jung

The Sox are not far away from attrition taking care of some of the issues I discussed in the earlier post. Some of the monster big contracts to star players are going to give out in the next few years and I would hope the team modernizes its approach to team building along the way. The networks are only going to gain more control of professional sports not less and the schedules and travel will only get worse and more brutal. A good example of where I think baseball teams will need to go can be found in pro hockey. NHL teams are forced to play three lines of forwards at least if not four and three lines of defensemen with virtually everybody contributing in each game. While baseball will not require teams of 25 players each contributing to each game in the way that a hockey club does, I do think more and more successful baseball teams will be teams of 25 players that make significant contributions on a regular basis throughout the season. Teams with a very limited number of monster contract stars that spread their budget farther down the roster will stand a better chance of winning than a team loaded with stars in the everyday eight lineup but with very little support behind them.

I really don't think that last year is going to end up having much to do with the year coming. Even when you have many of the same players coming back, situations change, players change, coaches change, even modest changes in personnel can make for a very different team profile taken over the 162 game haul. So I don't think much about last year's team relative to 2012. However the idea that September was an anomaly does not make much sense to me. In the first place I do not even know what that means with regard to a baseball team playing 162 games. If you are going to write off September that way, how do you write off April? The Sox got pounded to start the season as well. In truth they sucked at the start, sucked at the end and had a great middle. What does it matter? they won what they won and they lost what they lost. I know I have used this Bill Parcell's quote here before when discussing this topic. However I think it is very true. "You are what you are". Your record is your record and when they lost or won the games is meaningless when compared to how many were won and lost. Any other way to think about it is a rationalization. We will have the team we have at the start of the season. If there is one thing about last year's team that I hope will not be an issue next year, it will be the drop off in performance by position and then in backups vs the front line 8 everyday guys. The 2011 Sox had big stars and big holes in the starting line up that made it hard to sustain rallies as there were simply too many players underperforming and the Sox could not hide all of them. In addition when players went down we really did not have much supporting them. We had some great players in the starting 8 but not much backing them up when they went down. If you look at recent successful regular and post season teams they feature pitching (which we did not have) and a more balanced lineup with fewer monster stars and more balance both in the starting 8 and in the team overall. The biggest problem I have with Ortiz coming back is that it means there is no formula for resting Youk and AGons, both of whom clearly needed the rest by year end. In Youk's case it is such an issue that I would seriously consider trading him unless there is a formula that both puts quality players in the field as replacements and keeps him from having to play so many games at third. They will win some and they will lose some. Once again when they lose them or win them will not be anywhere near as important is how many they win and lose. The only element of timing that may be a factor is how good the team is playing going into the post season. On balance you would certainly want them playing good baseball going into the playoffs. However the wins and losses at that time of year may depend on the extent to which the manager is resting players and/or setting up his rotation and his bullpen for the post season. So even playing good at the end of the season may not be entirely reflected in the record. However if the Sox do not become more balanced within the starting 8 and as a team in total, then over 162 games, I think that will show. It will show because in the Networks controlled modern pro sports leagues of today you simply cannot keep running your big stars out there day after day after day. They will run down or get injured and it won't matter what you are paying them at that point. The more balanced teams have a much better chance at surviving in the modern era of Networks really controlling when you play and how often you play. I did not comment negatively about AGons and his statements at the end of the season because he was wrong. AGons was correct! The Networks do control the schedules and thus control travel and a whole host of other things over the 162 game grind. I did not think AGons was wrong at all. I thought he was wrong for mentioning it publicly as there were other teams that faced grueling schedules all year as well. They were simply better balanced and better prepared to handle the grind and that is more than just conditioning.

I am likely to get hammered for this one but if I put the clubhouse antics aside (which don't count for much at contract time anyway)I would say that Beckett is slightly underpaid , not based on when he signed his current contract but based on pitchers signing new contracts today. I think it was a fair deal when he signed. in many cases "fair" deals start to work at least a little toward the team eventually. The outlandish contracts have the players getting outrageous sums of money in the later years when they should be on SS. I guess in totally it is likely a fair deal all around as Beckett has been up and down as others have noted. Pitchers are getting crazy money these days as the standard seems to have been lowered for SP at least to some extent.

