S5Dewey

The GM doesn't need the added responsibility. Let the players show up at the game and draw the lineup out of a hat.

I liked Orsillo with Jerry, but I also like OB. I found the silliness between Orsillo and Jerry to be entertaining during the blowouts, kinda like two friends enjoying a game together. At the same time, IMO Jerry has been more forthcoming with his baseball knowledge since OB came on board. He was a foil for Orsillo when they were together but Jerry is actually bringing baseball insight now.

OMG. I've been noticing lately how much of the talk is either outright commercials or nothing but promos for NESN.

I have to wonder what we'd be saying this morning if those two PH's had been outs. Would Farrell still have been that "smart"? If you believe that hitting is random then the timing of those two PH's were nothing but shitass luck. But they certainly weren't genius moves. They could have gone either way and Farrell got lucky. IMO you're being too harsh on Sam Travis. I see him as being exactly what a ML 1B should be. We would all like to have a GG and a triple crown winner at every position but baseball doesn't work that way. Travis has had an OPS of .800+ every year except last year when he was injured along with an ongoing fldg % of .990+. If you believe as I do that the keys to winning are being solid up the middle defensively and getting power from the corner positions then Travis is the man for 1B.

I agree. Although he did give up the hit to Napoli on the next pitch. I saw that as a momentary thing which he recovered from immediately. And in a related issue, Everyone - including Sale - knew that Sale had the potential to break a ML record. it's hard to complain about the umpiring when your team wins but I will anyway. IMO Sale also showed a lot of composure when he was clearly robbed of two K's when the umpire failed to call what was obviously a 3rd strike. The first missed call resulted in a fly ball to RF and the second was Napoli's hit. I had to wonder in the 7th if Sale would have been trying harder for K's had he been two K's closer to the record.

Of course, often times the insight from those guys is meaningless because their insight flies in the face of what the statistics say. (Italics is the universally accepted way of indicating sarcasm, right?)

Maybe 30 years ago my son & I took a charter bus to Fenway for a day trip and the moment I stepped off the bus a pigeon s*** on my shoulder. I managed to clean some of it off in the men's room but the residue was there for there rest of the day. Ugh. Then a few yeas ago I was walking on a beach in southern Maine when a seagull s*** down the front of my shirt. And I can tell you for sure that one seagull can put out a lot of s***. I don't care what anyone says, I think it was intentional and I think those sucker have good aim. Bleeahhh.

He does suck offensively, but he's our best option right now - which gives you some idea of how bad our choices are at 3b. IMO - which is admittedly hard to prove - what he brings to the field with his glove is significantly better than our other choices while what he brings with the bat is only a little worse. I mean, if we're going to have someone at 3B who's hitting .200 and plays horrible defense I'd rather have a good glove there hitting .120. I'd be ready for Devers if our 3B offense was our only issue, but it's not.

LOL. I can still remember a member of the radio broadcast team (maybe Stiggy?) with the disclaimer that 'This broadcast team is in no way responsible for the unfortunate moniker hung on John Wasdin. Wasdin is a fine pitcher...blah, blah, blah'

This team is 5th in BA and 4th in hits but 13th in OPS in all of baseball. This team doesn't hit for power. With those numbers they shouldn't be 16th in Runs Scored and 26th in LOB and 21st in RISP. Does anyone other than me see the disconnect here? How does one reconcile the fact that this team hits well without people on base or RISP but poorly when they have a real chance to score runs? I have been beaten down by the statisticians here to the point where I hesitate to even use the word "clutch", but dammit people, doesn't it become obvious that this team doesn't hit well in clutch situations? Or... should we just attribute it to SSS and bad luck? :-(

It is an awesome place to see a game, and the inner harbor is a great place to hang out, too. I was there for a O's/Sox weekend series a few years ago and I liked everything about the park. There are lots of good places to eat and the people are friendly. Even to someone wearing a Sox cap. :-) Sidebar here: It was blistering hot while I was there - temps in triple figures - and the O's organization set out these huge trays of ice with bottled water for the fans for free. I thought that was classy.

Cliche 101, part of the syllabus every player in the Sox porganization gets.

It's all my mother's fault. My earliest memories regarding the Sox - except maybe for one which I'll get to later - my earliest memories are of getting off the school bus, going into the house and my mom having the Sox on the radio - and I couldn't tear myself away. It must have been the mid-1950's at the time and I still can't tell you who was broadcasting. Curt Gowdy, maybe? When they started playing night games I'd stay up as late as I dared, keeping a score book. I've always been a bit of a geek, I guess. But back in those days I knew every player on every team in the AL. I knew why the manager didn't change pitchers - because the opposing team had ____ on the bench, a left handed hitter, and that would take away the lefty-righty matchup. Sometimes I think it was a lot easier to be a fan back then. My first venture to Fenway Park was about that time too. My dad and a friend of his took their sons to Fenway for an afternoon game (naturally). It's funny the things we remember. We drove down from Maine in a 1956 Ford - but I have no idea who the Sox were playing that day or who won. What I do remember is walking up the ramp as (maybe) a 10-year old for the first time and looking out at alll thatttt greennnn. It was breathtaking. And small. Much smaller than it appeared on television. Keep in mind now, in those days I-95 only went as far north as Augusta and it was a toll road so we took Rt.1 all the way to avoid the tolls. We stopped to eat someplace in north Mass. and didn't get home until after midnight. It's all my mom's fault. If she'd turner the radio off maybe I'd be normal.

