jung

The only wild assed possible situation where you would ever see Tito back here would be if FSG was long gone and hard to find.

They really are something of an organizational mess. Did not get here overnight. Probably won't be solved overnight either.

In the case of Beckett and Lester their track records simply don't matter at this point....possibly a permanent issue for Beckett while I am inclined to think temporary for Lester. Beckett is making the classic transition away from being a power pitcher. The basis for his career numbers and for the most part his talent relates to being a power pitcher. However his velo continues to slide and is not coming back and his K/9 is not going back to where it was either. Players age, players change, especially true for pitchers. Beckett has had what I would call limited success in this transition so far with the blowup inning becoming the most telling element of his lack of success. The blowup inning began leaking into his game last year and continues this year only now occurring earlier in games and with more frequency. With his velo down where it is now he tends to lose his control and neither regains it for the course of an entire inning while no longer having the velo to blow guys away. As a result he cannot get out of innings without giving up multiple runs once he starts down this path. Lester on the other hand has developed mechanical problems that I think he can lick eventually with the right help. I don't think he will come around this year but I believe he CAN do it. So I do think Lester's latent "talent" is relevant to his issues while I think not in the case of Beckett who is really trying to remake himself as a 91-92 mph FB pitcher. The Sox may buy as long as it is somebody they can control for years (plural) but why would you at a point in time when the cost will be prohibitively high ala' competing with teams acquiring players to make late season runs?

Beckett is a 10/5 guy and who knows where he will go outside of Texas where Ryan has apparently already said he is not interested. Beckett's real issue is that he is transitioning away from being a power pitcher out of necessity and simply not fairing to well so far or I guess I should say that he has succeeded to a point but has not gotten past where he is today which is a far cry from what he probably needs to be if he wants to ever be more than a 2 or a 3 depending on where he is pitching.

Well I do think that Felix has performed very well as the 4 in the rotation. 5 turned out to be a bit of a problem though and exacerbated the problems with 1,2 and 3. While Beckett's career numbers are much better than his numbers this year, he began a transition away from being a power pitcher in 2011, a necessary transition because he no longer has the velo of a power pitcher and is not going to get it back. His K/9 is not going back to where it was either. Besides the velo continuing to slide and the K/9 not improving the other item that reared its ugly head in 2011 for Beckett was the blowup inning. His really poor starts were never defined by multiple 1 and 2 run innings but one inning at 3 runs or better, generally somewhere in the middle of the game. His blowup innings would arise because he would lose control and could neither blow guys away nor regain control to get out of the inning without giving up multiple runs. Beckett won 13 last year but the Sox went on to win 7 more games he started without him involved in the decision....an interesting stat. So while clearly being the best rotation guy for the Sox in 2011, the early signs were there that he could easily be in trouble this year. He was clearly attempting to transition and not quite succeeding. Once again this year Beckett's poor games can be described in terms of the blowup inning. The difference is that this year his blowup inning is coming earlier in games and he is being left in long enough to generally give up even more runs beyond that or leaves runners on base that the bullpen does not dispense with leaving him with more adds to his ERA. I am no longer confident that Beckett will successfully make this transition beyond where he is now as I question his commitment to the work he still needs to do to get it done. Lester suffers from the lack of a true leader of the rotation on this staff. To me Jon Lester will always be a guy that needs a staff leader...someone that tows him along with regard to the work needed to stay competitive and sharp and not slide into bad habits. He needs a good pitching coach as well. His slide into these mechanical issues are something he has battled now for longer than this year and has not worked out of them yet. It took tremendous concentration for him to stay on track Saturday night and still he slide into periods where he would open up, fall behind and start to get tagged, especially noticeable from the stretch. I believe with the right help he can and will work this out but I also think it will be next year before he does. I think Buch has made tremendous strides back to health and solid pitching and baring injury will end the year the star of the staff.

