pilumpyphi

Let's shop Trot! I'm sorry, but I can't bring myself to like Nixon.

I don't know. I think the Sox front office is looking at it from a classic old school perspective. They're re-distributing their offense and defense according to how it will best match up with their opponents. I think they're going to pay big bucks on pitching and to have most of their offense in the outfield where they can sacrifice a little defensive skill. I think that means they'll invest a little more at either first and/or third, unless they can develop something comparable to what's available on the market (i.e. if Youkilis meets expectations). That leaves the middle infield and bullpen. The bullpen will always be retreads because who aspires to be a long-reliever or lefty-specialist? Typically, good defensive infielders (especially the home grown sort that they seem to have a bunch of on the farm) are a cheap alternative to trying to get an offensive stud SS or 2B. I also think that after the Walker experiment last year they value double plays more than a handful of homers from their infield. I know they're pumping up Hanley so they can dump him on someone else. That guy's a good ball player, but he's a clubhouse cancer. With a little more experience Crespo may fit in well with the way they're putting ball clubs together....at least for a little while anyway. I think he's doing very well, despite popular belief, for a guy who was probably expecting to get at least one more developmental season in AAA. To be unexpectedly thrust into the the show like that isn't always easy.

Any pitcher who plays for Colorado can only have no where to go but up. Not literally of course since the Rockies are the "highest" team in the majors... Whatever, read the article. Jennings Rumor I never believe a team when they say "he's unavailable." That's crap because if there's ever a business where everyone has their price it's Major League Baseball.

It's tough enough to predict who's going to be on the team in 5 months let alone 5 years. Here's my stab at it. Laugh away... C - Kelly Shoppach 1B - Erubiel Durazo 2B - Junior Spivey SS - Ceasar Crespo 3B - Kevin Youkilis LF - Magglio Ordonez CF - Carlos Beltran RF - Rocco Baldelli DH - Manny Ramirez 1- Barry Zito 2- Tim Wakefield 3- Sidney Ponson 4- Charlie Zink 5- Johan Santana CL- Bronson Arroyo Sox send Hanley Ramirez to Seattle and Pedro to Oakland Seattle sends Jolbert Cabrerra to Oakland Oakland sends Zito and Durazo to Sox Wow, I'm a dreamer.

I've been dying to know other people's opinion on this subject. To immediately bias this thread I'm going to say that aside from his "breakout" year last season I've seen NOTHING from this guy. He's a nice, solid Red Sox team member in that he hates the Yankees and brings something special when we play them, but beyond that..nada. A little history about Mr. Nixon: He's 30. He was drafted back in 1993. Named Sox top prospect of 1994. Never played a full MLB season (>100 games) until 1999. Finally can you guess who's stats are who's? One line is Nixon's, the other is another Red Sox player who started playing consistently around the same time as Trot but who's been treated very differently. The stats are averages per 400 ABs. All stats are from 1999 through 2003 (five seasons worth, source: ESPN.com). H 2B HR RBI BB SO OPS 111.1 24.1 18.1 65.2 56.3 82.4 .862 104.0 26.7 18.4 64.8 49.1 107.9 .822 Does it surprise you that someone else on the Red Sox has quietly been putting up similar numbers? Does it surprise you that the other guy is Brian Daubach? Virtually identical hits, doubles, bombs, RBI and OPS. How about this stat: $4,000,000 (or 8 fold) difference in salary. My vote is for OVER RATED

Hey, I forgot to mention that I was up at the Portland Sea Dogs game when Youkilis got his first MLB at bat and they showed the video replay on the board. The crowd went nuts. Later they showed his homer and the stadium was out of control. That place was packed! I can't believe minor league baseball turns them out like that, but then again the Sox fans tend to do these things kinda all or nothing.

....and he's supposed to be the "Greek God of Walks" according to the non-gay Billy Beane. I'm impressed.

