jung

I don't think a team can force a player into surgery if he wants to try to play. I actually think all they can do is have the discussion with him if they think he should have it done now but that is about it. It does put the Sox in a difficult spot. If CC wants to rejoin the team at this point the PR would be deadly if they refused to let him do so. If he is then stuck soft tossing from left field, the Sox will have to decide if soft tossing from left is a tradeoff worth making against his hitting. Guess they will just have to wait and see. It really just turns out to be another unenviable position for the Sox to be in with regard to the whole CC mess.

Plenty of mocking has gone on from both sides of the argument. I am not complaining for myself. I don't think I have been subjected to bards all that venomous but it has gotten pretty close once or twice and I have held my tongue. To be honest, from what I have seen, those that have come to this forum expressing their opinion all be it, none to optimistic based on what they have seen have been mocked quite a bit and for the most part because they have not genuflected to the notion that "anything can happen" as if the notion that anything can happen is some sort of revelation and has the power to eliminate discussion along a less optimistic course. Those expressing a less optimistic view have often met demands that they present statistical evidence supporting their lack of optimism and when they do they are confronted with the same intolerance suspended within the same "anything can happen" logic path. Seems to me they have been on balance more tolerant than some in the anything can happen camp but regrettably there has been some degree of intolerance both ways. In some instances, I have seen some from the anything can happen camp use fairly sharp, critical and to some extent disturbing language to describe some forum members while in the same breadth claiming that said forum members make this an unpleasant place to come on occasion because their opinion and their viewpoint are none to rosy. I know, at times, the view that things are pretty bad has been expressed pretty stridently. I don't think I have been strident but I think I recognize it when I see it and some of the comments fall into that category IMO. I have a suggestion though for those in the anything can happen camp. Start an anything can happen thread and ask that anybody with a view that the anything can happen view while valid does not really have a foundation in anything more substantive than chaos theory (If a butterfly flaps its wings in Indonesia, the Red Sox make the post season sort of thing) simply not post in that thread. I can offer you an iron clad guarantee that if I saw such a thread with that request, I would not post in that thread. Then when it gets to unpleasant in the general TalkSox forum, folks from the anything can happen camp can go to that thread and blissfully anything can happen themselves to their hearts content. I am not suggesting that they should not be allowed to continue to forward the anything can happen view in the general forum. That is what this post is about. All opinions should be welcome whether optimistic or less than optimistic as long as they are pure and free of an agenda. I am suggesting that the name calling and the derogatory comments directed against those that are not in the anything can happen camp cease. Because in truth it is the name calling and personal attacks that I think makes it unpleasant around here, not people deciding that they are not going to genuflect to the notion that anything can happen.

I think CC will find a way to avoid TJ at least till the end of this season. However the injury is there. So he will not be able to throw normally without inducing pain that may send him to the sidelines for the remainder of the season. So I do think he will end up soft tossing the ball back into the infield. So I suspect that CC shoving his foot in a lot of mouths around here will be a stretch. He will have to hit a ton to make us forget every time a runner joyfully parades home while CC soft tosses to SS. In fact he will have to hit a ton just to make us forget the lost year and half we have gotten out of him so far. If anything I think we will all just be relieved if he just doesn't suck. This whole CC fiasco has been so bad to this point that if he just doesn't suck, that itself would be a pleasant surprise.

Reliable is not a description I would use for any of our starting pitchers this year. I do think in Lester's case he may well get close to his usual innings total for a season and that says something. Just don't think his numbers across those innings will be anything to wright home about.

Garza would make the rotation better. They have pitched so poorly that I just don't think you can assume that the addition of Garza would make it solid. Lester is not happy in Boston....good for him...Boston is not happy with Lester.

I have to take the time to see how hitters are hitting Lester's cutter. Maybe folks think he is throwing it more cause it is getting hit more but I have not looked. I do know there was a stretch where it seemed to e getting hit but I am not sure the stretch I am thinking of would be meaningful over a season of pitching. All of those pitches are segregated at Brooks for sure as SFF suggests. I think the designation for cutter is CF.

As the first of these series against actual ML baseball teams just before the ASB where we lost 3 of 4 should suggest, we look much more like a team that will lose games not gain them. I am so disappointed in the way this organization has functioned and this team has played, I am getting close to the point where some folks appear to already be.....if it can't get better until it gets worse, maybe the getting worse is about to start and might not be a bad thing after all.