They have some good pieces but don't have a team and that is the real problem. Clearly within that mix the starting pitching is the biggest issue. Moving Beckett is such an issue....but whether they move him or not they still need a top of the rotation guy. If they are able to get a top of the rotation guy, and Lester can come around in the off season, the way Buch is going maybe their starting pitching issues can be turned around. I still want Beckett gone cause the combined weight of Lackey and Beckett is crushing and Lackey is not going anywhere. However if you have a real deal #1 who is a leader in every sense maybe even the combined weight of Beckett and Lackey can be mitigated to enough of a degree. Beyond that, this "team" does not help each other. The way it is constructed forces its deficiencies to have an additive effect. I almost don't care what it takes, they have to do a better job at run prevention. At this point I would keep Ortiz cause he has proven he can hit and is in fact the best hitter the Sox have. Keeping Ortiz gives them a luxury I think allowing them to at least be strong up the middle defensively. They can afford to have a Ciriaco at SS or even an Iggy at SS. In point of fact, I don't think they can afford not to have a really good defensive SS. Their pitching will still likely have some question marks and as debilitating as pitching giving up early runs is to the offense, the defense giving the opposition extra outs is very debilitating to the pitching staff. Give me a plus defensive SS at least...somebody that not only makes all the plays he should make but also occasionally makes plays he has no business making....plays that bail his pitcher and his team out. Give me a SS that the staff is thankful to have. At no other position in baseball is that more possible than at SS. Then at catcher keep Shop and bring up Lavs. Here I am speaking out of turn because I have seen nothing of Lavs since he left here last year. I guess I would reserve judgement on this one hoping that he comes up in September and we can see what he has. Assuming he is at least as good as Salty defensively, I would like Shop and Lavs to be our catchers next year. Salty is another guy that under the right circumstances might bring us something in return. If Iggy is the SS, Ciriaco becomes our utility infielder. Punto and Aviles are gone. Unless somebody gives me a deal I have to take on Ells, just keep him until his contract runs out and let nature and Boris take their course. Bradley can't be far off by 2014 anyway. Try to move Crawford if possible but I don't think there is a way to make it happen. We keep hoping to pull something off with the Marlins but I think they want to dump salary so all of these Rayes for Crawford deals and Hamram for Crawford deals don't work cause I don't think the Marlins think much of Crawford's play, this injury issue with Crawford has gotten totally out of hand, the result being I just think they want the Sox to take to much Salary on Crawford. If somebody wants to do a deal for Ross that rewards me for being a seller in a sellers market I do it. If not I would be happy to have Ross next year assuming I can sign him.

Can you really blame BC though? He is no more than a glorified errand boy. We all knew that V was LL's choice, LL's guy. Where was LL to rein in BC and support the Manager when the Youk/V mess came up? Why didn't LL force the organization to support V as opposed to cutting the legs out from under him? While we know BC wanted a different choice we also know that LL runs the Red Sox and LL wanted V. or.... If in fact LL really wanted V as a means of creating the illusion of doing something to bring the players in line then why didn't they just let V in on the plan right from the start? V is not a complete idiot. If they had just told V exactly what they expected of him, V would likely not have gone after Youk publicly like that. It should be clear to everybody that V can tone it down as he has toned it down since then. Would it not have been better for everybody if they just set expectations for V before hand instead of after the fact when it took a public disrobing? I would give more of the blame here to LL and in part JH.

I was just watching the rerun of the Baseball show on Comcast. This show is from yesterday (Saturday). I had not heard about Pedroia talking about the need for Crawford and Ells to see more pitches until viewing this show. Apparently Pedey did not "go" to the media but Buckley asked him about something...maybe he had seen Pedey showing some frustration. We saw Pedey actively talking to Lester not last night but the start before that. So it does look like Pedey is taking a more active role. The Baseball Show crew was debating whether Pedey should have answered any questions about comments made to Crawford and Ells. You would knock me over with a feather if Pedey did not talk to the players directly before answering any questions from the media and the degree to which certain guys just go up there hackin' away has been an issue for me for a long time now. I think Ells has been somewhat more selective than Crawford has been. Crawford has still just been meat to pitches low and outside. He just cannot lay off of them, seemingly regardless of how far off the plate. He just keeps reachin' out there and reachin' out there farther and farther. His new stance does seem to allow him to get to more of them and maybe do more with pitches that are truly within his reach. However it does not appear to have helped him see those pitches any better. I am actually happy to hear about Pedey taking on some of the bad hitting habits some of these guys are getting into. Maybe that also means he is trying to help WMB with his insistence on trying to pull low and outside pitches.

I think the Marlins looked at Crawford and just said no. Wouldn't you have all things considered. Not only is Crawford playing poorly but his string of injuries has now become endless. If I were a GM I would not accommodate the Sox in any way. If they made it a completely one sided deal I "might" be willing to take Crawford off their hands while he is still in this almost able to play mode. I suspect that no matter what the Sox did, the Marlins would have found any deal that allowed them to dump salary the way they dumped it on LA more attractive than anything the Sox could come up with.

Excellent Bellhorn, you have identified Red Sox physics which I just described in another thread. s*** does not even flow downhill in Boston...gravity does not even apply here where s*** flows in circles.

