jung

Well I think there is much that needs fixing with the Sox both in the dugout and in the offices at Yawkey Way. I don't believe that Theo has been benchmarked to winning by his bosses. I believe Theo has been benchmarked to fannies in seats and revenue generation by other means. Their FA signings have been mostly sizzle with very little steak of late and I suspect the "fannies in seats" perspective is at fault. They have regularly gone after the FA market from the perspective of PR not performance nor from the perspective of building a team. That has to be fixed before I think we will see more sensible FA signings. It has made for great PR but has not made for much else. If we want a winning team then the benchmark should be winning. As for the team itself.....some of these guys were not just PR wet dream signings but frankly they were really big gambles at least if your expectation was performance on the field. Lackey was a huge gamble in my view based on the type of pitcher he is, how tough it is to be successful in the AL East as a pitcher and the fact that he had not completed full seasons on the mound in either of the two years preceding his signing by the Sox. It was great PR since he was the biggest name FA pitcher of that year but not so bright if you were looking for results, not based on what is known now but what was known then! Crawford has to be fixed and given the amount of money tied up there they should consider something drastic in that regard....like a full time consultant to straighten him out. He is a card carrying mess at the moment. Some of the guys this team must depend on either proved to be brittle this year or just deteriorated in the second half of the season....just did not make it through the grind. Youk and AGons fall into this category and Youk has to come off the DL after surgery. As such in my view their DH perspective must be aligned with the contemporary view. They can no longer afford to be dependent on a dedicated DH and can really only afford to resign Ortiz if he can be had for short money. Whether we can get Ortiz for short money or not we need to be able rotate guys into the DH slot and rest guys accordingly. As for starting pitching....we may or may not be stuck with Lackey. If we are I am not even sure he will be able to maintain a starting roll next year. Maybe he will, maybe not. His worst stat is swinging strikes which went straight off a cliff. He no longer misses bats and neither kept the ball down nor was precise enough in his location for a guy that has to rely on control. He has not lost anything off his fastball but it was an 88-92 mph fastball when he got here. Beckett must make the transition to a complete pitcher as he is losing mph off his fastball. Hopefully Lester will come back around and Buckholtz is back. Frankly I think Bard is too valuable as the 8th inning guy in this era of declining complete games and I would move Aceves to the rotation and see what happens with that. All by way of saying that if they do nothing they will still not have a #1 pitcher, somebody that will be their stopper. Without a stopper, four game losing streaks turn into 8 game losing streaks so they may have a hard time winning without a #1 regardless of what else they have. Wake should be gone which will mean we will need more pitching whether it is a big name guy or not. We will need to replace Aceves in the relief corp and we will still need another starter somewhere. They are likely stuck bringing Lavarnway up as another season of Salty will have people suicidal. Hopefully Lavarnway can work his way to #1 catcher with Salty to back him. Tek should be gone as I don't see us carrying three catchers. Obviously we need a right fielder. So for the team it is not so much that there are big fixes needed with the exception of Crawford and Lackey. It is just that everywhere you look there is something that needs to be done. That is a good deal to get done in one off season. Oh and we need a manager and our GM might be outta' here as well. How much are they going to let Theo do if he might be gone and who is going to manage this team? That said, there is no way Tito could have been brought back to manage this same group of guys. Frankly management above Tito really does bear some responsibility there regardless of what lying dog Larry says. They left Tito a lame duck and paid for it.

