jung

Ortiz probably depends on how the Sox really feel about 2013. LL is making all sorts of "noise" about competing in 2013 blah blah blah....nothing he says interests me any longer. Who knows what they will really have. I would like to see him come back if the price is right. He has proved that under the right circumstances he is willing to prepare himself in the off season. If his Achilles is OK I would bring him back and see what happens. Although I think your point is well taken Bell. The Sox should have been preparing to put Ortiz behind them and the fact that they can only do so with severe consequences for the offense is just another sign of their ineptitude. We shall see I guess.

Anybody watching this Thursday night game, Yanks and O's? You can tell its Playoff atmosphere. The hitters are so amped up that any mistake by the pitchers is getting tagged. The O's just hit three HR's in the 8th after the Yanks got 5 runs in the top of the same inning to tie. O's now back up by a 10-6 score and still no outs in the bottom of the 8th. No assurance the the O's can get through the top of the 9th without damage. Dlowe on the mound for the yanks now bringing back memories throwing that hard slider.

Unbelievable numbers for Beltre...just un-conscience. Obviously not just banging out useless hits either. He's been doing it with power and getting RBI's. Unreal.

I think Ortiz will be back but I think Aceves will be gone along with the guys that Spitball mentioned as gone in his first post.

Actually I thought James was still contracted to the Sox which makes the "ignored" comments at least make sense. If he was not, then I just don't understand why the Sox would comment that James was being ignored. If he is on retainer to or an employee of your organization, that would allow the comment about being ignored to make some sense. If that is not the case, then they would not be able to say James was ignored. How could you ignore somebody that has no responsibility to you in the first place?

Well I don't know if you would get Granderson for less but I have really begun to lose interest in seeing Ells remain long term. Boras continuing to insist that he will go to FA probably limits how much the Sox could get back for him. I still think the Sox should try to force the issue if they are not already. See if they can sign him for reasonable money. If not see if they can trade him and get anything back. If not they are stuck with letting him play out his current contract. I just don't like what I see.

The fact that the are not playing more is driving me crazy. They are not winning games at a more than 1:4 pace anyway. Just play these guys as much as possible and see what you have.

Why don't we ever get players like that?:D

Not sure where to post this but I think MLB Network is going offer up Yanks and O's as the national telecast game tonight for those that can get it.

You don't have to have the costliest team in baseball to have the best team in baseball or at least one of the best. If that lesson has not been learned across ML baseball this year I don't know what to think anymore. I am not sure the Yankees will not be out of it or bumped in the first round even if they do get in. I think there is something inherently wrong with having one of the costliest teams such that I think one could make the case that it is not even an effective way to run a franchise if winning is the goal. Expensive tends to imply something about age I think, such that if you have one of the costliest teams you may likely have one of the oldest teams as well. A costly team implies big contracts with players feeling entitled to do things their way and once you get there, having everybody pulling on the oars together could be a matter of luck as much as anything else. It takes a mix which I think we have discussed here before and once the mix gets unbalanced the way it had here in Boston, good luck to us. What we have at this point is not really a team either in that four players out of 25 regular players that were playing are now gone. That is almost 20% of the team completely gone. The guys that are left are just that....the guys that are left. Can't look at the record these guys are producing and say, well the trade is a failure. The trade was not intended to improve their winning percentage this year anyway. Frankly I doubt they would be playing a lick better right now with those four guys. In part my concern with bringing in a new manager at this point is that I am already hearing unreal expectations for the guys that are left as they play out this year and I don't want that expectation laid onto a new manager either. This season is just dead....game results are meaningless at this point. What we learn about some of the players that we might decide to depend on next year is all that there is left to do. As for V, as much as I don't like what Aceves has done there is no excuse for pitching him 147 pitches in four days. V stretching him out is ********. This is V punishing Aceves and regardless of what Aceves did he is still a Red Sox asset. V does not have the right to abuse that asset just to satisfy some vindictive streak in him.

