a700hitter

This is not shaping up very well.

After looking at the pool of pitchers for 2009, it is considerably thinner than last year's crop. No one in the 2009 crop interests me a great deal. What will be available on the offensive side?

I'm a pitching guy, and the crop of FA's was stocked last year. The Sox should have bolstered their starting rotation. They are paying for that decision now.

Sometimes a guy needs a night off, but why bat Reddick lead off?

What does the FA pitching crop look like this year, because that's where he dropped the ball last season.

I really don't understand how they picked up a guy worse than Green. He has less range and a weaker arm and he is worse offensively too. Bargain baement move all the way. http://www.boston.com/sports/baseball/redsox/extras/extra_bases/2009/08/is_gonzalez_an.html

...as is Felix Hernandez to the Sox in some posters' minds.

I've got you by the balls now.

The ballpark has sold outagain this season as did Spring Training, so I don't know where the bad economy would have hit the Red Sox. if it had any effect, it would have been to a much less extent than it has hit other teams. No team was going to take him without seeing if he had recovered from the surgery, so they wouldn't have been able to move him before late in Spring Training and he looked awful at that juncture. No team was going to give up anything for him or pay any of his salary. The Sox would have been forced to DFA him, and they were willing to take that risk, because they wanted Teixeira.

Did Woodward get even 1 hit while he was with the team?

No, but they would be incompetent if they had squandered so much of the team's resources that an $8 million write down would prevent them from doing future deals.

No they have not. The Yankee teams in 2004 and 2007 in particular were not better than the Red Sox. The Red Sox clearly had the better players those years. The Yankee starting pitching in 2004 was truly a patchwork of mediocre and over the hill players. The 2007 Yankee pitching was so poor that it had to lure Clemens from retirement. My point stands. The team with the better players usually is better over the 162 game schedule and they have a big advantage in the playoffs. It doesn't matter how you acquire those players.

I don't think it would be anywhere close to the problem that trading a gimpy Lowell would have been. If worse to worse, they'd carry two MIF's. Lowrie could play any IF position including first. We do have 3 first basemen currently. That's at least one too many. One has to go by next season, don't you think?

If $8 million is going to prevent the Red Sox from making a major acquisition, then the owners should just fire the entire FO, because they would be incompetent. The FO was willing to sign Teixeira to an 8 year contract when they were still obligated to Lowell for 2 more years at $14millio/year. Lowell was coming off hip surgery and he can't play any other position. That huge contract did not deter them from going after Tex, so why would a measely $8 million bring this team to its knees. I'm not buying your premise. It's faulty and the past actions of the Red Sox FO have shown that it is invalid.

I'm sure they do care about the $8 million, but they have acted irresponsibly in the past, so why would I care if they overpaid for one more player for one stinking year? They usually overpay for 4, 5, or 6 years when they screw up. A 1 year $8 miilion hit for a SS when they spent $5.5 million on Smoltz and another $5 million on Penny? $8 million on Guzman would be a bargain compare to that.

Reddick batting leadoff? Is Tito smoking crack?

A team like the Red Sox has the financial resources to compete now and plan for the future. Small market teams have to chose between those options. The Red Sox do not. You guys worry about the FO money more than they do. They have thrown boatloads of cash at players for performances that don't come close to justifying those payments-- $70 million for Drew, $36 million for Lugo and a whopping $102 million for Dice K. I really don't want to hear that the $52 million posting fee doesn't count, because it isn't payroll. If you want to talk finances, that $52 million affects the bottom line. They throw $ around like stupid drunken sailors, but if I post my opinion that thy should get a serviceable SS, you castigate me. "Look at a700, he always wants to win now. He doesn't care about the future." I'm tired of that malarkey. The fans pay the highest ticket prices in baseball, and we have to watch Nick Green at SS all season? This is what all of our money buys us at SS? He must be close to being the worst SS in baseball. Red Sox revenue is toward the top of the league, so why shouldn't we expect a better SS... just something that's not embarrassing? Something is wrong with this picture when one of the richest teams has the worst SS. It's not the fans fault. It's the fault of the FO. So, yes I want Guzman and yes I could care less about the $8 million among the scores of millions that this FO has flushed down the toilet.

Guzman is far superior to Green offensively.

Well, since the fans that buy lots of tickets, like me, provide the revenue, the management of the team is in the business of pleasing the fans. This move doesn't please me.

He might actually be an inferior offensive player compared to Green at this stage in his career.

Doji almost always addresses financial risk to the exclusion of the risk that is important to most fans--- that the guy will suck. AGon sucks. Guzman does not.