Bellhorn04

What the board should never do is divide up into the Pollyanna party and the Pessimist party or whatever. Everybody should just have their say without being labelled.

We should have a moratorium on comments on Nava. For some reason this guy provokes some strong reactions for and against and some really pointless arguments.

Baseball-Reference pitcher splits, toward the end. You can get these for the pitcher's career as well. Here's the link to the 2012 splits for Buchholz. http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/split.cgi?id=buchhcl01&year=2012&t=p Also noted that Buch had a solid 3.79 ERA with Lavarnway catching.

The best possible scenario is to have a lot of cheap young talent. If you keep treating your prospects as trade chips, like Anthony Rizzo, you will never have that scenario. The Red Sox are finally trying to show some patience here.

Sorry, I just don't have the time or energy right now to do that.

It's true that you shouldn't just use the conglomerated CERA numbers of Salty vs. Varitek or Shoppach, you have to break it down by each pitcher. But consider Lester and Buch for 2012: Lester with Shoppach 3.70 48.2 innings Lester with Salty 5.62 107.1 innings Buch with Shoppach 3.23 78 innings Buch with Salty 6.30 75.2 innings As to the whys and wherefores of the problems with Salty, there are a lot of varying opinions on this. There was a report last year that the Red Sox brass did a sort of survey of the players on why the team's W-L record was so bad with Salty catching, and nobody seemed to have any clear ideas. One thing to keep in mind is that all it takes is one or two pitches per game to have a huge effect on things. One pitch that goes the wrong way can result in multiple runs. Another consideration is that Salty's performance might vary from game to game, inning to inning. Maybe he just loses focus sometimes. Also, maybe the pitchers are aware of all these numbers and have less confidence when throwing to Salty. There are a lot of possibilities, but in my opinion, the numbers over two years add up to Salty being a significant problem.

I'm not kidding myself. I know you could be right, that the pitching could be a disaster again. I'm hoping it's not that way, as I know you are too.

That's what I was hoping even before Tek was hired.

I definitely feel Salty is a negative. His CERA was a run higher than Varitek's in 2011, and a run higher than Shoppach's last year. When he catches we usually lose. These factors make me feel very negative about him.

Well jung, one area I think I'm in agreement with you on is that I don't have a good feeling about the catching situation. I think D. Ross was a good pickup, but I'll be sick if Salty is the opening day starter. Unfortunately Lavarnway didn't show enough to inspire great confidence. But Salty scares the crap out of me. He's got losses written all over him. I was hoping he'd be traded.

I'm not expecting them to match their best, but their best was pretty good and for both it was 2010. Lester was 4th in the Cy Young and Buch was 6th.

Personally I think there's too much uncertainty in baseball for the Red Sox to 'punt the season' as Jacko would say. Do any of us really know how Lester, Buchholz or Lackey will pitch this year? What if they pitch well but we have a bunch of rookies and scrubs playing because we assumed the team was going nowhere. Talk about a wasted season.

If they don't spend up to the limit this year, it's not like the unspent money would be of much future benefit. We already know it's highly unlikely they'll be exceeding the 189 million threshold in 2014 or future years, with the new penalties.

Maybe so. But there is a big difference in spending a ton on 1-2-3 year deals and spending a ton on 4-5-6 year deals. Let's keep it in perspective.

If the season started today Nava would be #5 on the depth chart for outfielders, right? Ellsbury in centre, Victorino in right, platoon of Kalish & Gomes in left.

I'm going with unbridled optimism. Why not. It's January.

Is Chris Carpenter of the Cardinals a good comp for Lackey? Carpenter had TJS in 2007.

I don't see which prospects are truly blocked.

That's what I'm hoping too. I really like the fact they haven't traded any prospects or forfeited any draft picks this offseason. I'm looking forward to seeing some of these kids play.

Oh I know he's a great hitter. But on the other hand he's one player, one piece of the puzzle. Our puzzle has a lot of holes in it. I'm in favor of holding the prospects this time. An ace pitcher like you mentioned I would feel differently about.

Surely to God they're not going to let this drag on much longer.

I can't see the Red Sox emptying the farm for anybody right now. Everything they've been doing this offseason is about hanging onto the prospects.

Tommy John surgery has done wonders for many pitchers.

Weirdest thing yet...I can't open Page 35 of the Napoli thread. It's the only one like that.

It's just a guess on my part and an optimistic one at that. But it's certainly not inconceivable that Lackey's numbers were directly impacted by his injury. It's not like he's been a bum his whole career. He's only been a bum with us. :dunno: