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over - under 94.5 wins for the 2010 bosox???

  • over 94.5 wins

    Votes: 7 36.8%
  • under 94.5 wins

    Votes: 12 63.2%

  • Total voters
    19
  • Poll closed .

Rx. Senior
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It started to become clear five years ago that the Red Sox were doing great a drafting, very good at trading and fairly poor at free agents. Recent years have continued to confirm that. For anyone, whether a Red Sox fan or not, to deny that must be drinking something

Given the huge discrepancies in resources along with the inherent difficulties in both paying attention to and ranking, it is hard for me to feel comfortable saying exactly where he ranks. Ask google "best baseball GMs" and Epstein ranks highly. Again, to put him in the bottom tier requires either a good deal of inborn stupidity, or perhaps a little too much drinking
 

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Any GM in a big market with cash to burn will rank highly as a GM.

If Theo had a salary cap, the Red Sox would just suck.

If you compare GM's, you have to account for resources. Theo ranks highly because he can afford to sign players like Lugo, Renteria and Drew and not have financial issues. If the Padres did what Theo has done, they wouldn't recover for 5 years.

As for drafts, teams pass on players with high salary demands, so big market MLB teams have an advantage in drafts too.

Theo is a great GM? All things being equal (and they're not) he is in the bottom half.
 

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At least the Brewers are paying for most of Bill Hall's contract.
 

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For every bad Minaya signing that cost 20+ million in dead money, I can give you one more than you for Theo. I will start.

Lugo
Renteria

Now for Boston's best players:

Beckett - traded for by Luchino
Veritek, Pedro, Manny were here before Theo
Ortiz was an accident because they signed him to backup Jeremy Giambi

In case you want to play, Theo paid 3 pitchers 20 million combined just to take a flyer in 2007 and 2008.

Name the mistakes Minaya has made.
 

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... and don't get me going with 5 years 70 million for JD Drew and the moronic contracts that Theo gave Beltre and Lugo.

Oh, he has had 2 huge trades fall apart and has had to take back his players. Has that happened to any other GM? Doubt it
 
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For every bad Minaya signing that cost 20+ million in dead money, I can give you one more than you for Theo. I will start.

Lugo
Renteria

Now for Boston's best players:

Beckett - traded for by Luchino
Veritek, Pedro, Manny were here before Theo
Ortiz was an accident because they signed him to backup Jeremy Giambi

In case you want to play, Theo paid 3 pitchers 20 million combined just to take a flyer in 2007 and 2008.

Name the mistakes Minaya has made.

How about the $100 Million they pissed away for Dice K?

^<<^
 

Rx. Senior
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Baseball teams make dozens of decisions about players every year, which overall adds up to hundreds in the few years Epstein has been around. The only way to measure the success or failure is as a total, not five or six examples. Again, it is easy to see the team has done poorly with free agents and very well drafting and decent enough with trades to at least find Curt Schilling and a catcher

Overall the team is more successful than other franchises with similar payrolls
 

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They have done well.

As for payroll, I agree too ... BUT THAT IS MY POINT.

Their REVENUE far exceeds that of the Dodgers, Mets, Cards, Angels and White Sox but their PAYROLL is similar.

Which means they're pocketing a lot more than other teams. They have sellouts every night, they have the highest ticket prices and their own TV network. So why shouldn't they be able to have a payroll slightly lower than New York's?

They are caught with dead money. They paid for Penny, Smoltz, And Oswalt instead of paying for Sabathia or Santana. They are still paying for Lugo and Renteria instead of signing Cabrera. They paid for Drew and balked when asked to pay 20 million less for Damon. They trashed Bay as a liability and signed Cameron. They have $25 million invested in dead money in Ortiz and Lowell.

They feed people a bunch of lines, trash players (Bay, Cabrera, Ramirez, Gonzalez) as liabilities or cancers if they don't sign them ...
 

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Which means they're pocketing a lot more than other teams.

Isn't that the overall goal that everyone in upper management is trying to help achieve (even if the idea sold to the customer as something else)?

It sounds like you are saying he is doing a bad job for doing exactly what he is supposed to do so well
 

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Isn't that the overall goal that everyone in upper management is trying to help achieve (even if the idea sold to the customer as something else)?

It sounds like you are saying he is doing a bad job for doing exactly what he is supposed to do so well

It's great .... until the kool aid runs out and the product doesn't sell ... and for the Red Sox, the tickets are almost as important as TV viewership because they own 80% of NESN.

