Plumpamania

And Youkilis is 28 starting the prime of his career and Helton is 34, exiting his. Good show. Career stats mean complete s*** when you are talking about a player exiting his prime and showing a decline.

The "straw" you're think I'm talking about is about as true hard as "steel".

Maybe you didn't read my post that you've already quoted. Lowell is a free agent after this year. Red Sox Contracts. So his contract is fine. Tavares is a free agent at the end of the year with a Club Option for 2008. Those contracts DON'T MATTER. We are losing after 2007: Matt Clement Eric Hinske Julian Tavares Mike Lowell Joel Piniero Mike Timlin Curt Schilling J.C. Romero So again who the hell cares about shedding expiring contracts for a 34 year old 15 HR hitting 15man (again Coors field and only 15 HR). Bad idea bro. Bad idea.

Bad point, read my post above.

Dan O'Dowd gave $121 million to Mike Hampton and $51 million to Denny Neagle in the same offseason as Helton's contract. That should tell you he's a moron. But he has done a much better job lately and given a 2 year contract extension. Having Garrett Atkins, Matt Holliday, Ian Stewart and Jeff Francis is something great to build on. However Stewart and Atkins can both only aptly play 1B and 3B. Helton is the only one moving from that team. And you're right he'd have to revert back to idiocrasy for a trade Atkins for anything aside from a MDC/Hansen/Ellsbury/Place combination.

Trade him at 35, when the Rockies couldn't deal him at 32? Explain that to me. And the difference is Papi hasn't lost almost 50 points on his OPS+. His HR production hasn't gone from 49 to 15, in Coors.

Lester did dominate AAA. That was the thing. He just showed no consistency in control, and until his back (cancer) acted up, he was doing very well at the MLB level.

Dear Theo Epstein, We understand the predicament you're in concerning the number five spot in the current Red Sox rotation, however as fans from Red Sox Nation, we cannot continue to watch him pitch without developing an ulcer. We are sure as you have to watch it as well, that watching Tavares pitch is worse than passing a kidney stone. Please as a matter of faith to those of whom help to pay the bills, release him. Red Sox Nation PS Curt, we know you love to blog and do the internet thing, but please stay off the computer, don't sign this petition, and keep that CT under control. 1). Plump

Curt Schilling: 15-10 4.15 ERA 210 IP 150K/20BB Josh Beckett: 16-7 3.90 ERA 210 IP 190K/50BB 25 HRA Daisuke Matsuzaka: 20-7 2.90 ERA 230 IP 200K/50BB Tim Wakefield: 9-9 4.70 ERA 170 IP 130K/60BB Julian Tavarez: 5-7 5.25 ERA 120 IP 50K/20BB Jon Lester: 10-3 3.75 ERA 140 IP 120K/50BB Jonathan Papelbon: 1-3 1.15 ERA 60 IP 80K/15BB 30 Saves Brendan Donnolley: 2-5 4.20 ERA 80 IP 40K/20BB 2 Saves Joel Piniero: 1-7 50 IP 6.50 ERA 30K/30BB Released/Traded Hideki Okajima: 5-2 2.75 ERA 60 IP 60K/15BB Mike Timlin: 2-5 4.00 ERA 40 IP 30K/10BB J.C. Romero: 2-1 3.35 ERA 25 IP 10K/10BB Craig Hansen: 1-0 4.00 ERA 30 IP 25K/10BB Manny Delcarmen: 2-1 4.00 ERA 40 IP 25K/15BB Kyle Snyder: 2-2 60 IP 4.50 ERA 25K/15BB Leaves us at 93 - 69 and a wild card berth.

Personally I haven't seen 35 year old catchers have a good turn around year to plug back up .040 BA points. Varitek is done. Crisp should be better, as I'm still a big supporter. Pedroia > Gonzalez. But I don't see Lowell repeating his first half performance again.

Nick Johnson is perhaps the most underrated player in baseball. He posted a .900 OPS in RFK, and that's saying something. However you're completely correct on his injury history. Still if they wanted Hansen and Moss or Murphy for Johnson, I do it in a heartbeat. Can you imagine Johnson and Youkilis in the same line up. :harhar:

Even if this was credible, we have Suzuki, Crisp and Lugo all in one line up with only one true power threat in it. That's a definate no.

Helton with his back and knees and 6 years left on that contract shouldn't be an option considered by the Sox front office. I posted earlier (of course I know that I'm posting seriously early in the morning at the moment and I'm just posting the same idea in multipe threads now, and ranting on top of that) other names will be available as the season goes along that will be more valuable in terms of contracts (still bad, but better than Helton's).

C'mon guys. This was a garbage for garbage deal to fill voids in the minor league systems.