Those that are suggesting that Theo should be held accountable in all respects because the person at the top of any organization is accountable for the organization in its entirety are right about their view of the person at the top. Where they are wrong is that Theo is not at the top. I may be alone in this opinion but I believe that the people above Theo not only empowered him to make personnel moves for this team but provided a benchmark that is not what we as fans assume it to be. We think winning is the benchmark. I don't think that has been the benchmark over at Fenway for a long time now. The benchmark in my view has been putting fannies in seats and increasing revenue streams for the other available sources of revenue. To the extent that the goal of winning was also satisfied that was fine but the first and foremost goal was revenue generation including fannies in seats. How does that differ from making winning the primary goal? For one thing I think it explains why the Sox stopped looking for FA signings that filled a specific need and instead continually tried to sign the most high profile FA available. If winning was the primary goal you would think that they would have reserved funds for FA starting pitching. However the last starting pitcher that they spent big bucks on was Lackey who they made the highest paid pitcher on the team. However if you look at what Lackey was the day we signed him it is hard to believe that was a move worth making. Got a lotta' PR but was a hell of a gamble if you were looking for results on the mound. As of 2009, John Lackey was a control pitcher whose best pitch was a slider. He already at that point had a 88-92 mph fastball and that was it. He had not pitched through complete seasons in the preceding two seasons before the RS signed him. I can remember people at the time talking about that being the point that really made the Lackey signing a gamble. I think it was a gamble as much for the fact that you are bringing a guy with a middling fastball into the toughest hitting division in baseball, a guy that will only survive if he can keep the ball down and would only prosper over here if he was extremely precise even while keeping it down in the zone. Lackey has declined appreciably since being here, the most telling stat of all being swinging strikes which has fallen off a cliff. He no longer misses bats. However my point is that while Lackey made for good PR, based on pure potential as a pitcher he was one hell of a gamble. The other recent pitcher signing was.....dice.....you mean to tell me that we had to go to Japan for a starter. We had to spend $60M just to have the opportunity to sign him. How much of the decision to sign dice was glitz and PR instead of pure baseball? At least when we brought Beckett here he still had a heater and and when we brought Schill here he had already made the transition to being a complete pitcher. Schill could still get two strikes on you and throw a fastball that started at the belt and ended in your eyes. The difference was he no longer had to do that to get you out. The everyday player FA signings that they have made have regularly been the top guy, the most coveted guy at a particular position in that FA season. Then to top it off, the cherry on the whip cream, we sign Crawford out of the blue for a stunning amount of money. We sign Crawford for so much money that I think we believe that they no longer have much FA flexibility over there on Yawkey Way. They probably don't but not because they are going broke but because they do not want to risk their bottom line. So I agree, the guy or guys at the top bear the full brunt of accountability. Just remember that Theo is not the only guy in that crowded little row boat. Although I doubt we will see much honesty in that regard, not after seeing Larry L, Mr. "I was perplexed by Tito's comment that he did not feel as supported by ownership as he has in the past...we did not do anything differently this year". What a load of ******** that was.

It is not that the Sox are so broken, it is just that the fixin' covers so many different bodies. Crawford must be fixed Youk must rehab and a formula that gets him more rest each season must be found AGons needs the same rest formula. The answer is in how the Sox handle the DH Right field must find a right fielder SS must have a new answer by 2013 as Scuts will do for 2012 Lackey must be fixed or sent packing Dice must continue to rehab but won't be available for 2012 leaving another SP hole to be fixed Beckett must be fixed Lester must be fixed Bard must be fixed Conditioning across the board must be fixed but baseball teams don't control the condition of the player front office must be fixed as it is clearly broken Manager must be found GM might have to be found Clubhouse must be fixed That is a fair amount of s*** going on all at once

