2012 Baseball Season/Off-Season Discussion

[tim_m]

Well i was just talking to him on Twitter. He isn't happy with Pedroia for his role in that meeting players had with management.

Mutiny is never a good situation, especially when the leader of the mutiny is the former manager's close friend and current (and I hate this term with a passion) "face of the franchise".

He also agrees with you about house cleaning time.

[Falcon]

Well i was just talking to him on Twitter. He isn't happy with Pedroia for his role in that meeting players had with management.

Mutiny is never a good situation, especially when the leader of the mutiny is the former manager's close friend and current (and I hate this term with a passion) "face of the franchise".

He also agrees with you about house cleaning time.

I think house cleaning is a must, but damn - where do you start?

Whacky owner, new GM, embattled manager and at least 17 reported mutinous players.

Simply put, they're fucked.

[faldor]

Well i was just talking to him on Twitter. He isn't happy with Pedroia for his role in that meeting players had with management.

Mutiny is never a good situation, especially when the leader of the mutiny is the former manager's close friend and current (and I hate this term with a passion) "face of the franchise".

He also agrees with you about house cleaning time.

I think house cleaning is a must, but damn - where do you start?

Whacky owner, new GM, embattled manager and at least 17 reported mutinous players.

Simply put, they're fucked.

Here's why I have a problem with Pedroia.  Like you said, he was best buds with Tito, so it was going to be hard for him to be that close with Bobby V.  And when Bobby made those questionable comments about Youkilis, Pedroia was the first one to step up and say "that's not how we do things here".  That TOTALLY undermined Bobby V pretty much out of the gate.  I understand sticking up for your teammate, but you don't have to undermine the manager in the same swipe.  Bobby never stood a chance before that, but especially after that comment.  And now supposedly he wants Bobby fired, which let's face it, he probably wanted him fired LONG ago.  You know what Dustin.  YOU don't dictate who your manager is.  Your buddy isn't managing anymore because the team had an epic collapse last September and he failed to get them to the playoffs the last 2 seasons.  So now you don't like the manager and you want HIM fired.  How about you go out there and hit better than .270 for starters.  Is Bobby preventing you from squaring up the baseball?  Adrian, how about you hit more than 20 homers this season.  Did Bobby take away his power?  I won't even mention Beckett and Lester.

Now, after that little rant.  Who knows what the truth really is.  Pedroia and A-Gon have denied the story and have said that they support Bobby.  I'm not buying it, especially with Pedroia, but who knows for sure.  This I do know.  ON the field, he's everything you could ask for in a baseball player.  He busts his ass everyday, plays through pain, etc.  The guy is an All Star, a former MVP, a great defensive player.  The problem is, he doesn't seem like a very good leader to me.  Now I could be wrong about that, but that's the perception I'm getting.  I do think they need a major overhaul, and pretty much NOBODY should be untouchable.  Will Middlebrooks may be the closest thing to untouchable.  But anyone else can be traded as far as I'm concerned.  Now, I'm not suggesting they give these guys away.  Like I said, Pedroia is a GREAT player, so you need to get a great return for him.  Ellsbury has one more year left on his contract before he inevitably leaves via free agency.  See what you can get for him.  The Dodgers were supposedly very interested in Adrian Gonzalez at the deadline.  If you can trade him and not pay his contract, do it.  The guy is good, but I'm ready to clean house completely.  I won't miss these guys one bit.  I haven't been to Fenway once this year and they're giving me no reason make the trip anytime soon.

Thank god football season is right around the corner.

[tim_m]

Never thought i would see the day you would rip the sox like that.

[faldor]

Never thought i would see the day you would rip the sox like that.

me either, but they've made it quite easy playing well below .500 since last September. The off the field stuff is even worse than what they're doing on the field. They've become a joke. I don't know how this information keeps getting out. Obviously there is still a Rat(s) among them. Many thought it was Youkilis, but nothing has changed since he left. Somehow all this "in house" stuff is being leaked to the media. That's another reason to clean house, especially if they don't know who's responsible.

[AxlsMainMan]

Is this the Days of Our Lives or baseball thread?

[Falcon]

Melky Cabrera suspended 50 for PED's and admits to it.

Just lost millions of $$$'s in future FA monies, taints the Giants entire season and ASG MVP "performance" which helped decide home field in the WS.

The Red Sox brass must be jumping for freakin' joy - attention diverted.

[tim_m]

He admitted it too?

[tim_m]

Never thought i would see the day you would rip the sox like that.

me either, but they've made it quite easy playing well below .500 since last September. The off the field stuff is even worse than what they're doing on the field. They've become a joke. I don't know how this information keeps getting out. Obviously there is still a Rat(s) among them. Many thought it was Youkilis, but nothing has changed since he left. Somehow all this "in house" stuff is being leaked to the media. That's another reason to clean house, especially if they don't know who's responsible.

