Tek Mate: Another Former Catcher Retires

Bobby V is running his mouth again…I think I’m really going to hate the Sox again this year. Not much to hate about Francona, dude was pure class, Bobby is a bridge troll by comparison. Not to mention not in the same class in terms of actually winning.

Krueg, don’t start hating them again, not yet at least. This is Valentine’s way of deflecting from last year’s debacle, his ban on alcohol in the clubhouse and his ace’s quest to find find last year’s snitch in the clubhouse. His comments had nothing to do with the Yankees and all to do with him trying to change the focus. It’s the beginnings of a Boston Rex Ryan, minus the boastful guarantees. Big picture he should be focused on his lack of a SS, the platoon situation in RF and the back end of their rotation but for now he’s deflecting. Not to mention he’s replacing a very well liked and respected manager among the players.
By the way can you tell he hasn’t managed in a long time? He picks the flip and Tek fighting with his mask on to comment about? Next up Bucky Dent’s HR.
On topic: Tek is probably my LFRS of all time. I really, really dislike him as a player. I am sure he’s probably a great guy, but as a player him and Papi are tops on my list. I will not miss him one bit. In my dream scenario someone would have plunked him in one the final yankee/sox games last season then A-Rod charge in and whisper in his ear “We don’t throw at .221 hitters”…To his credit his teammates loved him, pitchers loved throwing to him and he was (for a time) one of the games best offensive catchers. He has a career he should certainly be proud of.

Couldn’t agree more with your critique of Valentine, John.
The funny thing is I’m not going to be surprised if they play well for him. He’ll put the best team on the field and the right guys (Pedroia, Bard, Lester, Crawford) will play well for him. The question is whether they have enough talent at the margins to avoid third place again. Beckett may not be happy but he has to come up huge this year.

Wow, it’s a little early in the season to start seeing JamesYF trolling YFSF, isn’t it?

James, leave SF and Paul out of your comments. You want to troll the people that are here, we can defend ourselves but no reason to include them. And again, they aren’t avoiding YFSF, they have other things going on. There’s no correlation. Just talk baseball with those that are here.

Ugh, you too krueg? And after the SF overlords almost banned you while you were carrying this site through the 2010 season?
Funny how they don’t show up when their team encounters an epic collapse. And after all the homerific talk we had to endure last February. Remember how awesome Carl Crawford was going to be? Heh.

If you want to shake things up then hiring a manager who is clearly a my-way-or-the-highway kind of guy may be just what the doctor ordered. Having said that, Bobby’s choice of subjects was ridiculous for the reasons you state John. Not to mention plainly wrong (both re: the Yankees practicing that play AND the bizarre comment that Giambi would have been out if Jeter had let the ball go — but for the laws of physics that statement might be plausible).
As for the Yankee reaction, I actually thought A-Rod’s reaction was even better than Jeter’s (“I’m not going to win a war of words, especially with Bobby V”). That comment is at the same time pithy, self-deprecating, feigning respect for Bobby, and yet insulting him all at the same time. I have to say that whatever the Yankees did with A-Rod post-PED exposure to work on his public statements has worked. He either says nothing of interest these days (the Derek Jeter school of PR) or drops a gem like this response to Bobby V. I won’t put it past A-Rod to land on the back-pages of the tabloids some day soon, but from the 2009 season on he has not been the aggravating distraction I had become accustomed to. Now if he would just start raking again.
dc, the no-post on Jeter’s milestone last year is largely my fault as I called that I would put one up and then just didn’t. I had a monster Godzilla-post forming in my mind, started doing the research, got swamped with other things, and let it all slide. A brief celebratory post at least would have been infinitely better. My apologies to all on that. The milestone itself was great, but the way he did it on a HR as part of a 5-for-5 day in a nip and tuck day when they needed every one of those hits was pure Jeter brilliance. I am ashamed.

Here, here krueg. I so prefer debating with SF or Paul than I do dealing with trolls, even if they happen to be fellow-yfs.

“…dc, the no-post on Jeter’s milestone last year is largely my fault as I called that I would put one up and then just didn’t. …I am ashamed….”
well, it’s over now…my hurt feelings are healed…hahaha…i simply thought that with 6 or so mods, someone would have found the time to put up a one-liner…didn’t even need a picture…it shouldn’t be an yf/sf thing…gerb did the one about varitek retiring…and he may have done the one about wake retiring…he’s picked up nicely for you slackers…hahaha
i agree john…i don’t think those guys are afraid of us…rather, like me, they may have lost interest when the team started to decline into this rather odd off-season, and let other life priorities shift some of their focus…nothing wrong with that at all…not much to get excited about just yet…i’ve always considered myself a diehard loyal yf, but i’d be fibbing if i told you i don’t lose focus when they stink…and now, thanks to this rivalry, i need both teams to be doing well…shame on me

It’s going to be very easy for YFs to point to Bobby V as a buffoon and a boob. He will undoubtedly make enough boneheaded remarks to cause YFs to point and laugh and rational self-respecting SFs like you s_w to roll their eyes. But of course, none of that matters. If his team wins, his act will be tolerated in Boston – even lauded and credited by some – and it will annoy the hell out of YFs who at base will really just be annoyed that the Sox are winning. And if the Sox lose, I imagine his act will get old for SFs very very fast.

I LOVED Francona. Maybe he got a little too complacent in the clubhouse, but he was my favorite manager.
Bobby V is a big-mouthed PR stunt. I couldn’t stand him as a commentator, and based on the last few weeks I can tell I’m not going to like him as a manager.

Basically don’t give a shit about Valentine as media pot-stirrer; I pay little attention to the sports radio/TV part of things, only looking at highlights or pieces of interviews after wins. Hope he at least does/says some funny stuff if he’s going to embarrass himself/us a lot of the time.
Will form opinion of his in-game strategy starting with the formation of the roster (I think not giving Bard and Doubront their shot would be stupid, and that Aceves belongs in the pen–also 80% of rotation home-grown, awesome even if the 4/5 suck eggs, can’t be worse than last year), then with his lineup on opening day and in the couple weeks following (what does he do with the lineup on lefties vs. righties? does he appropriately spell guys like Youkilis who have shown wear and tear the past couple years?).
And of course, the bullpen where I really think you feel the manager’s influence the most (Bailey a step down from Pap, might be worth as much as two wins, still bullpens are super-volatile, feel like at least a couple people will have good years, and if we get a third, we’re doing pretty well).
But drama will definitely, as IH says, be tolerated by me if the results are there, and I think this is a good team.
I will say there were some things he said as an ESPN commentator as far as baseball strategy that I wasn’t terribly happy about without even knowing he’d be managing my baseball team. He was my last choice and I was unhappy to hear he got the job, but I don’t know what really happened in that clubhouse, and I don’t know how good an in-game manager he is. So I’m pretty skeptical of him, but I’ll wait till at least May to come to any kind of opinion.
Really think this team is good. Good frontline starters (injury concerns, but who doesn’t have those?), bound-to-be-better back of rotation with decent depth (at least until May 1st when some minor league opt-out business happens), solid bullpen, elite offense (bound to be top 3 in the league without at least three serious injuries to key players). If we can just avoid the damned injury bug this year…one does wonder about the medical staff at a certain point.
I’m out of work, my kid is going to daycare for his one day a week tomorrow (I am taking care of him during the week otherwise while his mom is at work), and therefore I’m fairly chemically messed up at the moment, so I might have rambled here, haha.