jacksonianmarch

the sox had the best defense in the league last yr. How did they fare again? Defense is severely overrated if you cannot pitch and only 2 guys on your team can hit.

Free agency has been put on the fritz by having teams like the yankees and the red sox throw millions of dollars to the poor teams in revenue sharing. This will stop soon though. The yankees, starting in 09 when their payment for their new stadium begins, wil be able to exempt themselves their cost of the stadium per yr from the revenue sharing, essentially getting the stadium from the amount that they would have lost to the revenue sharing anyway. It is genius. But, if you figure the payments will be over 20-30 yrs and the cost is likely to be near 800-900mil and after interest that will likely be around 1.2-1.6 billion, split that up by 20-30 yrs and you get about 60 mil a yr. The yankees reportedly throw 40-50mil into the revenue sharing pot very single yr which goes to I believe the 5-6 poorest teams in the league (TB, MIN, KC, MIL, PIT, FLA, maybe more). That means 8-10mil per yr is being removed from the coffers of these teams. That is one premier player per season that these guys are losing. That kind of expense, is something akin to a third (or in the marlins case 2/3) to a fifth of their payroll. And that will stand for the length of the lease. So the yankees can potentially sway the balance of free agency again and essentially be creating a money making machine and hardly expend any money to do so in the process. That will start the whole free agency merry go round again. And the commission cannot step in to do anything about it, because any team that throws money into the revenue sharing pot and who has built a stadium has already benefitted from this, and any deviation from this would be criminal if only one franchise was not allowed to use this loophole. Selig's master plan will have ailed at that point and the teams with the big money will again rise to the top with big time FA's every yr and the small market clubs will sink to the bottom again swaying the balance from these upstart young wild card teams back to the big money big talent teams. That is great for us east coasters, but not so much for everyone else. You say FA is dead, I say it is lying dormant, but it will rise again, wait till 09, you'll see.

The red sox as a whole will decline without any outside help. Sound right? Manny is always a guy who has been picked and over and over again he has shown that wont happen. My money would be on Schilling. He broke down for the first time in his career. His previous injuries were all trauma (broken hand) or twisting something (ankle tendon rupture). He is 40, cannot bring the heat every time like he did 5-6 yrs ago, and he was rather pathetic in July and August, which were the months the sox needed him the most. His K rate dropped a little, and for the first time in his career, he allowed more hits than innings pitched in a season where he pitched more than 100 innings. That spans 14 seasons, so he is declining, he is getting hit harder, and the K rate is dropping. Sounds like a certain lanky lefty at the back of the NYY rotation. I see Schilling being a middle of the rotation or even a back of the rotation guy next yr, as I see Mussina and RJ. The thing is, Beckett and Papelbon will need to step up to compensate, while the yankees already have one young proven ace in Wang and are likely to land another young ace in either Zito or Matsuzaka.

I think you are seeing the taint in your eyes rather than the reason in your brain. Damon will have a solid yr. Posada is certainly a guy who may decline. My money is on Moose. I see an injury riddled yr with an era a full run higher than it was last yr.

I would agree with Giambi if he is forced to play 1st for 100+ games. If not, I go with Mussina. I think the yankees resigning him is a bad move.

http://www.nydailynews.com/sports/baseball/story/468153p-393976c.html 2yrs 20-24 mil. Could be done by next week.

from what I heard, he is still on the Pavano In other news, it looks like Liriano will be on the Pavano for the entire yr next yr, as he will be recovering from TJ surgery.

Suppan to the Bronx? Likely the best thing that could ever happen to Suppan is this rumor. Now he can drive up his already inflated price. This guy will be best serviced to stay in the NL. He is not an AL pitcher.

If I remember correctly, Bill James is employed by the sox, so some bias will have to be considered. All in all though, if his #s are spot on, the sox will have a pretty good lineup.

Manny and 14 mil for Bonderman would work. If you throw Magglio in there, you are essentially only making their best hitter a little better. The Tigers need a guy to compliment Magglio. They dont need to lose him.

unfortunately, not all of them will mature.

most minor league hot prospects have electric stuff. Thing is, they never corrale it.

Right now, everyone is 0-0. As it stands today, the sox are no worse than anybody, but on paper they look weaker than many teams due to their utter lack of pitching and sudden deficiencies on offense. BUT, there is so much to come as well as so much maturation to come that to speculate about anything is premature to say the least. Now drop it, ok?

It wasnt all health.

right now, the sox are way behind the yankees. Much to come, we shall see what happens.

he was saying something about him having a decent FB until right before the draft and then his FB exploded and he kept it up in the minors. We'll see if he is another hansen or the real deal. I think the sox should do a leasing program with the royals. Send their young guys to the royals for a yr to get MLB seasoning with no pressure then return them when they mature. Hansen really could have used that.

SCM, Mr. C is right. Millar played the majority of his games at 1b, but there are 162 games in a season, and over 3 yrs, that totals out to be 486 games. Therefore, over 200games were either games that he sat or started at another position over 3 yrs. So, in essence, he really didnt have a true position. Using the link that you post, he played 59 games in LF (a third of a season), 81 games in RF (half a season), 27 games at DH, and 39 games when he was rested. That hardly looks like a guy who has a stable position. Also, food for thought, sarcasm doesnt go over very well in type. A sarcastic remark can really make you look like a moron if you dont end it with a [/sarcasm] or [/endsarcasm] line like I have seen on here before.