guapo34

If you believe the only reason he wants out is his wife, then how do you explain all the other trade requests in the past?

Responding to a few people: Going back a few pages in this thread i don't see anyone saying we should trade Dinardo. He's certainly far from untouchable though, and I'm a Dinardo fan. If he can be a piece to aquire a good CF or SS when we have no one even close to average for CF and Alex Cora for SS then you can certainly trade him. Manny has a no trade clause, but he wants to be traded. He wants to leave, because lots of his friends has moved on to other teams and he doesn't like the atmosphere in Boston. There is also speculation his wife wants out, possibly because he cheated on her. Mannys no trade clause will not get in the way of him being traded. His agent may try and negotiate for more money, because he wasn't his agent when he signed the last contract and isn't getting a commision, but ultimately he has to do whats best for Manny and Manny wants to be moved. I think Philly is a terrible place for Manny because if he is cold for a little those fans can be the worst in baseball. Manny probalby doesn't realize this though. Also, he has to like the idea of playing 81 games at that ballpark. Remember his opposite field grand slam in interleague play that looked like a pop up?

If we move Manny to the Phillies we have to get Abreu. If they don't trade Abreu in the deal, they're left with him, Manny, and Burrell to play left and right field. None of those guys can play center. Obviously in that trade scenario they could play michaels in center, but they'd have nowhere to play someone. Michaels has a career slugging % of .442. Not great but not awful. It was down to only .415 last year. Maybe with more consistent play he could bring that up. His .380 career obp is very good. Also, Michaels may not have much power, but which of our realistic center field options do? Coco Crisp has a little, but you probably can't get him without trading Marte.

I think the lefty/righty issue is overblown. Lowell kills lefties. Youkilis hits them better. Loretta hits lefties better. Ortiz doesn't hit them as well, but hes still unbelieveable. Teks a switch hitter and should be fine too. If Jason Michaels were to come along in the trade, as he should, he also hits lefties better than righties.

They've also said they won't trade him for less than equal value. I don't remember reading anything other than speculation that he won't show up for spring training. I do remember him saying something about showing up late to spring training, which would bring a fine. Theres no way he's walking away from $60 million.

Just becuase Manny wants to leave doesn't mean we need to trade him. He signed a contract. He can't go play somewhere else just because he wants to. Theres no way hes walking away from the money hes owed. I'm not worried about his production because hes been unhappy before and done just fine.

And he also said they're still talking about prospects, which means not done.

I wouldn't mind seeing Ellsbury in Right when hes ready if we're set in center. Nixon is a free agent at the end of the year. Right field is pretty big in fenway and it would be nice to have a player with center fielder range out there.

Sure we could afford a slight decrease in hitting with improved pitching, but we don't need to downgrade our offense so why should we?

I wouldn't trade Marte for Crisp, and if its Marte and Mota there would have to be something else coming our way. That said, I love the idea of Crisp in center next year. he hit better than Damon last year, and his defense has to be comparable. Not as much range but a better arm. With Crisp in center, our offense would be better than last year. Our starting pitching is already better than last year, and our bullpen is much better. Our infield defense is better. The one downgrade would be outfield defense. I think we could handle that. Now if there were only a way to pick up crisp without trading marte, lester, pappelbon, and pedroia.

In a chat on espn.com today Callis said the Yankees are ranked 16th in his book this year. The mets traded some good young talent this offseason for delgado, but they still have milledge in their farm system and just signed their first round pick, Mike Pellfrey. They're probably in the middle of the pack as well.

Well combining the two. I guess you could call him slightly above average. Last year he was average, the year before he was better.

Better than alright. His career ERA isn't a very good stat to look at. He was a pretty bad starting pitcher thats been a pretty good relief pitcher for 3 years now. I don't think we have an incredible bullpen, but certainly very deep. We may have 7 guys that can pitch better than our 2nd best guy most of the year last year.

While the trade doesn't make sense cuz it leaves the Phillies with no SS and 3 outfielders that can't play center, thats nowhere near enough talent for Manny. Rollins is slightly above average SS and Rowand is a pretty average center fielder. If we throw in cora and they throw in Burrell the positions work, and we're still getting the short end.

They were never willing to give him up for nothing. Vlad Guerrero was a free agent when we put Manny on waivers, along with a few other big names like Tejada and Sheffield. But with Vlad being good friends with Pedro, and an opening if Manny gets claimed, the sox definately would've replaced Manny with Guerrero for far less money had somebody claimed Manny. Since Vlad isn't a free agent now, along with every other decent hitter, we can't get rid of him for 75 cents on the dollar. If we were going to do that he'd be gone already.

Rowand is pretty comparable to Rollins, makes less, and fills a bigger hole. Abreu is worse than Manny obviously, but the increased defense plus the addition of Rowand or Rollins makes it pretty close. I just think Rowand would be more likely cuz they have Michaels who could play center. Not sure if they'd have anyone who could replace Rollins.

No thanks to Burrell. Now Abreu and Aaron Rowand would be pretty sweet. More proven than any of the center fielders that have been rumored to coming here. Abreu and prospects would could trade to Seattle for Reed or Tampa for Lugo wouldn't be bad either.

Against righties, sure. Over the last 3 years, which includes his big years, lowell has a .752 OPS against righties. Nixon has put up a .847 Ops, and varitek an .804.

I don't think that anyone, with half a brain, has ever said speed is not valuable. The criticism isn't of speed, but as Plumpamania aluded too earlier of getting caught stealing. I don't know the exact numbers, but essentially the argument is that unless a runner is successful a certain percentage of the time, and it differs depending on game situation, they are hurting the team by attempting a stolen base. In the long run, if your team gets caught stealing 27% of the time, they will score less runs than if they never tried to steal those bases. Again, I don't know the exact numbers, but they are higher than most would expect, and most teams score less runs by trying to steal bases than they would if they attempted less steals.

Hansen can't be traded until june, not that we should.

And Tejada drops his trade demand. Looks like Manny isn't going anywhere. http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/news/story?id=2284081

At this point we need to move past plan A though. There aren't a lot of options out there and Crisp and Reed seem very overpriced.

you quoted my post but where did i say anything that disagrees with this? I think sometimes you have to overpay for a need a little bit, and the line has to be drawn somewhere. Outbidding the Mets for Pedro or the Yankees for Damon would've been stupid. I'm not sure why you think I disagree with you.

I'm not saying you're compltetely wrong, just that he wouldn't say either way. Just because he handled the Pedro negotiating one way doesn't mean you negotiate with everyone that way. Different players at different positions with different injury histories. I don't doubt that he'd handle it the same way, just saying his comments aren't really worth much.

I think Manny deserves a lot more credit than you're giving him for the world series win. You bring up defense but seem to forget Muellers 2 errors in game one and Mannys outfield assist at the plate in game 4. Mulder-Zito-Hudson-never won a playoff series Maddus-Glavine-Smoltz-won 1 world series despite making the playoffs every year they were together and usually with the best pitching in the national league, something you seem to believe is by far the most important factor in winning a world series. Unfortunately a better example would be the Yankees in the late 90s. They developed young position players and pitchers, and filled in the key holes with trades and free agents. They certainly signed a lot of their important pitchers though and developed their all star position players.