sk7326

I'll take some issue with this. I don't know a regional sports carrier that doesn't have lousy original programming. It applies to YES!, MASN, what have you. The flagship teams ARE the only thing worth watching. The parts of NESN's Bruins coverage that does not start with J and end with "ack Edwards" are excellent (you're not going to do much better than Brick). And Pruneface is more or less completely wrong about Don and Jerry for the most part - unless he can name a 2-2 game in the bottom of the 9th where they are giggling about a guy in the crowd (the famous pizza incident was during a 6-1 game in a 2007 Josh Beckett start, which during that season was a lead pipe cinch). When I'm at a dull baseball game, I watch the kiss-cam too. The NESN pre and post games are not bad, although the analysts vary widely. But yeah, the rest of the programming is pretty terrible.

I remember reading about that time in Gammons' Beyond the Sixth Game (which is a very underrated book - not quite as good as Halberstam's Breaks of the Game, but in terms of covering a sport before a massive paradigm shift) ... Hawk was basically angling for the Red Sox GM job at that point, so he was really bitter and hypercritical ... which is stunning to think about compared to the pom poms he busts out now.

I'll also note that Vin's schedule has to help in the quality as well ... it doesn't mean that Scully wouldn't be amazing without it (duh), but who wouldn't be helped by less travel?

I'm 37 - so on the TV side I've lived through a number of combinations ... rankings (since 1985 since that is where I can remember really climbing aboard - and all of them were better than anything involving Hawk Harrelson, Chip Caray, Michael Kay or any number of others - we have been lucky) 1. McDonough and Remy - Best combination of entertainment and insight. Sean the best of the PbP guys, used his own opinions to engage Remy - especially with poor home plate umps, and umpshows in general (when the ump is showing up players). Appropriate homerism level too - want the Sox to win but not at all blind nor afraid to call out problems. Plenty of humor including the RemDawg stuff - but also got a PbP guy incredulously asking "where did that miss?" when I was wondering the same thing. 2. Orsillo and Remy - Orsillo more genial, but dynamic with Jerry got lesser quality analysis from the Dawg. But the broadcasts have not stopped being entertaining and are still great with tone. 3. Martin and Monty - first one I can remember - Ned's voice was the best of them. Monty was not in prime RemDawg's class, but I think Ned was very much on the Back 9 when he hooked up with Remy 4. Kurtz and Remy - I liked Bob Kurtz, but I don't really remember much. They were fine. 5. McDonough and Monty - Sean was able to turn out good professional PbP - but the touches which made the Remy combination so good weren't there yet. 6. Martin and Remy - Ned did not have his fastball anymore. Jerry was still learning. Not a good combo.

The idea was to move Hanley from a defensive position to an offensive one ... it has not worked, but it was a good percentage play. So now you move him to another offensive position. LF and 1B have long been the "well you gotta play him somewhere" positions (with relative tubbiness differentiating them I suppose). Hanley's extraordinary badness was a fairly unlikely outcome - and one which has been accented by him suddenly forgetting how to hit too.

From what I get on Extra Innings when I've had it - you basically have announcers who are either too "Serious", which is a bit much for a hometown broadcast, and homers who are annoying and do not offer any real analysis. Living here in DC, FP Santangelo is an annoying homer, and on Orioles broadcasts Gary Thorne has evolved into one. Don and Jerry strike the right balance - where they clearly want the Sox to win, but are not going to sugarcoat things, nor credit the opponent when appropriate. Some games the analysis is heavier than others - but some games inspire that more. Don will not be out of work long. Sean and Jerry, Ned, Ken Coleman, Dick Stockton and beyond much can be said similar. Red Sox have largely been blessed in this area.

Scully is the best - and he and Dodgers have worked to make sure it's the case. (see his low and basically travel free workload) Orsillo and Remy's silliness basically moved with the game and the part of the season. Not every regular season game is a soap opera, and some of them are downright boring ... and the Red Sox guys get more dialed in when the games dictate it. But yes, Remy has worked a lot less at it as the RemDawg has exploded. He was sharper in the early 2000s when McDonough and Orsillo/Kurtz were sharing joint custody.

bigger problem i have had is that radio is just all talking ... which is essential without television, but redundant otherwise. Boston has been lucky with tv guys more or less the whole time, including Orsillo and Sean McDonough, but not including Bob Rodgers.

the feud got so bad Remy started to cry when talking about Don last night

Gilbert is one funny dude. It would perk up the broadcast. Hawk is decidedly not. The delay makes the radio sync a little tricky but not fatal. I see where you are coming from though. Above all sense, the games are television programs, and some announcers help or hurt that. Orsillo and Remy help it. A better team would help more. I live in DC and see Carpenter and FP Santangelo on nats broadcasts and the latter hurts the program. Anyone who makes Harold Reynolds seem like Richard Pryor in terms of edge is seriously flawed. Michael Kay on the Yankee broadcasts is terrible. And to be fair - the team has actually played better since the chaos.

