a700hitter

Just ever so slightly.

Again a misrepresentation. I never think any of these guys suck. Sometimes I don't think a guy will make it, but I don't form any opinion until I see them play. Sometimes I am wrong. As for the Cleveland Guardians offense, you are once again misrepresenting my position. I thought that on a particular day Unit faced a watered down Indian lineup. That's much different than an opinion that the Guardians' offense sucks.

The Braves GM would be a fool not to do it. Yes you are misrepresenting my position. Murphy is going nowhere. He's stuck behind Crisp and Ellsbury. He is prototypical trade bait. Pedroia reminds me of Mike Gallego more than Miguel Tejada, so I'd part with him. The only reason that I would offer both MDC and Hansen is because the Braves seem determined not to move Smotlz, and I think he is a difference maker. If I could keep one of them, I'd prefer to keep Hansen who is two years younger and has no history of arm woes. This again is the twighlight of thier careers agument. The problem with Bernie isn't his contract. The problem was that the Yankees had no successsion plan for CF until they signed Damon. The Sox would have had Ellsbury waiting in the wings. They also would have had Papelbon ready to take the mantle from Pedro in Pedro's 2nd or 3rd year. Don't look now, but the two kids are not doing that great yet. I stress yet. I don't expect them to be Goose gossage and Eckersley this year, so we will continue to have 2006 bullpen problems unless Foulke can return to form. BTW: I will die laughing if Theo pulls off a trade and moves a couple of prospects.

CrespoBlows is a TalkSox star. I am adamantly opposed to moving him for prospects. We should take nothing less than an impact Starting Pitcher. If none is available, our financial structure can continue to support both CrespoBlows and 700. Afterall, how many new posters will ever get to their level? A very small percentage. Although CrespoBlows is clearly in the twighlight of a great posting career, I think there is a lot left in the tank.

I got a question, who has advocated such a thing? He or she should be flogged. What is it with you, if someone disagrees with you and the FO you feel compelled to address their arguments by misrepresenting their positions with absurdly extreme characterizations?

So, you are admitting that the Mets do a better job of balancing prospects with established stars? BTW: Nady was not from the Met system. He came in a trade. I know I am winning the argument when people resort to misrepresenting my position. Where have I advocated dismantling the franchise? Read my earlier posts. I have been critical that the FO has let our stars walk away. I have maintained that we could keep our core stars and built the farm simultaneously. If that is advocating any sort of dismantling, please explain. If there has been any dismantling it has been the FO that let the foundation of the 2004 team walk away for nothing. Where have I advocated trading our brightest prospects for rentals? Again, you are misrepresenting my position. While I do advocate trading some prospects to fill the holes created by the FO's moves in letting Pedro go and trading Arroyo, I would hope that they would be smart enough to keep the best prospects. It's their job to figure out who will make it and who will not.

I would have preferred to keep Lowe, but as i have stated in prior posts my priority would have been Pedro. Keeping or losing Pedro should be addressed on it own merits. It bogus to tie his stats to Lowe's as a justification that the FO made the right decision about Pedro. If you want to play that game though: 2006: Wells and Clement 5 wins Pedro and Lowe 16 wins

That would suck.

Don't count on Dotel. I told you that months ago when you though he would be back in June.

The Yankees get an All Star outfielder with a .450 OBP, and the Red Sox back up plan is a minor leaguer, Pedroia.

...and this means that the percentage of draft picks that become HOF ers is greater than I think? You need to take a course in logic. Yes, Damon and Pedro are in the twighlight of their careers. Pedro has managed to make the All Star team in his first two years with the Mets and Damon already has 13 HRs with the Yankees befores August. How many guy do we have with more that are not named manny and Ortiz?

