S5Dewey

It's not at all you. I sometimes wonder if the Red Sox front office blows a lot of smoke in the direction of the fans.

I'll give your comment all the weight I think it deserves.

I could very well be this, but if it is it's a sad commentary on how well the team takes care of its players. If Holt is pushing to play in spite of the medical advice IMO he should be TOLD that he's not going to play and his name shouldn't be on a lineup card until his symptoms are cleared up.

Either he has symptoms or he doesn't, and the sources I hear say that he does. I deal with high school students & sports so I'm a bit - and only a bit - familiar with concussions. As I understand it, the effects of concussion are cumulative and if a player gets "reconcussed" while experiencing symptoms the cumulative affect is worse than if the person had no symptoms at the time. So assuming that the reports are right and Holt is still experiencing the symptoms, why is he playing at any level? Are the balls softer in AAA? I'm not trying to be a PITA, I just truly don't understand what's going on.

Dunno for sure. He was scheduled to have two in a row last week, and then he got himself run out of a game in the 2nd inning for arguing balls and strikes. LOL

Feel better now, Mal?

I always thought that a concussion was a "yes he does" or "no he doesn't" thing. So how can Brock Holt be suffering from a concussion, be healthy enough to play in Pawtucket, but not healthy enough to play in Boston?

What a rinky-dink ballpark. Ugh.

Your suggestion makes the price too high. But thanks anyway.

In a vacuum, yes. But as a stand alone statement that's so obvious that it means essentially nothing. But it doesn't mean we should be trading one of our best players and one of the pillars of the future for Fernandez. Any Red Sox fan knows that.

Bad idea. We're struggling to find an adequate LF as it is. Let's not solve one problem by creating another, and give up our leadoff hitter in the process.

That may be the understatement of the season!

Ya know, third place doesn't sound all that great to me after the start this team got off to. However, if DD can wring an 88 win season - 10 wins better than last year - out of this team I'm not going to be too disappointed. At the end of the day it's pretty hard to win 90+ games without good pitching and e's starting down the right track in rebuilding the pitching staff but it's going to take more than a year or two to do it. The lesson to be learned here is that one simply cannot decimate the pitching staff and expect to go on winning year after year. I've asked myself over and over again, what in HELL were they thinking?

Without even talking about his intangibles, Aside from the fact that I think it's nearly impossible to do, I guess what I was trying to say there is that I don't think this team can financially afford to try to fully replace Papi's offense. The team's offense is borderline to great with him and respectable without him. I'd rather spend our resources (a/k/a prospects) to try to work a trade with a team with a solid #2 or higher that's in a rebuilding mode in August. I know/realize/understand that if DD does that there will be the outcry from some of "Yep, there he goes again, stripping the farm system just like he did in Detroit, just like I said he'd do." However, the thing these people overlook is that by doing it he built a team that arguably should have won the WS - but didn't. Why didn't they? Because as everyone knows, once you make the playoffs anything can happen - and usually does. I give DD credit for putting together that team. Sometimes s*** happens. The difference between Detroit and Boston is that Boston has their youth in place, several blue-chippers who can be used to make a trade, and a next tier of solid prospects waiting to take their place. By making the trades DD did he left the cupboard bare in Detroit but even if he trades away some of our prospects the cupboard is still stocked, just not with ML ready prospects, which is OK because we don't need ML ready prospects at the moment. (Other than someone to play LF, that is. )

I was right with you until you got to that last sentence. I disagree that we can sign a FA to replace Big Papi. I'm usually one to believe that nobody is irreplaceable, but I'm going to make an exception in this case. It's not only replacing his production that's going to be the problem (and replacing an OPS >1.100 IS going to be a problem!) but it's also his clubhouse leadership. He IS the leader in the clubhouse which is evident by the way the players look to him in the dugout. And as much as (IMO) Pedey would like to be , Ortiz is still the face of the franchise. IMHO there are a couple of ways we can "replace" him. We can replace him by signing a FA slugger (probably older so for too long a contract and too much money) who won't match Papi's OPS and hope everyone else picks up the slack, or we can "replace" him with pitching that will keep this team from needing that 1.100 OPS. But I'm willing to listen to other suggestions.

