Archive for the ‘Boston Reporters’ Category

Juh, Dan Shaughnessy?

Posted by Andrew Stoeten under Boston Reporters, Mailing in a Post on Jan 08, 2013

I have nothing close to an idea what the hell this even means, and anyone who has been reading here for a while knows that I’m not exactly the first person you’d think would be standing up for the honour of Cito Gaston, but I have a hard time wondering just what the fuck Boston Globe columnist Dan Shaughnessy was getting at when, in the course of calling the Houston Texans useless and a pitiful opponent who’ll be decimated by the New England Patriots on the weekend, he pulled this out of his tattered, old, mothball-filled bag of tricks:

On Saturday, the Texans staggered to a 6-point win against a team that hasn’t won a playoff game in 22 years. It was one of the ugliest games in NFL playoff history. Playing in the image of Marvin Lewis — the Cito Gaston of football — Cincinnati’s offense managed two field goals.

Uh… can someone fill me in here? Has Marvin Lewis ever coached a team to a championship? Did he get fired by the Bengals at some point and then come back? Does he have a reputation for not making substitutions? Stealing signals?

Is he supposedly still coasting on being the Ravens’ defensive coordinator in 2000? Is that it???

Is it even a shot at Gaston? Is it praise? I have no idea!!!

I mean, I know we’re kinda supposed to just be polite and let the elderly drift off into the sunset, avoiding upsetting them too much by pointing out their “quaint” foibles like ball-hammeringly confusing statements and/or casual racism, but… the fuck?

Seriously, please fill me in if you actually comprehend this!

 

Crotch grab in the direction of Deadspin. Image via CSNNE.com.

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As The Farrell Turns: October 20th

Posted by Andrew Stoeten under Boston Reporters, John Farrell on Oct 20, 2012

Yes, it’s more insufferable fucking John Farrell talk. But thankfully the saga may finally be nearing its conclusion, seeing as Bud Selig does not care for major announcements being made during the World Series– which begins Wendesday– so a lot of folks seem to believe that it’s in the interest of both the Jays and the Red Sox to resolve this whole John Farrell mess– or, potentially, and far, far worse, the John Farrell plus two thirds of the damn coaching staff mess.

Joe McDonald and Gordon Edes of ESPN Boston have spoken to a source who say that the Red Sox have asked the Jays for permission to speak to Farrell himself, ostensibly about a contract.

“The source guessed it would take a player or players of ‘substantial value’ for the Jays to allow Farrell to go to a division rival,” they add, “though the source did not have direct knowledge of the negotiations, which are taking place on multiple levels of each organization.”

Dr. Rosen Rosen writes at Fox Sports that “discussions between the Blue Jays and Red Sox about that compensation are reaching an advanced stage.”

He also has a source that echoes what we heard from Jon Heyman yesterday at CBS, who was told by a source that the Jays’ people “would charter a jet to get him out.”

“There’s no question it gets done in my mind,” a rival executive told Rosenthal. “Toronto doesn’t want him there anymore.”

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Boston Media Roundup: All Farrell, All the Time

Posted by Andrew Stoeten under Boston Reporters, John Farrell on Oct 18, 2012

Come on. Did you really think that today’s bout of Farrellmania would end with Boston Globe writer Nick Cafardo’s oddly vague tweet last night?

There’s pageviews to be had! And damn it if everybody else in Beantown isn’t going to make sure they get in on the act.

This morning we have Alex Speier of WEEI.com, saying that he has an “industry source” that confirms Cafardo’s initial report, that “the Red Sox and Blue Jays have begun preliminary discussions about potential compensation for Toronto manager John Farrell.”

Of course, “preliminary discussions” could mean a lot of things. It could simply be that the Jays are listening to what Boston might offer in exchange for their manager, which they entirely owe it to themselves and to the franchise to do. The Sox may– and sure as shit appear to– be too desperate to make this happen for the Jays to do anything but let their man go and extract the highest price possible for him, and how else are they going to find out if Boston has reached that point unless they feel out what kinds of compensation is going to be available?

Simple enough. Yet believing that means we have to believe the Jays even want Farrell to continue on as their manager, or that he is as open to winding up in either place as he’s publicly suggested.

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Cafardo: Red Sox “Trying To Work Out Compensation” For Farrell

Posted by Andrew Stoeten under Boston Reporters, John Farrell on Oct 18, 2012

Where’d his camera and green Sox hat go?

