ksushi

May 20th - 25th is my cut off date. Random, but whenever a guy is sucking going into june, right before I'd start looking around for an insurance or an all out replacement player. If you have a guy with upside, like crisp does when you consider his age and track record pre-boston, I would be making calls while that upside might still be on peoples minds.

Yeah, it's true. Bringing him up hurt him big development wise. I think he can get it back though, he's a cocky kid and he still has the great stuff, just not the location yet, he needs to learn to pitch. Hopefully its not a nerve thing, but it takes longer to tell when you're talking about a guy who was in college like a year and a half ago. Delcarmen just flat out is not a major league pitcher right now. He has great pitches, but you can't say a guy has good stuff when he can't get his curveball over the plate at all. When you can't do that, no matter how good your fastball is, its gonna get hit. His curve is his only passable offspeed pitch but its never in the zone. I don't know if he'll pan out to be much right now. I highly doubt Bucholz will see this bigs any time soon. Lester is on a faster track, and even if Lester isn't Julian is a viable option right now to go the rest of the season. I think they will give it to Lester sometime this year, but point is, Bucholz has no where to go really except maybe tripe-A if he stays this nasty. He is downright filthy right now, Bowden is pretty locked in too pitching in a hitters league and a hitters park, hes putting people away. With that kind of talent right there, bowden is 20 buch is 22, we have plenty of time to wait. If they get the Hansen/Cla meredith treatment I'll be surprised, but who knows.

He said in his news conference that he doesn't know if he'll miss a start or not, he didn't say anything about the DL. If he goes on the DL, I'll be a little bummed because right now he is blowing away everyone. I really want some more word right now, I'm itching for it because I'm really pulling for Beckett to become the pitcher I thought he was after 2003. He is the kind of guy who can win 20 and keep an ERA under 3. He has the electric Oswalt or Halladay type stuff.

This is why we traded for Beckett, and this is why we spent 100 million dollars on Matsuzaka. When you have good power pitching, everything clicks. Sometimes the dice doesn't roll your way, but more often than not, you're firing on all cylinders. Look at what put the tigers in the mix last year? Verlander, Bonderman, and Zumaya. Beckett, Matsuzaka, Schilling and Papelbon will do much the same thing.

Wow Gom, way to try to make Ortiz into Bonds. I think you're barking up the wrong tree here buddy. I bet you've been digging around the internet waiting for a Sox players name to come up in a steroids article. Ortiz isn't a roids guy. Read the article a little better, it wasn't " I took roids in the DR when I was younger but now Im a better person who doesnt do that anymore" It was more like "Bonds maybe isn't such a bad guy, I'm a good guy and I've taken supplements in the DR that aren't approved my the MLB that I don't know exactly what they were, but really Bonds isn't a bad guy."

Moss blowing up the team is so doubtful. A. He really wants to be here. Its all about the super bowl now ( and lets face it, who else can guarentee super bowl but the pats?) and B. This is one of the strongest club houses in the game, you think one guy can really disrupt all that? Maybe he could alienate himself and find his way off the team, but i highly doubt he could blow up the team.

Wow, already down on a guy who just started his minor league career.

I know they are spending a lot of time making him throw secondary pitches. He's 21 with a 100mph arm, and they want to nurture that as best as they can cause anytime you have that its special. With Bard, its a work on his overall game thing and builed around the tremendous raw talent he has. I don't expect anything from him till he's like 25ish. I still think maybe he comes up as a starter and becomes a reliever. I love his ceiling as a reliever.

That was great, not gonna forget that one for a long time.

Why do you bother to compare what guys did at whatever age? Its not relative at all. Just stop, see what happens between now and the end of the year. Maybe you're right, maybe you're not, but either way you're down right redundant and pretty irritating saying the same thing over and over and over.

