As I mentioned in our weekly Insider e-newsletter, I’m including my notes below from our Red Sox Nation Governor’s Conference Calls.  If you have any questions or thoughts, please let me know by putting your response below or by emailing me: insider@redsox.com 

 

RSN West Governors Call – 4/29/09

Brian O’Halloran – Red Sox Director of Baseball Operations (started in 2002) one of Theo’s right-hand men gave the Western states’ Governors a good summary of our organization as it stood as of last week.  Below are some notes I took from this call – while not exact quotes, it’s as good as I could get – I’m not the fastest scribe…

 

BOH

We feel really good about where we are – a game out of first place.  On pace to win 105 games

5^th in ERA

3^rd in Runs Scored

Could play better defense – not as well as we hoped

We’ve been a deep, well-rounded team, capable of weathering a storm of injuries.  Farm system is a strength due to the great work of our scouting and player development departments.

Van Every, Bailey, Hunter Jones, and Bowden have all stepped in, with Masterson moving to starting role due to injury.  We still have more depth in the minors

Nick Green has done a very nice job for us

Injury update

Smoltz – he’ll be able to help out a lot (HOF caliber guy) – better than a mid-season trade.  He’s on track for a return in June.  It’ll be exciting to see how he might be able to help us.

Kotsay – think is going to be a key for us (versatility).  Had a setback, but expect a rehab assignment soon

Lowrie – around the allstar break

Rocco – just started running – shouldn’t be too long

Dice-K – bullpen today, some rehab starts

Farm System – Feel well-positioned to have a few of the guys step in.  Tazawa, Buchholz both pitching well.  We hope we won’t have to have Lars Anderson in the bigs this year, but feel if a need arrises he’ll be ready

Daniel Bard is very exciting

PLEASED ABOUT – Lowell (coming off an injury); middle of our order has been very good; bullpen is a strength – Delcarmen and Ramirez in particular; Wakefield with the key win to start the streak, complete game(s)

TO IMPROVE – Defense, we expect to improve, expect it to be a strength over the course of the season; more consistent performances from some of the starting pitchers; Road Performance- look to improve

Tampa‘s off to a slow start – we expect they’ll be right there; Toronto is a good team; Yankees will be there; we’re in the toughest division in baseball.

 

We’ll look over the next couple of weeks and months to see where we might be able to improve, headed towards the trade deadline.  Hopefully we won’t need much, but it rarely ends up that way.

 

 

RSN Midwest Governor’s Call

 

Special Guest – Mike Hazen Director of Player Development (who is in Salem right now looking at our newest minor league affiliate; oversees all of our farm teams and affiliates) – his work has produced a lot of the talent we’ve recently seen and grown to love.

 

Impact of the younger player at the minor league level has been pretty significant.  We can’t have any success without our scouting staff.  Player Development is a way to feed our Major League club as well as to offer trade chips for Theo – serves as a dual product.  We’ve been pretty aggressive about pushing our players at a younger age to move on up through the system.  Younger players have more value.  For any of our affiliates, you’ll notice the players who perform well at a younger age have more value.  The development of our players comes before winning at the minor league level.

 

Players to watch this year  – Major League level you’ve seen some of the players (Masterson, Jones, Bowden) a year prior, they were all in Double A.  There are a couple of guys getting ready to make that next step now.

AAA – Bowden, Buchholz (hopefully will make an impact in 09)

AA – Lars Anderson (off to a very good start); Josh Reddick (OF with very high ceiling of talent)

Casey Kelly 19 years old, Stolmy Pimentel pitcher from the Dominican – (we could certainly see them in Boston over the next few years)

 

That’s all I have for now…hope my notes at least made a little sense – I was trying to type as fast as I could!

All the best from the Front Office!

“The Voice of the Nation”