jung

I don't see how one year of Napoli derails Gomez. He is not to me as ready to play up here as Lavs and can use a little more seasoning before coming up here. I could see Gomez as playing up here as well but It is easier for me to see my way to Gomez at least starting the year in Pawtucket.

One year would be terrific for the Sox...best they could have done with Napoli if it turns out to be accurate. More interesting from Napoli's perspective is that you have to believe that is the best he could get...very telling indeed.....encouraging as well if the powers that be in baseball are finally starting to smarten up.

No doubt the quotes from the book at this point are provocative and most likely the most sensational of any in the book. How many times have you gone to a movie billed as a comedy only to find that the only funny lines in the whole damn movie were in the trailer. It will be interesting to see if TW's influence on the team grows with the growing importance of NESN to whole pie.

Yea but its a real estate deal. Napoli seeing the end of his career on the near horizon has agreed to buy one of the parking lots associated with Fenway as a means of insuring income past baseball. The deal has been foundering on Napoli's concern that the Sox will be able to convince enough car hopping patrons to come see the team play. The path was finally cleared when the Sox agreed to insure Napoli's purchase, agreeing to rent each vacant spot during games for a period of two years if their marketing efforts prove to feeble to keep the Sox at a gate exceeding 33,000 per game during the first year of Napoli's ownership. Initially the Sox balked at a higher number and were not pleased with 33,000. Napoli commented that it is the Sox that have been insisting the place has been sold out every game . So, what are they worried about? Napoli commented "guess this insurance s*** cuts both ways now doesn't it!:D

I can not claim that I was prescient enough to see issues with bringing Agons here because I was not at the time following the path from Lackey to a few real bums and ultimately to AGons and Crawford. But I did not like either the Lackey or Crawford deals for issues specific to those players and those deals. Putting aside for a moment whether any were fits or not, the similarity that is there is that in each of those three cases, the Sox paid all the money for players that either had known health issues as yet not addressed or in the case of Agons had not played a minute post op. The willingness to gamble in that way seemed to have become a Red Sox staple which blew up in their faces each and every time. If I throw the well known bums that they overpaid for in between into the mix it really sort of makes it ridiculous. They paid all the money in each and every case and only in the case of Lackey did they get any contract language that offered them some compensation. As for whether any of those three players would have satisfied the business objectives being discussed (guys with some sizzle)....what does Mr."God wanted it that way" perennial excuse maker Agons have that translates to sizzle in a town like Boston....at the end of the day he turned out to be a whinny little bitch that had an excuse for everything under the sun, never accepting any personal responsibility for anything. Crawford....Mr. Nervous little puppy dog shaking like a toy poodle (my apologies to toy poodles everywhere). Mr. must bat me in one place in the order and one place only...please.....another guy with a puddle of piss under his seat in the dugout. The only guy that might be considered a partial fit was in fact the aforementioned Mr. Lackey...if only partially...but he is a big goofy guy with a bunch of whacky tendencies, much beloved by his teammates and in fact that does harken back memories of the championship teams. As I mentioned earlier though while all this star player horse s*** was going on the starting pitching was going to hell in a hand basket and the resultant teams bore no resemblance to the championship teams with regard to starting pitching. I won't go into into details in this post about whether any of those three guys were or could be fits purely from the baseball team performance perspective but I can't say I am overly impressed there either. Briefly, Crawford...not a hope in hell....Lackey....maybe now with the aforementioned changes to the way AL East hitters seem to be approaching their business these days.....Agons...possibly, although to much emphasis on the LF wall became his undoing in 2012. Typical of AGons, he ultimately blamed the wall itself (an inanimate object) and not his complete and transparent to anybody with eyes insistence on hitting that way. Opposing pitchers were not blind to it either and the result eventually was a gargantuan slump to supplement his lagging power numbers. He could no longer drive the ball to RF and had become meat to pitchers because of his insistence in trying to take the ball to the opposite field. Lackey should not have been a fit for AL East. My one hope for him is that the AL East has been gradually transitioning to a division full of swing happy hitters that have about as much discipline as a 5 year old in a candy store. That might actually work to Lackey's benefit now.

