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I'd assume this belongs in rumors until it's confirmed. If so, this makes a scary team even scarier. Sean Casey's a solid hitter and absolutely better than Chris Shelton.

I could imagine a senario where the Sox make a big 3 team deal including Colorado where Ryan Shealy and Jason Jennings end up in Boston and Wily Mo Pena is shipped out somewhere else. The deals that include 3 teams have too many moving parts usually to be completed. Billy Beane is the master of the 3 team deal, and Theo pulled one off in 2004..... but for the most part I think it ends up falling through or happening in 2 separate deals, kind of like the Randy Johnson deal a few years back where the Diamondbacks got Navarro from the Yankees then shipped him off to Arizona to get Green-- which originally was a 3 team deal that fell through-- then ended up going down, just as 2 separate trades.

Realistically speaking, I'd say the "crazy thinking" probably comes from the fact that Trot Nixon's name is out there. He could also be talking again about Manny Ramirez (he has tried to trade him before) but that wouldn't be wise unless it was a huge deal considering the Sox are in the middle of a pennant race. That would also be deemed as crazy by many. Personally I'll be surprised if the Sox do anything major. Julio Lugo makes no sense to me for 2006, but as a free agent I'd definately call his agent to get a feel for his asking price and his willingness to play second base. I don't see the need to trade prospects for him now though.

Jennings has interested me for a while. Foulke and cash for Jennings I'd do in a heartbeat, although I'm sure there'd be more involved in a potential deal. You always have to wonder about these Coors' pitchers. Many have thrived once getting out of there (Hampton and Kile come to mind but I'm sure there are more). Jennings is by far having the best year of his career and at age 28 that makes some sense. He's a groudball pitcher (good considering the Sox' infield defense), his K/9 and K/BB are up this year. If I'm the Rockies I'm keeping this guy, but if the Sox get him I won't complain. He's no ace but he'd be a very decent back end of the rotation guy.

Add me to the list of people who like Julio Lugo. I know this won't happen, but if the Sox traded Pedroia at the deadline for an arm I'd sign Lugo as a second baseman with that bat in a heartbeat. I'd say Lugo reminds me of Orlando Cabrera more than Edgar Renteria... Lugo is probably more speed/less power compared to Orlando. I agree with folks who don't like the asking price for him trade wise though. Alex Gonzalez is doing a fine job at shortstop defensively, and while I thought he'd be hitting better (silly me), he's doing OK with the bat.

I wouldn't consider picking up Shealy a move for the future. The man turns 27 this season, meaning he's actually in his prime RIGHT NOW, and still playing in AAA. He wouldn't get a ton of ABs in Boston with Youkilis and Lowell both playing well, meaning he'd be a bench player. That having been said, I'd trade Alvarez for him but not anything of real value.

Coco injured his wrist? That's news to me. I could have sworn he sprained his finger

I don't think this is the last waiver pickup you'll see start for the Sox over the next 6 weeks. Like I've said before, the way the market for pitchers is right now I think the Red Sox are looking for a bit of luck on some of these guys they can pick up cheaply. Red Ruffing may be a bad example, but the Yankees last year got 10 wins from Aaron Small for crying out loud. I haven't seen Kyle Snyder pitch either, so I'm not saying that Snyder can duplicate Small's numbers from last year, but at this point the Red Sox are very badly injured and looking for lighting in a bottle.

The rumors out there are that the asking price for Livan Hernandez is very high. Also, it's PROOF that this is a thin market for pitching that Livan even enters this conversation. 5-6, 5.06 ERA. Hitters hitting .287 against him. He sucks against all the decent hitting teams (Mets, Phillies, Reds). The bottom line is that there aren't any pitching options out there. Kyle Lohse, Odalis Perez.... that is the quality of pitchers out there right now. Any of these three would get their asses handed to them in the AL East. Remember in 2003 when the Sox felt like they HAD to get a pitcher, and added Sauerbeck (sp?) and Suppan? That worked out well. I'm not convinced any of these "proven" veterans are better options than Pauley and Lester.

