jung

Isn't the general view that Buuchy's team went crash...boom on him as well, just not as spectacularly as the Sox?

I hate this stuff at baseball games. I won't bore you folks with the reasons why but I hate it for all the reasons that I love "Take Me Out to the Ballgame" during the 7th inning stretch at the places where it is still sung.

I really do think it is time for MLB to consider seriously allowing teams to trade draft picks. There is no longer any benefit to the small market teams in not being able to trade draft picks and it just hamstrings the whole process. How much more flexibility would all teams have to move players if they could move draft picks into the deal?

Watching the DBacks and Brewers and if there is one thing that all managers seem to accept more than I could is what we just saw in the 1st inning. Brewers on 1st and 3rd with one out. Runner got to third stealing while Fielder was taking ball 4. Think about all the things the next guy up could do, some bad and some good. He could strike out, not so good. He could homer, very good and there are a bunch of other things he could end up doing. What does he do? He bounces into an inning ending double play, the absolute worst thing he could have done of maybe eight or nine choices. There was a day when a guy bouncing into a double play in that situation would just about be to embarrassed to come back to the dugout especially if as in this case he is batting 5th and should be able to handle the bat pretty well. All he had to do was lift a lazy fly ball to the outfield and the Brew crew had 2 runs instead of 1 and were still in the inning. I am not trying to pick on an individual player but boy it would be nice to have a manager that really instilled the kind of pride in sound play into his team that I have not seen in a long time. Although I have not seen it in so long that I am sure I am asking for to much from both a manager and the modern player. By the way, Dbacks just got a grand salami out of Roberts so the score is 4-1 instead of 4-2. Whoops 5-1 as the Dbacks just went back to back.

Have already voted for Martinez and love the Martinez, Hickey idea. The best thing Macha had going for him is that without question he has overachieved and done more with less than most managers and is right up there with the best in that regard. I cannot say whether he has been responsible for the performance of his pitching staffs but teams he has managed seem to do pretty well in that regard also.

Well not to be misunderstood, I have supported management looking into a means to move Lackey presuming they have some willingness to absorb a big chunk of his contract. We don't know how much contract any team is willing to absorb to move a player and I am sure it varies from team to team and player by player. However it will be very very difficult for the Sox to find a way to move him even given their total salary which might suggest more willingness to absorb some of a contract than some teams might have. It would take all the imagination and FO talent they have plus a ton of JH money to make a deal happen. If folks are thinking that the Sox would absorb Lackey's whole contract and just release him outright, that one you can forget for sure. That is not going to happen under any circumstances. Even the Sox won't just say goodby to $15M per with nothing in return.

They need Mr Fixit, more than Mr Changeit. The challenge is the fixin' is across so many dimensions of the team but no question that starting pitching comes first. I think there will be more attrition this year than we have seen but in some cases it just seems that it is time anyway doesn't it? Wake and Tek must be at the end of the string and even Ortiz unless he can be had for short money. When a guy has that last "did better than we thought he would" year like Tek did when it is at the end of a long career, watch out, you are setting yourself up for a big disappointment if you are banking on a repeat. Ortiz even falls into that category a bit. Ortiz if for no other reason than we have got to get away from this dedicated DH thing. It is just too costly not in money but in wear on guys that obviously broke down at the end. I would still keep Ortiz for a year if he can be had at a decent number. I think he will push hard for two years and that is probably going to be tough for the Sox to swallow. At least it should be.

Boy seeing the way Salty struggled with Wake this year do we really want to bring another knuckler in here? To be honest I was almost looking forward to not seeing Salty stab out there with his glove hoping the ball hits the thing since I don't think they will bring Wake back. Geez it was getting to the point where he would have been better off throwing his whole body in front of the ball hoping he could keep it it in front of him. I wonder how Lavarnway is with knucklers. There are so few knucklers anymore where does a catcher go to learn? In reality I would love to see the Sox end up a more flexible team in many ways....no more knuckler so no more knuckler catcher for one and no more dedicated DH would make me happy.

I think that is what I just did. Look for a guy that has stuff but is undervalued probably because he is not performing for some reason or another. There may be somebody like that on your list. I did not review those guys to see if there is anybody like that or not and it looked to me like you had already reviewed them in some detail and might know if that group can be resorted from that perspective or are you thinking that i opted out of the thread because there is nobody like that on the list? Volquez might be interesting since TJ surgery often changes the guy's arm completely. They sometimes come back with pitches that do different things than what they did even when their arms were healthy but I did not know if you were saying that in his case TJ has really sort of tamed his arm and that is why he is struggling. He is only making a $1.6M and he sure has not been overworked at least over the career. Peavy is making Lackey money but is probably twice the pitcher at this point. I guess he does not exactly fit the buy low profile for that kinda' cash. Probably can't afford a guy that is injury prone if the money is that high.