I hear George Scott has picked up a baseball glove again and is tooling up for a return to 1st base....problem solved:D:D

I have often said here that I think somewhere along the way, something like "the fans got theirs [championships] and now it is time for us to get ours" in the form of maximizing their ROI leaked into ownership's thinking. I absolutely believe that baseball owners are businessmen first and foremost. It is a business for them and they compete in a world of maximizing ROI. My problem with the information that has been coming out for awhile now, seemingly supported by these snippets from the new book is that looking to seed the team with players in the way suggested by these comments is bad business...not good business. To me it is the kind of thinking that not only results in missed business objectives but missed baseball objectives as well. Sure you could say that the teams that won it all in 2004 and then again in 2007 were popular because they won....I sure cannot argue with that. However with few exceptions they were teams in the sense that the pieces fit both in the clubhouse and in a baseball sense. Those teams had a team persona that resonated for the fans. Sure Manny was a great hitter but the fact that he was a bit of a nut worked here....amongst the Kevin Mullar's and Pedey and Ortiz and Paps and even Youk. As much as some of the players were stars, the team was really the star. Of course as we have often discussed, those teams could pitch as well...an area of the team that has seemingly gone unattended during this same period of bringing in big name ballplayers, mainly everyday players to boot. If in fact ownership started to push for players that independent of the team had "star power" they lost it on both scores. They no longer had a team persona that engendered empathy from the fans. The Sox no longer played like a team and they no longer had any depth of starting pitching that the team could rely on. Beckett is a pitcher. However, how much did locking him up to big money over years in his 2010 extension, a move many did not like, smack of just that same sort of star power kind of move? Right in the middle of this whole mess, the organization from all outward appearances is overly focused on all of that marketing BS that revolved around the Fenway anniversary, another bad business move as they kept dropping the prices on all of that BS, a clear sign that fans were not buying the stuff. So at least in my case my argument is not that my expectations for ownership is that they should not have their best business interests at the forefront. My argument is that much of what they did from about 2009 on was not good business. It was bad business and bad for the baseball.

I think AGons slipped under the med radar because he already had his surgery. Although in hindsight the Sox should have considered whether giving a guy all the money made sense when he had not played a single inning of ball post op at that point. Hey they wanted the player. The Sox were paying through the nose for pieces they thought would complete the puzzle and the went kinda' crazy with it. Don't think they much considered whether the pieces they were choosing were a fit....think they just looked to much at the numbers and wanted to take the shot at inserting those numbers into the Sox lineup. To me, they did not end up with a team...just a conglomeration of numbers.

I seriously doubt Napoli's people will accept a deal that is PA dependent. Whatever they are balking at now is not as likely to put as much ammo in the hands of the Sox as PA's allowing the Sox to opt out of the last two years of a three year deal.

I don't think it will even be a tough choice for the Sox to make. They don't have to offer Pedey 10 years to get him to age 35. I don't think there is any question that Pedey will be in a Red Sox uniform at least that long.

Gotta' admit...even made ole' sourpuss me laugh

Napoli could end up finding the guaranteed 1 year appealing and for the Sox it would be like drop kicking the 1st base decision downstream. At this point that would make sense for them as well. I would not be surprised to find the guaranteed 1 year is not a negotiating ploy but an actual offer that the Sox would find appealing.

Peeved or no that is somewhat more disconcerting than at least what I had heard previously. They started at 3 years, then 3 year with language, then 2 years, no language ( at least that is what was reported) but in reality they want to offer him 1 year!!!! Holy Cow. I would bet that at 1 year, Napoli has got his agent hunting in earnest for a deal with somebody else. Can't get shorter than 1 year. While it is guaranteed, Napoli is likely underwhelmed I would think.

Salty would give the worst target in baseball to the SS and 3rd basemen trying to throw over.:D

They have dicked around with this thing for so long that I am inclined to think it will get done mainly for the reasons some have mentioned. I don't think Napoli has any other dance partners and to me the Sox are not really moving aggressively enough to find a replacement for Napoli. At this point though while I am sure the Sox will not drop their insistence on some protection I am beginning to feel like the chances are very good that Napoli will not be able to keep that hip going for three years or maybe even two. As such even with some insurance against injury the Sox are likely to end up stuck having to find somebody to play the position once Napoli does go down..

Sort of sounds odd for both sides to be saying that they are not talking to each other at the moment. Just does not sound very optimistic. Usually one side or the other is trying to pump the tires a little bit anyway. I guess you would not be talking to each other if you did not have anything to talk about.

Sort of amazing how often this ends up being the case......still!

