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Seem to be missing one significant point here. Pitching is still hard to come by and Oswalts real problem is that nobody was really beating a path to his door regardless of how hard pitching is to come by. Considering how important pitching is in MLB the most significant element to the entire Oswalt off season was the lack of any concerted interest from MLB in general in giving him a spot even as a #5. In retrospect do we really think Oswalt turned down $10M from Detroit? Detroit may have offered him something but at $10M he would have been on the first plane to Detroit. So I really can't put much stock in the grant strategy approach. It is clear that he would rather stay at home than go to the pen for anybody. However a half season someplace probably does not result in a parley into a long term contract either. I suspect that if somebody is willing to put enough money in front of him to come on for half a season then he will pitch someplace. The problem for any team looking at him remains the same. How much money does a team want to put into a guy that may wake up one morning and move the wrong way and be out for 6 weeks. I think that was the problem now and that will be the problem 4 months from now. If a team is really desperate, they may put enough money in front of him and he may pitch. Not sure if either is really feasible as some sort of plan either by Oswalt or by the teams that had been willing to offer him $5M for a year. If something does happen with Oswalt at this point I suspect it will be a matter of happenstance more than planning on either side.

Geez that is scary just hearing it. Serrated edges sawing away at him internally?

Since players rarely announce what they are not doing, if I were a betting man I would bet it is a retirement announcement.

Hare Krishna Hare Krishna Krishna Krishna Hare Hare

I doubt Oswalt is going to be deciding anything at this point. I would not be surprised if the offers that have been made to him have all been withdrawn at this point. Nobody is going to leave an open offer on the table leaving the decision in his hands. Teams will likely see what they have in ST and either decide to make him an offer or not. In some cases teams might be making their second go round with him. Maybe somebody that did not offer the first time around ends up feeling like they need more help coming out of ST. Maybe he still ends up not finding a home and retires at least for the first part of the season anyway.

Which can sometimes have a debilitating effect all its own.

Both Carpenter and Bard are 26. Has Carpenter bloomed into a thorn bush?

In this case, was was posted up was an official "Yankees" announcement. Maybe a smear campaign is initiated by a leak of some information from an organization to the media but this was the actual public announcement from the Yankees themselves. Hard to grasp an "organizational" grudge against a player.

Well while on the topic of Yankees past: Wow, I don't think anybody here would likely be a member of the AJ Burnett fan club but did anybody see the Yankee official press release. Rare to begin with because usually a team provides some bio on a guy coming in but does not for a guy going out, leaving that end to the guy's new team. While I guess you can say this just shows how pissed off the Yanks are at Burnett, this seems pretty classless. From the official Yankees press release: In his three seasons with the club he went 34-35 with a 4.79 ERA (584.0IP, 311ER) in 99 games (98 starts). His 58 wild pitches recorded during his three-year stint with the Yankees (2009-11) were the most for any Major League pitcher over a three-season span since Tony Cloninger threw 62 wild pitches from 1964 through 1966, according to the Elias Sports Bureau. He posted an 11-11 record with a 5.15 ERA (190.1IP, 109ER) in 33 appearances (32GS) with the Yankees in 2011, setting career-highs in home runs allowed (31) and tying a career-high in earned runs allowed, while ranking first with a franchise-record 25 wild pitches – the most by any Major League pitcher in a single season since the start of the 2000s and the fifth most since 1900. Talk about stretching a point to lay the guy out. How often does the great Tony Cloninger come up in discussion? Regardless of how much I myself might grow to dislike a Red Sox player, I hope the Sox never stoop to this level to nail a guy. I would hope that we would always be better than this! I suppose you could argue that the way the Sox handled Tito on the way out was bad but the Sox never made a formal press release including any of that information. The information got leaked and we assume it came from somebody in Sox Management because common sense would say it would have had to be have been somebody with access to Tito's medical or employment records. Even if that is the case that is nowhere near a club making a formal press release purposefully intended to nail a guy.

Jeter, Williams, Posada....Geez, I have enough trouble keeping track of our own washed up, over and done bums....Now I gotta keep track of somebody else's washed up, over and done bums too?

I may not have this right but didn't management appoint Tek Captain? Somehow I seem to remember that. Other teams do this as well, some in other sports but I never thought it a good idea regardless of the sport, the team or the guy.

One thing I have not thought to ask in this whole Iggy discussion is where he went this winter. Does it make any sense to think that a guy his age with the work he needs to do just sat home? He must have played somewhere this winter. Maybe V knows something about his winter performance that has him thinking that Iggy has really made some progress. Heck that is at least a mystery that holds some promise for a change. Most of our mysteries are about much less interesting topics these days.

Screw it.....time to see what they really have.....finally. I hope we get to see enough of the squads to really get a feel for some of these guys we will be depending on this season. At this point anything would be better than this torturous off-season.