Lowe needs to go on a backpacking trip through Europe so he can "find himself," then maybe we can expect a little more stability out of him. I can't figure out which Derek Lowe is going to step on the mound day to day. When the guy has his head screwed on right he throws a no-hitter, sub 3.00 ERA for the season or knocks down 40+ saves. He can't do anything wrong when he's in it. The rest of the time he's checking first and peeking to see if his ass looks big.

Nixon and Nomar? Ugh. They're beyond dissapointing. The mysterious nature of injuries to those guys are unbelieveable. Nomar had that wrist injury from September through spring training a couple seasons ago and it was never dealt with until the season started. Nixon can't tell a strained buttocks from a strained disc in his back. Who knows what's really wrong with these guys. I wish you could have more than two write-ins. In theory there should be a write-in for each position. I spent all my first spot write-ins on Ortiz then half of the second slots on Millar for OF and the other half on Pokey for SS. BTW-you can vote more than 25x if you have more than one email address (that's 150 votes for Ortiz, 75 for Millar and 75 for Pokey from me!) I should really get rid of some of these unused hotmail/yahoo emails.

Oh man! Someone should just tell Sam Horn thanks but no thanks. He needs to just zip the piehole. I liked Jim Corsi better even though he looked like a Rogaine clinical trial gone wrong. There just aren't too many good baseball commentators out there. I don't think NESN has any idea what to do with TC. I love Sean McDonough. He's hillarious. It would rock if NESN could find some female baseball analog to Monday Night Football's Melissa Stark. Do I smell a reality TV show? She'd do the "fan of the game" (no pun intended) bit 100 times better than TC or that other boob who's doing it now...what's his name?

It's true, trying to compare pitchers to position players is tough but that's what the MVP vote is all about. I often try to imagine how to differentiate the two groups, but almost always side with the position players. Now with the dawn of specialty pitchers (closers, set up men, etc.) it's hard to say who's the best pitcher out there. Gagne slammed the door last season and had a microscopic ERA and WHIP, but was he the best pitcher in the MLB? He influenced more games, but pitched less innings than most of the top tier starters. This is really a modern era phenomenon because back in the day pitchers were the most athletic guys on the team. Now you get dough boys like El Guapo and C.C. Sabathia making a mockery out of the game. Not to mention that also, as part of the modern era, pitchers can't hit! At virtually every level of baseball from little league up through college pitchers are often some of the best hitters out there! If that were still the case today it would make voting for MVP much different.

I've been reading the site for over two years now. Ed's got flashes of brilliance, I'll give him that. I love www.soxaholix.com though! That's a great site!

Roger Clemens is a pure baseball player. He personifies what the game should be and how it should be played. It happened a long time ago, but the fact remains that the morons in the front office at the time of his departure from Boston just didn't want him around anymore and all but forced him to walk out. I don't know what it was if he was too intense, too outspoken in the clubhouse, or if they really believed he was washed up. What ever it was they didn't make it hard for him to walk away. Don't confuse this with the Mo Vaughn saga or even the current Pedro soap opera. While the media may have done it for him, Clemens never mentioned where he might go, much less threaten with the Yankees (again, unlike Pedro). Of course, people speculated he would return to Texas or go to NY. That's why it seemed like the Blue Jays came out of no where. He was then TRADED to the Yankees, at which point he had to surrender his lucky #21 because some hobo named Paul O'Neil happened to have it. This is a guy who gave the scrub in Toronto a $20,000 watch in appreciation for giving up the number two seasons prior. I think Clemens just wanted to be appreciated, or at least left alone so he could concentrate on playing. When he arrived in NY I think he eventually found that appreciation and grew to enjoy it coming from Torre and Pettitte and other guys like that. Clemens is all about baseball, not his image as a player or where he may end up in the books. He plays his hart out and prepares ten times a hard as the next guy because he loves the game. He would have been content being mediocre but all the K's and wins just happened to be a side effect of his intensity. I believe he intended on retiring at the end of last season, but he went out with class by just playing the game and not needing a ticker-tape parade for every "last game" he played in every park like McGuire and Ripken did. That just piles on more respect in my eyes. You take a good look at who Roger Clemens really is by looking at what he has said and done (not as interpreted by the media, especially the Boston media) and 10, 15, 20 years from now we'll be begging for anyone like him to come along.