You don't have to have the costliest team in baseball to have the best team in baseball or at least one of the best. If that lesson has not been learned across ML baseball this year I don't know what to think anymore. I am not sure the Yankees will not be out of it or bumped in the first round even if they do get in. I think there is something inherently wrong with having one of the costliest teams such that I think one could make the case that it is not even an effective way to run a franchise if winning is the goal. Expensive tends to imply something about age I think, such that if you have one of the costliest teams you may likely have one of the oldest teams as well. A costly team implies big contracts with players feeling entitled to do things their way and once you get there, having everybody pulling on the oars together could be a matter of luck as much as anything else. It takes a mix which I think we have discussed here before and once the mix gets unbalanced the way it had here in Boston, good luck to us. What we have at this point is not really a team either in that four players out of 25 regular players that were playing are now gone. That is almost 20% of the team completely gone. The guys that are left are just that....the guys that are left. Can't look at the record these guys are producing and say, well the trade is a failure. The trade was not intended to improve their winning percentage this year anyway. Frankly I doubt they would be playing a lick better right now with those four guys. In part my concern with bringing in a new manager at this point is that I am already hearing unreal expectations for the guys that are left as they play out this year and I don't want that expectation laid onto a new manager either. This season is just dead....game results are meaningless at this point. What we learn about some of the players that we might decide to depend on next year is all that there is left to do. As for V, as much as I don't like what Aceves has done there is no excuse for pitching him 147 pitches in four days. V stretching him out is ********. This is V punishing Aceves and regardless of what Aceves did he is still a Red Sox asset. V does not have the right to abuse that asset just to satisfy some vindictive streak in him.

It was V himself who said that he did not realize that players now liked to be communicated with via text message and that not having realized that made communicating with his players difficult early in his tenure. Having missed that one surely makes you wonder what else V had missed in his ten year absence from an ML dugout. Most people agree that the single most important thing a baseball manager brings to the table (as opposed to what a football coach brings to the table) is the way he molds the team into a single cohesive, unified, "successful" force, getting the most out of them in the process. How was V to have a shot at that having missed such a basic element of communicating with the players as individuals. Seems to me that all V did was give them something to chuckle about for being so far behind the curve. I will grant you that sending a text does not carry the impact of other means but that sheds some light on the very idea that a Manager in this day and age can ramrod his way to gaining control over a team of modern day ML baseball players. There is nothing V learned in Japan that has helped him here and if anything Pedey having mentioned V's tenure in Japan as meaningless in his response in the Youk mess speaks to that. So it is hard to look at V's success in Japan and say it has helped him...at all. So what else has changed in the interim that V has missed? What communications technologies and information technologies that V probably understands but that he simply does not realize are applicable to the dugout has he missed? I would ask the question about his ten year absence the other way. What about V suggested to LL that he should ignore his ten year absence from an ML dugout? I think there is one thing and one thing only. V made the biggest PR splash and provided the kind of chaos that LL really wanted from a PR perspective. LL certainly got that in spades. The fly in the ointment for LL is that the Sox have failed so spectacularly that you cannot look at V as the primary cause for their failure. A ML Manager simply does not have that sort of game to game influence for one thing. For another these players have simply continued their September 2011 performance for a longer period, to and through the 2012 season. Two completely different managers, two completely different approaches.....same result, a failed team that failed to even compete. That forces us to realize that the major issues reside within elements of the team and organization that predate V, that being upper management, baseball operations and in the main, the players themselves. It has been clear that upper management did not want to add to the dollars they were already committed to spend for this year but I do think they had little confidence in this team as constructed before the first pitch of 2012 opening day. To an extent, I think LL has gotten what he wanted. He has gotten the chaos and the distractions and the headlines that he wanted. He has furthered the sell out streak at least to this point. They got through all of their 100 year marketing ******** deals probably not with the success they had wanted. But, then again, how many bricks and bats do you have to sell at $150.00 a pop to succeed anyway. So LL almost pulled it off....almost. Even he could not and likely did not envision this "team" failing so spectacularly, so completely. While the media is now totally focused on V it is because there is really so little left worth focusing on with regard to the 2012 team and season itself. Notice that LL will be missing the Thursday date he has kept with WEEI and that he had indicated he really had grown to appreciate. Sure LL, just keep pumping the ******** LL.

The self-congratulatory, overly important Boston media strikes again. You could easily make the case that V has been lost in his role as Manager of the Sox. Bringing in a guy ten years out of a role in any dugout was doomed from the start...a pure PR move that has been exposed for what it was. However, now V must go not for the many real baseball associated reasons and issues that have arisen this year but because of the way V responded to being baited on WEEI's Big Show. While they have had an opportunity to talk baseball with Boston's Manager all season long for the most part they have simply tried to goad him into just the sort of behavior he exhibited yesterday on the air. How was V to have responded when asked if he has "checked out" if he is "trying to get fired". So this morning...today....V must go because of his behavior in the EEI interview. I can take just about anything and have just about seen everything that the Boston media is capable of but when they call for a guys job because of how he reacted in an environment like that EEI interview to me says more about the Boston media than it says about V or the Red Sox.

