Not the first time a gun owner has made that mistake though. Usually he finds out because we all will rack the slide pretty regularly just to check thinking we may just have forgotten and out pops the round. Guess he didn't.

Was looking at Brooks from last year.....didn't look like either got there. Even though Felix does not have the velo that Frankie has I think Felix's velo is fine for the way he pitches. Frankie while already having more juice than Felix can probably really use just a bit more than what he has.

96-97???? Frankie maybe....he gets it up to 94.6 on average with his fastball. Felix gets to 93.5 and that is about it for him.

Not as far as I know....not a hint

To be honest I don't think either side of the argument is totally valid. Maybe with one side a bit more credible than the other. As for the side of the argument that says nobody is blocked....it is predicated on the idea that the Sox will just make room for a player if need be. However at least IMO that flies in the face of what the Sox do. They will not bring a guy up and make a spot for him because the minute they do that it smacks of "season over"...."post season effort kaput"...time to look at the kids. The Sox have to be dragged to that sort of conclusion kicking and screaming. So I don't buy into the idea that they will just make a spot for a player or players. However looking at the other side of the argument, you have to look at the players that we are discussing. I was all set to be unhappy about Kalish not finally getting his chance to play and what happens....he's injured again and I have to be from Missouri on him now. I will believe it when I see it if he is ready by anything close to opening day. Iggy...I think time has passed him by. He has got B's climbing all over his butt hole and he is an atypical Red Sox SS to boot. So while I was ready to be all unhappy about Iggy I have to be realistic about his chances of actually being a Sox SS. The one left that bothers me is Lavs and if Salty is still here that one is really going to bother me. So thats my take on the "who is blocked deal". Now if we put that one aside we are still left with the three choices they had: - not spend the money and just have the kids playing everywhere (there was never a snowballs chance in hell of them doing that) - spending the money on some big name talent and a few longer term deals mixed in(Meh....maybe). I sort of liked that idea but maybe there was less opportunity to do that than I perceived - doing what they did. My biggest complaint about what they did is that they had some opportunities to do more about the starting pitching than they did and they just didn't do it. So they have what in truth amounts to a middling bunch of everyday players mated to a middling or less rotation with a super pen. Well whoopty-fing-do on the super pen for my money. I have taken to calling this team the Boston mid-packs cause that is what I think they are....at best. To be honest though, other than wishing they had done more with the starting pitching what the heck else were they going to do? This is Boston so IMO not spending the money was out of the question. I wish they had done it a bit differently but what I wanted went out the window pretty early and I could just as easily been all wet with my approach. I do not understand spending like they did without doing more for the SP even given the AAV boost that you end up with in short term contracts. It does smack of a half way plan....not enough of anything to make any real sense while spending a pile of money. The end result IMO.....I will not be at all surprised at any position from 3-5 in the AL East and no post season. I will be super surprised if they end up really competing for very long for one of the WC spots and will absolutely fall down without being able to get up if they end up contending for the division. I just don't find anything comforting in having all of our eggs in the Lester/Buch basket while being in complete agreement that this is where we are.

This is a hypothetical question but to be honest, I am growing less and less convinced that Pedro was completely clean through the steroid era. Frankly I simply do not believe that the preponderance of successful players through that era were doing it clean. I am inclined to think that the if we had the real numbers, the % of players that were juicing would be staggering compared to the % of players that were not. Just like I have been saying for a long time now that believing baseball has cleaned up its act at this point is just naive. We have already seen athletes feeling like they have painted themselves into a corner in that so much of their legacies are now tied up in whether they did or they did not. They no longer have a choice but to maintain adamantly that they did not juice. Even watching the way Pedro answers those questions or responds to those comments, there seems to be a bit of hesitation working into his responses almost like this is getting to be a burden he is starting to find difficult to carry. I think its a raw deal cause we are going to tar and feather some of these guys that we have held up as "guys that did it right" when we find out that they were also juicing. I just don't think its fair to them. I am ready to throw in the towel and say that thinking there are not guys already in the HOF that juiced makes no sense. That thinking we have any control over what happened in the past makes no sense. I think it just reflects badly on all of us, fans, media, MLB, PA, the players themselves as I think we are all acting like we have blinders on. We should just stop, give the whole bunch of them a pass as opposed to continuing with what is surely a fallacy in some cases, maybe all cases. I would trade that for a realistic approach to the issue going forward.... real standards that make sense that MLB can support with a really solid testing regimen. Maybe for example it would make sense to allow players to use substances to rehab. Not saying for certain that this is what MLB should do. However I really think we are all kidding ourselves. So for the guys that want to put Pedro at the top of the pyramid, would your view of him change if it became known that he was also juicing. While I have not put Pedro at the top of the mountain, it would not change my admiration for what he accomplished mainly because of what I am contending about the numbers. I think the % that used is huge. So why should I hold it against Pedro if he also used.

Greatest player has to be Williams in my opinion although I have already voted Yaz 67 for greatest single season.

Nice that they are down there early. Hard to tell that it will mean anything at this point. We are just going to have to see how they pitch....especially Lester and Buch.