As fans, we don't care about he size of player contracts. We may only care if we can draw some correlation between player payroll and ticket prices. However ownership won't spend money like Crawford money on another outfielder when they could spend that money on pitching. They will never be able to justify it to themselves when they think about the kinds of pitchers they could sign for $21M per year or $22M per year.

I don't think the amount of money coming off the books relative to Ells is as significant to the Sox as the amount of money they would have tied up in their outfield if they are forced into negotiation with him. Unfortunately the Sox themselves have set the expectations that a player like Ells would have because of what they gave Crawford. A different team might be able to negotiate with Ells and get to more reasonable numbers because Crawford' contract is ridiculous no matter how you look at it. The Sox themselves have no shot and Ells is even more in the catbird seat than Ortiz is this year. In my view regardless of what comes off the books the Sox are not going to tie up over $40M per year in two outfield positions and one could hardly blame them. If you are going to err on the upside, pay for pitching not outfielders. I would love to have Ells. I would love to have him over Crawford but the Sox already made the mistake and there are no good ways out of the fix they put themselves into by signing Crawford to such an extraordinary contract. To hear Cashman tell it, he played Theo like a violin. I suspect the Sox are here because Theo determined that he was going to lose Ells in any event making whatever he paid Crawford a mute point. i still don't like the decision and would not have liked it for about a zillion reasons even if Crawford had a decent 2011 instead of a disastrous 2011.

There have been several suggestions made about those seats over the years since JH has owned the team. The only problem is that in each case what has been suggested results in fewer seats and it does not appear there is any interest from ownership in cutting the seat count.

I guess the bigger problem for me with Wakefield is the one it makes at Catcher. The Sox were clearly finally moving away from the kind of formula that carrying a knuckler demands and I don't know what happens to that now. I will be more interested to see what they do at Catcher if they sign Wakefield as another year of watching Salty let ball after ball go by is going to be intolerable.

There is a link between the 100th anniversary and Veritek. The park and the player are both approaching the same age!

I simply do not think Wakefield can get anybody out anymore. He is just to old and at this point most of the time the knuckler does not knuckle. It just meanders over to home plate on its way to the outfield if not further. I would rather see them do just about anything other than sign Wakefield. I would rather they took a Rocky Balboa shot at somebody cause whoever that somebody might be could hardly be worse than Wakefield. Not only is Wakefield a walking home run machine....Salty is a walking passed ball machine. I don't think Kelly has any history catching knucklers either?

The Yanks are the one team in baseball for which you can almost categorically state that the LT is simply not a factor. 50% at four years may be sobering even for them but that remains to be seen. If anything it will be the Sox that are pushed to the sideline by the LT, not the Yanks.

Fenway suits the needs of this particular ownership group just fine. Fenway is safe as long as JH is around. However once he sells out the next ownership group will very likely move on. I love Fenway. Have been a season ticket holder there and would not trade the experience of a game at Fenway. However for any ownership group intend on both generating revenue and championships, Fenway is now a liability. The whole monster seat thing is a joke and is yet another bit of evidence of this ownership group and its tendency to lean toward marketing the Sox brand and Fenway park. Paying for monster seats so you can watch the left fielder disappear says those seats are not about baseball. They are about something else entirely. Would you tolerate having no live view of plays back at the left field wall for anything more than a single game just for the heck of it? I just hope the next guys that take a swing at Sox ownership and the whole issue of a new park build one the right way. Seen to many instances where it was done wrong. It is something you live with for 25 years at at minimum so doing it wrong can really suck.

I thought what happened with the Phils is that in the end, the contract really was not offered in the sense that once it got to the Phil's owners desk, he turned it down (as in refused to sign it). So in fact it was the Phils that walked away from that deal. Do I have that wrong?