Pokey's offensive spurt was one of those tingly baseball moments you like to see every now and then. His defense, however, is awesome. I don't want to flirt with sacrilege, but be honest and raise your hand if you've been watching a game or highlight clip where Pokey makes a great play and you sat there wondering: "if Nomar was playing SS today would he have made that same play?" Nomar's a great defensive short stop, but with the type of injuries he's had recently (wrist and achillies) you can't help but wonder if he's going to soon turn into a defensive liability. Pokey's got a Gold Glove....

My reasons for voting Bellhorn as the player of greater suck are three-fold: 1) Bellhorn sucks because he's an ex-Cub. Adding Bellhorn to Mueller doubles the number of ex-Cubs on the roster and therefore doubles the influence of the "teams with ex-Cubs never win the Series" curse. We don't need this: http://www.all-baseball.com/ref/berler.html 2) Bellhorn is playing only marginally better than Crespo (save OBP, which is huge, granted) and he's five years older with way more ML at bats. 3) Crespo not only looks like a pirate, but could possibly have the best pirate name in baseball: Captain Crespo or Captian Cesar Crespo or Crespo the Mad In Bellhorn's favor though, he was born in Boston.

These are two of highest paid players in Major League Baseball history. Given that the contributions of position players are vastly different than pitchers, who would you consider to be more valuable? The contrasts are especially true in the American League, especially since the institution of the DH. What makes a baseball player "valuable"? How would you rank the value of the types of contributions a player can make? Is OPS and HRs more valuable than ERA and Ks? I'm curious to know what people think because these are the stats the two guys in the poll essentially represent.

Look, money is no object. Besides, I can't believe that paying $17.5 mil for a guy that -at best- gives you 7 innings every five games is instantly favored over a guy that'll give you 9 innings 162 games/season. Who's worth more? Manny or Pedro? At the pace Beltran's going he'll be more valuable than Manny pretty soon. Imagine both those guys in your lineup every day. Pitching is everything and it's almost apples and oranges to compare how starting pitchers contribute vs. position players. Pedro used to be that good, but he's not Clemens or Nolan Ryan. He's built like Harry Potter and it's practially magic if he gets to the All-Star break without going on the DL. If Pedro gives us 30 starts this season I'll be impressed. (You realize that would be more than 1/2 million a game right?) I still say send Pedro and cash for Beltran and prospects. KC has a decent farm system. We could make out good if we get the right prospects. Money is no object. Sign Beltran long term as part of the deal or very shortly there after. Damon would be epic in RF. Nixon is over rated, so trade him while other people think so too.

Check this out: http://kmbumb.people.wm.edu/04agency.html BTW: I forgot to mention Berkman, Sexon, Alou... check out the list. It goes on like this. Beltran is the rare five tooler that I don't think the Red Sox have had on their team in quite some time. Damon was supposed to be that kind of player, maybe a 20/20 guy. Beltran's worth investing in. I'll take Beltran and prospects for Pedro and cash. Could you imagine Pedro out on the town in Kansas City? He'd go nuts thinin' "where the hell am I?"

Again, why do we want to be like the Yankees? What other teams in Major League Baseball have team captains? The Mets (John Franco)? The Rangers (ARod )! I've got a poll idea: Should we construct some sort of mock grave yard in the triangle next to the bullpen to "immortalize" all of the marginal players (except Babe, no one can argue that) who came through our system? Or how about: Should our home uniforms be changed to white with red pinstripes? Look, even if a team has a captain they don't always have one every year just for the sake of having one. It "usually" happends when a guy is outstanding on the field, a career player with the team and/or an icon of the franchise who's name will almost always be associated with that franchise. Trot? Wake? Even my boy Varitek? None of these guys are captain material. If Clemens wasn't such a baby he could have qualified. Same with Mo if he played a full career and did it with the Sox.

