Corsi said:Bobby V is irrelevant and ol Nick can't come to grips with it.
Perhaps Nick is beginning to see himself the same way.
Corsi said:Bobby V is irrelevant and ol Nick can't come to grips with it.
Smiling Joe Hesketh said:The utterly irrelevant interviewing the profoundly asinine about topics beyond their understanding. Sounds like a good analogy for the entire Globe sports dept of late.
joe dokes said:
I dont think an interview with him is a terrible idea. But having a ball-washer like Cafardo do it is. If someone would ask him questions about what mistakes he think he made, what he would have done differently, does he think now that the game has passed him by, what makes a guy like Leyland be able to go to 70, etc., it might be interesting. But the Globe has no one to do that.
My mother used to take the braided rug she made by hand to the clothesline once a week and beat the living daylights out of it with a broom to shake out the dirt.
The anger directed toward Valentine seems to escalate with every Red Sox win, which accentuates the job done by manager John Farrell this season and the failure of Valentine with the 2012 Red Sox.
Valentine, now the athletic director at Sacred Heart University in Connecticut, owner of Bobby V’s Sports Bar in Stamford, Conn., operator of a film company, and part-time guy on NBC radio, doesn’t quite get that.
Sox president and CEO Larry Lucchino and yours truly still hear it for recommending Valentine after Terry Francona presided over the awful September 2011 collapse,
which included a record number of injuries and players with questionable attitudes such as Carl Crawford, Adrian Gonzalez, and Josh Beckett,
There was all kinds of resentment, a dysfunctional coaching staff, and Valentine never helped himself with the things he said. Nowadays saying what comes immediately to your mind has to be filtered and re-filtered before the words appear in public.
“I picked them to win the division, the ALDS, the ALCS, and now the World Series,” Valentine said.
If Farrell hadn’t been traded to the Red Sox, he would have had another year to turn around a 73-win team in Toronto.
Ortiz was a Valentine backer until Valentine said at the end of last season that Ortiz decided to shut it down (because of an Achilles’ heel injury) after he knew the season was over.
Ortiz has hammered Valentine ever since.
Valentine recently lost a TBS gig because he said the Yankees didn’t do enough during the terror attacks of 9/11. He played a big role in helping with the healing process while managing the Mets. So he’s using his words carefully now. He knows just by being quoted he’ll get hammered again.
And if his mother makes rugs like her son writes, I bet it was the shittiest rug on the planet.
Yeah how bout interviewing Zim, Houk, and Johnny Mac and making it a panel discussion? LOL :q:Smiling Joe Hesketh said:
I think an interview with him is an awful idea. Why should we care about that fucking jackass any more? He piloted the ship into the iceberg, he should at least have the decency to go down with it and never be heard from again. Giving him a platform to defend himself on is a terrible idea.
Perhaps Nick can dig up Grady Little and see how he's doing these days. Maybe go visit Pinky Higgins' grave. You know, for the perspectives.
richgedman'sghost said:Yeah how bout interviewing Zim, Houk, and Johnny Mac and making it a panel discussion? LOL :q:
CoffeeNerdness said:Ciriaco would have a tough time beating out Adam Kennedy in spring training. He's got a good career batting average in Fenway Park, don'tcha know.
There’s always a great debate inside the Red Sox organization as to whether they should re-sign Jon Lester to one of those massive contracts that can run six or seven years at $20 million per season.
So true. Farrell answered it diplomatically but you could tell he was like 'Uhhhh... that's your actual question?'Corsi said:Anyone else catch Nick's brilliant question in Farrell's postgame press conference?
"The Lester‑Ross relationship, is that emerging in your eyes or is that something that you will continue to go with?"
I mean, where do you begin with this one?
The Red Sox signed him to be more than a backup. The thought was to play him more than the usual to spell Jarrod Saltalamacchia. Ross has another year left on the deal and he could very well be Boston’s No. 1 catcher next year if Saltalamacchia leaves via free agency.
Ross, at age 36, could handle about 90-100 games.
Don't we have Shaughnessy to remind us of that?John Marzano Olympic Hero said:I'm surprised that Cafardo didn't wish us all Happy 27th Anniversary of the Bill Buckner/Mookie Wilson play yesterday.
Must be slipping.
Especially where Salty had a good year and is probably useless at this point simply because he caught too many games....so Nick's solution is to set it up so someone else does the same thing at a more advanced age? Ponderous.joe dokes said:
Yeah, Nick, because history is littered with 37 year-old catchers (3/19/77) playing 90-100 effective games. (Someone better at BRef sorting can do it, but I'd bet the farm that its a couple of dozen at most.)
Especially among those who have only played more than 70 once in their life. (even fewer)
Its funny (not really, but you get it.....) as the Sox amazingness continues, writers with talent, like Finn and even Shaughnessy "up their games" and raise their own level. Meanwhile, Cafardo's ineptitude just stands out even more.What
As agent Scott Boras told us, within hours of the Red Sox winning the Series, his phone was ringing off the hook regarding Jacoby Ellsbury and Stephen Drew.
Of course they will.The Yankees will be the most intriguing team this offseason.
