oldtimer

Young went out with a hamstring, which is typically a 6 weeks injury or more depending on the severity. Then there is the need to have a few games in the minors to get sharp again. I think he will be out for a few more weeks. Not much word about Swiharts progress either.We are working with left fielders who you think suck and also these are are backups for the other outfielders. Benintendi as a replacement makes sense to me and to Red Sox management. He just may show us something as he get some ML playing time. Lets hope the fans are tolerant as he is just starting his ML career.

For the first time in a while, I feel optimistic about the teams chances of making the playoffs. The starting pitching has spun a number of good games and Clay Buchholz has even regained some of his abilities. Our relief pitching has gotten another boost through DD while Kimbrel is back and Ziegler is going well. Pitching, which was a disaster, partially due to injuries is now on a par with other contenders. In the field, we continue to have great contributions from Betts, Pedroia, Bogaerts, Bradley, Ortiz and Leon and now have hope that our left field will be strengthened. That leaves us with an okay Hanley, Shaw, Hill and Holt. Hannigan at catcher is weak at the plate but someone has to catch Wright and he got that unenviable assignment. We still have Young and Swihart in rehab and Moncada to be brought up later, so even more strength available. I see our biggest problem, should we make the playoffs is a shutdown ace starting pitcher. I don't see anything happening on that front, so we have to go with the pitching we have. We are now a real competitor to win the division, being only one game back. Our schedule is biased toward away games so that is a handicap, and I question Farrell's leadership, but every team has problems, it is not a perfect world.

This team has been heavily reliant on the top of the order of late and Ortiz is not able to play every day so bringing up someone to give the team some new energy is a good idea. Is Beni ready? Time will tell, but he just may contribute and Brentz wasn't a long term answer so I like the idea. Over the years in baseball, there have been a lot of players who have been brought up at a younger age and with less experience who have prospered.Let's hope that Beni's experience is a positive one.

That is an optimistic view and one I hope comes true for both Clay and the team. Why has it taken so long for the team to work on these adjustments for Clay? Sounds like our pitching coaches have not dealt with what was causing his inadequacies.

I think Sandoval's time in a Red Sox uniform is over and we have to look at his contract as a sunken cost. I have not been impressed with Hanley. He is so hit and miss that I think we can do much better. If we could trade him and eat part of his contract, I would be for that. TShaw has the possibility of improvement as he is early in his career and he is Hanley's equal at ist defensively. Travis is another intriguing possibility but he has to come back from injury and show he can play at a major league level, something TShaw has already done. Moncada at third is the likely choice of management. Whether he makes it remains to be determined. I sure many other clubs would love to have our problem with finding him a position. I would use Holt and Hernandez as utility players as you never know when our infielders might need rest or get injured. I do think we need to trade for or FA sign a quality power bat for DH, whether he be Encarnacion or another possibility. Probably no one can match our loss with Ortiz leaving. With 5 current good starting pitchers, perhaps we can get a #1 in the FA market. We would need a #1 to go into any playoff race with an expectation of being successful. We should continue to strengthen our pitching development capability to see if we can develop another of our own kids. Other organizations are doing it so why can't we?

Yes, sometimes the trade not made is the best one. DD is doing a good job of getting value without giving up the farm.

Your much better at coming up with the price of players to fill some of our needs (as you stated them) for next season. I would think we can fill our LF, 3rd base. 1st base needs from a combination of Shaw, Benintendi and Moncada and still keep Young as a platoon outfielder and for flexibility should we sustain outfield injuries next season. It the Red Sox thinking is along that line then Hanley is available for DH although I don't see him as nearly the power threat or clutch hitter that we will be losing in Ortiz. I know it is unlikely that we could move Hanley while signing Encarnacion but one can dream. As far as RP under control, our pen has been getting better due to DD dealing this July. I know we have Workman rehabbing. Maybe we can get one of our RP's from our minor league organization. That still leaves a tall order to add a quality SP and RP from the market. Big bucks even if we can make a deal.

