jung

Buch is the guy they can build around as he looks like he could be a solid 2 on a competing team rotation. Lester has to rebuild his mechanics in the off season and Felix while coming a long way is not what I would describe as solid at this point.

Baseball does not need to be complicated with code. V talks in code. I just don't get how that works for a baseball team. In fact I don't think it works ever or at all for a baseball team. V may have been the distraction that LL was looking for but that does not make him a good manager.

And that is my point. Frankly, it is about the same story across the entire team. The Sox have a bunch of middle relief guys that are OK in that role but to be honest that is a big who cares. Middle relievers that can start fresh innings but really can't put out fires are a dime a dozen. Looks impressive to us because our starting pitching is such a disaster but on a relative basis is nothing to write home about. Platoon and backup outfielders are also a dime a dozen as are backup and utility infielders, another bunch of Sox "assets". I have maintained for over a year now that the Sox "organization" allows so many influences to pull and tug at Baseball Operations that I am not comfortable labeling the GM one way or the other at this point. However the moves made since Theo's departure if you want to look at that as a line in the sand amount to rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic. The Ross signing stands out I guess as he is a guy I would try to keep even flawed as he is. He is very well suited to Fenway's left field both in the field and at the plate. They may just have to deal with his inability to hit RH pitchers and at least in LF his fielding problems are less visible than in Fenway's tough RF. They have many more serious issues than Ross although I would not want to see him the everyday RFer. They may be stuck with Kalish there and hope he comes around sometime during the 2013 season. I suspect they do need to replace Theo positionally in the organization and if that guy comes in and likes BC in the GM role so be it. However they should hire such a guy and then let that guy decide if he wants BC in his current role. Whatever or whoever is in the FO, they need to deal with starting pitching and relief pitching as pitching generally is a giant hole on this team. They will need a new manager, new coaches.....again I think any suggestion that a few tweaks here and there will bring this team back to competitiveness in the AL as currently constructed amount to whistling past the graveyard.

Very very tough sun for the hitters today, Probably tough for the RFers as well. But the sun is really in a bad spot just beginning to cross home plate shortly. Pitchers really benefiting from this tough sun now.

I think they are trying to give Pedey a shot at .300 for the year. Chance is slim and he needs the at bats. I think the Sox are going to make every effort to get him there.

NESN Don laughing at the kid (Mitch) that announced the Sox lineup today. Claims he is laughing because the kid got everybody's name right but his. I actually think Don is actually laughing a bit at himself. Sounded to me like he said "nice job BITCH" totally in error when he meant to say "nice job Mitch at the end of it. Might have heard it wrong but I don't think so.

Hope Felix stops getting so distracted out on the mound. I don't remember Felix starting the year like he is now. Gotta' wonder how much Lackey and then Lester have had an impact on Felix. This is how these things steamroll downhill. One guy does it, then another guy and so on and so on and so on. Nice play by Ross in right. Hope his knee is OK.

Looks like nobody has posted up a new game thread for today. I guess I will post in here unless somebody posts up a specific game thread. Sox lineup: Pods, CF Ciriaco, 2nd Pedey, DH Ross, RF Loney, 1st Salty, C Valencia, 3rd Nava, LF Iggy, SS Felix, P today

Ells is still out for the Sunday game. Pedey is the DH...maybe as a means to get a look at Ciriaco at 2nd with Iggy at SS. Would have preferred Pedey at 2nd and Lavs at DH just so Lavs can continue on his streak of good hitting...want him to go out the year confident.

Funny how the hapless Sox who have been mocked (or at least V has) for the constant references to a launch point when they win a game have actually been a launch point for other teams. The Rays win in Florida has become a four game winning streak for the Rays just when they were on the bring of collapse. Lets face, that is what we are, what have become and what we have been....hapless.

Surely, they need to fix the pitching first. Who knows if this bunch of knuckleheads even has a viable plan to fix it. I would agree that you have to fix the pen hard on having fixed the rotation but realistically, fixing the rotation will be difficult and time consuming while being more critical. Having both fixed is likely a two year project anyway. We might well have to be satisfied with seeing them fix the pen hard on having fixed the rotation. I am skeptical about their ability to fix both at the same time. To be honest I am skeptical about their ability to fix either. Lets not look at "the trade" as evidence of some new found competence. The FO guys that have to perform in this period of rebuilding were nothing more than glorified pencil pushers as it relates to the meaningful decisions and discussions made to pull off the trade.

