jung

I agree with the comments that pitching is a real issue for the Sox and comments that Theo does need to be more conscience of the character of the players they are bringing in because this team has too many guys that are just not guys you can depend on. One more indicator of lack of character was how much of a front running team this was this year. 2011 Red Sox record in games where the Sox were behind in the 7th inning.......2-61! 2-61!!!!! That is incredible. Another piece of information that I had not really thought through because I guess I mis-read was conditioning generally throughout the league. I thought it had in fact improved over time. However since baseball still offers its players guaranteed money I guess I read that one completely wrong. This came up as a consequence of a discussion about Red Sox Strength and Conditioning coaches and their culpability in the demise of the Sox, the second half crash, second half reductions in production from guys like AGons, injuries etc. It had been obvious I think to all of us that many of these guys actually put on weight during the season which I thought would be pretty difficult. Unlike other sports where the Strength and Conditioning Team and Coaches have real responsibility to the team, standards that they are responsible for maintaining and the players often have clauses in their contracts that relate to strength and conditioning, regardless of how much money is now at stake none of that has changed in baseball. The Strength and Conditioning coaches are basically there to assist the players "if they want it" and do not have any authority or direct responsibility to or for anything. They are glorified towel holders. Frankly I have to think that this is another case where the guaranteed money in baseball makes for a situation where there is little incentive for the player to adhere to a strict regimen. I do know that baseball is almost in as much trouble financially as basketball is in. Here we have this little bandbox of a stadium that is easy to pack out and we have had generations of rabid baseball fans. However I think we are all aware that there are very few cities where major league baseball commands much attention. Boston, Chicago, New York, St. Louis, Philadelphia and that is about it. Teams everywhere else struggle to fill their parks. That said, the players union in baseball is very strong and a number of owners are wealthy guys that want a championship more than they want the money. At any rate, unless you have young, hungry ball players that don't have their fat guaranteed contracts yet or guys that have their money but have so much heart that the money really does not change them, then your team is in a lotta' trouble, like our team is. So without any ability to wield any control over these players, you have got to look at the player's character and make a judgement about what will happen to him once he signs this monster contract or stock your team with young hungry players. In the case of the Red Sox in part we see the result of having too many of these guys with monster contacts. The difference is exactly what we see in Tampa Bay, a city with a crummy stadium and crummy fans but with ownership committed to handling their financial house with some sanity, which for pro sports means handling their player personnel issues with some sanity. There is a good deal of discussion at this point about whether ownership really wanted Tito out of here and just allowed Tito to say it was his decision or if in fact this was Tito's decision. I actually hope it was Tito's decision. At least that would indicate ownership was smart enough to put the blame where it belonged. A few posts ago I had chimed in along with others about the issue of the Sox Strength and Conditioning coaches and in an effort to rib me a little a board member asked me to name the boss of the Strength and Conditioning coach obviously pointing at Tito. I jokingly responded that the boss was John Henry and while I was attempting to continue a humorous line, in reality Henry and his fellow owners are a big part of the problem. So while I was trying to be humorous in the other thread, Mr Henry does bear much of the responsibility in the way that he has empowered Theo and in the way Theo has handled all of this money. After the FO, the players themselves bear the largest piece of responsibility and frankly Tito and his assistants are the least responsible for this mess.

I don't think a captain on a baseball team makes any sense either. As it relates to player's meetings, you don't need to have a team captain to have somebody stand up and suggest a player's only meeting and I must admit not hearing that one was called considering everything that was going on is something of a surprise. The drinking during games issue that has been raised, Youk and the way players were relating to him and maybe others in the "Youk click" were not things that we knew about as fans but the slide would have suggested that the players needed to get on the same page and I actually kept waiting for the day when WEEI or somebody announced that one had been held. Now with everything else that has come to light i am really very surprised and would have to say that that clubhouse was a much bigger mess than I certainly imagined. Now I would not at all be surprised if management did clean house and remove any hint of the messes that we seem to just be hearing about now combined with the messes we actually saw.

i wonder at this point if both sides (upper management and Tito) are expressing their concerns and setting expectations if Tito stays and trying to absorb that. I really thought that an initial effort would be made to go down that road before anything else happened. Maybe not. Maybe the decision has in fact been made and the very PR conscience Sox FO is working its way around to the announcement when they want to make it and how they want to make it. That would be so Sox like that I am more inclined to believe that than anything else. The meeting ended with no announcements made yet and Theo posting that there are no immediate plans for an announcement of any kind yet. Tito left the park as did all of the other participants in the meeting. Apparently Tito is back at Fenway now but I don't think the other meeting participants have come back.

