Fried Neckbones

HOF with 10 years as a Red Sox. It's pretty damn hard to get a Sox number retired, especially these days.

He has had good playoff series. Prior to "The Collapse" :harhar: in '04, he hit .308, .312, .409, and .421 in playoff series (the last one is the '04 ALDS). Since that, his playoff series avg are .258, .133, and .071. The Sox broke him, and he hasn't bounced back.

Matsuzaka is going to rock, for a number of reasons. Really, I think that coming into Boston is one of the best situations for him. Big stage, which he seems to like and has excelled on at a number of levels before. Not a gimmick pitcher, but rather a smart guy with multiple big-league caliber pitches. And the x-factor, he's a smart pitcher who is coming into a rotation with a pair of almost OCD level preparation guys in Tek and Schilling. Tek's reputation as a good game caller has almost as much to do with his preparation and scouting as it does with his in-game calls and adjustments. Seeing around 18 wins and a 3.4-3.8 ERA isn't unrealistic.

One of my best friends in college has a younger brother (who I'm also decent friends with) who got drafted by the Sox out of UNLV a few years ago. Zach Basch. Got traded to the A's system and fizzled out of baseball after a couple of years, but was rated #19 in the original soxprospects.com rankings. He told me that Hanley was an over-rated dipshit, and to keep an eye out for Paps (this was a couple of summers ago).

That's pretty freaking cool. :thumbsup: A sight I could get used to.

If it takes Youk to get the deal done, I say do it. I like Youk, always have even when they were dicking him around. But the thought of Helton hitting behind Ortiz and Manny and sliding JD into the 2 hole is pretty exciting. If it's up to the FO though, and a choice between Lowell and Youk, I would hope they send Lowell. Of course, I haven't heard Youk's name brought into this at all (edit: other than as speculation on our part, that is).

I don't know if this will matter to you, but Youk had more Win Shares than anybody on the team last year not named Manny or Ortiz. No he's not flashy, he has no obvious skills, but he contributes, gets on base, plays solid d at first and third, is much younger than Lowell, and is much cheaper than Lowell. I would much rather see Lowell moved for Helton than Youk.

Because the roadblocks to his deal are supposedly technicalities, and not anything that would stop the deal from happening. They've already agreed in principle.

As far as keeping Trot around as a stop-gap for WMP in right, I think the front office is looking at WMP as the future replacement for Manny in left. They need someone who can play D in right at Fenway, whereas you can hide a defensive liability in left. Manny sucks on D, but he also plays the Monster better than anyone. I wouldn't be suprised if they let his guaranteed years play out and let him walk (Manny that is) and start WMP in left in 2009. As for his massive number of k's, holes in swings can be closed (Papi couldn't turn on an inside curve to save his life when he first got to Boston but routinely smokes them into the bullpen these days), and pitch recognition will improve with time - if WMP is willing to work on it. Mark it, dude, starting OF in 2009 - WMP, Ellsbury, Drew.

Youk's numbers from last year compare pretty favorably to Billy Muellers at the same age (27). The only real difference was that Billy struck out less, which is a problem for the 2-hole. Still, I can't think of a better in house option than a guy who gets on base at about .380 for his career, and has an OPS of about .800. Not the greatest, but with Youk's attitude and "intangibles" (I hate to bring that into an argument, but it applies here IMO), he will be a fine member of the '07 Sox and a solid contributor.

He plays first, dude. This is a pretty good deal for both sides. The Braves had a horrible pen last year - now it is really good. Plus their farm is pretty deep with positional players (mostly up the middle, true, but a deep farm nonetheless). The Pirates have someone other than Jason Bay who can hit now. Not a bad swap. And, Yankees fans, isn't the rumor that the Braves are going to swap Gonzalez for Melky+?

Youk got his opportunity during the "undervalued stat that is OBP" phase of the Sox FO. He drew shitloads of walks, saw a ton of pitches, and fit what Theo and Bill James wanted to build the organization into. Does that mean his time is past and the Sox should dump him? Probably not. I can't remember where I saw this, but I saw a comparison of Youk's numbers as a first baseman and a third baseman. While offensivly he stunk as a 1b, his 3b numbers (as compared to other 3b in the league) were actually decent. Moving him to third in '08 would save some coin that the FO could use to run down a 1b or another top-tier starter. He plays good d, still works counts, and is still a valuable role player in the Billy Mueller mold (attitude and contribution-wise, not skill set per se). As for Spann, he never walks. At any level. He has about a 2-3k:bb ratio through his career. Not to say he's not a good prospect and should be relegated to the scrap heap because he doesn't walk - it's just something to think about.

Fred, who would you trade and who would you target? Kind of a thin market at this point, methinks.

I would agree, Ortiz, but for a couple of things. First, the main reason that Paps got overworked last season was the lack of a quality starter in front of him. When your crappy, rotating 5th starter can only go 4 or 5 innings, it eats up the bullpen. Second, I don't want to see him yo-yo'd between multiple positions and roles. He needs to have a settled spot so he can prepare, set his offseason routines, and get into the mentality that he's either going to pitch every 5th day, or pitch out of the pen. Telling Paps at this point that, never mind all of your conditioning the past 5 months to prepare to start, you're going into the pen to close again, but you might slide back into the rotation halfway through the season would be quite damaging to his career.

Yeah, me too. :thumbsup: But Papi wasn't Papi until he got consistant AB's (and Papa Jack told him to screw trying for singles and to let 'er rip).

I agree that the organization should decide what to do with Paps, and avoid a Youk-esque situation where he keeps jumping around, doing whatever the organization wants with no seemingly clear plan. I also think he is going to start, but I also think his end of season troubles are not necessarliy indicative of difficulties he had closing. Consider: His first half BABIP was .205. His second half BABIP was .280. He had one HORRIBLE outing in KC - the series that killed the Sox last year - where he posted an ERA of 27.00 in 2/3 of an inning. He threw more innings in August, and more multi-inning outings, than in any other month of the season - right about the time that Tek went down and the rotation was being picked off a dartboard in Tito's office. Then his shoulder troubles started and he was done. In short, many of the things that killed his performance down the stretch last year were things that happened to the team, not necessarily to him. All that being said, I still think he should be in the rotation - for reasons of offseason conditioning, firming up his place in the organization, and the thought of a rotation anchored by Beckett, Matsuzaka and Paps for the future makes me almost giddy. :thumbsup:

I wonder how much of their offseason insanity is due to the Sweet Lou pickup as manager? Lou does not like losing, he does not like rebuilding, and he does not like developing talent. He likes winning with big leauge players. It seems that the Cubbies looked around the NL Central, saw that the 'Stros are another year older, the Cards didn't really improve, and decided, "Hell, let's go balls out and try our hardest to win this year, and the future of the club be damned." When you are the last of the three "cursed" teams left, who gives a crap about the future? EDIT: I also really like the majority of the Sox's moves this offseason. They had some major needs in thin areas of FA talent and, other than finding a closer (which they still have time to do), addressed them all with their #1 target for each. Nice job. If all falls right, this is going to be a DAMN good team.

I cruised through it in about a weekend. Pretty good read, fairly pro-Theo.

Did you not watch the playoffs this year? Did Zito not out-duel Santana in the opening game of the ALDS? Good God man.

Brian Roberts.