Enough, please. Stick to baseball.

Sox have a top ten farm system at the moment, potentially a top 5, though TOR, TEX, SD, STL, and PIT are probably all better.

Other excellent farm systems include ARI, KC, NYM, and CHC.

Your point about lots of great prospects playing on other clubs simply means that Boston has had excellent prospects lately and has traded them away for major league talent. It has nothing to do with the current Boston farm system (which would have graduated those guys away from the farm system even if they hadn’t traded them), and nothing to do with the future Boston farm system unless you think that Boston ownership will trade prospects to try to improve a 90-loss team.

Boston knows where it is on the success cycle at the moment, and I highly doubt they’ll trade their elite prospects to get to .500 next year. In fact, they’ve traded FOR prospects this year, as well as, through having a shit season, acquired the #7 pick for next year.

In short, yeah, Boston has plenty of quality prospects, even after trading away some the last couple of years and graduating others like Middlebrooks and Lavarnway,

You bring up a good point about the whole being greater than the sum of its parts, or as you call it, the Van Halen Phenomenon, but Martinez is ready. Again, I hate to see him go, but all I hear fom the Rays are great things about him. Scioscia begat Maddon, now Maddon begets Martinez. Martinez would be great with all of the young Latin players too. No way would he have let Yunel write something so asinine on his eye black.

Sorry, but you can’t have both Maddon and Martinez. That’s just greedy.

This doesn’t look like it’ll be a very good team next year.

Somebody’s going to have to go in there knowing the ownership/administration backs him to the hilt (and everybody else knowing, too) and cut through whatever bullshit is killing that clubhouse. He’ll have to accept losing for at least one year, probably more, and not have to worry about his job or all the harpies of the Boston press calling for his head.

Good luck with that.

Totally agree about Martinez, ‘burg. BUT I’ve always wonder how much of The Rays being consistently good was Maddon and how much was Martinez. Maybe its like Simon & Garfunkel, though? Together they were awesome. Apart…pretty good, but not as good as the duo. I know this effect as the “Van Halen Phenomenon”.

If you’re lucky, the Sox will hire Farrell and the Jays can hire Dave Martinez. I hate to lose Martinez, but he has aspirations to manage and he has great leadership skills. I thought the Jays made a huge mistake when they interviewed Martinez but didn’t hire him a couple of years ago.

But seriously, you can only sell the farm so many times before you start running low on quality, Major League-ready players. I look around baseball and see guys like Anthony Rizzo, Casey Kelly, Josh Reddick, Brandon Moss, Justin Masterson, Jed Lowrie, and others making an impact on other teams, all while the Sox are fielding a team of Pawtucket’s finest in the closing months of the season. But no, I don’t have a vast, expansive knowledge of the Red Sox farm system, so maybe they do have a couple of up-and-coming gems that we can see making an impact in Toronto in a year or two. Trade away!

1) Dave Martinez
2) Tim Bogar
3) Sandy Alomar Jr.
4) Brad Ausmus
5) Ryne Sandberg (who just got a nice job in Philly coaching 3rd)
6) John Farrell

I don’t know who in their right mind would want to manage this team, with this ownership group, with this GM, and in this city. It’s a nightmare with NOTHING good or positive surrounding it.

My bet is that they go with some Rays mojo and Dave Martinez. Everyone has a baseball hard-on for Joe Maddon so there you go. I’m not sure what kind of manager he will be. As a player I thought he was a nice compliment-type guy. Not a star, but good enough to hang around the game for 16 seasons.

Dave Martinez. Mark my words.

“Sometimes you have to punish players because they’re making the same mistakes over and over again.”

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Hmm….I guess it’s too bad they never thought to bring in a very long-tenured, respected veteran presence to perhaps relate to and lead the players as a peer. A clubhouse presence, as it were, even if it was someone who may as well swing a wet spaghetti noodle instead of a bat.

Too bad they didn’t bother to try anything like that, huh Mr. Vizquel?