It's one of the questions I have about Bogaerts too. This year has been a leap - he has learned how to handle pitches they were getting him out with. But now the next step is to learn how to lay off those pitches and get something he can drive. Long run, the walk rate is a problem - and clearly he is an advanced enough hitter to know that.

Oh heavens no - but he has the most ceiling on the staff, and young enough that legitimate improvement is expected. You don't pencil him as a #1, but it's okay to expect to see better from him next season. I absolutely have him in the rotation plan next season. Owens you can argue more, but to me he has shown quite a bit both in tools and mentality. Just having a 2nd year versions of those guys will improve the rotation - now the staff needs more improvement than merely that, but that is a reasonable source for optimism.

I also think the cost control allows him to be a useful trade asset - which would not stun me ...

I think Cueto or Zimmermann are both on the radar - or a trade. (as noted, the White Sox have to ask serious questions about their timeline and whether Sale is best as one of theirs or as a way to get the farm beefed up) Selling Betts would be stupid. He is a future star, cost controlled. Those are not the guys you deal - those are the guys you build around. The speculated idea of Sandoval for Shields makes sense, mistake for mistake. Shields might only be a #4 at this point (his flyball tendencies are going to piss of Nation fans) but he has AL East experience, and can crank out 200 innings without much issue. Shields would not be the #2 on this staff, but he would serve a useful Tim Wakefield like sort of roll as an innings-eater who can keep the bullpen on schedule over a long season.

Really the move is Hanley to 3B and try to deal Sandoval ... I just don't see Sandoval's ceiling after 1 year. I did not love the sigining when it happened, but I could see some of the logic - his spray charts were very Fenway-friendly, and there seemed to be a good amount of raw power if he focused on it. (of course this raises questions about the hitting instruction, which has been there all season) But Hanley at 1B could work too. Clearly the LF travails have seeped into the offense, which has created a vicious cycle. Regardless of the position, he was brought in because he could hit and he had a good approach. The latter has gone completely to seed this season.

I think there is a little bit of exaggeration here. The ownership group is capable of good - the payroll has not shrunk, and the team has had a first class baseball operation for the entire time they have been here. (the results have sagged clearly, but there is not evidence that the operation has cheapened or what have you) Where they have been annoying is the hyper-attention to PR which manifests as smearing people as they leave, obsessing over NESNs ratings. Now, there is a bit of a paradox with TV ratings I understand - in a sense it is not good for business if the team is winning all the time, because even good seasons that weren't amazing (say a season like 2010 where they squeezed 89 wins out of a MASH unit) cause interest to dip. (the way someone who is used to a Maserati would be bummed out by a BMW possibly) But trying to squeeze more ad revenue at that end is the height of greed for guys who are sitting on stacks of money and residuals from Roseanne episodes. I'll take the winning.

As @richarddeitsch noted, in particular, Dave O'Brien signing off on the press release was very poor optics. I am not sure whether it was his call, but it was very poor form. At this rate I am half expecting Tom Werner to hire his old buddy Bill Cosby to host Sox Appeal

It's possible - it happened with McDonough around 2000 or so ... viewers have great pull. That said, if the brass were afraid of losing O'Brien - who has a high national profile - it might not matter.

I am almost certain it wasn't Jerry's call for sure. Orsillo (like Mcdonough before him) made him look good - and chemistry can't be that bad when they are both dying over that dude going for the grope.

He belongs in the picture (although Matt Kemp has a good case without the excuse of a new gig) ... and it doesn't change the reality that the bat is what has made the package untenable. It would be easy to overlook the defense then - Sox fans have had plenty of practice with that.

I think Harvey though is more spitballing ... from what I've heard New York has many baseball fans in it.

Don was great. I remember being a bit bummed when Sean was let go - who originated the RemDawg stuff and berated home plate umpires - and he's still my favorite. (Ned had lost his fastball by the time I got to it) But Don was a terrific foil and I've watched the boob grab clip on youtube a few times today since the word.

If you look at 2014, you had the defending champs and you were basically counting on kids for two positions ... CF and SS. 3B was a giant sucking sound in 2013 too, so whatever you got there was going to have to be worked around, and the same goes for catcher to great degree. That should not have required rebuilding, or some branding that we were lowering expectations. Hell they might have STILL signed Castilo or promoted Betts (Betts was so good he forced them) since Victorino turned back into a pumpkin. But you don't walk away from an eval because of March.

Since discussing Manny, Mike Greenwell, Jim Rice, Albert Belle will lead down the inevitable Old Man Yells at Cloud sort of revisionism ... I'll just stop by noting that Hanley's performance has made me sad too

Indeed. Ortiz is probably the best non-tender in baseball history.