I do think that if trying to get to the heart of this particular question Bell, you need a number that represents pitching or maybe run prevention on one side of things and a number that represents run production or offense or hitting on the other side and compare the two as opposed to one number that tries to represent a total team capability to win games.

The guy that really deserves credit was the guy that actually did the work to compile all that data. I was just looking at the charts reading the material and the comments and doing the best I could to report it. So many of the respondents particularly to his revised data said that they would love to see the data for getting to the WS added to winning the WS but nobody was volunteering to do the work. It was an incredible amount of data to sift just for each year and 106 events (WS championships). I suppose you could make the case that since it was regular season data being used, up to the invention of the division rounds of post season play plus the DH and then inter-league play the data he already compiled is just as valid for getting to the WS as winning it. For that period of time there was only winning the pennant which resulted in entry to the WS with no intervening steps and no added complications like DH and inter-league play to consider. So for those years, up to 1995 he would just have to do the work he had done already for one more team. But lets face it, since that is not the ML platform we have now, nobody is going to be nearly as interested in that as seeing the data as it relates to what we have now. So right away that is eight teams instead of one or two at least for all the years from 1995 on if you want to skip 1981 which was sort of an anomaly year. That is way more work than the guy has already done for WS champs even though it is just sixteen years of stuff. Somebody will do it at some point. So many folks are into this stuff at that level and people responded so positively to the work he had done that I have to think somebody will be encouraged to pick up the ball from there.

That whole Riddeck/Kalish thing has me bamboozled which is likely in part why I would be a poor GM. Seems to me that the guy they really could not value properely at the point they traded Riddick was Kalish. As I recall Kalish had not been able to put more than a month here and a month there of play together because of his injuries. Teams seemed at the time more interested in Kalish for his potential and less interested in Riddick because he appeared to be more of a known quantity with folks valuing Kalish and his upside over Riddick and his upside. While Riddick had not been super impressive up here, he had not done anything particularly disconcerting either. I posted here that I though I had to trust that the Sox had seen enough of both of then to know which they wanted to send packing cause myself, I had no idea any longer how to rate Kalish. Had not seen enough of him. Playing Monday Morning Quarterback Devils Advocate, I guess one thing I would say is that clearly Kalish was going to need more time just to shake off the rust and it should have been a given that Reddick would have delivered more this year. In retrospect, was the choice to move Reddick instead of Kalish an early sign that the Sox were really more than anything using this as a bridge year without really being willing to call it a bridge year? For this year there seems no question that you would have wanted Reddick instead of Kalish and while I did not spend a minute thinking about it at the time, I have to think the Sox knew which guy would provide more for this specific year.

I actually think the "expert" ratings listed are pretty forgiving for whatever reason. Maybe they are reluctant to give a poor grade to a specific player but would likely give the team as a whole a poor grade.

Yea while I was dying inside it was interesting watching that first Jeter at bat against Frank. If I am not mistaken Frank got the count to 0-2 very quickly....then 1-2 and you could see him just go off the deep end right there. Every pitch after that was an effort to aim the ball, not throw it. While aiming the ball is not the way to go regardless of what kind of pitcher you are, it is easier to see with a guy like Frank who is really flowing when he has got it goin' on. Lets face it, Sox Management decided to turn this year into a wing and a prayer, tape and bubblegum year. The wing broke (several in fact), the prayers have not been answered to any great degree, the tape and bubblegum dried and did not hold.

C makes a good deal of sense for this team. You would expect a C team to not make the post season but not finish last and that is where I think this team will fall. They could get "lucky" and get in via the WC route but will get slammed in the divisional round I expect. Hey maybe the WC thing for this year works to their benefit. They don't have an Ace. Who cares who they toss out there for the first game of a short series if they got into one. It will be a matter of getting lucky anyway cause the starting pitchers sure as hell are not good.

Tough sledding for the younger less experienced guys. I felt that Frank suddenly realized where he was and who he was pitching to right in the middle of that that first Jeter at bat and was done then and there. Tough spot for guys to just be thrown into particularly because I just don't think McClure offers much support.

You are right Bellhorn and I usually try to point out in the game threads where a hitter has recorded a hit off a good pitch because it is pretty rare in regular season games. I think if you look for it as a fan, you will usually not find more than once on average in each regular season game that a hitter actually records a hit off a well thrown baseball. I can't remember now which game thread it was but I think it was in Lester's game that Arod (wish is was not him) hit a ball thrown low and inside and breaking father down....a pretty tough pitch for a RH hitter from LH pitcher. That was a hitter hitting a well thrown baseball. I think I posted something like Arod earned his money on that one. It is more frequent in post season games where the hitters are generally better and their focus is at such a high level of intensity that they even "see" good pitches at times well enough to record hits from them. But that is a valid point Bellhorn.