Nothing is impossible. What happens with Lackey is entirely an issue of how much contract the Red Sox are willing to eat and how believable a "change of scenery" argument they can make . Had they not mismanaged their assets so badly they would have shut Lackey down at some point or punched him out to the bullpen when it became obvious that he was going nowhere instead of allowing him to continue to compile that awful record. So yes he ends up with the worst stats in baseball for a starting pitcher. However everybody is a sucker for the change of scenery argument at some level because in point of fact so many guys in baseball have changed their careers around via the change of scenery route. The Sox left themselves in the unenviable position of not having a single body that they could run out to the mound and start every 5th game. Theo himself said he should have done something during the course of the season to have brought another pitcher in here. Clearly he is suggesting that at some point in the season there was the opportunity but they did not address it deciding instead to keep running Lackey out there. If you are saying the Sox will not make an effort to explore the possibilities with Lackey I think you are wrong. They may not end up getting something done about Lackey but I do think they will try and I do think it comes down to how much money they are willing to eat. The idea that they are going to just except that the best thing for them is for Lackey to remain on this team next year simply makes no sense. It is simply more mis-management. They may not spend much time with the topic. They may decide very quickly that there is no way out but making no effort what-so-ever would be more management underperformance. Pitchers pitch, batters bat, fielders field and FO personnel work at deals. It is just the job. I would think at this point the only starting pitcher that they will not be willing to discuss moving for the 2012 team might be Buckholtz. There was no indication that the stress fracture was going to develop into something chronic and it simply becomes too difficult to think of your entire starting rotation as in play in any given single year. Lester is probably about in that same category unless there is something they know about Lester that says otherwise. There is just as much chance that they can do something with Lackey as there is that he has not even hit bottom yet and if he has not even hit bottom yet then his worth to this team next year is not known. That is the other unfortunate effect of having continued to run him out there. While still being run out there every 5th day he gave no indication that he had as yet hit bottom. The last start was his most impressive mainly because he put two decent innings back to back, the 3rd and 4th against the Orioles I think. However being that bad actually helps the "change of scenery" argument because part of that argument is there is no chance of him doing better here and boy did the Sox go out of their way to prove that.

There is no question but that the multiple possibilities at SP is part of the problem in that at the end of the day you have to be able to run five guys out there that can pitch. Conventional wisdom holds that if you want to win you have to be able to run one guy out there of the five that is a stopper as invariably you will run into a stretch in the season where you have to stop the bleeding. If you can't do that in the blink of an eye four game losing streaks can turn into eight game losing streaks. Thing is we don't have a stopper now unless Buckholtz once healthy is the stopper. I think we will be able to get five representative bodies out there without Lackey. Not sure if we can work our way to having a true stopper in 2012. That could be OK as "the stopper" may be the guy that you work really hard to come up with committing yourselves to not letting the need go beyond the beginning of the 2013 season. My worry with Beckett is that he is not able to reinvent himself ala a sort of Greg Maddox transformation and suddenly he goes from somebody that we could have gotten value in return for to somebody else that we are just stuck with. He let his conditioning become a problem and has not developed another consistent out pitch as yet. I certainly hope Sox management is telling itself that we have to sit down with Josh and take his temperature so that we can make a judgement about his chances of getting the things done that he needs to get done because that is no longer go home, have a nice off season, come back and do the same thing he did the year before. That is not the case any longer and if the Sox don't think he can get it done here then maybe it is time to give him a chance to do it somewhere else.

I am not really seeing many guys being forwarded to take the job that would be better than Theo. I think that is the problem that I see. The more it seems that the Sox are going to let Theo talk to the Cubs the more I think his leaving regardless of the conditions becomes more likely but I still don't see guys being forwarded that make me think "immediate upgrade". I do think that if Theo stays, their player personnel effort will be refocused on the farm system as it was when Theo first got the job and I think that upper management will change the perspective on FA signings. That means that Theo AND the rest of them above Theo have some work to do in that regard. The entire organization has grown to enamored with these high profile FA signings I think because they are big PR news that tend to put fannies in seats and because they have been sucked into the idea that they are always one big signing away from guaranteeing a spot at least in the ALCS, another fantasy. However even the fannies in those seats are beginning to see the hole you can dig for yourself doing this year after year and even multiple times per year. I also think they will demand of Theo if not themselves more emphasis on scouting in parallel with their much touted player evaluation matrices. If they can realign themselves with a different set of expectations and goals, Theo may still be the right guy for that job. I am of the mind that the guys above Theo are at least as responsible for having empowered him and even more so for having encouraged this direction and perspective on their player personnel activities. Also I do not want to see Theo sent packing because Tito was sent packing. Tito may well have been victimized by this whole thing but that does not change the fact that there were not many ways that you could envision Tito being run back into that clubhouse to manage essentially the same group of players. Sure I am betting some of the issues will be resolved via trade and release but ya' can't change all 25 of them nor even half of them. That said, one scapegoat may be all they can afford for this year.

