jung

Should be an interesting couple of days. This will be a major test for our pitching staff along the lines of Detroit. Neither Detroit nor Texas is typical of the offensive prowess of teams in the AL but neither is Tampa the other way. Our top two guys go tonight and tomorrow night and then we have 3, 4 and 5 going against the Yanks. Go Sox.

I am assuming that you are directing this at my last post so i apologize in advance if I am just plane wrong about that. However if you are, this is one of the biggest problems I have about the perspective that some have regarding both Catcher and SS, Catcher being another pretty important position defensively. Maybe the easier analogy is Catcher because the two guys being discussed are still here or at least are both in the Sox system. However I often hear that Lavarnway should come up because he is already Salty's equal defensively. Maybe Lavarnway should be up. However Salty is a terrible defensive Catcher. He is not good, he is not adequate defensively, he is terrible. Again Catcher is another defensive position where I even have trouble with using a term like adequate. However I don't want Lavarnway to come up just because he is currently as rotten defensively as Salty and has a better bat. If however, Lavs can be brought up and continue to improve and hone his defensive skills here as well as he is able to in Pawtucket, then I would bring him up. No sense in dealing with Salty's defense when Lavs bat is so much better as long as you are not going to impede Lavs progress toward being a good, solid defensive catcher. I so not want to institutionalize or maybe even memorialize poor defensive catching here in Boston by virtue of using Salty as the benchmark. Same is true of Scutero. I would likely have not gotten rid of Scutero at least not for the reasons given. I really don't think the Sox accomplished much of anything moving Scutero and bringing in Avlles and Punto. I would likely have been fine with Aviles but would have used him as the utility player that he is. I probably would not have gotten Punto. But I don't want Scutero used as some sort of benchmark for the SS position. In truth I am spinning my wheels in this discussion...not with you...don't mean that at all. However the Sox have always treated even the really important defensive positions this way. If a player can hit, his defense will be appreciated. If he can't hit and hit well, his defense does not matter even if he is a SS. That is the way it has always been..... before the DH, after the DH, when the pitching mound was higher, almost forever. I don't expect that to change for Iggy and I don't think Iggy will ever improve his hitting to the point where it will be "adequate" from a Red Sox perspective regardless of how good his defense might be. That is why I think Iggy is destined to play elsewhere. Catcher and SS are the only two positions on the field where I think defensive compromises for offensive prowess at the level that the Sox are willing to make them simply make no sense. But as i said, historically, I am swimming upstream with regard to this question and the Sox.

I have no idea what you are talking about here. you are "quite sure he was handling both just fine". How the hell would you know how his employers viewed how he was doing his job? I certainly don't know but unless you have some inside track that you appear to be denying here, you don't either! He got fired....people closer to it than either of us commented at the time that in part he got fired because he got defocused from the job and in part he was defocused from the job because of his 9/11 activities. How much impact a Manager has on baseball outcomes has nothing to do with it. Employers make decisions about whether or not they are getting value out of their employees all the time. The more millions somebody is paid, the more scrutiny they will come under. The mere fact that a Manager often makes millions suggests he has something to do with the outcomes whether they are game to game outcomes or season to season outcomes. Regardless it is still the employer that decides what is relevant to a decision to hire or fire. One piece of evidence worth considering is the general lack of longevity of baseball managers. It suggests that the people that pay their salaries think they have something to do with outcomes or they would not change them with such regularity nor would they pay them so handsomely.

Hey you are entitled to your opinion and I am entitled to mine. To me he plays like a utility player that is playing SS. SS happens to be the defensive position where a player can have the most impact on run prevention. Just the fact that we are willing to use terms like "adequate" defensively with respect to that position says something about how wrong headed that entire perspective is, at least in my opinion. However it is the perspective that has permeated the Red Sox regarding SS for as long as I can remember as they have always taken a bat over a glove even in the most important defensive position on the field. It is their team and they can do whatever they want with it. I don't have to agree with it. Although my view of it expressed earlier is that Iggy will never see more than a cup of coffee as a Red Sox SS. Although I do expect him to be a major league SS......just not here.