In my view the question was never whether Paps was a good if not excellent closer. The question was whether they had enough team to make paying a guy $44/4 to pitch 40-60 critical late innings pay off. Lets get realistic about that as well. Paps has already proved unreliable if you hand him the ball to many times expecting him to get you through both the 8th and 9th innings. So we are talking about the 9th inning exclusively if you want to really get full value out of Paps. Based on the actual results, did we have enough team to make paying a guy $44/4 for that role pay off???? Not by a long shot. They have many many holes to fill before they get to the point where they have to worry about the 9th inning. This team can't get to the 9th and really has not been able to for two years at least. Stop the madness for God's sakes. Try to build a team that has a chance of handing the ball to somebody in the 9th enough times to make it matter and then you can talk about whether the guy you are handing the ball to can get the job done. By the time the FO had to decide whether or not to compete for Paps they had already f***ed themselves right in the ass as they had already built this team of losers and had spent all the money in the process. So lets stop trying to rewrite history when we actually already know the history. It was and is a team of losers and was a team of losers by the time they had to decide on Paps. Had they known that the Dodgers would bail them out of many of the worst mistakes here in 2012, then you can maybe....MAYBE make the case that they should have competed for Paps. Heck in reality, by the time the Red Sox are truly ready to compete in the beefed up AL, Paps might well be available again if they want to take that shot. While the Sox do not have a reliable closer at present, they have much to fix in order to get to enough 9th innings that will matter.

Oh come on.....that list of players to build from is a house of cards. Ells....gone by 2014, Lester...massive question mark in need of a major mechanical makeover, Middlebrooks......dripping with potential but far from a complete player at this point in his career, Buch.....Bingo as long as he finally stays healthy, Pedey....Bingo, Ortiz.....at his age you are simply waiting for the carriage to turn into a pumpkin. He is aging, getting injured more often and unable to come back as quickly as he did when he was younger. You cannot consider Ortiz a building block...he is a bridge....at best. Need I remind us that save WMB, this is the same crowd that was right in the middle of a huge flop in 2011 and failed completely in 2012?

During Tito's run as manager writers often commented that he was not getting much consideration because of the win totals the Sox had been generating and the general perception that the Sox were one of the more "talented" teams in the AL.

I don't believe that this Red Sox ownership group has confronted anything like the challenge it has before it now. This is a complete ground up rebuilding project that will likely require major changes in both the team and the organization. Just looking at the team for example, they are at such a crossroads that they could if they choose decide to go with a complete youth movement employing guys that played in Pawtucket in 2012 in several key positions in 2013. They were not in anything like that sort of position going into the 2007 season. Even if one wanted to argue that the dismantling of a very good team did not happen on their watch it would not be possible to argue that anything they have done up to this point is the equivalent of the challenge that faces them today. This discussion reminds me of many of the discussions that occurred after 2011 when we had many adopt the view that all this team needed was a few minor tweaks to be very competitive in 2012. How did that work out for ya'? It needs much more than a few minor tweaks including a complete overhaul of the starting pitching and the bull pen. In virtually every position or grouping of personnel assets, the only "bases" they have covered are those that are the easiest to cover. They once again have question marks all over the rotation. The closest thing they have to a sure thing in the rotation is Buch. The bullpen is a mess. They have a bunch of guys that would possibly fit into middle to long relief roles starting fresh innings. They do not have a reliable "fireman" anywhere and the key setup and closer positions are anything but solid. Aceves for his part, will very likely be gone as he has become just the sort of player they will likely decide they need to get off of this team going forward. You could probably convince yourself that Tazawa gets one of the key set up positions and beyond that you have just about nothing solid. Atch will very likely opt for TJ in the offseason and he did not do well in fireman roles or very often late in games. So once again even he represents the type of relief arm they have. The everyday players have Pedey and then what? Is there anybody beyond Pedey that is not flawed in some major way? WMB maybe if he improves in some key areas. WMB is an exciting player dripping with potential but he is far from a complete player at this point. Ells is very likely gone after 2013. The only good thing you can say about the situation in CF is that the Sox likely have his replacement down on the farm. If anything the Sox might decide to bring Ortiz back for that exact reason. They don't have everyday player positions locked down anywhere with a high likelihood of employing a pretty large contingent of the 2012 Pawtucket roster as the core of the 2013 Sox team making Ortiz more attractive than he might be otherwise. The youth movement option is not only likely but may well be recommended. However it certainly does not sound promising in the near term. Even our hopes for 2014 would in the main appear to hinge upon employing even more players from the farm system to supplement those Pawtucket players that will likely be used extensively in 2013. I am not charging that this might be wrong headed, just the opposite. However it simply does not suggest a team that will occupy a strong 2013 position in an AL that is choke full of beefed up teams. Missteps they take in 2013 and 2014 will have implications for the 2015 and 2016 teams. So they have little room for more of the ******** that has typified their decision making about personnel since the Beckett extension of 2010 or in the blink of an eye they could be looking at yet another four to five years of not being competitive even while making improvements. There is one thing I have seen in the last few weeks, specifically since "the trade" that the Sox themselves should look at seriously. Once the shock of the trade was behind them, the team that remained played more like a team than at any time this season up to that point. It is not a good team. As such, it has not done all that well but it has played more like a team even while still having some guys around that likely need to just plain GO. One reason that going with the youth movement seems so appealing is because the team it has today is dripping with mediocrity. Under those circumstances, why not go with a young, interesting group of players that will at the very least play cohesively around Pedey at the center of it all. Ross is the most interesting of the highly flawed group which includes Aviles, Salty, Pods, Nava, Loney, Sweeney.....it just goes on and on. I can surely see them keeping Ross but the rest should be gone or will have much reduced roles in 2013. Either they are players with a very specific talent like Ross, or players with little to no talent that make due by having become experienced students of the game like Nava. Coaches and the Manager will change......and THEN there is the FO and upper management.