I tend to agree with you 700 but then you are confronted with the "there is no statistical data to support that argument" crowd which leads directly to the "we can hit our way" out of having the 21st best pitching overall and 27th best starting pitching in baseball debate or the "our starting pitchers are really not that bad" discussion. This for a bunch of stiffs that lived on easy street for about six weeks of the season barely having to face an actual team of major league hitters and were even for that period beginning to give up runs right in the first inning, burying our own offensive efforts before they could even finish tying their shoe laces. We have watched an endless string of games where our pitchers particularly our starters just lay nothing pitch after nothing pitch right down main street for 1-2 innings until they finally get into a groove for lets say about 2-3 innings and then begin to fade from their exertions for another 2 innings before dragging their sorry asses back to the showers. That now I guess can be argued is a "good outing". Well that compilation of good outings has now landed the starters at 27th in all ML baseball. So I guess we have to accept the fact that 26 other team starters have more good outings than these bums. That includes the teams with weak offenses that just handed us our heads for 5 out of 7 games out West. Sure our lack of timely hitting showed up more in those games and our porous defense showed up more in those games as well but the fact remains that their pitchers controlled our hitters better than our pitchers controlled theirs as weak as they were as team offenses. As I have said before all hitters are mistake hitters. If pitchers were to make no mistakes, hitters would starve to death. Lets not forget the esteemed coach McClure who I guess we can say CAN find his own ass with two hands and a hunting dog because it is always planted right there on the bench.

So I thought the information about WS champions and whether historically a team could win the championship so interesting that I decided to read the entire piece from Pumps link and then all the comments and then the links from the comments. THT seems to be a place for serious statisticians so there is little that gets past them. Takes a fair amount of courage to post up data like that there as some serious folks are going to take pot shots at it. At any rate the one flaw found in the data was one that is common to contemporary matrices as they normalize to 100 as average in many cases. This is true for stats like OPS+ and ERA+ but there are some variables that effect OPS+. The point is that average OPS+ for the NL is not the same as it is for the AL and it is not 100 in either case. It is about 99 in the AL probably skewed by inter-league play and more like 93-94 for the NL as a consequence of pitchers continuing to hit in the NL (no DH) combined with inter-league play. As it turns out the guy might have been able to used Runs and Runs Allowed (RA) but starting all over again not even sure if that would have worked out better and tossing away all of the data he had already compiled made no sense to him. Using what he had, he still had work to do though to account for the use of the DH in the AL, the continuation of pitchers batting in the NL and inter-league play. The skewing of OPS+ between the two leagues made for variances in that nice tidy little graph that uses ERA+ and OPS+ as the X and Y axis. Normalizing for 100 as average for ERA+ is valid for this purpose. It is only issues with OPS+ that creates complications with the data as originally presented. That forced the guy that put all that data together to unravel NL from AL post DH and AL pre DH data, reproduce the data and then put it all back together again using the segregated post DH, and pre DH AL data and the all time NL data for championship teams. The result was still telling and favored the view that pitching was more important than hitting in the effort to win a championship but the line was not as starkly drawn as it was presented in the original data. Much like the original data suggested, having both good pitching and good hitting made winning the championship easier than only having one or the other. Again the data did support pitching being more important than hitting when you did have only one or the other. Here is the most important elements of the revised data. 13 of 106 championship winners have been able to win the championship with teams that featured below average hitting for an 11.76%. Only 2 of 106 champions have managed to win the championship with teams that featured below average pitching for a 2.86%. The rest of the champions featured both above average pitching and above average hitting. Still and all that is not an insignificant variance in the cut between teams with above average hitting vs. teams with above average pitching. The next step in the process for anyone with the courage to take on the data processing task involved would be to sort for those features of a team and break out the data for winning the division and/or getting through the regular season, qualifying for the post season and then getting through the post season and making it into the World Series. While the modifications to the graphs make the data much more accurate, the data processing task is far more daunting as anyone that wishes to do it has to again unravel the post DH and pre DH, AL data from the total NL data to take into account the difference in average OPS+ between the AL and the NL and then put it all back together again drawing from the data that had been processed separately, AL post DH, AL pre DH and NL, total and has to do it for multiple seasons. That is now a huge undertaking given the amount of data one would have to process to pull it together for success in the regular season (measured by making it into the post season) and then success in getting to the World Series (measured by getting through both the divisional and league championship rounds). In this case the addition of the DH rule in the AL plus inter-league play makes this a much more complicated process involving much more data processing to get a result. However the result achieved would be both accurate and meaningful as teams tend to build for the 162 regular season with an eye to the features they will need to win in the post season. I would not at all be surprised to see somebody take the task on regardless of how hard it will be as parsing these two variables of team performance is at least as interesting if not more for getting to the WS as it is for winning it.