Really? is there where we are now? At the risk of embarrassing him, let me tell everyone what I know about Bosoxmal. I've met him. He's a widower and a nanogenarian with a love for the Red Sox that goes back to before any of the rest of us were even born. He's seen players that most of us have only heard of. There's more, but that's as much as I'm going to embarrass him with. I dunno... maybe I'm too 'old school', but I was raised to respect my elders and be considerate of them and even their situation. I may not always agree with Mal but I can at least respect his opinions because... well, just because. Is the number of threads on the front page really more important than giving this elderly gentleman a chance to voice his opinions without being lectured about the rules here? As was said, a thread on the same topic was started a week ago with only a couple of replies. There's a reason it didn't get any traction - it's a topic most of us don't take seriously so not may of us responded to it. At the end of the day the 'new' thread as well as the 'old' one would fall to #10 or #15 on the front page where no one looks at it anyway. What's the big deal? Is it really all that inconvenient to have several ignored threads on basically the same topic at the bottom of the front page? Where nobody looks at it? For God's sake, lighten up, Clarence.

Don't you even read these threads? Don't you know that RBI's are completely a function of coincidence?

Well...other than calling Kimbrel in during the 8th to save a couple of games recently, I agree with you. However, I'm going to play the "what we don't know card" here. I've long believed that the biggest function of a mangers is to keep the clubhouse happy - which is probably a full-time job in itself with 25 different egos, needs, and expectations there. As my manager used to tell me, "A happy employee is a productive employee". We don't have knowledge of what goes in in the clubhouse, but lacking any negative leaks I have to assume that things are hunky-dory there for the most part. If so that speaks well for what I see as Farrell's main job. I will say that Bosoxmal's idea of bringing Papi in as field manager isn't the worst idea I've heard all week. Papi is a motivator who knows the players and knows baseball, and IMO a little motivation (a/k/a 'ass-kicking') is exactly what this team needs right now. ...not that I think David Ortiz is walking through that door. I don't. But it's still not a bad idea.

You're more generous than I am. IMO he's had the 'long leash' and hasn't done anything to deserve it being lengthened. I was hoping that when he came back he'd improve enough that we'd either want him there or we could unload at least a part of his salary, but I haven't seen it yet. What is it they say about insanity? Doing the same thing over and over, getting the same results and thinking things are going to improve?

You 'n' me, pal. IMO baseball is in it's heyday right now, with people who can remember baseball in the 2000's footing the bill for all of this. I have to wonder what's going to happen when our kids and our kids kids have to start paying for all of this.

I'm thinking that even if Pablo does come back soon we may be getting real close to wanting Devers to get a shot.

Cliff! I remember Cliffie!! I went to school with him. A really bad dude! Ok.. as you were.

And the more I think about it.... I think there's always been an attitude of 'it will all average out', but does it? With playoff spots determined by a game or two a team with, say, a +1 vs. a team with a -1 would have a two game swing in the won/lost column. That swing could easily be the difference after 162 games. It also doesn't seem that it would be that difficult to determine for anyone with much more than rudimentary spreadsheet skills and time on their hands. Someone someplace - maybe Elias, etc. - HAS to already have the scores of every game played and how many unearned runs were scored. It would simply be (runs scored by winning team) - (runs scored by losing team) - (unearned runs allowed by losing team). Any total of 0 or less would indicate a game that was kicked away.

You know the answer to that as well as I do, if our governor and legislature allow the vote of the people to prevail!

I agree with what you say, but to carry it a bit further, society also helps to establishes the value and (IMHO) society is a little bit screwed up in their priorities. As I've said before here, if on Monday morning some research scientist announced that he had discovered a cure for cancer, any kind, any time, at any stage, this person would never make as much money in his life as David Price will make in six years.

It seems like we have stats for everything in baseball now, from the easy to understand things like BA to that one that it takes 5 pages to try to explain (You know which one I'm talking about! LOL) but one occurred to me recently that I haven't seen. Those of you who have followed me both here and on the old BDC know that I put a lot of emphasis on defense and the fact that one defensive error can cost several runs by extending the inning. I was reading an old recap of last Saturday's game when I noticed that the Twins pitcher gave up 7 runs but only one of them earned when the Twins SS made one error that lead to six unearned runs in the inning. That got me wondering, does anyone keep track of how many times a team gives up more (or the same number of) unearned runs than the margin of victory? IOW, games when a team definitely booted the game away with errors?

ALL of these players are overpaid. What's the ML minimum salary now...something in the neighborhood of $1/2MM? That's a lot for playing baseball! But it is what it is. But.. moving right along to the topic at hand of whether closers are overpaid.... What constitutes 'overpaid' when a good closer can mean the difference between making the playoffs and not making them, or winning the WS or not?We have to think that the FO knows the answer to those questions and they've found it in their best interest to pay for closers. For the owners it's a business, remember?