An excellent point, and something that's often overlooked. All PED's are not created equal.

Yes. this is what I've been thinking all along. That this team has young players at key positions. We don't NEED to keep all these top prospects. Use them as trade chips to fill the needs we DO have.

Ok, in a black-and-white world I'll give you that. But can people please give this a rest? If you're going to use his failing a test as evidence that he was using (although I certainly don't equate whatever Papi was using with whatever Roger was using) then you also have to use his not failing a test as evidence that he's not using. In your black-and-white world you can't have it both ways. Now, if you want to hold something against him that happened 13 years ago that's fine but it's also significant that Papi's best years were during the years when he was being tested repeatedly and passing every test.

Right. And I have no problem with that. IMO he's now exonerated himself and deserves the same credit as anyone else who's gone 13 years without a positive test.

Seriously? This "Ortiz" argument has to be one of the most spurious one's I've ever encountered anywhere. On the one hand we have a player who tested positive for "something" 13 years ago, something MLB won't even identify to Papi so he can defend himself. I've always felt that there's something patently unfair about a system that will find someone guilty of something and not give the guilty party a chance to defend himself. Isn't that almost the definition of a "kangaroo court"? OTOH we have ARod who has been identified by more than one person as a PED abuser and served a suspension for PED usage. And you want to equate those two? Papi said at one time that he believed he's been tested more than any player in baseball and the tests have always come back negative. At some point this goes beyond rationality and becomes a witch-hunt. 13 years just may be that point.

I find the entire PED issue has a parallel with escalating player's salaries. IMO no owner wants to pay the players the millions of dollars they're paying them, just as IMO they don't want to sign known PED users. (The owners MUST know in their hearts that these players are cheaters, don't they??) They just don't trust the other owners to NOT pay the salaries or sign the PED users. There is no honor among these thieves!

Blackstone's formulation works well in the legal arena but not so well in real life. It assumes that everyone is innocent, often in the face of tremendous circumstantial evidence if no hard evidence is present. There seems to be no shortage of owners who are willing to ignore the circumstantial evidence and pay these players for their sometimes obvious transgressions. I just don't want John Henry and the Sox to be one of those owners. I don't WANT any of them owners to do this but since they have the right to do it they will continue to. They, like too many other people, think that if they have the right to do something then it's the right thing to do. Or...maybe their motivation is greed which allows them to overlook the moral aspect of encouraging cheaters.

How did this become an all-or-none thing with bunting? Of course there are times when a player should be bunting, just as there are times - and players - when bunting is not a good idea. Anyone who followed me 'over there' knows of my disdain for giving up 1/3 of an inning just to move a runner up a base, however, there are no hard rules for it. It's a situational thing. Generally speaking I think bunting is a bad idea for the Red Sox because bunting is usually done in an attempt to generate one run. Day in, day out, this team's pitching staff is so bad and the offense is so good that the one run that's generated (IF it's successful) isn't going to make a difference. Generally speaking, I'll take my chances with getting the base hit or the extra-base hit, but there are situations, usually late in the game, where one run is needed for a win. It's situational.

...and to carry that a bit farther, AFAIK there's no definitive proof as to how long the benefits of the PED's stay in a player's system so even though someone may have been 'clean' for a few season they still may be benefiting from the effects of the drug. These guys who build the muscle mass don't see it disappear the day they stop using the drugs. Even though they may sworn off the drugs they're still cheating.

Yeah. Here's the problem with that. To paraphrase the great Dr. Gregory House, "People lie. Everybody lies. People even lie to their doctor and if you'll lie to your doctor you'll lie to anyone!" Dangle the prospect of a few million dollars in front of someone and see how quickly they'll lie. Now, I'm not saying they're all liars. There are probably a few who have legitimate stories as to how they tested positive and I feel badly for those players. But.... I'd rather let a few (relatively) innocent players who could contribute to the Sox get away than I would have even ONE player on the team who cheated the game and the rest of the players in search of The Big Payday. Why? Because we can't prove who's telling the lies and who isn't and to give these (relatively) innocent players the benefit of doubt encourages the liars. But that's just me.