jung

I see we have another turd behind home plate

That Tex "appeared" to be on his way here at one point and then ended up in those f***in' pin stripes will never be forgiven. Hate his guts more than normal pin stripe hate which is pretty deep.

I missed how Jeter got on. What the hell happened there.

Go ahead, if you don't think this is a worthwhile ceremony to see on TV or live right now watching these guys come out from center field....go ahead....I dare ya'.....I double dare ya

I understand that this is your opinion. However has it occurred to you that based on the abysmal performance of the FO with regard to FA signings of late, strapping the organization with hefty long term financial commitments that are already on the books, combined with the way MLB has framed the new luxury tax penalties and league rights fees reimbursements that it is just as likely that the Sox Organization has simply decided to take a sabbatical on hefty FA signings until it can get some of this garbage off the books? If they do not they will be penalized in their reimbursements and will be subjected to the new four year 50% luxury tax. That is money in the millions. That combination has even got the money making machine that is that is the Yankees making similar moves. As stated before I do disagree with those that seem to be making the point that there is some special place in JH's heart for the Red Sox that prevents him from selling. He will sell this franchise at some point. So long term you have to be right. I just don't think you can spin their recent signings activities or lack of activities such that the two are connected.

Well they found a way to get Mr Bounding Grounder D-mac out of the lineup although Repko is a panic in the outfield. That Salty bats 7th speaks volumes. C'mon back CC if for no other reason than to push Salty down at least one spot even against righties.

And that has been my point in several of these ongoing discussions. This team was designed to bash its way to victories not pitch its way to victories. It has holes all over the place but the thing that it has done less of that it is intended to do is bash its way to victories. It was not designed to win 1-0 or 2-0. If you see a 1-0 or even a 2-0 game around here that is a Sox win let me know will ya'. I will want to mark that date and go out that evening to see my first pink elephants circling the moon.

That is a far cry from stating that they would no longer be interested in signing long term contracts except in special cases and I would be willing to bet that if you asked LL that specific question he would disassociate his comment about homegrown players and fewer FA's from anything that went as far as your interpretation wants to take it. So honestly, using that one does not pass the smell test. And again as far as having an exit strategy is concerned, in contemporary acquisition strategy, every ownership group has an exit strategy that is born in the gestation period for the acquisition. The way you are framing your comments suggests that the idea of divestiture strikes them somewhere along the way. The idea of divestiture is there from the very beginning. So in that respect I would likely go even farther than I think you have gone and suggest that JH does not plan on Fenway Park being hauled behind his coffin in his funeral train and had an idea of what divestiture would like for him the day he bought the thing. I do agree about investors not getting their ya-ya's from the actual ownership of the asset at he level where a JH plays. However do not mistake them for emotionless automatons. They get their ya-yas out of the play itself.

Might I add that JH would have to be dead and to stupid to fall over to say or even imply that his organization was no longer going to be interested in signing long term contracts except in "special cases" or qualified any other way as that would be competitive market information that other organizations would die for. Do you really think he would just hand it over on a silver platter? Plus you are commenting about what JH "basically" said. Which means you are taking what he actually said and interpreting it.

Where and when did he say this?

But that suggests the obvious. No ownership group goes into a new transaction these days without an exit strategy. It does not someday dawn on them that I would someday like to sell. I just don't think you can look at things like this year's lack of long term contract activity and tie that to an exit strategy. I would sooner think he would delay any sales process activity until he could get any bad apples off the book and sooner think he would delay until he had answers to some of the questions that might likely arise where he to build a Transaction Book for the Sox today. But I cannot realistically look at this year's lack of activity relative to new long term contracts and tie the two together.

I would not look at the term or the amount he could have sold the club for some number of years ago as significant in this case. The kind of big number, really impressive asset realization possibilities have not been there until pretty recently. To be honest if I had to guess, I would guess that owning a baseball team as a toy or as a point of pride or whatever pails in comparison to turning a really big money asset realization deal for the JH's of the world. That is there sport of choice. That is not to say he will sell the team tomorrow. But don't kid yourselves. JH is not Tom Yawkey or anything like Tom Yawkey or even George S for that matter. When he finally does turn the Sox whenever that day is, he is going have a boner that will make Viagra look like a placebo.

Well how many years would JH be unwilling to sign long term contracts? That honestly does not make sense. So Henry is not necessarily interested in selling the team near term but is going to reject any activity on long term contracts in an effort to prepare the team for sale. How many years could a team possibly go without signing any long term contracts and remain competitive? Plus if I were a perspective buyer I would not be concerned about long term contracts as much as I would be concerned about long term contracts that were s*** contracts. That horse has already left the barn.