If looking for pitchers that might not cost much money for one reason or another....nor performing I guess, then look for pitchers that have stuff but are not getting the job done. If they don't have stuff then you are just bringing in another team's problem with little upside even if you get him straightened out. If the guy has stuff and is "cheap" to bring in because he is not getting it done then you at least have the opportunity to really do something special if you can turn him around. People in Sox nation hate AJ Burnett because of the laundry he wears but he is a good example of a starting pitcher that is all screwed up but has great stuff. Not saying AJ is a possibility but that is the kind of "screwed up" or "not too costly" guy I would look for.

Agreed....to me it is more an issue of how difficult it was to be on this team for rooks and probably other new members as well. Being the only guys left in the clubhouse must have been a really really weird experience to go through.

Well you start with the fact that there is no DH in the NL so the pitcher gets to face the opposing pitcher every ninth guy up. That is a huge break. I think at the first level it is difficult for pitchers to come over and deal with the fact that there really is no place to rest in the lineup. In the NL they actually work toward the pitchers position in the batting order figuring that unless the opposing pitcher is going to be removed for a PH, all they really need to do is get to two outs and the pitcher and they are out of the inning. So the whole process of working the game changes when they move over to the AL. Then the added difficulty in coming east is having to face the Yankees and Sox for sixteen games. Theoretically a starting pitcher will see one or the other four times during the year. These days the Rays are tough outs as well. There is no doubt that the larger change is in coming over to the AL from the NL and then the amount of hitting that generally resides in the AL East just makes it a bit more difficult. The point is that the combination does make for the biggest pitching transition in baseball. Heck the experts even talk about issues coming from the AL West to the AL East but I still don't think that is as big a deal as coming from the NL to the AL. Where is does not matter is that a great pitcher in the NL is still going to be a great pitcher in the AL East. For comparisons you do have to add something to their ERA and other stats or you are going to fool yourself into thinking that a guy pitching over there is going to produce the same stats in the AL. He is not.

Just listened to it. O'brien pointed to the Lavarnway home run as one of the things that looked really odd to him. Said he looked into the Sox dugout when it happened and one guy was headed for the clubhouse and nobody was really making a move to congratulate the kid.....a completely emotionless event. Sox pitchers need to stop making excuses. While O'brien did not point at Lackey he did say that Lester started talking in terms of "feeling pretty good out there" after a lost game. Sounds to me like Lackey was rubbing off on the whole staff. How many times have we heard that from Lackey after a lost game. Also indicated that when discussing the Sox staff with pitching coaches, they said the length of time between pitches for the whole staff was driving them crazy....usually a sign of no confidence or injury. Last comment by O'brien on the clubhouse....during the Orioles series he would get down to the clubhouse after the game and the place would be empty with a few rookies standing by their lockers wondering if somebody was going to come by and talk to them....that is just awful to hear. Can you imagine how those guys felt? Also mentioned that he thought the Sox had too many family trips for their players and while it is nice for the players to be able to take their families to away games, those should be treated as business trips but the Sox seemed to be distracted by having their families around and not very focused on the fact that there was a game to play. Most disturbing comments to me about Larvanway's homer and the rookies standing around their lockers after games basically alone and isolated. Nasty stuff.

For those watching Tigers/Yankees, can you imagine what we would have been doing if that had been Tito leaving Porcello in to pitch to Tex with Porcello bleeding runs inning after inning, two on two out, left handed hitter against right handed pitcher, one swing away from a 7-1 lead and basically game over.

Well Theo is still under contract here so I guess you could make the point that if Theo is "forced" to honor his contract (frankly how stupid does that sound...forced to honor his contract) and he dogs it for a year that would not work out too well for him. Ya' can't make a mockery of the whole system and have owners still covet you. Although the whole system is so fouled up. For example, even if Theo is a lame duck, how much do you let him do? Do you let him pick your next manager....do you let him make multimillion dollar commitments to players. It seems to me that much like the mess the Sox got into with their manager if they really intend keeping a GM they have to do something before the beginning of the last contract year. Now as it is Theo is already into his last contract year. I am really beginning to wonder what the hell upper management is thinking allowing both of those contract to run out. Did they not want either guy?

I like Beltre but the money he is getting in Texas is off the charts. I recognize that as each year goes by (for whatever reason) the most current FA has the fattest contract but man that is more money than I would have given for Beltre under any circumstances. VMart is making very doable money in Detroit. How do you value Justin Verlander on a 2010 contract at 12.5M per year and Lackey at 15M. That just does not make any sense. In fact if you look at the best pitchers in baseball they are horribly undervalued compared to their less talented counterparts or more likely, the less talented counterparts are way overpaid. Some of these contracts do make me wonder about a cap in baseball because if you really do review them you come away convinced that: a) something is really screwed up this will one day come home to roost and we will find baseball in the same mess that basketball is in, owners across most of the league in desperate need of financial relief and players not really interested in resolving the issue all the way up to threatening full seasons being shut down. Pretty sure the NBA is stuck owning Charlotte because there were no takers going into the years just prior to the CBA and sure enough it looks like there is every chance that the NBA season will be blown out. I could see how the NFL CBA was going to play itself out although you really have to wonder what would have happened without Bob Kraft. In the NBA negotiation, the owners have opened the books and many of them are struggling badly, yet there seems no interest in moving on the part of the players union.