Well if the Sox don't have Lavarnway they are very weak up the middle. It is pretty hard to be strong up the middle with a catcher that is not even average. While not having Wake to catch would help Salty immensely his throwing is a bigger problem than his receiving. i eventually got the feeling that Salty did not have any idea where the ball was going once it left his hand. I think Salty is the consummate second string catcher. I have not looked at his contract info and he is probably yet another player we are paying to much if he is the backup but what else is new for these Sox. 2012 would be a year of Larvarnway and Salty sharing catching duties in my view so Salty would still get a good deal of work in 2012. Are we thinking that one if the other catchers in the system is really the guy here eventually? I cannot offer an opinion on that one.

These damn interleague games makes it real hard to stay dedicated to the idea that the Sox don't transition to the more contemporary DH perspective. These days even if you don't get to the post season you get hurt by having a full time DH that has to sit for those games. Plus AGons is already squawking about how difficult the schedule is and how it wore him out blah blah blah. He clearly declined in the second half and I am not sure conditioning will change that in his case. So particularly now this Red Sox team will need to park AGons for several games per year and/or have him DH. If Youk stayed he would DH on some days as well. All by way of saying that both to rest players and to get out from under the hole you are left in if you have a dedicated full time DH I cannot justify penciling in Dave for that role going forward. If Dave wants to stay here for really short money, maybe. However the Sox may decide that anybody that did anything wacky in 2011, like Dave's invasion of Tito's press conference is just gone, much like the Patriots take guys that slip like that and just let them go. If the rumblings about Youk and his role in the divisive clubhouse are true then he might well have signed his own travel documents as well. That would be interesting wouldn't it.....if the Sox players knew with the same certainty that Patriots know that you can basically write your own transportation papers right out of town very easily.

Lackey may not be that hard to move. It really boils down to how much of his contract the Sox are prepared to eat. The argument that he simply could not pitch under the Boston klieg lights may well resonate if a small market team does not have to pay more than $7-8M per for him. Starting pitching commands some pretty serious money these days and I would not at all be surprised to see a team gamble a few million on Lackey hoping that he comes back to form in a different environment. The receiving team front office would look pretty smart if he even got back to 75% of his last year with Anaheim. If not even if he performed much like he has here, he will be covering some of the $7-8M.

I think Martinez might be an interesting choice as well. I do think Jim Rice deserves an interview and a peek at a resume. This should turn out to be a process for this position as it is one of the most high profile managerial jobs there is. Hey if Rice ends up topping out the field out of a process (which better not take much time) then so be it.

Bobby Valentine?????? Now I want to go on a bender. Torre is done with this s***. He won't have any interest. I actually think Tito is pushing this to happen this way and more power to him. I am repeating myself but they changed this team around him and he now has a bunch of spoiled petulant children to manage. The look on his face in the press conference was "f*** you and horse you rode in on John Henry, I am so outta' here".

John Henry....yuk-yuk-yuk-yuk-yuk

Isn't it funny but even in the vaunted days of the Yawkey country club for ball players, it never got close to being anything like this. Expectations were often low and the team played to those expectations. Surely the team often slumped in the second half. In fact I think the term "second half slump" was literally created for the Red Sox of the 50's and 60's. But the whole thing never came crashing down around their ears before. Yea there was the Bucky f***in' Dent year. It took this bunch of geniuses to construct a team with this potential to implode though.

