Nick

I would categorize his outings as 'wreckless' and that's not a compliment. As a coach, I want to trust my players. He's untrustworthy. It's a crap shoot when he pitches.

Nice pitching by the A's today vs no black hole lineup.

The whole premise was based on acquiring bullpen help. Are we going to sign three free agents in the pen? If yes, then name some names.

Brock Holt just sucks in left field......he has made so many no plays....

Lester debacle is history. You learn from it and move forward. Sox as orgainzation is in great place right now. We have under team control, all nine projected starting position players for 2017-2019. We have all of our starters under team control for next two years. Bullpen needs work but we've faced bigger problems. Despite young talent at major league level, our farm system still has some high level prospects. And there's time for them to be developed properly. There's no rush any longer. We hold the cards. We can wait and make good trades, not out of desperation.

Yep....this is a fan forum about the Red Sox...I'm 60 years old and I still get excited about the Sox.....

Talking out of both sides of my mouth, I could see Shaw being a viable option at 1B and moving Hanley to DH. Our line up could be set for at least three more years with Hanley, Sandy, Shaw, Pedey, Xander, Moncada, Benintendi, Bradley Jr and Betts. From financial flexibility, this maybe the most prudent approach. It will allow unencumbered funds to be spent elsewhere. Xander, Sandy and Hanley would become FA in 2020 (probably no interest in extending Hanley by then), Bradley and Betts in 2021. It's exciting to think that this core group can stay together for several years. At some point we need to work on extending Betts before FA. He's the big get.

He will play for league minimum for 2017, 2018, 2019 and become arbitration eligible starting in 2020? I realize $60M went out of John Henry's pocket but it's a great pickup especially having him for six more years under team control.

I would trade Shaw for someone like Carson Smith....our trading partner would be getting a great value. Shaw is a solid major league position player with some upside and team controlled. I would hate to give him up but let the Moncada era begin. He will have his ups and downs but his floor is Bradley Jr. And his upside is Betts.

Pedey's pissed he's leading off....he's taking it out on baseball

Porcello always seem to get run support.....2-0 Sox

C Sandy 1B Hanley 2B Pedey SS Xander 3B Moncada DH Ortiz LF Benintendi CF Bradley Jr RF Betts Vazquez, Shaw, Holt, Young and Hill Porcello, Price, Pomeranz, Rodriquez Buchholtz, Kimbrel, Koji, Ziegler, Kelly, Ross, Abad This is my playoff roster...Wright I think is done for the year.

Moon thinks we have $30M to spend....I think it's closer to $40M (Ortiz, Koji, Hanigan, Tazawa plus increase in luxury tax). As Moon pointed out, it's getting locked into say Encarnacion for several years that may pose problems in couple of years when our B boys become free agent. I just don't see how we can ignore the fact that Ortiz' contribution to this year's team was unbelievable and we do nothing to address it other than to say we'll mitigate it by getting larger contribution from other eight players. It will be tough for Betts as an example to duplicate this season. He can but he may not. What if Pedey gets hurt?

I agree........At some point in 2017, I'm hoping sooner rather than later, Benintendi, Bradley, Betts, Bogaerts and Boncada will all be in the starting line up. Looking forward to it.

E Rod is still young and is capable of becoming next Porcello. It we don't sign Encarnacion, I hope we go after Chapman. Ziegler is probably going back to Arizona. It was a win win for Arizona to trade away Ziegler to Sox as a rental and get him back for 2017 and beyond. We could have done the same with Miller. One benefit of couple of lousy seasons is that we have added some quality prospects in our farm system. I'm intrigued by the kid from Arizona, Dalbec (?) and his power. Of course, he'll be blocked by Moncada so he will need to move.....just kidding....he has a way to go.

John Henry has done okay by me....how's his soccer team doing by the way?

I think he got sent back to work on his hitting, not his defense....it was a black hole in our lineup. Sandy's immediate success made Vazquez almost an afterthought.

There's no rush to move our three catchers, Leon, Swihart and Vazquez. We need two and I rather one be Swihart because of his versatility. If we do indeed go by the committee approach for DH spot, then we should keep all three. Swihart can play OF, C and DH and maybe learn to play 1B. If Sandy continues to stay hot with his bat, he can also DH. Holt then can focus playing infield where he belongs. If Moncada gets plugged in at 3B, our bench will have Vazquez, Swihart, Young, Holt and Shaw (with no DH and Hanley back at 1B). That's two righties, two lefties and a switch hitter. Pedey Xander Betts Hanley Bradley Jr Leon Benintendi Swihart/Shaw/Young Moncada My preference is to sign Encarnacion to play the DH role. Don't think Sox won't explore that option. Ortiz will be pushing it.....a fellow Dominican Republican. Some guys are born to hit and hit until late into 30's.