Tomorrow is the first day the whole team should be officially on site. I wonder if the arriving non-pitchers and catchers will actually practice on Tuesday or will that be their arrival and check in day only? Can't wait to see how/what the training schedule is going to look like. May not be that different but I still am sort of anxious to see what happens. Guess it will hold till Wednesday. Have to think the whole team is working out on a full schedule Wednesday.

Smith's offensive numbers were somewhat enhanced the same as other speedy National League slap hitters of that era. I think the NL had 5 artificial turf fields in Smith's day including Busch in St. Louis. That would have put his turf games per year at something north of 120 games. I think Busch went back to grass Smith's last year in St. Louis or the year after. It took infielders with terrific range just to get to balls bounced onto those infields. The ball often noticeably picked up speed. However the surface did reward slap hitters excessively. Smiths BB totals were not great for a guy that often had over 600 AB a season but the guys that really made a thing out of the slap hit on turf would just about swing at any pitch that gave them the opportunity to bounce the ball onto those surfaces. When viewing a game live on the stuff you would often see a "hit" and mutter to yourself "geez how does the infielder get an even break playing on this stuff". The advantage in true bounces never seeming as relevant to the fielder as the advantage in speed through the infield was to the hitter. Smith's lateral speed and quickness were more of a defensive asset and his straight line speed was more of an offensive asset playing in the NL. Belander would likely not have been as highly regarded defensively if he played in the NL where getting that long angular frame of his moving into that first crossover step or moving laterally would have been more of an issue. Guys like Smith and Concepcion were well suited to those carpets. Another aspect of the carpet had many NL SS not often trying to throw the ball on the fly across the diamond preferring to place the ball a full bounce in front of the 1st baseman and trying to have the ball finish about knee high and in a really nice spot to meet the 1st baseman's stretch. The surface murdered your legs though and many NL guys switched to the AL later in their careers to get off those carpets cause they just could not take it anymore. The bigger the player the worse the pounding. I think the AL had two turf fields at most at one point maybe three. Turf technology for most of that era was not great either and the sub-surfaces were hard as rock making them that much faster relative to natural grass as far as the speed of the ball on the surface and that much tougher on the legs. If you look at a stat like hits (which takes walks and power out of the mix) for SS's from 1978 through 1992, the heart of Smith's career, at least 6 of the top 10 SS's come from the NL usually with 2 of the remaining AL SS coming from carpeted stadiums. In some years all 10 of the SS hits leaders are playing their home games on carpets. Smith regularly appears in that top 10 for hits in those years. In those 14 years I think I only found two years that were anomalies cutting the SS leaders for hits between AL and NL and in those two years one still had AL SS's that played their home games on the carpet appearing in the top 10. Hardly ever see one of the carpet boys blow you away with their OPS when comparing them to SS's playing the bulk of their games on grass but hits galore. While Smith playing an average of 50 games a year on turf instead of 120 would have seen his offensive numbers much reduced I don't think it would have had much of an impact on his defensive prowess relative to other great SS. His absolute range was not as great on grass but his range relative to other SS's, even great SS's was still outrageous I think. I saw nothing in Smith's game to suggest that dealing with bad hops where some big weakness that would have changed our perception of his defensive skills and the Wiz did not have what I would call a weak arm.

I am happier with Belanger being in the discussion as well. Of course Belanger played with Brooks Robinson on one side of him and Davey Johnson on the other side for a goodly part of his career.

I do think that the comment about a guy needing to really be an excessive run inhibitor in order to make up for 0 bat is accurate. That might in fact be where folks are reading more into the Smith comparisons. If for example Iglasias is currently as reported, having difficulty hitting AAA pitching, then if he does come up now would that not inhibit his ability to improve his hitting? Honestly it sounds like he should be back first trying to hit AA pitchers since that is a major transition point for pitchers making their way to the bigs. I was not kidding when I said earlier that if the kid never sees anything he can hit, he may never hit anything. If that happens then you are more or less left with two potential outcomes: 1. The guy is the next coming of and is an embryonic Smith or close to it 2. You are grooming a guy and spending a good deal of money on him to end up with somebody that comes in late in games for defensive purposes So maybe it is a good time to add some color to the Smith end of the discussion. For me, the player that sits behind the stats can be described this way. Smith covered about half a position in every direction beyond average SS, including the short outfield positions. He not only got to balls that far away in every direction but made plays on them. That might not sound like much until you really try to visualize a SS doing that. He made plays beyond what you would call deep in the hole one way and past 2nd base the other way just as examples. As for short outfield, Smith is the only SS I have seen that outfielders would be run off of by as far away as yards, almost like it is easier for Ozzie to make what we would think is a spectacular run and catch than it is for me as an outfielder to make a very good run and catch. So for the good of the team I am going to peel off here. I probably got to watch more Smith play than I had a right to mainly because I really went out of my way to see him play. It was that much of a treat. If Iggy is the next coming of the Wizard, I can promise you that as a fan you are in for the treat of a lifetime. There is almost nothing more exciting and exhilarating than watching somebody that dominant making plays from the SS position because there are so many balls that can be within reach if you possess the speed and quickness of the Wizard while also getting an excellent jump on every ball hit in any direction. If you have all that going for you and a magnet for a glove it is no wonder that you might treat fans to 162 magic shows at least while in your prime. But I don't know where to draw the "inhibits runs but has no bat" discussion if Smith is the context and myself I am not comfortable with using Smith archetypical as a starting point. I can't thing of another SS that I saw play that got close to Ozzie. He was that much more dominant as a defensive player than any of the other great SS that I saw or have seen before or since. At any rate this is the best I can describe why the discussion is difficult for me. I don't know if others that have difficulty with using Smith in any context with regard to Iggy have the same issues I have or not. I guess the whole thing might not matter if we were not trading off on Iggy improving his 0 bat if we bring him up now but I just don't see how he improves his hitting from where he appears to be today. I do think V will know what he is looking at when he sees it. I also think that the Sox pre-V have been pushing Iggy up the ladder faster than he might should be pushed. That is the part that worries me. There is some pressure that appears has been moving Iggy along at a faster pace than is best already.