Tito looked so strained at the end and this was the first year that the facade that he always presented to the media cracked. I would not be surprised if he has had it but I don't think it is because he is feeling heat from fans or even the front office as much as he is just plain disgusted. He has guys like Ortiz breaking into his press conferences, guys like Lackey showing him up out on the field (I don't give a damn about Lackey's next day apologies....he is an *******). Further this might be an additional indictment of the way the sox do their business. Tito might see the recent front office moves as resulting in bringing him a bunch of spoiled rotten, overpaid, head cases instead of dedicated ball players that have their heads in the right place. Heck the most level headed of them might be AGons, Mr. "God did it to us" and Mr. "Gee the schedule is tough on me....I am not getting my beauty rest". If Tito could carve even a tiny bit of Pedey off and graft it onto the rest of these clowns with the exception of Ells and Scuts he might have something.

Well OK but there doesn't seem to be much out there to look at. Eck,, now Jim Rice. If pickings are so slim that names like that come to mind maybe pickings are really slim. However there should be replacements for coaches because they have performed so poorly. Strength and conditioning coach must be a Good Humor man in the off season as this team was fat, sloppy and done by mid-season. How much of the demise of the starting pitching has been conditioning. Lackey looked out of shape from the opening bell this year. If you think about it Lester never really hit his stride this year and was out-pitched by Beckett who should have been in a transition year looking to supplement the fastball (which has been slowing) with another out pitch. The Buckholtz injury was a stress fracture and I don't know how much conditioning can play into a stress fracture.

Hate to say it Ortiz has to go and while I have said basically the same thing about the DH position you guys have said it better than I did. If however Ortiz can be kept on for really short money that would be a different story. AGons clearly struggled in the second half and Youk is fragile. We need somebody that can play at first base and spell AGons. We rotate AGons, Youk and player to be named at DH. I don't know how I feel about trading Ells other than to agree that I think he overachieved this season and will find 30/30's hard to come by. However we have screwed up so many times looking for that last stud pitcher.....Dice.....Lackey. Beckett is not what he was a few years ago and I think he needs to make the Greg Maddox conversion having lost something off the heater at this point. If Buckholtz, Lester and Beckett pitch to their potential those are three pretty good starters. We need to eat innings. Moving Bard or Aceves into the rotation may solve part of the problem. I would explore avenues that get us a stud but I would not go crazy with that as we have given up so much money, flexibility and prospects to no avail in that regard. I would definitely work to bring in an additional starter but I am not willing to see this team screwed up even worse in the hunt for a stud. A good, serviceable starter that eats innings could be just fine. With the uncertainty over guys that can't really be moved but must be fixed, I am not convinced that looking at this team from the perspective of being a serious world series contender again as soon as 2012 is realistic. We might just have to be content with being the kind of team that backs into world series contention in 2012 as opposed to being the kind of team that will be expected to get to the ALCS just by throwing their gloves out on the field. This mentality of making big money free agent signings as a means to put fannies in seats has finally been exposed for what it is.

While I am repeating myself a bit here I am just saying this with a little more confidence. I think Tito will be back next year as there are simply no good options for one thing. However I do think that there will be less of a cushy clubhouse environment and while initially I thought an issue might be Tito being dragged kicking and screaming to that, I actually think he has figured out that putting all of the responsibility in the hands of the player to act responsibly has not worked out. Tito is very frustrated with this group of players. I thought his frustration was aimed elsewhere but from that press conference today I think his frustration is actually aimed at the players and that he will be much more receptive to running a tougher clubhouse.

Boy Wilson would be great but he is going to get huge money. All the big money teams will be in the hunt for him. Add there is one other indirect result that might hit us right in mouth here. Lackey has underperformed as a free agent here, as has Crawford and Drew and even AGons has looked flaky in the second half and has sounded like he is getting palm readings regularly. While I have never believed that this was that tough a town to play in, if the money being offered is the same or better elsewhere I don't wonder if guys will start to avoid Boston because they believe it is too tough a town to play in. If Tito is let go or goes on his own, and the Sox get a more hard nosed manager will players avoid Boston? I would love to have Wilson here but I just don't think it will happen especially after this press conference. Clearly the Sox are publicly stating that they think their free agent process needs serious review.

