jung

If I had to deal in a second language I would have to use a translation software. So I would be trying to grind my way through "like home run, big strong base first man"

So what was George supposed to do....win the lottery five times over to get enough money to be an owner. Everybody in baseball got their money someplace else. I doubt you will find the Steinbrenner's over in England looking for "football" teams to buy.

This is going to be a wicked generalization so I apologize in advance for that. But I think it likely that when Theo did look at what or I guess who he could actually bring in here last year to shore up the rotation so that we did not have to trot that ugly bunch of 6's and 7's out there, he did not see major upgrades. Sure it is easy in retrospect to say things like, if they only won one more game they would have made the post season. That "team" was a shambles with the rotation the most glaring and obvious open sore by the end of the year. That team was going nowhere. Sure they ended up trotting a bunch of 6's and 7's out there. So we would have preferred what....that they spend money or assets to trot out a #5 guy every 5th day. That team was still going nowhere. Fister would have been worth bringing in here....no doubt but we did nor have pieces to trade for Fister. Detroit did. I would say that was the one guy that you could have reasonable expectation for with regard to an improvement that was available and could make a difference. To be honest I am sure that if I really looked at Fister's numbers I could argue with myself even about him. Would a #5 guy or even Fister have changed the mental attitude of that team taking the field every night by August and September? I don't think so. Look I think that the team mentality was so beaten down by year end that the one thing that scared them most was winning those last games and actually making it to the post season. They certainly played scared baseball. I do not care what Peddey says about his personal attitude at that time because Peddey can't play all eight every day positions and pitch and he can't look into the hearts of his teammates. I would also contend that Peddey is just the kind of guy that would be blind to where that team actually was at the end of the year. Peddey is not genetically wired to accept where that team was at the end of the year. That team was a mess, the fruits of a total lack of leadership both within the locker room and the management offices at Fenway. Jesus can't we forget last year, finally. It was not painful enough? What the hell are we pining for....a post season appearance with all of the failings of this team laid bare for another three games....about the time it would have taken for about any team with heart to have slain that dog in red stockings. Look the most important lessons from last year were NOT, go into the season eight deep in starters and either be prepared for your rotation to turn to dust before your very eyes or be fortunate enough to have what it takes to bring in replacements and rebuild the staff in the middle of the season. The most important lessons from last year were about team balance between entitled, heavy contract stars and guys still playing for the love of the game and playing to make their mark and leadership both on the field and off the field. You guys want to argue that the Sox should have found a way....fine...go find a team that suffered that much underperformance AND injury in its rotation from start to finish of the season AND "successfully" rebuilt the rotation during the course of the season. Bring me that and we can talk. Heck you only have about 150 years of history to go back on. If your case is so damn strong you should be able to find somebody. While you are doing that remember what the goal is folks. If you don't win the last game played in a given year, the year is a failure. In baseball we get so bound up in stats and who did this and who was marginally better than that. We forget that the only thing that counts is winning that last game played!

2011....the 2011 where the damn Yankees won the division again...you mean that 2011? I actually think the difference is that the Yankee rotation of 2011 performed for the most part better than expected. Healthy they could have pitched like we pitched and nobody would have been surprised. I don't think the Yanks expected two miracle years in a row from those guys. It was really CC and pray for rain. Unexpectedly they did better than that. As I implied when those Yankee moves were announced it does not turn them into a slam dunk monster rotation but I am very sure that Cashman will be sleeping much better this year than he was last.

It is kinda' screwed up to have the FO invite Tek even though it is a no strings attached, no commitment invitation and then have the Manager basically say "Please don't come". I do think there is a consistent drumbeat of upper management using guys like BC and whoever the manager is almost like pawns on a chess board. I would be OK with it if there was some end and if the means did not carry a penalty. But the ends are often pretty petty and often there is a penalty. I mean Gosh I think we have been thinking that they offered Tek the invite as a means of parting gracefully. Well who the hell are they afraid of offending? I don't think there is anybody that actually knows anything about baseball that thinks Tek can compete successfully in this league any longer. So do the Sox think the fan base is so stocked with thunder-headed clueless fanboys that they are going to offend if they don't give Tek an invite? God they seem just so engaged in over-thinking these things that are just not worth their time. Worse than that, they seem to over-think them to the wrong conclusion! So they had BC a pawn on their chessboard in the manager hunt and ended up kinda' embarrassing him and making something of a half hearted effort to rehabilitate his image. Now they have V a pawn on their chessboard playing bad cop to their good cop as if V needed any help in that regard. They have nothing better to do over there?

