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And the lack of flexibility for a game that if its to maintain its multidimensionality should prefer flexibility And the lack of sustainable effort for a sport with a 162 game regular season Its not a sprint and its not designed to be a sprint. There is that and for all this speed and quickness, do we really have better base stealers than the base stealers of the past? Do we really have many fielders outrunning baseballs or even getting good jumps or are they depending on positioning to make plays? Granted, you would have a hard time convincing me that those purported to be base stealers actually study the pitchers and catchers they are attempting to steal against...that has been lost in the only spreadsheets and stats that seem to matter.....pitch spreadsheets and batting spreadsheets. X is a pretty decent SS. But his range is not that great for example, especially going to his glove side. God help these middle infielders if they ever have to avoid onrushing baserunners again while trying to turn a DP. Good luck with that. Stronger ....sure....whoopdie ding-dong. Did that prevent Manfred from bringing in successively hotter baseballs for three years out of four resulting in the 2019 Manfred Missile, buying the damned manufacturer along the way?

Have you seen Mookie in a bowling shirt? There are now two kinds of unis being worn by MLB players and none of them resemble the unis they used to wear: - the uber-tight "look at my guns" uni ala' Puig for example - the uber-relaxed fit that many of the PED users preferred as a means to hide their musculature. Not saying the loose fit Jersey suggests PED use. Just saying its very popular.

I don't know what happened there. I have no rational explanation beyond the starry eyed logic of the magical WS 7 innings and DD possibly insisting on doubling down on his 2018 late season acquisition binkies. I will guess at one: DD went "WOW, a guy that we can slot everywhere.....the pitching version of everyday player Brock Holt" Whereas many of us might have preferred....."MEH....a pitcher really not slotted anywhere definitively with a more than spotty health record and a lackluster career as a starter." DD payed WOW money when he likely should have been thinking MEH money or let him slide.

Whoops ....sorry....no idea where 168 came from. PS...thanks for catching that. That is what I get for having multiple screens open.

They are not as limber and as flexible as they once were either. Frankly, for baseball, I am not convinced that the current training approach is a lick better....just different and just geared to the direction MLB wants this game to take. How is that working for them? Come on....let me hear the usual stick our heads in the sand responses.

Putting aside for a moment how hard he throws or the one thing I admire in him, that he challenges hitters, Nate has had what amounts to a relatively lackluster career. What has he done to deserve 4/$68. How highly did DD value that one lighting strike of the WS 7 innings? I wanted them to try to sign Nate ...but 4/$68???? What the f*** was that?

You guys have got to stop trying to psychoanalyze my posts. None of you are good at psychoanalyzing anything. I post what I mean and I mean what I post. Nate's 7 innings of glory in an otherwise entirely unspectacular career. A direct comment on signing Nate to 4/68 based on God only knows what...I guess "his seven innings of glory" Pay all of them then. Sign every member of the 2018 championship run to overblown contracts. Heck it appears that if DD could have, HE WOULD HAVE. Makes you wonder what Kimbrel and Kelly did wrong. That one and is a direct shot at DD signing his two late 2018 season and WS binkies. One being Nate to an overblown contract. The other being Pearce who should not have been signed AT ALL, Both obvious the day of their signings and made more so as the season progressed. In Pearce's case made obvious as soon as he showed for ST. Pearce by the way WAS NOT the WS MVP. The two lines of my post that I have bolded are the only two that are directly aimed at DD. As for the Sale signing....PREMATURE based on where Sale was physically if nothing else...His late season swoons had become legendary at that point and the Sox should have taken the time to see how 2019 panned out. How did 2019 pan out? As for Sale being underpaid for a career....NOT THE SOX PROBLEM TO SOLVE.

Nate's 7 innings of glory in an otherwise entirely unspectacular career. So they were that far into a WS championship...something like 180 games in and were not as yet "together"? They were doing what...basking in the warm afterglow of Nate's seven innings? Geezuz, give me tough athletes over pampered talent any day if that is the case. How "together" have they looked this year? Virtually an entire team contributes something to a successful WS effort. The post season is in fact the only time any longer that teams play even remotely like teams. Until then their "team" is something called the MLBPA. Pay all of them then. Sign every member of the 2018 championship run to overblown contracts. Heck it appears that if DD could have, HE WOULD HAVE. Makes you wonder what Kimbrel and Kelly did wrong.

This game is another example of how bad a miss Exec management made thinking it could get away with publicly challenging this team around the trade deadline. Are you f***ing kidding me! Challenge THIS team. Give me a break. If you can't figure out who you have down in that clubhouse what the f*** makes your spreadsheets so Goddamned relevant.