I think Lincecum is a great pitcher and while he would have to deal with the NL to AL East conversion, every pitcher coming out of the NL especially going to the East has to deal with that. His numbers would get dinged in the process but I cannot see him going from a great pitcher with great numbers to a pitcher with rotten numbers because of it. I am however concerned with his size and his pitching style. We were on pins and needles with Pedro while he was here and he did break down, had to come back, had to reinvent his pitching more than once. Pedro did that fairly successfully but there were a number of transitions he had to go through and he did deteriorate along the way and did lose playing time even though the transitions have to be considered a success. Lincecom appears to me to exert even more stress on that arm of his as he really does use his body to generate what looks like an ungodly amount of torque. I have often thought his control to be amazing given the violence of his arm motion. At the same time, I keep expecting to see his arm on the ground half way to home plate one of these times. If a number of these other moves had not turned out to be gambles that failed to produce, I would be more inclined to take a risk on Tim. He is that good. But we are so up against it now that I have trouble with the idea that we lose Ells to get a guy that might very easily blow up his arm the very first year he is here. How screwed would we be then. No Ells, no Tim, we are paying on yet another guaranteed contract, probably offed some other starting pitching figuring that we have Tim, no Dice cause he is not back yet. I think this team is going to be forced into a more conservative mode in both its trade and its FA activity as it has so much money it is committed to for players that they have to fix as it is. At least with Ells and Pedey if Lavarnway turns out to be the answer behind the plate then we are a very strong team up the middle. Scuts holds us for one year at SS and hopefully we have a better answer at SS after 2012. Frankly I don't know that there is a way to bring Tim here that will not require us to give up a good many performing assets or our best performing assets. If you can package up some of these players that are good players that we are ready to move anyway with some of the guys down on the farm and find a way to Tim that way, I would be fine with that. Still in all I would rather getting a starting pitcher that was a bit sturdier. Plus, it appears more and more likely that we are going to have to find both a new Manager and a new General Manager and the entire management and player personnel direction is going to have to be reworked and implemented. So I don't see the team's best assets sent packing in this environment regardless of the obvious value of starting pitching, especially great starting pitching. I do think we will see guys traded that we would not have seen traded in other years. I simply think that at least for now this era of building a team that looks in pre-season like they just have to throw their gloves out onto the field to make the ALCS is done. That is not to say that they won't get there. I just don't think they will be that early pre-season favorite to get there again for awhile.

Gosh Red Sox starting pitching is such a mess. Putting the boozing it up in the clubhouse thing aside for a moment because we don't know which starting pitchers were involved: We have the Lackey situation. Lackey can be moved I believe but we would end up eating at least half his contract. I have posted that I believe the time is right for Beckett because I believe 2012 will be a tough year for him but his value is high. I just don't know how many starting pitching positions they can fill in one year ala' the Lackey situation and we have nothing down on the farm. By the way, kudos to you guys that have figured management allowing Theo to talk to the Cubs was as good as done based on the reports being pushed around the media. Would it be a surprise if Theo is offered the job in Chicago that he takes it? Regardless of how involved he has been in helping this become a mess here, I suspect he will have little interest in fixing it if he can get out of Dodge.