If in fact it is true that the Sox would give Tek a job if he retires this spring, Tek should in fact retire and get it over with. Maybe, V's stated position will convince Tek not to show up for that ST invitation....hang out a little and see if somebody does come calling(very doubtful), retire and take whatever this job is that the Sox are talking about. I think the killer for Tek and continuing anywhere in baseball is not his hitting...it is his inability to throw anybody out. He simply cannot any longer and even a team that insists its pitchers hold runners closer will not help Tek. He is just done. In fact I think this board is pretty convinced that V would insist that pitchers hold runners closer and V still does not want him around.

for the record it was the A's that rejected Hardin straight up for Lars A not the Sox. The original deal for Harden was Lars A + for Harden. The Sox took a harder look at Harden's record of injury which is substantial and decided that he was just to injury prone to be an answer. However they were willing to do the deal if the A's were willing to do the deal straight up Lars A for Harden. Maybe that was not a deal that the A's could tolerate. I actually think the Sox just did not want to haul another pitcher in here and have him cave physically. They had enough broken bodies around.The guy had been injured in both years leading up to 2011. He had taken inordinate amounts of time to heal and would likely have been pounded silly in the AL East. In addition he is pretty much on a road to TJ if he stays in baseball. We already had dice in TJ and I would be willing to bet that Theo already suspected that Lackey was headed there. So given the amount of injury the Sox were already dealing with in the staff I can see why they would be reluctant to bring Harden in here. I think they might have taken the risk if they felt like he could pitch successfully in the AL East. However the combination of lack of confidence in his ability to pitch in the AL East combined with his oft broken body and steady progress to a very likely TJ in the very near future were the things that I think nixed that deal. Still and all the Sox would have done it for Lars A straight up.

I can tell by the number of posts since the original Padilla post how excited people are about that possibility but any idea what he would likely get coming off of neck surgery. Neck surgery is by no means a definite slam dunk....you are back to pitching again. I am thinking he would be real cheap but I could be wrong. Any ideas on money?

Let me try this iortiz. It sounds like you are saying that the Sox 2010 experience should have prepared them for 2011 and with 2010 as a backdrop they should have made the necessary changes so that they could have more effectively mitigated what happened to the rotation in 2011. So if i have that right, can you tell me what it is that you think happened in 2010 that was the equivalent of what happened in 2011? Now to be honest I would argue that one off season is not much time but be that as it may I am struggling with what you saw in 2010 that you thought should have signaled to management that they had to situate themselves to be able to more effectively mitigate what happened to the rotation in 2011? If you answered this earlier please just cut and paste it over here. No need to type it again. I looked but there are so many posts I might have missed it. I don't remember anything as devastating happening in 2010. So that is one question. I am going to use the numerical system I used in my other post to ask this other question. Presuming your argument is that they should have had the pieces in place to mitigate what happened where would you have stashed what would in effect be #2 and #3 capable SP so that they would be ready to come in? I can only suspect that you would have wanted some number of those starts made by 6's and 7's and turned them into starts by more 2's and 3's or maybe even a cadre of 4's would have been enough in your estimation. Whatever, where would you have put them in preparation?