Without a doubt Varitek. Who's going to replace him? Mirabelli? I'd like to see him stay until Shoppach starts getting some time so he might Drew Bledsoe him a little before departing. We've got Schilling even if we lose Pedro and Lowe I would hope Theo would see this coming and sign one or trade one for a decent *young* starter. Florida would probably be looking to get rid of D-Train before he becomes too expensive. Pedro is much more replaceable than Varitek, can play every day and makes less than half. Granted you're not going to get someone equal to Pedro, but Schilling will be our ace and we could potentially get some solid starters to fill out the 3-4-5 slots. I'll take a rotation that looks like this: Schilling, Millwood, Wakefield, Clement, Kim. And I'd much rather see Tek managing them than some scrub. I'm also looking at 2005's potential free agents (guys not signed beyond the end of 2004). They include Beltran, Magglio, Bret Boone*, Radke, Clement, Hidalgo, Beltre, Vidro, Odalis Perez, Orlando Cabrera, Millwood, Morris (*club option for 2005) All those guys are worth spending some money on, or at least saving Pedro bucks and putting it toward developing some young talent of our own. It all comes down to money. For 2004 Pedro + Lowe = $22 million, Millwood + Clement = $17 million and they play for two different teams. Perez + Clement = $11.0 Million. For what you get out of Pedro these days (a guaranteed trip to the DL before and after the all-star break) I'd rather spread the wealth across the rotation AND the lineup.

I don't remember the details of the game, like when it was or who else was involved, but I remember the Sox were playing the Yanks at Fenway some time ago and I had seats on the third base side in the lower grandstands. A bench clearing brawl broke out during the game and most of the action was between the mound and home plate. There were some smaller clusters of players/coaches near the Yanks' dugout and behind the mound but not much was going on there except some slightly heated arguing. Most of everyone's attention was on the pig pile between the mound and home when all of a sudden Coke Boy Strawberry comes out of the dugout where he'd been hiding and cold cocks someone from behind in the small crowd near Yankees' dugout. It sounded like raw liver hitting the sidewalk from where I was sitting. A new brawl ensued over there. I forget who he suckered, but me and about 1/2 of the people in the stands who saw it wanted to go down there and end Strawberry.

One of my biggest pet peeves is the Sox brass behaving like the MFY. Going out and getting these mercenaries are a nice luxury, but it's essentially saying "if our farm system can't bring happiness then we'll try to buy it". Not that everyone needs a Moneyball system of doing baseball, but there's a happy medium in there. Yeah we needed a closer, so we got Foulke. Schilling was ready to talk, so here he is. But look at our team the list goes on... Manny, Pedro, Damon.... They're all on that list. It's not to the extreme of the MFY, but you have to lump them all in with Kevin Brown, Gary Sheffield, Vazquez, Mussina, and Giambi. Talking about adding A-Rod, or God forbid if we got A-Rod, puts it over the top. The Unit falls along the same lines. Just bully your way to the top. It's not old fashioned, it's just baseball. I like it when the bread and butter is to develop players (Nomar), sign under valued free agents (Ortiz, Todd Walker, Mueller) trade for young talent (Varitek and Lowe for Slocumb was just cruel and unusual) and trade away when guys peak in value (Hillenbrand for BK). Mixing in the occasional Pedro or Manny is fair game, but going ballistic and trying to sign A-Rod, Schilling, Foulke and now potentially RJ is too Steinbrenner-esque. We're only going to be a dynasty if we can stay resourceful and not blow everything on buzz factor. I'd be very happy and very sad if we would have won it this year with A-Rod. I'm glad he's George's problem to deal with.