I am so sick of seeing those camera shots of Lackey's big ugly mug hanging over the dugout railing, a useless lump. Maybe our reward for enduring his endless insistence on traveling with the team to do nothing apparently but lumber up to the clubhouse buffet to fill his face and guzzle a few post game beers will be an actual pitcher again some day. Leave him home and feed some poor homeless dude each game. Maybe he will come back and be fantastic. Lately the Sox simply don't seem to have that sort of break headed their way but maybe.....just maybe

It is the way they are playing for the most part that bothers me. No joy in their game whatsoever. They do seem to blend a bit better as a team with Ross taking on more responsibility in the middle of the lineup than anybody including myself ever expected. Obviously there is no doubt that Ortiz would slot right into this lineup without a problem. If Ells can't get on base more than he does, that is a problem. I don't like anything he is doing and to be honest did not like what he was doing for the brief period before he was injured this season. One of my overarching impressions of Ells now having watched him for awhile is that he is a careless ballplayer. He does not seem to have a sense for what the team really needs from him and when it needs it. He feigns a bunt so many times yet when the team really needs one he can't lay one down. There are times when I am OK with him careening into walls and times when not. There are times when I am OK with a somewhat reckless base running technique and times not. His injuries seem to come out of left field. The game is just sort of rolling along, not at a particularly critical period and suddenly Ellls is on the ground and not getting up. How many times over his entire career has he made a play that we thought memorable? In truth....not very often. I am having difficulty convincing myself that Ells is actually a prime time player and as I said earlier tonight, these days when I seem him trotting around from dugout to batters box down the first base line and invariably back to dugout, I see dollar bills trailing off of him as he trots while Boras pulls his hair out by the roots. Maybe in part Ells represents one of the major flaws in the Sox player analysis. They seem to become enamored with players that just are not really doing much that translates into wins. I really don't care much what a player is doing if he is not contributing to wins. My enduring memory of AGons will be that while he is a terrific ballplayer, I have seen more exciting tiddlywinks matches than watching Agons play baseball because he rarely seems to be around in the most critical moments of a game. Agons....zzzzzzzz.....Crawford.....zzzzzzzzz.......Ells.....?????????

Talk about play around 1st...that was a hell of a play by Loney over there.

The guy that really surprised me when he made the transition to 1st was Yaz. He did not have the prototypical 1st baseman body. Yaz was never really that big a guy. Ya' figured his footwork would suffer around 1st because it was not something he had been doing. He actually did pretty well over there. Never really embarrassed himself and actually made some pretty good plays over there. Saved more bad throws over there than I ever thought he would.

At least Ells has some stubble going tonight. He would do well to look a little grimier. I am getting tired of seeing Mr. Fancy Pants trotting up to the plate...dribbling the ball nowhere and trotting back to the dugout. At least grow a little stubble and look like your pissed off and have started hard drinkin' in an effort to drown your tale of woe.

Lester doing Ford truck commercials...probably accounting for a drop off in Ford truck sales in New England.

It was pretty funny but at the same time V hit the nail on the head when he said "Makes pretty good radio doesn't it". I would rather see them ask V real questions as opposed to just goading him. The exact question that set him off was "are you trying to get fired bobby?". How the hell is he supposed to answer that question? Yes I am trying to get fired. Ask him something about his strategy in a game....how he is handling particular pitching situations or other situations. Don't just set him off for purposes of setting him off....Ordway tried later to legitimize what he was doing hiding behind what had "been opined" in other media outlets but that is ********. This is the Manager of the Red Sox and a guy that comes on that show once per week and frankly all Ordway has done every week has been to try to goad V to go to a place where V could not go if he wanted to.

Nice pitch Cook you clown.

Cook being abused by the Mariners...what a joke. He is throwing High School FB's right now. In fact I have seen better FB's in High School.

Ells looks even more disinterested than most of them and he really is watching dollar bills flying off of him every time he trots down to first watching the ball go nowhere and then trots back to the dugout. I have got to believe Boras is just beside himself.

Jesus Ells just looks awful lately. Boras must be pulling his hair out. Probably want to get a bat and beat Ells to a pulp with it.

Ross could very easily turn into the Sox player you see in a sound bite after every game next year. Pedey really does not want that job and I don't blame him.