jung

Release him....what??? How the hell is that supposed to work?

I guess I can buy that. Both of the misplays coming in at the end of the season where plays where he stopped coming at one point or slowed at one point and the plays were that much harder to make. The second one was in Baltimore wasn't it? No wall issue there. I think he lost his nerve due to his poor performance at the plate and the whole thing fell apart on him. That said I would not look at his 2011 performance and say moving him to RF makes sense. Fenway RF is a tough place to play. I think Crawford had already proven to be a little fragile between the ears. Seems to me he has enough to worry about now without worrying about a change to RF.

I guess Ells did only have the one injury but he came back once from it and then went back on the shelf again. In reality though that was the same injury just not healed up or given the time to heal. Frankly I have already slated him as their second most solid guy behind Peddey so Ells really is not much of an issue other than the likelihood that he can repeat his 2011. He does not have to be to make for a 1-6 that is frankly shaky. As I also said, I do now think that Ells is more likely to get closer to his 2011 than Crawford is to his 2010. I still think Peddy, Ells and AGons in that order are the most solid of the guys they have in that 1-6 with Youk, Ortiz and Crawford being the biggest concerns and on balance I still think I have more faith in those 3 starting pitchers as a unit than I have in the 1-6 every day players. The one concern I have about Ells is that I have rarely seen a guy that crashes into stuff so often and that is why I said "a little injury prone". He more than anybody else gets me with my heart up in my throat waiting for him to get up off the ground. He is just not that big a guy for the level of impact he absorbs or maybe doesn't absorb.

In spite of something of a checkered history I guess I like those three starting pitchers more than anything else this team has got because one of them is just at the end of his prime but still just on the fence between his prime and the latter part of his career (Beckett) and the other two guys are just getting into their prime years. The everyday players are all over the map. Young but a little injury prone (Ells), young and a wreck (Crawford), old (Ortiz) and fragile (Youk). I actually wish that AGons had just shut his mouth at the end of last season. Nobody was pointing to him having been a problem. We all thought he did fine and he has to go and open his mouth and talk about how fatigued he was. I know we all just want to write that off but frankly it is hard to just do that. I can't say that I ever saw anything like that before. Never mind the "God did not want us to win stuff." I did not like that but, I can completely discount it as far as AGons performance is concerned.

Pitching can make up for a good many things going wrong across the rest of the assets. As shaky as our pitching might look, I think those three guys at the top look to me like the most solid asset they have. Now somebody is going to hammer me about Beckett and his even/odd season tendencies, about Buch and his injury and about Lester and his 2011 season vs expectations but I still actually think those three guys are the solid part of this team. While we all sort of look at the offense and make some lofty assumptions about it, I feel less sure about calling that the solid part of this team. - I never bought into the notion that Crawford MUST return to his pre-2011 form in 2012 and now the chances of him getting off to a fast start are basically 0. We saw him succumb to the pressure of his contract last year. So I am not optimistic about him now that he will very likely have to deal with a slow start which may have ramifications deeper into the season - Youk is fragile with his games played totals in decline - Ortiz is old enough that any one of these years could be the year that he ages right before our eyes during the season much like a fighter can age right before our eyes during a single fight - Ells is not likely to repeat the outstanding year he had last year although now that Crawford starts the season on the shelf, I think Ells gets closer to 2011 than Crawford gets to 2010. I like AGons but I am not sure what I should be more worried about...his shoulder issues or fatigue at year end. Of all the things I have mentioned here, I am less concerned about AGons than any of the others (knocking on wood with one hand and typing with the other) Teams have issues like this but the Sox have them right in the 1-6 spots with Peddey being the most solid guy they have followed by Ells, followed by AGons. So right now, I like those 3 starting pitchers as a unit more than anything else.

Frankly, Crawford looked worse coming in than he looked going back. That is really disconcerting and is not much of a vote for moving him to RF. His speed would be more of an asset there but Fenway RF is no easy place to play. I can't say that there were many opportunities last year to see him use his speed on the bases. I did sit up and take notice when he was on 1st ahead of an extra base hit and he actually seems to really get moving once he got it going. I saw him get home once on a very regular double, not one of those deep in the gap kinds of doubles and I was encouraged by that. However he has to get to 1st in order to get to 3rd on a single or home on an extra base hit. Hated the move to get Crawford when it happened and it has not aged on me any better. Now the chances of him getting off to a fast start in 2012 are basically zero. He has already shown us that he is susceptible to the pressure of his contract relative to his performance. How is he going to react to a slow start next season if he does get off slowly? As you can tell, I have never bought into this idea that Crawford is a dead nuts on deal to go back to his pre 2011 numbers in 2012. I hope he does but I am now less convinced of that than ever.

