jung

And the starts for those 5 starters were: Lackey: 28 Lester: 31 Beckett: 30 Wakefield: 23 Buckholtz: 14 (mainly due to injury) dice got 8 and Miller got 12. You would have to analyze it across baseball in order to get past the injury issue, which I pointed out as being a major wild card, but an easy place to start would be with teams #1 and #2 pitchers. I think it you look across baseball you will rarely find the SP past the #1 and #2 guys on MLB staffs with over 30 starts. However in most cases the #1 and #2 guys will have at least 30 starts and it tiers off from there. If a team 1 and 2 are the only guys that are going to get over 30 starts it stands to reason that 3, 4 and 5 are getting less with your least capable SP getting the fewest starts. Of the three teams you used in your example only one really had a high degree of balance in starts, that being the Yankees and everybody knew that their SP was CC and pray for rain so pitchers 2-5 were a toss up. However even their only two pitchers had over 30 starts....CC clearly the ace and Burnett, the guy they had such high hopes for, dashed once again. Of the 3 teams you choose the Rays provide the best example with their 1 and 2 getting 33 and 34 starts respectively and the only 2 with over 200 innings. Their #5 only got 23 starts and 135 innings. Their 3 and 4 both started 29 and finished with 180+ innings. I should also point out that the number of starts and to an extent the number of innings pitched are the only stats indicative of which pitchers a team believes gives them the best chance to win, game in and game out which is how the SP are ranked through the season. The other stats give you the results of those decisions.

By the way, I am not talking about Valentine because he is my choice...far from it but I think for whatever reason that is where JH wants to go. I think it will just be another bad move on the part of the Sox and I think it will also be yet another move designed for Show with very little benefit for Go.

If I am not mistake the tax limit for 2011 was $172 expected to go to $186 for 2012 pending the new CBA. However your point about the tax is accurate, Soxsport. The Red Sox have no interest in crossing the 2012 tax threshold limit. I do expect the Phils to get over the threshold for 2012 and the Yanks have been stuck there for several years. The earliest they might have a shot at coming in under the threshold might be 2013.

For those that think there is nothing to support Valentine as the owners choice, reports coming out now that Valentine has already had one meeting recently "and will have others". This by the way on top of Cherington saying that "there were no plans to add any additional candidates to the process". How much more could they do to prove that Cherington is just a glorified janitor and the "process" is a sham.

Next year we might be looking for somebody closer to the top of the rotation particularly if Lester does not push his way past Beckett this coming season. Assuming reasonable health (which did not happen for the Sox rotation with the lose of dice for the whole season, Bucknoltz for part of the season, Lackey's decline to surgery and the conditioning issues) your first four should get more work than your 5. The work will not be evenly distributed between the 5 if they remain reasonably healthy. There are two practical elements that drive your 5 to fewer innings: 1. You will always be more likely to give your 5 less rope and pull him earlier in games where he struggles. 2. Your 1,2,3 and 4 will likely be given as many starts as possible without risking injury. A typical example might be coming off a 4 game series and headed to play a team that is throwing their 1 in the next game. Depending on the number of days between starts you may in fact throw your 1 in that game. In fact he will likely be pitching on the 5th day, right where you want him to be in that scenario. At any rate the starts will not be evenly split between the 5 guys in the rotation assuming reasonable health. In fact for evidence of the difference between the 4 and the 5 all you need do is look at last season when Lackey became our 4. Lackey was pitched every time his number came up while the Sox were looking for the right spots to pitch there 5 who was Wake. That is the way the 5 is used. By the end of the year he will still get a number of starts from the 5 spot but not as many as the 1-4 will get.

I don't see how you go past 2 years and a club option if you are going to consider Cuddyer.

Valentine was neither a finalist nor part of the original group. However that was a group compiled by BC who apparently went through this process thinking he had his priorities straight and had picked based on standards that would result in the process bringing a candidate to the top. That did not happen. Hence, either he did not understand the priorities and standards that would inspire ownership and upper management or the whole damn thing is a sham with nobody being chosen until BC stumbles on the guy that JH his buddies at the top actually want.

I don't think you could pencil Aceves in as your #4 because you will automatically be assigning him more innings than he would pitch from the #5 hole. As good as he has pitched, I don't think he looks like a 200 innings per year guy at this point. Putting Aceves into the #5 spot immediately sets at least a reasonable expectation for the SP that you would bring in to be your 4. If Aceves crashes and burns as a #4 and your 5 is a step below Aceves, you are going to go from a shot at the post season year to a disaster year that quick. I would pencil in Aceves as the 4 if I could not come to terms with a 4 out in the marketplace and was left taking a 5. However don't fool yourself into thinking there is no difference between a 4 and a 5.