Just heard that the Sox are charging $5.00 a head for a quick tour of the new ST park. Not sure if I would do that if I were them. Why not just make it a free tour? Wonder how many folks will try to get their $5.00 worth if you know what I mean.

I think the best way to read the difference in the LL world view and the Theo world view will be to recognize that they now hold the same positions in different cities and function under the same rules. If Theo gives his GM more rope than LL gives his GM than it might be more difficult to view those two GM's objectively. However it should be easier to discern how the two Presidents view things functioning under the same rules for two big market teams.

I don't know about the synergy thing. I think it will not be difficult to see how different their two "world views" actually are now that Theo has LL's job in a different city.

No that is not what I meant. Boston GM's have never gotten out from under LL's thumb. Sure Theo Phase 1 supposedly ended with Theo gaining some measure of freedom from LL but I never bought the idea that there was that much difference between Theo Phase 1 and Theo Phase 2. BC does not have that much freedom either. Boston GM's become scapegoats for FO failures and while the Sox PR machine made lots of noise about Boy Wonder they made all of that noise during Theo Phase 1 as well. The amount of freedom Theo had at that point has been pretty well documented around here. In my view the only difference between Theo Phase 1 and Phase 2 was the perception that anything had changed. Crawford is a good example of the scapegoat end of the deal. JH neither stops the signing of Crawford when he could have as the principle owner of the team nor can he keep his mouth shut after the fact. Typical of the scapegoat end of the deal.

Geez do we really care? Theo is gone. Ya' want a measure of his tenure here that might work for ya'? Do you think anybody will be pining for Theo a couple years from now? The Sox have so much going on their FO and upper Management, so many guys with their fingers in everybody else's pies that Theo's tenure here should ultimately fall into its proper place....not quite as relevant as the guys Theo worked for and the guys on the other end of the spectrum that actually wear the uniforms on the field.

The difference between Millar's 2004 "drinking in the clubhouse" team and the 2011 "beer and chicken" team is very simple. The 2004 team won the WS. The 2011 team authored the worse collapse in baseball history.

I would like the Sox to look at Iglesias this spring to see where he is mainly because one rational for the corner they appear to be boxing themselves into at SS is bringing Iglesias up sooner rather than later. Were it not for that I would say, leave the kid in the system. He is ridiculously young. So, he has the time to develop. However the Sox "plan" appears to be to push Iglesias. It has looked like that almost from day 1 for him. Getting rid of Scuts may not have been part of that plan but hard to argue that they have not been pushing Iglesias. Maybe he should not even be playing AAA yet given that he probably would be better served with more plate appearances against pitchers at a AA level. Hard to fathom why the Sox have gone down this road with him. It is not like they did not at least have serviceable options at SS. I don't like the comparisons to Smith at this stage of his career either. Anybody making those comparisons would have to have seen Smith play collage ball in California back in 1976. Think there are many guys around that saw a relevant amount of Smith playing college ball and have seen Iglesias play in the Red Sox system? If Iglesias is a diamond in the rough and some of these comparisons are valid then one thing to keep in mind is that Smith was 23 years old before he put on his first MLB uniform. Now that the Sox have shored up the outfield I guess we will mainly see Aviles at SS with Punto spelling him and coming in for defense. I just hope they don't screw Iglesias up. They have already been pushing him along faster than they should have. He may never hit if he never sees anything that he can hit.

No I meant Pomposity. You are correct in one respect. It could have retired the "Pompous" trophy as well. Maybe that in itself is a special distinction although it did not occur to me at the time.