SoxHop

Yearly trip to see a game at Fenway....... 300 dollars One MLB TV package for the season........... 89 dollars Having an obese and underperforming third baseman on your team so you can make fat jokes like you were back in elementary school..........priceless.

An article of an interview from someone who use to work with Sandoval, I think with SF, said pretty much the same thing. He needs to be liked. He also stated that Sandoval has an eating disorder, which is pretty obvious. I just read that throughout the offseason Pablo was doing two a day workouts six days a week, and it looked like a serious schedule. He must burn tons of calories a day with those workouts. He must eat like a horse to not shed weight. I don't think it's hard to understand why people are obese. I think you can get hooked on junk food pretty much the same way you can get hooked on other drugs. It's been scientifically proved that you get hungry faster eating junk food, and crave that kind of food instead of healthy food. The thing I don't get is that for normal people who have a 9 to 5, and need to do house chores, and maybe take care of a kid or two, finding the time to make food that tastes good can be difficult. Eating correctly in this society take a lot of time and effort. But if you make 20 million a year, you hire people to do everything for you. You don't cut the grass, clean the living room, walk the dog, you pay someone to do it. With that type of money you pay a person to plan out healthy meals, buy the stuff needed for it, cook the food, and then do the dishes. Damn I wish I was rich!!!!!!!!!

I like hearing this.

I like "The Iron Sheik" better.

I wish someone could impress upon him that first base isn't an easy job and how important it is. He has repeatedly stated that it should be easy for him to move to first, which is the wrong frame of mind to have at that position, or in moving to any position. I just don't think Hanley gets it. A botched catch at first can throw away a game. One missed catch. These divisions could come down to a game or two.

I think Swihart will crush it offensively. He is also extremely athletic and I believe his catching will get much better than it was last year. He only started catching while with the Sox organization and last year was his fourth year of catching. He's going to going to get much better I believe. If Vasquez does end up being the better choice of the two. Swihart as a catcher will bring better value in trade than having him in another position on the Sox. Watching what happens with these two this year is going to be fun no matter what.

Last year I saw a good poster mention on another forum that Lou was on a talkshow railing Hanley on his practice effort out in left. Again, from watching Hanley's effort while playing left last year. I don't think Hanley believes that his defensive play is worth his time.

With two lost seasons behind us, the reporters and fans are ready to pounce for sure. This could really turn ugly if it starts bad. That the manager is in a position where he has to look over his back is not a good place to be. I do think this team will keep stride with the pack at least, so I hope there isn't a problem. And Price seems like one of those veterans that could help an uneasy club calm down and play ball. My big question is if the added pressure to perform is a hindrance, or a motivator for this team.

Seeing people claim there is a lot of pressure on this team to do well early, especially Farrell. Putting pressure on players doesn't seem to be Farrell's managing style. I'm interested in seeing how this goes down and wonder if the sense of a needed fast start will effect the team at all.

This is puzzling for sure. It makes me think they are banking on Castillo more than JBJ with the pickup of Young.

Aahahaa. Right. No freakin way is he 17%. No way. This thing is starting to just become funny. On Sandoval weight: Werner "It's disappointing" Farrell "He's looks good, he dropped 20 pounds" Pablo " I haven't stepped on scale during the offseason" Henry "I hope they can fix his weight before opening day" DD "He's done very well" And now the 17% thing. At this point it is just bizarre.

ahahah...... the tuba playing kind of reminds me of Pablo..

I think they were happy he didn't explode.

Yea, I saw that. Weekly visits from the team even. I guess if you run 5 miles a day and still eat like crazy you don't lose weight. Eating disorder they say. I know this doesn't bug you all that much Kimmi, but it does me to an extent. I just can't wrap my head around it maybe. I work my ass off trying to stay in shape just for my own well being. But this guys job is to be a top athlete and gets paid 20 million for 8 months of work. He has mega resources to assist him to be a top athlete. I know they the trainer said Pablo did great and is in better condition than last year, and the FO was pleased. But really.....? I bet there isn't one person on that team that wouldn't send him packing if they could dump him. Last year I hung in there more than most people and thought Pablo would turn it around. I was wrong. If he is just average this year I think it will be a huge win.

I'm gassed too, tomorrow I'll get knee deep into the issue.

How much monitoring does a team do to their players in the offseason? You hear about them checking in with them once in a while, but I would think it would go much further than that. You look at the contracts you are paying some of these people, wouldn't the team provide a nutritionist, physical fitness coach, and maybe someone to work on some baseball skills during the off season? I would think each player would be given certain goals to achieve. Maybe 10% increase in strength, do a quicker mile run, get to a certain fat percentage, hit 1000 balls a week, work on ground balls to the left etc. And then I would think they would be checking in with on these or made sure that they are doing so. I'm asking because I am interested. Do any of you know how these players are monitored during the offseason? Some of these contracts are worth tens or hundreds of millions of dollars, I would think the team would be making sure the players are working out during the off season. Pretty much the only answer to the press about a players poor performance last year is "I identified that as an issues last year, and I worked my ass off this off season to make me a better player at that particular aspect of my game". And the team should be able to confirm that.

There is something that bugs me about this. So, in the offseason, he didn't get a glove or have Naps old glove shipped to him to practice with? I'm asking, if I already read about it I have forgotten. Did Hanley practice first base at all during the off season? I don't want to jump to conclusions, and it seems like Hanley works out appropriately to get in shape during the offseason, so that's cool. But I think the number one thing for him would of been to have done some training around the first base area. In fact, what strikes me odd is the Sox telling him to lose weight. He was crushing the ball in April. Hell, I think he was leading the league in home runs. But he said the wall crash messed with his swing, not the weight. So why did the Sox tell him to lose weight? Something about all this just seems odd to me. In Hanley's mind I think he thinks playing first will be easy. He has stated so. Maybe him putting in the fitness work is what he believes was what needed to be done. But dang, I would have though being paid 25 million a year you would be taking hundreds of ground balls and catches and practicing footwork in the new position during the offseason. I'm confused.

This is what I was getting at. Something spooked them about Lester. And then he pulls a superb last year of contract season just to make it look bad. Excuse me, where was that before the contract year? I know he's good, but he'll never be 2014 good again, or until there is another contract year. I think last years available pitchers wasn't worth the cost, so they waited, and went with what they had and some scrap heaps. We suffered a crap season last year,it shouldn't have been that bad, but it may have set us up for the following years better than throwing money around. And now we have Price. Everyone knew going into 2015 the pitching wasn't going to be stellar, but the big guns weren't worth the cost. And it gave us another year to get our rookies into playing form.

I forget what starting pitchers were around to be had before 2015, but the group we got together seemed so off it was almost like they kicked the can on the rotation for a year. Maybe they were waiting for Price all along. I can't remember thinking much of value was out there before the 2015 season. I think Ben might of just folded to play another hand...... We tried to make improvements on the team, and then the dastardly three struck and had horrific seasons....... which sunk the titanic. Which let to the bloodletting and decapitation and the "I think it's time for you to leave" suggestion to Ben.

Where's H-Ram and why hasn't he taken 1,000,000 ground balls at first yet?

Last I heard he was selling himself as a starter......... good luck on that one.. I hope he does well.

How are you getting that info? I'm intrigued.

Heck....... this article makes me really want to see Espinoza. Will he start in single A this year.....?

Been thinking about the Vasquez and Swihart thing today. If both pan out one will go. We could end up with a very good player for one of these guys in a trade.

At the least I find the subject interesting. It was only a short article and didn't go into detail or specifics. If I was running a team, I'd need a lot more info to implement the idea.