jung

Now that you guys mention it I remember that game where Broxton just got used up. That was torture to watch. I did not follow the guy after that night but it is really interesting that he never came back from that game the same again.

Not sure how happy I am about Bard as a starter. There are a number of closers out there in this year's FA market though so maybe it makes sense. Even if they move Bard to the rotation though they can't consider him higher than a 4, maybe a 5. They might be better served getting a 4 or a 5 and keeping him in the pen. He is a long way from being a lock as a starter. That said everything is a gamble. IF the Sox did get their paws on Buehrle or CJ I guess gambling on Bard as a starter makes sense. Who knows, we may have another CJ already signed in the form of Bard and we won't know unless we take the risk.

Well that is good news on Buehrle. We don't have to put all of our eggs in CJ's basket.

I did not see your post until I posted User but I can see my way to the Sox busting the LT cap for 2013 as well especially given the number of good FA available there. 2014 and 2015 are the years where the cap goes up and the Sox really need to get under it. However those are also years where if they plan properly, they should be able to get back under the cap and get there cap rate either back to 0 or to 17.5% if the need arises to bust the cap again.

The way the new CBA is structured, it would be foolish for the Sox to come in just a little over the 2012 LT cap. Now that it looks like the Sox (for better or worse) are going to sink big money into Ortiz for one year anyway, it just about forces them to hook up with one of the few serious FA SP available this year. I would say given the Ortiz situation, they should make a serious run at CJ. Everybody has been saying that Buehrle is not going anywhere so I have not been thinking much about him. Take a run at CJ and get one of the guys people have been discussing for the other end of the rotation. Make sure we have more relief help and live with Kalish in right. The point is that given the new 1st year LT rate and the fact that the FO seems committed to sinking $14M into Ortiz at least for one year, the 2012 budget is not in my view as restrained as I thought it would be. At $14M I still think sinking that money into Ortiz is not exactly the right move. If the Sox are now willing to sink $14M into a bat, doesn't that open up the possibilities for a really good RH bat instead of these half broken down guys we keep tossing about?...maybe even one that can play in the field? That would bring back the idea of rotating guys into the DH spot and giving Youk and AGons the additional rest from playing in the field. That is what I would like the Sox to do but based on the arb move I have to think that the Sox really want to commit the money to Ortiz. I still think that the Sox will may be forced to make a decision about Aceves but I think Bard will be slotted for the closer. I don't even think Bard turns into much of an argument any longer. In my view they will make him the closer.

Well I don't know where this part of the discussion came from but I cannot see putting Tito in the same league with Torre as managers. Hate to say it cause he spent so many years with the enemy but Torre was a far better manager than Tito could ever hope to be in my opinion. Just Torre's in game skills were sooooo much better than Tito's again in my opinion.

I could see the Card interviewing Francona. However don't you think it would be pretty hard for the Cards to go from LaRussa to Tito? I think that would have been an ugly match and the Cards may well have concluded as much as well.

Good choice mvp! Has ties here and to V. Would not be surprised if he was at the top of V's list as well.

Do we think that the FO will be very influential in the choice of a Pitching Coach? If V gets to make the decision unilaterally, any idea who he might choose?

Surely it will be longer than 1 year. It will still be interesting to see where the two sides ended up. I would surely be surprised if it did not matter to them.

Interested to see how many years the two sides agreed to for this contract.

Sounds like ready or not here he comes! Wonder if V is headed back from Japan at this point.

Thought he was pretty terrible but I suspect any reference made such as "Jenks-like" will forever have meaning for Sox fans. He seems to have established a new level of uselessness and he deserves to have his name be representative of a particular type of pitcher.

Nothing further on Lamont after the Sox denied that he is out of the running (as reported by EEI). However EEI also now reports that Sox and V have reached a verbal agreement.

WEEI says the Sox have just countered the tweet announcing that Lamont is still in the mix and has not as yet been eliminated.

Wow....does anybody know what day V is supposed to return from Japan?

Wow another Jenks....If you wanted to shock us silly that should definitely do the trick!

A match up war has a whole different complexion than a one-upsmanship war. I agree that Paps would not have been responsive to Boston in a match up war and he said as much. However he gladly would have sat back and watched two teams one up each other for his services. The Sox were not going to do either. They were not going to match and they were not going to attempt to exceed the Phils.

