jung

Mother of God...to think we started a war to find Weapons of mass destruction in Iraq that did not exist in the first place. All we really needed to do was invite a few Iraqi scientists and high level Military Intelligence types to visit TalkSox. Under the stress of that torture we would have squeezed the truth out of them in about 40 posts. "Can I please have my strychnine capsule back...I can't take anymore. I promise you Sadam has no WOD's and he wear's ladies undergarments under his fatigues".

The argument is gibberish....nonsense...a waste of time and energy. Sometimes I don't know why I should even make the effort.

This is all about one month in a tough year for a struggling pitcher. In fact it is really all about one game in one month. The depths of Lester's 2012 was July. In July he did not record a win going 0-3 and two no decisions. All three loses were at home. On July 22nd he gave up 11 earned runs in 4 innings to Toronto in a home game in what was an eventual 15-7 loss for the Sox. So off the top of my head Lester recorded a 24+ ERA for that game. So that is it. The whole argument boils down to one game in July.

Jacko appears to be looking at Lester's Fenway numbers and trying to make the case that they are tied. I would contend that Lester in 2012 was a struggling LH pitcher and any struggling LH pitcher is going to generate crummy numbers in Fenway. Fenway did not cause Lester's problems. This is why we would prefer not to have three LH starters in a Sox rotation as the green monster makes life miserable for LH pitchers.

I think you could make the case that the division is not as strong as it was relative to the other AL Divisions and that might be more important to the teams that don't win the division in the east. I don't think the team that finishes 3rd in the AL East this year takes the 2nd WC.

I have no idea why we would downplay mechanical issues. They are very difficult to resolve. For the most part you have to break down your motion and build it back up again for each pitch in your arsenal.

They probably have one play left to make at least without giving and getting salary ala' trade. They are already up to $165-168M committed against a $178m cap. But they don't have multiple moves left to make as they have already spent up close to the cap.

What is interesting is that Napoli apparently has not already told the Sox to stuff it and move on. There might be something more to this hip than he is willing to admit to or else I expect he would have done that. That is my biggest problem with all of this s***. The Sox simply want to get the time they are paying for. Why is that so unreasonable? They don't want to pay for 3 years of service and get 1.5 years of service. The whole dynamic of preexisting condition and free agency has gotten so cock eyed f***ed up mainly because there is so much money being tossed around frivolously that suddenly the Sox are the villain here. I still would contend that if JD had not successfully danced around the language in his contract with regard to his shoulder then the Sox would likely not be here right now. This ******** starts with the player wanting to have his cake and eat it to not the other way around. I don't think we will ever see MLPA sponsored or supervised medicals before an agreement in principle is reached because the way it is now the burden is all on the team. The team really has no idea and no way of finding out how prepared the player is to play OVER THE CONTRACT PERIOD and can't find out anything until an agreement in principle is reached. What the player is capable of doing on opening day hardly matters when you are paying for 3-4 years of that player's service. The reason I think whatever language has been tossed about on Napoli is based on his medical is because if that were not the case, the Sox would have told Napoli at the point of making the initial offer that we are going to want language in the contract that protects us for time lost if your preexisting condition becomes an issue during the contract period. We are talking about a hip here folks on a three deal. If Napoli's hip goes kiss at least one year if not more and in fact very likely more than one year goodbye. Lets take it to an extreme just to make the point. Suppose Napoli walked out there on opening day...lost the hip and it cost the whole 3 years. Would we then be chastising the Sox for not trying to gain some leverage on a known condition? Why would losing 1.5 years be any different than losing all 3? You are still paying for services rendered over a period of time and not getting them. Is it any wonder that term is more important to players than per annum? You bet it is. When your contract is guaranteed over a term of years yet you only have to make a case for how prepared you are to play on opening day you better believe term will be more important to players than per annum. Name me any rationally run business where an independent contractor only has to prove he is prepared to perform on the first day of the contract and then expects to be paid for the entire term of contract? This ******** starts with the player. Nobody is forcing PED's down player's throats. Nobody is demanding that they retire or not retire due to injury. However with the kinds of money being tossed about these days and with the sparsity of tools available to teams to protect themselves this is sort of where we are and we likely will stay here until something is done hopefully in the next CBA. The big market teams are more exposed at this point because they in the main sign the big money contracts. Go look at the Yankee boards and see how many people would like to slit ARoid's throat for having gotten that last big contract based on performance achieved while using PED's. Why.....because he is sucking away money to the LT cap that the Yanks would dearly love to have. If we think the Sox are the lone wolf in this I would not expect that to be the case for long. There is just to much money corrupting the entire process and rules of conduct are simply not in place to deal with what happens when you are waving that much money in front of people.

