Fried Neckbones

I'm not really sure that signing two guys with recent elbow surgeries (amongst others) to anchor the bullpen for a combined $8 million is a very smart move.

He's used to it - he played in Seattle before this.

I like that. That is humorus to me.

I don't have much in the way of predicting numbers here, just an observation that came to me this morning in the shower. This is one slow-ass team. From 2 through 7, we've got Youk, Ortiz, Manny, Drew, Lowell, and Tek. That is a lot of station to station baserunning, and not a lot of first to third or second to home. When yoou've basically got to rip 4 singles in a row to score one run, or when guys are going first and second to bases loaded rather than a run in and guys on the corners, it's going to hurt in the long run. Not to say that this isn't a good lineup - I think they will do just fine offensivly - but they will be counting on long balls a lot, and that can kill teams, especially in the playoffs/stretch runs (not to get ahead of myself or anything:D ).

Hmmm, I thought he could have been a good one to make a move for to close next year - maybe Coco + one of the three B's or something like that. Elbow tendinitis, that's a bitch though. That never really goes away. Either way, it would appear that one more closer is off the market.

That is the question isn't it? Is a guy who hasn't thrown in a game for a season and a half and is still weeks away from stepping on to a mound worth $6, $5, or even $3 or $4 million guaranteed? With all the money the front office spent today, and will spend on Matsuzaka, I'd say no. Look into a trade for a closer. Offer lots of incentives to Gagne and see if he bites (I doubt he would, but why the hell not). Someone else recently mentioned Coco for Capps. That's a better place to start, IMO, than sinking $5 million into Gagne.

MLB.com is reporting Boras is looking for $6 million guaranteed for Gagne. So $5 could be about right. http://mlb.mlb.com/NASApp/mlb/news/article.jsp?ymd=20061205&content_id=1751928&vkey=hotstove2006&fext=.jsp

No doubt. He's a free agent. What do you expect him to say, "My arm feel like hell and I can barely hit 90 on one of Fox's radar guns"? That being said, of course, offer him a nice incentive-heavy deal and see if he bites. Even if he isn't closing, he could still be a nice piece of a, right now, crappy bullpen.

The Mariner's one real strength last season was their bullpen. The rest of their team was pretty much garbage as a unit. I can't really see them giving the Sox the two best pieces of their best unit, plus two of their best positional prospects (they are so high on Yuniesky here, it's out of control) for Manny.

As much as I hate to say it, I don't think so either. I can't think of many catchers who continued to produce offensivly after 35 (Fisk, really) let alone any who were over 30 and came back after a serious injury. I really hope that Tek is the first and that he proves me wrong, but I'd be suprised to see much more than .250, 10, 45. Even that would be good for next year.

I don't know ... even Manny, he of the atrocious defense, learned to play the carom pretty well. It would take a while for WMP to adjust, but Milledge only played, what, 3 games there? Once he figures out what is going to hit the wall and what isn't, he'd be fine.

I wonder if this will influence Matsuzaka at all?

Which, of course, frees up his - what $17-18 million per - to go out and get a nice free agent bat (and there are some good ones) in the '07 off season. Which makes losing Manny even more palatable. That's right - it's the 2007 hot-stove thread!!!

I remember a similar argument when A-Rod won when he was playing for a last-place Rangers team. How do people feel about the creation of an "Ernie Banks Award" for the most outstanding player, in addition to the player who was most valuable? The key difference being that the winner of the Ernie Banks award is pure indivudial performance, while the MVP would more closely align to what Pujols suggests and factor in team achievement as well.

I think something else to consider with Theo, and the front office in general, is their overall approach, their vision, if you will, of how to build a ballclub. When they took over, their primary focus was getting "unappreciated value" - the Bill James theory - and went looking for OBP guys. Your Millars, your Billy Muellers. Well, that worked great for a couple of years, culminating in 2004. They were fairly cutting edge up until that point. Now, every team looks for unappreciated value and overpays for it. Unappriciated value is next to impossible to find now. So, they sold off their now-appreciated value and cashed in on draft picks - a strategy shift. That should be coming to fruition in the next year or so as the guys they scooped up with all those compensatory picks (Pedroia, Ellsbury, Buchholtz, Bard, etc) come up to the bigs. The potential Manny trade could be seen as the last move within this mindset, and shifting into the new mindset: Now that the compensatory draft picks are going bye-bye, they are shifting paradigms yet again, and throwing money out there to boslter the youngsters. Matsuzaka, Drew, etc. It hasn't been perfect, but I think that the front office is trying to stay ahead of the curve with their philosophies. I don't know where that is all going to, it just occured to me.:dunno:

Good k:bb ratio (2:1) and averaged a k per inning. Very small sample size, though. I'd like to see another lefty in the pen, but he could be pretty good. Give the kid a shot! :thumbsup:

Well, the walks would no doubt go up, and you can forget about most of those classic "Ortiz" clutch hits from the past couple of years, but that ain't too shabby.

That pretty much sums up my feelings perfectly, bosoxnation. Well said. There definitly seem to be a couple of good options for Manny deals out there. They both have pretty significant question marks, though. Aside from the seeming contingency of getting Drew signed (which seems to be a couple of days off at this point), both the SD deal and the LA to ATL deal have a huge issue. With the SD deal, there is the question of 1, who are we getting. I agree with other posters that the FO might as well go for broke and ask for all three players - Peavy, Linebrink, and Gonzalez. What the hell, right. And 2, is Peavy going to transition to the ALE from the anemic NLW? I think he is a tremendous pitcher, no doubt, but we could be looking at a Beckett part 2 here, especially coming off a down year. As for the LA/ATL deal, 1, is ATL even going to trade Andruw for young pitching and Coco (or whoever)? Probably yes, but we could end up with a couple of young unproven arms and another outfield/1b prospect. Not that that's a bad thing, just not to good for '07. 2, is Andruw going to sign an extension as a part of any trade. I don't want to rent a center fielder for a year and then be back in the same boat next off-season. Just a couple of thoughts, not trying to be a wet blanket.

Broxton would be fine. A 3:1 k:bb ratio, about a 1.25 k/inning, and a 2.59 ERA last year seems pretty good. Billingsley I think they would try to package with some of their own prospects/other players (WMP/Coco) and try to flip.