My guess is that the chance of that is about none and none

I don't question Tito's motives. I question the Sox. He said no....they should have let it alone at that point. Clearly they did not. LL calling him probably had the same effect that pouring gasoline of a fire would have. Reports (who knows if they were true) were that the discussion went very badly with Tito finally going off and then I think hanging up. Danny Boy, Boston's journalistic mop-top is writing a book with Tito at present. So, getting the dope on the telephone call was probably not even hard at that point. Somebody, I bet Danny Boy probably convinced Tito that he was likely going to get a huge ovation at this event which in reality is pretty embarrassing for the Sox. That will be the Sox Fandom voting thumbs down on how Tito was treated and thumbs down on a whole series of events involving the outgoing old manager and the incoming new manager. This is a pretty good opportunity for Tito to thank the fans and give the organization a very big robust middle finger. I think the leak crossed a fairness line that has caused Sox fans a good deal of discomfort regardless of whether they wanted Tito gone or not. The whole fabricated story about how and why he was leaving was such a stupid unnecessary mess and it went downhill from there.

I actually don't know why the Sox have tried so hard to get Tito to show up. Tito appearing is not going to signal that he has decided to let bygones be bygones. I don't think Tito will ever forget what happened at the end here. I think he will forever blame upper management for the leak resulting in the newspaper article that really made an effort to bury him. I would be willing to bet he has a LL blow up doll in his bedroom that he goes over and kicks square in nuts every morning when he wakes up and every night before he goes to bed.

For my part Elk I was not responding to your post. As I recall, your context was not the organization ignoring the Sox and my post was made to offer that ignoring the asset and preparing to go into a sales process are sort of at opposite ends of the spectrum.

In fact I just found the 2012 valuation for the Sox at topping $1B so a sell price of $1.5B even today is not at all unlikely.

Put it in the wrong thread but ya' gotta' be psyched about the Yanks comein' to town while they are stumblin' around. Kick em in the face as they are trying to climb out of the hole.

Henry and the ownership group bought the Sox for $380M in 2002 and the franchise is currently valued at $918M. It would likely take more to buy it right now, even a heck of alot more. That is a pretty damn good return on that investment.

No problem Spud. I don't know whether to be happy as a baseball fan to see so many teams with a shot at it or unhappy as Red Sox fan cause there are less teams for them to beat up on and more teams that will be doing the beating up on the leagues weak sisters. Gotta get up for the Yanks comein' to town when they are struggling though. No Mercy!

Can't have it both ways. Can't claim that FSG at the top is ignoring the Sox and planning on selling the Sox in the near term. As I mentioned earlier it just does not work that way. If they were coming up on a sales process in the near term, they would be all over that thing like white on rice.

Well I think that the issue with V is that with only a 2 year contract in hand there is just so much that he can do. The problems that the Sox have are not all about conditioning and weight control and attention to detail and they are certainly not about the dramatic physical impact on players from chicken and beer. By the way I don't think Baseball Genius V or attention to detail V has made an appearance at Fenway yet this year. V is all for show and it is a show that the Organization in the form of LL has wanted. It is a distraction designed to distract us from the real issue. Frankly this team does not have the horses at least for this year. It did not have the horses if Ells and Crawford and Bailey were playing full seasons. It will beat up on the bulk of the lower level teams in the AL and will make some hay doing that. But it does all come down to whether you can win somewhere between 90 and 100 games as far as making the post season is concerned and 90 may not get it done because there are a number of good teams this year that will be beating up on the leagues dregs. Some of these records by year end are likely going to look appallingly bad. I think they will be incredibly fortunate this year to be the second of the two WC teams and if they are still bumping along like this by the 22-23-24 game of the year, they may well be best served making some drastic changes using PawSox personnel that change the profile of this team. Take the team as it is right now just for the heck of it and remove any of Lester, Beckett or Buch due to injury. In my view this team will be lucky to get there if those three guys play the whole season. if any one of them goes down, Cook is no answer. They are screwed entirely at that point.

Well if FSG is to some extent "ignoring" the Sox, that might be the best evidence that if the Sox do intend or did intend selling the Sox in the short run, those plans may have been put on hold for bit. Organizations come under a great deal of scrutiny on the ramp up to a sales process. Managers generally are under a microscope with every decision and every result scrutinized. My guess is that they are in this for a longer period intended or not. They do look organizationally thin though. Just to much that seems to land on to few desks and a number of these decisions especially as far as PR is concerned seem pretty lame for both teams. How the hell do Liverpool coaches and players get away with wearing T-shirts supporting a player so blatantly involved ins a race related incident? There does seem to be as much falling through the cracks for both Liverpool and Boston. Geez what is it? There are not enough competent people available in this economy?

Well if FSG is to some extent "ignoring" the Sox, that might be the best evidence that if the Sox do intend or did intend selling the Sox in the short run, those plans may have been put on hold for bit. Organizations come under a great deal of scrutiny on the ramp up to a sales process. Managers generally are under a microscope with every decision and every result scrutinized. My guess is that they are in this for a longer period intended or not. They do look organizationally thin though. Just to much that seems to land on to few desks and a number of these decisions especially as far as PR is concerned seem pretty lame for both teams. How the hell do Liverpool coaches and players get away with wearing T-shirts supporting a player so blatantly involved ins a race related incident? There does seem to be as much falling through the cracks for both Liverpool and Boston. Geez what is it? There are not enough competent people available in this economy?