Well I don't want to put words in the guys mouth but I think the case SFF was trying to make was that it was a 500 team before the trade. I don't think it is fair to say that what was left after the trade was anything to write home about or anything that was intended to be a "team" of any sort, contending or otherwise. The only remaining components of that 2012 team that you can look at with an eye to what might be for 2013 is the rotation and the pen. I don't think you can really look at the rest and draw anything meaningful from it.

That is what I thought would happen Bell cause I figured they would see that as the path to some easier victories. So far nothin'. I wonder if Angelos is torqued off cause the fans never showed.

I just think Ben likes that particular turn of phrase "I would not rule out". I don't think he is going anywhere with that. He can just stay under the cap with one more pitcher of some worth. He can't possibly be willing to trade that for Ross.

I think that the O's winning 29 one runs games is the outlier. How can anybody possibly win that many close games two years running. Yet they don't seem to be making changes sufficient to turn them to a high scoring, wide open team. They I think will play in a bunch of tight match ups again. They are not a bad team. When I look at everybody else, the O's seem to fall out the trap door at the bottom.

Well I agree that the East is weaker than we have seen it in a long time especially when valued against the other divisions that have made big strides. However I don't see the Sox as necessarily able to take advantage of that to such a degree that they can pull themselves up beyond 3rd. The Jays have question marks without doubt...but they just have them at about 1 tier or maybe even 1.5 tiers higher than where we are. So whether they go far in their campaign...who knows....injuries can sidetrack anybody. But for example if Reyes works out for them his working out beats Drews working out by miles and miles. I don't see the Sox getting past the Jays. As for Jacko's comments on the Yankees, IF in fact their pitching is back intact and ready to roll, Jacko is right. There is simply no replacement for a heavy dose of pitching and over the 162 given where our pitching is, the Yanks would be tough to top given the relative differences. Where I am not ready to accept Jacko's analysis is that I am not ready to accept that the Yanks are all neatly back in order on the mound. If they are OK point well taken. However I don't believe they are there yet. If the Yanks do get there, I think the best we get is fighting with the Rays for 3rd with either them or us finishing there, other guy finishing 4th and the Orioles ending up last. If anything the bottom 3 (Sox, Rays and O's) are closer to each than the top two (Jays, Yanks) again if and when the Yanks do have their pitching house fully in order. This is were the relative weakness in the AL East hits home. For my money, 3rd in the AL East isn't going to get the 2nd WC this year and ends up going home.

You all disappoint me. I fully expected a "what are you on about now Jacko" from one of the usual suspects.:D

It is interesting that the increase in salaries at the highest level of the sport (the superstar) seems finally to have pulled up the middling players behind them. That was not the case earlier and before I get through sticking my big foot in my big mouth I would not put it past the Sox to be driving this whole thing. They have clearly made markets for players before and here they are out hunting up seemingly every middling player they can find as a FA. Are they doing it again...once again making a market for players? Anyway this might actually provide even more incentive to build through your developmental system and your farm system. It might be one thing to overspend or overpay a superstar player...somebody people want to watch play....somebody that not only puts up numbers that leads to wins but does in fact have that added boost of generating interest from fans. You don't get any of that with the middling players. Either the result in wins for the team is good or it is not. If I can't get that and I am still stuck with the increased injury risk due to age (lets face it, most FA are older) then the overpay in this category of player is quite possibly even more senseless than it is for the superstar. You might get a more malleable player since he probably does not carry that superstar mentality with him and that surely would help the chemistry of the team. But if they don't win, the last thing we will want to see is a bunch of grinning idiots in that dugout. Like it or not there are players that stop you in your tracks because you have gone to the game to see them play. In my lifetime and within my geographic region having grown up in Connecticut close to both Fenway and the Bronx, THE GUY that was that guy above all others was Mickey Mantle. People would stop what they were doing to listen to the radio more intently when Mickey came to the plate. Did not matter if it was a big moment in the game or not. Just having Mantle come to the plate was a big enough moment on its own. I was mowing our lawn sort of swearing under my breadth as my dad was lounging on the back porch with a cool drink in hand watching my toils when he shouted to me.....Mickey is coming up. He was as you might guess listening to the radio. I stopped as it was his intent for me to stop and listen with him. That was the day that the Mick hit a ball off the facade in right field, the closest anybody had ever come till then and since getting a ball out of the old Yankee Stadium. We both knew where that facade was. We both simply could not imagine hitting it let alone realizing that had it not been there Mickey probably would have gotten that thing out of Yankee Stadium. Days, weeks even years after, my dad and I would go to a game (not only was my dad the arbiter of how many chores I had to do but he was a yankee fan) and we would hear and see at least one or two groups of fans looking up at that spot in wonderment ....this is years later! You could tell they had not been there since and had made a point looking for that spot. On the one hand it is easy for us to look at the "stupidity" of spending big bucks for guys cause they are going to put fannies in seats. On the other hand, I can see how owners and club Presidents just break into sweats at the possibility of having a guy or guys that have that impact.

