jung

The point is that they were never "low risk, high reward". They were low cost, high potential reward relative to their cost. They were always high risk based on where they were at that point in their careers. Something does not become "high risk" at the point when your worst fears are realized. When that happens the risk is simply realized in the actual outcome. In simplest terms the chances were much greater that they were for all intents and purposes done than that their careers would continue unabated. That much was reflected in the cost. If anything you can probably take the Sox to task for having done to many high cost, high risk, low potential reward deals where the risk was not reflected in the cost and the potential reward did not seem great enough to justify the cost.

Oh God please lets not go down this road tonight.

While this is a bit of a distraction, the topic of equating player evaluation and risk reward to the stock market reminds of those hideous commercials on EEI for that guy's sports betting business, the commercials that talk about making "an investment in sports betting". Never heard anything so ridiculous in my entire life. Frankly I have been somewhat disappointed in EEI for allowing such advertising content.

I have been hoping from the moment the Sox brought in all of these pitchers to have them compete for the job that the actual winner would be Doubront. If he does pull it off for me that will be the best result of the low cost pitcher cavalcade winding its way through the Red Sox.

Thanks "7"

Although this injury is not the broken arm for JZ maybe they are related. I know there is at least one other major league pitcher that broke his arm throwing but for the life of me I cannot remember who it is.

Feel bad for JZ. I can just imagine what breaking your arm throwing a baseball must have felt like for one thing. Damage must have been ugly.

No captain at all is such a better idea that I can't bring myself to name one of them as better than another.

Deleting threads is a bad idea in all honesty. In fact it is a very bad idea. I won't post more than that on the topic but did not want such a suggestion to go unchallenged.

I am actually glad LL dropped that nugget although you are right. Few of us thought that decision was more than what it was. Most of us just did not think it made much sense. I still wonder how these guys (LL and JH) conclude they should ever open their mouths in front of a camera, microphone or pad and pencil. They would both do so much better to just shut the heck up. In LL's case he can't seem to remember which lie he is on this week. JH just can't control his emotions. I guess a skinny little guy with barely a muscle anywhere can't just go and take it out on a heavy bag. Heavy bag might bounce back at him and knock him into the cheap seats.

Well that is hard to argue with. The only problem is that at least as far as forums go, one comes with the other with the amount of "s***" really only being a matter of degrees. Much like our 1st Amendment rights....you take the good with the bad and "hope" there is more good than bad since attempting to control it by "rule" tends to be the worst thing that happens to a message board. It is a one way communication tool and until we perfect our writing skills to the point where everything we write is entirely understood the way we intended it to be, this sort of stuff will always happen to a message board. If the degrees of s*** appear excessive here I think it has more to do with people taking themselves to seriously or at least taking their opinions on a message board to seriously. It is not like what we post here has an impact on outcomes. Nobody is going to go out and get an extra base hit because one of us posted something suggesting a particular outcome. I always find posts about one's stature on a message board humorous. Some of them are intentionally humorous. The ones that aren't really make you wonder. At any rate, our long, laborious season of discontent is behind us as there is the smell of glove leather in the air. Pretty soon we will be able to argue about lineups and in-game decisions and all sorts of stuff that can be.......well......actually somewhat more contentious than the stuff we have been arguing about. Oh well.

Well then if you folks can just do me a favor and check out your crystal balls I will be happy to inform Sox Management that they need not worry about their team being under a microscope. Talk Sox has assured me that they are going to win the division, the Playoffs and the World Series this year. You would think nobody has ever had to make a business decision based on limiting risk. Given the number of players that are even likely to care a nit about the issue, what is the Sox downside risk for eliminating beer from the clubhouse? I would guess it to be related to both the number of players that are going to care AT ALL and the number that are going to do what????? Protest.....pout......sit down at home plate and watch three come right down the pipe without swinging at them????? If they start the season slow do you think any of them is going to get up in front of a meeting of players and coaches and tell V that if he just brought beer back to the clubhouse everything would be just fine?? Of course not. If retiring to the clubhouse drinking beer during games is not an issue which is the prevailing view then not being able to retire to the clubhouse during games for a cold one is equally not an issue. Is is not a safe bet that this team would be under a microscope for that behavior this season? I would say that it is a very safe bet. Would this team and its Management be roasted alive in the media if that behavior was found to have continued this year unless the Sox were way out in front of the Division? Of course they would be. So you want the Organization to RISK being skewered in the media in their 100 Year Fenway Celebratory year unless they are pounding out victories by the bucketful from the word GO and for what benefit? I have not heard a benefit yet. I have only heard that there is no damage TO THE TEAM's PERFORMANCE for allowing the behavior to continue. I would argue that there is some damage to the team having a united vision if the same bunch of guys treat games that they are not actively participating in end in the middle of the 7th inning but never mind. I will accept the view that there is no damage at all from a performance perspective. However,presuming that Management believed the behavior would have continued this season, I will still say that they made a business decision based on the risks involved to their image as an Organization which goes directly to the top and bottom lines which is the Holy Grail of Professional Baseball Teams......not winning anyway! Winning plays second fiddle to generating revenue and profits and only matters at all as a relationship to generating revenue and profits.

