ORS

How about Suchholz instead?

Speed kills. Should have put that in his pocket.

CA$H for 2.

It won't be that tough to justify the payroll, IMO. C: I see Tek coming back, but for less money = +3M 1B: Youk's 2nd arb year = -3M 2B: Dustin still @ minimum SS: Jed @ min 3B: Lowell @ same RF: JD @ same CF: JE @ min LF: Manny - Bay = +11M BN: Cash @ min replaced by Brown / Kottaras @ min BN: Lugo @ same, so long Cora = +2M (this is how good you have to be to make $2M?) BN: Corner IF, maybe Casey, maybe other, let's call it a wash BN: Coco @ same SP: Beckett @ same SP: Lester @ min SP: Matsuzaka @ same SP: Wake @ same SP: ______________ fill in blank, see below RP: Papelbon's first arb = -3M RP: Okajima @ club option = -0.5M RP: MDC @ min RP: Aardsma @ min Curt Schilling = +8M Add up all the +/- and they have $17.5M to reach this year's level, with only a need for "fill in the blank" and another reliever or two. Also, keep in mind that the soft cap (the salary penalty level) moves out to approx $165M this year). How do we fill in the blank? Internal options will be Masterson, Buchholz, or Bowden. There is a case to start all 3 in AAA, there is a case for each to earn a spot in ST, there is a case to have all start in AAA as depth and bring in a Ben Sheets. Given the money freeing up and the fact that I think all 3 pitchers could use a little more time to develop, I think I chose the latter option. EDIT: That number may come down some. Lester and Pedroia are likely to qualify as a "Super-Two" and earn arb next year.

I'd absolutely take him back on the same type of deal. While he was an asset for a short time, his string of injuries and subsequent inavailability at other times when they needed makes me think anything more is a mistake.

Beckett seems to pitch at 95-98 on Saturday afternoon games, too. My guess is that's Fox, not Josh.

Good imagery, right? I mean, I suppose it's a bit insensitive, but damn if bubbles don't make those goofy bastards laugh. Damn, my old avatar would work great with that.

No surprise there, he hit the first two kind of good but with not as much loft.

The Jays go from hitting everything on Sunday, to bending over for Rasner and letting him get through 6 on 68 pitches. Those f***sticks lay down in NY like no other.

Swung at ball 4, looked at strike 3. He's good at that.

Gom you couldn't hit the funny if you showed up at the special ed class with a bubble machine.

98% douche.

Eat s***, Jamon.

Cora's awesomeness is shining bright tonight.

I'm pretty sure that Luke Scott is at least 87% douche bag.

Tek? Two games in a row?

Yeah, Mora helped, but he's not out of the woods yet. He's got the former corpse of Aubrey Huff to deal with.

4 pitches nowhere near the target. Not even close.

JC, Diceman looks like s***, and this is relative to his usual horribleness.

And Mike Mussina has always been able to throw his 3 main pitches pretty much wherever he wanted, Glavine too. It's this rep that gets them the "vet" strikezone they get now. Kennedy has their stuff, with neither their command, nor, consequently, their strikezone.

This is the whole story for me. For the first time in his career, he's allowed more hits than IP. Some might point to BABIP and say "unlucky", and in most cases they would be right, but I feel Beckett's BABIP is pretty much earned. I may have missed one or two of his starts this year, but he seems to have reverted to the FB-happy '06 Beckett. Fewer 2-seam FBs, fewer change-ups, fewer curves, etc. This is confirmed at fangraphs (bottom of the page). Then, on top of the shift in approach, he, to my eye, is making more mistakes in the zone. Hitters are locked in sitting FB, and he's tossing up the occassional cookie. They don't all get hit out, but they are getting hit hard (+9.3% line-drives).

Is it this easy to answer? I'm not sure. I mean, Beckett did get the nod in Game 1 of each series last year due to his better season despite Schilling having the stronger postseason resume (although Beckett's was good too, however so is Lester's). Beckett's ERA was only 0.60 better than Curt's, and it wasn't as low as Lester's is now.

Never said Lars wasn't, but it's surprising how little you hear about the Sox 3rd rated prospect outside of Sox dedicated media (current ranking per SP.com).

MDC should be allowed to face Huff as the tying run at the plate 0 times out of 1.0 x 10^16.