Whether the minor league manager should get the job should be and will be determined I suspect by how many of the guys from Pawtucket are actually going to come up. If it will be a major youth movement with many of the Pawtucket guys coming up then bringing the manager with them would be a good move. If the Sox are going to expend a great deal of the money now in their coffers on established ML stars then I would not give the job to the minor league manager.

I want to see the Skanks relegated to the one game play in and then f***ed right up the ass there since I don't think they will fall out of this thing completely.

We lost games 161 and 162 last year more than anybody won them although the O's gloating about the result of those games was idiotic. We could have been playing the Sisters of the Poor and would not have beaten them by games 161 and 162. We were toast by then.

Hard for me to work up anywhere near as much hate for the AL East teams than I have for the "buy a pennant" Skanks. Liked the old days when you went to Yankee Stadium in Sox gear taking your life in your hands. Skankee fans here were regularly goaded into doing something stupid enough to have them tossed from Fenway. Generally the Boston Police and Fenway Attendants received a standing-O as the Yankoff dolt was escorted off.

You are right.....he does have one more year left...thought they signed that deal one year earlier than they did. They can option him next season as well. He has the one more option year remaining.

Sox have fallen from 2nd in runs scored, behind Texas and the position they held most of the season to 6th in runs scored, now trailing Brewers, NYY, Angels and Cards

OK lets hear it.....somebody must want to call this pile of Cook crap a "quality start". That term makes me want to puke every time I hear it. Yet another label pumped out of the MLB Players Association offices, designed with the sole purpose of finding a way to make crap smell like roses and pump up player salaries.

There is no such thing as a "can't miss" prospect but the Sox have a better shot at getting somebody that will develop into a future front line player/pitcher than they usually get and that is certainly worth a great deal. Amazed at two things in the LL comment: 1) that is about as honest an assessment of a recent Sox malady as I have heard from this organization all year and in fact in several years 2) that they have actually reached a valid conclusion about ANYTHING baseball without letting some ******** business issue get in the way Now I hope that the Sox actually act accordingly. Get guys up here before they are a lock for Rookie of he Year honors in their first year in the bigs. Often our guys from the system win RoY honors more because they have languished in the minors for so long that they are completely polished ML players by the time they finally get to play up here....that is unless they have been injured while in the minors and as a result, never get here. In the meantime we are often off signing the next big bonus baby who plays the same damn position that the kid from the minors should be up here playing. We sign them for enough money to put them into semi-retirement which is often about the level of effort we get out of them. We usually get a few other things out of these "stars" as well. While they are here, many can be relied on to burp and fart out some blather about knowing more about what they need to do to prepare than any coach knows...blah...blah...blah. Don't get me wrong...I am all for signing major players for big money as long as they are somebody that will blend and make for a cohesive team effort and somebody that is not disabled by some malady or another or just out of surgery or just coming out of rehab or just broken in some way or the other. If you are going to give one of these clowns all the money, make it somebody that is worth all the money or don't give it to them.

I have no real real idea why they gave up on Gonzalez but it might have had something to do with him being another soft hurler. Not sure how many sub 90 FB guys you could get away with in this division. I guess at one point Zach Stewart was a mid 90's FB guy and they were really high on him. Then he came back throwing a sub 92 FB and they lost interest. Now they have hopes again regarding Zach but he obviously still needs fixing.

I am not at all convinced that this bunch has what it takes. Not even sure that they believe they have what it takes. If they knew how to do it, they would have kept fannies in the seats AND not run the team into the ground at the same time. They did what they did because that is what they knew how to do. So, if we do not see changes (beyond this "we stopped using James" ********) I am not at all convinced they will pull this off.They have money to spend but they have many holes to fill as well.