Todd Helton is not the way to go. Especially with 6 more years of him making $16,600,000/year on that contract. As the season goes on I'm sure you'll see other players become available. One that comes to mind might be Paul Konerko if the White Sox are out of it (or Jim Thome, whom we can't take on). Richie Sexson is another name that will come up in trade rumors. I'm not high on either unless we can move Lowell's salary in the deal as well as Tavarez or another contract taken away. We'll see though.

Hanley Ramirez, while a 5 tool talent, was in trouble consistently in the minor leagues. He never posted a 'wow' season, and only achieved as far as AA for us. Even though he was only age 22 (I believe) when we traded him, and he had 3 more years to figure things out while still under prospect age status, I could live with dealing him since he hadn't produced like the front office thought he would have (for another i.e. of this please see Eric Duncan, Yankees). Sanchez was the Animal. But again, he didn't achieve anything higher than AA, and was projected as a #3 starter. Josh Beckett projected to be a once in a generation type talent, and still does. Beckett is going into his age 27 season, and is coming off a transition, not only from Florida to Boston. But from the NL East to the AL East. No more easy K's from the pitchers' slot, rather welcoming in Jason Giambi to the plate. I'd still do that trade from where the players were. Beckett will rebound, and we still have to see Sanchez do it over a full season at the MLB level. And made him the captain. While I knew we needed to keep Varitek with the team, a 4 year/$40 million, with a NTC put into his contract wasn't good. We all knew that Varitek was going into his age 34 season. We all knew that Varitek was likely to end up at 1B with Youkilis going back to 3B (sad corner power) once Lowell's contract was up. But there was a determination of who to keep and who to let walk. Varitek was more important to the team than say, Johnny Damon was. Are you blind to statistics? Crisp's OBP in 04 and 05 was .344 and .345 respectively. Yes Damon was at .380 and .366 those years, but he dipped down to .359 last year and that's a downward spire trend sir. Not to mention that Damon's arm is comparable to a three year old child. He resigned the Team Spirit in Varitek. Yes he wasn't the technical GM of the Red Sox last off-season. However in case you have forgotten it was reported that he was giving advice to the Two Headed Monster all throughout the winter. I'd be willing to be my life savings that even without his name on the GM's door, he was calling every single shot that offseason. And you think these moves resulted in a 3rd place last year, when we placed 3rd by 1 victory? How about injuries of 1 month or more to: Jon Lester, Tim Wakefield, Manny Ramirez, Jonathan Papelbon, Matt Clement, Coco Crisp, Trot Nixon, Wily Mo Pena, Jason Varitek, and other role players. We lost three fifths of a rotation last year. Are you that retarded to think that last offseason resulted in the third place?! NO! It resulted when the injuries were just to much to handle and the team fell out of first place after half a season. THAT'S WHY WE WERE IN THIRD. Give me your home address, I'm going to order you Hooked on Phonics. I said they took Theo's original game plan, something he learned while picking Beane's brain while he spent time on the west coast. They took the Moneyball concept, the entire reason why Epstein was hired (remember Beane was 'hired' for a day and he backed out of it? Yea exactly). And then they went MFY style this offseason (I understand the market made it that way mostly). But look at the money differences spent on Kevin Millar, Bill Mueller and David Ortiz compared to Julio Lugo and JD Drew. Those are the differences in strategies that I'm talking about. Jerk. You've yet to name anyone of significance in this statement by the way. You also forgot J.C. Romero. The trade to get Marte for Renteria was pure genous. You can't say that Renteria bouncing back after his horrible 2005 was a sure thing. Then dealing Marte for Crisp...well I was mad at first. But looking at the improvements Crisp had made throughout that time period, and the projections from the experts it was a solid trade since Marte had yet to really produce anything in any MLB time. If you think Epstein wasn't pulling the strings in the offseason heading into 2006 you're either A). Not that bright, . Stupid or my favorite C). Inbreed. And again to call Lugo a significant upgrade is silly with a man who's never posted an .800 OPS.

Kinda funny how much attention this thread has gotten after I was pounded on. However, I totally agree on Zito. Not to mention his K numbers are down, and his BB numbers are up. He's Kei Igawa with a better curve ball. After Air Beckett last year, the last I want is Trans Zito Airlines. And Jason Schmidt, I'm not sold on, as someone mentioned previously. His velocity is way down.

I don't believe in making up moves, but the Drew deal is the one of the two (Lugo the other) that I can live with. Not saying that. But you can't count Papelbon as part of that farm system anymore. The only two guys we have, if you want to count Lester as a prospect still, is him, and Ellsbury. (I don't count Pedroia/Papelbon and Lester as parts of the farm still). We have some good youth, but if you want to compare to Phil Franchise, Humberto Sanchez and some of the other arms over on the other side, we don't compare in that respect. The Yankee have the best pitching prospects (depth, and the best in Hughes) in baseball. All I'm saying is that we didn't address the biggest issue, which was our pitching staff, properly. And I hate Julio Lugo.