Agreed but if that is what you want to do and you cannot do the one without damaging the other, quit your job and have at it. If you are collecting that paycheck you have a responsibility to your employer. If not, don't be surprised if your employer gets tired of cutting those paychecks if he is not getting what he is paying for. Your employer had no responsibility to pay for and indulge your desire to fill your plate to overload with things other than your job and if your job suffers for it, don't expect your employer to continue the paychecks.

One other thing that I just remembered that may or may not be relevant here. When V finally wore out his welcome completely with the Mets, one of the things that got tossed around a good bit was V's involvement in 9/11 related charitable activities. One view was that he lost focus and in the end that cost him his manager's job. We don't have a 9/11 for V to be spending his time with now but it appears to me that he is filling his plate again with a whole bunch of stuff that has nothing to do with hit and runs, pitch counts and over-shifts. In this case, these are all commercial enterprises that are filling V's plate. As I said above, I would really like less of loudmouth, Sandwich Wrap King V and way more Baseball Genius V. While I expected a good deal of the "noise" that comes with V, I did not expect one of the most concerted commercial efforts attached to a Managerial or Coaching job that I have seen in a long long time and maybe ever!

Well I am sure I did not make it clear but I do agree with you Chin Music. When I said this was going to work out for the Sox I did not mean to excuse the behavior. Two wrongs don't make a right. If Pedey or anybody else including Youk had a problem with what V said, discuss it with V. If you are not satisfied, discuss it further with V. As much as I like Pedey, he is not the public face of, the PR voice of the Sox or arbiter of "how we do things here." I do wish V would be less terse as that holier than thou attitude of his gets in the way more often than not. Just a tiny bit more explanation and V might have left the media turds with nowhere to go and maybe Pedey and Youk would not have lurched so violently. Now I happen to think this will work out for the Sox and said so because it gives them an opportunity to work through one of these and maybe do it better next time. It gives Pedey a chance to be perceived a certain way as the unofficial Sox captain by the other players. However I would be mighty disappointed if in these "discussions" between players and coaches that apparently have occurred as a result of this incident if the only thing discussed was V's comment to the media. V is the Manager. He is the guy the organization gave the job. Whether he was trying to light a fire under Youk or not, whether he meant what he said a certain way or actually meant it a different way, he is still the guy they gave the job. Pedey is still a player and not the GM or owner of the Red Sox. I don't think Pedey has a platform to discuss "how we do things here". V said he was trying to defend the player and Cafardo appears to concur. Since Cafardo was there and I was not I guess I will take Cafardo's word that V's comments were taken out of context and that in fact V was trying to defend Youk. Heck it would be better for Cafardo if it was the other way since reporters can always make more hay out of that kind of story. So again I am going to believe Cafardo. I would prefer that V not be so exposed and I would prefer that if he is going to spend so much time in front of the klieg lights that he be a bit smarter and less terse. Heck it is not like he does not have the media time to be less terse. He has a radio spot here, a radio spot in NY. pre-game and post game pressers, and God help us, The Bobby Valentine Show" and commercial spots galore. I would like more emphasis on the team, on strategy and tactics and less of the Bobby V show. For one thing I have not been all that thrilled with the in game tactics and until Baseball Genius V shows up, I would prefer less of Sandwich Wrap King V, etc etc. I am not a V fan. I am OK with what the Sox decided to do and believe that since there were no illusions about how V was going to handle players publicly, the players need to respect the decision the organization made.