Look it is not just the injuries to the starting pitching but the underperformance of some of the remaining components that really hurt the Sox last year. They lost dice for the whole season right off the bat so a guy they were depending on gave them a few starts and was gone. Might have even been better off if dice had gone down before the season started. Then Buch goes down and not for an insignificant period. He goes down for the entire second half. So that is 2/5 of our rotation completely down. So lets look at what is left. Can you say Lester even had a median average season for what was rightfully expected of him. No he had an abysmal season. So you loose your 3 and 4 and your 2 is pitching more like a 4. Lackey was a mess. I have always thought that they never should have brought Lackey here but they did. They had certain expectations for him. I would say that he pitched at about 30% of what they expected of him. So their 4 is pitching like a 6. I would say that Beckett had a very good year for him but in reality he pitched like a 2 to me, not like a 1. Everybody else is just somebody they are throwing into the breach so they are a bunch of 7's. So because of injury and poor performance, they had a rotation made up of a 2, a 4, a 6 and a bunch of 7's. Dice and then Buch's injury combined with Lester's drop off combined with Lackey pitching with a dead arm is what killed the rotation and eventually the pen. No team in baseball is surviving that sort of dynamic in their rotation. They just are not. I just don't really even know what to say. I don't think it likely that any staff would have been prepared for the fall off Lester had, combined with losing dice and Buch combined with Lackey pitching with a dead arm. Really the only guy they had that performed to expectation was Beckett.

I will grant you that the Sox could have done a better job of managing their prospects but that is a process issue more than a planning issue. The Sox had decided on a certain course of action and it had its consequences. I do think they have prospects down on the farm now that will eventually work their way up through the system and I do think the Sox will allow those prospects to work their way up to the big club. I am inclined to think they have learned their lesson in that regard. But it will take time for the next crop of good prospects to work their way up as they are young by and large. Heck some of them are young by prospect standards.

Padilla will cost somebody next to nothing coming off neck surgery. Not sure if that report is true but it would certainly be interesting if they are focused on Padilla. I don't buy the argument that they might be waiting for Oswalt to drop to $7M from $8M. I still think they would have signed him by now if they were going to.

I don't think the Sox could have planned for the number of injuries they had to the pitching staff, not from where they were at that point. They could have hung on to their better pitching prospects as opposed to using them in trades and that could have provided a means to deal with some of the pitching injuries. However "could have" is not would have and there is no telling what would have actually happened. More likely at least from where they were, Theo was right. He should have done something quickly to shore up the pitching once guys starting going down. He didn't. I am more inclined to wonder what Theo would have done anyway. Sox really did not have much to offer in trade at that point. So I am not even sure Theo could have pulled something off even if he tried. Buy somebody for cash I guess??

Ortiz was a play that failed. The Sox thought that someone would grab him and the Sox would end up with the draft picks having offered him arbitration. Now they are stuck with him. It was a gamble that failed. My point all along is that they had to be out of their minds to have thought somebody was going to pick Ortiz up out of arbitration thus giving up picks to the Sox. When the chance of reward is 0 the risk is infinite and that was the problem with that gamble. It was never going to pay off.

I don't think LL and JH put BC in that position to "convince" them of anything and it is that dynamic that I think governs their relationships. They have tried to rehabilitate BC for the public after basically treating him like some sort of personnel mechanic. "Here BC, do the paperwork for thus and so." "Here BC, go and figure this out and report back what you find. For God's sake don't do anything. Report back what you find and we will let you know".

When Lackey was signed, there was a claus in his contract that related to the problems he was experiencing with swelling in his elbow. Apparently whatever wear there was at that time was not substantive enough to keep Lackey from passing his physical but significant enough for the Sox to insert a clause in his contract. The clause was I guess meaningless in the overall because it did not result in anything practical from the perspective of protecting the Sox. The point is that Lackey's arm was already showing signs of duress when they signed him. They signed him anyway and did not even get a reduction in the price for the elbow issue. We know the rest of the story.

You guys probably remember that Theo said he waited to long and should have gotten somebody to come in and help shore up the pitching. Although I agree with him, this team's management seems to have so many different facets to it...so many different influences tugging it in different directions, who the hell knows what he could have done. Seems to me what these guys can do might be more of a factor than what they should do. Whether it is Theo or BC hardly seems to matter.

V came away from his visit to Beckett's place positively ecstatic. I suspect that was because Beckett did not slam the front door in his face.

I guess Lackey must be in that tally. TJ can be used in response to specific trauma and it can be used to repair damage that is more wear related. Seems to me Lackey has been headed toward TJ with last year the end of the line for him without TJ. I don't remember that the announcement when made suggested a specific injury that he suffered last year. So I think the basis for his TJ is more in the wear variety than the specific trauma variety. There are a couple of folks on this board that know way more about TJ than I do so if I am wrong I am sure they will chime in.