I don't think Ortiz was a central figure in this mess as much as he bent with the breeze, like Wake did. You could have knocked me over with a feather when Wake said that "the fans deserved to see him come back in 2012 to break the all time Sox win record". What an asinine thing to say especially when he said it. But I just think guys like Wake and Ortiz saw all these guys that clearly were not team players just grabin' for the Henry bucks that Theo and Henry were giving away hand over fist and they decided "screw it", if John Henry has got a printing press back there somewhere they were going to grab for some dough-ray-me as well. Baseball sort of went out the window. How else do you explain two guys that seemed pretty much like stand up guys their whole careers getting caught up in this me-me-me stuff? Where are my rbi's where is my 2012 money....mine, mine, mine. In fact I think we have a new currency around here. We have the US $, the British Pound, Euros and Henry's. Henry's aren't very highly valued though. Based on how Theo and John throw them around the exchange rate is about 1.75 Henry's for every US $. At that exchange rate, Lackey's and Crawford's contracts are just about right. Ever seen a Henry. It is a Fenway Reserve Note, printed right at the park. Where you would expect a portrait of one of our past presidents, there is a portrait of JH under the country of its origin "The Inane States of Excess". On the back left side, Theo mooning us replaces the Great Seal Eye of Providence atop the unfinished pyramid on the US $, and the inscription reads what you would expect it to read, "KISS MY ASS". On the back right side, where the Great Seal Eagle of the US graces the $ there is winged Larry with a Red Sox shield over his chest. A few helpless fans are scrunched between the talons of his left claw and a few beat writers, Dan Schaughnessey and a hot dog vendor are held between the talons of his right claw. The pennant in his beak is inscribed with "There is a bridge in Brooklyn I would like to interest you in".

The best recent example of Red Sox that successfully converted from reliever to starter was Lowe. He had started in the minors and had a full off season to make the change. Going through a full off season is the only way to really do it. However of the two of them I still would think Bard should stay in relief and if they try it with anybody it should be Aceves. Plus I happen to think that it is pretty important to keep your 8th inning guy doing that job. Complete games are almost unheard of anymore and even going 8 has become rare. So has going 7 for that matter. Maybe Wake also qualifies as a successful conversion but really Wake is or was an innings eater and the Sox have treated that knuckle ball like it is so other worldly that they could just insert Wake anywhere and over time they have. In fact Wake considers the knuckler so other worldly that in a recent interview he commented that he thought we would never again see knuckle ballers that came up as knuckle ballers. They would all be guys like him, somebody that was an everyday player that could not make it as an everyday player and converted as a way to stay in baseball.

Agreed Gringo. In fact that is another hole in Theo's FA process. He falls so hard for these guys and is so convinced that he is headed in the right direction that he seems to constantly commit the Sox to big money X long terms....just the worst possible combinations. It has gotten to the point now that when I see him grinning ear to ear about having "locked somebody up" for X years I am just shaking in my boots.

No it would not surprise me save one indisputable fact.....JH fell in love with Theo as much as Theo fell in love with his player evaluation matrix. Larry is a much more pragmatic fellow and i am guessing if they do let Theo talk to the cubs it will be because Larry comes down on that side of things and convinces JH that it makes sense to move on. In fact if I were Larry I would be building a list of candidates with relevant supporting information in each case in preparation to present to JH. This town has a fair share of Larry haters but he is much more pragmatic than John Henry. In fact if it were left to Henry I would be willing to bet that he could convince himself that this was all a learning experience for Theo and if he had his way he would put new parameters around what Theo did and how he did it allowing him to keep his golden boy, his star, his genius on the payroll. We may ultimately be thanking God for Larry at some point here.

There are a few things about the situation with JD Drew that are worth mentioning I think. In part i think they are why Remy thinks that of the FA signings that are still here, Drew has been the best of them: In the first place, Drew has not been one iota different than what should have been expected of him. Everything we have seen of JD is exactly what people in baseball said to expect of him long before he got here. Theo fell in love with him anyway because Theo's glorious player evaluation matrix said he would be wonderful. Hence Theo decided to unlock the bank vault for him. As has been pointed out he has actually had his moments...damn few of them but he has had a few. He has not lashed out, nor spoken out, nor been accused of being a part of the sandbox that the Sox clubhouse became. He has been as solid a defensive right fielder as we have had here for a long time. I am not defending JD as much as I am saying he does not deserve to be lumped in with the worst of the worst. We should blame Theo for ignoring what should have been staring him right in the face. However blaming Drew for being Drew does not make much sense. It is also worth mentioning that as much as Crawford's first year has been a disappointment he has not stooped to becoming part of the Sox playpen/sandbox either.