Also, the major league baseball channel is saying the red sox are no longer in consideration for Sale. The asking price was too high.

The team looks lethargic. The offense, once a strong point, is having trouble generating runs. Do we expect our pitching to give up zero runs for us to compete? Not very realistic. We don't seem to have energy out there. Is there any way to turn things around? Is Farrell part of the problem? I am in the camp that doesn't believe trading away the strength of our minor leagues away for a starting pitcher makes sense.

Last night we put a weakened lineup on the field. If you trade for an ace and deplete the minors what good would it do? Maybe win another few games this year. Even an ace might not win with only two runs support, as Price didn't with his fine game just two days ago. With Ortiz out of the lineup, most of the run production had to be generated by Betts, Pedroia, Bogaerts. Rameriz is hit and miss so to speak. Beyond that you have to look at Leon to do anything. Ortiz will have to sit fairly often going down the stretch, afterall, he is 40 and not superhuman. Maybe it's time to bring up some enthusiastic young players to give us energy and a different outlook. Could they do worse than Brentz, Hill and even Shaw? The time is here for a change before we do something stupid and trade away the brightest part of our future. We need to re-energize this team and stop kidding ourselves. The team looks tired and on the downward track.

Don't forget Castillo on your list of high priced players who are making no contribution to the team! I would say the Present Value of each top ten minor league prospect is significant. I read something like $75 million each for Benentendi and Moncada and slightly less for Devers. Swihart also has significant value as well. I would be reluctant to trade most of that talent away for a SP who may turn out to be fragile and last less than the 3 years or 4 years of player control. Our top pitching prospects also have a Present Value but I doubt if it is as high as our position players. Our weaknesses are one outfield position, possibly third/first (one not both) and a designated hitter going forward. It looks like we may go into the free agent market for the designated hitting talent to replace Ortiz. The weakness in starting pitching is more to do with how well our current group would handle playoffs. We could also use an upgrade in the BP, but there is a great demand for similar talent by most of the contending clubs. The price for SP and BP help may not be worth the return.

Yes, and we got beat with a starting pitcher with an 85 mph fast ball velocity. It does point out velocity is not the be all and end all. I prefer that management shores up our weak areas such as left field, third/first base and look for another solid RP. Chances are the cost wouldn't be that great. Someone needs to take it upon themselves to fire up this team. My guess is it will come from within the players and not from Farrell. Trading away our best assets for a SP will give marginal improvement and we know SPs are fragile. We could wind up with nothing much to show for our best prospects.

Back to Farrell. The Detroit series has gone badly. They can hit and have decent pitching and quite good relief pitching. We got beat with a good effort by Pomeranz, we got beat when Wright got shelled (a winnable game with the better managing) and got beat yesterday when our pitching was pretty good but theirs was better. My thought is to use our best pitching resources to win the games where we have the best chance. No manager is going to make the right decision every time, but it is the indecisiveness handling his pitching (should be his strength) that worries me.

Like Moonslav, I would like Quintana as a stater for now and into the future. To realistically have a chance to get him, we would have to give up some of our highly valued prospects and/or a current major league player (thinking a catcher). We need to be mindful of where we will need improvements going forward. One outfielder, first/third base, designated hitter. We have Benintendi, Moncada, Swihart and Devers to potentially fill those holes. Which of those would we have to throw in? I question Hanley's value to the team going forward as his performance runs hot and cold. His contract will probably keep him in a Sox uniform for one more year.

From what I have heard, Benintendi is athletic and fast. He is really thought of as a center fielder, which requires speed. His weakest category is his arm. I still like him a lot and think he is a piece we need to add to our outfield as an every day player and depth. I would be very reluctant to trade him.

I would worry that Sale is a bit of a head case and might not add as much to the team as another strong young pitcher, while the price would be high. You name 4 potential trade offerings. Of those, I would be most unhappy about losing Swihart, the others, not so much although Devers has a lot of potential.