Honestly if I'm the Yankees GM I'm standing pat. Carlos Lee is good but Phillip Hughes is one of the best Yankees prospects to come along in a long time. Plus, I think Melky Cabrera's doing an awesome job and these guys are having no troubles scoring runs.

One man's opinion on the draft projections. Does anyone else have any others? I'd be curious to read them. http://mlb.mlb.com/NASApp/mlb/news/article_perspectives.jsp?ymd=20060605&content_id=1489090&vkey=perspectives&fext=.jsp

JSinger is right on here. The draft and player development are so unpredictable that you need to draft the best player out there whenever you draft. Saying "we've got enough young pitching," or "no need to draft a shortstop because we've got Pedroia already" or anything like that is not a good idea IMO. See the DBacks for example. They drafted a shortstop 2 years in a row. They switched Justin Upton to an outfielder before he even played a pro game, but they didn't look at him as a shortstop they looked at him as a TALENT. That's the key to the draft. Take the talented players then fit them into your system. Even if you keep a guy like Upton at shortstop he's younger and therefore behind Drew in development. What if Drew never pans out? Well, you've got an insurance policy. Pitching is nice, and I'm SURE the Red Sox will draft plenty of it. but if a great position player is available (and has a higher projected value than the best pitcher) at #27 he's the guy you draft.

First of all the gold glove award is overrated. When people make comments like "he doesn't hit enough to win a gold glove" you really start to scratch your head. When Rafael Palmiero wins the gold glove despite spending the season as a DH...... I put absolutely no stock in that award whatsoever. Second, even if Yaz was a great defensive left fielder, Williams was a bad defensive left fielder (and would be even worse anywhere else) and Manny is awful. I stand by my assertion that an outfield of Yaz-Williams-Ramirez, no matter how you line them up, would be a terrible defensive outfield.

The funny thing is that playrs aren't technically allowed to have agents until they turn pro, so Scott Boras offer their services as "advisors." I'm not positive what the difference is (besides the name) but it's possible they don't get paid until the player signs at which point he can hire his "advisor" as an "agent." That having been said signability and the players representation has a HUGE impact on the draft today. Craig Hansen dropped in the draft to the Red Sox because of signability issues. Jared Weaver and Stephen Drew a few years back were considered top players in the draft but fell in status because of signability. Luke Hochever was considered by some one of the most talented pitchers in the draft last year, but was drafted 40th overall because teams just didn't know if he'd sign at a reasonable price-- and oops... he's back in the draft this year because the Dodgers didn't meet his asking price. Don't get me started on the flaws with the draft....

That would probably be the worst defensive outfield in the history of the game. Why don't we just put Kevin Millar at shortstop for your all-time team?!?!?

The neat thing about Lowell is that he's hitting well both on the road and at home. I kind of expected Mike Lowell to hit well at home and crappy on the road. However, he's hitting .315/.377/.500 on the road and .324/.361/.529 at home. So far this guy has been good enough considering he was part of the "price" of getting Josh Beckett. edit: typo

I'm with you on that one, too. I was a huge Cabrera fan and I think his offense is better than Gonzo's and his defense is good enough. His $8 million price tag probably means he'll never come back to Boston though-- they could have had him for $8 mil and chose not to.

You're exactly right ORS. This trade shakes out as follows: Shoppach, Meredith, and cash for Loretta. I'm not sure I like the deal. I was a big Shoppach fan and Meridith could turn into a solid Bradford-like righty reliever. We need Loretta to start hitting for this deal to be a win for the Red Sox.

The last I heard was that Coco was expected back in Mid-May, which would put May 15th as just about the time we should expect him back. I'd love it if he could be back before then, as I'll be in Baltimore for the game on the 16th. Get well soon Coco!

Martinez is moving slowly (still at AA to start the season) and keep in mind that this guy WAS a catcher from 1999 through 2004, so he's still in the beginning stages of his development as a pitcher. He seems to have incredible control (3:1 strikeout to walk ratio) 9.24 K/9 over his EARLY career, but the Sox aren't rushing him nor should they. I'd expect him to arrive in the big leagues after both Delcarmen and Hansen, but I see no reason why we won't see him either as a September callup or in 2007 in a similar role as Manny Delcarmen is playing this season (AAA potential mid-season callup).