... and hence this thread ... how many people are still drinking the kool aid?

As much as people talk about loyal Red Sox fans ... it's a freaking myth. Fenway would be half empty in the 70's and parts of the 80's.

Red Sox Nation is a bandwagon ... not a thick-or-thin group of fans.
 

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For Example:

They are caught with dead money. They paid for Penny, Smoltz, And Oswalt instead of paying for Sabathia or Santana. They are still paying for Lugo and Renteria instead of signing Cabrera

The draft picks they received as compensation for Cabrera turned into Ellsbury (and Lowrie). Because of the union, Youkilis, Pedroia, Ellsbury, Lester, Bucholtz, Papelbon, Bard, et cetera, are all paid significantly less than the free market would dictate (Yes, Youkilis and I think Lester were drafted before Epstein arrived, but he was the one who locked them up to long term deals). To only focus on one side and completely ignore the other side, is something second graders do

Again, with so many hundreds of player decisions a GM makes, the only correct evaluation looks at the entire roster and won-loss record. Feel free to adjust for both costs and revenue and it still requires a great deal of drunkenness to think the Red Sox have not far exceeded the MLB average over the past seven years
 

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Ok.

4-9 so far and things will NOT get better.

At some point, the fans will grade them on this year and not the past 7 years. At some point, they'll be forced to sign a legit player or two. As much as they would like the fans to believe Drew, Beltre and Cameron are the solution, the games will be the barometer and they'll be forced to use some of that money or risk losing fans and more importantly, advertising dollars.
 

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I'm not a Sox fan, but I can't bash them just yet.

It's April 19th, the season hasn't even begun yet.

Theo was at the helm for to WS rings in a few short years. I'm from the school he deserves a little more time before this season is judged.

For the record, I'm not a big fan of their 2010 lineup either.

I think the Yankees were 20-30 last year late May, and many people were saying the same type of shit then that they're saying now about the RS.
 

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http://sports.espn.go.com/boston/mlb/columns/story?columnist=lundblad_jeremy&id=5207391


Friday, May 21, 2010
Are Red Sox already too far behind?

<HR width="100%" noShade SIZE=1>
By Jeremy Lundblad
ESPN Stats and Information

<!-- template inline -->
The Boston Red Sox are heating up. Sure, it's only a three-game win streak. But in a season in which they've yet to win more than four in a row, this feels downright tropical. On Friday, the Red Sox could move to three games over .500 for the first time all year.

But, just a quarter into the season, could it already be too late?

Even with a soon-to-be replenished outfield and key bats waking up, injuries and inconsistencies linger. Meanwhile, the Tampa Bay Rays and New York Yankees, both division rivals, feature the two best records in the American League. Boston is 8½ games out in the division and 3½ games back in the wild-card race, behind three teams.

So have the Red Sox already dug too deep of a hole for themselves? History indicates that Boston may need a storybook finish. Prognostications paint an even uglier picture.

AccuScore.com projects postseason probability using the average results of 10,000 season simulations. According to their forecast entering Thursday, both New York and Tampa Bay stand a better than 80 percent chance of making the postseason. Meanwhile, the Red Sox make the playoffs in only 7.6 percent of simulations. Those long odds are largely the result of taking the AL East title just 1.7 percent of the time.

AccuScore's AL East playoff percentages entering Thursday

(Based on 10,000 simulations)
<TABLE><THEAD><TR><TH>Team</TH><TH>Avg. W-L </TH><TH>Make Playoffs (%)</TH><TH>Win Division (%)</TH><TH>Win Wild Card (%)</TH></TR></THEAD><TBODY><TR class=last><TD>New York Yankees</TD><TD>99-63</TD><TD>83.8</TD><TD>52.2</TD><TD>31.6</TD></TR><TR class=last><TD>Tampa Bay Rays</TD><TD>98-64</TD><TD>80.4</TD><TD>44.2</TD><TD>36.2</TD></TR><TR class=last><TD>Boston Red Sox</TD><TD>83-79</TD><TD>7.6</TD><TD>1.7</TD><TD>5.9</TD></TR><TR class=last><TD>Toronto Blue Jays</TD><TD>81-81</TD><TD>7.2</TD><TD>1.9</TD><TD>5.3</TD></TR><TR class=last><TD>Baltimore Orioles</TD><TD>63-99</TD><TD>0.0</TD><TD>0.0</TD><TD>0.0</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>


Not surprisingly, the Red Sox need key players to raise their game, while hoping their competition falters. For example, Dustin Pedroia is projected to hit .298 over the rest of the season, according to AccuScore's Stephen Oh. But in the simulations in which Boston makes the playoffs, Pedroia averaged .335 at the plate. On the mound, Josh Beckett is projected to finish 9-10 overall but averaged a 14-6 record in simulations in which the Red Sox are bound for the postseason. These are not minor differences, but they are also not improbable.

