Bellhorn04

Let me answer the second part of the question first. Baseball managers are not hired for their IQ's. I have little doubt that there are a number of posters here with higher IQ's than Terry Francona. But I don't think anybody here would do a 'smarter' job of managing a baseball team than Francona, Farrell or any of these guys. I think it's hysterically funny when a fan actually believes they could.

Sure, but you're limited by the rules in the amount of back and forth shuttling you can do.

Sure, there are 7 guys in the pen. But you're not going to use Uehara, Tazawa or Mujica before the 8th inning normally. So now you have 4 guys to choose from. And the 4 guys you have to choose from, generally speaking, are middle or long relievers because they aren't that good. So there's no guarantee if you bring one of them in in the 3rd inning that they won't get lit up too. Then you have to bring in the next guy. Our next day off isn't until next Monday and we're playing the Yanks the next 3 days. Do we want to burn up Capuano today and have him not available for several days? When the starter gets knocked out early the manager is just in a bad spot. It's got nothing to do with how smart he is. Blame it on lack of complete games and pitch counts/inning counts and the 25-man roster, but it's not an easy job managing the bullpen now.

If a manager burned out his bullpen you'd say he was twice as stupid. Don't you think bullpens can get burned out if they're just used indiscriminately?

Wrong as usual. Buchholz was pulled after only 55 pitches so how does that have anything to do with a pitch count? The reason managers don't hook starters who are struggling right away is so they won't burn out their bullpens. Pretty simple concept really.

Any examples that come to mind? How far back are we talking?

I think just about every manager uses that rule.

This team has had very few artistic or decisive wins. Every game seems like a struggle. Though that's not necessarily a bad thing assuming our offence will improve. Interesting fact - in 19 games there hasn't been a single 'blowout' game, which Baseball-Reference defines as a margin of 5 runs or more. Last year they were in 46 blowout games, going 33-13.

What does deserving to win have to do with baseball?

They do have limits though, otherwise Cano would still be with them or they would have signed Drew and some relievers. I think it all revolves around what Cashman can talk Hal into.

Yes, already less useless than Roberts. As Confucius put it, 'Scrub who contribute infinitely preferable to scrub who do jacksquat'. Actually Holt had crazy numbers at Pawtucket this year in a small sample...sorry, couldn't help it.

What do you have in your liquor cabinet?

There was a case of the Yankees not getting a player they desperately wanted: Cliff Lee, who took less money to go to the Phillies.

Here's one story that came out after Teixeira signed. Teixeira’s Wife Made the Call: Yankees By JACK CURRY, New York Times Published: January 6, 2009 Thirteen days before Christmas, Mark Teixeira, the Yankees’ $180 million man, was having dinner with his wife, Leigh, when he pleaded with her for insight about the future. If everything was equal among Teixeira’s suitors, he said, where would she rather see him play? Leigh admitted to preferring the Yankees. Mark Teixeira, with wife, Leigh, and agent, Scott Boras, said he decided Dec. 12 on the Yankees with help from Leigh. Once Leigh chose the Yankees, Teixeira instructed Scott Boras, his agent, to try to make the deal happen. Eleven days later, after a strained meeting, in which the Boston Red Sox walked out on Teixeira, he agreed to an eight-year contract with the Yankees. As sweet as Teixeira’s reliance on his wife may seem to some, the Red Sox surely do not think it was cute. John Henry, the owner of the Red Sox; Larry Lucchino, their president; and General Manager Theo Epstein trekked to Texas to meet with Teixeira on Dec. 18, six days after Leigh revealed a preference for the Yankees. The Red Sox would not have sent three executives to Teixeira’s home unless they were confident about signing him. Leigh’s feelings regarding the Yankees had not been publicized until Tuesday, and the Red Sox may wonder if they had a serious chance to sign Teixeira. Boras dismissed the notion that the Red Sox were misled and said part of the free-agent process included teams sometimes charging that they were “strung along.” “As far as Boston goes, I think Boston knows they got good-faith proposals and they were given proposals, which means, if accepted, the player would have signed the proposal,” Boras said. “If teams reject them, they cannot in any way say they were strung along.” Teixeira noted how he would not have taken “half as much” to play in New York, his first choice. But, once the Yankees increased their offer to $22.5 million a year from $20 million, he called it an easy decision. The improved offer came less than a week after Boston’s unsuccessful meeting with Teixeira. “I wasn’t stringing teams along,” Teixeira said. Henry said the Red Sox were unaware of Leigh’s preference for the Yankees, but “felt all along that the Yankees were going to get the last call” from Boras. Since the Red Sox had proposed an eight-year deal for about $170 million, Henry said he found it curious they were told “that we were the low bidders and Boston wasn’t high” on Teixeira’s list. “At one point, I asked Scott, given their feelings, why we shouldn’t pull out,” Henry said in an e-mail message. “His answer was, ‘Maybe you should.’ And we did.” By leaving the negotiations, it seemed as if the Red Sox were calling Boras’s bluff and were trying to get him to prove that he had a better offer from the Los Angeles Angels, Baltimore or Washington. As Henry had expected, Boras still had the Yankees on speed dial, too. While Boras acknowledged that Leigh’s opinion about the Yankees “was the deciding factor” for Teixeira, he said her most definitive remarks were offered at the end of the process. Up until the day Teixeira agreed to terms with the Yankees, Brian Cashman, their general manager, said he was unsure if they would sign him.

So you're saying the Yankees are successful negotiators who don't overpay like the Sox did for guys like Dice and Crawford? What about Tanaka? Who did they have to outbid and by how much? I heard the Cubs offered $120 million. That's $35 million less. What about Ellsbury? Who was the other bidder for him? And oh yeah, that little 10 year extension for A-Rod when he opted out...

How do you know this? You don't. I think the only plausible explanation for why that meeting with Teixeira went sideways is that it was when they found out that the Yankees had indeed entered the process. It's actually pretty implausible that the Yankees had no interest in Tex until then, and suddenly decided to pull $180 million out of the sock drawer to scoop him up.

Of course I remember, Fred. And I've never denied that guys who predict doom and gloom all the time are going to be right sometimes.

2 more LOBsters. Scored a run and drove up Tillman's pitch count at least.

You're right, Fred, we shoulda signed Drew.

Hold the phone on the trade Carp idea, I guess LOL

2 innings 4 LOBsters. Right on pace.

Erik Bedard AKA 'The White Flag of Surrender' pitching for the Rays. Talk about a game being over before it starts.

It's almost like they're trying to sabotage the thing.

They nixed the original deal, but then they came up with another proposal that would have added something like 12 million to the cost. The Sox balked, thinking they'd be able to revisit, and then Aaron Boone played some hoops.

Hey look, it's certainly a possibility that the Sox brass f***ed up. As we all know they also badly wanted A-Rod and threw away the deal for something like 12 million dollars or so that they didn't want to up their bid by. But as far as not closing the deal on Teixeira goes, my feeling is that when you're dealing with Scotty Boras and he's got the Yankees on the line too, you're not in a great position. I suspect it was the same type of thing as A-Rod. Henry and Lucchino had a top figure in mind and they weren't going to increase it.