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I don't contest any of that. HOW DOES ME POINTING OUT THAT IT IS COMMON PRACTICE FOR NATIONS TO SUPPORT NATIONAL HEROES MAKE ME A BIGOT? The practice may be biggoted, the pointing out of it is not. You are looking to pick a fight and I'm not looking for one. You love to smack yourself on the ass when you think you have someone's panties in a bunch, even if I've shown your view to be completely wrongheaded and completely based in an attempt to get "liberal pants in a bunch'. It seems to me like you're flaming for no reason and I wouldn't be upset if you were banned for a few days. You're not supposed to be calling people names. Bigot is an offensive term and you're calling me it in a few places. That's the rules. As much a stickler for the rules as you are I would be SHOCKED, SHOCKED if you didn't ban yourself for a few days... I bet you don't. You find it entertaining because that's a way of deflecting that you wanted to turn this into a discussion about racism because you think that Japanese is a race. You were wrong about that, so instead of looking contrite and admitting it you start another rant about unfair hiring practices. You are absolutely 100% wrong about this, and you know you are grasping at straws. None of your counter arguments make sense or are grounded in reality. Not only am I not biggoted, but my discussion wasn't racisit at all. Your enjoyment of this topic and your loose language and fractured arguments are enough for me to drop it because you do get me upset. I'll make sure to de-rail every future discussion you have with claims of sexism because you assume that every player the Sox pursue will be a man. ILLEGAL HIRING PRACTICES!

I think you understand why they would do it along a wide range of reasons. One of them is that he's actually a good pitcher, another is that he's better than what they have, and he doesn't cost as much as a pitcher of his quality should cost. If you saw me saying anywhere that it was the only reason then go ahead and quote it. I think Dice-K as a pitcher has trade value--perhaps in combination with other players, but value nonetheless. Actually it is a whole lot less offensive than saying they would hire him because they believe that as a Japanese man he is morally/intellectually/physically stronger than his competition. There are gradations of offensiveness. The racism charge is highly offensive. We've established that that isn't the topic of this discussion. I have thoroughly shown you that Japanese is not a race, it is a nationality. You can call that a tap dance if you wish, but it is fact and it completely takes the wind out of your sails that I am off on some naive racist rant. You first said the word racist, now you have retracted it back to "national origin". No I wasn't. If the only reason they hired Dice-K over better qualified candidates was because he were Japanese then you might have a point. Currently they have candidates such as Miguel Bautista and Carlos Silva. Dice-K is probably better than both. He therefore could get the job with no mention of nationality at all. His nationality only adds to the reasons. Discussion about next offseason rubs some cemented part of your personality the wrong way. I wouldn't shut up when you asked so instead you'll derail the topic with accusations of proliferating some injustice--some injustice blurred between racism and nationalism, with a hint of unfair hiring practices, entirely rooted in the very fabric of both the free market and major league baseball's hiring and Free Agent structure. Companies are allowed to hire a particular salesman because they think he'll make them more money. They're allowed to trade for a pitcher for the same reason. The Rockets can hire Yao over Chris Bosh because they want to make inroads in the market in China. It happens all the time. You may not like it, you may think it's illegal (in this context it absolutely is not), but I'm not suggesting that someone should do it, or even that I approve of it, merely that it is done. I'm happy to argue the rest of it with you, but none of my comments should offend you. You can find the practice offensive, but you are thus agreeing that what I'm saying is true. What an absolutely weak and disappointing argument this is from you a700. A gigantic train wreck. In reality, athletes are investments made by rich people. They are not drawn from a wide range of applicants within the general population, they are hired because they are both good and can help the organization. Dice-K is a more attractive marketing option to Seattle than Kansas City because Seattle is involved with a corporation established in Japan and have Japanese owners and a lucritive Japanese fan base and the Royals don't. He therefore represents revenue to Seattle that he does not currently represent to Kansas City. This is not something that is even debatable or taboo. You can be offended, but be offended by the facts, not the person delivering them to you. I understand discrimination and fair hiring practices just fine. In enterprises like this, or in showbusiness, it is often simply about who makes you the most money. Don't be so naive as to turn this into a discussion about unfair hiring practices. There is, in fact, nobody who can do exactly what Dice-K does. He is a pitcher and he is a unique cultural icon. He doesn't need to be at work 9-5 and he doesn't have a list of 30 tasks in his job description that lots of other people can do. He's unique and can be hired (or not hired) based on a unique set of talents and natural attributes. Sorry. Get over it. Do you want your team to try to make more money so it can reinvest that money in the team? Furthermore, when did I ever say they would take Dice-K in a deal that didn't benefit their team on the field? People here were saying Dice-K has NO TRADE VALUE. I take that to mean untradeable. I think he has a fair amount of trade value for numerous of reasons. He plays for a team with a lot of minor leaguers to add to any trade, he's affordable, he's not too old but he's also a veteran, he has had some success at the big league level, he is a "marquee" type player--someone that the casual fan has probably heard about--and he is very popular in a particular portion of the world. For some teams each factor may have more value over another. Should a team that hires him because of his relative youth be considered an ageist and unethical organization for choosing him due to age over an older pitcher? How about someone who would hire him because he's a veteran? Is this really a slope you want to start going down? It is illegal to hire or not hire someone based on their age, right? Are people who are searching for a right handed starter discriminating against lefties? Shouldn't teams be forced to have left handed third basemen and catchers? Isn't that discrimination too? I bet it isn't okay to hire someone based only on what hand they write with yet there isn't anywhere near the same proportion of left handed throwing shortstops as there are left handed people in the world. Should someone call out the illegality of all teams who seek right handed throwing shortstops exclusively? Get over it man. Your argument has been super lame from the beginning. It spirals into a relativistic oblivion where you can find something politically incorrect (and illegal) about everything anyone does in this industry. That should be your first hint that you've got it wrong--specifically the motivation driving the decision. It isn't solely about nationality or race, it is about popularity and talent.