And now the owner is denying the reports that players wanted Bobby V fired.

[Falcon]

He admitted it too?

Yep, his statement:

?My positive test was the result of my use of a substance I should not have used. I accept my suspension under the Joint Drug Program and will try to move on with my life. I am deeply sorry for my mistake and I apologize to my teammates, to the San Francisco Giants organization and to the fans for letting them down.?

Did he not learn from Ryan Braun? Sheesh.

Deny, appeal, find loophole to exploit and sell to shady arbitrator.

[tim_m]

At least he didn't try and say it was it was something legal and an ingredient in it caused the positive test or something like that.

[Falcon]

King Felix goes perfecto against the Rays.

Melky must be jumping for joy - attention diverted.

[faldor]

King Felix goes perfecto against the Rays.

Melky must be jumping for joy - attention diverted.

There's a lot of that going on lately. 

I have Melky Cabrera on one of my fantasy teams and a few days ago I got offered Mark Trumbo and Shane Victorino for Hanley Ramirez and Melky.  I couldn't decide at the time, so I figured I'd give it a few days to mull it over.  Now this happens.     Lesson to all you kids out there, pull the trigger before it's too late.

[tim_m]

King Felix goes perfecto against the Rays.

Melky must be jumping for joy - attention diverted.

There's a lot of that going on lately. 

I have Melky Cabrera on one of my fantasy teams and a few days ago I got offered Mark Trumbo and Shane Victorino for Hanley Ramirez and Melky.  I couldn't decide at the time, so I figured I'd give it a few days to mull it over.  Now this happens.     Lesson to all you kids out there, pull the trigger before it's too late.

Ouch dude...

[Falcon]

I have Melky Cabrera on one of my fantasy teams and a few days ago I got offered Mark Trumbo and Shane Victorino for Hanley Ramirez and Melky.  I couldn't decide at the time, so I figured I'd give it a few days to mull it over.  Now this happens.     Lesson to all you kids out there, pull the trigger before it's too late.

Fuck, first MutinyGate and now this?

Football season's right around the corner faldor, hang in there.

[pilferk]

Here's why I have a problem with Pedroia.  Like you said, he was best buds with Tito, so it was going to be hard for him to be that close with Bobby V.  And when Bobby made those questionable comments about Youkilis, Pedroia was the first one to step up and say "that's not how we do things here".  That TOTALLY undermined Bobby V pretty much out of the gate.  I understand sticking up for your teammate, but you don't have to undermine the manager in the same swipe.  Bobby never stood a chance before that, but especially after that comment.  And now supposedly he wants Bobby fired, which let's face it, he probably wanted him fired LONG ago.  You know what Dustin.  YOU don't dictate who your manager is.  Your buddy isn't managing anymore because the team had an epic collapse last September and he failed to get them to the playoffs the last 2 seasons.  So now you don't like the manager and you want HIM fired.  How about you go out there and hit better than .270 for starters.  Is Bobby preventing you from squaring up the baseball?  Adrian, how about you hit more than 20 homers this season.  Did Bobby take away his power?  I won't even mention Beckett and Lester.

Now, after that little rant.  Who knows what the truth really is.  Pedroia and A-Gon have denied the story and have said that they support Bobby.  I'm not buying it, especially with Pedroia, but who knows for sure.  This I do know.  ON the field, he's everything you could ask for in a baseball player.  He busts his ass everyday, plays through pain, etc.  The guy is an All Star, a former MVP, a great defensive player.  The problem is, he doesn't seem like a very good leader to me.  Now I could be wrong about that, but that's the perception I'm getting.  I do think they need a major overhaul, and pretty much NOBODY should be untouchable.  Will Middlebrooks may be the closest thing to untouchable.  But anyone else can be traded as far as I'm concerned.  Now, I'm not suggesting they give these guys away.  Like I said, Pedroia is a GREAT player, so you need to get a great return for him.  Ellsbury has one more year left on his contract before he inevitably leaves via free agency.  See what you can get for him.  The Dodgers were supposedly very interested in Adrian Gonzalez at the deadline.  If you can trade him and not pay his contract, do it.  The guy is good, but I'm ready to clean house completely.  I won't miss these guys one bit.  I haven't been to Fenway once this year and they're giving me no reason make the trip anytime soon.

Thank god football season is right around the corner.

Here's the problem:

EVERYONE and their grandmother knows about the Sox dysfunction.  If they have a fire sale, everyone is going to know why.

Which means the Sox have zero leverage in the trade negotiations.

So they're going to get shit for players if they actually clean house in the off season.  They could trade away Pedroia and A-gon and be OK.  But if you add Ellsbury and Beckett and Lester and...whoever...to that list...people are going to get wise quick.  And either you're going to get stuck with them (after shopping them and pissing them off), or you're going to give them away for a bag of magic beans. 

