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Tek was very disappointing in 2006, and he is certainly at the age when a catcher might fall off a cliff. That said, that was a huge drop-off last year, so it seems to me the most likely thing for him is a slight (at least) improvement.
Right?
Jesus, knock on wood or something when you say that.
It's a high variance team, more likely than other comparably talented teams to be a bust, but also more likely to win 105+ games than them. That's not really a good thing, since the cost of underperforming is higher than the benefit of overperforming.
Tek was very disappointing in 2006, and he is certainly at the age when a catcher might fall off a cliff. That said, that was a huge drop-off last year, so it seems to me the most likely thing for him is a slight (at least) improvement.
Right?
I can see the case for a slight bounce back to, oh, .260/.350/.430 or so.
That sounds about right: his career numbers are .269/.348.450. And a 780 OPS would put him right around the middle of MLB catchers, I think (I'm just eyeballing the stats at MLB; among catchers with ~400 PAs or more, there look to be about 10-12 above that number).
Tavarez is referring to CHB as CHB. Wake is rediscovering his change and curve. Delcarmen is for real. Beckett is Beckett. Dice-K is healthy, and easily the best No. 5 in MLB. Bryce Cox has no restrictions. Donnelly looks good. Schilling is hungry. Piniero and should be improved. Papelbon and Lester should be okay. Come August, Hansen might be ready to do a K-Rod.
Lugo
Youkilis
Ortiz
Manny
Drew
Lowell
Varitek
Crisp
(Yes, I'm a sucker for speed from the nine-hole.) That's not a bad lineup at all. The only thing I'm afraid of is that we're just as likely to end up with closer by committee as for anybody to emerge. On the other hand, with our rotation set up pretty well and Lester waiting in the wings, we may not need to worry too much about the pen at least to start. The best pen is often not the one with the best pitchers in it, but the one with the best starters in front of them.
Crisp will really feel insulted to be in the 9th spot in an 8-man lineup!
Crisp will really feel insulted to be in the 9th spot in an 8-man lineup!
Pedroia is already so good that mere mortals aren't allowed to type his name.
Oh crap.
yup. just a little sore from shoveling snow yesterday, but other than that, i'm ready to go!
I'm feeling pretty positive about this team. Don't love the bullpen, but I think they'll be an exciting bunch to watch (in a good way... maybe).
I'd like to see the speed lower in the order as well. Though I'd prefer
Drew
Youks
Papi
Manny
Tek
Lowell
Crisp
Lugo
Pedroia
That gives you the best chance to have guys on base ahead of Papi and Manny, which is really the best protection for them. Coco and Lugo could feel free to run ahead of Dustpan. And, as you can see I'm counting on a bounce back year from 'Tek making him valuable behind Manny - especially with his ability to hit from either side of the plate. I think .280/.365/.485 is not totally out of reach and that would certainly put him up around 80 - 85 RBI in this line-up. Go ahead and be a leader 'Tek.
"Would you like Jennifer Lopez to give you a kiss? Of course Manny wants his option picked up," Tavarez told the Herald.
What if J-Lo had herpes?
Of course, as bibigon and others point out, they could suck. Whatever. I'm excited.
We should have a contest -- rank the Red Sox starters in order of value over the season. (Whether we use Murray Chass' "wins" or BPro's "VORP" or something else is, I suppose, the first order of business.)
Me, I assume Matsuzaka > Schilling > Wakefield, but I have no idea where Beckett and Papelbon will slot in.
Papelbon over Schilling is a gut call in an upset...
Lester, Snyder, Schill, Wake, Beckett, Lil' Papi, Dice-K-san.
I'm not saying that I think that Jonathan Papelbon showed improvement or development from 2006. Philly's certainly right that such could not really be displayed in two innings. I'm saying that merely returning to 2006 form is a big deal - this is a guy whose shoulder popped out of the socket, it's in no way a given that he would return with the same fastball.
My irrational exuberance was preexisting. I think that a guy whose fastball and split are both swing-and-miss pitches doesn't really need to do much with his slider or curve other than show it occasionally. I acknowledge that we don't know yet whether as a starter Li'l Papi's top two pitches will be quite that good, and we won't get a good look at that until several starts into the year - but I think there's a really good chance he will be that good as a starting. Showing up and blowing fastballs by Utley and Howard was definitely a big deal, and I tend to think that I don't need to see a lot more development over and above him 2006 form to be very excited about Papelbon.
You could just knock on Toby's boner.
1. Every year BTF publishes their "Looking Forward..." reviews of each team. Roughly every year, one person volunteers to write it, and everyone else complain about their purported analysis (e.g. last year I said they should win somewhere between 80 and 100 wins, so I was right). While that could still happen this year, I was wondering if y'all would be interested in drafting a consensus Therapudlian view. Of course, we'd need a thread for it, and preferably not the "Irrationally Exuberant" thread.
2. On a personal note, we're targeting 4/14 or 4/15 for mrsidiom's return to Fenway. She's still wearing the ankle brace, but she's able to do much more extended walking now. (Two weekends ago she walked from Grand Central to Times Square, and then some.) And she can negotiate stairs without a railing as well, which is an essential part of getting back to her usual roost of S17/R6/S6. She's really looking forward to it, as am I, obviously.
OK, I'll take a stab at it. We can start with one thread, and post another when there's consensus in the first. Positional threads might cut too thin, so how about:
1. Rotation
2. Defense
3. Bullpen
4. Hitting
5. Baserunning
6. Health (and relevant organizational depth)
7. Coaching
8. Other / summary / overall prediction
In these threads I'm not looking for consensus on every little detail, but rather a discussion of each detail of the topic at hand and a consensus on the overall forecast.
I recommend that we table discussion of health issues until #6, and approach the forecasts for #1-5 as though there will be no health issues. I think we can reach consensus faster if we consider variance (i.e. risk that Player X gets hurt, risk that Player Y get hurt) and covariance (i.e. risk that Player X and Player Y get hurt) at the same time, and separately from the discussion of on-the-field performance.
If anyone wants more threads, we can add them as needed. Or, more likely, the season will start before we get through them all and we'll lose interest.
The above is a good proposal, I say.
That's because every year it's Malcolm, who has nothing to do with the site anymore and turns the entire preview into a rant about some perceived slight against him. A group projection would be fine with me, or if you wanted to, you could do your own and I'll post it like I did with Temple's prospect list.
I think the "Looking Forward" series has been discontinued, as none are up yet.
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