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Was it a pompous "you know who I am?" or was he surprised someone recognized him? Anyway I said hi to Johnny Damon at an autograph signing in a local sports memorabilia store. He seemed like a good guy

It is a pretty sweet picture

This is our BACKUP middle infield guy. Hulett has been really solid in his minor league career posting .898 and .858 OPS in over 400 AB in AAA for the past two years. He's never been given a chance (you can't draw ANY conclusions from his MLB sample thus far).

I think he's got an insider account with baseball-reference.com

2.75/1 with a 2.5 mil option I believe. But again Gonzalez sucks so no loss here

Um no. My term used was high offensive output which I have since defined in the subsequent post. I'm not sure what else you need here

I literally never typed the word elite in any of my posts here. What I did say was maintain a high level of offensive performance which for a SS I judge to be .800+ OPS which is only accomplished by a small handful of players. At pretty much every other position (1B, 2B, 3B, OF) except SS and C there are far more than a small handful of players who consistently put out solid offensive numbers relative to their position.

Im not saying there are only 3 SS who put up numbers in a given year since there are clearly more. But Ill pick apart each of your examples to show why there are an extremely small number of teams that maintain high offensive output from the SS position every year. I almost put Escobar on the list, he's still young but has been consistent for the time he's been in the majors. Aybar JUST had his first productive year. His past years he has not been very effective so it remains to be seen whether he's the answer for the next 5 years in LAA. Cabrera is again a solid SS who is coming off his first full productive year, too soon to make the call if he's going to be at this level every year. I forgot Reyes, another franchise player Andrus is a rookie who had a decent year, I don't think he's a sure bet to produce consistent high results by any means. Drew has upside but is pretty inconsistent So read my post again, I mentioned SSs who you can pretty much ALWAYS count on to put up high offensive numbers and that boils down to Tulo/Jeter/Hanley/Escobar/Reyes. There are other solid SS who have a chance but they could very well fall by the wayside. Point is there are very few SS who you can put out there and know what you are going to get (like say Youk at 1B/3B ). That's why there is very little consistency at the SS position here.

If he didn't have a .296 OBP this year I probably would have

Probably because there is like 3 SS's who are good players year in and year out? Hanley/Jeter/Tulowitzki. That's about it, and unfortunately we aren't one of those 3 teams and likely won't be anytime soon.

Not really. Gonzalez sucks, Lowrie has upside And it is absolutely ridiculous to look at Lowrie's 70 AB sample size (in an injury plagued year) and draw ANY type of conclusion. The year before he had a .740 OPS in 260 AB. Was an .800 OPS SS in AAA during that 08' season and had OPS of .900+ and .860+ in AA and AAA respectively the year before that. The guy is legit

sorry I meant to include that you'd have Halladay also for 5 years. But Buchholz+Holliday will cost the same as Halladay

I'll throw another log on the fire: Would you rather have Buchholz+Holliday/Beckett for the next 5 years or just Halladay?

It's not mostly about stats (yet) with Clay. He has a very strong command of 4 above-average to plus (to plus-plus?) pitches and after a certain date in 2009 he was able to really command them and the results showed. He has a a high GB%, increasing K/9 rate, and pretty solid composure compared to the Clay we saw earlier in the season. ANY team would cream themselves to have him on their team with the prospect of him being cost-controlled for the next 5 years. Absolutely no chance he goes for anyone short of Felix or Hanley (and maybe Agon).

Highly doubt Theo would ever even trade Buchholz for Halladay straight up

Where are you pulling this from? A 5yr 80-90 mil is probably a VERY competitive offer in this market

...with Holliday's agent

Jeter sucks

It's funny the article mentions Remy as if Ellsbury would have to ask him

There really aren't many huge contracts given out to catchers in the last decade. The main guys Posada/Varitek/Rodriguez/Kendall all were given contracts in their late 20's/early 30's and none for an average valiue of over 13mil per year. The one thing that is constant is the amount of years which has been 4+ for all them so it seems like catchers are more concerned about getting longer term deals since they know catching takes a heavy toll on their bodies.

A 31yr old Martinez should easily be able to get 4 years. So I'll give you 4 years and ask again, is there any precedent for a guy clearly taking more money for less years when they are only low 30's in age?

I don't think a three year deal is going to cut it for Martinez. Some team will gladly go 4+ years for a catcher that hits as well as Martinez does.

I respect your opinion, but I'm going to have to say you're wrong (about the bias part).