jung

Yes there is a distinction between proposing solutions and highlighting problems. They are distinctly different and you are smart enough to know they are distinctly different activities. Inaccuracy in calling balls and strikes is the problem. Suggesting that humans can no longer call balls and strikes because of what V chooses to all this "new thing" of late action on pitches is guiding to a proposed solution....ala a software based system. In this case suggesting that movement on late breaking pitches is a "new thing" is wrong in the first place. Eck nearly fell off his NESN stool at that one. In addition, suggesting that human beings can no longer call balls and strikes because of this so called new thing of late action on pitches has implications for removing a piece of the game action activity pie from the umps which is the same thing as taking food off their table. Please don't give me this "Oh gee I am just to obtuse to see that" ******** 700 because I know you are not obtuse at all.

As for the discussion about the umps....are you guys reading challenged or what? I have said several times now that V should point out the problem...highlight the problem till hell freezes over for all I care....Do not point to solutions that have implications for taking food off the umps tables cause that takes you from highlighting the problem to starting a war he can't win and should not drag his organization into. Highlight the problem....it is the league's job to come up with the solution. On top of that he assures himself of being ignored if and when the league actually does put together a panel to study the problem and suggest solutions. They won't put one of the combatants on a judicial panel. If he really wanted to do something instead of showing off sandwich wrap brain he would have been positioning himself to do so instead of insuring that he will be ignored. On top of that, at this point V needs to concern himself with keeping a brawl from breaking out between his team and the ump crews because it got very close to that last night.

Unfortunately, now that the Sox have run into some guys that can actually pitch, Youk has looked more like our slumping subs than a star everyday player. I applaud Youk for finding a way to lay off sliders heading for the first base dugout but he still can't hit the ones he should be swinging at and has once again fallen off a cliff edge at the plate. If I were another team looking at Youk, the Sox would now be forced to point to Youk's past glories and I would be forced to point out his more recent record of accomplishment. I don't see many takers on the past glories. I suppose the Sox could wait till the trade deadline but they need WMB in the lineup if they are to make anything of this year. Continuing to play Youk is beginning to smack of throwing in the towel on the year in an effort to salvage something on Youk. The Sox already have to many holes in the lineup especially when facing the teams that actually can pitch.

The point is again not whether the umps should draw fire. If V insists on attacking the system itself in such a way that ultimately means fewer umps or less work he is doomed. He is pissing into the wind and making enemies of a group that can only hurt him. Should the league do something...no question. However, V should stop at pointing out the problem and should leave it to the league to come up with the process for change. That is not his function and suggesting that humans can no longer do that job is the same thing as trying to direct the process for change. Trying to guide that process for change such that the implication is to limit the amount of game activity the umps control is the same thing as taking food out of their mouths. Even the NBA has not addressed its issues in such a manner that there are fewer man hours of ref's work. There are more refs per game than ever, not fewer. A team manager is in no position to fight the fight V is fighting especially in the public forum of the press. You are still missing the point. It is not whether V should or should not point out that there is an issue. It is whether he sticks his neck and more importantly his organization's neck into the noose by suggesting a solution that implies taking food out of the umps mouths. He turns them into enemies in a battle he cannot win and that is stupid! Aa usual V does not know which fights to fight and which to leave alone because it is more important to him that he show off his intellectual prowess which is also usually lacking as is the case here as well. V has the political sensitivities of an earth worm, not quite the skill set that suggests he should be sticking his team's neck in the noose like this. While he pisses into the breeze of implying solutions that should be offered from other quarters he has allowed the whole situation with his team in its interaction with the umps to get completely out of control. That mess is now off the hook. You have players screaming at umps all the way off the field and into the dugout and down the ramps to the clubhouse and umps screaming back as they leave the field with both groups close to coming to blows. Are you as crazy as V is? Do you actually think that allowing the thing to boil over into something close to a barroom brawl does this team any good what-so-ever? If V wanted to actually be part of the solution he would go about this in such a manner that would get him selected to what will surely be some sort of blue ribbon investigative effort by the league as a means of coming up with a solution. If there is going to be any activity at all directed at resolving this issue, that will be the first step. V has all but assured that he does not have a snowballs chance in hell of becoming part of that blue ribbon committee. The league is not going to appoint one of the combatants to the judicial panel!

It does not matter that ball and strike calling is atrociously bad. I think it is atrociously bad and I think MLB should do something about it. That and a dime might buy me a cup of coffee. While I have outlined in general some of the things I think MLB should do, I have not even broached the topic of an automated system because it will never happen. V should shut up cause umps are what we have and umps are what we are going to have. We are not going to some automated system or software based process for calling balls and strikes. It is not going to happen. It might have a chance to happen if you could do away with umps completely but you can't. Since you can't that is the umps trump card. They will never allow a system to replace them as the arbiters of balls and strikes. The point is, if he does not shut up he will make enemies of the umps. He is putting himself squarely on the side of an argument he cannot win and for which the Sox may suffer mightily if he is not careful. I doubt he will like that result if he makes enemies of the umps and that is the only thing he is going to accomplish going down this road.

I just don't know that it matters relative to Youk. We have a player that is cost controlled ready to move into that position. Youk has to be traded. The most interesting element relative to his value is that nobody appears willing to give anything for him and the Sox are very likely going to have to eat salary to move him. So none of these predictors appear to be helping his perceived value in the only place where it matters, in the market place. I doubt the baseball team that has James on its payroll is not already using every advanced statistical variable it has to help enhance the value of a player that they are actively shopping. Yet, the market place does not appear to be buying it.

