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The Renteria stuff is an OLD and moot discussion. However, anyone who watched Renteria play saw that he appeared unhappy and overweight and slow. Perhaps he's faster, thinner and happier now that he's in ATL. Who cares? Good riddance. That was the 05 season. Which was more than a season ago. Lugo and Cabrera are different players who offer different things. Both are good players but Lugo clearly adds something to this offense (namely speed) that Cabrera can't (even though he has some himself).

Dent is my favorite Sox pick so far, I think. 3/5 are from HS. Odd, but understandable. We likely won't be seeing anyone from this draft for a long time. Is there reason to think that Hagadone is any better than, say, Masterson or Cox or Kris Johnson? This seems like a fairly weak draft, but, of course, the Sox have fewer top picks than they have the past few years.

You missed Pick #84 Jeffrey Morris, 3B/OF, 6'4/200 L/R, High School Alabama and Pick #114 Brock Huntzinger, RHP HS Pitcher

It could have been 3.

Huh?

in the seasons in which he played 145 games we're talking about him playing 90% of games. In the NFL that's a player who misses a game and a half. In the NBA its a player who plays 74 games. It isn't perfect but its a good percentage of the season. Have faith man. The Red Sox clearly think the injuries of the past few years were FREAK INJURIES. They have examined his body, YOU HAVE NOT. Your playing the role of backseat GM without being privy to what the GM is privy to. What you ARE privy to are his numbers, and if you look at those numbers and don't see a VERY impressive player then I don't know what to tell you. Perhaps you are blinded by the spectacular numbers of Ortiz and Manny to the point where you can't recognize a classicly solid player when you see one. You shouldn't get hung up on the money thing. You really shouldn't. This team is right where they want to be financially. Next offseason they will be confronted with the "problem" of having Schilling (13), Lowell (9), Clement (9.5) and Hinske (5) up for resigning. All of them could reasonably be released. That would free up 39 million for next offseason alone. Mostly I just think you didn't like Drew--like most baseball fans--before he was on the Red Sox. Now he's on the Sox and you're going to let him have it as soon as he looks human.

I didn't. You misread and presumed and made ASSumptions. If you're wrong will you leave and never come back? Ohhh, a will to win. Your analysis is impecable Mr. James. What are you, a 300 lb. scout? You accuse my post of becomiong a Peanuts movie thanks to your own misinterpretation and tendency to fall into group-think, but then turn around and do this repeatitive sing-songy crap because you think you're cool? Unimpressive. Every kid who has ever been 15 knows the reference. Clever. How do you measure spunk, exactly? How do you quantify it so that you can determine which players who join your team are likely to add to the 'spunkitude' of the team? Are those numbers more convincing than Drew's career numbers? Your bandwagoning with TeddyBallgame101 should be based on more than your 'spunk radar' (forever to be known as spunkdar). Show me numbers please.

No, it isn't chump change. It is a calculated investment based on their projection on the player market and who is available the next few years, as well as who they will be targeting. Drew fits into the mold of high OBP/threatening power hitter that the Sox have successfully built around the past few years. You are ignorant to think that his numbers right now .222/.340./.310 are what he is going to do for the rest of the year and certainly for the rest of his career. When have you EVER seen a player suddenly regress to levels worse than any in his entire career? Right, that's your idea. I didn't say anything of the sort. My reference was based on Manny's production this season and how, although it doesn't mesh with his considerable and consistent career averages, people are cutting him slack. Drew, on the other hand, is not getting any slack cut despite the fact that he's only producing about 1/2 of what he usually does. If he were producing at career-average rate on this juggernaught nobody would be complaining about his pay. My reference prior to mentioning manny was about the additional factor of, and the other players who had to adjust to coming to the AL. It's a good thing you didn't just assume that I said Manny struggled in his first season so that you could be really mean and insulting. Phew... :thumbsup: Thanks for taking the time to read carefully. Wait, I thought we just agreed I didn't even say that... Wow. Now you're just being an *******. Now this is what I call a strawman argument... you posit that I said something I didn't, then you proudly and mockingly go to town dismantling your own idiocy. Nice man. Wow, your misrepresentation of my argument got your panties in a wad. Unwad them and come back to earth pal. Everyone knows Manny is one of the greatest hitters of all time. So what? JD Drew is one of the better hitters in baseball. I'm not saying that because I like him--I don't particularly--or because I want to support everyone and everything that wears a uniform--I don't--I'm saying it because the numbers say so. The numbers say that it is very, VERY hard to be a .390 OBP and .500 SLG guy in your career. That's what he has done. The guy got MVP votes 3 years ago for crying out loud and you're saying he hasn't proven himself. BS. He hasn't reached his potential, but he has certainly proven himself to be a superior player when he is on the field. He has had two freak injuries over the past 3 seasons. They are the type of injuries you can either blame a guy for, or not. I usually don't blame hitters for getting hit on the hand. I guess you do. If you had done your research you would have noticed that Drews contract includes a clause that if he ends the 09 or 10 seasons on the DL and is unable to play the OF the next season they may release him. So one of your biggest fears is alleviated. Look man, I understand your concerns about Drew's contract and his performance so far. I don't understand the ease with which you make claims about his lack of worth based on his performance so far this year and his freak injuries in years past. Why assume he's only going to produce half of what he produced in the 9 seasons prior? That is a completely naive thing to do in baseball terms. You wait it out and let good players work their way out of slumps. We're a third of the way through the season. If JD Drew is on fire down the stretch and this team wins a WS nobody will be complaining about his check, or at least not while also saying he hasn't proven anything. He's a good player but you don't give him his due and you look alarmist because of it.