Thanks for posting that link. Appreciate it!

Did anybody hear Dave O'Brien on WEEI at about 4:00 today? I have heard folks claiming that it is one of the best interviews on the September collapse and the state of the team anybody has heard so far but I did not hear it and have not seen anything posted. If anybody did hear it and has a summary of the key points from the interview please post something up.

I don't think it was a problem either. It would have been nice if they were better at since their team speed is probably better than it has been for awhile it but I don't think better small ball would have made a dimes worth of difference.

MLB Network went through a review of AJ Burnett trying to point out why he struggles so much. The point they were trying to make was that when he pitches from the stretch he does not get on top of the ball nor stay behind it suggesting that as some other pitchers do, he should use some features of his "full wind up" pitch in his "from the stretch" pitch. I don't know why but I do think Lackey's delivery is all over the place. However it is all over the place whether he pitches from full wind up or not. You would think it is fatigue but Lackey will come out some innings and drop his arm which puts his slider right where it should not be and then he will come out an inning later when he should be more fatigued and will be getting on top of the ball and doing a better job of keeping it down. I really did not like Lackey's pitching style for the AL East, even at the point of signing him. Here in 2011 he has been all over the map, death for a guy that must be precise to succeed and he is a control pitcher. He cannot blow the ball past anybody. No idea what it would take to get him going again. The PR is that Lackey cares tremendously about his pitching but boy there are times when it looks like he is just out there throwing and not pitching.

I guess if I had been confronted with Beltre vs Youk I would not have taken a run at Beltre under those circumstances. Besides Youk is under contract. Can't be paying two 3rd basemen of that calibre. My squawking is sort of in hindsight. AGons + Youk is costing the Sox way less than Beltre and Youk would cost and AGons is a way better 1st baseman than Youk would be. I complained bitterly about VMart as I could not for the life of me figure out why we did not pick up on VMart and that will never ever make any sense to me.

Wow Beltre is going crazy in the Rays-Rangers series. Why don't we ever get players like that?

Gee I think they tried to play some small ball but they were not very good at it. They got murdered on the base paths. Plus once they started to fall so far behind in games, it took small ball out of the picture for the most part. You can play small ball if you are down by a run or maybe two or if you are tied or up by any amount. Once you are down by two or three, small ball is done because you can't give up outs. You need a big inning. They did not get that either. They were 2-61 in games where they were behind by the 7th inning....2-61! Wow.

Why do they change so often? Changing jersey's forces many fans to go out buy another jersey. "I have to go out and get a new jersey so I can be in step with the team." Gotta' keep those Henry bucks flowing.

While ownership won't fire itself it might realize that they are running around with their pants down around their ankles. The emperor truly has no cloths. The Tony Masserotti piece from the Globe that somebody posted into a different thread is pretty much on the mark. It basically says winning has not been the priority for ownership for a long time and it is that perspective that ultimately poisoned the entire team from top to bottom. Even here where Sox fans have endured all sorts of garbage they might be hard pressed to buy those $50.00 tickets and $75.00 game shirts for a team that has become this much of an embarrassment. So ownership has basically gotten what it has wanted up to this point. However their own wretched excess, the execution of this brand marketing based plan to the fullest has truly blown up on them and you get things like your players under suspicion of dogging it including drinking during ballgames making that stupid "we love bear" tape. That would have been dismissed out of hand had it not happened right after the worst collapse in baseball history and after the press had just reported the drinking incident. Talk about thumbing their noses at all of us. Why didn't they just come out and tell us they think we are just a bunch of dumb asses for cheering for them, for pinning our hopes on them for thinking that they of all people would take winning seriously. WOW! Funny, the Sox ownership/management might have pulled it off and escaped the full burden of their culpability if they had exercised Tito's option when they should have. Considering all the other money they have spent going down this road, the cost of one year of Tito's option would have been short money. At the end of the day the only thing that might have been holding the tattered shreds of a "team" together might have been Tito even with all of his shortcomings. As it turns out when they pulled the rug out from under him there was nothing left holding it together. In what fantasy world were pampered babies with long term guaranteed contracts in hand going to listen to a guy that the FO would not even extend for one year? I guess if a guy like Lying Dog Larry can get up in front of the entire Boston media, in effect all of us and say with a straight face "I was perplexed" by Tito's comment regarding support from ownership since "we had not done anything differently this year" I guess that same guy can convince himself that the players did not know or care that Tito had not been extended at the beginning of this year when he should have been. I think it is a mistake to think that what happened here should be dismissed as just a September collapse. Ultimately something happens over the course of a 162 game season that forces your "true colors" as Tito said to the surface. When that happened we saw what this "team" really was made of and that turned out to be something very ugly indeed. So as has been said already. things like getting Crawford going and figuring out what to do with Lackey must be accomplished in the off season. Crawford becomes something of a sympathetic figure in all of this. Imagine coming into this mess, not knowing what the hell to make of it. No wonder he looked like he had been run over by a bus that last day at the top of the dugout steps. However this mess of a management team and its willingness to put winning so far down on the totem pole that in retrospect it seems like an afterthought must also be fixed.