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Post by Valerie Hyatt Martin on Nov 27, 2011 12:42:17 GMT -5
Not sure where this topic might fit best, but am curious to hear what everyone is thinking about trades, free agent signings, rumors for the 2012 season. Red Sox will have many changes. New GM, new manager,player changes..no drinking beer during the game...
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Post by Allen Wiener on Nov 27, 2011 13:22:09 GMT -5
The Sox need a real shakeup. Given the talent, that team should have done better down the stretch instead of collapsing. The only change I've heard of so far is that Paplebon is gone to the Phillies; no new manager or GM announced yet. They better get a move on.
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Post by Valerie Hyatt Martin on Nov 27, 2011 16:45:09 GMT -5
I listen to MLB Radio and heard the same thing. The winter meetings are coming up and the Sox need to get things taken care of soon. It was odd to see how they appeared to unravel last season, unraveling very fast by the end. I'm not sure the 'organization' saw any of this coming..or maybe only parts of it. Pappelbon sure got out quick.
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Post by Allen Wiener on Nov 27, 2011 21:07:23 GMT -5
Paplebon was on borrowed time anyway. He was a decent closer, but not very bright and never learned from his mistakes. He never seemed to develop mastery of, or confidence in any of his pitches other than the fastball, and relied on that too much. He blew too many 9th inning leads and was going to lose that job anyway. However, it's a mystery who the Sox will put in his place. Paplebon's departure was his decision, I believe, not the Sox'; his contract was up and the Phillies must have made him a better offer than the Sox did. Although I have to wonder why Philadelphia is bothering with more pitching; it's their hitting that did them in last year. They, too, did not play all that well in September.
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Post by Valerie Hyatt Martin on Nov 27, 2011 23:11:30 GMT -5
I'm glad to know I'm not the only one who wondered how Paplebon managed to stay as long as he did. I guess the rest of the team made up for him. The season before last, the Phillies amazed me with their ability to lose many games, giving up only one run. They need to have great pitchers, because they don't hit. Shame to waste all that great pitching on them. Jim Thome might actually do better than Ryan Thomas, who doesn't impress me as much as he does others. Since I'm here where the Rangers are, I have seen them turn into competitors since Nolan Ryan took over ownership. Unlike the Phillies and Red Sox, they seem to maintain consistency. It will be interesting to see how far they go next season.
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Post by Allen Wiener on Nov 28, 2011 0:03:17 GMT -5
Although they lost both World Series, going to it two years in a row is pretty rare these days; quite an accomplishment.
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Post by Hiram on Nov 28, 2011 17:37:36 GMT -5
I don't have any specific opinions on where free agents will end up this winter, but I do anticipate more deals. The CBA has reduced the number of FAs that require draft pick compensation. Seven FAs (including Papelbon) will cost the clubs signing them a draft pick. The others are Pujols, Fielder, Reyes. Ortiz, Rollins, and Wilson. That's it.
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Post by Allen Wiener on Nov 29, 2011 21:53:28 GMT -5
Well, I missed this somehow, but Ben Cherington, Theo Epstein's former assistant, is now the Red Sox GM and he has hired Bobby Valentine to magage the team in 2012: www.nytimes.com/2011/11/30/sports/baseball/valentine-chosen-to-manage-red-sox.html?_r=1&hpThis won't mean much if the team remains as chaotic and undisciplined as the reports suggest they were this season (boozing and pigging out during games?). I know that the ability of managers to discipline players has diminished in the era of super-buck free agents and prima donna superstars. Fans pay to see them, not the manager, and would frown on suspensions or other disciplinary action that either takes key players off the field and renders them "unhappy" (the major bugaboo in modern, prima donna sports) and thus hurts the team. But if this was going on and Francona couldn't do anything about it, that is a seriously ominous sign.
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Post by loucapitano on Nov 30, 2011 16:45:00 GMT -5
Allen: I didn't hear about Bobby Valentine until this morning and I agree with all you said. Today New York sports radio was full of mostly positive talk about this hiring. But, there was some concern that Valentine would have little tolerate for those "super-buck" players and free agents you mentioned. Many felt he would be best with a younger team with fewer prima donnas. Of course, all agreed that it certainly would heat up the Yankee/Red Sox competition (as if it could get any hotter than it is now!) Then again, Valentine has learned a lot in 12 years and may believe he knows exactly what to do. I hope so. Even us Yankee fans would hate to see the great Boston franchise collapse.
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Post by Allen Wiener on Nov 30, 2011 17:14:08 GMT -5
It's clear that the Sox needed a shakeup badly, and this may be the right tonic for them. I agree that a guy who takes no crap is better suited to a younger team, like Davey Johnson and the Nats. I think that's going to work out, but time will tell. Same with Valentine. If he can get control of the team and motivate them to redeem their tarnished image after the September collapse, then he will have done well. The Sox-Yankees rivalry will always be there and I'm expecting a hot contest next season.
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Post by Paul Sylvain on Nov 30, 2011 19:58:10 GMT -5
I caught the Bobby Valentine talk this morning on local TV (I live 40 minutes from Beantown, so the Sox is always big news here. We'll see what, if any, impact he'll have on the team in just a few short months.
But, indeed, the Sox have had too many unresolved problems over the past several seasons. We could forgive them two years ago, when injuries plagued the team almost from the starting gun. There was no excuse for this past season's performance.
