S5Dewey

Yes. This ^^^^ is the issue that some people don't get. We're getting what we pay for. It's just frustrating that he isn't worth $30 for a full year because he has the talent to be that pitcher. I would gladly pay $26M for two of him if we could be guaranteed that they'd be on the DL at different times.

No. See, right now he doesn't have three years to turn himself around as far as his contract is concerned. He needs to play in order to prove that he's turned himself around and given his history no GM in his right mind (and I hope DD is in his right mind) is going to pay for his contract in order to give him what amounts to a chance. That leaves the Sox in the position of either unloading his contract for pennies on the dollar or allowing him to displace Travis Shaw - which IMO would be a huge mistake. Shaw is playing up to our (my?) expectations from Sandoval and a lower cost, so why bother? While I have an opinion as to what Sandoval's problem is I don't have knowledge of it. Maybe it's his weight that's the problem, maybe it's his shoulder, or maybe he's just "aged out"early. I don't know and it doesn't matter. What matters is that we've got the salary of a #2-3 pitcher tied up in this guy and I see no way we get any decent return on it. (And I know DD isn't the GM, but ... isn't he?)

Hmmm... One thing I've very much liked about this board is the way it's moderated. I've noticed that there's room for some profanity - which is fine with me - as well as some decidedly un-PC stuff - which again is ok with me. I've also noticed that when a discussion begins to get out of hand YOTN steps in and politely asks the posters to "take it outside". All of it is good. Regarding threads now, those of us from BDC come from a slightly different place, a place where threads were started on a whim. The best survived and the rest fell out, also called normal attrition or survival of the fittest. A thread about, say, Travis Shaw, could morph into being about player's salaries and then to the cost of the concessions at Fenway. I saw it as a bunch of people sitting around a table in a bar drinking beer and talking about whatever came up. Apparently this forum is more structured than that. I'm uncertain whether any feedback is wanted regarding the thread's OP but here's some anyway. In spite of the fact that I've started two threads since I showed up here I very seldom do start a thread. When I do it's often just something I throw out as an observation - my thread about David Price's best friends is an example of that - and I'm only looking to see if others have considered the same thing. I don't see the thread as having a long shelf life and that's fine. I expect it to be at the bottom of the page within a day or two. I now feel a little, as Archie Bunker would say, "Stifled". I'm not trying to be difficult. I realize that I'm the new kid in the old sandbox and I'm trying to get along. I'm just wondering how much latitude I have regarding "soft" topics and non-stat observations that don't really fit in the more serious threads/conversations. Your feedback is appreciated.

What did we think he was going to say..."I blew that call. The pitch was outside and I blew it"? That would take class, something Kulpa obviously has none of.

My guess is that tomorrow the Sox will come out of the dugout with an "Us against the world" mentality and they'll kick ass and take names.

When I think about what a team would have to give up to get Trout I realize that any trade like that would have the potential to have the fans of both teams unhappy!

I'm trying not to get too giddy over this bunch but in some ways it reminds me of the Core Four (Jeter, Mo, Pettite, Posada) + Bernie Williams that carried the Yankees for some time. And if we throw one more TOR pitcher into our mix next year we could be even better in 2017.

I agree. Let's not go getting greedy here. We've got a good team for 2016 and a minor league program that's set for the future. Trading away the future so we can win our division by 10 games rather than two this year makes no sense to me.

This is what you accept when you have a knuckleballer. He's going to walk a lot of people. He's going to give up some long home runs He's going to make some batters look foolish He'll strike out a fair amount of hitters You will never know what you're going to get from one outing to the next. These things come with the territory. I'm now thinking that on the whole Wright may become a better knuckleball pitcher than Wake was. Wright changes speeds better, his FB is better (arguably the same thing) and his straight curve is better than Wake's. As with anything else in life, when a person has good skills and has a mentor who also had good skills in his prime the outcome is an improvement in their skills.

It came just a few days from being a second Mother's Day Miracle.