We don't know that Moncada can't hit lefties while batting left handed.......I'd scrap the switch hitting at some point. It's pointless.....why hit your head on the wall if you don't have to?

Overthemonster... The same is not true for Yoan Moncada. Certainly, the Red Sox are in need of help at third base. Every once in a while they'll get a solid performance or two--Shaw three days ago, Hill on Wednesday--but generally speaking the hot corner has been an absolute black hole since Shaw cooled off. In the second half, Sox third baseman are hitting to a remarkably low .574 OPS. That being said, the transition to the majors might not be nearly so easy for Moncada as it was for Benintendi. Moncada's performance in Double-A has been extremely impressive, but not without some red flags. Moncada has struggled some with contact issues, particularly against southpaws. It's easy to imagine him getting eaten alive by lefty off-speed pitches, at least off the bat, and even from the left side of the plate, there's certainly a chance that Moncada's minor league success will not immediately translate to the majors. He could be a huge spark, or he could be completely unready. Where with Benintendi the likelihood seemed to be that he would at least contribute, with Moncada the probabilities are less certain. But he's going to be hard-pressed to actually be worse than what the Red Sox have received from third base over the last couple months, and that's really all the argument the Sox need right now. Unless they were planning to leave him off the major league roster until the first couple weeks of 2017 had passed, it's not that big a deal to start his clock now. And given that this is a team trying to make a playoff push, September is probably not the time to be dancing around service time considerations. The Moncada era is about to begin, and while there's no guarantee it's going to get off to a great start, the Red Sox don't have all that much to lose in giving it a shot This is well put....they don't mince words...usually tells it like it is....refreshingly honest.

Hell yes I'm excited.....there's absolutely nothing wrong with him getting a look. Ultimately its what he does at this level that will determine his value. Someone in the organization thought enough of him to spend $60M. And everyone here wants to treat him like another average Joe. It's worked out for Benintendi. What are we afraid of? Finding out the truth never hurts. If it's a bad news, I want to know right away. Let's find out where he is today.

DD has done a great job. He identified the problems and he made sure to get the guys he wanted to solve the problems. Did he overpay? Probably but we have the hindsight to be critical of his trades. After finishing dead last the last two years, and despite many frustrating moments, we are in the playoff chase. We are actually in it if the season ended today. They are still fun to watch. At some point, players have to perform. Price struggled early and often but seems to be coming around. Porcello has been our ace this year. Wright is beginning to unravel. His post All Star game performance has been shaky. E Rod finally came around but now has to re-establish himself after tweaking his itty bitte thigh muscle. Pomeranz also seems to be getting stronger. He's throwing close to 90 pitches this late in the season, a feat many of you questioned. He now gets to the sixth inning comfortably. Koji got hurt, Smith got hurt amd Tazawa has chronic excuse of being over used, Abad definitely has a name that fits him. Barnes looks like a big pussy on the mound. Buchholtz looks bewildered, definitely has internal struggles, not knowing what skit and what character he is playing in In Living Colors. Whatever the radar gun shows when Kelly throws, the exit speed of the ball off the bat is always twice as fast, Ziegler needs to learn to play another position so that he can stay in the game while lefty bats, then move back to pitch to right handers. Ross Jr definitely has better glove in the pen than throwing arm on the mound, and Kimbrel, well Moon will always pissed off at him because we emptied our farm system to acquire him. I can see why Detroit bullpen sucked. DD must have pissed off bullpen god at some point. Stat of the Day.........Tazawa allowed his 13th of his last 15 inherited runners to score. Was he feeling little tired today after a night game?

I sincerely believe Sox approach for Moncada was stupid. Going in everyone on the planet knew that Sox had a second baseman. Moncada should have been moved to another position immediately. Why wait? I don't give a damn how many errors he would have made at the beginning. We paid FREAKING $60M for this guy, and not to play 2B. And now we are concerned that perhaps he didn't get enough reps at 3B? Whose damn fault is that? Trade Shaw for a young reliever. So what if becomes a star 5 years from now? Our window is this year and next two years. It could be much longer but we have 3 seasons with our starting pitching intact and most of the position players signed.

Get me a LF that can catch a fly ball....that first run last night was all on Holt.

I'm not blaming DD but his teams sure do have trouble in the bullpen.....