I think the Sox may try to move Lackey but I am less convinced that it will be to appease fan uproar and support for Tito. There is simply too much ******** surrounding this team and not only does Lackey not perform but he has become part of that whole mess. This is way different from "dem fightin' A's" or Reggie's "straw that stirs the drink" teams. This is a real deal meltdown. There are surely guys that were involved in this mess that can be trusted to keep their noses clean as long as management sets expectations and lays down the law. However a guy that is constantly apologizing for the crap he started 24 hours earlier does not fit into that category. If there had not been a complete meltdown and Lackey had not been a part of it then he might have been considered nothing more than a minor distraction. Instead he has gotten himself pegged as part of a much bigger problem AND his performance was terrible. On top of that if Lackey was one of the starting pitchers involved in lounging in the clubhouse exercising his pitching arm doing 12 oz. lifts during games in progress then along with everything else stacked against him, he is long gone especially since I doubt that the Sox will have to eat his whole contract. I don't think any names have been named as yet as far as that particular situation but since it is the starting pitchers that have been named as a group, that sort of narrows the field to the group that Lackey is in.

You must mean "If" they give the cubs permission to talk to Theo. They have apparently not given the cubs permission as yet.

The Sox are by no means stuck with Lackey. Smaller market teams love to take gambles on players that might rebound based on a change of scenery especially when their former boss is picking up a good bit of the tab. The Sox may or may not keep him but they are by no means stuck with him.

Dice will not likely be back until his contract year. They will have to consider Bard and Aceves since they will not likely be able to trade or pick up all the SP they need. I would think that Aceves would be the guy that moved to the rotation but they would have to consider both and choose one or the other plus bring in at least another arm. If they decide to move Beckett because he has value and they need to make changes then that will be yet another arm that they will need. Timing could be right on Beckett if only because he is likely to have a tough 2012. However there are other guys that will have to go, like Wake. Wake is terrible now but he has always eaten innings. I think they will eat money on Lackey's contract and get him out of here. Starting pitching is so hard to come by that if they do decide to move Lackey and not resign Wake then I think Beckett stays without question and they start out with Buckholtz, Lester, Beckett and Aceves and look for another starter to go with them. Assuming they can find a serviceable fifth starter, at that point if they want to try to go after a big SP signing at least they will not be painted into a corner feeling like they have to empty what is left of the farm system or do something drastic just to have enough SP to start the season.

Best "I am totally disgusted" look in all of sports: For me the hands down all time champ is Tommy Heinsohn. I once saw Tommy Heinsohn double T'ed out of a Celtic's game when he was coach for nothing more than a look. Something makes me want to say it was Richie Power's that double T'ed him but I had never seen it before or since and Most and Cousy said they had never seen it before at the time. It was right before the half and the calls were all going the wrong way. Heinsohn brought his hands up to his hips (size portly at the time) and glared out from the baseline. The look on his face not only said that he was totally disgusted but that the ref was the lowest life form on earth and if Tommy had his way he would have stepped on the ref's mother's head before she could have given birth to this jerk but Tommy never ever said a single word during this episode. The ref without any hesitation double T'ed him and Tommy was gone for the game. He quietly walked off but never removed his glare from the Ref in question. Most and Cousy were beside themselves and Cousy was so amused that he just could not contain himself and kept going on about how he had never seen it before either as player or announcer. To this day I cannot remember another guy being double T'ed without raising a hand in violence or saying a single word.