Papelbon was effective early on in his tenure with Boston, but he was a one-pitch hurler and batters learned to wait in the fast ball. With that, his effectiveness diminished by a ton. Unfortunately I don't see any improvements on the horizon, at least in the pitching department. We have the return of Dice-K to look forward to? Gimme a break! Wakefield, perhaps? Gimme a double-break!! Pitching consistency has killed them the past couple of seasons and it doesn't look promising for 2012.
Also, the Sox depend too d**n much on the long-ball. Just look at the teams left-on-base (and in scoring position) stats. Power is great ball, but the teams that succeed over a long campaign are those that master "small ball", and that can manufacture runs through smart base-running and timely hitting.
Having spent the summers of 2008, 2009 and 2010 in the Mid-Cities area between Dallas and Ft. Worth, I became a big-time fan of the Rangers. I caught a ton of games at the Ballpark in Arlington. Yes, they were pretty bad in 2008, but they showed a lot of heart and class, and became a team I admired. In 2009 they came dang close to beating out the Sox for the Wild Card -- it was only the fact that the Rangers couldn't pull out a couple of wins while the Sox eventually lost their way into the wild card (both teams lost games with the Rangers eventually being eliminated with no games left). Then came 2010 and 2011. They truly should have won it all this year, and had their chances in Game 6. Still, they are winners in my book, which is more than I can say about the Red Sox.
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Post by Valerie Hyatt Martin on Nov 30, 2011 21:38:11 GMT -5
Bobby V still has a restaurant here in Arlington. He was once a manager of the Rangers. On MLB Radio they were interviewing former players and Steve Phillips who talked about his relationship with Valentine during his Mets tenure. He said he was the one to blame for some of the bad press on Valentine. He emphasized his own failure to take responsibility for what was his fault, instead pushed it off on Valentine.
I think a team like the Red Sox,almost need someone like Valentine, with the name and the experience to make a change. At least it makes me feel that a change might be possible. I wonder about Francona and upper management. If they were good enough to win the WS twice and then become a team of undisciplines, almost uncaring ballplayers. After some of the revelations about drinking and eating during the game, I had the impression of a team that could care less that they were The Boston Red Sox. Fans, like myself, think that should mean something, especially to the players. What happened? I heard some talk about Francona having issues with pain management and his wife leaving him and wondered if his personal life caused him to loose control of the team. Or was it the change in the makeup of the team?
The Rangers are fortunate not to be the Red Sox or Yankees. They struggled financially for years with Tom Hicks as the owner. Even after Ryan took over, there was enormous debt, probably still debt and that doesn't include Alex Rodriguez's salary. The Rangers did begin to build a good farm system, which has helped them. Thinking about the lack of discipline with the Sox, I am so sure, Nolan Ryan would not allow that on his club. He has very high standards. As a fan of baseball, I'm fine with superstars being disciplined. They may get away with it in the big market teams, but can't picture it with the Rangers under Ryan.
I heard an interview with Andrew Bailey, the closer for Oakland. He lives near Philly and is a fan of the Eagles. He commented about one of the Eagles players who had to sit out because he missed a team meeting. He said, to him if you have made it to the top of your game, you are fortunate. You owe the fans, the game, your participation and that means you attend team meetings, no excuse. Bailey's answer is what I hope all the players feel about the privilege to be at the MLB level. Most of them have taken their talents, worked very hard to reach a place of opportunity to play at the highest level. Believing that and seeing what happened to the Red Sox, makes me ill. That has to change.
I would love to see the Rangers win a World Series in 7 games and have home field advantage...then the ballpark I love so much would have as many games played as possible in the post season and a win at home. I have been to 7 games at Fenway....nothing can surpass that feeling because of the history, because it was Boston.
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Post by Allen Wiener on Dec 1, 2011 9:17:37 GMT -5
I think Paul nailed it. Inconsistent pitching, too many men LOB, a breakdown in discipline and (apparently) motivation. I had not heard any of the personal issues re: Francona, but that could have impacted his performance as manager. Unless there are some serious pitching moves made, I see a lot of the same problems next year. It's too late to unload Dice-K to anyone else (although you never know; the Phillies signed Paplebon and I agree that his reliability dropped steadily the past few years) and I would have thought that both the Sox and Wakefield would have seen the writing on the wall a while ago. For a while the Sox were producing some good young arms within their own system (Lester, Buchholtz), but I haven't seen any more. And, yes -- a crash course in building runs ("small ball") is really needed. If you watched the post season closely, most of the teams knew how to do that, even those that have good long-ball power, like Texas. How many times did we see one of those teams build a run our two even with 2 outs? Players had good at bats, made pitchers work, stayed alive at the plate, drew walks or punched base hits through holes, stole a base, laid down a sac. bunt, etc. You can't win on homers alone. Even homers don't count for that much if they are hit with the bases empty, so someone has to get on base and move runners along.
Ticket prices and player salaries are sky-high in a time of serious economic recession; a lot of people are really hurting right now and it's pretty offensive to see pampered maillionaire ballplayers complaining about anything, let alone not giving 100% all the time, and that includes attending meetings and anything else they are required to do.
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Post by loucapitano on Dec 1, 2011 16:59:35 GMT -5
Small ball does it. As you said, homers don't count so much when the bases are empty. I was never much of a ball player, but I knew enough to "choke-up" and slap the ball when it was least expected. That's how the Yanks with Rivera lost the WS against Arizona in 2001. (heavy sigh!)
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Post by Allen Wiener on Dec 1, 2011 18:49:02 GMT -5
Yup. How many times I would rather have one of those Manny Mota guys up there than a celebrity slugger!
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