Because building through FA creates the kind of 25 players, 25 limos mentality that we just saw and that was in part responsible for the Sox "team" playing as poorly as it did. But that is just the tip of the iceberg. Not only do you often end up with a team that is low on the chemistry scale, they often don't roll up into a team that even compliments themselves in a baseball sense which is even worse. The more FA moves you make, the more you are banking on your ability to judge talent from afar....not something the Sox FO has proven particularly good at. You end up with a generally older, more injury prone team and guys that take longer to recover from their injuries. You end up with no cost controlled components to your team and thus no flexibility to move when you need to...it just goes on and on and on. No telling how many of these guys are using PED's and what will happen if and when caught or they decide to stop. If I was using and got my big deal....I would stop that day....consequences be damned. I got my money. The best way to use FA is fill the holes you have on a team that you have basically nurtured through your system. That takes time but to build a team of FA's simply dooms you to a very costly assemblage of high risk, generally older, very independent players that you will be lucky to survive. The only reason the Sox have any shot at all in the near term is because LA rescued them from the nutcase deals they made with guys like Beckett in his extension and AGons and Crawford. While LA has so much money that they might actually be able to simply bring guys in and cast them aside if they don't work out bringing in even more as a part of the process. They actually have that kind of money and I think they are very likely to do that until they win one of these damned things. Nobody else including the Yanks can afford to do that. You need a balance of players and if anything biased toward cost controlled younger players still working for their first big contract, established vets that were the younger players of your past (Pedey) and FA's when you need them where you need them. By the time the Sox were done with the mess they made, the character of that team, the profile of that team had nothing to do with the Red Sox. That team was its FA's as disparate as they were, as independent as they were, as discombobulated as they were even in a baseball sense. Even as a fan you became more engrossed in the players that were on the DL, on the mend, just coming out of surgery or were just plain busts cause that is what that team was, a collection of big salaries and the names associated with those salaries, some of them having not played any decent baseball in years...enter Mr Cameron and Mr Jenks. I for one am not even against big name, monster salary signings. This is after all a big market team. However I am wholly against building a team that way or through FA generally.

I think he is a good candidate for RedBeard-atossis and will likely fail miserably since the Yanks will make him shave.:D

I actually thought four years (one less than he got) would have been optimal for Hamilton...enough years to build around him...not the ridiculous 6,7,8,10 year contracts MLB had been tossing around in years past. If the Sox had enthusiastically embraced 5 years it might have been worth doing as that would have been 1 past what I thought was optimal. Six...can't do it. The 5th year may just be a useless year for all we know. I could not stomach going into the deal knowing I am very likely facing two useless years at the end. So I could have swallowed 5 years but not 6. I would surely spend the remaining $$ on some sort of pitcher and there are so many question marks....what the hell....at this point is one more any worse. Just as I cannot figure that all the question marks will be answered with a yes, I also cannot rationalize a view that all the question marks will be answered with a no. If that is where you are, it probably makes more sense to roll the dice again and hope that another SP with question marks just ends up adding the chances that you get enough yes answers to make a difference. Why take a steady eddy at this point. I could go for Marcum as he has been on that list of guys worth pursuing since the start. He might cost more money than they have left though...just not sure. That is what sort of bothers you about spending $10m for Drew. Sucked the last decent money out of them that they had...for what...Steven Drew???

His numbers at Fenway were "shocking"?? The only thing that I find shocking about a struggling LH pitcher in Fenway is that we don't end up finding his head rolling around out by 3rd base somewhere. All this indicates is that his problems produced worse results at Fenway than away. Nothing that unusual for a LH pitcher if he is struggling. In his case he went through one stretch where he was so completely fouled up that he started aiming the ball. Those were the nights when I expected to see his head rolling around out by 3rd having been knocked off his shoulders by some enterprising RH hitter. I think it took tremendous concentration for him to pitch as well as he did at the end of the season as he was clearly still struggling but really used up a tremendous amount of energy and concentration getting the ball to home plate. It is not a surprise to me that the usual Lester mannerisms were missing at the end of the season as he just could not concentrate that hard on getting the ball to the plate and entertain his emotions per usual for him. Frankly I just think pitching has to come more naturally than that. I commend Jon for doing what he did to get through the latter part of 2012. However he truly has to "fix it" and hopefully he will.