Very distinct possibility Spitball given everything that was going wrong at the time especially since I think Youk has a pretty short fuse. Sometimes he wears that Youk face that goes past frustration to utter disgust. Geez after this season he might have permanent face creases from the utter disgust mode.

I actually don't think it is a media thing in Youk's case. If you look at just the quote from McMullin, she could not have written that without input from a player or players. Whether they overreacted or not, who knows but as I said earlier, guys standing around in civies barking at guys in uniform will drive the guys in uniform right up the wall and that it not staying around with injury and being a positive influence. So, I can see it playing badly if it happened as it was reported (emphasis on the if). At any rate, the fact that these guys might not be around each other for a few months now might actually be a very good thing.

Players not paying attention to the media should be a given....complete agreement there. I have a good many problems with Mr. Henry so you won't get an argument from me there either.

I would reserve judgement on Beckett. If he was one of the guys lounging in the clubhouse and tossing back some cold ones during actual games in progress boy that is going to be hard to get by but I did not see his name mentioned specifically in that regard. Please correct me if I am wrong. Youk may have really put himself in a tough spot based on how that whole critic thing was reported because he bashed Ells for leaving to rehab in Arizona, remember...really let him have it. Then Ells comes back healthy and having an MVP year. So what does Youk do? He sticks around through his injury which is what he wanted Ells to do but instead of just rehabing and trying to be a positive influence via his presence he anointed himself Mr. pain in the ass critic and really got under some players skins. Yes players want you to stay and be a positive influence if you can. On the other hand just about the worst thing a baseball player can do is be standing around in civies, yapping at his teammates in uniform. The only thing going on in the teammate's head is "shut the F up and get back in the game before you start yappin' at me. I suspect his teammates will forgive him unless he really crossed some lines and unfortunately the way it was reported would lead you to believe he had. Maybe a heartfelt apology might go a long way but Youk has never looked that type to me. I would like to see more on the Youk situation before making a judgement there. Like I said above unfortunately it sounds believable given the guy's demeanor.

I'm sorry but I just don't buy it. Crawford got a complete pass this season. In fact I have never seen more patience from Boston media and fans with regard to a new player coming in and getting paid big dollars to produce. Sure you had media reporting that the guy appeared to be having difficulty getting acclimated here but since there was clearly that possibility the media simply reported that the possibility had very likely become reality. But you never saw media calling for his head. Finally it got to be the end of the season with Sox now fighting for a post season birth and at that point yes media started to get on him because we really needed him then. The Sox found ways to score runs and win all through the season without Crawford which allowed him to float under the radar and kept Crawford from dealing with criticism for poor play. By season end not only had he not produced but he had done the same things wrong again and again and was still doing them when we really needed him to finally give us anything for production. To his credit, Crawford basically had the sense to keep his mouth shut. Unlike Mr Lackey..... Lackey is the highest paid pitcher on the team! Not only does he not produce but he can't keep from being a tool as well. He constantly complained about being removed from games, even after blowing leads and giving up as many as 8 runs glaring at Tito because he dared to come out to get him. Then he would complain to the media and open himself up for more fire. He gripped about somebody texting him something personal 30 minutes before he was to start a game. What do you think a pitcher should be doing 30 minutes before the start of a game? I hope its not reading text messages. In fact considering where he should have been you would almost think he stopped warming up and pulled his phone out of his back pocket to read a text message.