I actually don't think the Sox have set their sights on guys that are solid pitchers that fall to the bottom of the heap and the price scale as the offseason progresses as much as they have been hoping to pick up some of the guys in the "hope they don't fall apart" or "hope they have recovered from the most recent injury" category at a bargain and it is that market that seems not to have developed at least to the extent that they have hoped. It is getting to the point where what will remain will truly be the bottom of the barrel. I would love to see what a guy like Jackson actually does end up going for as he is the last pitcher left in my opinion that is a cut above that group of really risky bets. Jackson is exactly the reason why I think that even a Jackson type at a bargain is not where the Sox have been aiming. The most recent G2 has the Sox showing no interest in Jackson. So there ya' go. If they have no interest in Jackson they are not hoping to get a break on a good, solid, innings eating middle of the rotation guy and are looking to get a break on a "loaded with risk, coming of of injury, on the junk pile guy". Oh be still my heart! That has been my point. What is this strategy that has not as yet made itself evident unless it is the one I just identified. The only one remaining would be a strategy based on something of a blockbuster trade or at least the Sox fan boys would likely consider it a blockbuster. It will likely take one of the entitled, pampered stars being shown the exit door to get something real to happen. Could be the best thing for them actually.

And they need a transplant of heart, of whatever got them to love playing baseball in the first place. Anybody got any of that lying around? Can they trade for it....can they buy it? Do they even f***ing remember what the hell it was?

Since there is no balance on this "team" there really is no formula that will stick with regard to a team leader or team leaders. This is a classic case of 25 players, 25 limos driving the players to and from the park. I think it is time for JH to depart. I am pretty sure he no longer spends any time thinking about where this team is going. His thoughts are dominated by the gigantic financial windfall that will come his way when he sells. I suspect we are into his exit strategy mode right now and I also suspect that his biggest disappointment in Theo and LL is that they sort of tossed a monkey wrench into things and might have even had an impact on the timing of his exit. Make no bones about it though. JH is no Tom Yawkey owning the team till they put him in the grave.

There are no FA pitchers left that would translate into a major improvement. There are guys like Jackson left and he is not a major improvement in any other way than eating innings. A major improvement at this point would have to come by trade which might kill two birds with one stone. Youk's time has come I think and a package built around him might get us something worth talking about.

I don't think User is actually as strident as his posts today suggest and he almost always has his tongue firmly lodged in his cheek. That said he clearly believes the team is going to spend more money this year than I think they are going to spend and I think there are practical business reasons for why they won't spend that much this year. By the way I still think it would do the team a world of good for Lester to kick Beckett's ass the first day of spring training. Wouldn't you love to see that?

In the first place this suggests that we know exactly which players they should sign and if that were the case we would be in the business of baseball instead of posting here. In the second place I am sorry to have to say it but ignoring how poorly the money has been spent without upper management and ownership making a statement larger than just personnel is simply not the way business is...just isn't. I expect them to really throttle back on the money this year as a means of resetting expectations within Red Sox baseball operations and then ease off the brakes in the years following. Red Sox Baseball Operations is where they want to have an impact. They could give a rats ass about having an impact on us. I have said this before as well but the Crawford deal has had reach that far exceeded its grasp and was in so many ways the straw that broke the camel's back.

As far as the front office being stingy with dollars...this organization has spend incredible amounts of money. It has just spent it poorly. This year's stinginess is a very common and typical reaction when money has been spent poorly. I can't fault them for reining in the dollars as this is SOP for any business. It just is. Just the wrong year to have expected them to spend money. Does not matter that Theo is gone either. Heads rolling is never the only result in a case like this. We may not like it and it may not even be the right thing for them to do. But you could have taken it to the bank that this is what they were going to do. Wearing blinders to think otherwise.