I wonder how racisim got introduced to this discussion? Well, you think of Ortiz as Black. I think of him as Dominican. Is Carlos Marmol black or hispanic? Julian Tavarez? Does it even f***ing matter? I think of people as African-American, or African, or Japanese or Chinese, and even those terms have limited usefulness. You bring race into it when you imply that Ortiz is somehow the same as Juan Pierre or Barack Obama or Desmond Tutu because their skin is darker than yours. If the issue were about Asian vs. Non-Asian your argument would make sense. If they were prefering Wang over Buchholz because Wang's "Asianness" appealed more to the Japanese than Buchholz's "whiteness" then you would have a point. That's not the point I'm making though. The point is that Japanese fans root for Japanese players. Dice-K is a Japanese player. Again, you say it is either "Japanese" or "other races and ethnicities". You should say "Japanese" or "other nationalities" if you want to be accurately understood. If a "white" child were a Japanese citizen he would be counted as a Japanese player in their league. It isn't about the color of skin, or how someone's hair looks. It is about their nationality. Again, you're jumping from "Japanese" to "White vs. Asian". It is faulty logic. A thinking error with regard to this discussion. This is absurd. Japanese population centers are absolutely entitled to root for Japanese players more than non-Japanese players. Just as Kenyans are entitled to celebrate a Kenyan soccer player for Arsenol more than a French player for Liverpool. It isn't racism it is geographical favortism and you do it too. Ever find yourself rooting for Americans in any event, ever? Little League World Series? Is it racist if I prefer to go to see the American soccer team at a World Cup event in my hometown rather than the German team or the Italian team? No, it is a preference because the players on that team will be from my own country. If the Japanese prefer to attend a game that Dice-K pitches over one pitched by Chen Ming Wang is it racist? This is a stupid discussion. You entered racisim into it for no reason. If Japanese (or Irish or German or Italian) are not races, then your claim that Japanese fans prefering Japanese players (not South Korens or Chinese, if you believe in such a thing as "Asian") is racism is just wrong. Again, if I assumed casually that the Japanese owners would prefer Wang over Buchholz because Wang was Asian and Japananese people are considered inwardly as "Asian" then I would agree with you. Dice-K is their native son. He is as Japanese as Brett Favre is American or David Beckham is British.