Biggest problem I have the V at the moment is not his public comments about players. We all expected that. We might not like it. We may be OK with it. We did expect it. What I did not expect was the in-game issues that are arising. While it is early in the season, the decisions or lack of decisions are really difficult to swallow. We thought we were getting loud mouth V attached to baseball genius V. We got loudmouth V for sure. Case in point: The way V used Bard today is something I just can't explain or rationalize. V did say in his presser that it was a mistake to leave him in. However, that was obvious before he did it. Bard was struggling with his pitches at that point. A pitcher struggling with fatigue to the degree that Bard was does not suddenly turn it around. Bard had to come out of the game at that point. This was not one of those cases where you could say that the starter is still my best bet regardless of who V had working in the pen. Bard was not just shot but way shot at that point. The ball and Bard's rhythm and his motion were all over the place and done. 2nd case in point: Why was Repko allowed to hit away with the bases loaded yesterday in the late innings of that game. Repko is just up from Pawtucket batting with the bases loaded against a pitcher that is struggling with his control. With the count at 3-1, bases loaded late in the game and the Sox up by 2 runs at the time, Repko swings away. This is not a situation where a walk just gets you a base runner. This is a situation where a walk gets you an insurance run and keeps a rally going that can blow open the game. Repko swings at ball 4 and eventually makes out. While we can say that Repko should not have swung at ball 4, the decision should not have been left in Repko's hands. Give him the take sign there and be done with it. I am not going to include today's play with Sweeney and Ross because I have no clue what happened there. Did Sweeney miss the sign? Was he supposed to protect on a hit and run play. Was it a run and hit play or was Ross stealing? It makes more sense that it was a hit and run but the whole thing was so poorly executed that I cannot tell what the play was supposed to be. So is this a missed sign, a sign not given or a lack of attention to detail and poor execution? I am confused enough on this one that I really can't conclude one vs the other. I have yet to see baseball genius V make an appearance yet. In a macro sense this is sort of where people tend to form their opinions of V. Don't seem to ever see enough of genius V but sure do see plenty of loudmouth V. However there is no question that Bard should have been pulled before he allowed the winning run. There is no question that Repko should have been given the take sign in yesterday's game.

If I see one more commercial on NESN for "The Bobby Valentine Show" I am going to puke.

I would love to think that Iggy will eventually find his way to Boston but I don't think it will happen. Boston has never at least that I can remember thought about the SS position in terms of the kind of run prevention that a guy like Iggy brings to the table. Boston has always accepted all sort of defensive malfeasance at SS in order to have somebody in the position that could hit. Yet even in the rare instances when Boston has had a SS that can excel and therefore prevent runs, unless he can also hit in the classic sense of Boston SS hitting he is usually run out of town in a year or less. I don't expect that to change for Iggy. I think that before Iggy sees any significant time in Boston he will be traded in some trade that I cannot even envision at the moment. In my opinion, Iggy may be brought up as a means of showcasing him and enhancing his trade potential but that will be it. I also believe that Iggy will play major league baseball but not in Boston at least not for long in Boston.

As I mentioned this morning I actually think this all works to the Sox benefit. That is not to say that V had it all planned this way. I don't believe that for a minute.

There are the plays that are right in front of him that he won't make that are either mental errors not scored or actual errors that are scored. He blew a DP in Detroit. Blown DP's are not scored against the fielder. He allowed that high hopper to bounce in front of him yesterday instead of moving in a couple of steps and taking it on the fly which would have turned that into an out instead of an infield hit. At any rate even watching the way he moves around the position in SS drills suggests he just does not have the physical talents to be an everyday SS. He is a utility player that the Sox have seen fit to have play at SS.

Frankly I don't think Aviles play is adequate at SS. The occasional play that he makes that you would think might be beyond him does not make up for the plays he does not make that are right in front of him. Avlies needs to be playing in some defensive position that does not have the impact of SS. However he is a classic fit for the way the Sox have historically thought about SS.

Will have to see how our pitchers do in the next series. Rays can't hit to save their skins. Have to see how our starters do against a team with actual hitters besides Pena and Longoria.

Ross could not have even reached some of those without lunging across the plate. There was exactly one of them close enough to have been worth a "protect the plate" swing. Gotta' hand it to Shields though...he won this game....V possibly lost this game.

Honestly, having seen some very individualistic views from umps regarding balls and strikes over the years, they seem to have hit a new low for inconsistency for the strike zone, one to the next this year. That s*** to Ross was criminal

f*** you ump....that has horrible

to get to Ross and get past Ortiz...I would have to agree with Madden here.

Well that was a good effort by Agons at protecting the runner. That was a tough pitch to handle.

Already hate this Rodney guy...this is baseball not hip-hop

Nice at bat Pedey...damn these bums get to the 9th before going to the pen.

More interested in what actually happened cause this makes a couple of odd looking plays two days in a row. Repko should have been taking with 3 balls and the bases loaded yesterday and this today. Not sure if Repko missed a sign or just never got a sign to take yesterday and not sure what this was today either.

Saw Sweeney strike out but I thought it looked like a pretty feeble effort...not sure what he was doing there.

Right UN...keep forgetting about Spears.

Maybe we are assuming the hit and run was on and it was not....don't know which one to think more likely...Sweeney missed the hit and run sign...Ross on a straight steal?????