Another forecasting site, CoolStandings.com, paints an even bleaker picture. Entering Thursday, the Red Sox were given a 5.8 percent chance of making the playoffs (0.9 percent for the division :ohno:, 4.9 percent for the wild card). Again, Boston is enormously hindered by the quality of its divisional foes. Consider the following: The Nationals are considered more likely to make the postseason, and the lowly Indians are given a better chance of taking home a divisional crown.

While the percentages differ slightly, both forecasters are extremely bearish on Boston's chances to take down the AL East (Baseball Prospectus is a bit more optimistic). That pessimism is no surprise with both the Rays and Yankees on pace for more than 100 wins. While one could certainly fall off that pace, the Red Sox need both to falter to grab the division.

That leaves the wild card, which means one thing: 94 wins -- at least. Over the last 14 years, the average AL wild-card winner won 94.9 games. Meanwhile, no AL team has missed the playoffs with 94 or more wins in the wild-card era. The 1999 Reds, who won 96 games, are the only such NL team to come up short. Sure, teams have captured the wild card with as few as 88 wins, but given the competition atop the AL East, even 94 wins seems conservative in 2010.

<TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 align=right border=0><TBODY><TR><TD width=5 rowSpan=2><SPACER height="1" type="block" width="5"></TD><TD width=300>
bos_a_lester_sy_300.jpg
</TD></TR><TR><TD width=300>[FONT=verdana, arial, geneva]The Red Sox will need Jon Lester to stay hot deep into the summer if they hope to make a run at the Yankees and Rays. In his last four starts, he is 3-0 with a 2.32 ERA.[/FONT]</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>

Of course, these forecasts are just that -- educated estimations based on historical data and trends. Weather in New England is notoriously difficult to predict, but just imagine if meteorologists attempted a 120-day forecast. The numbers do provide excellent context for just how difficult Boston's climb would be. But they can't possibly take into account future transactions, injuries or late-season magic.

In 1914, the Boston Braves were in dead last at 26-40 after losing both games in a Fourth of July doubleheader. According to the CoolStandings.com formula, they stood a less than 1 percent chance of making the playoffs at that point. They proceeded to go 68-19 the rest of the way and won the World Series.

Then there are the 1975 Reds, who at this point in the season barely resembled the team now considered one of the best ever assembled. At 12-12, manager Sparky Anderson asked Pete Rose to move from left field to third base to open up an outfield spot for George Foster. Rose, a former Gold Glover in left, agreed to the switch despite not having played the hot corner for nine years (and even then for only 16 games). Just like the 2010 Red Sox, the Reds were 19-20 after 39 games. The rest is history -- albeit one Red Sox fans would rather forget. Cincinnati finished with 108 wins on the way to the title.

Unless the current Red Sox lineup is hiding four Hall of Fame caliber hitters along with a future home run champ on the bench, no one is actually comparing this team to the '75 Reds. However, history tells us not to blindly trust the odds. Even the 2009 Yankees started just 17-17 while treading water without Alex Rodriguez.

A full rebound from such a slow start is not unprecedented in Red Sox history, but it is quite rare. After Monday's heartbreaking loss to the Yankees, the Red Sox stood at 19-20 -- 8½ games out of first place and 3½ games behind Toronto for third in the division.

Only twice have the Red Sox made the playoffs after being under .500 that late in the season. Both summers attained legendary status in Red Sox lore, and are perhaps the only two seasons immediately identifiable by a nickname: Impossible Dream and Morgan Magic.