That is not what Henry said. Henry did not make his objections known at the time of the signing and in fact said he did not. However took it upon himself to voice his objection after the fact which is why so many people took him to task for it. Either he should have voiced his objection at the time or save that, he should have shut up after the fact. He did not object when his objection would have been meaningful and then could not keep from telling the world that he never liked the deal in the first place.

Decent pitching won't get it done either....we are going back to the kind of baseball that has been played for most of the history of pro baseball and teams will generally need better pitching than what we have gotten by with in recent memory or said another way, we are going back to a period that favors pitching and defense again. Many baseball fans have never even seen that kind of baseball and I am not at all sure that Uncle Bud is going to be thrilled. But it is what it is. The number of starters you see pitching 100+ per game is just the start. Although the changes in power number should already be obvious.

V is making a fool out of himself now....."pitchers are now throwing pitches with so much late breaking stuff that humans can no longer successfully call balls and strikes"....are you out of you f***ing mind V. Please shut up and get your team under control cause pretty soon you guys are going to make enemies of the umps and you don't like the calls now....wait till you cross that bridge...shut up and play ball.

I will say this about the Sox offense since that seems to be a topic people are more interested in discussing tonight....the Sox are not well adapted to playing small ball...they never have been. I have been saying for a long time now that the post steroid era is bring baseball closer to the 70's in the way the game is played. This team really does not know how to play the game a rally at a time...a run at a time....it gives up runs to easily and it tries to make them up to quickly. We don't move runners along...we don't get TIMELY hitting. The teams we are playing make more out of a walk and a hit than we can make out of three hits even if one is for extra bases. We let a utility infielder play SS because as an organization we don't have enough respect for what defense can really do for you. I have said this for a year now...this whole organization is in for a post steroid shock because if you look at the "success" or lack of success the Sox had before the steroid era....unless they change their game, they are headed back to that sort of performance as a team and as an organization.

And all that "hasn't been bad pitching" has gotten them how many wins? Their pitching is improving but you have to look at their pitching in relation to the other staffs around the league. It is not like they are pitching in a vacuum. They are being out-dualed in pitching duals against teams with incredibly weak hitting that have dynamite pitching.

Up until hitting a stretch of really upper echelon pitching, the Sox offense was fine...again 2nd in the league in runs. I have to look to see where they are today. I agree that this team is being ground to a halt by upper echelon pitching but upper echelon pitching does this! I just do not get what we seem not to understand about baseball on this board.....pitching grinds hitting to dust....we don't have pitching that grinds hitting to dust.....however we are facing teams that do.

OK, now I get it. This season is sort of a long pre-season for next season. We play this season to load the stat sheet and raise the confidence level for next season and then bring back the same roster.......OK, I'm happy again....let go pre-2013 Sox I know I am being a prick in this case.....and I know what you really mean but to honest I just don't give a s*** about Pythagorean adjustments. I would just as soon reach down and adjust my jock.

AGons could and should easily have made second base on that past ball. Instead he is standing around with his thumb stuck up his ass...Mr disinterested. He would have been in scoring position. Granted the Sox did nothing with the opportunity but that is no excuse for Agons to be daydreaming over on 1st base.

Rally's score runs....rallys can be any combination of hits, walks and sacrifices...they are not single base hits surrounded by nothing even if that base hit happens to be a HR. We have run into teams with real pitching, not fake pitching, not improving pitching, not better than the start of the season pitching but real pitching. Their pitchers are controlling our hitters, our pitchers are not controlling theirs....never mind how few rallies the other team gets....one rally vs no rallies wins. This ain't that hard to figure out folks.

Meanwhile Agons asleep on first base...that is asinine.

That high inside pitch is the pitch David knows he cannot hit...that is why he is so mad at himself

That is very true Elk...been that way for awhile now, as in more than one game

Quick run down from what I am seeing: Pedroia maybe coming around...to early to tell Ortiz....really pressing....now I am starting to worry but would stop if David stops pressing Agons....at least more patient at the plate but doing very little with good pitches to hit Salty.....pitchers seems to be adjusting to what he has been doing for the last month as far as his approach to plate appearances....might be time for the Salty slide of last year Aviles....trying to hard to pull the ball Sweeney...OK but overmatched a lot lately Youk....kinda' the RH version of Agons lately with even less power Pods....not bad for a sub but mostly overmatched by the pitchers we have faced

Very encouraged by how hard the Sox have been working at the plate in last few games and how patient they have been....very discouraged that they are getting better pitches to hit and doing nothing with them....up and down the lineup.

Youk and V both mouthing off.....how about just shut up and play ball.

Trust me...the pitchers including ours know they are not pitching in any of those other parks either.

By the way had V pinch hit for Beckett we might have really had something that inning...We might have been in much better shape if we had not given up an out right at the start. Not many innings left to get runs.

It is meaningless to talk about what a ball would have done in Fenway...Don't you guys realize that these pitchers know they are not pitching in Fenway. Still a very good at bat by Agons in my estimation. However Johnson had him 0-2 and never once pulled the string from there. If he had I am afraid we would not have had the Sac Fly even.

Ortiz is the very definition of pressing tonight.