Biggest news of this off season should be Uncle Bud not just letting the other shoe drop on drug testing but flinging it down. There is clearly a strategy at work with regard to the league and the way it approaches all matters that ultimately become part of the CBA negotiation. The league waits until it has a firm grip on the PA's balls and then it squeezes. While it should be clear that changes this sweeping could not just come out of the blue, it should be equally clear that the inability of the voters to find favor with a single HOF candidate sent a cold shiver up the spine of the PA...the same cold shiver that the owners had already been feeling. Clearly the league had insight into this year's voting and the sentiment of the voters was already known. The result....while Uncle Bud announces sweeping changes to the drug testing program and polices, the PA releases the most self serving milk toast response imaginable....a far cry from the usual call to arms that any MLB drug testing announcement had engendered in the recent past. There is much blame to go around for all parties. The whole PED controversy went from something akin to the military's don't ask don't tell policy to where they are today with individual players having been left pretty much in a lousy situation for much of baseball's sullied history with regard to PED's. Sure the PA as a group thought it was representing its members best interests in the way it positioned itself with regard to PED's and testing but individual players were not well served. IMO, the league and everybody involved veered right into and maybe even over the line of encouraging usage, insisting that the player just not get caught if he was going to use.....that is a lousy spot for individual players. For the owners, it had become much more of an issue as player salaries continued to spiral out of control. While a player caught using could see his reputation, his numbers, his very career jeopardized, baseball organizations faced the very real issue of having an extremely high percentage of its assets tied up in player contracts the value of which was suddenly unknown. Are your players using? If so, all of those multimillion dollar contracts binding the player to the organization for a specific term may not be worth the paper they are written on. Tell the owner of a business that a very high percentage of his perceived assets can not be valued in real terms and might simply crumble under his very feet and watch how quickly he starts developing a nervous twitch that simply won't go away. So while the owners are as guilty as anybody else, maybe even more guilty for having turned a blind eye on the one hand while reaping the benefits of player usage on the other, they were also the first to feel its bite. The amount of money they had tied up in player contracts and the potential for those player contracts to be suddenly deemed valueless really hit home. As for the players, players agents and the union as their representative, much of what happens of late is driven by the desire to enter that exclusive club that sits atop of players generally, the long term, big money contract players. It has of late all become about getting there and then staying there. With baseball organizations already getting gun shy about big contracts, this time around, in the face of wholesale changes in testing policy that in the past would have been fought tooth and nail, the PA was forced to look like it wanted this all along....********....they had no choice but to go along as for once they found themselves in a position much like that of the owners. While it was a heady ride for all of them for a long time, the wreckage left in the wake of what has been a disingenuous effort by all parties involved is whole generations of players who'e numbers will always be deemed suspect.....so much so that it now appears likely that some will never enter the hall. Not more than a few months ago, more likely you would have found most "experts" would have claimed that many of the suspect would enter the hall eventually. There are very few willing to make that claim this morning as the voting numbers are all going the wrong way. As has often been mentioned here, it is easy to talk about "someday" neglecting the fact that a player has got to get enough votes to get in and even has to get enough votes to remain on the ballet in the first place. The recent HOF voting and Uncle Buds actions are a repudiation of the whole era and no amount of posturing by Bud or anybody else is going to change the fact that all were complicit. For a time and maybe for all time everybody got what they wanted......$$$$$$$. Even players that resisted using saw the general level of player salaries rise sharply with PED aided performances a big part of the picture. However this is a stain that is never going away. The way the voting is going and in a game for which the historical numbers are everything, there appears that there will be an era of baseball very much underrepresented in the Hall. That "hole" will only have one explanation.

Pedey hits the big 30 next birthday and still plays the game as hard as anybody thought of playing it. Injuries do pile on though. If there is one thing we should have learned from last year its that Pedey is not super human. You get hurt..you may still try as hard but the result is just not the same. After 30, you may remember what it was like to just sort of bounce when you took a tumble but now you just go splat. Is it any wonder that even in the contact sports, hitting the ground causes as many injuries as anything else. All that adult weight, even when your own, comes crashing down and some poor joint or your head gets caught between the onrushing ground and all that mass bearing down on the point of contact. Don't see Pedey changing the way he plays. Just gotta' hope he survives it as long as he can.