Yes, because if teams have learned on thing from the Sox success, its that paying big FA money to a proven closer is the sure route to a WS win.The Tigers desperately need to add to their bullpen, which is why someone like Grant Balfour could be a huge addition.
Choo is a better hitter than Ellsbury by any measure.There aren’t many elite players on the market. Ellsbury may be the best hitter, while Choo is the premier on-base guy.
32 4-inning starts willl keep his innings count down.1. The biggest thing Clay Buchholz accomplished in the World Series? He finally realized that he doesn’t have be 100 percent to be effective. Valuable lesson, and it should bode well for the Red Sox.
yes, some would.2. Some would say there’s no better time to deal John Lackey than right now.
Too bad this information wasn't available *before* the Series. Oh wait . . . . .9. Fielding Bible founder John Dewan: “The Red Sox were a good defensive team in 2013. Their defense saved them 24 runs on the season compared to an average team defensively. An average team would have zero Defensive Runs Saved. That ranked Boston tied for 11th in MLB. The Cardinals were very poor defensively. Their defense cost them 39 runs (minus-39 DRS). They came in 23d overall in baseball out of 30 teams and 14th out of 15 teams in the NL.”
doctormoist said:I don't usually join in the bashing, but to assert that Grady Little's only "crime" was letting the 'best pitcher on the planet' stay in the game, is pretty pathetic for a writer with a paying job.
Smiling Joe Hesketh said:
It's fascinating, really. He's a man who's getting dumber with more experience.
John Marzano Olympic Hero said:With the Boras stuff, he's obviously feeding his source and doing a bit of trolling too.
But with the Little paragraph (are you KIDDING me? This happened in 2003, who gives a crap?) and the Buck Martinez mention (100-115, last year managed? 2002!) he obviously slipped in the shower, bumped his head and forgot what year he's in. Next week will be an in-depth review of Apple's iPod and what the "Friends" finale meant to current Red Sox manager Joe Kerrigan.
Seriously though, I would love to know what his colleagues think about his work.
Catcher and first base would be more difficult to fill. Saltalamacchia started 111 games in 2013 and had an .804 OPS, good for fourth among American League catchers. Ross has not played more than 62 games since 2007. He will be 37 in March and expecting him to catch 85-100 games is unrealistic.
The Red Sox signed him to be more than a backup. The thought was to play him more than the usual to spell Jarrod Saltalamacchia. Ross has another year left on the deal and he could very well be Boston’s No. 1 catcher next year if Saltalamacchia leaves via free agency.
Ross, at age 36, could handle about 90-100 games.
"New Tigers manager Brad Ausmus signed up Dave Clark to be his third base coach. Clark is a superb outfield coach and great addition, but he didn't work out so well in Houston on the base paths. That's one area where the Tigers will have to cross their fingers."
Once upon a time, the World Series provided the foreplay for major deals as general managers would gather at the Fall Classic, run into each another, and start the ball rolling. The World Series is no longer that place, replaced by the GM meetings, which begin about week after the World Series, usually at a warm location (this year here in Orlando), about a month ahead of the winter meetings, where some of the deals talked about here are consummated.
But here are a few things to take away from the meetings:
■ Never believe it when a GM says a certain player isn’t going to be traded. New Marlins GM Dan Jennings already has said publicly that Giancarlo Stanton isn’t available. Everyone has a price. Any player can be traded, unless there is a contract clause that says he can’t, and even that’s negotiable. So, never believe a GM when he says he’s not shopping a player or a player is off-limits. It just isn’t so.
■ ...Don’t believe for a minute that the Tigers won’t re-sign Max Scherzer, who can be a free agent after next season, or that they’re not going to enhance the team, as we’ve read in certain circles. Why would you have Miguel Cabrera, Prince Fielder, Torii Hunter, Justin Verlander, Scherzer, and Anibal Sanchez on a team that isn’t going for it? Or why would a team with an elderly owner such as Mike Ilitch suddenly decide, when all he wants is a championship, to pull back the reins? Don’t buy it.
I typed "Dave Clark" and "base running" into Google and the top hit stated he was in charge of base running at the major league level. I suppose a few more words could have helped clarify that. I like the thought of him running into the base paths during games, though.John Marzano Olympic Hero said:But the best part is trying to decipher this sentence:
I have no idea what this means. Was Clark a shitty third base coach in Houston? Was he a bad base running coach? With that crappy Astros team, did it even matter? I mean, does this even go back to when Clark played for the Astros and may have been an adventure on the base paths?
According to Wiki, Clark was the first base coach for the Astros last year, so I'm not sure how that job translates into "not work[ing] out so well in Houston on the base paths". Whatever. Words are needed to fill up a broadsheet, just keep typing Nick.
John Marzano Olympic Hero said:It is a really dumb rumor, but didn't Massarotti say something similar earlier last week? So I wonder if it's "out there" and Cafardo is just reporting, not thinking.
John Marzano Olympic Hero said:It is a really dumb rumor, but didn't Massarotti say something similar earlier last week? So I wonder if it's "out there" and Cafardo is just reporting, not thinking.
Hoplite said:Can't we just dump Cafardo, Shaughnessy and Abraham on the Dodgers and get them to take on their salaries?