Laroche was not looking for more than 2 or at most 3 years as I recall. LaRoche would give you a decent bat attached to a very very good glove. If the Sox are going to go youth including keeping WMB at 3rd and allowing the kids to play SS, there are going to be more ugly WMB type throws from the left side of that infield. Many of those will just bounce off of Napoli's or even Swisher's shins. Not a great confidence booster for the young guys since the problem clearly starts with the throw. LaRoche corals all of those.

If the rotation was not chock full of guys that are all question marks and the league now with a few truly impressive rosters you could be more optimistic about their 2013 chances. But the rotation is full of question marks and the competition in 2013 will demand that those pitchers answer those questions. Asking all five guys to end up getting it done for you when the questions are both many and significant is just to much to ask. The guy with the best chance of putting a yes next to his name is Felix as long as the question is "Will he have a solid season that shows a progression of success over 2012". If the question is "Will he leap to the top of the staff posting up 200 innings at a better than 4.00 ERA pitching as a left hander in Fenway and in the AL East", I would say....the answer will be no. Lackey probably owns the biggest question mark of the rotation guys assuming his big question is "Will he pitch effectively and make a meaningful contribution as a starter his first year back from TJ particularly give the age factor". The rest own question marks closer to Lackey's and farther away from Felix's in scope, scale and likelihood of of putting a yes there instead of a no. Assuming that the team is set (which is probably not the case as they still have some room to the LT cap) it seems to me they won't have enough muscle to hang with the big boys who will very likely hit some against this pitching staff. They should beat their share of the league's dregs but will just lose to many games to the better teams either unable to pitch with them or hit enough to hang with them. If you could pick 3.5 that is where I would be. I think they stand a decent chance of finishing 3rd in the AL East but could just as easily finish 4th. I do not think 3rd in the AL East captures the 2nd WC. Even if they finally sign one SP that is not covered in ??? with this last dribble of money they have left, what kind of starter is that going to be with the money they have left. Not sure there is much to suggest finishing better than 3rd. As for the business aspects of what they have done this off season.....I suspect this team will not pump the advanced ticket sales and once it starts losing enough games for fans to start to recognize the mid-pack finish as likely, they really have not put any interesting players or players that will generate much empathy from fans on this team. That is why I would have surrounded Hamilton with a bunch of the young guys instead of going down the path they have chosen. Hamilton puts two big bats in the middle of the lineup for 2013 and 2014 coupled with Ortiz. Surround those two big bats with a bunch of the kids and you have a team that is both interesting and fan friendly from the perspective of empathy. That team would likely lose more games than this team will but who cares. Missing the post season is missing the post season and they would be better set for 2014 my way I think than their way.

While this is only indirectly related, this might also be another aspect of simply relying to much on high ticket FA talent to fill up your roster. You end up with just to many ballplayers that have already established a high level of value in the market place and their baseball careers become less about playing baseball and more about signing baseball contracts and endorsement contracts etc etc.

What happened between JD and the Sox has nothing to do with how he performed while on the field and everything to do with how he handled his injury situation as it related to his contract. Those are separate discussions.

You know I wish I could say the Sox should just hold their noses and sign Napoli. But I don't think the Sox are being unreasonable (this without having any idea what is actually in the agreement...just based on what is being reported). It appears to me that they just want the time they are paying for. They are willing to pay the player....they are willing to sign the player...just aren't willing to be ripped on new one at the same time. If JD Drew had not played them like a violin through most of the length of his contract I think they would be less antsy about this kinda' stuff. But you don't see players standing in line to give back some part of the money when they end up playing about half the time they are contracted for. I do think all of this s*** is getting really messy and that is why I typed earlier that I think we will see much of this addressed in the next CBA negotiation. I think we will end up seeing some rules about the options that teams have and the options that players have in this sort of situation.

I was listening to one of the radio talk shows today. Thought I would relate this and see what folks think. The premise of the argument being made was that the Jays got tired of building from within and finally threw in the towel. That they decided to just go balls to the walls and go nuts in the FA agent market in order to make a serious run this year. Not sure I buy that though. Not like they paid huge money for guys like Bautista and Encarnacion when they got them and it is not like those guys were tearin it up and makin huge money when the Jays got them. So what do you guys think? Does the Jays effort look like a "spend like drunken sailors kind of thing or does it look more like a build sensibly to a certain point and then fill in the final pieces aggressively kind of thing?