a700hitter

He pitched his best against Baltimore, KC and Toronto (with the exception of 1 horrendous start). Those teams pretty much suck.

I never do that. When I am wrong about a guy, I openly admit it. I have never said that Buchholz won't be good. He's got the stuff. I would have been in favor of trading him for certain established star pitchers while he is still developing. I won't want to trade him when he puts it together. Once we've suffered through the growing pains, we might as well enjoy the fruits. If that's the ******** your talking about, yeah gulity.

Average is "mixed". He was slightly above "mixed"

2 starts in a row in September were awful. In 4 of his 16 starts he gave up 6 or 7 earned runs. He had 9 QS in 16 starts. A bag of garbage like Penny had 11 QS in 24 starts.

He stinks. He'll be forgotten just as quickly than the guy who preceded him. What was his name?

What does this mean?

I really don't see him signing for two years. He must want to go somewhere to start for more $ than we will offer him. I think he is nothing special. He's a singles hitting first baseman with no speed. He's a bottom third of the order guy, and there is much of a market for a guy like that who can only play first base. I can't see him having much trade value at all, so why bother keeping control of him for an inflated price.

Why would he sign with the Sox who clearly have no plans to give him a starting job?

In arbitration, they will look at his stats for last year that show him with almost 400 ABs and the arbitrator will rule accordingly. He'll get nowhere near that playing time with the Sox unless something catastrophic happens to Youkilis. Why would the Sox want to give him pay that is close to full-time player pay, when he will be a late inning defensive guy?

There are 8 Red Sox who are Arbitration eligible. Who gets tendered and does not? Here's my guess: Jonathan Papelbon-- yes Ramon Ramirez-- yes Hideki Okajima-- yes Manny Delcarmen--yes Fernando Cabrera-- no Jeremy Hermida-- yes Brian Anderson--no Casey Kotchman-- no

They were practically helpless against the immortal Jon Leiber in 2 games. The point is that you don't know if the 2009 offense would have put up some runs if there was a game 4 or 5 or an ALCS. Pedroia, VMart, Bay, Drew and Ortiz are not chopped liver.

They didn't show up for the first 3 games and the first 8 innings of game 4 of the 2004 ALCS either.

He is in A ball.

The evidence that we do have is that we have equal or better prospects to what Phillie offered. That's it. The evidence is that a package including Buchholz plus other prospects would have been competitive with the Phillie package. The evidence is that you think giving up Buchholz would have been too much. Are you saying that the Indian GM would not be as familiar as you are regarding Buchholz's value and potential? Are you saying that the Indian GM is a dupe? Is that your argument? Or is your argument that the Sox never attempted to get Lee? If that is a fact, then that was a mistake. Lee should have been on their short list of trade targets.

Jeesh, your memory is terrible. When we argued about this a couple of weeks ago, I said that we could have gotten Lee for Buchholz + other prospects. Buchholz would have been the centerpiece. The Phillies did not give up a boat load of talent to get Lee. The Sox could have competed with their package. Are you changing your argument now? The last time you were insulting me for wanting to trade Buchholz in the package. Now, are you arguing that Buchholz + couldn't have done the trick?

We've been down this road before. I say we get Lee for Buchholz. You say I am nuts for wanting to trade Buchholz. I disagree. I'd rather have Lee. You say that I'm nuts. There we just saved repeating the same argument that we had during the World Series after Lee dominated the yanks in game 1.

I think you are right that the missed opportunity was Lee.

I think there would have been a very strong possibility that things could have ended very differently if we had landed a combination of Halladay and Felix. That would have been huge. You must not have much of an imagination if you can't see how that could have changed things. We would have played the little league team from Minnesota instead of the Angels in round 1.

There has to be "could" or "would" in the statement, because it didn't happen. We are left to speculate. Nothing can be stated with certainty when speculating. The FO must have believed that he or Felix could have helped put them over the top, because they kicked the tires pretty hard on both. They must have seen some possibilities. The 2009 Sox were a pretty good team. I don't find it difficult to believe that the acquisition of a CY Young caliber pitcher along with the acquisition of VMart would have pushed them to the next level. I think if VMart hadn't been acquired there was a real possibility that the Sox might have fallen out of a playoff spot. He was critical to the offense in the second half.

It could have been A or B. I think he could have given the Sox a chance at either. One player doesn't make a bad team a great team, but the 2009 Sox were a very good team. When we speculate about how Halladay would have changed the Red Sox season, we can't assume that that everything else would have stayed static. I'm not saying that his presence would improve the teams' offense, but his presence could have affected games beyond those that he pitched. His ability to go deep into games could have helped give the bullpen a shot in the arm at a time when it was running on fumes. I don't think it is a huge stretch to think Halladay could have won three games against the Yankees in the second half. That by itself would put the Sox 2 games back of the Yankees. I don't think its a stretch to think that Halladay or a more refreshed Pen could have picked up an additional couple or 3 games the rest of the way. If we didn't have enough to catch the Yankees, it's not a stretch to think that Halladay could have won game 3 against the Angels. Who knows what happens in game 4 at Fenway and game 5 with Lester and Beckett on the hill in those games. I think you would have to give the Sox a shot. Schilling used to talk about how the execution or 4 or 5 pitches in the course of 120 pitches usually was the difference between winning and losing. It doesn't take a lot to change the dynamic of a game to account for the difference between a win and a loss. Similarly, with a playoff team, it's not hard for me to believe that the presence of Halladay could have made a difference to the Red Sox season.