I love it how when players are playing poorly everyone thinks they know what to do better than this front office. I'm not worried about drew at all. For one, I'm not the one paying him. for two he's sitll getting on base a fair amount given his paultry average. I see no reason to think he won't have a .400 OBP by the end of the year. The reason this team paid him as much as they did was because they wanted him. They didn't want Abreu, they didn't want Soriano, they wanted and got drew. During the off season, if we had taken a poll, a majority would have said that Youkilis, Drew, Lowell and Pedroia shouldn't be on the team. Now, low and behold, it is only Drew who is drawing peoples' ire. Give him some freaking time to get used to hitting in the AL. Manny Ramirez started out hitting hundreds of points below his career average and its fine. drew does the same thing and you call for his head and pat yourself on the back about how well you can predict how people do. It wasn't a no-brainer. Sorry, this FO isn't known for just spending money to spend it and if hey didn't think they were close to his real value they wouldn't have paid it. Do you think his Spring Training numbers and early season numbers were just flukes? You think he was just playing well over his head at that time, when pretty much everyone said "I guess I can see why they signed him now..."? I don't. I think that just like Pedroia you know what you're going to get, you just have to wait for it to materialize. I think there are impatient baseball fans--like you--who want to move on to someone else as soon as Drew starts strugggling. Given how well this team is doing I see no reason to come down hard on guys like Drew or Matsuzaka for having a hard time with the transition. Count your blessings that guys like Okijima and Beckett have figured it out and remain silent, that's what I would advize.

I'm not doing any self-congratulations for our team. I'm saying that it is dejecting for other teams to know that it is VERY difficult to take 3 in a row from us. Especially so for the Yankees who need to take a lot of games from us if they are going to make up the considerable ground in between. If we win tomorrow then the series is a net +1 in the standings. The point is to keep series in the +1/-1 area rather than -3.

The Yankees should be hitting the Red Sox, but not because of anything Lowell did. They should be hitting them because the Sox are embarassing them all over the place. The Sox pitchers never had a hard time throwing up and in to the Yankees the past few years and I don't see why the Yankees would now.

This team is just good. Much like when facing the Yankees the past few years, it seems the Sox are capable of just playing their game and preventing any winning streak to start for the Yankees. It is frustrating, I'm sure, as the opposition to know that you are very unlikely to win more than 2 in a row against this team.

The number is pretty simple, but how that qualifies him as a pitcher is not. Look at where he stands in relation to other pitchers who are called 'good' and see if the HR rate is astronomical. It isn't. Through June 1st here's how it breaks down: Top 20 HR/9 in the AL: Kelvim Escobar (.27) Chad Gaudin (.27) Josh Beckett (.31) Andy Pettitte (.38) Chien-Ming Wang (.50) Dan Haren (.55) Roy Halladay (.56) John Lackey (.56) Jeremy Bonderman (.61) Jose Contreras (.61) Jarrod Washburn (.64) Jon Garland (.65) Steve Trachsel (.68) Carlos Silva (.75) Odalis Perez (.76) Joe Kennedy (.86) Fausto Carmona (.92) Justin Verlander (.93) Tim Wakefield (.93) Jorge De La Rosa (.94) A few things are obvoius here. First of all, other than those who are absolutely exceptional (the top 5 or so) it is not at all rare to be NEAR 1HR/9. Given that #16-20 are all above .90 (each having given up 7 HR this season) that tells me that Matsuzaka could be on this list except for a poorly planned pitch or two. I'm not sure what the AVERAGE HR/9 is for starting pitchers, but if the 20 and above rankings are all above .95 then 1.00 is not at all abnormal.

Jesus, what have I unknowingly walked into? We are?

I don't like Rowand, for some reason. He just isn't a very exciting player to me for whatever reason. As for getting a look at Ellsbury in ST, I got a look at him in ST this season and thought he looked ready. I expect he will need to go through the standard Pedroia-2-3 months of getting adjusted, but all-the-while he will be drawing some walks, stealing some bases and playing a ++ CF. I don't think we need to see anything else from Ellsbury, in my opinion. He is the CF of the future for this team, the question is how quickly the future arrives. I also think Murphy and Moss have a right to get a shot, but Ellsbury's tools are too much to pass on.

Jesus. When did we start 'just adding' Bowden to deals? Bowden is potentially a very, VERY good pitcher. I see no reason to move him at all until we know what we've got on our hands.

No.... no. I don't think reuniting with Johnny Damon is the direction this team wants to go right now. His speed is lacking, his power has decreased, he still has no arm and isn't an actual 1B. If we hoped to move Lowell to get a bonafide power bat at one of the corners then Damon isn't that person.

Exactly. He's either on or he's not. When he's on only he has any clue where his pitches will go. When he's not he's throwing slow-pitch softball. You can't 'figure out' a knuckleball, you just swing at it and hope you make contact.

The only angle on NESN that seems any good you can't tell, but from my vantage point the tag stayed on. His body clearly beat the throw, so the ump must have seen something afterward that made him call him out. Abreu's entire body came off the bag after he touched it, Youk kept the tag down and the ump called out on a late call. NESN isn't talking about that aspect of it but I'm pretty sure that's what the ump saw.

Watch the replay, youk holds the tag as abreu's body comes off the bag, between his foot and his hand. He initially looked like he was going to call him safe but called him out.