Well this guy's pitch moves but generally it moves right into the middle of the plate or so far off the plate its not worth offering at. You would think we would have figured that out by now .....but NOOOOOOOO!!!!!

One of these fateful days, NESN will pair Salty with Johny Gomes or go three wide with Salty/Gomes/Tomlin. Next morning area public safety authorities will announce a rash of Red Sox fans found outside their homes holding their hands over their ears and screaming in anguish.

Oh God...now I am extra glad not to be listening. Salty is just terrible....terrible in the studio as well.

Rick will find a home somewhere at some number. There are two many guys masquerading as MLB pitchers that can't throw at all for Rick not to find a home.

No idea...only heard him for a sec before I muted TV audio....gave up on NESN audio weeks ago. Use EEI or mute myself.

Beni swings at so many 0-0 pitches he should not swing at. He has not seen what this pitcher has tonight at all. Where that 0-0 pitch started it was not a good pitch to hit and while it landed in a good spot, there was so much movement on it that beni had no chance. Not at all surprised that he just beat it into the ground. TAKE A PITCH every once and a while beni.

Rumors abound that DD had another possible iron in the fire and wanted to know where he stood with ownership. The situation was entirely untenable whether DD had another iron in the fire or not. DD would have been a lame duck in 2020. That would not do and I seriously doubt DD would have accepted a one year extension. I seriously doubt Henry would have offered it. "Pressing me for an answer DD? Here's your answer." Henry needs to make a statement though. Apparently Cora has been told he is staying and the team has been told that Cora will continue to be the Manager beyond this year. But Henry has some splainin' to do and avoiding the media ain't gonna' get it done. The only way they can continue to stonewall the media would be to announce a new Pres of Ops immediately and then address all the questions in light of knowing the identity of the new guy. 4 guys named as having control (the current situation) is laughably absurd and won't hold for a nanosecond.

As in shuffled off to Buffalo errrrrr.....Pawtucket.

They are not going to get rid of Cora. Henry IMO won't allow it. Cora made mistakes in 2019. The Sox would be out of their minds not to try to take advantage of that. Lets see if Cora learned from his mistakes: - 2018 was 2018 Alex. You should have put that season to rest before 2019 started. You didn't. In fact you carried on constantly about it - Pitching and staffs generally are in utter chaos and they were in utter chaos before 2019 started...just validated by the 2019 season. Cora was too cute by a half in how the staff was handled. Put that to bed too. Nobody in MLB is currently capable of figuring their way through the chaotic mess, the utter cluster that MLB has made of MLB pitching. Stick to the basics until MLB gives us some real direction on the Manfred Missile and other aspects of the MLB effort that has made an utter mess of MLB pitching. Manfred is currently unwilling to even admit to MLB culpability regarding the Manfred Missile. We should continue to call it the Manfred Missile until he fesses up and then takes action to fix it. I for one will even except not fessing up and fixing it. But I won't accept doing neither and if MLB is going to lose this 60+ year fan it will be over Manfred's obvious and overt and in fact FAILED machinations. - oldest maxim in MLB Alex...games lost in April count as much as games lost in September. Once their lost they are lost. Cost us about 8 games at least with the start of season nonsense and then exec MIS-management hung about another 8 losses on your neck at the trade deadline. You probably could not have done anything about the latter but you could have about the former. Heck they gave DD a year to see if he has learned anything or if he was still the same old dog. Don't see any reason not to cut a young promising manager the same slack.

That is not what I said. I said what I said which you quoted in your post reply. Division wins simply are not worth the heraldry some of us put around them. I would be hard pressed to decide to even pennant them in my ballpark. All that pennant really says is that some team in your league was better than you were. I could give a flying f*** about being better than four other teams geographically collocated in my general vicinity and then getting dumbed on my ass before I could even get to the WS. Winning the ALCS of my league or winning the WS...that is something worthy of a pennant flying in my ballpark. Less than that.....fans should enjoy fandom for fandom sake, enjoy baseball for baseball's sake and shut their mouths until they actually DO SOMETHING worth talking about and worthy of a pennant in their park.

We had home field. You are not likely to avoid the toughest teams in the MLB post season any longer no matter what you do because "the toughest teams" will have what remains of the remnants of actual MLB level pitching. If you avoid the toughest teams in MLB post season play consider it an anomaly of epic proportions whereas avoiding them is often possible in the other major team sports. Is often done in the NHL, NBA and NFL. Now said teams may have as much "lucked into" as planned to have what remains of MLB level pitching because MLB pitching right now is utter chaos, a complete cluster thanks to the machinations of the MLB itself. But those teams that make it as far as the DS will have a very respectable pitching asset whether its a pen or a rotation or a combination.

