Dojji

I disagree. When you're a big league athlete, job security brought by extra years matters a ton. Especially as you get into your 30's. Boras is no fool. If the AAV is close, the more years the better, and he knows that -- heck, he helped invent it. 4 years 12M/year is a better deal for a 31 year old SS than 1 year with a higher AAV, and he should be able to get 4/48 easily enough. The question is, how long will this organization really be able to deal with having a Juan Uribe type playing a key corner position that needs to generate the runs?

That would be incredibly stupid. Drew will not accept the QO. He's the BPA at a premium position, NWIH he won't get a multi year deal somewhere. I think the Yankees will be hiring, I know other franchises will be. A good defensive shortstop that can OPS nearly 800 can make bank no problem. If he accepts the QO you work him and Bogaerts and Middlebrooks around each other and have the best left-side infield in the league. Drew is no iron-man and Middlebrooks is a work in progress so don't tell me Bogaerts wouldn't get plenty of playing time.

It's been a great series. I just wish I'd gotten to watch more of it. I hate working the late shift when the playoffs are on.

Sure, but let's not call it a slam dunk either. They made the call and it worked out, that's pretty much the end of it, but if they put Middlebrooks back in for the next game I'm not going to worry too much about it either. What I don't like though is the clamor to make a change just for the sake of change.

Can I just take a second to ask why this is even an issue? We have a good platoon in left, play both players where it makes sense and stop worrying about it.

I'm happy with Napoli. I'd gladly take another year or two of that level of production at first base. And the way the contract is set up is pretty much a dream for us so great work Cherington. That said, I hope we hang onto Mike Carp. Carp is a good platoonmate for Napoli, and as a lefty with no small level of power himself, is a nice guy to have in case Napoli's hip does give out at some point.

Yes let's overreact to an awful game. That's how championships happen.

I'm still fond of "laser show" by Dustin Pedroia. Shows the kind of character he was and is.

So.... from the spanglish there... switch hitting third baseman?

Jake Peavy is not a frontline starter. His ERA+ on the season is exactly 100. We got an average starter for Iglesias, and not even a particularly durable one. At this stage in their respective careers, given their recent histories, I'd actually take Jeremy Guthrie over Jake Peavy and not think twice about it. At least Guthrie is durable and has a long track record of success in the AL East. I would have preferred to keep Iglesias, use him as the utility guy next year, and had that depth option in case bogaerts or Middlebrooks (or both) had trouble, and to come up big in the inevitable half month one of the two of them (or both) is going to spend hurt. At least though, you can say definitely that Peavy is an upgrade over Dempster -- an expensive one in both money and talent, but there it is, it wasn't zero net improvement.

We did. And we got an expensive aging SP in return. that could very much could blow up in our faces, which is why you instinctively want to see Iglesias struggle to justify the trade. I do think that we should have held onto Iggy, but the team wanted that big name guy. Hope losing a generational defensive talent at a very young age, who seemed to be handling the bat at an adequate level for a defensive shortstop, was worth a few years of a declining Jake Peavy. I really do. But I really doubt that it will turn out that way.

Agreed. I would keep him if he was willing to stay in Boston, simply because we haven't had a 2 way SS who can do what Drew does in a loooooooooooong time and I see no need to rush Bogaerts into being the starting SS. But he's going to be seeing some attractive offers from other organizations and that may wind up not being a viable option. Personally, as much as I don't like the notion, I see Drew in pinstripes next year, assuming Derek Jeter does the smart thing and retires. Jetes is done, spirit is willing, mind as sharp as ever, but his body just won't hold together anymore. He's going to cheat his team out of a chance to win next year if he tries to hang on and puts the team in a position where they can't upgrade at short because of that. I see him as the type that will figure that out and step aside. Agreed. although I'd like to pick up an RF/1B type if possible, someone like Swisher was in his heyday, but if you don't see that guy, what we have is competitive overall.

Facts need to be faced. if Nava was any better defensively in right field, or hitting lefthanded pitching, it might be a different story, but he's only a little more versatile than Carp, still has to be platooned with against lefthanders just like Carp does, and the question next year is about left field, which Carp and Nava play about equally well. I wouldn't want either one playing right field for an extended period, which is really the only thing Nava does that Carp doesn't. Besides, Carp has a power tool that Nava can't touch. And sure, Carp has only really come into his own this year after several years of mediocricy, but that is, of course, also true of Nava. I'd predict that if Carp was given the green light and Nava shipped out, he would be able to take over the staring left fielder's job and perform equally as well as nava, with a plus for every minus -- I don't think he'd be able to get on base nearly as consistently as Nava, which is something Nava has always been able to do and is the reason he'll probably land on his feet in another organization, but I do think Carp is the only one of the two that could hit 20 HR's so there's a tradeoff involved.