I am sure the data that has already been presented in this thread is more detailed than this but I thought it might be fun to see what the 11 year run of WS teams from 2000-2011 might suggest if anything. I used OPS for hitting and ERA for pitching as I could at least rattle off the data year by year without much trouble. Since this was a view from the 10,000 foot level for fun I thought it would be OK. Of the 22 teams, only one has made it into The Show while being in the lower half of team ERA stats. The 2006 Cards finished 16th in that category and still made it to the 2006 WS, winning that WS as well. Interestingly they were 14th in hitting that year. Three teams have made it to the show while being in the lower half of teams for hitting stats. The worst of those was the 2005 Houston team which came in at 22nd in hitting while being 1st in team pitching expressed as ERA.

Papi has been "designated" to bring out some bottled water to the AL hitters in the home run derby....you gotta' be s***ing me right. If I were Papi that would be embarrassing and an insult....one of the best hitters in recent history relegated to glorified water boy. I know the whole thing is just a show anyway but none of these guys seem that bright. Sabathia and Granderson looking for some air time just went out to the mound to talk to Cano's dad the guy pitching in to Cano. If I were his dad I would have nailed both of them right between the eyes with a fastball and sent them back to their seats. Sabathia must have known this was a mistake and shook Mr. Cano's hand like "oh s*** this was a mistake wasn't it", Sorry Mr. Cano...we are young and stupid.

Very good post E1

A number of folks did not like the Crawford signing myself among them. I also did not like the Lackey signing at the time and would have done neither deal. I had no complaints at the time about the AGons signing. My comments about the AGons signing are more a general comment about the Sox giving away max money and term for guys that have not proven themselves on the other side of injury and the fact that Agons falls right in the middle of both the Lackey signing and the CC signing both guys that got max money and both with known injuries. Agons also got big money and term while not having proven anything on the other side of his injury. I would be fine with the AGons signing even today if they did not follow that up with CC thus putting them in the position they are in today although I still think they should have been smarter about how they dealt with AGons because of the injury situation and if that meant losing the player....so be it. The Sox make virtually no effort to mitigate injury in their deals even to players coming directly off injury. They did to some extent with Lackey which will give us another year of Lackey for what that is worth. However I would not have signed Lackey under any circumstances. To the best of my knowledge the Sox did nothing with AGons like what they did with Lackey and are totally exposed to the risk that AGons will not recover his power numbers. Signing guys with injury issues as yet unresolved is one thing. Giving them the keys to your future and allowing deals like that to seal your fate for years to come makes no sense. I should also point out that they gave Crawford more money than anybody was offering Crawford at the time making it a virtual certainty that he would sign with Boston. What about Carl Crawford forced the Sox to make that sort of deal? I did not like the Lackey deal to begin with so I would not have made that deal injury or no. I did not like the Crawford deal and would not have made that one injury or no. However if I wanted guys like AGons I would have attempted to get them in a way that at least mitigated the risk and of course that likely means you are going to offer less money...that also means you might lose the player.....So What!!!!