First, your argument is like saying that the predominance of commercials aimed at men during football games is an inherently "sexist" practice. You can use the word "racist" to describe prefering one group over another within a geographic and economic context, but the word loses its negative or fallacious meaning when you do that. But that's neither here nor there because I don't think you understand what "race" is anyway. Irish and Japanese are not "races". Neither are Mexican or Venezualen, or American or Dominican. Perhaps it is "nationalist" to seek a Japanese (or Chinese or Canadian) star, but that word wouldn't be nearly as biting. A failed and weak attempt to end the discussion with a hot button word. In Japan teams are only allowed to have a certain number of foreign ballplayers. We have (and ESPN Magazine, and SI) have discussed the Padres likely economic interest in keeping Adrian Gonzalez in San Diego because he is Mexican and therefore draws interest from a particular population. The Mariners are already overpaying for Ichiro because their team (again, owned by a Japanese ownership group) is popular in Japan. The reason this discussion keeps going on isn't because I care about talking about Felix. The discussion is about whether Dice-K has value. I think it is absurd to claim that Seattle (or any other of the teams I listed) wouldn't do a deal involving Dice-K. You're telling me that if the Sox gave them Buchholz, Westmoreland, Anderson, Kalish, Kelly, Bowden, Bard, Exposito and Dice-K for Felix (or Adrian Gonzalez, or Hanley Ramirez) they wouldn't do it? Of course they would. His salary in and of itself isn't that bad. With tens of millions of dollars worth of talent coming with him, it is even better. The total salary for that group with Dice-K's $$ would be $11m and it would be very cheap for 6 years after that. In terms of the wins it would get the team, it would probably be 3-4 times what Felix alone will produce for half the money (required for an extension). It also spreads the risk. It's a no brainer if the deal is sweet enough. The question for the Sox in any deal like that would be how much are they ACTUALLY willing to give up for the player. I'm happy to drop anything related to Felix until the offseason (if not longer). Let's just stop pretending that Dice-K doesn't have value in potential trades. He may be hard to match 1:1, but he will probably be a mid-rotation starter with higher upside for a number of years.

And my view is that if a bigger-market team wants to blow Seattle out of the water with an offer of cheap talent then Seattle would be foolish not to take it and they know this. An "ace" only matters on a team that is going to win. Yes, they're reliable for near-10 WARP, but if those 10 wins only get you from 72 wins to 82 wins then it won't increase revenue or fan interest enough to make him worth anywhere close to 20m a year. The Mariners have a lot of holes and they play in a tough division that has other good competitive teams. Furthermore, they won't have the luxary of drawing from a robust FA pool or of introducing a whole lot of young talent to boost their club. That's the position they're in. If they were able to add cheap talent all over the field then they would be in the position where having that "ace" could get them over the top. They have traded away all of their high-end talent so Felix would net them the biggest return. It would be a bold move, but I expect that they will listen (they already have been, apparently). (it should be noted that living in the broadcast area of Mariners baseball has colored my opinion. People here don't see Felix as the savior. They know he's very good, but his impact still only keeps them a middle of the road team. I understand your view Dojji, and I think you could be right about his future, but I also believe they are more interested in winning than in spending top-dollar for a pitcher who will keep them at the same level they're at now.)

Wagner does look quite effective. I think this may go down as an underrated move which could prove to be very good for the Sox. Wagner not only gives them an experienced power lefty; he also gives them another guy who has closed games before. I don't expect it to happen, but if something were to happen to Papelbon this team would not be caught completely flatfooted. I hadn't spent much time looking at Wagner's career numbers. I always knew he was a really good pitcher, his team's "relief ace". His overall production is really, really impressive: --In 13 years he has only ever had an ERA over 3 one time. In 2000 he had a 6.18 ERA in 22 IP, otherwise he's consistently in the 1's and 2's. --1.006 career WHIP is better than Rivera's (we all know Mo's better--but Wagner still has 800+ career IP, not a small sample size for a very good number. --If you take out his outlierish 2000 season, Wagner has never had a WHIP above 1.200. By comparison, only one Red Sox pitcher has a sub-1.200 WHIP this year (Beckett). The Sox bullpen may supplement some of the weaknesses in the rotation. Today's game was a great example. No team would want to face (Beckett/Lester/Buchholz), Wagner, Bard, and Papelbon. That's a daunting task in a must-win situation.

He will make a fair amount in arbitration next year and the year after, then he's a FA. Do you think the Mariners will pay him $18-20m for the final 6 years of his deal? Otherwise, he will be in the same spot contract-wise as Roy Halladay was this year by July, except that he's just entering his prime and he's more naturally gifted.