Nava is going to have a run for his money to even be playing, between the pressure Bradley is going to put him him combined with the fact that Carp and Gomes have earned the right to come off the bench next year. If Nava had figured it out from the right side it'd be another story, but a Gomes-Carp platoon is sufficiently viable that the team may well reach the conclusion that Nava's not strictly necessary if they can re-sign Ellsbury, which I would do Nava or no Nava. If they can bring Ells back something has to give, and as much as I love Nava, I have a vibe that tells me that the team is going to extend Ellsbury and look to stash Bradley in left, which means they'll be looking for an opportunity to sell high with Nava and make room for their wunderkind, relying on Gomes and Carp to create the proper depth to allow them to tolerate making that kind of move. Now they could move Carp instead, but IMHO that's a bad move, Carp has upside and would be very useful to have behind either Napoli and his questionable hip if they extend him, or Abreu and his modest batspeed if they sign him, as viable fill-in depth in case something goes wrong. Nava COULD do that, but Carp is sufficiently better at it that that's not a reason to hold onto Nava.

I think that just goes to show just how much fans overrate the arm tool. It's great to steal a couple outs here and there and retard the baserunning game, but it doesn't touch the level of out generation that range can provide.

Lavarnway makes me nervous as a potential backup. I like my backups to be defensively focused, especially when I have an offense-first starting backstop. It might be an "ideal world" thing but it's a pretty good rule of thumb that the backup catcher should be able to sub in and provide high level defense. While I think Lavs is a decent prospect, I think he'd be better off getting lots of reps to keep his bat going. Backup catchers don't get the kind of reps offensively that Lavarnway's going to need to develop his offensive skillset and his defense is... not his strong suit as he's come up the system.

He does have a point that black players are accepted. he doesn't have a point that Papi is in any way a pioneer in terms of getting them accepted. In other words, he does have a small point, but misses the bigger picture All of it? No. I don't think anyone is ever going to get rid of ALL of it. All you can ask of a society is to be trying to move in the right direction.

Inevitable, is what it is. They had to come up with some lavel to pin on guys like Papi, Edgar Renteria, Jose Iglesias, and others, who have black genetic heritage mixed with their Hispanic cultural heritage. Personally I find this kind of labelmaking to be a complete PITA, but some people seem to need it. In this case though, dude has a point. But he misses the bigger point. Boston has pretty much lived down its racist past. We've had black stars before Papi, and we certainly will again. That nonsense went out the door with George Scott back in 67. It's not like Mo Vaughn had any trouble taking the town by storm when he was here, if I recall correctly. Nor did Jim Rice, who was the generation before Vaughn, or Ellis Burks, any of the other handful of American black players that have come and gone through here as long as they were good at what they did on the field.

Now now, as with any research, repeatable results are king. Science isn't all test tubes and explosions, you spend a lot of time confirming things you already know so you have something solid to go on when you take your next step into an area of knowledge. that said, this putz is less of a researcher than I am, at least the phone surveys I do go somewhere and get used. But asking questions you already know the answer to is one of the things that research always has to do in the early stages. If you start off with assumptions rather than questioning them too, your results aren't going to necessarily be repeatable, since everyone's assumptions are slightly different. I don't expect the people on the calls I make to get that either, that type of frustration from the laymen is just part and parcel of the job.

If they have to, they can DL Ells or Vic and bring in Bradley. I think Berry's on the roster to ensure that mid-game injuries don't force absurdities like Daniel Nava in center. I also think that the spot Berry is occupying was probably JBJ's to take if he could have performed a little better down the stretch. The fact that it's Berry and not JBJ suggests that they felt the need to send JBJ a little message. Even though he has improved somewhat since his latest callup, a .695 September OPS isn't worth crowing about, and I guess they didn't want to lure Bradley into a false sense of accomplishment or something.

Seidenberg re-ups with the Bruins 4 years, 16M total The man just gave us an absolutely HUGE hometown discount. No doubt in my mind whatsoever that he could have added at least an extra mil a year to that deal on the open market. he took less money to stay with this team, and it's not in question. Bravo chia!

Every manager has to make 2 kind of plans in the postseason There's the plan you construct the initial roster to execute, and then there's everything else you'd better be as prepared for as you can, because once the postseason starts, the crap's going to fly and it's going to fly fast. 's why I'm glad to see a guy like Bogaerts in the playoff roster and why I would be stunned if JBJ managed not to get a cameo in the playoffs.

Heck of a guy to have waiting in the wings if someone gets hurt though.

I'd settle for the games on the radio, but I work at a call center, and obviously my ears are going to be busy most of the night.

I predict that thanks to working up to midnight nearly every night, I will not get to watch or listen to a single minute of the playoffs, just like I had to catch the NHL playoffs on replay. I have not gotten to watch very much baseball at all in the past year thanks to that job. Not that I'd prefer unemployment natch, but I wish I didn't have to sacrifice my passion for a chance to eat regularly.