a700hitter

But last year they might have gone deeper in the playoffs maybe even a repeat if they had Petey.

Well that would put him at no better than even, because he looks pretty dumb for letting Damon walk. Smart move on Pedro or not, he's pitching for a playoff team as is Derek Lowe. We've been out of any race since mid -August, so how smart was he. Pedro's replacement (Clement) is much worse broken down physically than Pedro, and on his best day he wasn't 1/10 th of the pitcher that Pedro was in his mediocre years. So, let's factor on the $24 million that was flushed down the toilet to replace Pedro. Over two years, Pedro has given the Mets 24 wins for $26 million, while Clement has won 18 games over the 2 years for a cost of $24million, because he has won his last game in a Red Sox uniform. At least for the first two years, it has been a bad deal for Boston, although the team does get the float on the last $8 million for an additional year in which they will get no wins from Clement..

36 HRs is nothing to be proud of but he really cut down on the gopher ball toward the end. In his last 10 starts, he only gave up 5 HRs. Ironically, he gave up the bulk of the HRs when he was chalking up wins and the team was doing well. HRs don't matter if you win. Conversely, it doesn't matter if you are not giving up HRs, but you are losing. If Sanchez turns out to be great, that doesn't mean that Beckett is a bad pitcher to have in a rotation. Barring injury, he should be a productive starter for many years. If Sanchez turns out to be great, it shows me that the FO traded the wrong prospect. They would have been better off trading Lester. His cancer aside. He did not demonstrate consistent command to be in the ML rotation. Maybe he was affected by his condition. I don't know. Certainly, they could have turned Fla in a different direction if they thought Sanchez was the jewel. If they did, then the Sox would have had both Beckett and Sanchez in the rotation at the end of the year.

Home team announcers are never completely objective, but they should not be obnoxious homers either. A listener should be able to believe that the announcers are accurately giving the facts of what is going on in the game. With Sterling, sometimes the call is more fiction than fact, and screaching his signature call in a 16-1 win that has no implications in the standings is just obnoxious homerism. There was nothing at all exciting or suspenseful about the win.

Maybe you are overstating the case just a bit?

As a Red Sox fan living in NY, what other radio station can I listen to in my car other than the Yankee Broadcast if I want to hear a Red Sox-Yankee game? You know fans of the other team listen to these broadcasts if they are in NY. I also listen to a number of Yankee games just because I am a fan and interested in the competition's game. Announcers are supposed to be somewhat objective, because they are the only voice of the game in a city or region, and not all the listeners are rooting for the home team. I don't listen to the game to hear Sterling's opinions. I listen to hear the game. That is very different than the reason why Yankee fans come to this site. You come here to read the opinions of Red Sox fans. It's much more acceptable for a fan on message boards for his/her team to be an obnoxious homer than for someone on the airwaves whose job it is to call the game and inform the listener. Can you grasp that?

The category is "Late Inning Pressure" not just "Late Inning."

It was a perfectly timed comment. That's why you got pissed.

Ortiz Category AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI BB OBP SLG AVG TB LATE INNING PRESS 70 16 24 4 0 9 22 15 .459 .786 .343 55 Jeter Category AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI BB OBP SLG AVG TB LATE INNING PRESS 67 7 23 1 0 2 15 12 .463 .448 .343 30 Ortiz is right there with Jeter in Avg. and OBP, but he kills Jeter in the other categories. No pitcher fears anyone more than Ortiz with the game on the line.

He looked lost tonight. I think his confidence is far more damaged than his arm.

You don't let established winning talent walk for draft picks. That's like selling your house for lottery tickets. Also, by letting established talent walk has had the effect of depleting the organization's prospects, because they were forced to trade prospects that are not ML ready for established players. It just makes no sense the way this FO has approached things. They've let established talent leave, traded top prospects to get lesser replacements, and in return they got extra draft picks. Yuk!! It seems like they screwed themselves. If the FO is so good at picking talented prospects they shouldn't need so many extra picks. There aren't that many Hall of Famers and All Stars in each draft If your scouts and FO are not good enough to pick off these rare players with it's own picks, what makes you think they'll do better with a few extra picks. I have disagreed with the moves that this FO has made since they won the championship. This year the chickens have come home to roost. This team was awful. In many ways it was one of the worst Red Sox teams in decades. I believe the FO has received the cold slap of reality that their approach was doomed to failure. They went into this season in a position where the team could be competitive if every one stayed healthy and everyone had good years. In a situation like that, it only takes a few key injuries or players having off-seasons for things to spiral downward very quickly. If the FO was not embarrassed by a team that was out of it by the second week of August for $120 million, well... they should have been embarrassed.

No, this was my argument. Read a few posts earlier.

How is that? My argument was based on who pitchers fear more. Poll the pitchers and then get back to me. If Jeter was so feared, he wouldn't be your # 2 hitter.

The Astros would not risk the offer of arbitration. They didn't offer him arbitration last year, because they were afraid that they would get nailed for $18-20 million in arbitration. If they offer him arbitration, Clemens will be back with the Astros.

Why would the Sox have to give up any prospects to Houston? I thought he was signed only to the end of the year.

Not at his salary. Also, he has a terrible arm, so he would not be the ideal defensive replacement.

And I'm not going to stop my signature post when the Yankees lose. BTW: I did say he should stop his call, but believe it or not some people think it is just plain obnoxious.

Now, you know how non-Yankees fans feel when John Sterling howls his trademark call after every Yankee victory, even the meaningless 16-1 victories over Tampa Bay.

Yankees announced today that Randy Johnson will skip his last start of the year, so he will officially finish with a 5.00 ERA. Quite a year for the Big Unit. I guess he is still getting adjusted to the AL as his ERA went up by more than a run since last year. It couldn't have anything to do with him being old.