I hope you didn't spend too long thinking this one up. The reason Jimenez would be more available is because he's not nearly as good.

except that I have a track record of knowing what I'm talking about. Which "theory" are you speaking of? --We know the Red Sox want Felix --There is reason to believe that Dice-K for $8m in this economy is an excellent value, regardless of what others here say. Their combination is only one example of his potential value in a trade, it's not where I'm saying he'll go. I provided a list of other teams who may take Dice-K off the Sox hands without them paying a dime in his salary. I believe the Dodgers, Giants and Mets are all options (especially with the recent success of AL --> NL pitchers).

Dice-K has good trade value. Who care which writer wrote it or who has credibility. You think Seattle wouldn't want Dice at 8m over, say, Carlos Silva (11.5 for two more years) or at least in ADDITION to Silva? You think a team like the Giants wouldn't want Dice-K for that price, given the success of Smoltz and Penny? The Dodgers? I think a lot of teams would be interested, and I don't need Cafardo to tell me that. Yeah, he's had struggles this year, but not because he was injured per-se. He didn't do the traditional spring training, he threw his arm out in the WBC and the Sox couldn't tolerate crappy pitching and they shut him down. He's not Peavy or Webb (at least, he's not Webb), but he's not Carlos Silva either. He has certainly held his own in the AL East over two seasons (not counting this year). I think that the Red Sox would include Dice-K in a deal for Felix Hernandez and that deal would make a lot of sense for both teams, along with, like 5 or 6 other minor leaguers to Seattle. Let the "bash those who dream of Felix" posts commense, but Dice K would be a draw at Safeco and he definitely wouldn't hurt their rotation at his relatively cheap price.

I'm afraid you'll be disappointed, as this won't happen.

I would take the Sox top two pitchers over the Yankees top two pitchers, both now and moving forward. 3-5 is a differnt deal, though not by a HUGE margain. I would take the Yankees lineup over the Sox lineup, but I don't think the Sox lineup is anything to laugh at when it is: Ellsbury Pedroia Martinez Youkilis Bay Ortiz Lowell Drew Gonzalez 7 of 9 of those players have been all-stars at least once since 2007; 8 of 9 have been all stars at one point in their career. In terms of bullpen I would take the Sox against anyone. Wagner, Okajima, Saito, Bard, Delcarman, Ramirez and Papelbon is as good a pen for this team as I can remember and they are better than any pen in the AL IMO. Two great starting pitchers. A tremendous bullpen. A lineup that works pitchers and forces other teams (even good pitchers) to go to the pen earlier than desired. Over a 5 or 7 game series I think that bodes well if they are also playing well at the time.

I voted for making the playoffs. I will be really happy and not shocked if they win the ALDS or the ALCS or the World Series (obviously). Overall, I will be satisfied if this fairly imperfect team makes the playoffs in a tough American League and without Matsuzaka for most of the year. I think they're a hot streak or a good player or two from being World Series favorites.

I was going to put that as an option. Also: "I don't care, as long as the Yankees don't win it all" or: "As long as we make the playoffs and the Yankees don't win it all" after awhile there are too many choices.

I am tired of the current discussions about Brad Penny, Tazawa and a bad throw to 3rd. A poll: At this point in the season and with your knowledge of this team, what constitutes a successful season in your mind? Or, to put it another way, at which level of success will you not complain on Talksox about the outcome of this season?

I will be pleasantly shocked if Wang does not eventually return to form. Two years ago I figured he would be one of the best pitchers in baseball. His sinker is nasty and at times he is overpowering. He's young and he has a great frame. Dice-K is smaller, doesn't throw a sinker and seems afraid of the strikezone. When they're each "on" I think Matsuzaka is the better pitcher but when they're mediocre or in the middle of a long season I see no reason that Wang's sinker can't keep the ball in the park and runners off the bases.

I think he could get those numbers but I'm not sure if he'll play in CF. For some reason I imagine that he'll be a faster version of Trot Nixon eventually. I guess I go with what I know... He should be a very productive member of this team or an excellent fully-developed trade piece.

Dude was sick last night. It is obvious (to me at least) that he's just putting together what will be his MLB repetoir. He's added that really nice (though still somewhat wild) slider to the mix, and he was keeping hitters guessing all night. He can throw it hard with really nice bite, or he can take something off it and it acts more like a sharp cutter. Mix that in with a changeup as good as any in baseball and his sick and rarely-seen curveball, and he's got the makings not just of a good pitcher but a bonafide #1 on a very, very good team.