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Bellhorn04

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Everything posted by Bellhorn04

  1. Bellhorn04
    But you said they used the 'wrong' target. Why was it the wrong target if making the playoffs was 'fine'?
  2. Bellhorn04
    Personally I'm only talking about the Epstein years of 2003-2011 when I say 'they' had a good approach up until recently. They won the Wild Card in 03, 04, 05, 08 and 09 and the Division in 07. That's 6 times in the playoffs in 7 years. We all know the rest. Game 7 of the ALCS 4 times and 2 titles. Then they went out and spend wads of money in 10 and 11 and f***ed up.
  3. Bellhorn04
    But now we're back to the question of whether winning the division matters as long as you make the playoffs. I don't think it did matter.
  4. Bellhorn04
    The Yankees did have a vastly higher payroll than the Red Sox for most of the time since Henry took over the team. That changed in 2011. I think the Red Sox goal of winning 95 games as opposed to beating the Yankees was realistic in those years when the Yankees had a payroll of 60 million to 80 million higher. Also conceding the fact that the Yankees didn't just have a much bigger payroll, they had a core of excellent players, a good manager etc. I think the 95 win approach was a realistic and intelligent one at the time, under the circumstances.
  5. Bellhorn04
    Dojji, please don't put questions like that out there...it always sends me digging for the answer. I thought D-Lowe might have pulled this off. Not quite, but he did have 2 seasons with a 5+ERA and 180+ innings. Ryan Dempster pulled it off in 2002. That's as far as I'm looking.
  6. Bellhorn04
    The Yankees record of consistent regular season success since 1996 has been an impressive achievement, and vastly superior to ours, I fully agree on that.
  7. Bellhorn04
    As long as there are 3 divisions in each league there's no way it can be fair. So a team wins a s***** division with an 85-77 record. Big f***ing deal. Why should that be rewarded? One of the wild card teams might have a 95-67 record and get turfed out in one day. It's all a big joke IMO.
  8. Bellhorn04
    I think the 'more fair' argument was just a way to sell the new system. I believe the real reason this was done was for entertainment purposes. Even the godawful Red Sox seemed to have a sniff at the playoffs in the days when they were still straddling a .500 record. Bud Selig is a good marketing guy, I give him full marks for that. He knows how to make more money for the owners and players. But I think he could care less about the 'fairness' stuff. As long us fans keep buying it, the MLB money machine just keeps rolling harder.
  9. Bellhorn04
    Personally I was kind of hoping St. Louis would win it all this year-and they nearly did, but for Barry Zito -because it would have been an instant repudiation of the new Wild Card system. We would have had a 'second wild card' team winning it all in Year One. A team that wouldn't even have been in the playoffs under the old system. I would have enjoyed this because it would have quickly proved that it's ******** that the new system rewards teams for winning their division. I still believe it's ********. I believe the second wild card teams do have a legit shot at winning it all. It's all about getting hot and getting lucky at the right time. It's ********, but that's what we've got. And the owners are all richer for it.
  10. Bellhorn04
    But on the other hand, who cares about having the best regular season record? It's meaningless. The St. Louis Cardinals won 105 games in 2004 and 100 games in 2005. No cigar. They won 83 games in 2006 and 90 games in 2011. Two cigars. This is just an academic debate IMO.
  11. Bellhorn04
    The MLB roster rules prevent teams from doing things like stockpiling 'extra arms'. If you sign Marcum you have to remove somebody from the 40-man roster. We've already had to cut loose Atchison and Josh Fields, two pitchers I'm sure the team would love to have kept in reserve.
  12. Bellhorn04
    Doubront had a strong finish though. His last 4 starts were all quality starts, with a .555 OPS against.
  13. Bellhorn04
    Nobody can say for sure that Lester will turn it around and nobody can provide any proof. There are, however, many, many examples of pitchers turning it around after a season like Lester just had. Keep in mind how young he is and how good he was for several years. He appears to have lost a bit of velocity, which is a concern, but he still throws reasonably hard. He may just need some 'tweaking' of his mechanics and now he will have his old pitching coach (Farrell) looking at him and a brand new pitching coach (Nieves) as well. And others here are better at tackling these technical questions than I am.
  14. Bellhorn04
    A resolution to this in the near future would be nice, that's for sure.
  15. Bellhorn04
    Those were the weirdest moves Theo ever made.
  16. Bellhorn04
    I was always surprised that we got this many prospects back. But you're probably right that the trade had to be structured this way to be allowed by the Commissioner.
  17. Bellhorn04
    When it comes to my own somewhat pessimistic projection of 84-78, I think I am being influenced by two things as much as anyone else is: the 'bottom line' effect and the 'recency' effect. Both of those effects fix on the indisputable facts that we were 69-93 last year and that we haven't made any huge upgrades on paper. Getting more specific about key players, I don't think there's any getting past our two best starters, Lester and Buchholz. Last year they had ERA's of 4.82 and 4.56 respectively. If you stick with the bottom line and the recency, you can't assume that they will be better than that in 2013. Sure, Lester pitched better than that the last 2 months, and Buchholz had a great stretch of games in mid-season. But no amount of parsing makes the 4.82 or the 4.56 go away. I'll say this: if both Lester and Buch can at least give us a combined 390 innings and each knock at least a run off their ERA's, the Red Sox should make the playoffs.
  18. Bellhorn04
    Wouldn't Cody Ross be the heavy bomber type who benefitted considerably from Fenway? Ross hit .298 with 39 extra base hits at Fenway, .232 with 18 extra base hits on the road. Ross's career BA is .262, Napoli's is .259.
  19. Bellhorn04
    We're all just speculating. But if Napoli's hip condition was that serious surely they would have just walked away rather than keep their first base situation in limbo this long. Makes more sense to me that the two sides are dickering over the contract language. As for excited, a few three-run bombs long gone over the Monster will take care of that. Yeah, I'm one of the people who still wants Napoli.
  20. Bellhorn04
    But we traded Lillibridge to Cleveland for reliever Jose De La Torre, who actually had pretty good numbers in the minors last year. And Lillibridge had 123 PA's for Cleveland after only 16 with the Red Sox.
  21. Bellhorn04
    I think Cabrera qualifies as a 'generational' hitter. His career OPS of .956 is 20th on the alltime list.
  22. Bellhorn04
    He has 'some' value but it's pretty small. I could see another team asking for him as a throw-in. I mean, two teams actually agreed to take Brent Lillibridge in trades last year.
  23. Bellhorn04
    This reminds me of the 'ace' debate. There's no objective definition for any of these terms, at least not that I'm aware of.
  24. Bellhorn04
    No argument that Swisher is a much better hitter than Victorino. But you need guys who can catch the ball too. You have to consider the total player. Victorino will be able to move to centre to replace Ellsbury if we move him.
  25. Bellhorn04
    Aw c'mon, Sport, Cherington has signed 6 free agents in a relatively short period and is now in discussions on Hanrahan. You may not like the moves but I think he's at least putting to rest the inertia stuff.
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