Uphill climb for Red Sox

Latest into the season Red Sox teams that have made the postseason have been under .500.
<TABLE><THEAD><TR><TH>Year</TH><TH>Start</TH><TH>Final W-L</TH></TR></THEAD><TBODY><TR class=last><TD>1988</TD><TD>31-32</TD><TD>89-73</TD></TR><TR class=last><TD>1967</TD><TD>19-20</TD><TD>92-70</TD></TR><TR class=last><TD>1916</TD><TD>17-18</TD><TD>91-63</TD></TR><TR class=last><TD>1975</TD><TD>14-15</TD><TD>95-65</TD></TR><TR class=last><TD>1915</TD><TD>14-15</TD><TD>101-50</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE> >>2010: 19-20 after Monday's loss


In 1967, the Red Sox were also 19-20 through 39 games. As late as June 18, they were still at .500 (31-31) with a 3.0 percent chance at the postseason, according to CoolStandings. On Aug. 14, the Red Sox were still in fifth place in the 10-team American League. However, the "Impossible Dream" of a postseason was realized thanks to 32 wins in the final 49 games.

The 1988 season offered an even more improbable playoff run. The Red Sox were 31-32 on June 18 and in fourth place going into the All-Star break. When Joe Morgan replaced John McNamara, the Red Sox had a 5.1 percent chance at the postseason. But after winning Morgan's first 12 games as manager, that number jumped to 24.6 percent. Riding the "Morgan Magic" for the rest of the season, Boston took over first place Sept. 4, never to look back.

Are we already at the point where only dreams and magic can save their season? The addition of the wild card certainly improves their chances, but the Red Sox have a long road ahead. The three-game win streak is a start.

One thing seems clear: If the Red Sox do turn it around, it will be a summer to remember -- the kind that might require a nickname.

Jeremy Lundblad is a researcher with ESPN Stats & Information. He provides statistical analysis for ESPNBoston.com.
 

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last 2 years I took the under /w my local for the Sox wins total and lost, now this year I layoff 'cause of my move...

^<<^
 

Rx. Senior
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Second in scoring runs all year. Despite the horrible start, run prevention is slowly creeping toward league average. That pace may quicken as league average starts to increase

There's always the hope they can reach the playoffs, even though the odds are less than even right now. But blaming Epstein because of geography is even more irrational than giving him credit because of what the players are doing
 
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Second in scoring runs all year. Despite the horrible start, run prevention is slowly creeping toward league average. That pace may quicken as league average starts to increase

There's always the hope they can reach the playoffs, even though the odds are less than even right now. But blaming Epstein because of geography is even more irrational than giving him credit because of what the players are doing

11 games above .500, 3 games out of first, and 3 games out of wild card. I like their chances.
 

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Lookee here - despite having to hire Hawkeye, Trapper John and Hotlips the Red Sox are in the thick of a race.

American League
East W L Pct GB Home
New York Yankees 46 28 .622
Boston Red Sox 46 31 .597 1.5
Tampa Bay Rays 44 31 .587 2.5


Jon Lester blew away Tim Lincecum and The Giants today 5-1. Big Papi put one in McCovey Cove (the first ball to take a dip this year) for his 16th Big Fly of 2010 with 47 RBI while Adrian Beltre got to the plate even though he was in as a defensive replacement and jacked his 12th of the year to go with 52 RBI.

Lincecum was trying to finish an unbeaten June after allowing only four earned runs over 22 innings for a 1.64 ERA in winning his previous three starts. He allowed that many alone in his three innings Sunday, giving up five hits, striking out four and walking one. 79 pitches in 3 innings with only 44 for strikes. Obviously the kid had an off day that shit hapens to the best of them.

Incidentally Andy Pettitte is down 5-0 to Clayton Kershaw and the Blue..Bottom of 4th..

Line on Lester: 9IP 5 Hits 1ER 1BB 9Ks 103 pitches with 76 for strikes - goes to 9-3 with an ERA of 2.86 and a 1.11 WHIP for the season.

Despite a slew of injuries including a minor (we hope) foot injury to Dustin Pedroia a Hyper Extended knee to Clay Bucholtz, and Victor Martinez having to come out in the third inning today after taking a foul off his left thumb breaking it, then off his foot, like Pedroia did Friday night the Red Cross Sox went 3-3 on the west coast swing. No thanks to Jonathon Papelbon who blew two saves but got one back last night.


If Lester isn't on that All Star team along with Bucholtz (if healthy) it will be a sin. Lester should start but we know Joe G. is going with his man C.C. and that ain't all bad.

I am done for the day you all will be pleased to hear..


wil...@):)
 
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