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I don't get it either. What is going to be different about Crawford on Monday that makes it worthwhile for him to miss being in these two games? These guys seem to over-think everything to the wrong answer. If Crawford is going to hit on Monday he is going to hit today....in fact the best thing for him might be to start his return in a park where he is comfortable playing. Between the players, upper management, the FO and its coaches at some point you begin to wonder if there is just to much weight going the wrong way and regardless of how much good stuff you throw into the mix there is just to much going the wrong way. Oh well this is why they play the games.

The way Aviles is hitting I think I would definitely go with Aviles at home against LH pitchers but would be selective about which RF pitchers I would play him against even in Fenway. RH pitchers are just eating him up these days.

I don't believe they will be sellers either. I think they will make some fairly minor deals and LL will call that having been "aggressive" at the trade deadline. If a major deal goes down I will be surprised......I think there is probably a small chance that the Sox will try to rid themselves of some of their problem children and end up in a big deal because of it....I can believe that could happen.......but I think option 1 is more likely....a deal or more than one relatively minor to mid-level deal that allows LL to say they were aggressive at the deadline. The Sox have players that are blocked, players that are the same assets with different numbers on the their backs and thus have the makings of some minor to midlevel deals. It will be fun watching LL tell us how significant those deals are once they happen.....by the time he is done, they will be BLOCKBUSTERS.

The author lost all of his credibility for me when he got to the last paragraph. While V has not been perfect by a long shot and everybody here knows I am not and have not been a V guy from day 1, the complaints leveled at V in that piece are just kooky and his solution is equally kooky.

To be honest, I just don't care anymore what the players don't like....about this manager, the last manager, the next manager....I just don't care. For the most part they have played like s***....a fair number of them have been unprofessional in their demeanor and in some cases even in their handling of day in, day out, game in game out situations. Until they play better, I just don't care what they think about the manager. You underperform, you usually don't get things the way you want them at least not immediately. As I said earlier, maybe the folks that said this would not be straightened out until after a major house cleaning (I cannot take credit for being in that camp) were right after all. I can't even credit some of these players for common sense at this point. Although Management did castrate V early there was no chance of Management firing the Manager within a couple months of hiring him. So given that, what were some of these players dooming themselves and us to in carrying this s*** this far? Lets have another season of visible discord, disharmony, disunity and disfunction? If you want to do that as a player....fine give back half the money and jerk off for the season. Oh no we aren't going to do that are we! We are going to jerk off but we are not givin' back any of the money. I will here make the same disclaimer that I have been making recently. I have to take what I see in the media with a grain of salt. However much of what we see now are things we can see with our own eyes or can hear directly from the players since they seem quite ready to spout off whenever they want to and then run and hide behind "leave us alone" when they don't want to. I may regain interest in the players and their various and sundry peeves and problems once they start playing somewhere close to their potential.

I am not sure Management would have given a BC choice more than two years either even if that meant the BC choice would not take the job and they would not have given a first time manager a big money deal so at least as it relates to that particular aspect of a manager hire, we likely would have ended up in the same spot......what a mess. I do think this particular mess is one that both Management and the players asked for and got in spades.

Geez could Sox Management engage in more double speak. I noticed at the bottom of the article E1 posted a link for that one of the reasons given for Tito's dismissal was that his communication with players in general shrunk down to communication with only a few like Pedroia...so they let Tito go in part because he was not communicating enough with his players and then hire a manager known to keep a distance between himself and his players??? More ********....what else is new.

Trying to acquire pitching even without the leadership mantle is inherently costly at the trade deadline. That will be doubly true this year with other teams able to look at their performance to date and feel it justifies the investment. I would be willing to accept them bringing in a 2 that pitches like a 2 if the cost is low as I simply do not think it will bear any fruit this year for the reasons stated above. Without resolving the leadership issues the pitchers we already have are not going to come around in my view and 1 more arm becomes just that, one more arm, not a means to an end for this year. I would have bought into and in fact did buy into the notion that one more arm without a leadership head attached to it might have done something before the leadership hole for the starting pitchers became an abyss, not just a small tear. If they can get somebody without touching any of the prime prospects then fine....if not, I would wait till next year and either pursue an Ace or pursue an arm or pursue both hoping to land one or the other.