With precisely the amount of vagueness needed to make it sound as though something has perhaps dramatically changed– um… maybe?–since last we were privy to whatever the Boston media has deigned to let dribble out of their mouths in our direction regarding John Farrell, the Boston Globe’s Nick Cafardo gave birth to a tweet late Wednesday evening:

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Farrell or Un-Farrell, Boston Rumours Continue

Posted by Andrew Stoeten under Boston Reporters, John Farrell on Sep 06, 2012

Welp. I think I can no longer just keep on rolling my eyes at the once-again ubiquitous rumours about John Farrell being pursued by the Boston Red Sox, as it seems to be the hot topic of the day, with the Jays headed to Boston, and with current Sox manager Bobby Valentine continuing to make it seem like his staying beyond this season is an untenable proposition.

Parkes has an excellent piece on it at Getting Blanked, with the latest dish from Nick Cafardo of  the Boston Globe, who says that Farrell is Boston’s top choice, suggests that talks to “trade” the manager to Boston last winter may have gone deeper than we assumed, and thinks that the Jays would love to add the recently-acquired Rubby De La Rosa . Bluebird Banter and the Blue Jay Hunter also have pieces about it as well.

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Cafardo: Escobar Won’t Move from Short Easily

Posted by Andrew Stoeten under Adeiny Hechavarria, Boston Reporters, Yunel Escobar on Mar 12, 2012

The last time I checked, JP Ricciardi is no longer running the Blue Jays, so it seems a little odd– if not a bit nostalgic– that a new tidbit of information about the club could be coming out of Boston. But that could be what we’ve got, by way of Nick Cafardo of the Boston Globe. He writes:

“What needs to happen – maybe not immediately, but perhaps by next season – is that Escobar must move to second base to make room for Cuban shortstop Adeiny Hechavarria. Escobar loves being a shortstop, so there is a bit of trepidation among some in the organization as to how he will accept this. Escobar is a very good shortstop who could start for many teams, but the Jays have their version of Jose Iglesias; they think Hechavarria is going to be pretty special.”

OK, so maybe anybody could have told you that it’s probably going to be a bit weird to ask an in-his-prime shortstop like Escobar to move over for Hechavarria, once he’s ready to make the jump to the Majors– and, let’s not get ahead of ourselves here, there are still big questions about whether his bat will play at the MLB level– but it’s interesting to hear that the Jays themselves, at least some of them, think this might be a problem. It’s not quite akin to working up the nerve to ask Vernon Wells to move out of centre field, which the club never seemed prepared to do, but it’s close.

Perhaps more interesting is that the club thinks Hechavarria is going to force the issue.

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Cafardo: On Boras, Jays Interest in Gavin Floyd

Posted by Andrew Stoeten under Boston Reporters, Bullshit Rumours, Gavin Floyd, Uncategorized on Mar 05, 2012

Here’s a tidbit that came across the wire (read MLB Trade Rumors) this weekend, from Nick Cafardo of the Boston Globe:

Gavin Floyd of the White Sox “continues to be a focus of teams looking for one more starter,” Cafardo writes. “He could be in play for the Blue Jays or Red Sox. The White Sox don’t appear eager to move Floyd, but general manager Kenny Williams wouldn’t be shy if it brought him a decent bounty in return.”

No word on what Floyd’s cousin thinks of all this.

So… there’s that.

He adds some interesting stuff from his chat with Scott Boras, who was in New England for MIT’s Sloan Conference this week. Boras “thinks that because the superpowers in baseball are going to save money on the luxury tax and can’t spend it in the draft because of restrictions in the new Basic Agreement, trade-deadline activity will decrease in time.”

Cafardo continues that the super agent “figures the savings will simply be profit because the money can’t go toward scouting and player development.”

“Not only will the Red Sox and Yankees benefit by paying no luxury tax if they stay under $189 million by 2014, they also will see a significant decrease in the amount of revenue sharing they must pony up,” he adds. But there will be no place for those clubs to put the saved money, due to the strict penalties on clubs spending over their draft allotment.”

“Any team now that is a successful team annually and says, ‘We’re about player development,’ well, their entire player development budget is going to be about $6 million-$7 million a year. And that’s not a team that’s entirely about player development when you’re making $400 million-$500 million a year,” Boras explains. “It’s just something that has really taken one of the most important aspects of our game – which is scouting – and put it in the back seat for almost 12-13 teams, really, and the most successful teams. The consequences of that are really detrimental to the franchises that create a great part of the economic success of the game.”

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