Schilling playing for a contract..

[DarrylS]

guess Schilling is gonna try the free agent waters at the end of the year, might be good for us. On the other hand, might be a cancer, he has a pretty big mouth. I was mixed on signing him, but now against it as he is already flapping his jaws on the airways.

 

[TomBrady'sGoat]

i don't see any benefit to schilling playing for a contract. he's not the kind of guy who can suddenly try harder, as he goes all-out to begin with.

I don't think it was worth the risk to sign him before spring training. If he has a great year and costs 16M instead of 13M next year then so be it. They might also want to use the money on a member of a bumper crop of free agents, including Zambrano. This of course assumes the belief that this year is an exception and they intend to hang around the luxury tax threshhold going forward; otherwise signing schilling wouldn't effect other signings.

 

[Double G]

He's off to a roaring start, at the rate he's going, him "playing for a contract" means he'll be making minimum wage next year, someone should have told him the season started today.........

 

[patriotspride]

He's off to a roaring start, at the rate he's going, him "playing for a contract" means he'll be making minimum wage next year, someone should have told him the season started today.........

he looked like a 50 year old out there today and against the royals .thats pretty bad .im not optimistic about the sox this year .i don't like there line up.im not high on coco lugo or pedroia and i don't expect much from tek either .

 

[TomBrady'sGoat]

this was one of his bad ones. even the best pitchers get some of those each year. hopefully he can bounce back and prove it an aberration.

There's no reason why a 40 year old Schilling can't be a 15-win (with a good offense behind him), 4 era pitcher. Hoping for much more than that is probably not realistic though.

he looked like a 50 year old out there today and against the royals .thats pretty bad .im not optimistic about the sox this year .i don't like there line up.im not high on coco lugo or pedroia and i don't expect much from tek either .

I'm still high on any lineup featuring Manny and Ortiz. Compare this lineup to last year, when the team suffered a bunch of injuries and down years and still was the 6th best offense in the AL:

Lugo is an improvement over Gonzalez, and potentially a big improvement if he plays like he did last year before the trade
Drew is a big improvement over Trot (I loved Trot as much as most but he was pretty bad last year when all he could do was draw a walk)
Pedroia can't be any worse than Loretta, and will likely be better (I don't know why so many Sox fans don't realize just how bad Loretta was last year). And pedroia won't be killing the Sox out of the 2-hole.
Coco was bad last year when he was injured all year. I'd like to say he can't be worse, but who knows. His career before last year says he's a much better player than he was last year.
Tek was bad last year and there is little reason to expect much else this year.
Lowell could be worse than last year, and isn't likely to be as good as he was.
There's no reason to expect any drop-off from Manny. he's a year older but shouldn't miss a month+ at the end of the season due to injury (or dogging it if you prefer that view).
Ortiz could regress a little from a monster year.
Youk should show a little improvement as he develops and reaches his peak seasons.

They have 2 players/positions where regression can be expected: Ortiz (any regression should not be significant) and Lowell. They have 2 players who should be a big upgrade over their replacements: Drew and Lugo. They have 2 guys who should be moderate improvements: Pedroia and Youk. Manny is Manny. They then have the two guys who can't be much worse than last year, Tek and Coco. Nothing can be done about Tek, whereas Coco can be replaced (Wily Mo, Ellsbury) if he gets worse.

We've just been spoiled by offenses like the '03 and '04 squads, and expecting that every year isn't realistic. Then again, at the beginning of '03 no one was psyched up about Ortiz, Millar, and Mueller (but Jeremy Giambi was going to be the man!). Let's give guys like Lugo, Pedroia, and Coco (though I'm not holding my breath) a chance to prove themselves.

 

[sdaniels7114]

I ain't no Rem dog; but my understanding of the mechanics of a Splitter is that it dives when it looses some velocity. That's supposed to happen just before it gets to the batter and its why its such a popular pitch with the older, not quite as strong, guys. If a pitcher's extra pumped up though, it won't slow down, so it won't dive. That might be a partial explanation for why he sucked so bad yesterday; but I couldn't say why his off speed stuff was so hittable. The Royals are a little better; but not enough to explain that.

 

[Real World]

There are 161 more games to go. Relax people.

 

[patriotspride]

this was one of his bad ones. even the best pitchers get some of those each year. hopefully he can bounce back and prove it an aberration.

There's no reason why a 40 year old Schilling can't be a 15-win (with a good offense behind him), 4 era pitcher. Hoping for much more than that is probably not realistic though.



I'm still high on any lineup featuring Manny and Ortiz. Compare this lineup to last year, when the team suffered a bunch of injuries and down years and still was the 6th best offense in the AL:

Lugo is an improvement over Gonzalez, and potentially a big improvement if he plays like he did last year before the trade
Drew is a big improvement over Trot (I loved Trot as much as most but he was pretty bad last year when all he could do was draw a walk)
Pedroia can't be any worse than Loretta, and will likely be better (I don't know why so many Sox fans don't realize just how bad Loretta was last year). And pedroia won't be killing the Sox out of the 2-hole.
Coco was bad last year when he was injured all year. I'd like to say he can't be worse, but who knows. His career before last year says he's a much better player than he was last year.
Tek was bad last year and there is little reason to expect much else this year.
Lowell could be worse than last year, and isn't likely to be as good as he was.
There's no reason to expect any drop-off from Manny. he's a year older but shouldn't miss a month+ at the end of the season due to injury (or dogging it if you prefer that view).
Ortiz could regress a little from a monster year.
Youk should show a little improvement as he develops and reaches his peak seasons.

They have 2 players/positions where regression can be expected: Ortiz (any regression should not be significant) and Lowell. They have 2 players who should be a big upgrade over their replacements: Drew and Lugo. They have 2 guys who should be moderate improvements: Pedroia and Youk. Manny is Manny. They then have the two guys who can't be much worse than last year, Tek and Coco. Nothing can be done about Tek, whereas Coco can be replaced (Wily Mo, Ellsbury) if he gets worse.

We've just been spoiled by offenses like the '03 and '04 squads, and expecting that every year isn't realistic. Then again, at the beginning of '03 no one was psyched up about Ortiz, Millar, and Mueller (but Jeremy Giambi was going to be the man!). Let's give guys like Lugo, Pedroia, and Coco (though I'm not holding my breath) a chance to prove themselves.

lugo is a upgrade with the bat only .drew is a upgrade if he can stay of the dl .coco is still complaning about his freakin finger .pedroia isnt close to the player lorreta was last year.dont waste your time with lorettas stats .he gave himself up on a regular basis to move runners over .