I don't think V overplayed his hand as much as he did not understand Sox management's ability to hire him under one set of dynamics and just as quickly abandon him at the drop of a hat. They hired him and then buried him at the earliest opportunity. Hard for me to cull out a small group of players last year as culprits when at the end Tito himself claimed to have lost the ability to get the most out of the team. By his own admission, he lost their ear. I would be willing to bet that nobody stepped forward to help Tito when he really was trying to take his last shots at rallying the troops. I would not expect Pedey to have done it cause that is not his style. Frankly I think Ortiz takes this team leadership thing as an on again off again thing hoping that it helps his cause when he is negotiating for money but not something he takes seriously either. Seemingly nobody stepped forward to help Tito when he needed it most and like Tito's style as a manager or not, that sucks as much or more than V not getting a fair shake this year. So while only some of the players might have been visible, vocal clubhouse issues, I would have to guess that none of them stepped forward to help their manager or help themselves when they needed it most last year. That is pretty damning but I just don't see how you can view it any other way based on the information that everybody has acknowledged at this point. So if you are in management...what do you do next? Do you bring in somebody else for them to steamroll, somebody that they won't even help even if it is in their best interests to help him? Do you bring in somebody that you think will have an impact and a catalyst for change? I would suggest that they did the worst thing they could have possibly done. They brought in somebody under the guise of change without having the intestinal fortitude to back him, turning that entire effort into a sham. Heck if they wanted this to be a sham they should have let V in on it. Clearly V could have played along. Seems to me he has played along since being publicly castrated by management months ago. They could have just as easily have brought him into their confidence instead of laying him out in public as a means of letting him know this was a sham to begin with. In fact Management not the players but Management might have had their cake and eaten it to if they had just brought V in on the PR stunt. They may well have a decent manager in V and clearly he has pulled in his horns since being publicly disrobed by management early on. As for whether somebody more comfortable being the kind of manager Tito was without having to live outside his own skin a bit would be better for this team is something we may never know. I still don't think V has been given a fair shake either by Management or the players and I don't think Tito got a fair shake from either Management or the players as well.

I think you have hit on it E. The culture of the team is leaning all the other way. In my view, the team was laying in wait for V from day one because they were unwilling to accept responsibility for having stabbed Tito right in the back. They wanted to have their cake and eat it to. They wanted to take a players manager....maybe the ultimate players manager, use him as a rag doll, and after tossing him under the bus and running him over with it had the audacity to be ready to launch into any manager upper management brought in suggestive of a change of culture. In my view the early incidents were in the cards from the very beginning because the players wanted it that way. In my V view does not deserve to be treated unfairly if that is actually what is happening. I say if because I have grown weary of the media blowing things out of proportion and tend to take everything with a grain of salt. That said based on what I can see from the outside looking in, it does look like V is not getting a fair shot from anybody and I think it sucks. At some point we may have to acknowledge that the folks that thought the whole miserable bunch had to go may well have been right, even if that meant that some of our favorite babies got thrown out with the bathwater.

Paps was actually one of the things that was right at the heart of the matter in the offseason E. My argument about Paps was that you had to be a hell of a ball club to think you had your ducks so lined up that you could invest four years at $11 per year in a guy to come in and pitch the 9th inning for you. The Phils clearly thought they had their ducks in a row such that paying a premium price for a closer made sense. My point in the offseason was that I did not think the Sox looked anything like a team that could ignore other needs and pour that kind of money into a closer. I think the other thing overarching the discussion of Paps and the kind of money the Phils gave him is whether a closer is ever worth that kind of money, any closer not names Rivera anyway. I would suggest that it is always crazy to give a closer the kind of money the Phils gave Paps. However I would also go back to the comment I made at the top....you would have to be one hell of a ball club to think you could afford to give that kind of money to a closer.

