FredLynn

So who is going to email Tito to suggest this?

One of the guys on a different forum, a former baseball scout, thought that Lowrie should start taking some reps in the outfield. He is athletic enough to do it. That would get Cameron out of the lineup and allow Scutaro, who has been playing well, to take over at SS regularly. It amounts to who you would rather have in the lineup: Scutaro or Cameron.

Well put IORTIZ. The Mike Cameron experiment should be over by now. He had his chance. Even McDonald is a superior option, given the playing time, than Cameron. As is Lowrie. He has become an automatic out. Time for him to go

One of the stat guys on the other thread I post on did an analysis last year on DiceK's success when he walks a lot of guys vs when he is more centered and throwing more strikes. I don't remember all the details, but the conclusion was that when he is walking more guys and nibbling more he is more successful in terms of runs allowed. Strange that runs allowed for him is inversely correlated with walks allowed. Apparently his is just more successful when he nibbles, even though that drives us nuts.

Look at weather.com I heard showers later on in the evening

P.S. Sorry for the spell but im posting from my cell Sorry to hear that. When do you get out?

The crowd should be booing and mooning the team. What is this, LA? Give me a break. Yeah, the team does suck. Greatest preseason hoax ever IMO. World Series favorites? LMFAO

I bought into it too. Grossly over rated team. We will be lucky to win 82 games this year. We do not have the talent to compete with the Mariners and Orioles.

Because we all bought into the way the team was rated by the media before the season began. We are not that good, thats all. For a variety of reasons the players are not performing: Crawford cannot handle the pressure, Youk may still be hurt, Gonzo is not as good as advertised in the ALE etc etc This is the team this year. We are what our record says we are. Its not going to get any better, most likely

Salty is not going to hit the ball here. In fact, Salty shouldn't even be on the roster. He should be in Pawtucket and Molina should be our catcher.

The game was over when the Mariners scored their second run

Yeah, we can put Crawford in the nine hole. Most expensive #9 hitter in the history of the game. Him and Varitek are getting outhit by most pitchers in the NL

No, he won't. But that doesn't mean its not the right thing to do. If nothing changes, nothing will change. Then it will be July and we will still be trying to get to .500. This team is seriously flawed. There is ZERO chance of making the playoffs the way things stand right now. Too many BUMS on the team.

Don't make it here often. And just stating the obvious. Gotta fire the manager: that will get their attention

This team is so screwed....really screwed. So many problems. Crawford cannot handle the pressure of Boston; Youkilis is probably still hurt from last year; Gonzalez is on a pace to hit SIX HRs; Varitek was hitting .111 last I heard, lower than most pitchers. The only way to fix this team is to do something drastic to get their attention, and I think they have to fire Francona and get a disciplinarian in there.

I am not seeing the numerical values for average velocity here; probably blind. He did well in 09, but not as good as 07. I think his decline began in 07 (tough year to repeat) and the bottom fell out in 2010. Do you have his average velocity in 10 handy? Also, note the small difference in velocity range in 2010 compared to 07. If you change speeds on hitters it makes life a lot easier. For a year now he hasn't shown evidence of pitching well; hopefully its forthcoming in April. Edit: never mind. Got it. Average FB iin 2010 was 93.5, down a little over a mph from 07. In addition, the graph for 2010 shows that he rarely cranked it up to over 95 as opposed to 07.

Another interesting graph on Beckett showing his HR/9 going up annually since 2007. There is really no objective evidence that Beckett can turn it around. I sure hope he does, but as yet I don't see it happening. Whatever is ailing him is still ailing him. Maybe Curt Young can help him; he sure did a great job in Oakland. http://www.fangraphs.com/graphs.aspx?playerid=510&position=P&page=4&type=full

Try this graph for a better visual: http://www.fangraphs.com/pitchfxo.aspx?playerid=510&position=P&pitch=FA This clearly shows that in 2007, his only excellent year on the team, his fastball was pretty regularly 95 to 95+. Look at the trend downwards over the years. Also, look at the difference in velocity range; everything he threw in 2010 was in a pretty narrow range. It doesn't take much of a loss of velocity to morph from a power pitcher into something less than that. If he throws at 93 there is much less room for error. I haven't seen fangraphs for ST yet. As the season progresses more data will be available.

