Francona out as Boston Manager

The Cubs are years away from having enough good players to make the psychological burden of their history relevant.

 

Crawford finished with a 0.0 WAR. Lackey -1.2.

http://www.baseballamerica.com/today/prospects/prospect-pulse/2011/2612417.html

 

Yep.

Not that many guys who have already won will want to take on a rebuilding project.

I'm also not sure the owners have the money to keep payroll where they would need it to win consistently, or any time soon.

 

Disagree. They have money, they have a terrible division, they have a few pieces in place. See, 2002 and 2006 offseasons. Both of those teams were just as terrible, both won the division next year.

 

The culture's still awful (you think the RED SOX were a country club, during their dark ages?), with far too many guys who don't know what it is to take a pitch. Back up the truck.

 

Fill me/us in about Beckett.

 

He'd visibly gained a lot of weight and is reportedly one of the guys quaffing beer in the clubhouse during games on off days. Somebody reported this has been going on with pitchers for two years. I am all for getting your drink on but there's a time and a place, and it isn't the workplace.

These guys have been surprisingly reasonable the last two days. Much more here:

http://sonsofsamhorn.net/topic/68409-so-who-were-the-entitled-players/

 

Huh. He was a fucking monster for the Marlins against the Yankees.

Didn't expect him to change so much.

he seemed to have that sort of Texas football mentality of Nolan Ryan and Roger Clemens.

Of course Clemens had his fat years. Maybe Beckett gets it back together.

 

It's interesting the Angels GM and Francona exit on the same day considering how much heat both teams got for not getting and getting the same player(s).

 

Any opinions on the accuracy rate of NY Post's Joel Sherman?

http://twitter.com/#!/Joelsherman1/status/120209943642112000

"I am shocked, but in last 36 hrs every exec talk to says believe #Redsox will give permssion and Theo will go to #Cubs to be GM"

 

Like I said earlier in this thread, I sometimes feel like the reporters covering the Red Sox just have a dartboard full of story ideas that they throw at. I've also heard that Tony LaRussa or Joe Torre will be managing next year from guys who cover the team every day, yet I can't imagine either coming to fruition. Since Francona is gone, I don't think the Sox are also going to throw Epstein overboard. And if they were planning to, I don't think they do that joint press conference with him the other night; they probably would have made him handle the deed himself.

 

I think you can do this sort of exercise with most teams, which shows you how perilous it can be to go into free agency looking for guys. Free agent performance is incredibly volatile, but not in the good way; you're hoping the player maintains his level of performance, but in actuality almost everyone is going to decline, since they're normally in the 27 to 34 age range. There is constant pressure on the Red Sox and Yankees to go out and get guys at the trade deadline, but the consequence is that you do lose those depth guys that can come up and plug a hole when needed.