oldtimer

It's hard for me to believe a 7 year high cost deal for a pitcher with a lot of mileage will work out favorably. More likely we will get diminishing returns or outright injury prone years going forward along with the $30 million salary. Not Price's fault but the decision makers. I hope he can come back and pitch decently this year as we really need a 4th starter now, let alone a 5th sarter. DD is to some degree encumbered with some of the prior and expensive deals. Pablo and Hanlley do impact the salary cap while Catillo and Craig are more omens of what can go wrong with signings. Hanley seemed to be comfortable with his role last year and performed well while Pablo did not and may not goiing forward. Hard to criticize DD a lot for trying to stay below the salary cap with resignings of some of our best young talent on the horizon. I wonder though about our program with pitchers where we seem to have an inordinate amout of injuries and underperformances. Is there something going on there with the coaching staff where our hoped for starting and relief pitching is oft injured and/or underperforming? Individual players also have to be accountable but we appear to be coming up short after three starters and one reliever.

I thought this thread was about the rotation. It appears to been hijacked to talk about potential hitters for the Red Sox. We have three solid starters with a hope that Price can come back and be the 4th. Who the 5th starter will be is illusive at this point. Our bull pen has been weak, with Barnes and Hembree having very poor appearances of late.

My impression of Farrell is a person who is impassive. It is hard to know what goes on in the dugout or the locker room, but he has given me the impression of a sitting Buddha. Francona was more a friend of the players and his approach certainly worked although he might have had trouble getting along with some in the front office who has now gone. I wouldn't think of Ortiz as someone who would manage a team day to day, but one who could be a motivator.

Marrero has looked very solid defensively at third. I doubt he can hit enough to be a regular there.

I wondered about whether Beni's early success has resulted in him trying to do too much. When the team had the bases loaded with one out I believe, Beni appeared to be swinging for the fences and so did Moreland. Maybe a fly ball would have brought a run in. It could be he just has to adjust his thinking as he has excellent form now.

Hembree sucked again today. We need to get Thornburg and Smith healthy soon as our bull pen appears to have some serious holes.

Beni is a 0 for 5 games now. Have the opposing teams found something to exploit? I don't know but a cleanup hitter that doesn't get a hit in 5 games is not where the team wants to be.

Overall record for a pitcher with a lot of innings may not be the best view of present and future capability. The track usually is downward in velocity and effectiveness. If he can be reasonably effective as a #3 starter and eat a lot of innings he will help the team. Doing that is by no means certain for a guy coming back from arm issues. He is our $30 mil a year man and will be for years to coe so I hope he can still be effective.

Beni's gone into a mini-slump. He is still making contact most at bats but without results. Hope his luck improves as a long term slump might impact his confidence.

We have used 6 third basemen this year and it is only May 12th. So far our players have been error prone and are collectively hitting near the bottom of all ML players at that position. There is only one reason for not bringing up a young player like Devers and that is the concern that early exposure might hurt his confidence going forward. By accounts i have read he is a decent fielder with a strong arm and he hits with power. The major league pitching might be too much for him at this point and we have a lot of players on contract but if he could succeed, we would be a better team.

Porcello is getting bombed tonight and Pomeranz wasn't effective in his last. Outside of Sale, E-Rod and Kimbrel our rotation and relief has looked sick indeed. My view of Price is that at this point in his career he is not much better than and 3rd or 4th starter. We haven't seen him in action as yet so it is hard to know he will return to acceptable form or not. I think you are being optimistic.

Maybe the best is for David Ortiz

Price is doing a rehab start in the minors so he should be back soon. Are we the only team where the salary in the minors and rehab is greater that that on our major league team. Price, Sandoval, Craig, Castillo, Thornburg, Smith all get the bucks. I wonder if Price will ever return to decent form let alone the expectations for an Ace. Giving a pitcher with a lot of mileage a 7 year contract is just nuts.

Perhaps there should be a separate thread on base running. The Sox have had a ton of outright mistakes this year and today was no different. First we had a lack of movement on a ball hit to second and dropped. The runner then came back to first, not seeing or being coached about the dropped ball and to make mattters worse, Moreland was doubled up not able to get up the line in time. It was a tough play but we looked bad. Much worse was Pedroia. You have to criticize a guy who has just hit a double, but then he could have easily gone to 3rd on a ball that got away from the catcher but didn't appear to be paying attention. That cost us a run as there was a single by Bogaerts. Might have cost us the game but fortuneately not. That gaff was later compounded by Pedroia trying to stretch a single into a double. Somebody tell him, he isn't that fast. I didn't see the game the previous night but understand he also ran the bases poorly then as well. Today is just one of many incidents this year. You wouldn't expect one of your most experienced players to be so careless. Thanks to good pitching and Betts, we won and we needed to.

If you look at who we picked up in the last few years and their value to the team vs money or trade value paid I would list them as follows: Sale (5 stars) Porcello (5 stars) Kimbrel (5 stars) Price (2 stars) Pomeranz (2 stars) Thornburg (0 stars) Smith (0 stars) Moreland (3 stars) Young (3 stars) Leon (2 stars) Sandoval (-3 stars) Craig (- 3 stars) Castillo (- 3 stars) Some very good acquisitions here but also a lot of misses for big money and a depletion of our farm system. Still we haven't solved our 3rd base situation and I really didn't try to list all the secondary players that have come through but there were a few others. Still having a problem with JBJ. Would a trade finding him getting his mojo back? If so that might put a bad light on our coaching. I am bothered as how we pick up pitchers only to have them on the DL for extended periods. Is our pitching program that grueling or our we dumbly taking on guys with known issues? Also how is it we trade an infielder and another team can work magic on him (Travis Shaw) when we have been unable? Is there a coaching problem here?

As are the Red Sox.

The two position players who would be totally off limits in trade talks are Betts and Beni. Both are foundation players. Bogaerts is close to that status as well. I hope to live long enough to see another team that can compete for the world series and expect both Betts and Beni to be on that team.

In August, if he is still hitting under .200 guys will still be postulating that one good month for September. What he needs is to go down and work on his hitting for a week or two. I still think he can be a hitter again but he needs to change his approach. We do need his defense and he is a great young guy so coaches, please help him get his mojo back.

Hembree has looked bad the last couple of times out as has Barnes. We need the relievers that we expected to have actually pitch in the majors. Smith and Thornburg where are you?

Sounds like the Sox might improve their regimen for pitchers. We sure have a sorry mess right now.

There has been a long time to form that opinion. JBJ has not lived up to his own expectations offensively. I do grant, as was said on BB Tonight, there are many proven ML players that are off to very slow starts offensively this year. They didn't have an explanation for it but noted a number of unexpected last place teams had guys who had good careers now hitting 220 or less. Could it be the pitching is that much better? The Cubs also have several that are way off. Still, there are guys like Beni, who have hit very well so go figure.

Robbie Ross came in and tried to give the game away. Hembree has looked bad recently.

You coach him properly and then have patience.

Sounds like an excuse for poor performance to me. JBJ has to get his head together and needs help from Chili Davis to get back to be an acceptable offensive threat. It's getting to a point where his career is on the line. He has shown the capability in the past so it is a matter of him finding himself.