S5Dewey

I'm from the party that says, "If it ain't broke, don't fix it." At least not yet. I don't doubt that HanRam's season numbers make him a minus defender but it's worth remembering that this is a new position for him and his defense has improved greatly since April. In addition, he's "engaged" at 1B and likes it there. If he were failing at 1B I'd say, sure, make a change, but moving him to DH sounds to me like dickin' with something for the sake of dickin' with it.

I do have to chuckle a bit at the salary escalation, even of some of it is conjecture right now. It reminds me of the conundrum the owners have regarding PED users. Just as they (allegedly) don't want to encourage PED usage they also don't want to pay the escalating salaries. They just know that if they don't sign the PED users or pay the escalating salaries it someone else will. No honor among thieves, I guess. Just be thankful that there's all kinds of (our) money floating around out there so the players and owners can all become millionaires several times over.

Are we forgetting that not everyone ages as well as David Ortiz? $25M seems like an awful lot for a 40 yr DH, especially when you remember that The Great David Ortiz {with no disrespect intended} never had a year when he made more than $16M.

I agree with you that one important part of the managers job is maintaining the clubhouse, etc., but I would never minimize his game decisions impact on a game. He's they guy who gets paid to make in-game decisions based on something other than emotion, something that's pretty hard for players to do.

Didn't we have this discussion already and the outcome was that Farrell could "draw the lineup out of a hat" and things wouldn't change much?

I would never say that Papi wasn't the key to the team's success in 2013. He definitely was the key to the Sox getting there and winning. . It's like I said, he went through a period of time when he never 'missed' a hittable pitch - and that's unusual for any hitter. However, it's also significant that the Cards scored a total of 5 runs in the 4 World Series games the Sox won. Pitching, pitching, pitching.

Here's my problem with that, and why I agree with Slash. There's an old adage that good pitching beats good hitting. Papi went through a short period of time when he never 'missed" a hittable pitch but I don't want to go into any series relying on that. When the playoffs come I'll take a pitching staff of four pitchers who have ERA's .800 every year and twice on leap year. I may not always win but I believe I'll come out a winner over a period of time.

Ten years may not be the best evaluator of sustained success. The Rays record since their inception has been spotty. During the first 10 years they averaged 65 wins per season. During their hayday of the next six seasons they averaged 92 wins per season. This proves that the draft system worked for them as they were able to get high draft picks who helped the team after they matured. However, once that crop of elite young players matured the Rays have been unable to sustain even a .500 record, reverting to 68 wins per year over the past three years. If they can work their way back to ~85 wins over the next five (or so) seasons I'll think that they're having sustained success but without that my opinion is that their future is going to be what their past was - prolonged losing seasons during which they accumulated high draft picks followed by a few years of success followed by prolonged losing seasons again. That may play in Tampa Bay but it wouldn't cut it in Boston or New York - or probably even Baltimore.

LOL. Well, there is THAT!!

I didn't like that opt-out clause right from the beginning. What it says to Price is that if he's pitching well he can move on for more money leaving the Sox to try to sign another good pitcher, and if he's pitching poorly he's guaranteed $30M a year to do it. My take on it from the start was that it was a Red Sox gamble that Price would pitch well, they were going to make a run at it within the first three years, and they'd worry about the 2019 season when it gets here.

68-94, bad stadium, poor fan support, always having the threat of moving the franchise. The best thing their "fans" have to look forward to is a few more losing seasons to rebuild their franchise through the draft, and by then Longoria will be gone. Why would a guy like Longoria want to play there?

Sale, OTOH, is an entirely different kettle of fish (since we're talking about fish!) GM's don't operate in a vacuum. Every GM knows that the Sox biggest need is starting pitching and other GM's are going to be willing to line up with masks and guys to rob DD when he makes any proposal for a starting pitcher. And the Sox are in a position to know that they won't be the only bidder. I don't see Sale going early in any trade talks. The CWS are going to be looking out for their own best interest and will be squeezing every GM for all they can get for him, which will take time. The Sox could make a very good offer for Sale that wouldn't involve any of the starting position players, but other teams may offer a starter or two - who aren't as good as our starters - for Sale. At that point the CWS will be playing one suitor against another to get their best deal. Look for any talks regarding Sale to drag on and on.

Archer looks good only if he could be gotten for the right price - which isn't likely. Just as we recognize that his W/L record isn't indicative of who he is, the Rays have to recognize that too. As much as I dislike Longoria (as much as I can 'dislike' someone I've never met), he sure would look good in a Red Sox uni. One would think that a player of his caliber would love to get out of that toxic place called Raysland. However, he's signed with the Rays through 2023 so whether he stays or goes is entirely up to the Rays front office. Since he'll be 37 at the end of that contract and making in the $13M - $14M for the duration of it... no thanks. [Of course, while we're making ridiculous proposals, if the Rays would take on half of Sandoval's contract it would lessen the blow a lot. ].

