a700hitter

I like this kid Bates. I think he is going places... hopefully, Toronto.

Beckett is averaging less than 10 pitches an inning.

One more double and then trade him for Halladay. He's moving up prospect categories.

I hate when a piece of garbage pitcher like Chen shuts us down. WTF was the ball girl doing trying to catch that ball?

I hope he goes deep 3 times today and then he is included in a package that gets us Halladay after the AS Break.

Bates should be comfortable against AAA Chen.

Glove stitching broke.

What was the reason for the visit to the mound?

I would lump them into 4 categories: 1. Future Major Leaguers being groomed for the parent club 2. Blue Chip- Trading Chips--Solid major league prospects but not for the parent club. 3. Marginal major league prospects-- Guys that could be packaged with one or more other prospects to get a real major leaguer. 4. Filler-- guys needed to fill out minor league rosters. They have no prospects of playing in the majors and by age 27 or 28 they will need to find a different line of business. Bates is in one of the bottom 2 categories IMO.

He is a retread, which is why they could get him cheap and why he would be a bench player. Prince Fielder is no bench player and the prospect cost for him would be substantial. In my opinion OPS, nor any stat for that matter, for a bench player is definitive of their value to a team. Nomar has a career .885 OPS. You are assuming that his sub-.700 OPS in 33 games is reflective of his ability? He has much more ability than Bailey or Bates. His experience and versatility would also be pluses.

I hope he gets the ball in case he doesn't get another major league hit. Too bad he can't catch a throw to first base.

Thank goodness for Mark Teahen. If he didn't strike out twice in the 6th inning the Sox would have blown the game. That was some play by Drew on the play at the plate.

You bastard!

Get away from there. Do you want to cause Smoltz to hang up his spikes for good, you jinx. I have to call my daughter and beg her to go to the game to counter your negative vibes and your hex.

I do know that the way is being paved for Lars Anderson who plays the same position as Bates. I think you would agree with me on that. There's no room for him on this club, now or in the future, so he is nothing more than a trading chip IMO. What can you get for a AA who has stunk during a short stint at AAA? Probably not much. That's why I picked Bates. Maybe if he goes back to AAA and puts up some #'s he'll increase his value. If you could get Nomar for something less than Bates that would be fine. I was just using Bates as an example of a prospect that had no future with the Red Sox and will probably have very limited opportunities at the major league level. How do I know this? Well, I don't know for sure, but he is 25 years old, he has not done anything above AA yet, and there isn't much buzz about him other than what I have created on this forum. He should send me a Thank You note. It's my best guess that he is a nobody going nowhere, but you are free to disagree. I encourage you to take a flier on him during next years Fantasy Draft. As for the "Bag of Balls" reference, I didn't call him a bag of balls until you said that he could be the 4th or 5th piece of a trade package. That denigrated him probably as much as anything I had said about him. When is the last time that a 4th or 5th trade piece has amounted to more than a bag of balls?

Neither is Bates.

6 Years of Bates? Your humor is sick and perverse. In 6 years, he'll be working for his second insurance company. Lol! If he is going to be the 4th or 5th piece in a big deal, he could essentially be replaced by a bag of balls.