And Papelbon will be traded. Makes too much sense to do otherwise.

There is no evidence that Beckett has turned it around. He has lost a couple of mph off his fastball, and according to fangraphs, his pitches have also lost a good deal of movement. Furthermore, he has been pitching poorly for a year now. Here is the evidence of decreased movement of his pitches. Compare 2007 to 2010; see how many more of his pitches in 2010 didn't move at all vertically or horizontally compared with 07. You can also see that he has lost a couple of MPH off his fastball here: http://www.fangraphs.com/pitchfxg.aspx?playerid=510&position=P&season=2010&date=0&dh=0 Here is an article (from about a month ago or so) that implies that his chances of turning it around are not good: The historical significance of Beckett’s 2010 John Tomase In today’s Herald we examined the production of pitchers in their 30s after they had seasons as poor as Josh Beckett’s 2010 (6-6, 5.78). The expectation had been that history would be littered with good pitchers who had similarly down years but bounced back to regain their prior form. Except it didn’t happen that way at all. Here’s a link to the baseball-reference chart showing the 69 seasons where a pitcher in his 30s compiled an ERA of 5.75 or higher in at least 125 innings pitched. In only three cases did the pitcher recover to post so much as one season on par with his prior performance: Darryl Kile, Tim Belcher, and Livan Hernandez. Otherwise, the results were universally horrible, and basically claimed the careers of some pretty good pitchers — Jack Morris, David Cone and Dave Stewart, to name three. Of course, those pitchers — as well as many others on the list — were in their late 30s and at the end of their careers anyway. Beckett’s down year came at age 30, when there should be plenty of time to return to his All-Star self. Except the numbers don’t bear that out either. Of the 18 pitchers on the list to have their down year at age 30, only Kile rebounded thereafter. Six-time 20-game winner Wes Ferrell averaged 19-13 with a 3.86 ERA from 1929-1937 with the Guardians and Red Sox. Then he went 15-10 with a 6.28 ERA at age 30 and only won three games the rest of his career. Or there’s Jaime Navarro. While never anywhere near as good as Beckett, he was pretty decent for a time. He won 17 games in 1992 with the Brewers and his 3.28 ERA ranked 10th in the NL in 1995. At age 29 in 1996, he went 15-12 with a 3.92 ERA for the Cubs and tossed 236.2 innings. He was considered solid enough to earn $5 million a year from the White Sox in free agency, but during three years on the other side of Chicago, his ERA never dropped below 5.79 and he lost 43 games. How does this relate to Beckett? Maybe not at all. Few pitchers of his pedigree have ever struggled so mightily during a season in their prime, and it might prove to be the aberration in an otherwise stellar five years. But it’s worth noting that history is not on his side.

I am not sure what Showalter said that wasn't true. Epstein acknowledged as much-that is much tougher to manage when you have a lot less money to work with. Showalter also said that Jeter "ticks him off" by jumping back from so many pitches to try to influence the balls and strikes calls by the umpires. While Jeter does irritate some with the way he plays, he plays the game right- to win, and I respect that. IMO Showalter was just stating the truth, as much as some of us would not like to hear it. It is the fact of his saying these things out loud that are usually just understood that is putting him under fire. Here is what Theo said: “It’s easy to get defensive when people attribute a lot of our success to our payroll,’’ Epstein told Borges. “To a degree they’re right, but it’s still a challenge. It’s definitely easier the more money you have

Matt Albers Still In Mix For Red Sox By Ben Nicholson-Smith [March 23 at 4:38pm CST] 4:38pm: Red Sox GM Theo Epstein told Peter Abraham of the Boston Globe that the team has not released Albers (Twitter link). He remains in the mix for a job in Boston's bullpen.

Okajima has options left, but they require his approval to be sent down. I doubt he would go to Pawtucket. He would probably prefer to find work elsewhere-not that thats a bad thing. http://www.soxprospects.com/40man.htm