soxtalker999

I seem to recall that Abreu made a similar comment at the beginning of this season.

Your comment reflects a lot of the sentiment that I've seen on this board and elsewhere in the past several days, and I'm sure that it will intensify in the next few weeks unless we see some miraculous turnaround. However, this probably has little to do with stubbornness or arrogance. JR may have those qualities, but I suspect that the decisions are quite rational. Go back to Lip's August 21 posting earlier in this thread. He indicated that there is a big tax incentive for JR to NOT sell before he passes away. If he doesn't sell, but wants to shake up management at the very top, that person has to learn the organization and set up his/her own structure. That takes time. It would be a highly desirable position, but, again, the owner's age probably adds some risk to anyone considering it. JR may be in great health and very sharp, but he's probably acutely aware that could change at any time. So will anyone wanting to take on the position.

It would be interesting to find a metric to measure how effective the GM's were at managing the entire system. I tend to lump KW and Hahn together, and I would put them at the bottom (worst) end. In part, it is because they had generally terrible farm systems (which wasn't helped by a scandal along the way). And they were slow to adapt to changes in the game brought upon by the use of big data. In contrast, I have fond memories of Larry Himes. He scouted well, and there seemed to be the prospect of good things to come. But they didn't keep him around very long, so he didn't really get much of the credit.

Does anyone know which station and program was this on and whether it is available in a podcast? It isn't an earthshaking statement in itself; one would hope that there would be some changes with play this bad over the past year (which would be 1-1/2 seasons by next off-season). But I'd like to hear the comments around it.

Let me ask about one specific aspect of many Sox batters' approaches - they don't seem to work counts and often chase balls out of the strike zone. Say that the manager and coaches (or their were new people in those roles that) noticed this and wanted to focus on it. Would they be able to get the batters to actually make changes mid-season? These are mostly veteran players.

There may be some options that become available as the season moves along. For example, are there any other pitchers in the minors on other teams that have similar deadlines like Cueto? Maybe trades will develop due to either injuries on other teams or teams dropping out of the playoff picture. I'm not aware of those, but I would hope/expect that Hahn and his team would be paying a lot of attention to these other options.

That all sounds good, but do you really have confidence that Hahn (and KW) can make the great decisions on these sure-fire big-name acquisitions that will put us over the top. I'm not trying to be negative here, but it seems that the ones that they do better on have been the prospects acquired by trade or the Cuban signings.

Wasn't the story that Hahn and Kenny sat down and both thought that Kimbrel was the one guy both most wanted?

Boston tv announcers commented that they have never seen Kimbrel throw so many breaking balls. They kept waiting for fast balls.

If the Sox don't place him on the 40-man roster this year, he'll be subject to the rule 5 draft. But he's probably a very low risk of being taken. He's struggled on the move from A to AA, so a team that drafted him would be taking a pretty big gamble to move him up to the major league (25-man) roster. Of course, the Sox wouldn't have done the deal if they didn't feel he had some promise.

QUOTE (GreenSox @ Aug 30, 2017 -> 08:05 AM) I don't think he's particularly great, but he's certainly better than some pitchers on wild card contending rotations...and he's currently pitching a lot better than that. All I can figure is that Hahn wants something of legit value for him - a reasonable "lottery ticket"...and I agree with Hahn on that. Yes, and, like many decisions/negotiations, things tend to happen at the last minute. In this case, that's tonight.

I wonder how much leverage the Sox had in the negotiations. Did we ever learn whether Houston claimed him, or if he passed through waivers unclaimed? If the latter, the Sox could negotiate with any team. If the former, the Sox could only negotiate with Houston, and the only alternative to making a deal with them was to keep Clippard for the rest of the season. Also, I imagine that Clippard is far happier to be pitching for Houston than the Sox for the rest of this season. He has a chance at a championship. I would think that would be a good message to send to players that we might sign in the off-season -- if you sign with the Sox, they'll work with you and give you a chance to latch onto a contender in the middle of the season.

QUOTE (fathom @ Jul 15, 2017 -> 10:35 AM) Who knows, maybe the money saved from Q and Frazier goes to Nats to get better prospect for DRob I thought that money might have been earmarked for Robert.

QUOTE (GreenSox @ Jul 15, 2017 -> 09:22 AM) He had a lot of talent to work with when he took over. Looking back, I think his biggest weakness is that he frequently lacked pitching...2001-2004 was plagued with fifth starter problems; and 2012-2016 had 4th and 5th starter problems. They rent what they thought was a top of the rotation guy, when they really needed some good rotation depth. That's why I really hope that they start silently loading up on pitching as they move some of their pre arb players (who probably have some value) as they bring in the better prospects. Plus, the major league team needs some more dependable young pitching, instead of another round of Holland and Pelfrey. 4th or 5th starter types like they used to rebuild in 1990 - Eric King and Greg Hibbard were 4th starter talents, but they stabilized that 1990 rotation in what was a very quick rebuild after the team was torn down a couple of years before. What I remember from KW's early years was that (a) he was pretty good finding "diamonds in the rough" - players that hadn't done well elsewhere that the Sox were able to turn to good value, but (b) he had a tendency to be bad at big acquisitions. The one that sticks in my mind the most from those early days was Todd Ritchie. The problem with the big acquisitions, whether by trade or FA, was that failures often had to stick around on the roster for years.

QUOTE (chitownsportsfan @ Jun 30, 2017 -> 12:40 PM) I just dropped in and I see Kyle Schwarber is being targeted again? Come on. The Cubs are not going to sell rock bottom on him and frankly that's the only way I'd take him. He's looking like a 2 WAR player at best. His bat is not going to carry the rest of his flaws. He and Avi are similar except Avi can actually run. I don't understand the reluctance to trade with the Cubs (or any other team). I hope that Quintana makes whatever team gets him stronger -- now. But whatever we get from them, makes us stronger in 3 years - and them weaker in that time frame. I also don't understand the interest in Schwarber. It's not about whether he's a good player now. Based on his play last WS, I'm willing to assume that he is. But I'd rather see us get back players who are a bit earlier in their development -- ones that still need to spend at least one more year in the minors and preferably more. Schwarber, if he is as good as the Cubs hope he is, will be playing in the majors almost immediately. That means his price is higher. Let's use the time we have to our advantage to get better prospects that still need some time to get to the big leagues.