"They were not good enough" is simply too simplistic an answer and ignores some real issues that this team is going to have to address. Yes the actual talent level was a problem but they were not in a mental state as a team that allowed them to overachieve or even play to their potential all-be-it potential that was less than we had hoped. How do you explain being 2-61 in games when they were behind at the 7th inning stretch? How do you explain guys gaining weight during the season? How do you explain many of their highest paid players inability to play consistently into the second half? How do you explain the incredible number of mental mistakes they made going down the stretch? How do you explain a less talented team like Tampa taking them to the woodshed? How do you explain guys vocally and publicly pursuing their own selfish interests while the team is crumbling around them ala' Ortiz and Wake and Lackey? This was a heartless, bloated, overpaid, "I only care about getting mine" bunch that does not even deserve to be called a team. The guys that were truly selfish, self centered *******s took a number of the other's down with them and the whole thing disintegrated into I gotta get mine-ism. How clear could Tito have been. "When things started to turn I could not get them to care enough about each other". "When things go bad, a team tends to show its true colors and I did not like the colors I saw". I am not saying I believe that Tito ushered himself out the door but don't confuse that with thinking he fabricated any of the above comments. In business there is a thing called "calling in rich". It generally refers to a management group that gets its windfall via the acquisition route and no longer has the desire to work. This team called in rich. They filled out the uniforms. In fact some of them more than filled out the uniforms but were there in body only. Unfortunately with few exceptions the highest paid guys and guys that were expected to be the guys that defined this team did just that. They were either so colorless and lacking in intestinal fortitude that they simply bent with the prevailing wind or they were the prevailing wind, all in the wrong direction. They did define this team and dragged it right into the gutter. When you have a $180M payroll and cannot even make it to the show, you are in the gutter. There is no consolation in having compiled a better record than the Orioles. In the end, this was a "team" that did not even like itself. That is not the same thing as the Oakland A's fighting with each other but winning as a team or Reggie Jackson's Yankees. They could not get back to the dugout from an at bat fast enough and they could not get away from each other fast enough either. At the end for many of them the desire to get away from each other was stronger than the desire to win and go on. With few exceptions, they did not want to go to Tampa for one game or to Texas for five. They just wanted to go home!

Just to clarify, the report has been that there was drinking in the clubhouse "during the game itself" by a group of the pitchers that were not pitching that day. I would see where that would send a few guys including the manager into a tailspin. That is pretty disrespectful of fellow teammates, the management, of the fans and of the game itself. Regardless of the fact that they were not pitching that day they should have been out there charting the game and supporting their teammates, not lounging in the clubhouse pouring down a few cold ones. No wonder so many of them actually gained weight during the season, something I would have thought virtually impossible. The other story making the rounds is that Youk really started to get irritating in the clubhouse in the same way your post suggests he was to outsiders. While he could not play because of his injury apparently he just made himself the clubhouse critic. Apparently that got under a good many skins. Since he was not playing it looked like he had anointed himself into this role. I think Papi's behavior was pretty bad. Just the incidents we know about are pretty bad given their timing. Tek...ya know I hate this captain thing in baseball and the "C" just makes it that much worse. I actually think in baseball the guy that is just one of us has more credibility than some guy running around with a C on his chest especially if he is basically past it. Wake....I think Wake fell victim to the "I am going to get mine syndrome". Wake was not this kind of player before we had all of these clowns running around making big money to do nothing and this is a good lesson for the FO. If you are going to give a bunch of jerks big money for doing nothing expect to find some of your other guys deciding that if you are standing their printing money they are going to make an effort to get some too. As a result you have Wake making that insane comment about the "fans deserving a chance to see him come back in 2012 and break the Sox all time win record". That was one of the most selfish and self centered comments I have ever heard from a baseball player. OK Wake if the fans deserve that, you come back in 2012 for no money and "give" that to us you tool. Lackey has turned out to be one of the biggest jerks I have ever seen in a baseball uniform. If his teammates truly do love and respect him then that says more about them than it says about Lackey. If a John Lackey is there kind of guy that is not just shocking, it is revolting. Remy had it right the other night. Of the guys we have kept (or could not get rid of) the FA star of the last few years is actually Drew. Can you believe it, Drew! He has at least kept his mouth shut and frankly none of what Drew has done here was not discussed in depth before Theo laid all that money on him. He was well known to be physically brittle, uninvolved and uninspiring. Don't let that stop you Theo. Your magical computer matrix said he was a wonderful player and that is all it took to get you to open the vault.