Um, haven't the two 'big guys' been mostly slumping? The whole reason for a lot of this optimism going around like a bad cold is because we don't have double digit losses yet and until he put 2 balls in orbit the other night Manny had been mostly a non-factor. Ortiz has been fairly consistent, but really we have had a quiet offense. We have a crowded bullpen and for the first time in a while its crowded with good pitchers. Donnelly, Okajima, Piniero and we just brought a guy up who can get outs in Hansack. Good pitcher. With any team, you need to keep your starting 5 healthy, but as long as that happens we'll be fine. Our outfield can withstand a hit, our infield has some depth with hinske able to play either corner, Youk has flexibility there too if Lowell goes down and Cora, Pedroia and Lugo up the middle give us wiggle room if we lose one of them. In the pen, outfield, infield we can take hits. We've seen them withstand a Manny dry spell. Right now, and its really early, we're the best team in the majors. I can't wait to see this team in mid-season form.

It seems like with runners on he is pressing and doesn't focus well on the batter. The walks are coming in clusters because once he has a guy on first and he goes to the stretch, he hurries.

Young pitching is a huge asset to any organization and its so hard to acquire by trade or on the market. So Lester might not be Sandy Koufax, sorry. He hasn't played in the majors for a while and the sample size we have is very small and here you are petitioning to have this kid sent out for a bat boy. You need to calm down, we've all heard you sing this tune before, and frankly I don't think I'm alone in saying I'm quite bored of it. Just don't say anything and wait and see what happens, thats really all we can do. I don't know that Lester will be great, but where do you get off telling all of us that you know he won't total any significant amount of wins the in the majors? What do you know more than all of us? I don't think so. How bout just sit back and be the arm chair pundit you always are, but without so much lip action. It's getting boring, at least on this topic. There is only so much of the broken record that I can take.

Whether it kills his confidence or not, Alex Cora is playing his balls off. He is the guy we want at 2nd right now.

Jesus christ, a minor fore-arm cramp and now hes carl pavano? Sometimes I wonder...

As of like a year ago his ceiling was as high as anybody's and he has a short stint in the majors and isn't the second coming of koufax and he loses his ceiling? He still has the same stuff, not everyone comes up and dominates. As for hughes, I love his stuff. His curve is wicked and his change is filth. I think calling him a power pitcher its giving his fastball a little too much credit, but that doesn't mean he doesn't use it well because he can sure as hell punch guys out with it. Great poise, great stuff. The one knock I have is his delivery. It sucks. He might have forearm problems later in his career, but maybe not. I don't like it, if I were the yankees, I'd ask him to change it.

I think Randy Moss is in his prime, most people agree that when you hit age 28 your headed into your prime years and that lasts till about 32-33 years of age. Moss is 30, Brady is 30. Look out.

Last season Lester was a consistent 92-94... and often was his outpitch. Talking about his fastball as if it is the anchor holding him back is the wrong way to talk about it. Lester used his fastball exceptionally, what he needs to do is just not go so deep into counts, not walk so many guys. He needs to buckle down. The problem in everyones assessment of Lester from last year is that everyone wants to label one pitch as the pitch that he didn't have great command of, or needs to refine, but thats not it. There isn't one pitch in his arsenal thats alluding him, its that he would let the game get ahead of him, and any one of his pitches could wind up on the backstop or in the dirt. Thats why I think it was nerves. He knows how to hit the strike zone, I don't think he has to be handled with kid gloves right now, cut him loose let him have another shot at the majors, I think theres a chance he shuts a lot of people up.

ignore it. so... brady to moss or peyton to harrison?

are you serious?

It did go through. He passed his physical and the raiders used the pick. He restructured his contract so that if he flares up off the field the Pats can release him. All this guy wants is to be in a situation where he can win a superbowl, too bad we can't do that for him, but we can put him in the position to win 3 maybe?

Yeah, that means it went through.

If all he has is Gap power in Japan be sure that he will be nothing like Matsui who was a 50 homer monster in Japan.

I have to vote Ellsbury.