I don't see a major sell off either. Nobody is touching those Starting Pitcher contracts for one thing. But beyond the guys that should go, I think our new Pres of Ops will be willing to talk about just anybody on this team other than a select 4 players. Everybody else will be and should be out on the table. He or she should start early and deal hard. Hold onto Betts till the dust settles and he has some feeling for whether a 2020 run is realistic or not. But make the decision on Betts before the 2020 season starts. I am willing to accept just about any decision a new GM makes on the pitchers outside of the contracts that are just hung around our necks now. Any GM that says he has a clue about where MLB pitching is going in this period is LYING! Its a cluster, utter chaos thanks to MLB and its nonsense. Get out your crystal balls and tarot cards.

Honestly, I have had just about all I can take of the heralding three division wins stuff. I could care less. They are not meaningful in the overall. The one division win that leads to a cleaner path to a WS.... that one means something. You can have the rest of them and relegate them to the value of having won the play-in game as a WC.

I don't think the Sox will find takers for the pitcher's contracts and frankly I have little doubt that the Sale extension and the Nate signing and Pearce signing really torqued Henry off. Sale and Nate for their long term problems, Pearce because that was an absurdly foolish signing proven so as soon as Peace showed up in the Spring. It was Henry that dug us out of the Crawford mess and now his current Pres of Ops draws him "right back in again" to a circumstance that ties the team's hands. There is a good deal of flotsam on this team, players not necessarily making the biggest money in MLB but players making more than they are worth and it is the burden of those contracts as much as the big contracts that will drag on the new Pres of Ops efforts. Thank God Pearce will just be gone and Mitchie-poo gone and Porcello gone. This is what happens when you drain off the farm. Instead of bringing up young players that can fill those rolls quite adequately you end up hiring middling vets for top money to do effectively the same job. These are fill in pieces to a championship effort and nothing more. the Pres and GM have to frame those contracts and look for acquisitions that fit that model, not keep them for multiple years like team binkies. Does Bill Belechick fall in love with his championship season fill ins? Does he even keep them around? Frankly, I think the Sox will be forced to trade Mookie as I simply do not think he will re-sign here before FA and I doubt we will outbid for him either. Henry probably sees that train rolling down the tracks right at him as well. We have to keep Bogarts and Devers. Bogarts because SS is a lynchpin position on a baseball team and Bogarts impact on Rafi is simply too great to be ignored. You have to keep the earth from moving under your feet everywhere. I would suggest that the left side of the infield is where we should not let the world shift under our feet. I don't think JD will opt out. He has too many issues and half of MLB is closed to him as he is now purely a DH. IMO virtually everybody but the unmovable contracts are up for grabs. Other than X and Rafi I would try to protect Beni even with all his shortcomings and Vaz even with all his shortcomings. Would like to keep Holt if possible. Teams can pick over the rest of them for my money. Make me the right deal for DHern or Barnes or Work or Chavis and you can have them. The entire concept of a pitching staff both rotation and pen is in flux and utter chaos thanks to MLB's ridiculous machinations. So I am not sure a GM could make a "right" move there if he tried!

Almost as bad as the trade deadline swoon which I think we can say pretty confidently was the straw that broke the camel's back for DD. There is the fact of doing nothing at the deadline, possibly done by DD unilaterally and in a vacuum of information. Then there is the fact of Sox Exec Management going to the microphones really to support DD's lack of action at the deadline (likely engineered by DD) and the team's response to the whole miserable mess. Together those elements amount to about strike 6, heck maybe strike 12 on the season....YOUR OUT DD.

Nope ...not true. But many of the HR's that are within a few rows of the wall would simply not get there....particularly the oppo doink shot which is in the main just floating out there to the OF with backspin. Notice if you will that nobody is threatening the season HR record. They are not because the real HR hitters in MLB don't really get any added credit for hitting it 450. Its just a HR like another. But the guys that are not true power hitters are just wrecking havoc with the Manfred Missile. Many of their HR's just clear the wall in spite of hitting a rocket ship baseball. 20 HR's is no longer any sort of mark of distinction whatsoever. The 20 HR hitter has to hit 30 with the 2019 Manfred Missile to make any sort of mark at all in 2019. 20 was stlll a mark worth crowing about with the 2016 Missile and the 2018 Missile. Neither of those were good enough for Manfred....NOOOOOO....we need more HR's and we really don't care what else we screw up in this game to get them. If I end up seeing posts that suggest we should trade for some guy because he hit 20 in 2019, I am going to laugh my ass off.