Unfortunately, I think the horse has left the barn on this one. Once again the inordinate amount of power and influence LL exerts on this team has corrupted any process. Bobby V may well have his "qualities" as a manager but none of those are things that drive LL. He sees V as a device that will be good press from day 1 as V will continue to be a polarizing element whether a manager or an analyst and frankly that is what LL values in him. While there are Presidents in business organizations that are capable of donning a different hat and not allowing their particular responsibilities as President to be to much of an influence, LL does not appear to be one of them. That is why this intermingling of responsibilities has never really worked out for the Sox. Your GM for the most part works to improve the team. Your Manager tries to win games and your President is for the most part responsible for top and bottom line fiscal performance. Not only does LL always bring his top and bottom line responsibilities with him when he moves down the organizational pipe he also always brings his penchant for being an overeager marketeer with him. That is what LL sees in Bobby V. That is why our FA signings are so often biased toward big name-itis and why we rarely have enough talent behind our big name opening day lineup card to be enough of a well rounded team to really make a run. Why do you think we so often finish behind teams with better balance and depth in spite of their smaller budgets? Our opening day lineup card looks like a world beater but there is rarely anything of substance backing up that opening day nine when they either fatigue or go down with injury. We are so often beaten by teams with better balance and often lower salary budgets but boy we are hell on wheels for neon lights and fireworks! While our FO moves are often designed to pander to the fan base and its tendency to ohh and ahh over these big name signings fans will rarely worry about what the hell happens when the guys on the opening day lineup card fatigue or go down. LL drove Theo out of town twice as Theo barely had more than the illusion of power the second time around and eventually tired of it. Don't we find it interesting that at the end Theo and Tito basically ended up closer than we ever thought they were? How the hell do you think that happened? LL's power base has a direct line from JH and until JH realizes that his junk yard dog works the wrong end of the delicate balance between the fan base and its desire to win and the business of Fenway and its desire to generate revenues, our FO doings will not look much different regardless of who is GM and our team performance will not much change regardless of who is Manager for that matter. Our team will continue to be a team with a monster opening day lineup card but a team that is none the less hard to manage and lacking in enough overall balance and bench strength to last the 162 game grind of the season. We have met the enemy and....he is us! So here we go again. We are likely going to sign Ortiz.... and... Who is it that will provide the means to rest Agons and Youk both players that have now proven unable to hold up in the face of the rigors of being part of that monster opening day lineup card? Oh that is right, our new manager and some Strength and Conditioning guy making $80k are going to "make" those guys better able to stand up to 162....sure they are. The one silver lining in bringing Ortiz back is that it does suggest that the FO might be taking its lead from the lowered 1st year luxury tax rate and might be willing to sign more players to shore up the SP, bullpen and lineup than some of us have been counting on. Is that how the Sox will spend money or will we see a couple more big name ohh and ahh signings and that's it, leaving us with the same team profile of the last few seasons? "Introducing your right fielder, Darnell "nobody" McDonald and in center Mike "big name broken down" Cameron and on and on it goes.

Not being able to pull the trigger on V is one of the reasons why I think the Sox have been looking at one more candidate under the table, maybe more than one. That does not mean they will be successful in that regard. However V has always looked like somebody they have kept in their hip pocket but not somebody they have been ga-ga over. At some point here they will exhaust all of their efforts, those above and below the table and hire somebody. Given when the CBA was completed I do think that if they have not named a manager by the end of this week, at the latest, they have an issue. The arb deadline is 12/7. Honestly it would be hard to argue that having this go past the arb deadline will not come at a cost. That said you would knock me over with a feather if the Sox have not been gaming different scenarios and planning the moves they are going to start to make and should start working on next week. We can't possibly believe that they have not been formulating roster plans.

I am more inclined to think that Paps was convinced early on that the Sox were not going to even be in the same ballpark of the offer that he was getting from the Phils or would get from other teams less averse to long term deals for closers and at the end of the day, he would have been right. If the two teams were close to offering the same thing we might have gotten a better read on whether Paps had a preference. I think he would have been just as happy to see the Sox get into a bidding war for him but realized it was not going to happen. Heck the Sox were publicly making noise like they thought Paps would get much better offers than they were willing to make and were basically saying congratulations and goodbye Paps. No telling what they might have been saying to Paps privately.

Actually the longer this has taken the less I am thinking that it is actually an issue of trying to decide between these two guys. For one thing they are to dissimilar to make it likely that they would have made it to the top of the heap together. Second, if we are actually to believe that Lamont is Charington's preferred and Bobby V is LL and JH's then that means that Bobby ranks no higher than 3rd on BC's list and in reality probably ranks even lower than that. That is getting close to unrealistic. I have thought for awhile now that one element of this is that Bobby V did not wow them in the interviews like they thought he would. I am inclined to think that at this point the Sox are leaving Bobby and Lamont out there as the public face of the manager effort while behind the scenes looking at an alternative to both of them. I don't believe we will see more interviews or more pressers from candidates. I think we will suddenly just get an announcement of the new Boston Manager, someone other than V or Lamont.

I actually don't think the manager hunt is distracting the Sox from planning roster moves. One item I would offer in that regard would be the timing of the arbitration offer to Ortiz. I suspect the Sox knew that there were changes in the wind with regard to both the luxury tax and compensation for FA signings not to mention the changes to rules regarding draftees. While the changes to the rules regarding draftees likely did not result in any delays in the Sox deliberations regarding players, the luxury tax and compensation rule changes surely had an impact. Frankly if in fact the Sox wanted to see the changes in the new CBA, I would completely understand. Also I might suggest that for those that have been anxious that the Sox spend substantially more money than the tax threshold would allow for, the new tax rates are likely a blessing as they may well result in the Sox spending much more money this year than they would have otherwise.

If not for the change in the luxury tax rates I am not sure the Sox could consider Ortiz under any circumstances. 3 years would be a total joke unless the per year were so low to account for the third year.

If you were going to insist on signing him out of the FA market 2/20 for Ortiz would surely have been preferable to 1/15 or 1/14. Still at 2/20, Ortiz would think he had died and gone to heaven. I do not get committing the amount of money to Ortiz that they will be forced to commit by going the arbitration route and I would have thought 2/20 was overpaying for him as well, just not as onerous as 1/15.