Wait. Nobody said he's not having the shoulder surgery. The speculation is that he may also be having another surgery of some kind while he's on the DL. If that's true a case can be made that the elective surgery is for personal reasons and therefore he has no obligation to reveal it to the public.

IMHO it was a dreadful, dreadful trade. Dreadful not only in trading him away, but also that we didn't get more for him!

Yeah, ok, I'll chime in on this topic, but first let me say that I like this team as it sits now. However, I hated that trade when it was made and I hate it now. One simply does not trade the shortstop runner-up ROY for a pitcher who's on the verge of aging out of baseball. I also fault the FO for not recognizing the ability Iggy has and deciding that he wasn't in the team's future. That trade is at the beginning of the path that "forced" the FO to sign Sandoval, spending money that could/should have been spent on pitching. The FO was very fortunate in what happened after that trade when the Sox won the WS because once you get to the playoffs "anything can happen" - and often does. Winning the WS made everything they did that year right. [obviously a little poetic license there]. They also were very fortunate that Travis Shaw progressed the way he did and is able to fill the 3B slot now because there's no such thing as a sure thing prospect and Shaw was barely on the radar at that time. Had the Sox not won the WS in 2013 and Shaw not become what he is today - and both of those were a distinct possibility - that trade wouldn't look nearly as good as it does now and we'd be bemoaning losing a GG caliber player.

Let's see.... This "Babe" character trolled the other board and has been exposed as such by the good posters from that other board. STRIKE ONE! "Babe" has now come here and successfully started trolling here. (Notice how quickly the board became acrimonious?) STRIKE TWO! Wanna guess what comes next?

I been sayin' that!

Lowell turned out to be one of my favorite Sox players of all time. A classy guy who always played the game the right way.

Assuming Shaw continues to play like he has been it's going to be .... interesting.. to see what the FO does about the 3B situation. It's my hope that they don't displace Travis Shaw to make a spot for Sandoval and move Shaw to 1B. I'd much prefer that Sandoval be playing in another team's uni next year and Hanley and that other Travis do battle for the 1B & DH positions.

I was hoping what he did in August was going to be sustainable, but deep inside....

Yes. It was Varitek and Derek Lowe that we got for Slocum, and yes again that Lowell was the throw in with Beckett. I'll take a "throw in" like that every day.

A little patience seems to have gotten this team a pretty fair CF'er. Last year there were people on the BDC board who wanted to trade JBJ "for a sack of golf balls", move Mookie back to CF and instill Castillo at RF. That having been said, Young isn't exactly doing anything that says "PLAY ME!". He's a slightly better than average OF'er who's struggling at the plate. If he's going to stick here he needs to take better advantage of his opportunities. - which is what JBJ did in August of '15.

Right now it's Rick Porcillo and Steven Wright, because if both of them weren't performing as well as they are everyone would be on Price like white on rice for not being the ace we thought we were getting. Since these two guys have stepped up like they have the team is winning and we're willing to give Price a chance to settle in but if they weren't it would be getting pretty ugly by now. No real point here....just an observation.

And this, sir, is the crux of the problem! Now the FO has to pay The Fat Man for this year of no contribution to the team, probably as well as his surgery. Then after the surgery is over they have to play him to find out if he's still serviceable in order to try to get any return for him (which IMO will be minimal anyway). In the meantime we're stuck in limbo at 3B because in order to get even a minimal return for him other GM's have to see him play. IF (and notice the cap's there)...IF they find out he can play they're still stuck with a Fat Panda who's probably not going to make any greater contribution to the team than will Travis Shaw, who's playing for a fraction of what The Fat Man is getting. I see no way this ends well for the FO, and I'm glad I'm not writing the payroll checks.

Completely true. If he weren't "David Price with a huge contract" we'd be talking about DFA'ing him by now. But because he IS David Price his track record earns him the right to prove that he's not this bad - which I believe he will do.

Lighten up there, Cowboy. Are you always this grouchy/paranoid? I asked a couple of questions. Never did I try to tell you what to say or think unless you think that there was something inherently wrong with saying what a did about a person who never makes mistakes, and I think that's pretty obvious.