Witness the situation with Youk.  Multiply it by about 100.

Personally, I think Valentine should go.  Yes, maybe you jettison some of the players, too, to clean up the toxic spill...but he has to go, too.  Yes, Pedroia should have been a little more diplomatic in responding to V's comments on Youk..but (as we've hashed and rehashed, before), Bobby should never have made them.  And shouldn't have made the ones after Youk left.  Or the next ones, right before playing the White Sox.

Or any of another host of idiotic comments (today's included) he makes to the press.  He's digging his own hole.

Can he motivate, given the right players? Maybe.  There's no doubt of his X's and O's.  It's his clubhouse (and post-clubhouse) behavior/comments that are killing him.  Yes, it's Bobby being Bobby.  But that just doesn't seem to work in Beantown.  The more he talks, the deeper in the shits he gets.

On Henry's denial....if you REALLY read his wording, it's still consistent with the original report.

Henry says, during the meeting, nobody asked for Bobby to be fired.

He DOESN"T say they didn't rip Bobby apart, express displeasure, and say they no longer wanted to play for him (which was the original report).

It's semantics..but it always is, isn't it?

[pilferk]

me either, but they've made it quite easy playing well below .500 since last September. The off the field stuff is even worse than what they're doing on the field. They've become a joke. I don't know how this information keeps getting out. Obviously there is still a Rat(s) among them. Many thought it was Youkilis, but nothing has changed since he left. Somehow all this "in house" stuff is being leaked to the media. That's another reason to clean house, especially if they don't know who's responsible.

It's almost certainly someone in the front office (if not ownership, itself).

Look at the leaks subjects:  They're all pretty purposeful, and they range from players to managers to GM's.  Pretty much EVERY high profile player has been touched by it (which, you'd think, rules them out).  Certainly Bobby's not going to cut his own throat (any more than he has with his comments).  BOTH GM's have had significant leaks about conversations that don't portray them all that well.

Who's left?

Got to be front office......

Shoppach (who just got traded to the Mets):

"Let me be very careful, and I think maybe this is as far as I'll go with it, too: There is a disconnect in communication between the players through the upper management," Shoppach told ESPNNewYork.com on Friday in Cincinnati

[faldor]

Here's the problem:

EVERYONE and their grandmother knows about the Sox dysfunction.  If they have a fire sale, everyone is going to know why.

Which means the Sox have zero leverage in the trade negotiations.

So they're going to get shit for players if they actually clean house in the off season.  They could trade away Pedroia and A-gon and be OK.  But if you add Ellsbury and Beckett and Lester and...whoever...to that list...people are going to get wise quick.  And either you're going to get stuck with them (after shopping them and pissing them off), or you're going to give them away for a bag of magic beans. 

Witness the situation with Youk.  Multiply it by about 100.

Personally, I think Valentine should go.  Yes, maybe you jettison some of the players, too, to clean up the toxic spill...but he has to go, too.  Yes, Pedroia should have been a little more diplomatic in responding to V's comments on Youk..but (as we've hashed and rehashed, before), Bobby should never have made them.  And shouldn't have made the ones after Youk left.  Or the next ones, right before playing the White Sox.

Or any of another host of idiotic comments (today's included) he makes to the press.  He's digging his own hole.

Can he motivate, given the right players? Maybe.  There's no doubt of his X's and O's.  It's his clubhouse (and post-clubhouse) behavior/comments that are killing him.  Yes, it's Bobby being Bobby.  But that just doesn't seem to work in Beantown.  The more he talks, the deeper in the shits he gets.

On Henry's denial....if you REALLY read his wording, it's still consistent with the original report.

Henry says, during the meeting, nobody asked for Bobby to be fired.

He DOESN"T say they didn't rip Bobby apart, express displeasure, and say they no longer wanted to play for him (which was the original report).

It's semantics..but it always is, isn't it?

Let me be clear, I'm not saying it's going to be easy to rebuild the Red Sox over the next few years.  Much the opposite in fact.  I think it will take at least a few years before they can think about being a contender again.  They have a number of ways to go about it.  I'm not sure which is the right one.  Last year I actually agreed with bringing the same group of guys back with a new manager.  Heck, they had the best record in baseball into August last year.  Obviously that hasn't worked though, and I'm not willing to blame that all on Bobby Valentine.  I'm not willing to say, "just go out and hire the RIGHT manager, and this same team will be a contender next year".  This team has been a well below .500 team for a full season now dating back to last September.  Something obviously isn't working.  You can start with the pitching.  The pitching has been awful during that stretch, especially the starters.  The bullpen has actually held their own, despite the large amount of blown saves.  Something has to be done to improve the starting pitching.