Maybe this process is taking longer because it is something of a sham. On the one hand JH and LL don't want to simply override a process and hire Valentine but on the other hand they might also be expecting that Cherington comes to them with Valentine as the top candidate so they can continue this sham. I am not even sure that the whole "we want a guy with more managerial experience" thing might just be a cover. At any rate I won't be surprised if one day or at least someday we will be introduced to Valentine as the new Red Sox Manager. This is very disconcerting though. Cherington goes through a process in fact, picks through five guys based on that process, presents his top guy and "No" nothing happens. At this point I think LL better clue Cherrington in as to who he and JH want and see if Cherington can live with that or Ben needs to figure it out for himself. If not Ben may have the shortest career as a GM in the history of MLB. It does appear that this is an organization that did not even set priorities, agendas and standards for top hires BEFORE giving Cherington his marching orders. This may be an organization with an ownership group and top management that just expects the GM to recognize that their slightest expressed inclinations one way or the other are actually "the marching orders". At the very least this reinforces the perception that JH and LL are going to rule this team with an iron fist. That in itself is going to narrow the field even further. Let's see how badly to I want to go manage a team where I am the hand picked choice of ownership (read lackey) only to eventually be run out of town on a rail.

Not sure there is an offset to the number of "experts" sighting the Cubs job as a better job to take than the Sox job. This is becoming an interesting dynamic. Managers preferring other destinations, players have been looking elsewhere more favorably....this trend is not helping matters.

Both of our #4's are on operating tables so we really don't have one yet. But I don't think Aceves can be considered higher than #5 because the 5 gets fewer innings and I think that is what they should expect from Aceves.

I tend to think the Sox will be stuck making Aceves a #5 SP and bring somebody in as a set up man for Bard. SP is harder to find than relievers. They may have gotten incredibly lucky if Aceves can move into that #5 hole. Hence they have little choice but to explore that option. The only way to do that is to plan for it and prepare in ST. You just can't decide to give Aceves his shot at starting by springing it on him some time in May or June.

There is an unconfirmed report out there that the Sox have offered Ortiz 2 years at $6M per year.

I don't want a manager who's name I will continually misspell....Swam....Swim......Sveum does not necessarily flow under your fingers on the keyboard.

Just reported that the Sox have contacted Cordero's agent. I could not see signing Cordero for more than 1 year and I am not even sure that works for what he made in 2011. Not sure it works at all.

This is coming at the question from the other side but the cost and relative success of using a sort of "middle of the price range" reliever as your closer is what makes me suspect that they are likely to insert Bard there if they can. I think the reason so many young guys at the early stages of their careers get the job is because GM's are able to convince themselves that they will not do worse with the young guy ala' Bard than a reliever that they get for around $5M or $6M or even a bit more and that is likely a fairly accurate appraisal. Since the hypothetical young guy is often on the books for something less than $2M per and often even getting closer to $1M per the GM sees the similarity in performance as a net gain of $3-$5M.

I don't blame you one bit.

For baseball pitchers maybe the biggest question post TJ is what happens when they try to throw the various pitches that they had been throwing as pros. It stands to reason that they will not have had an arm as strong as it is post TJ for most if not all of their professional careers. In many cases a power pitcher's "stuff" is better. Sometimes so much that he has no control until and if he figures out how to pitch again. Lackey has grown to depend on his slider being his best pitch and in general control and location is more important to Lackey. Just about the worst thing you can do with a slider is overthrow it as it flattens out. During 2010 and 2011 Lackey was dropping his arm angle more and more as he tired and many of his pitches were up in the strike zone because of it. TJ may go a long way to resolving that but Lackey will have to learn to pitch again just like every major league pitcher has had to post TJ. So it is hard to tell at this point what Lackey will have and even he won't know until he starts to throw again. TJ for major league pitchers is not a guarantee of a reinvigorated career. However pitchers who have the surgery usually just don't have an option. So at least Lackey will have the opportunity again.

I would have be surprised to see the Sox make an effort to sign CJ.

Well since he is the only one apparently being called in at least as far as we can tell, unless he screws this 2nd interview up, I expect him to get the job.

"a small short list". Well they started with four. I don't think they will have gone through the effort they have gone through so far to trim four to three so they BC must be intending to present a "list" of two. We shall see.

I don't even know how many folks remember this but when they changed the wall they sold off small pieces of the old wall under a clear plexy cover and mounted to a wooden plate. I have one of those and I remember when I received it thinking how the ball used to clang off the thing at times then at other times make this dull thud sound even with two balls that seemed the same kind of hit, like line drives.

The old left field wall was actually more unpredictable even than this one as it was all bumps and hollows and rivet heads. There were times when the ball would just bounce straight down to the track and others when it would bounce out onto the field with no rhyme or reason and then there is the scoreboard. Oddly enough Crawford seemed to have more trouble coming in on balls than anything else. With his luck next year will be his wall ball year out there.

Youk is a RH batter and in case nobody has mentioned it yet in this thread at this rate we won't have any of those. He does have to be rested more than he was last year as 1st base is no longer an option with the exception of a spot for him to play on occasion if the Sox do go for a rotating DH arrangement. For now without Youk we would be left with Peddey, Scuts, Lavarnway and Salty....maybe Lowrie if he sticks around...Wow that should scare the opposing left hand pitchers around the league.

Geez I guess the new CBA is going to restrict the amount of money teams spend on draft picks and the amount agents are paid for those signings. I guess I understand the latter but how can the former be significant. The amount teams spend on draft picks is nothing compared to what they spend on FA veterans.