a700hitter

A Met fan friend of mine has been calling him Shemp for years.:lol:

Absolutely, good riddance to Shemp.

I'm hoping he does live up to those numbers. When he went to the Mets, I thought he would be a really good pickup, because I was aware of his numbers and reputation. Watching him day in and day out, he was a disappointment. Maybe I was expecting too much of him. I don't have a problem with the 4 OFers if they can land Gonzalez. If they land Gonzalez, what do they do with Lowell?

I think he will be missed. He was a very consistent quality hitter who came up big in lots of big spots.

Agreed. There's a lot happening today to discuss. There's no need for pettiness.

I don't know what they were thinking signing this guy for 2 year/$16 million. I don't see the value. He's gonna make the Nation nuts as he swings at air and consistently gets overmatched by even average pitchers. I really don't like this. I don't think they spent this much money for him to platoon the 4th OF spot. Goodbye Bay and Boras shouldn't even bother to call. At 37, he doesn't go get the ball like he once did, although he is a big defensive upgrade over Bay.

Ugh! I was having a good day until that.

I don't like this guy at all. I watched him for an entire year with the Mets and he wasn't as good as I expected him to be offensively or defensively. He was involved in one of the most frightening plays that I have ever seen-- the head to head collision with Beltran (I think).

Where is Example? I'd like to know what he thinks about this before it goes down.

RedSox.com is reporting that they have made an offer to Chapman. I'm on my Blackberry with bad access. Is that a new development

I am interested in Example's opinion about this before it is finalized. We know that after it is finalized, whether or not he signs with us, he'll say Theo did the right thing. I am interested in his opinion before it is finalized. What does he think? How much does he think is fair value? I'm not asking him to crawl too far out on a limb, since it seems like a done deal.

When there are reasons to be optimistic, I am. Last off season I found no reason to be optimistic about signing the M.A.S.H. unit of Penny, Smoltz, Baldelli and Saito, and as it turned out, my skepticism was well warranted. I am very encouraged that so far we have not signed some wounded post surgical retread who is expected to play a major role on this team. I don't want to hear low risk/high value (spitting) this off season.:thumbsup:

This is my idea of a major acquisition. I have the feeling that more dominos will fall after this gets done. Perhaps Bucholz will be packaged for Adrian Gonzalez. If they make those two moves and pick up Holliday, it would be a very interesting year at Fenway.

... And when we acquired him in 2006, I certainly don't think he fell into the "low risk/high value" category that I despise so much with the likes of Wade Miller, Penny, Smoltz and others.

I don't trust Boras. He could jerk our chain again and Holliday signs somewhere else after we help drive up his price. It would be a near fatal kick in the balls to the 2010 team to miss out on both of them.

Again, you are going to tell me what I think. I was psyched about getting Beckett, and the only question I had was whether he was a # 1 or a #2. I felt that there was a good chance that he would be better than Schilling in 2006. He was a disappointment in 2006 because of the HR balls and his stubborn pitch selection. I go to and watch lots of Mets games, so I had seen quite a bit of Beckett. He had the stuff and the attitude that I liked. He had a mean edge to him that I like too. Edit: My brother and niece had Marlin season tickets at the time, so I used to hear a lot about him. The issue being discussed in this regard was the issue of entering a season with injured retread pitchers and players like Wade Miller, Smoltz, Penny, etc. We were discussing this in the context of possibly getting Wang. Beckett's injury issues came up in the course of the discussion, but IMO Beckett wasn't the kind of crapshoot that those guys were. We knew he was going to be in the rotation from the beginning of the season and contributing. The questions about his health were long term not immediate. We were not discussing the merits of the trade.