S5Dewey

The least you could have done is put 'mutual agreement' in quotes.

I think I'm in on this. Lowell has always ("always" meaning since he came to Boston) my favorite Red Sox player. Classy guy. The only downside of it is that I wouldn't want to see him take the abuse that managers take in Boston.

Thanks guys. I've now watched the trailer and I'm anxious to have 1 1/2 uninterrupted hours to see the entire thing. It looks like "required reading" to me. I know this is going to seem obvious to a lot of people but it recently occurred to me that in order for a pitcher to throw the ball 100 mph his hand has to be moving 100 mph at the release point. I think I may have mentioned that I had a chance to play pickup basketball with Sandy Koufax at one time and I noticed then that his left arm was noticeably bigger than his right. That explains a lot.

The hardest one I ever saw was as a fan up close enough so I could actually see it was a college pitcher at a Regional. I was much younger and had 10/20 vision at the time and I couldn't actually see the ball. It was just a 6" long moving blur. I was sitting directly behind home plate and between innings I went to a ML scout who was there and running a JUGS gun and he said the gun had him at 96. It was later explained to me that the human eye can't move in a sweeping motion, it moves incrementally, and the normal human eye can't focus anything much faster than 94 mph. That's why it amazes me that hitters are now squaring up balls at 100 mph.

Funny thing... this same poster is insisting that Sox posters stick to the facts regarding the Yankees' potential involvement in any cheating but he's speculating all over the place about what the Sox "maybe" did. I can spell (or is it smell) "double standard".

I'm wondering.... it's possible.... maybe.... Just more speculation coming from a poster who, 4 minutes before posting this, chastised a700 for speculating about the Yankees' involvement in cheating.

Very true. Early at a news conference every time he came to Boston he always made his derisive statement, "It's always nice to come back to America's most beloved ballpark." f*** him.

That would depend on how long he's known about it. As you say, he could be known as the guy who cleaned up illegal sign stealing (just as PED use has been "cleaned up" now). OTOH, if he's been aware of it for some time he may be concerned that he's going to be known as the guy who ignored it for several years and dealt with it only after he got beaten over the head with evidence and had to do something. Only Manfred knows for sure.

I agree completely. It somehow strains credulity to be thinking that the only teams who are cheating are the two teams that won the WS. IMO Manfred won't do any more "investigating" than he's done already. He's making the Astros and the Sox the poster children for cheating and the penalties for it in the hope that other teams will stop - or won't start - doing it. The absolute LAST thing he wants is an investigation that might prove that this type of cheating is endemic in MLB; that would tarnish the entire sport. In Manfred's case, sometimes you're better off not knowing things.

Cora's involvement aside, was this CF camera feed something that only the team could see, or was it a broadcast feed such as NESN, etc? If this camera was set up by the Astros to see the catcher's signals and was only available to the team... then you've got something! OTOH, if it was a live broadcast feed it raises another question: MLB knew there was a camera in CF not owned by the Astros that was showing the catcher's signals and they expected the teams to NOT take advantage of it??? Can you spell niave? Can I spell Neive? Anyway... Naive?

We are now seven pages into this discussion and here's what I know for sure: We don't actually know anything and we won't until the investigation is over. Here's something else I know for sure: If I had a dollar for every time I've seen the words "probably", "possibly", or "maybe" followed by someone's name in this discussion I could retire. Or at least go out and buy myself a bottle of really good scotch.

IMO there's a lot of 'plausible deniability' going on here, or in the cause of Cora, 'implausible deniability'. In the case of DD I can see things being leaked upstairs and DD saying, "Wait! I don't want to hear this! I need to be able to deny that I knew any of this was going on." In the case of Cora, however, the deniability is less plausible because he was around the players and the clubhouse all the time. IMO whether he was a part of the plan or not he had to know it was happening.

The truth has nothing to do with it. It's the source and the obvious glee in repeatedly pointing out anything negative about the Red Sox that makes him a troll. Sometimes I wish my life wasn't as full as it is so I could have the time to go onto a Yankees board and "not troll" there just as he "doesn't troll" here just to see if Yankees fans would think I was trolling. My guess is that I wouldn't be treated too warmly there.