E1, I would have agreed with you at one point. I commented at the start of the season that we really did not have any leadership on the rotation but we had a 2 a 2 a 3 a 4 and maybe a 5. I guess I would concede that maybe another 2 that pitched like a 2 would have a positive impact this season but in truth this rotation needs a leader, someone that a) wants the job and can do the job. Lester could not do the job, can't do the job and will likely never be successful in that position. As much as he protests that he is a "full grown man" he is in fact an overgrown child. That is OK. As long as he pitches OK, I have no problem with his inability to fit into a leadership role. I even don't mind his protestations that he is not a follower. It just does not matter as long as we do not saddle him with the actual responsibility of leading that rotation. I don't want to hear about his beating cancer as proof of his toughness and leadership potential. You want to see people beating cancer with courage. Go visit Children's Hospital. Beckett does not make any bones about not wanting the job. Heck I don't think he wants to be here at all, never mind lead here. In truth the leadership vacuum in that rotation is what allows idiots like Lackey to have so much influence. It is what allows Beckett to have undo influence and allows him to twist that place in knots if he wants to. Ultimately it is what allows Lester to feel like he can go off and have one of his little temper tantrums anytime he wants to. I am tired of people making excuses for that sort of s*** suggesting that he is entitled to his outbursts because some umpire missed a call or some player playing behind him missed a play or because he did not get run support. That is ********...just ********. If anybody thinks being allowed to go off like that is actually good for Lester, they are wrong. It is not good for him at all. That rotation desperately needs a leader. Somebody to look up to...somebody they can look to so that they can see how they should react to bad calls, how they should react to a bad play behind them, how they should react to any number of things. They clearly need somebody that sets an example for how to prepare for your starts because in truth they don't have anybody worth a crap in that regard either. So maybe they can get away with somebody that is just another pitcher that pitches like a 2 but I am afraid that with as much of a leadership vacuum as exists in that rotation, it just won't matter because the other guys around the new guy are not, IMO going to pitch to their career numbers, are not going to come around because they have to much going against them....much of it of their own making but to much none the less. Beckett is not going to come around because he is just not interested in coming around and ends up messing around for an inning or two before he finally settles in. Lester is not going to come around because he simply has lost focus and also does not come out prepared to pitch when his day comes up in the rotation. This whole story about V and McClure trying to figure this out makes me laugh. These guys are not ready to pitch on their given day. They are not doing their homework, they are not preparing themselves physically and the result is these first inning blowups. There is no mystery to why pitchers pitch poorly in the early innings. Early innings are tough for starters to begin with but if you are not prepared, physically and mentally you get what we get...runs aplenty. Again for me this is a matter of leadership. Beckett know how to prepare for starts but he just does not give a s*** anymore. Lester probably once did it out of fear of his pitching coach but that guy is gone and there is nobody in the current rotation for him or any other starter to point to in that regard. We should just be happy that he is still going to give us innings this year as I suspect that will be the one place that he will once again meet his career numbers. Buch will likely pitch better than the other two guys when he is out there but Buch is clearly still somebody that you really can't trust to go a whole season without missing starts. Does not matter to me that it is a different reason every time just like it does not matter to me that it is a different reason for Bailey every time. So yes E1 I might have agreed with you at one point but now I fear that another arm in that rotation will be a waste of prospects if we have to give prospects for him unless the head attached to that arm is a leaders head and I just don't think you can get that at the trading deadline.

That is really what I would expect BC to say. Gotta' make an effort to keep those fanny's in those seats don't we? They would not be sellers to any great degree because it is impractical to be at this point. The real test is whether they will be buyers and I doubt you will see much of that going into the deadline. I do expect there is a chance that the Sox will be one of the teams playing with some secondary level trades but I don't expect any big acquisitions.

So just wondering Spitball, are you thinking most of these trades will be between the WC contenders and will hence be trades that are trying to fit players better than they fit into their current teams????? like "needs change of scenery" trades that are also trying to match up players to team needs so that a team with an abundance of one thing trades off some of their abundance and in return gets an asset that helps bolster them where they are weak?

Boy now I am really conflicted on Crawford's returning. Maybe Crawford can soft toss it for most of his throws back to the infield and only really stress the arm when there is a play that might justify it. It is almost not worth it for him to push the arm by trying to make hard throws from the outfield. It is really not as easy as just dealing with the pain. Sometimes you just don't have any control over where the ball is going even if you are willing to deal with the pain. You end up looking down to see if your arm is actually laying there on the ground somewhere realizing that you just threw the ball into the box seats running down the 3rd base line. If things go according to Murphy's Law, Crawford will come back swinging a hot bat and immediately blow out his elbow. Anyway thanks for posting up that piece SFF.

Maybe Crawford is running carefully because of the groin pull. If you make an effort to protect that particular injury, your running stride could end up looking.....well....odd for lack of a better word. I think he is going to end up playing this year....mainly because he wants to play. Is it the right thing to do? Hell i don't know anymore. I give up....let him play....see what happens.....If we only had not pissed away so many games in the first half and looked do God awful doing it I would look forward to the 2nd half with something more than hope. those last few games on the west coast followed by the Yankmes series sucked the life right out of me and I am on life support at this point.