We have a good defensive and offensive team with only a few field positions that need additional shoring up. Left field and outfield depth in general are two of these and perhaps the third base/first base combo. Help is on the way for the outfield with Swihart and Young returning and Benintendi in the minors. We have help for the infield as well with Holt for utility and Moncada if he can become a solid defensive infielder. Shaw is good at first or third but needs to hit lefties better. That may come as he is still young to the majors. Hanley is a question mark in my mind. He has a terrific couple of days and then he goes dormant offensively. I guess the point is that with Kimbrel coming back and our 5 starters fairly solid, I would be very careful about unloading our prospects, especially for someone like Sale who might be a bit of a head case. I would be very selective and I think DD will be. The other consideration is Farrell. He has some pitching problems to deal with but I don't see him making the right choices. Each game we give away puts us further in the hole and we have had 2 last place finishes in a row so DD should think hard about our managerial direction going forward.

Yes, but when one like Robbie Ross gives up a single and two straight walks to load the bases late in a tie game, what are the chances he walks in a run. He did and Kelly was finally brought in, but too late to avoid giving the lead back. The manager does impact the game by the decisions he makes and doesn't make. Twice tonight I questioned his moves. We need to win now and that is hard to do when giving up leads when you have a better option.

Pretty clear Wright was not right tonight. Farrell stayed with him despite the obvious lack of effectiveness and put a good effort by the Red Sox offense to regain the lead back into a 3 run deficit. The Red Sox are in a struggle to stay in the race with Baltimore and Toronto so they need Farrell to be proactive and give the Sox the best chance to win.

Hard to know what Beni would have done. Brentz struck out and Holt took a third strike and Betts got a bad call on a 2 and 0 so swung at a marginal pitch for an out. No evidence that Beni would have helped in that situation but it does point out that Fararell believed his best right handed pinch hit possibility was Brentz and that Holt was better against a lefty than Hill. Another game where we had decent starting pitching but couldn't get it done. Better luck tomorrow.

I look at the situation a little differently, in that we currently have 5 people capable of playing outfield on the team (Betts, Bradley, Holt, Matinez and Brentz). We are in a stretch of games that are very demanding and have Betts with a cranky knee. Neither Young or Swihart are likely to be back until mid August so in the interim we will need to rely on Brentz a journeyman and two utility players to fill the left field position and act as subs should we need to rest a starter. We can't afford to play with a weakened team with both Baltimore and Toronto playing good ball. Benintendi is a center fielder with good speed who could sub in at all three outfield positions. He likely has an adequate bat to develop into a starter next year. Would picking up a temporary left fielder now be as smart a move as just bringing Beni up? The other consideration is that DD is no doubt discussing trade deals with other teams at this point and in particular looking for additional pitching. Who will he trade to gain that pitching. Is Swihart on the block? Is Holt? Is Beni? I hope not, but if some of these guys get traded then the argument about Beni can either be heightened or moot.

Despite Buchholz's bad results the other night, he had fastball velocity better than Price. He also mixed in curve, cutters and sliders and threw them for strikes. Somehow they hit him as they have a lot this year. He hasn't been effective but on the other hand, Hembree looked like he needs to find himself again. Maybe he just is tired from the bullpen workload. Time in the minors is not the worst thing.

The latest meltdown in the bull pen was Matt Barnes. Two singles and a walk in which he appeared to try to overthrow. Tazawa came in and did a good job of getting out of it with only two runs and Ziegler saved it. He looked like the best investment we have made. At least we escaped with a win this time. I doubt if the Twins hitting has come along as far as it has looked against Red Sox Pitching, so we need to get it back together in a hurry.

Don't ignore that we have another outfielder with a sore knee that may act up. Having Benentendi up at this point makes some sense as insurance. Martinez didn't do the job last night and Holt had a problem. Neither are natural outfielders. Holt is a great utility player and is an asset on the roster. Young and Swihart are still on the DL and probably won't be available to join the team until healed and going through a couple of games in AAA. We need help now.

Agreed. The bullpen got Tazawa back and with Kelly coming we may not see the horror story of last night repeated. Kimbrel is not that far away either.