So.. are you saying we didn't need him on the days when he won?

The comments on JBJ separate the optimists from the pessimists here.

I've always like Buch as minor league depth. Where's Kimmie when I need her?

A man after my own heart! While it's unlikely that our pitching staff will improve enough to garner the Sox a WSC I find that more probable than the team being in contention if we lose some of our premier players. I say start the season with our position team intact and see what happens. If we're out of it at the trade deadline see what we can get for the players we're talking about trading now. There's little market for Price, Betts, and JBJ now. Would it be any worse at the deadline, when the "buyers" may be willing to give up significant prospects or currently young ML players to take one of our premiere players into the playoffs?

Mookie ($27M, a record), JBJ ($11M), Barnes ($3.1M), Workman ($3.5M) & Hembree ($1.6125M) signed with the Sox today. Mookie Betts sets $27 million arbitration record WWW.MLB.COM The Red Sox avoided arbitration with Mookie Betts in a record-setting manner. The club agreed with the 2018 American League MVP Award winner to a $27 million deal, a source told MLB.com's Mark Feinsand, for 2020 on Friday, breaking Nolan Arenado's year-old record $26 million for a player in his Red Sox 2020 arbitration roundup WWW.MLB.COM Agreeing to a record-setting $27 million deal, per a source, with Mookie Betts wasn’t the only work the Red Sox did on Friday ahead of the 1 p.m. ET arbitration deadline to exchange salary figures. The Red Sox avoided arbitration with center fielder Jackie Bradley Jr. as well as right-handed

What is it they say... "When you have them by the balls their hearts and minds will follow"?

Hmmm... I'm going to be seeing Cora in a Q & A session at the end of the month. This is shaping up to be quite the event!

If this is true it definitely affects his availability this month as well as this off-season. I've wondered all along if anyone would be willing to take on his arb pay rumored to be ~$30M on a one year deal with no guarantees about 2021 other than knowing that he has set his minimum at Trout+$1.

Would it make you feel better if you thought they were having bad sex?

There's a lot of gamesmanship involved in negotiations of any kind. If you know what someone is desperate for you'll hold their feet to the fire to get as much as you can from them in exchange for it. IMO that's what's happening with the GM's. The Sox FO has put themselves in a bad negotiating position by making noise about resetting. Consequently the GM's of other teams aren't going to help them by offering more than they have to. It's now early January and the Sox FO is soon going to have to make a very difficult decision. Here are the options as I see them: Plan A - Give up players for pennies (or maybe quarters) on the dollar to reset in the hope that they can replace those players for 2021 which may very well put them over the LT limit again, but only for the first year this time. Plan B - Continue with the roster as is, pay the tax, and try to win it all knowing that they can be sellers at the trade deadline if things aren't working out. The downside of this is that if they can't unload those players at the deadline they may be again above the LT threshold. Plan C - Trade away a couple of high(er) paid but talented players (I'm looking at YOU, JBJ ++) in an attempt to get close to the threshold in the hope that they can make enough maneuvers at the deadline to get under the LT limit if necessary. The downside of this is that it's playing it halfway - giving up talent in the hope that the team can be very competitive without that talent. Neither of those are very appealing but if it were my decision I'd go with Plan B. But then again, it's not my money.

FWIW, the price of my Spring Training tickets doesn't seem to have gone up for 2020. I'm paying $30 more than I did last year but there are 18 games in 2020 rather than the 17 that were played in 2017. The face price on my ticket is $30 so it looks like the price hasn't gone up.

Well..no. Just to recap that conversation a bit: You: "What if they trade Betts and Price and then win the World Series anyway?" Bell: "Sure, anything can happen. Sale and Eovaldi might not miss a start between them..." You: "And I might flap my arms and fly to the moon..." Me: Yep. And there's about the same chance of both of those scenarios coming true. Yep. And there's about the same chance of both of those scenarios coming true. Notice the word "both". The two things being referred to were 'Sale and Eovaldi not missing a start between them' and 'your flapping your arms and flying to the moon.' Nowhere did I equate your flying to the moon with how well the Sox would finish with (or without) Betts and Price. Please stop saying or implying that I said things I didn't say simply so you can attempt to discredit what I've said. What I say stands on its own.