I am sorry that you cannot follow the math, but some teams do a better job of this than the Red Sox. How is it that the Mets have taken our Pedro and signed LoDuca, Beltran, Glavine, and DelGado, but their payroll is $19 million less than the Red Sox. Are they using smoke and mirrors? http://www.onestopbaseball.com/TeamPayroll.asp I have heard that they are in the twilight of their great careers. BTW Damon hit 2 HRs today and they were bombs. Just like the whining owners, you are ignoring the fact that the owners are making more money than ever before. Keep sticking your head in the sand. What's nonsensical about your statement is the following. I'll number the steps so you don't forget the sequence of events and you can see the break in your logic: 1. I have been advocating trading some of our prospects to plug the holes created by the FO. 2. You responded that it was no longer the 70's and prospects were too valuable. 3. I used the Cone and MG Wire trades for prospects in the mid to late 90's as examples that it is still doen successfully. 4. You responded that those were salary dumps. How does your assertion in #4 make the acquisitions any less successful for the Yankees and the Cardinals? How is your assertion relevant to and how does it refute my argument in #1 that we should be looking for those deals to plug our holes? Please explain or I stand by my assertion that your statement about salary dumps is nonsense in the context of our discussion. I am an attorney for a Fortune 100 Company, and I am directly responsible for benefit plans that are funded with more than $13 billion dollars in assets. Gee, that's more than the FMV of the Yankees and Red Sox combined. When you get your MBA and your law degree and a masters is tax law from a top Law School send me your resume. You can't be seriously comparing the Red Sox franchise to Tampa Bay. That's your second completely nonsensical remarks.

Please tell me what percentage of draft picks eventually have even a 5 year mediocre career in the Major leagues. What percentage become all-stars? and what percentage become Hall of Famers? I'll tell you that the answer to the last one is 0% in many draft years. There is a reason that stars make big $. It is because an incredibly small percentage of players become stars. You are not dealing with reality. The FO let go of a Hall of Famer and replaced him with a FA (Cement head) that couldn't carry Derek lowe's jock, and some lottery tickets. Good deal. Let me know when I can make my Cooperstown reservations to see any of them inducted.

Abreu killed us when we last faced him.

I was not backtracking. I would have preferred to keep Lowe. It was you who said if we kept Pedro and Lowe there would be no Wells. I was just acknowledging that at least Wells would be a reasonable replacement for Lowe for 1 or 2 years. I was partially agreeing with you. Thank goodness I didn't totally agree with you, because you definitely would not allow that degree of backtracking. Coco was never Damon's equal, and only people with Crystal Balls like yourself and Theo know that he will eventually be as good as Damon, but how long will that take-- 3 or 4 years? Gee, that'll be just about the time Coco's contract is up and he'll walk. I have no idea what the future will bring, and neither do you, smart alek. That's my point exactly. You have no idea what any of these prospects will become, but we know what we lost. While I have no idea about the future, I do know that the FO sacrificed success in 2005 and they are in the process of sacrificing success in 2006.

Trading stars for highly rated prospects is bad enough, but prospects at least have a minor league track record. Letting your stars walk for draft picks? As I said in an earlier post, letting Pedro and Damon walk for draft picks makes Harry Frazee look like a genius. At least he got cold hard cash for the Babe. Getting picks? You can't be serious. That's like selling your house for 100,000 lottery tickets. You've got more tickets than you would ever buy, so you have a greater chance of winning the grand prize. The only problem is it is still a gamble a game of chance. You gave up a star for a lottery ticket or a bet. That's just assinine.

You lost me ORS. Where is the 20-20 hindsight. I never wanted Pedro to go, and I never thought Clement and Wells were a good replacement. I have always been vocal about letting Pedro go, not so much about Lowe. Frankly, I was surprised about how much money he got on his new contract, but he would have been a bargain compared to Cement head. I would have liked to have kept all of the 2004 FA's (Pedro, Lowe, Varitek Cabrera) and Damon (2005), but even I realized that was not feasible. I expected that they would keep 3 or 4 of the 5, but instead they let 4 of 5 walk and they essentially dismantled the 2004 team. Edit: BTW Damon just hit his 12 HR. How is Coco doing? Damon is clearly in the twighlight of a great career.

They can shove that deal. No freakin way. Theo had better hide his face if this is his big move.

That will make me feel much better as Abreu is raking our pitching.

