cp176

It's late - i'm stumbling - got confused Do you mean Noless Nomore?

Hold on a sec - not so sure that you are his biggest fan. One of his biggest maybe - grant you that.

And you might be right but if the man with the money thinks he is ok then i say great and good for him. If Sale is resigned, my guess is that there is no way JH won't do what he can to keep this team competitive. Once again, i don't think that he is listening to the folks declaring the hard times ahead. He just must not be very smart I guess or maybe he knows something we don't.

You might be right with respect to your predictions. I certainly hav no idea and won't even take a guess. Within 2 or 3 years, if some things don't change then baseball as we currently know it likely won't be the same. Management including ownership is very vested in the use of analytics and what they indicate in general about players of a certain age. With owners reluctant to sign free agents because of the number 30 plus, to any type of longer term contract, it is going to be interesting seeing what will happen. Some owners will be risk takers realizing that the numbers aren't always right. There will always be exceptions. There are also other factors to consider in addition to on the field play. JH tends to view Chris Sale this way. His importance to his team is pretty impressive. I'm with JH on this one although it makes no difference what I think.

Likely Chris Sale will deserve to be paid. JH has already acknowledged his importance as a pitcher and as a teammate. If the decision to pay this man is made by the owner of the franchise it might be best to just accept it. In your personal views you might not like it. Get over yourselves - if you feel this way try to understand that he might not be listening to you. It is his money and I bet he gets to spend it the way he wants to.

Les is more - no less no more!

I agree with you for the time being but if Varitek is working hard specifically with Swihart is it not possible that the Sox think more highly of him than the majority of posters here do? If his catching skills continue to improve and the big if - he doesn't get traded- and he hits just a little (pretty low bar there), it is certainly possible that he becomes our number 1 before it is all over. I'm not saying that it will happen just that it might.

So this kind of verifies my feelings about the game. You can certainly be an expert in certain aspects of the game but if you want some one to actually teach the game you need someone who has a complete grasp of the game. Anyone can know the fundamentals, not everyone can teach them - If you are talking catching, Varitek is a good choice.

Would that guy be you?

There are always exceptions. Sale is an exception. I have to go along with John Henry's call on this one! lol

Lester who?

So long machado - see you in a future World Series - Whoops sorry about that you are going to San Diego - How about enjoy the sunshine .

One more thing - Based on John henry's comments from yesterday, I can see why you don't hear many players talking about the importance of analytics. They are obviously having a great impact on the business side of things. The number of free agents left unsigned at this time likely has as much to do with their importance as it does to overall budgets. Doesn't sound like collusion to me. Great for the owners. They are using the data available to them to make decisions based on monies available. I think that long term we are going to see either major changes or major problems.

his comments from yesterday were telling . he wants to keep Chris Sale in a Sox uniform and considers him unique with respect to his age and the length of his contract. i like that very much.

I wish that it wasn't beginning to really look unlikely that Kimbrel will be coming back to Boston. Based on today's comments coming from management I guess it looks unlikely. This guy i will miss as much for his qualities as a teammate as well as his talent. We had a chance to see one of the best there has been do his thing for us. Hope everybody appreciates that.

I don't really disagree with you here. My whole point being that none of these 3 causes me to have palpitations with respect to their talent levels. If he can get anything of value for either of the three, it would not surprise me to see to any of the three traded. If he can't get a decent return and back they come, not a bad thing. We have two known solid backstops and one great big unknown..

I will say that the people I converse with here and actually have a lot of fun with in many cases seem to be tolerant of the fact that there are multiple ways to view things. Not buying into something in totality does not mean that you don't see its value. On the other hand, maybe the ones who I communicate with accept me for what they think I am even though they might be wrong. I think that they have learned to tolerate me possibly because I am likely not going anywhere. i am a very firm believer that if we all saw things the same way, it would be quite boring. This forum thank goodness provides us with much more than a simple round table of the analytical world and what they do for us. There was a time that I might have agreed with you about the condescension piece but not so much anymore. Plenty of disagreement for sure but once again that can be a good thing. Personally I am just a fan of the game on the field. I like to talk actual baseball and baseball strategy. Much of what interests me does not need to be propped up with data.

lol - put them together somehow (I know you can) and we will have a winner. Based on your last two comments, you likely headed in a political direction!

thus I could not help but bring up the Luchino thing once again because we all know that Cherington couldn't have had anything to do with that fiasco.

And this comment relates to me how? if you are suggesting that I ignore the use and emphasis on data in the game today, you would be wrong. I am sorry though that I am not in love with nor am I willing to fall all over the comments I read emphasizing data value at the expense of everything else. When this forum becomes driven by data folk only, i will bow out. It hasn't reached that stage quite yet. There are so many new and unique ways for data to be used by the people into that sort of thing to spew any idea that they chose to spew.

So was it somehow Dombrowski's fault that Lester got away? Where have you been? We all know that that one is entirely on Luchino. lol

Even "Wicked Big" beer pong!!!

I actually kind of agree with this. Resting isn't really going to amount to much. You certainly shouldn't rush him back but at some point he just needs to play and see where it takes him.

Who in the hell knows. if Betts wants to continue his career in Boston, I think though that he is going to have to give them at least a clue. if it becomes just an issue of making absolutely the most money he can make, then maybe it is best that he walks.

Kind of like the stay in your lane comments that I hear so often.