Clay Buchholz has emerged as the ace of the staff of late, and I do think he is solid going forward.  I don't think he's truly an ace per se, but he's someone they can count on as long as he can stay healthy.  He had an awful start to the season with an ERA of almost 9 in April, and 5.60 in May.  Since then though, he had an ERA of 2.40 in June, 2.45 in July, and 1.50 so far in August.  Lowering his season ERA to a respectable 4.19.  Felix Dubront has showed some promise in his first full year as a starter.  You could pencil him in as a back of the rotation guy.  Same could be said with Franklin Morales, after transitioning from the bullpen.  And I'd expect Jon Lester to bounce back.  He's been too good in his career for him to totally lose it, this early in his career.  John Lackey will be returning from TJ surgery, but who knows what you'll get out of him.  I can't imagine he could be much worse than he has been since joining the Sox.  The one guy who seemingly has to go, is Josh Beckett.  He is the most hated man on the Red Sox right now, and I don't think he's enjoying himself much either.  They'll most likely have to eat a good chunk of his salary, similar to the Yanks dealing AJ Burnett.  So I wouldn't expect much of anything in return there.  At this point, it'd be addition by subtraction.  Replacing his 5+ ERA shouldn't be hard to do either.

All in all, that doesn't sound THAT bad.  But they need another reliable arm.  Dare I say, a true ace, or at least something close to that.  That's why I say any of the positional players should be used to see if they can acquire such a pitcher.  I'm not saying they need to get rid of Pedroia, Gonzalez, Ellsbury, etc. no matter what.  Obviously if you can't get equal value in return, you don't make the deal.  But it doesn't hurt to throw it out there.  I think a lot of teams would love to have those guys.  It's not like the Youkilis situation, where they NEEDED to trade him and every team knew it.  They don't NEED to trade any of their position players, but if it could improve the team, then by all means NOBODY is untouchable.  I'd rather have Nick Punto as the starting 2B with Felix Hernandez on the hill, then Pedroia and Beckett.  Just saying.

As for Bobby V.  I don't think the guy was ever given a fair chance here.  From day one, when it was clear that he wasn't the GM's choice.  He came in with a reputation and he had to win the players and fans over.  That never happened obviously.  They had a bunch of injuries that maybe led to a slow start.  Maybe if they got off to a better start things would've been different.  Winning cures everything.  But they sputtered around .500 for most of the season and things have gotten progressively worse.  And honestly, I don't think Bobby has said or done anything that is all that bad.  The Youkilis comments would be exhibit A, but I think those were even blown out of proportion.  If it weren't for Pedroia coming out with his, "that's not how we do things around here" comment, it would have blown over.  How about keeping THAT in house?  Just let the world know that you disagree with your boss.  Two wrongs, don't make a right.  After that incident, Bobby became very docile, and less Bobby V-like.  He's been much more tame than I think most people expected. 

I just hate that the players are going to get their way again.  They walked all over a manager they loved last season and got him fired.  This season they refused to accept the new manager and will ultimately get him fired.  What's the story for next season?  I say they bring back a former player to manage.  My choice would be Varitek.  The pitchers love him.  He was the captain.  Two knocks on him are that, 1) he has no managerial experience, and 2) he's too close to the players and was a part of the toxic clubhouse last season and as the captain he couldn't make a difference.  Well, I think experience is overrated.  Robin Ventura, Mike Matheny.  How much managerial experience did they have?  I'd take my chances with him, IF he wanted the job.  There's no indication he wants to manage at this stage of his career/retirement.  Either that or let the players manage themselves, since they seem to be doing that anyway.  They're just a mess.

[Falcon]

More bad news today for the BoSox, this just sucks.

http://hardballtalk.nbcsports.com/2012/08/18/red-sox-prospect-brian-johnson-hit-in-face-by-line-drive-suffers-multiple-orbital-fractures/?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter

Red Sox prospect Brian Johnson hit in face by line drive, suffers ?multiple orbital fractures?

According to Sean McAdam of CSNNE.com, Red Sox prospect left-hander Brian Johnson suffered ?multiple orbital fractures? when he was hit in the left side of his face by a line drive at the seventh annual ?Futures at Fenway? event this afternoon at Fenway Park. The injury occurred on his second pitch of the day for Single A Lowell.
 
Austin Laymance of MLB.com reports that Johnson waved to the crowed as he was carted off the field on a stretcher. McAdam adds that he is currently resting comfortably in the hospital and there?s no evidence of a concussion.
 
Johnson was selected No. 31 overall in June?s First-Year Player Draft out of the University of Florida and joined the Red Sox on a $1,575,000 bonus. The 21-year-old southpaw began his pro career with 5 1/3 scoreless innings for Lowell.

[tim_m]

That's rough. You hate to see freak things like that. Its really amazing it doesn't happen more often considering how close the pitcher is to the hitter.