I don't know anymore. Does one more arm do it for the rotation? I suspect that is possible. However I thought that if they would go for an arm it would be sort of a middle of the pack arm. The worse the starting pitching gets, the more I it looks like they really will need a true number 1 starter to make enough of an difference to matter. How the heck do you make that happen at the trading deadline of the current season? What do you have to give up to make that happen and with so many other issues that sit below and behind but still there after the starting pitching how much would we expect management to be willing to risk prospects and things of that sort to bring a big deal pitcher here? I just don't think they will do that. So I guess at this point we are stuck with a shot via the WC and I know one of the popular sort of optimistic views is that anything can happen if you get there....look at the Cards for example. Well the Cards are not a good example. They did not have the one game play-in which I think is to damaging to the chances of the WC. I don't like the two WC system at all. The Cards got hot at the end of the year. Frankly this does not look like a team that can get that kind of hot at the end of the year. It can't get past a day anymore with some sort of odd player thing and the players are now talking out of both sides of their mouths. They want the media to leave them alone, midseason yet they want to negotiate through the media midseason. Well what the hell is that? Still has to many players going in to many different directions. I cannot for the life of me understand why upper management did not back V early on with Youk because in one move, they made it impossible for V to really gain any control of the team and they made it possible for the players to stew in their own juices as a pastime. Why should they not just complain and moan. Why concentrate on baseball when I can concentrate on my own issues making them vocally and visibly to management under the "squeaky wheel gets the grease" rule. I can believe that one really good arm can make the difference if: - It is truly a top of the rotation arm - Beckett makes the rest of his starts not creating these gaps in his schedule and forcing him to get back on track again and again - Buch comes back and pitches as he was pitching before he went down - Lester pitches no worse than he has pitched so far which would suggest more middle of the road, not great but not terrible starts - at least Ells comes back - Ortiz continues to be the stalwart in the lineup he has been - Pedey comes back and plays like we know he can Any of those don't happen and I don't think an arm in the rotation gets it done at least to a degree that is meaningful. No sense in burning off prospects just to get a chance ala' the WC and then fail in the first round.

Well now I don't know what Crawford is telling us. He appeared or appears committed to playing out the year likely soft tossing the ball into SS instead of making any serious throws in from the outfield. For outfielders suffering this malady, soft tossing can be the approach at least for some period of time. Is Crawford now telling us that TJ is a certainty for him....that it is only a matter of time? As I have said in other threads I just don't know how long it is now going to take for the Sox to work their way through these horrific contracts....some of them really not more than a couple years old and lasting out another 4-5 years. Agons, no power....CC no play and a disappointment when he does play....Lackey no play (but that contract has much less time left on it). However, all three of those will in my view turn out to be the biggest and worst contracts the Sox have ever handed out to anybody and all were made during this period of time when I am suggesting that the Sox run by LL have turned their focus almost entirely on glitz and glamor and making the biggest splash, not necessarily the best baseball move for the team.

Well it just gets better and better. John Dennis reported on EEI this morning and now picked up elsewhere that V held a team meeting while the team was still on the west coast in an effort to discuss focus, attitude, things that relate to some extent to the team's on-field performance. Apparently, Ortiz got up and walked out of the meeting. I am going to guess here but given Ortiz comments about this being his clubhouse, I suspect Ortiz likely walked out because V did not first consult him about such a meeting. V goes out of his way to say that he does not venture into that clubhouse. So I suspect V did not believe that his desire to hold a team meeting and discussing things that play into on-field performance really has anything to do with Ortiz and his ownership of the clubhouse and player clubhouse demeanor. However I do think the Sox set themselves up for this. Upper management has supported the players over their manager. While upper management controls the purse strings that dictate whether Ortiz gets what he wants or not, they will at a moment's notice cut the knees out from under V is he attempts to rein in any high visibility player including Ortiz. In the meantime much like I feel confident that Youk would have made life very difficult for the Sox had they not gotten him outta' here, I am also confident that all of Ortiz recent public comments are based in his desire for a long term contract. He wants us all to know that this is his clubhouse because he somehow believes that ownership of the clubhouse also is something that should be considered in his contract negotiations. In addition Ortiz likely believes that not only should V have come to him first before this meeting but also thinks that the topic itself suggests that Ortiz is not doing a good job relating to issues of the clubhouse he says he owns.