You are soooo wrong. If you want to label smart management as "instant gratification" go right ahead, but you are overgeneralizing and you are being an apologist for some horrendous management decisions since 2004. First of all, I really don't think the team saved much money by letting Pedro walk. They gave an obscenely large contract to Clement who couldn't even pitch in the NL nevermind the AL. They also threw money at a broken down horse like Wade Miller. They wasted money on Renteria when they could have saved about 3 to 4 million a year if they kept OC. Take the $4 million/year overpaid for Renteria and the $8 million/year wasted on Clement. That's $12 million. We could have had Pedro for an additional 1 or 2 million/year. That does not get the payroll up to $150 million. Next, what makes you think Pedro couldn't pitch in the AL anymore or that he'll be broken down in years 3 and 4? Pedro did just fine in the AL for 7 years. Are you saying that he was in the twighlight of a great career? Where have I heard that before? All I know is that he made the All Star team last year and this year, so if he doesn't break down next year the FO has made a miscalculation. As for Damon, we could have kept him too without driving the payroll to $150 million. They will be paying Coco an average of 4.5 to 5 million a year. That leaves $9.5 million/year to come up with to keep Damon. They saved 3.5 million/year by letting Millar walk. Over the life of his contract Damon would cost about an additional $6 million. That plus the 1 or 2 million to keep Pedro gets you nowhere near $150 million and the core of your team is intact and still in their prime. Again you are so wrong. I am not going to do the research, because you made the assertion that prospects are so much more valuable today than in the 1970's because of the inflated prices for experienced players. You do the leg work and report back to me, but I'll tell you what you'll find. The average Fair Market Value of a major league franchise has skyrocketed since the 1970's despite today's high cost of labor. What did the Red Sox sell for in the 70's and what did they sell for this last time? Teams are making more money than ever before. There is good reason why MLB will not open its books to the players union. It's because they are making so much money that the players would scream that they are under paid. The balance sheets of teams today make those from the 70's look like what they were-- family owned businesses. Your theory holds no water. A player making $100 k in the 70's was a huge expense for those teams, and most teams couldn't afford it. The A's and other poor teams were always trading their stars for prospects. This is a total nonsensical statement. Are you saying that you would be willing to trade our prospects for a player being moved as a salary dump? What difference does the motivation of the other team make? Moving stars for prospects is almost always a salary dump. Otherwise why would a team trade a proven major league star for an unproven minor leaguer? Your response to my post should begin with a retraction of this idiotic statement.

I am not an advocate of filling all of our holes with FA's. I am also not in favor of the FO creating holes by letting our stars walk away, e.g. Damon, Pedro, and Lowe. If we kept those guys, we'd have a kick-ass rotation, and we'd still have Marte as a future third baseman or hot trading chip to help fill holes. Also, let's not forget that the FO created a hole by not signing OC and turned around and threw 40% more $ at Rent-an-error. OC had proved that he could play in Boston, that he was a great uplifting personality in the clubhouse and dugout, and he was way cheaper than Rent-a-Wreck. I don't even understand the point of this statement. Are prospects any better today than the 70's? Are they more likely to make the majors and become stars? When the yankees got Cone for 3 highly touted prospects that never amounted to major league players, that wasn't the 70's. What about when the Cardinals got M Gwire for 3 prospects that never made it. That was the late 90's. I guess your answer would be that it's not the 90's anymore. Well the fact is that we need 5 or 10 years to elapse to get a perspective on a trade of prospects. About 2010, we'll have a much better idea if Crisp for Marte was a good trade. One thing is for certain, Pedro, Damon and Lowe for no one in return is a terrible deal.

Loretta is not the strong link in our infield. He has very limited range, and average hands. He turns the DP great.

The "Duh" was a comment on your misreading of my post. It wasn't meant to be insightful. Duh. If they couldn't get WMP for prospects they should have looked elsewhere for a 4th OF. Established starters that take the ball every 5th day and win 10+ games a few years in a row are too valuable a commodity to trade for a project like WMP. We are paying the price for it now with 2 vacant stater slots that have basically been forfeit games. The 3rd slot is being held down by a rookie, who should be in the 5th slot.

That would be wild if Lugo ended up at 2B and we get a good bull pen guy like Linebrink for Loretta.

Read the post again. I was advocating trading a prospect to get WMP instead of trading Arroyo, an established major league pitcher. Duh.