JH is not the Steinbrenners. They are baseball people. JH is a sports enterprises business man. I could see JH selling here and buying Oakland. He would be able to monetize his profits here. He is well into long term capital gains by now. In selling here and buying in Oakland he eliminates the downside risk he is currently exposed to in leaving all of his paper profits on the table, ends up buying a team on the cheap that already has management assets that the admires. Buying it right means his downside risk will be much reduced.

If they were going to get Oswalt they would have pulled the trigger by now. As I posted earlier they would have known they were out of the running on Kuroda long before we did and Oswalt at $8M for one year has been sitting there for a couple of days now. Some will like this, some will not. It is what it is. Still a chance they trade salary to get salary and get a pitcher but I don't think they are interested in a FA pitcher at this point. More concerned with mistakes that send them backwards. Not convinced that BC is even responsible for the Ortiz arbitration offer frankly. I think the Sox have created a real quagmire of cross functional responsibility over there but I think the only people they have completely confused is themselves. I could care less what we know about their organizational structure. Whatever it is it does not seem to be working. Don't want to spend the money this year...fine I can live with that. Stop f***ing up and stop f***ing around.

Those that are saying both the Mariners and Yanks filled holes are correct. It does not matter what the Yanks gave up they got value for value and they traded young for young. They needed pitching now and they got it. One of the biggest things Montero has going for him is that he is a catcher and that is a big plus for him over a Kalish even if Kalish were healthy. That still does not change that fact that this was a good move for both teams. The point is, Kalish would not have drawn back from the Mariners what Montero did. Lavarnway would not have drawn back from the Mariners what Montero did either. In one day the Yankees outstripped the entire Sox offseason mainly because the Sox have made only one good move....Bailey surrounded by a bunch of meaningless ******** and outright blunders. As for musing that there was nothing wrong with giving Tek an invite to spring training....how does that bit of frivolity look in light of the rest of the days events? Are we happy that they wasted even a minute thinking about that ********? Frankly I have thought for a long time now that you don't clean up the mess this team was in at the end of 2011 in one offseason so I can deal with not fielding a fully competitive team next year. But this has gotten kinda' ridiculous. They are blundering away the offseason and fiddling with ******** like inviting Tek to spring training while the Yanks fill the holes they have. We are going backwards folks. Everything is relative and when you compare the 2011 Red Sox with what they had to compete with last year and what this team is shaping up to be this year with what they will have to compete with, they are going backwards. In fact they are going backwards so fast that I no longer know if this mess gets turned around by 2013, never mind 2012. I don't expect the Sox to compete dollar for dollar with the Yanks. However I also do not expect them to act frivolously in the face of sustained competitive efforts and to make outright blunders in the face of sustained competitive efforts. They can afford neither if the intent is to win sometime in the near future. Sure the joint will still be full of pink hats and corporate fannies stuffed into the company season seats but winning will be a different story. Sweet Carline has become a metaphor for the entire miserable mess as far as I am concerned. Stop the ******** and bring back "Take me out to the f***in' ballgame". Sweet Caroline...what a bunch of ********.

Why shocked to give up hitting for a guy with the potential to be at the top of your starting rotation. Look it just about does not matter who you are talking about as a hitter unless you are talking about one of the top five hitters in the league. Giving up a guy that would be in your #5 hole in the lineup for a guy that is young with the very real potential to go to the top of your rotation does not sound like an irrational move to me. As for the Yanks and their willingness to exceed the cap even at 50% which is their tax rate now, they make so much more money than everybody else that in all honesty I have to defend the Sox on this one. Just cannot expect the Sox to play the spend game head to head with the Yankees. Nobody can do that. Yankee revenue line is about $480M per year. Sox are kinda' around $260M as I recall. I can find the numbers. It almost does not matter. The difference is huge.

I should point out that once you get to within a couple million $ you have to start to deal with the additional debits and credits to the cap. Insurance on contracts is a debit. Any of us know how much they have tied up in insurance premiums on contracts? There are credits that go the other way. I think this is in part why this gets tough to figure unless they just go busting through the cap at which point you can say definitively that they are over.

Well that would suggest that he would just let millions upon millions in paper profits just sit there at risk just for the heck of it. I don't think he is that kind of eccentric.