Precisely why I am suggesting that these guys are utterly lost. You would have thought they would have had enough sense to just take their foot off the gas for one second. It is the offseason with a new manager coming in. You guys think you owe this organization and its fans and its new manager a break having run the old manager out of town on a rail and having cobbled together the worse collapse in baseball history. But no...not these guys. We will show you Mr New Manager. Ain't nobody takin' my chicken from me! PAAAAAATHETIC. You would think even their agents would say something like Geez you're not really accomplishing anything here...not anything positive anyway. That said those that have commented about the lack of accountability and leadership within the clubhouse itself have made excellent points. I don't see that changing. Our second baseman does not lead that way. I don't think Ells intends being around long enough to be a leader. Youk and Ortiz are to self-centered. AGons to worried about his salvation or some damn thing. Crawford will need to improve his on field performance for any teammate to take him seriously. Lester is sort of in the same boat. Although it might do this team a world of good if the first time Beckett opens his mouth in the clubhouse, Lester steps up and reminds Josh that he took a lot of heat in 2011 for things that Josh really instigated and that if Josh puts the staff in that position again Jon is going to take him to the woodshed. I would suspect if he wanted to Jon could put a serious ass woopin' on Josh.

True it is not the fans fault. My comment was more a comment on what we will likely be hearing as Beckett's name is announced next season no matter what he does. Oh yea Josh oh yea yea yea....we love you Josh. PATHETIC! While on the topic of Mr Beckett....why did he decide to have anything to say to V about something V said as a sports analyst on a f***ing broadcast. Are you for real Josh? Boy that head must be hard to carry around. Surprised you don't have a couple of fan boys on each shoulder to help carry the weight. *******!

Gee do ya' think if Crawford was not trying to send a message here he could at least leave a message for V? "Hear ya' been trying to reach me coach" Oh no wait, these are pro baseball players...more importantly...Red Sox baseball players.....virtual gods! I forgot....politeness and civility are not to be expected here, never mind standard fair for employee to employer. Humanity is not even expected here. Why should it be from a god. We get what we f***in deserve.

On balance we are bunch of f***in' pink hats that would not know a baseball team from a ballet company. The Red Sox fan base is no longer made up of the kinds of fans represented on these boards. They are for the most part guys and gals sitting in the "company" seats as a reward for some damn thing or another. It is pathetic.

I agree that V should not take the Tito approach. However when players take the very first opportunity they get to pump out their chest....the way Beckett and Crawford have, that is not a good sign at all. I agree that this is really just about all the Sox and V can do at this point. When however you have employees that steadfast, that unwilling to see the trees for the forest....that have their heads stuck that far in the sand, I don't think this will work. I have said this before but this is not as much an issue of the individual persona's of particular players as much as it is a team that forgot to maintain the delicate balance between entitled stars and up and coming players still playing for their bacon. In a league of guaranteed contracts the front office must maintain a balance between those two opposing influences or the "team" is doomed. For years the Red Sox traded away many of its up and coming players to sign even more long term contracts at big money and upset that balance to a point now where everyplace you look with few exceptions you find guys for which the Sox simply have no controlling mechanisms. In a very few cases those players have enough integrity to and love of the game to put their own self interests behind those of the team. Remember for these guys with big money contracts the issue is no longer whether they will be paid. The issue is whether they can continue to be *******s while being paid. It is that sick! It is "I am going to get my money AND I am going to be a jerk AND I am going to rub it in your nose while I am doing it. If they keep this up I hope this team gets its ass booed right off the f***in' field next year because that is the only controlling mechanism left. How many Pepsi deals do you think there will be out there for players getting booed off the field every time their name is announced.

And since when did V look any different than the Manager and the person he has been since getting here. Asking V to keep his mouth shut is like asking and Orange to turn into an apple. This is who he is. This is who he always has been. So for everybody that wanted V here including LL....you are going to get the circus that was likely from the start. Of course I have always contended that the circus atmosphere that surrounds V is one of the things LL found attractive. LL is ever the marketeer. As for being pessimistic or optimistic, I don't know what I am in that regard. I do know that I am sick and tired of these overpaid underperforming *******s and their never ended obsession with making some point or another. Do it on the field jackass cause I am sick and tired of everything else.