We are all cranky. It happens....just so much of this anybody can take. The Sox from top to bottom are so dead set it seems on ripping us today...stinging us tomorrow and bitting us the next day. They are leaving us with nothing this time...stripping us right to the bone. Think you have a baseball team? No, you have an oddly and poorly matched collection of malcontents combined with guys to young to know better wondering if this is really what a career in baseball amounts to with an occasional solid sort thrown in for a little variety. Apparently the older guys can't squeeze their own everyday wants and desires enough to the sidelines to figure out who is pitching against them today cause they don't go to the plate with any different idea from one day to the next each at bat taking on a sameness that you would think one had to work at to perfect. The younger guys are the guys I really feel for as they have another year of wondering what in Gods name this really is. Think you have a FO that can right the ship? No, you have the left overs from TheoWorld, that fantasy land where you don't pay for your mistakes but just keep making the same one over and over and over again. Some would call that a nightmare but I guess if you can get paid thousands of dollars to do it and then bump off to a new city promotion in hand it is more like a lottery ticket that keeps hitting every week. Heck do the same thing enough times badly and it looks like the right thing to do after awhile. BC probably spends all his time trying to figure out how to play the same parlay. Think you have an ownership and upper management group that will rip though this facade and make the wrongs right? No, you have a bunch of carpetbaggers intent on using the good name of the Boston Red Sox to ply their wares on an unsuspecting and ever hopeful clientele .....bats, balls, bricks hell you name it we will slap the Red Sox logo across the front of it and treble the price or we will outfit our players in it for one game or one season or something in between prompting you to buy it to keep your collection whole and current. What is next...Sox of red plaid....sure lets do plaid...we have not had that one yet. The Boston Red Sox have even found a way to defy gravity. Here in Boston s*** does not even roll downhill. s*** flows in circles, the players to the front office, from the front office to the owners, and from the owners to the fans and back around again the circle keeps feeding itself and feeding on itself at the same time. Einstein would be proud...must be all these universities in close proximity.

Clearly the Sox have to do something to satisfy the needs of their PR machine. Heck maybe doing a deal that is completely devoid of risk, devoid of potential, utterly and completely milk toast white bread blah is as hard to pull off as making one that actually means something. I mean it takes real talent to identify the totally bland and then spin it into the magnificently grandiose. Should be fun watching them pump up this balloon, sending it aloft then watching the media goons divide down party lines of "how gullible do they think we are" vs. "genius...sheer genius".

Avlies is a defensive butcher at SS. The Sox should either use Ciriaco there or bring up Iggy because Aviles simply gives the opponent to many extra outs at SS constantly messing up DP opportunities or making outright errors or simply not getting anywhere near a ball to his right that an average SS would get to. Aviles generally cannot make a crossover step going right after a ground ball without losing his balance which is why he has no range going right. The first Yankee game in the current series was a great example of how inept Aviles is at SS but he has really been this bad all season. Aviles is no longer hitting worth a damn and simply is no everyday SS. Get him outta' there so we are no longer treated to his butchery and Sox 3rd basemen and outfielders aren't left with the risk of Aviles running over them in his reckless pursuit of pop flies in the outfield. The Sox have been spared at least two catastrophic outfield collisions in the last 5 weeks mainly because others have pulled up and gotten out of the way instead of allowing Aviles to just plow into them full bore which he surely would have done since he had no idea where they were as he was racing headlong into them. Thankfully, they saw him coming. He never pulled up either time and would have devastated either Nava or WMB depending on which one he plowed into.

I should have quoted what I was responding to in the last post...it would have at least made more sense. Sorry about that.

One game won't change anything.....As it is what was this really....another Slugfest Red Sox win....so far that is still the only kind of baseball game the Sox have any chance to win.

Boy people used to say no lead is safe in Fenway....this place is a way bigger joke than Fenway ever was....pop fly balls are home runs.....things that might barely be out if at all elsewhere are five and ten rows back here even in the power alleys! Anything hit in the air has got a chance to get out unless it is truly is a simple pop up that barely makes the outfield grass.

Sweeney...why Sweeney here

I have tried to give V the benefit of the doubt but he does not deserve it. He does not ever seem to take advantage of what his eyes should be telling him. Lets see I have two lefties in a row and my RH pitcher is just leaving pitch after pitch over the plate in one of the shortest RF porch parks in baseball.

Nice job V....go ahead leave him in there for Tex after Granderson almost beat you. Unbelievable..... Oh so now Padilla is coming out....excellent

Since Buck and McCarver are here it should be the Fox national telecast right...so Fox I guess

Oh Christ....Albers...can we just get his home run pitch over with when there is nobody on base?

Nice come back Jon....that was a great inning all things considered.

I think it will take an offseason for him to get back...Lester CAN do it I think but this is not going to solve itself between starts.

Look at how Lester is finishing.

To be honest I am a bit surprised lester has not blown out his shoulder pitching this way