Although he is not going to admit to it ( I am always fine and ready to pitch Beckett) I think that at this point he is pitching in between back flair ups. Once your back gets to the point where it is flaring up as much as his is, I am guessing that it is the rare good day when he does not feel it at all. Seems to be suffering between two and three flare ups per season at this stage. No question that a pitcher will try to protect the injured back even if it is not a conscience effort to do so. I don't read anything heroic in Beckett's efforts to claim to always be ready to pitch and the whole injuries are not an excuse anyway thing. Beckett is simply unwilling to feed into any reluctance GM's might have regarding his back and the feasibility of his not missing rotation turns. With the kinds of money these guys are making even if a player can squeeze out one more year it is big money.

I have seen posts in these pages referring to Bard as "seemingly a bright kid". Sure he is. Sharp as a tack!

Well once bone starts wearing on bone it is only a matter of time. The question is when and whether it falls apart all at once (not as likely) or more gradually ( more likely). I do agree with you. If the Sox knuckle under to Napoli to sign him and then the hip becomes an issue there will very likely be hell to pay. I just don't think the Sox are going to knuckle under. I suspect it will have to be Napoli that gives some.

Bard has never had the most repeatable motion in baseball and it has been a nagging problem throughout what he has had for a career to date. His consistency has never been what you would call good IMO. Bard has had periods when he has elevated it to "passable". More often than not he has struggled to even achieve that standard. Last I saw of what he was doing in the farm system..he was all over the map and had no idea where the ball was going. He has struggled with this for so long I almost don't wonder if somebody should just try to rebuild a motion for him in an effort to find something repeatable and good at the same time. Off and on they have had him just pitch from the stretch in an effort to find some consistency. At this point he may just have a better shot with a new motion than once again finding his motion and hope not to lose it again twenty or thirty batters later. In one sense Bard may just be a good way to understand how difficult pitching at the ML level really is as an occupation. You lose it in the middle of a stint...you know you have lost it ..... and....there you are staring down the barrel of the Prince Fielders of the world without any idea where the ball is going. You can't even get out of it...can't even walk away. The surest way to make sure you won't see the mound again anytime soon is to call your pitching coach out to the mound and tell him you have to come out cause you have no idea where the ball is going. IMO if at this point Bard is once again trying to find it, I would say that he has done that over and over throughout his career to date with little success and my expectations would be very low for him. If somebody has taken the off season with him and is trying to help him rebuild a new motion from scratch as difficult as that sounds I would actually like his chances better if he was doing that. He probably has to stop thinking about it so much as well. One issue that Bard likely stumbled on as a starter is that thinking and throwing does not appear to be a strong suit for him. He appears to be a thrower and to the extent that he can get through an inning or two that way it is likely his best shot at a return. It appears to me that if he does return, the most we can expect from him is to take the ball, throw it, get it back from the catcher and throw it again. Keep doing that until the Manager decides it give somebody else a turn.

I could be wrong on this but I think what BC actually said was that he believed there was more improvement in the SP to be had by the pitchers already on the payroll pitching to their potential than in pitchers that he could acquire one way or another this off season. Maybe you are referring to a different BC quote 700. I remember the one I referred to above but can't say that I remember one predating the Dempster deal that has BC saying that the pitching is "already" improved.

Some of the folks that were not in favor of the Sox competing with the Philles for Paps services myself included, argued that the Phillies were paying Paps all the money because they thought they were set up to go all the way with the exception of a closer that they thought was as strong as the other components of their team. The Sox to me and I think others did not look like they were not in the same place as the Phillies and had other holes they could use $11m per year to fill. There was much discussion that Bard was not moving into the closers role because the Sox had lost confidence in his ability to close having groomed him for the job to that point. I do not remember anybody from the Sox coming out and saying that or even implying it at that time (I could be wrong). If in fact they still were confident that he could close then the move was not keep Paps nor was it trade for Bailey. The move was to insert Bard as the closer keeping both Riddick and Kalish. They could have kept Aceves in his versatility bullpen role. They could have promoted somebody or gotten a 5th starter someplace. Instead they took the big crap shoot that Bard would suddenly turn into a starter. If they still thought Bard could close "some day" it would have been so like them to not give him the job when they should have. Just as many teams would play the whole Lavs/Salty thing differently than I suspect the Sox will play it, many teams would have just given Bard the job at that point in time. So frigging typical. Near as I can tell, the lost all the way around on that deal.