sk7326

They were flawed, but flawed enough to not be above .500 when the trade shopping popped up? There was underachievement abound across all three phases.

I'll have to disagree a bit there ... panic signing of Stephen Drew last year, Grady Sizemore - that is wavering and pointlessly so. THAT was the brass' problem.

No. Although I think when folks throw around power vs contact - it is often more accurately strikeout vs contact. And clearly Owens can strike batters out. Fastball is only low 90s, but can play up because of that changeup and that deception.

What is really funny as it turns out - is that everything "folks" projected for our kids has turned out to be - well, not wrong. There have been no 1975 Fred Lynn's ... but it is hard not to watch Castillo, Betts, Swihart, Vasquez, Bradley, Bogaerts, Owens, Rodriguez and see at least plausible early evidence of good players, some uncommonly so. What management lacked was patience, and confidence in the fans' understanding of things. They wasted a lot of the time last year that XB or JBJ might have needed to log those "10,000 hours" Gladwell wrote about because they weren't MVP candidates right that f'in second. And yes, I know that SSS abound with all of this, and I am not putting anybody in Cooperstown. BUT, guys often come around, if they have a chance to.

Good: Owens has a wipeout pitch and gets swings and misses Good: Owens has strong mound character. The outing against Seattle, where he shook off a terrible start and turn things around to keep the Sox in the game - was evidence of a keeper Bad: His control has been wobbly at times For a guy's first handful of starts, it is clear that the good outweighs the bad, and the good is stuff that is hard to teach. Obviously the "right deal" caveat applies to anybody - but he surely looks like a #3 sort with a fringy 1/#2 upside. The comparative scouting reports between him and Rodriguez seem quite accurate (the latter has the higher ceiling, but Owens seems like the surer thing)

Jacko's first paragraph was right and then the other 7500 words could have gone in the wood chipper

Internet has made some things better, some worse. And sometimes it is hard to remember that this is a world of progress. As far as why males get maudlin at the end of the night? From my experience it is a species that wants to get laid, and almost certainly is not going to.

I think he will do what ownership tells him - if they want him to make that tradeoff he will. I am going to give him some leeway since he did not do that at Miami or (stepping into the wayback machine) Montreal.

ESPN already said his baseball workload will reduce ... maybe not eliminate mondays but probably rotate through. Channel 38 worked with McDonough to accomodate various national assignments in the past (I remember, particularly one year where they rotated analysts through, including for one week Dick Vitale - although Gary Thorne was the primary backup) , as well as others (Mike Breen with the Knicks, Ian Eagle with the Nets and many others).

Oh O'Brien will be fine and this stuff often blows over. But I think the issues are more about form (and no points for O'Brien for agreeing to a press release while the guy you're replacing is still working).

When I was a kid - it might have been Sports Final locally or the 90 minute Sportscenter on ESPN. But yeah the info is so pervasive now that it is a tougher slog. What I wish NESN or CSNNE did was a real "sicko sports fan" show, your equivalent of NFL Matchup on ESPN. Sure you can put it on at 2:30 in the morning and force me to DVR it, but I am sure there is a market. Hell, the league's own TV channels don't do it enough.

That is true - although I wonder how much of that comes from just the history with the old Sportschannel and FOX Sports. NESN - even going back to the 80s - almost never had any sort of reasonable "SportsCenter" type of show. Sportsdesk is not bad, but sort of passe these days with the interwebs and all.

He was termed unreliable because he was always hurt.

Monty Python a long time ago recognized that the subtleties of the British class system was ripe for great satire. They also recognized that a Roman centurion named after a male sex organ was funny too. No reason to deny either. You don't hear the announcers doing silly stuff when the game gets tense. For all the high minded finger wagging at the pizza incident or the boob grab, note that they did not actually miss calling any of the action.

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.