No I don't want us to get rid of AGons at this point. I took the second option I was talking about in my post and left AGons on my team. I think we will want to bring in somebody that can play some 1st base because I don't think AGons conditioning is going to improve by much and he clearly declined in the second half. He even offered that lame comment about the schedule as an excuse for his decline. So if they get a guy to play some 1st base they can rest AGons more, and between Yuk when he is not playing 3rd, AGons on some of the days when he is not in the field, the Sox finally transition to the contemporary DH and they are no longer held hostage by the mess they are in when Ortiz has been unavailable for games when the DH is not allowed.

Posted my current thoughts on management in that thread. My initial take on players: Crawford stays hopefully given the help he needs to turn his Sox career around Yuk stays and becomes the Sox initial effort to transition to the more contemporary usage of the DH while playing some 3B. Players staying..... Ells, Pedey, Scoots, Lavarnway, Salty, Crawford, Avilas, Yuk, AGons Players going.....Drew, Tek, Ortiz, Lowrie Pitchers staying.....Buckholtz, Lester, Beckett, Bard, Paps, Aceves, Wheeler, Dice, Morales Pitchers going.....Wake, Lackey, Bedard and a cast of thousands I am not even trying to cover every player and every position or even all 25 or 40 roster spots. Both big everyday player signings this year have been guys from small market teams being paid the big bucks up to the big team for the first time. Again as I said my issues with Theo are his dependence on his computerized, numbers based process for player evaluation at the expense or scouting. Crawford played well in anonymity in Tampa and AGons did the same in SD. Crawford was a totally dis-spirited player this year and that compounded the performance issues he has as a player. AGons, considered the better of the two signings was also a problem in my eyes. His conditioning is obviously a problem as his play declined appreciably as the season wore on and his play in the clutch left much to be desired. He brought no veteran leadership. I pointed to the "God did not intend us to move forward" comment from last night because it was comical. He went on to say when asked about the collapse 'injuries,,,,,, teams do not get to the playoffs because of injuries, plain and simple". Another thoughtless comment that displaces the responsibility and is in error to boot. That was not the worst of it. I dismissed this comment from a week ago because it was so ridiculous but AGons commented that this was his toughest season physically because of the schedule. The Sox play too many Sunday night TV games with travel on Monday for AGons liking. "Why does it have to be that way" comments AGons. "They can put the Padres on Sunday night TV". I appreciate your honesty AGons but you just told me why we should not have signed you and why you should not be here. AGons you tool, you wanted the money. You wanted to come to the big stage to play. This is how the game is played on the big stage! It is no different for the other big teams that play on the big stage and least we forget, Texas plays all of its games at night because of the heat. Why are the Sox on instead of the Padres? For the same reason they can pay you AGons. They are a draw and the Padres are not. I am telling you that AGons is going to be the second coming of JD Drew before he is done here unless we are smart enough to get him out of town or I have another possible solution. So I am for keeping Crawford but either getting rid of AGons or doing something to compliment him. I want to get rid of Lackey regardless of what it takes including eating his contract money. I know I am really sticking my neck out here but I keep Crawford if I have my GM hat on, I am getting him the help he needs and I am betting that he will ultimately become a solid and exciting player for this team. I am either getting rid of AGons because he looks to me like the next coming of JD Drew without the sense to keep his mouth shut or I am getting another guy to play some 1st base so I can rest AGons more. My primary concern is that at this stage in his career, I don't think he can resolve the obvious conditioning issues and over time his play will continue to decline. He certainly did not look like a chiseled player to me when he came here. So frankly I think he is kinda soft. His play in crunch time is not going to get better and I think even his raw numbers will decline unless he plays fewer games. So the options are we bring in somebody to also play some 1st base so AGons can get much more rest or I would trade AGons while his trade value is high as his numbers are good enough for teams to want him. So today I would opt to bring in a guy to share the 1st base duties. Now between Yuk, AGons, the guy also playing 1st with AGons you have the means to release Ortiz along with the burden of being too reliant on Ortiz when you cannot use the DH and the Red Sox finally adopt a contemporary perspective on the DH. Wake is done and I am very disappointed in his comment that the fans deserve to see him come back next year to break another record. After years of being there for the Sox and playing unselfish baseball he goes out on a very selfish note. Yes folks we have yet another poster child for the mess that the Sox have become. Wake has not been this kind of player. However he looks around him, sees Lackeys and Drews and every Tom Dick and Harry that looks like he might put a fanny in a seat getting big money and he decides, "what the hell, where is mine. This team's management has its head up its ass anyway". We are now the type of team that turns good guys into *******s. Lackey simply has lost it as a pitcher and unless there is some injury that nobody knows about that has contributed to his demise, I think he is just done as a big time pitcher and he has really put himself in a bad spot here in Boston. He is yet another guy that seemed way out of shape. He was distracted by a number of issues and I don't think his focus would have been much better even if there were no personal issues to deal with. So I think he has to go regardless of having to eat his contract. Tek is gone as he is too old. We got a last gasp out of him this year but he has been part of this cushy clubhouse issue, has not been the kind of captain this team needs and I don't see us keeping 3 catchers. I have not really gotten into the complexity of the Sox bullpen. I can't parse it player by player. The bullpen needs to be reconstructed. Somebody smarter than me needs to figure it out. Also, we might not need more than one more good starter and then somebody to be a number 5 starter. We will need some innings as we are going to lose Wake and Lackey innings if they are both gone. If we get Dice back then we have Lester, Beckett, Buckholtz, Dice and maybe Bard starting. Or we package up some of these guys that we have the rights to but that are going to get another starting pitcher. Maybe Lowrie stays since he can play a good many positions in the infield. But he probably makes too much money. We need starting pitching. We need to fix a number of these guys and we need to fix our overworked bullpen. They have not been a bad bullpen at least not to me. They just got overworked. I might change much of this but one day after the season ends trying to look at it today, shooting from the hip, this is what I think. I apologize if there are huge illogical holes in this post. Was listening to the Theo, Tito press conference and boy, I am getting the feeling that Tito is not only done but that he does not want to be here. I did my management thing in the management thread but I am really thinking that Tito does not want to be here whether we want him to be here or not. Theo absolutely said that he thinks their process of evaluating the big ticket free agent market has been a problem. While I have pointed to it as a problem, I think it is really interesting for Theo to admit it because you cannot then escape the conclusion that the result, the players that have been brought here, probably in some cases should not have been brought here.