The point is that they have more home games and more games against weaker teams in the first half and more away games and more games against stronger teams in the second half. So if they get to the half way mark and have only managed 45 wins, I would not be encouraged by that. Why would I be since they would be going into the more difficult half of the season having only won 45 games. At this point I am not assuming anything about where they will be...I am indicating how I would feel about things if in fact they have only won 45 games or less by the half way mark.

That is what i just said. If they are at about 45 at the half way mark I would not be encouraged by that. Why is the assumption automatically that they will be better than that? I am not assuming that they will be worse.

Well a quick look at the schedule shows us that the Sox have more home games before the All Star break than after and more games with the meat of the league after the All Star game than before. If they are looking like a 90 win team at the All Star break that would not be to encouraging. Wins are going to be harder to come by after than before the All Star break.

That is right, AGons was an extension of an existing contract. Oh well.

I wish the the Sox could Arb Ortiz at 12 but I don't think that will happen. Don't think 16 will happen either. The board has been projecting 14-15 and I think that is the most likely outcome. Still sort of wish Ortiz would acknowledge that the Sox did him just about the biggest favor in the history of baseball instead of trying to take every bit of advantage of that favor. But that is baseball especially now. The Sox screwed up and Ortiz is going take the fullest advantage of it possible.

Honestly I don't think there is much chance of this happening. Once you get into the season the money goes against the following year, just like it did in the AGons signing. If you take a player at the deadline for a one year deal only I think a portion of that money goes against the year you take him. I have to dig back into the new CBA to be sure of that. However my basic position would still be the same. I seriously doubt there is much chance if any that they could bump the cap via a mid-season move.

The more I think about it the more I don't wonder that the reason JH has tightened the purse strings is because he is telling LL and anybody else that has had an impact on the FA signing process that he has had it. "OK you f*** nuts I am sick and tired of seeing you guys just go and grab the most expensive guy you can find in any given year at any given position. What the f*** does that have to do with contemporary personnel evaluation practices?" Honestly the Sox do have a decision to make but I don't think there is a snowball's chance in hell of them telling us their intentions. We will have to vet those for ourselves.

Look I know we want to hammer ownership for suddenly getting cheap but the fact is they spent a ton of money...they just spent it poorly. As I have said before to have expected that the only result was going to be that heads would role is just naive. Sorry it just is. One of the biggest problems I have had that has also been mentioned before is the propensity the Sox have had for taking the top guy in any given FA market every single damed time they can. To me there is no mystery in who the top guy is in any given FA market. It does not take a genius to figure that out. To me they have spent far less time figuring out who represents value to this specific ball club. You cannot tell me that their FA signing process has been focused on value regardless of how much of a James advocate JH seems to be. The top choice, the most expensive option by default cannot represent value and if you take that player every time you can, you cannot convince me that you are focused on value either in the absolute sense or as it relates to this specific team.

Actually I think the reasons why BC might not be jumping on any additional FA signings have been discussed at length and often on this board as has the issue of how much power BC may or may not have.

We are so deeply into a gray area here it is not even funny. The issue I think is; will they be competitive enough to be willing to trade away good future prospects against something or somebody at the trading deadline. I guess my point is that I don't view competitive as enough to make that sort of deal worthwhile. Ya' gotta' be well into a good bet to make it into the post season, not the "chance" to make it in that I am rating them at today. If they are beyond the "chance" into "good possibility" then I would say it would be likely that they should be willing to sacrifice future prospects against improving on that good possibility. If they have not improved from the chance position I believe they will occupy at the start of the season then unless somebody wants to throw "God" on the pile in some insanely weighted toward the Sox deal then I would say no. Cash can be a different story. If a team wants to let go of a contract that is ending and and are willing to take cash from the Sox for a rent-a-player that can be fine under almost any circumstances. With the exception of the cash deal it all hinges on where they are at the time.

If the point here is that there is not much available during the season I would tend to agree. Somebody goes down and you start looking...you are just about at everybody's mercy. You have to be ready to make a move at the point where teams begin to give up on their chances to go anywhere and are also at that point willing to give up somebody decent in hopes that they can improve their chances in some other season. Even then that does not come at 0 cost. You usually end up giving up good prospects to get somebody under those circumstances. It is usually a safety valve for teams that are really romping their way through the season. Management does not want to see a team that is romping its way through the season start to stumble because a player goes down. Does this Sox team look like a team that will be romping through the 2012 season? Not to me it doesn't. Looks to me like a team that has a "chance" to get to the post season but that is it...it has a chance.