I do think it is worth a shot for the Sox to have CC play now. He wants to play. If your argument against is what can we gain from it, then what can it hurt is also valid, unless any time from the 2013 season is also in jeopardy. Frankly so few of these timing things have fallen our way that it is the one thing that gives me pause. Beyond that....what can it hurt and it may help. I still think the imagery associated with CC soft tossing the ball into SS while opponent runners are blissfully running around the bases might be tough...and it might even be tough on CC if the fans just don't get it. If he soft tosses to SS one inning and comes up and strikes out the next in the middle of a not so sporty offensive return to Fenway will that just become even more pressure on him. Lets face it, he does not respond well to that sort of pressure. We have already seen that. One reason I posted during spring training that I wanted CC to come back under the best possible circumstances for him to succeed was for that exact reason. Much water has gone over the dam since then but unfortunately now he is coming back under way less than optimal circumstances. What the hell though....at this point to me it is just another facet of the 2012 season and I would rather see it and see what happens than not.

Yea I think I would agree with that Elk, on all points. I would add that Lackey is no help either. Beckett and Lackey may have been something of a one-two punch to the overall mental well being of the rotation guys. Like I said in a different thread, I don't know you could have ended up with so many Texas guys in the rotation at the same time. But I have had about all I can take of the Marlboro man in cleats thing.

Well I still think trading Lester at this point makes very little sense. I do wish he would not wear his emotions on his sleeve so much on his start days. It just feeds the beast of the Boston media. I just have not seen anything that would suggest trading Lester off a team that needs pitching is a good move. As I mentioned in an earlier thread I don't think Lester is showing any signs of slacking off the innings totals he normally generates for a season and that says a lot, pitching in the AL East and pitching in Boston. The whole team is a huge disappointment across multiple fronts and I am one that does not believe they will turn things around this year. But I don't see how it makes sense to trade fairly consistent starting pitching off a team that is thin and weak at starting pitching. Beckett is a different story. I do believe Beckett wants out of here. Maybe he wants back to Texas more than he wants outta' here. I don' know but his innings total is not likely to be that great by year end and innings he will have given us will not be that great either.

Though I have a hard time justifying trading Lester at this point I guess I should have qualified that by saying Lester is not on some sort of protected list at least not one I would make. If the Sox could get a deal that favored them, then depending on who is coming back, I would not suggest that all trades involving Lester be off limits.

Well the only way I think you can have a sustainable rotation that is not overpriced is the grow it....instead of trading pitching prospects away much like the Rays have done. Nice to have a couple years when you are not picking at the bottom of rounds but that is not in my view as important as picking well and then not trading away those pitching pieces before you get to develop them. As for the Meathead part, seems to me that the meathead part tends to follow the money part. So I would be less inclined to big money FA pitching signings unless I felt very comfortable with the head that happened to rest above the arm, something that the Sox seem to ignore regularly whether the FA is a pitcher or a position player. I don't know how the Sox became so enamored with pitchers from Texas. While I don't have anything against Texas this whole Marlboro man in cleats thing is starting to wear me out. Then again when we diversify, do we have to go all the way to Japan to do it?

Well if Lester does not have an issue with playing here then that is one less complication thank God. I do think the Sox could use a good pitching coach, somebody that the pitchers actually respect and listen to , even if it is somebody they fear, like the last good pitching coach they had around here.

I would not trade Lester although now Gammons is talking about Lester not being happy in Boston and I don't know what that might really mean. I do however think that the Sox have had a really bad run of pitching coaches including the current pitching coach.

Thanks for the clarification...designated was how it was characterized initially and then when I saw Granderson and Sabathia go out to "talk" to Cano's dad on the mound I thought "oh brother, this thing really is a fiasco."

Ya' but that is the other end of the spectrum. I think they can in fact refuse to support the player who wants the surgery at a particular point although it likely opens them up to a tremendous amount of potential liability to do that, depending on the result, the age of the player, all sorts of things If the player does not want the surgery I don't think the team can do anything to force it on him at a particular point in time. They cannot void his contract, they cannot dock his pay. I don't there is anything they can really do.