I actually am truly conflicted on Tito. Honestly, nobody has made a recommendation that I think makes sense. If he stays then a number of the assistants have to go. I think Bogar or Young are strong candidates to be gone. Both might be hard to see but one or the other for sure and maybe both.All the conditioning guys have to go. if they do bring Tito back then it has to be conditional on some changes in that clubhouse. If they lay down the law for Tito and he is unwilling to comply, then they will have to part company. However the combination of running a comfy clubhouse and leaving the players to resolve issues without much help (the "they are all professionals" perspective) does not work with this edition of the Sox and many of these guys will be on this team going forward. Crawford is the poster child for this particular issue. Crawford will stay and should stay but he needs help. I don't think Tito has to reinvent himself if he does stay but I would be surprised if upper management and Tito are on the same page. I actually think there is more to media comments that Tito and Theo are not on the same page than anybody inside the Sox has been willing to admit to. In fact I think it goes beyond Theo and it is more of a disconnect between the FO now run by guys that believe in contemporary business practices and Tito in his belief in the player and the player's comfort and responsibility to be ready to play. I have to admit that I have not looked at alternative to Tito but I have heard the general comment that there are not really many good choices right now and when I hear the only names being offered are Eck and Tek, I am inclined to think that maybe there are not many good options right now. Unless he wants to leave I don't see JH dumping Theo. However even there I think JH needs to at least force Theo to define his player personnel process and allow JH to interject changes that he must make as well. In my view, Theo is too reliant on his computerized, numbers based system of evaluation and less inclined to scouting. Hiring what might be considered more contemporary scouting might be a path forward as I don't see Theo suddenly becoming "old school".