The fact that the drinking and to some extent eating during games was emblematic is what makes it an issue. It does not matter whether it is causative or not. As for what V resorted to, if as I am suggesting, Management including V got wind that players were not going to take it upon themselves to take a decision that would not force their hand then in effect it forced their hand. Do you honestly think there is any chance that the Sox would have been allowed to tolerate that behavior this year after last? They would have been skewered in the press and by the fans. It would have been the story of the season, not the 100 year anniversary or anything else for that matter. We all said it this whole off season. The Sox would be under a microscope for just this sort of thing. Sure if they went out there and dominated the league with their baseball, all of that stuff finds its way to the bottom shelf but do you really think the Sox can afford to take that chance? Would you bet on them going out there and just dominating the league or even dominating the AL East? They might win it but they are not going to cake walk anywhere. Unbelievable. Geez its like we are forgetting where the hell we are! This is the world of the Boston Red Sox where perception is reality. V being a short term solution should not be a surprise to anybody. I can't remember a soul even those that were rabidly in favor of bringing in V commenting that he would be around for more than a couple of years. No wonder it is such a tough town to manage in or play in or be in the FO in. We want one thing one week another thing the next and three weeks ago....hell that is ancient history. We have no idea what we wanted or thought three weeks ago.

If the Sox are in position to benefit from a personnel move or moves at the deadline, I would think it more likely that they would go the rent a player route as opposed to ending up in a full blown exchange of players sort of trade. It could happen but I would think the percentages favor a rent a player kind of deal. That is fine by me cause it presupposes that the Sox would be in a position to benefit from such a transaction.

Well it is not like the Sox are he only team that has banned beer in the clubhouse. In fact we learned last year (if we did not know it already) that their chief rival in the East does not allow beer in the clubhouse. That is probably particularly galling to ownership when you consider how that whole thing got blown out of proportion and became an embarrassment for everybody involved. This might also be one of the facets of the 100 year Fenway anniversary that nobody really counted on either. Here is what I think happened, again all conjecture. I think that Sox Management was willing not to make a hard and fast rule as long as the players could be counted on not to drink during games or during workouts. However if they got a sense that certain players were still going to do that then they were going to make a hard and fast rule. In other words Sox Management wanted no drinking during games or workouts but was willing to let the players decide that would be the case. However as soon as Management got wind that certain players were still going to drink during games and workouts, that was the end of the players having control of that decision. I could be wrong but I would not be surprised if that is what happened.

I don't get the thing of disallowing it on the final leg of road trips as they are returning home. I don't quite understand what the point is there. I have a suspicion about the clubhouse though. I suspect that some players were going to make a point of proving that they were still entitled to do as they please and that is using a privilege as a tool to prove a point. If V had a sense of that happening, given what happened last year if that is the case then I don't think V had a choice. The truth is Managers have very little control, far less than I think we give them credit for on this board from some of the postings I have seen. Once the genie is out of the bottle there is no way to get it back in again. I think V sensed something he did not like and snuffed it out before he ended up skewered for allowing exactly the same stuff that turned into a lightning rod and a theme for the frustration of an entire blown season. If he did it just because he did it in Texas then that does not make much sense. He was going down the road of using that rational and then simply backed away from discussing it. When I saw his interview it suggested to me that there was something more there than "that is what I did in Texas and that is what I am comfortable doing". That was not a "comfortable" look on his face at all. Conjecture for sure but "this is what I did in Texas" as the rational does not pass the smell test. Ya' can't pound Tito for being to lax and then pound V for being to strict. What the hell is that?

Wow Bobby V puts a leash on the party animals. That probably went over like a 2 ton bag of you know what. Good for V. The players want their entitlements.....earn them! You say you don't think you should have to earn them.....get real! Join the rest of us poor slobs, lucky to e able to get a beer somewhere off the company property and after work. Probably says V did not think the old guard of entitled stars would have controlled themselves. I am less thrilled with that but frankly I did not expect much better regardless of what they were saying.

Well if the Sox make a mid-season deal, that hardly qualifies as "opening the wallet". Paying for half a season of a rent a player is nothing in the overall scheme of things compared to the team actually being in position to be able to utilize a rent a player.

This thread happened to be the repository for a good deal of good information and a good deal of meaningless banter. It was the catchall thread for the entire off season. However there is more really good stuff in here than there is garbage in here. It will end because the off season will end. However it will very likely be the place we come back to to remind ourselves of the hopes, wishes and expectations for 2012. If you don't like this thread you don't like the Internet.

Just like you can't fire the boss, it is hard to tell the boss that he is not doing himself or anybody else any good when he opens his big mouth. Who knows.....maybe they see an issue with ticket sales and thought they had to say something to help people over to the ticket counter.