I think DelCarmen would have to show the Sox something (like Papelbon did) at the big league level before they thrust him into a pressurized bullpen role. I think the Sox want to be careful with Manny because he's got potential as a reliever and they don't want to ruin him. If he continues to dominate AAA (and 10 innings is SUCH a small sample that you can't say he's too good for AAA just yet) he should force the Sox give him a bullpen spot next year. EDIT: He did pitch 21 innings of dominant baseball last season, but still, 31 innings is a tiny (and statistically insignificant) sample size. One thing to keep in mind is that Julian Tavarez is signed for 2 seasons and the Sox have an option next year on Rudy Seanez. For the record, they also have an option on Foulke if they so choose (and I haven't given up on Keith just yet). SO, even if Timlin retires (which it seems like that's the way he's leaning), there's going to be at least 1 veteran in the bullpen (albeit not a closer) and potentially 2 more just by excercising options they've got on current players. So much happens in the course of a season that it's basically impossible (and kind of stupid if you ask me) to predict the 2007 season just yet. The Sox may (and I don't think or hope this will happen, but you never know) keep Papelbon as the closer all season and beyond (keep in mind he was a closer in college), which would be a waste of his talent but it would also give the Sox a dominant strikeout arm for MANY years to come. Hansen and Delcarmen should both be in the Major League bullpen in 2007.... but I'm not sure of the roles they'll have.

I think part of it is because Schilling is so competitive that having another top of the line starter in the rotation pushed him even further than he usually does. Also last year Schilling wasn't really healthy so you kind of have to ignore that. I think Clement getting hit in the head was a convenient excuse but not necessarily a good one. Throughout his career he's always struggled with inconsistency and being less effective down the stretch. Beckett hasn't had that problem, but he also hasn't pitched 200 innings because of blister problems-- so who knows how he'll react when/if his blisters allow him to sustain the additional workload.

I kind of got the impression that Meredith would be a Chad Bradford type who would be brought in to retire tough righthanded batters late in games-- although the Sox seem to be moving away from specialists. Since it's not posted here I'll include Meredith's scouting report from soxprospects.com Since he'll turn 23 in June he's still relatively young and really dominated the lower levels last year. He had a bad debut with the Sox and struggled in AAA, but at 23 if he can master AAA we could see him later this year or next year in the bullpen.

I assume by "Fluke" you mean Foulke, in which case trading Wells and Foulke for Willis would be a no brainer. If that were possible, it'd already be done. I just don't think Foulke and Wells have enough value to be traded for enough young talent to bring back Willis. It would have to involve Lester+ in which case I'd rather not make the deal. In all fairness, I don't think Willis is overrated at all. One can make the argument that he pitched half his games in Pro Player (or whatever it's called these days, I think Dolphins) Stadium and that boosts his stats, but the was 11-4 with a 2.56 ERA on the road. His 3:1 strikeout to walk ratio is pretty good, he pitched over 200 innings last season and won 20 games FOR A BAD TEAM. I know I am one of the people who diminish the value of the win stat because it's got more to do with run support and defense than a pitchers' ability, but that's saying something. Willis was the ace on a staff that sported Beckett and Burnett last season, two guys who had huge offseason pricetags. He was just about as good after the All Star Break as he was before it, which tells me he didn't get worn down pitching 200+ innings. After his first season I was screaming "Fluke!" like a lot of other people, but he recovered well from a relatively poor sophomore season and has really (IMO) emerged as one of the best young pitchers in baseball. He deserves the credit he receives.

I think Papelbon's in the bullpen for the duration of the season UNLESS there's a major injury. With Schilling-Wake-Beckett-Clement-Wells in the rotation already there's no room for him. There are options (DiNardo, Alvarez) for an emergency spot start on short notice. Hansen's in AA right now, so he's at least half a season from being a regular contributer. You'd assume that he'd need to spend some time in AAA before coming up, but like ORS said-- there's no reason to rush him at this point. He is depth as he works on getting acclimated to professional baseball.