We keep Crawford. I just hope management is smart enough to work with the guy. His problems at the plate are solvable problems. It is not like he chases rising fastballs or can't hit the curve. He chases pitches at his ankles going away from him and that is actually an easier problem to deal with. Some confidence at the plate might solve his impatience problem as well. In fact, there is no way he can bat from the 2 hole if he continues to be as impatient as he has been so far. More appearances on the base paths (more hits and walks) will finally make his speed more of the asset Sox Management thought it would be. As for his fielding, again I hope management is smart enough to work with him. That said, I am more worried about that as he simply has not shown any ability to come in on the ball. Since he plays now in Fenway's left field, there is little opportunity for him to go back on the ball and maybe going back is where he has earned his fielding reputation. Coming in is usually a matter of how you see the ball coming off the bat, your perspective on the ball, the kind of jump you get and then it is agility. I refuse to believe he is as stone handed as he has looked at times. I would get his eyes checked and I really mean that. But Crawford must stay at this point and he can only get better from this terrible start. Sure 6 years from now if he is still here we might be jawing about what we are getting from a speed guy but at this point 6 years from now is 6 years from now. I do think the term of some of these contracts is worse than the per annum. Stone cold lock superstars should be getting 7 years at huge money and Crawford has not been that. Most disconcerting of all he has looked very very unsure of himself. Giving a guy that much money for that much time that has been that unsure of himself, that lacking in confidence that frankly immature is tough to fathom. He has looked isolated and left to his own devices as well and leaving an asset like that in such a state really bothers me. A mentor coming in as a consultant may be something worth considering. Sox are giving the guy $20m per year. What, that investment is not worth trying to protect? Hey they brought him here and bringing him here has been a problem and is not yet an asset. So now it is their responsibility to resolve it.

Rays starting pitching is much better than Sox starting pitching and they are playing more focused as a team. Sox have really not come back from having checked out mentally although the fog does not seem as dense as it was couple weeks ago. Bad starting pitching is debilitating but making errors all over the field just puts teams in a coma. Although it might sound trivial, the way the kid stabilized play behind the plate tonight made a huge difference to my way of thinking. Salty had gotten to the point where he could not even receive the ball reliably and that along with the starting pitching and the other defensive holes has really made it difficult for many of these guys to stay focused. Many of them are playing with no confidence. Others have been just going through the motions. I can't tell if that also has leaked into their hitting or if their hitting is a problem by itself but they have clearly been very impatient at the plate. What was that 5th inning in last night's game?......Three outs in five or six pitches....terrible and Josh ended up back out on the mound literally a few seconds after coming in from a very tough half inning. Honestly that really bothered me. Ya' gotta sacrifice as a team. Once the first guy goes down in one or two pitches then your responsibility as the next hitter is to be more patient even if your tendency is to not be a patient hitter. Once the second guy goes down in one or two pitches then the next batter really has no choice but to slow things down so that your pitcher gets a chance to get his bearings again. Instead all three of them came up and just swatted away like a bunch of selfish children. Honestly it was one of the most selfish, thoughtless and ugly moments I have seen this season and in microcosm a good example of what is really wrong with this team and with the way Tito manages it. Where was the coach that should have told at least the third batter that inning if not the second that he had to give his guys a chance to catch their breadth before they had to head out onto the field again. How the hell are these teams beating us....for the most part they play more like teams.

Tito' line up card could be very interesting for the next one. "the kid" bats clean up! Just kidding.

Nice job Paps. He is done for tomorrow I think but I bet he ends up in for an out if the game is close tomorrow. Did that kid catch a hell of a game tonight? Never mind the two home runs he looked solid behind the plate. Came out to bail out Paps and looked like a cat charging up the first base line. Nailed Jones earlier in the game. Granted he is young and unpolished but he showed more talent in one 9 inning game than Salty has shown in months.

He's on the heat now. I would try to get him to chase and take my chances with the next guy if not.

Gotta be a rising fb now

2-2 off the page now. just paps and ugly