I had posted something last night in the game thread about the Sox Management and their propensity to bias toward glitz and glamor moves or moves designed to bias toward the branding of the Sox over straight baseball moves. Some folks offered an opposing view. My view is that what you emphasis ends up being what you are....if you don't emphasis the kinds of skill sets that would come into play when some of these whacky contracts are being considered well then they are not there when you need them....if the people are there and can do the job but they realize which of certain FO moves are being motivated by the bias towards glitz and glamor (ala LL) then they won't put their necks in that noose and step up to the plate to present an opposing argument when it is needed. Nobody makes any bones even within and atop the Red Sox that LL runs the Red Sox. Well frankly LL's primary concerns are fanny's in seats and generating the optimal return for the investors from the brand that is the Red Sox. LL apparently has always been willing and able to reach down into Baseball Operations to bias decisions and he has both the impunity to do it and the willingness to throw anybody that stands in his way or that can be used as a scapegoat under the bus. Evidence LL's willingness to reach down into Baseball Operations could be found in Theo's revolt and rejection of that propensity a few years ago. I don't even want to go into the number of instances Sox upper management has thrown somebody under the bus rather than take the blame themselves...that is a book. Theo left plenty of doubt about who or what influences within the Red Sox he was referring to in his most recent comments about feeling pressures to "do something" as he said in those comments relating to big FA moves. Well if anything you would have thought that Theo was pointing at himself in the way he framed those comments.....that is until LL felt compelled to defend himself from those comments! Why did LL feel compelled to defend himself from comments not directed at him in the first place? Regardless of what biases upper management uses to direct this organization, things will not get better here until and unless upper management feels compelled by threats to its financial underpinnings to change that direction. It has a horribly unbalanced roster, mainly dependent on heavy money, long term contracts to big stars with the preponderance of money tied up in those stars who for the most part underperform and/or create a difficult environment for any manager who's incentive is to guide the team toward victories. Where was the preponderance of money tied up at the start of the year and what have those players done: Youkalis: under performing up until his release from the Red Sox, clubhouse malcontent, appears to have forced the Sox hand as far as trading him at this point under threat of bad behavior in what already appears to be a clubhouse in trouble Lester:underperforming, visibly expressing his anger at teammates and management Lackey: under performed and now on the shelf recovering from TJ needed to resolve an elbow problem known to exist at the time of his signing, visibly expressed his anger toward teammates and management even for the most mundane of management decisions or teammate errors Crawford: underperformed famously in the first year of his contract and suffering from injures some known at the time of his signing, apparently some not Beckett: underperforming as a combination of on-field performance and roster absence due to injury, ring leader of the chicken and bear squad, willing, able and apparently insistent on proclaiming his freedom from Sox management and baseball in general Agons: underperforming, insistent that he resolve his own issues outside of Sox coaching efforts, apparently resisting efforts by V to get him a day of rest here or there insisting that he stay in the lineup everyday through a horrific slump. At the end of it all last year complaining about the schedule and making various and sundry other ridiculous comments. May well be hiding a shoulder injury that might at this point rob him of the ability to generate the kind of power he once possessed...a shoulder injury that he had at the time of his signing Ortiz: over performing at a level that has kept the Sox afloat this year through a period when they could easily have floated to the bottom of the league but insistent on self serving remarks right in the middle of a pretty bad season for the Sox and right on top of the disaster of last September. Adamant that he negotiate through the media, mid-season proving himself a hypocrite in the process apparently convinced that Sox Nation will rush to support him in his public contract negotiations. Bad move David.....I don't think this is going to work out like you want it to. diceK, Underperforming, Not making huge money for a pitcher but worthy of mention here given how poorly he has performed relative to his salary and the fee paid just to talk to him before his signing. His salary is not chicken feed, just not as large as some of the other under performers This is where all the real money was at the start of the season. In that group you have six players brought here under trade or FA situations, five under big money trade or FA situations and one that now makes big money (Ortiz) but was picked off the scrap heap at the time. Three of those five having injuries at the time that continue to plague them now yet were given the biggest contracts in the team's history. Two of them are not playing at all (Lackey and CC) and one of them is not and has not been the player the Sox needed him to be since the midway point of last year, his first as a Red Sox (Agons). Where is it written that the Sox must offer fabulously off the hook, huge money long term contracts to players with suspect injury issues staring them in the face. Signing these players is one thing..don't give them the ranch, the keys to the kingdom, the ability to hamstring your organization for years! Why would you do that?.... Because they are a big name and it is the name you want more even than you want the player. If you want the name more than you want the player you have defacto opted for glitz and glamor over substance. Why would you insure that CC would sign with you by offering him incredible money when even at the time you would have to admit that CC was a luxury....not even somebody anyone was seriously considering as a possible Red Sox target. Yet you swooped in at the last offering him a deal he could not in his right mind refuse....glitz....glamor....make another splash asset management....that is why. Name me any GM that will opt for glitz and glamor over substance? Unless LL gets his foot off the neck of this organization, I just don't see much change coming. I would guess there is a small chance that JH would unravel the Sox from LL control but only if he wants to keep the team and the organization starts to feel financial pain from LL's stewardship of the Sox.