Wow. I didn't realize our hitters were THAT bad. We had three hitters who had an OPS greater than .667 and those three had 21 (out of 98 total) AB's between them. So in a nutshell, other than the pitching and the hitting the team did just fine. Sometimes it's not who you play, it's when you play them. The story for most of the year was that either the offense or the defense would be 'clicking', and then toward the end of the year both the "O" and the "D" caught fire at the same time. Unfortunately all that fire went out during the playoffs, making them look worse on national tv than they really were. I still believe the 2016 Sox are a good team who caught a slump at the wrong time. Sometimes s*** happens, and for no apparent reason.

IMO when a player is trying to solve his hitting problems on the fly it's a lot like a golfer with a slice - he's getting all kinds of advice. "Tip the club face in a bit". "Shorten your backswing". "Close your stance up a little". Pretty soon there are too many things to think about and that's ALL you're thinking about. In the case of a baseball player he also has his defense to worry about as well as the mental aspects of the game. It becomes cerebral overload and nothing works. Now he can work on the swing off a tee and off the pitching machine with one-on-one instruction. They can and will look at the video of what he was doing when he was hitting well, compare it with what he was doing recently, and solve his issues. I'm going to be surprised if he doesn't come back on 2017 with a new/old shorter swing and enough repetitions to have his muscle memory forget the things causing the slump. Also, it is worth mentioning that while a lot is being made of the number of K's he picked up during the playoffs, at least two of them that I remember were called third strikes on pitches outside the strike zone. In short, he had too much knowledge of the strike zone and the umpire made a bad call. There's not much a hitter can do about that. Again, things that don't show up in the score book but people like to focus on because it's what the book says.

What I've learned thus far this season: The batting order makes no difference. Anyone can bat anywhere and the result will be the same. It makes little to no difference if Mookie bats first, fourth, or ninth. Same with everyone else in the order. Therefore L-R-L-R in the order is insignificant. Home field advantage makes no difference. If this is true, why do teams try to bring in players who will play to the ballpark? Is anyone who thinks EE would hit more home runs in Boston than at Petco wrong? Nine times out of ten it makes no difference who a manager brings in as a reliever. If this is true then guys like Kimbrel are vastly overpaid when they can bring in some guy like Abad and nine times out of ten the result will be the same. Show of hands please - Who wants to give this a try? ::Giving my head a good hard shake:: If all of this is true we don't need an on-field manager. We can just let the players decide among themselves who's going to hit where and who's going to pitch when, and it won't make any difference. Just like the pickup games I used to play when I was a kid!

IMO this centers more around Vazquez than it does around Swihart. When the FO began to have Swihart learn LF it was apparent that the plan was that he was going to the be the backup catcher behind Vazquez OR trade bait. Since then it appears that Vazquez has been enough of a concern that he was sent down to work on his game. As I see it the question now is where these two fall on the Red Sox Depth Chart. If Swihart has moved ahead of Vazquez then he (Swi) certainly is a viable option for the Sox as a starting catcher. OTOH, if Vaz is still above Swihart I see him as a viable option for some other team as a starting catcher via a trade. This conundrum may force the Sox to wait until next season (as in NOT 'over the winter') to see how this all shakes out. Or... they may commit to keeping both of them and deciding later who's going to be the starter and who's going to be the backup.

FWIW, and I hate name-droppers, but I have a good friend in his 40's who was a D3 All American and has probably forgotten more about hitting than most of us here will ever know. When we were talking about JBJ last year he was saying, "Trade this guy NOW while his value is high. His swing is too long." and went on to talk about his arm position and his hand placement on the bat, etc. etc. and lots of other things I didn't understand. This guy has coached at the college level and knows hitting. Early this year the topic came up again and he said that he was "amazed" at the difference in JBJ's shorter swing this year. "This guy has turned the corner and is going to be a great hitter." Now JBJ has gone back to his old - but curable - habits during the season. I've often wondered how a player can make substantial adjustments in his swing mid-season with all the other distractions going on. I would not trade that GG until I'd given him another chance to shorten the swing a bit. I'm convinced that there's still a good hitter in there.

IMO Leon is in significant trouble in his quest to be the starting catcher in 2017. He came out like gang-busters offensively and now has reverted to his norm. The Sox rode the hot hand for as long as it was hot but now it's not. I was surprised that Farrell didn't send someone, anyone, even Vazquez - whose numbers aren't great either - up to hit for Leon in his last AB.

IMO they will either Go Big or Go Home in regards to replacing Papi. I see them either going all-in to get someone like EE or have the DH position be a revolving door allowing players to rest a day without leaving them completely off the lineup card that day. Either of those options would be acceptable to me because I'm not writing the checks and therefore don't know how much money JH is going to be willing to spend.

Not to nit-pick, but didn't Pat Light get traded to the Twins?

What offense?? I haven't seen any offense.

Mal.. please check your PM's

That's called "clutch".

^^^ THIS^^^ And even this assumes that Britton wouldn't have given up a fly ball or a grounder through a drawn-in infield. But bringing him in then was the thing that should have happened. And I don't understand why it didn't. Actually given the situation I would have brought Britton in when the first runner reached base, but that's another story.