I don't think either the WS or the Jays are better than the Sox or even equal to the Sox at this point. I still do think where the rubber meets the road is not the marginal differences between teams but in the marginal difference between results and what they mean for the post season. As I posted earlier the difference between going home and going on seems paper thin to me. 98+ wins likely wins a division. 95 wins likely gets you into the post season. 90 wins and you are likely going home. In my view any team that can win 90 of 162 is a pretty darned good team. This is starting to remind m a little bit of the NFL where it is not unusual any longer for 10 win teams that do not win their division to be going home regardless of the fact that 10-6 is a darned good NFL season. The real problem for me at this point is that the Sox do not look to me like one of those 98+ or 95 win teams. While I do not think teams like the WS or Jays are the equal of the Sox, I do think as currently configured those teams will steal more games from the Sox than they have in the past and make it harder for the Sox to get to something like 95 wins. The Rangers and Angels will likely pound their division rivals more this year than last. The Yankees look like the division leader in the East. The Sox don't look like a 95 win team to me and I don't even think the much sought #4 pitcher gets them over the hump. Granted I am basing much of this on what the team did last year as configured and what it looks like this year as configured AND then compared to the competition it will face this year. Also as I have stated before I discount the end of season mess as some sort of anomaly that should be discounted. You are what you are. The Sox won what they won and lost what they lost. So the arguments/discussions are valid in my view with each side able to make a good case. But when I look at it from the perspective of wins I have a harder time thinking the Sox can get over the hump.

I think that a good deal of the argument/discussion call it what you want about the state of the team relative to potential results stems from the fact that there is now a very fine line between going home at the end of the regular season and going on. It takes a very good team to win 90 games. Ya' know where you are goin' if you win 90 these days....you are goin' home. The extra WC team may now cover a 90 win team but the point is that the difference between going home and going on seems paper thin to me. 98+ you are likely to win the division. 95 wins and you very likely going on. 90 wins likely going home. That is pretty thin on a 162 game season.

Theo has always gotten more credit than he deserved by some and more criticism than he deserved from others. I have a hard time with using terms like "grateful" for the two WS wins with regard to Theo. I don't remember him having any RBI or striking anybody out and he was only partially responsible even in the GM role. I have said this before but I think the Sox failings off the field are organizational in nature. Hard for me to be to critical of one guy whether it is Theo or BC. The Sox are a cross functional mess. Baseball Operations never appears to me to be organizationally empowered to just act in the best interests of the performance of the team on the field. Until that changes i just am not all that interested in who they anoint as the GM. Don't think it much matters. As for JH, don't cry to me JH that you did not want Crawford after the fact. You are the owner of the team. If you did not want that deal to go through then stop it. Don't whine after the fact that you were against it at the time. Either stop the deal when you can or shut up after the fact. You did neither ya' fat head. Oh I guess I am supposed to be grateful to JH too.

This was a known issue at the end of last season. The wrist issue reappeared when Crawford started his workouts after Christmas but it was not an unknown issue at the end of last season. In fact he was getting shots in the wrist to numb it up for games when it was really bothering him. It was not ignored. A decision was made to let it be for a few months and see if it got better. That was the decision. I don't understand why they did not do an MRI at the end of the season as it would have very likely shown the same degree of damage that they found now. They could have done the surgery at that point and Crawford would not be looking at missing at least the beginning of ST if not more. Goodbye to Dr. Gill and his band of merry hacks. His enduring legacy will be "We do not MRI bruises". See ya' latter Dr. Gill.

Did not know Dr. Morgan lost his license. Not at all impressed with Gill is the point.

This whole issue of Crawford and what appears to be another case of reluctance to order up an MRI at the end of last season makes me wonder why they canned Dr. Morgan for this idiot Gill in the first place. Was it cost...something else. One element of this whole thing that flies in the face of reality was that they were numbing Crawford's during the season and increasingly at the end of the season. Did they think they would be numbing his wrist for the next six years of his contract without eventually running up against the need to perform some sort of procedure? Even if you decide to treat your players like they are assets, they are the most valuable assets that you have.I don't give a damn when Crawford comes back, delaying his start to ST was and is inexcusable. I do not mean to excuse Crawford himself in any of this either. His attitude toward a horrific season seems all to nonchalant and just about what you would expect from a guy that has his guaranteed contract, can basically thumb his nose at the world and choses to do so. I can easily see a situation here with management asking the team to recognize that the Sox at all levels have some PR work to do in order to restore their public image and I can just as easily see about half of them telling management to take its public image and shove it where the sun don't shine.

Hey good news guys. We don't need a replacement for Crawford after all. Look at his WAR.

Been away from the board for awhile I don't think I explained this well enough. The Sox "decided" not to conduct an MRI at the end of the season. In fact they "decided" not to do anything for a couple of months apparently to see if it would get better on its own. They new this issue was there and decided on a course of action. I just think it was the wrong course of action. Also I don't understand the reluctance to ordering up an MRI for a player. This is at least the second time we have seen the Sox tardy in ordering up an MRI. What do they think.? Do they think the devil lives in there and that the player is going to come out possessed? I just don't get it.