Honestly the Sox are always better off when JH and LL just zip it. Clearly the Sox have one of the biggest payrolls in baseball based on spending commitments that they made in other years. BC basically told us what the Sox were going to do this year early on and it is hard to argue that at least so far things have not gone about the way BC said they were going to go. Although Scuts makes less and less sense as each day goes by and it becomes clear that they are over the LT cap. I guess the problem for JH and LL is that they have taken some flak from folks that have not liked it from day one. Myself I have said from the beginning that I thought I could at least understand their position regarding making more spending commitments this year because they were already committed to spend so much money and it was time for the players they had to step up and play to their potential for a change. I don't think they have to defend themselves at least as it relates to the amount of money spent. They could be called to task for the way some of it has been spent but hard to argue with the amount. They have opened themselves up a bit to criticism for having done things like let go of Scuts to save what in retrospect appears a pretty paltry amount to have had a much more solid SS situation. Even if Iggy comes up they would have been better off with Scuts and Aviles than with Aviles and Punto. Again I think they would do better to just zip it. They are not going to satisfy those that are not happy by making pronouncement that they will spend past the budget if they see an opportunity that makes sense. Nobody cares. Pronouncements like that ring hollow for those that have decided that they are not happy with it. Just like stubbornly sticking to the story that they got rid of Scuts so that they could use his $6M more effectively at some point in the future rings hollow. Frankly their "stories" and pronouncements ring hollow to me and I am not in the pissed off camp. Those that recognize they really don't have much of a choice with regard to additional spending commitments this year aren't dinging them anyway. Geez every time they open their mouth it is insert foot. Go off on your yacht and tack left and tack right for awhile JH and take LL with you before you say something stupid again like....I never wanted that guy Crawford in the first place.

I have thought from the beginning of the off season that the problem this team has is more than a one off season problem and efforts to solve it in one season would likely just result in a deeper hole. Besides what I think hardly matters anyway. Clearly the Boss decided to tighten the purse strings at least until the Sox can get out from under the big contracts that are not yielding anything. If Crawford had had a better year last year JH might have been less spend averse but clearly the Crawford signing left a mark. Right or wrong JH is the boss and he calls the tune. If anything JH may have just decided that he is going to be "from Missouri" for awhile. Never might what these players should do. Show me might be his current mantra.

It is interesting to see how the voting to date is spread. There are a number of B and C+ votes. Then a big gap in numbers till you get to quite a number of D votes. Even the D+ has not proven very popular as yet. I have a hard time giving him a grade higher than maybe a C. To me the Ortiz Arbitration offer was a pretty big blunder when you consider how much money effectively it took off the table for a pitcher. In my view as soon as Arbitration forced teams to consider giving up draft picks for Ortiz, interest in him which appeared to me kinda' light to begin with effectively went to 0. That still says to me that the Sox really badly misread the interest in Ortiz and could have easily matched whatever other teams might have offered him presuming they truly wanted to keep him. Eventually I do not think it unreasonable that Ortiz would have even taken offers that he originally rejected once reality set in and he realized how he was being valued in the marketplace. I am on record as thinking the Sox would have been better off going in a different direction anyway. However I still consider misreading Ortiz market value as a major mistake. Letting Scuts go is still effectively a mystery until we actually see how this whole LT Cap thing works out. Even if Iggy does come up this year, wouldn't we have been better served starting the year with Scuts and Aviles and no Punto giving Iggy another half season in the system? If we basically let Scuts go for nothing then I think my vote gets down to a D+ or a D.

I guess the only question I have in this "discussion" of the quality of player in the Sox farm system does in fact relate to the ETA. I think it would be a safe assumption that some players will work their way up through the system. Some will make it to AAA and some even get to the big club. However if a good deal of your "talent" is young and has still to work its way up, then one would also think some number will fall by the wayside as part of the process. I think that might be a reason for not considering the Sox farm system to be as strong or deep in talent as we would like or some other systems. If you are depending on that stock of "young" talent all making its way up to AAA and eventually MLB I think you would be disappointed in the outcome. The farther guys are from the "show" the more likely that they will hit a roadblock along the way and just never get there. Sometimes hitters do not progress as they are confronted with better pitching. Pitchers often have to transition from one pitch wonders to guys that can throw at least two pitches effectively and whenever they want to in AA. Hence AA also becomes an important proving ground for hitters. The point being that I think in some respects the ETA is in fact a consideration when viewing guys in the farm system because for some of those guys that have a longer way to go, the ETA actually turns out to be never. Part of my concern for Iggy is that the Sox appear to have rushed him through AA and into AAA where he has not been able to hit. That said I would be very very happy indeed if Iggy deserves to come up and is in fact brought up.

Beckett has turned a corner in my opinion. He has gradually become more and more of a pitcher and less of a thrower which is a transition he must make successfully. I would have liked to see him make even more progress in that regard last year but he did make progress. It will be interesting to see if he continues to make progress in that regard.