Nick

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.....

I read an article couple of years ago discussing financial impact on Yankees for missing out on playoffs......it was significant dollars. You spend money to make money. Yep, it's a gamble but Sox ownership group understands financial risks.

Jesus f***ing Christ...can anyone out of the pen get anyone out? It's 9-3 and it's not over.

I hope so

We ate Pablo's large contract this spring and made Shaw our starting 3B. I'm not sure why you continue to bring up his contract value to the table. DD has told JF play your best players. What has Pablo done to make any of you think he's any different now? The way I look at DH spot is that we have Ortiz' 15/16M to start with. Most likely we will not need a SP or if we do make a trade for one, just eliminating Clay Buchholtz option dollars should cover the acquisition cost for cost controlled young SP. I'm not really willing to pay Encarnacion north of $20M per year. That's an overpay for a DH. But $20M to me is doable. What will it take to get him? Relief pitching...say we need 3. We could pass on Clay B and save $13M. Koji and Tazawa combine for about 12-13M. So in theory, that's $25M possibly available for relievers. Other pay increase surely can be covered by increase in luxury tax limit, no?

I don't believe Pedey belongs in this group, oldtimer...

Love the city.

DD should not have his hands tied behind his back for the mistakes that Ben made....Is it a done deal that Encarnacion won't duplicate whtat Ortiz did leading up to his 40th birthday?

Left-Handed Relievers (Italics denote active closers) Craig Breslow (36) Brett Cecil (30) Aroldis Chapman (29) Mike Dunn (32) Boone Logan (32) Javier Lopez (39) Cory Luebke (32) Eric O’Flaherty (32) Marc Rzepczynski (31) Matt Thornton (40) Travis Wood (30) Right-Handed Relievers (Italics denote active closers) Matt Albers (34) — $3MM club option with a $250K buyout Matt Belisle (37) Joaquin Benoit (39) Joe Blanton (36) Blaine Boyer (35) Santiago Casilla (36) Joba Chamberlain (31) Jesse Chavez (33) Josh Collmenter (31) — $2.25MM mutual option with a $150K buyout Wade Davis (31) — $10MM club option with a $2.5MM buyout Scott Feldman (34) Neftali Feliz (29) Jason Grilli (40) — $3MM club option with a $250K buyout David Hernandez (32) Luke Hochevar (33) — $7MM mutual option with a $500K buyout Daniel Hudson (30) Tommy Hunter (30) Edwin Jackson (33) Kenley Jansen (29) Kevin Jepsen (32) Mark Melancon (32) Pat Neshek (36) — $6.5MM club option with a $500K buyout Seung-hwan Oh (34) — club option Ross Ohlendorf (34) Jonathan Papelbon (36) Joel Peralta (41) Yusmeiro Petit (32) — $3MM club/vesting option with a $500K buyout (vests with 80 IP) Fernando Rodney (40) — floating $2MM+ club option with a $400K buyout Sergio Romo (34) Fernando Salas (32) Joe Smith (33) Drew Storen (29) Junichi Tazawa (31) Carlos Torres (34) Koji Uehara (42) Ryan Vogelsong (39) Jordan Walden (29) — $5.25MM club option with a $250K buyout Ryan Webb (31) Brad Ziegler (37)

This is why you don't just settle when you build a lineup. You can't have a black hole in the lineup. Everyone must contribute to manage slow/slumping periods. It's too much pressure on say just 5 guys to produce offense. Having Sandy and Benintendi bat 8/9th was indicative of our offensive strength. Realistically there's no one inside the organization that can come close to replacing Ortiz. With our bullpen situation, it will be difficult to win coming from behind next year, especially having no replacement for Ortiz.

With the score 8-2, why not pitch Buchholtz two innings? Was he tired? Could have saved Ross...then on Monday John Farrell will bitch and moan about the guys in the pen being worned out.....is managing pitchers that difficult? I want to SCREAM. PUSSIES

horrible at bat with runner on third

And the Black Knight from Monty Python would've too...

Based on what happened this year, one can never have enough SP's. Possibly we have Johnson to provide depth in 2017. In the end, $13M will look cheap. As I've said in another thread, if our starting five stays healthy and pitches well, then Clay B can be a trade bait at mid season. Trade for younger pitching talent or add depth to the bullpen.

If LF is indeed cursed, can we activate Pablo and put him there? (I kid, I kid)