Dojji

Exactly. SCM described Miguel Cabrera's career track to a T whether he wants to admit it or not. Bogaerts has his faults but he's a much, much more athletic player than Miggy C. Bogaerts could put on 30 pounds as he fills out and still be no heavier than some of the guys I mentioned in my prior post. He'd need to gain 20 pounds to get to Jeter's playing weight and he's 50 pounds short of A-Rod's. Heck I hope he does fill out at least a little, if he's hitting rockets at 175, he could be absurd with more ballast behind his swing. This kid has room to grow and still be an effective SS if he can pick up good work habits and keep his conditioning. If he gets fat, he might have to do the Rico Petrocelli/John Valentin thing, but by everything I've heard, he's past the point where you consider not starting his career at short already and they have kept him at short. So SCM talking as if something was inevitable that has pretty much already been avoided definitely rubs me the wrong way.

But he is exactly what you're describing Xander Bogaerts as. Just because Bogaerts is tall, he's doomed to fill out and not be able to play an adequate short or even become too big to play on the left side at all. You know, the same way Troy Tulowitzki did. Or Jeter. Or A-Rod. Or Nomar. Or Ernie freaking Banks who was 6'1 and got it done at short for a decade before needing to move off the position at a time when no one thought a guy could or should be a power hitting SS.

You're right, you didn't compare him to David Ortiz. It's more accurate to say you compared him to anothjer former shortstop (in the minors at least) named Miguel Cabrera, and I consider that overboard too.

That's a bit excessively cynical. He's going to fill out, but you're pretty much assuming he turns into a clone of David Ortiz. That takes it a bit overboard, no? A guy like Jeter, or A-Rod, stayed on the left side of the infield despite aging and filling out, there's no reason it's impossible for Xander to do so.

It's a pity pitchers eventually figured this guy out. For awhile there he was unstoppable, and I think that was enough to ensure that he breaks into someone's big league roster next year as an interesting bench option and someone to trot out and give a shot at a starting COF position if a starter is down for a week plus. He was a fun little story in an otherwise dismal year.

You can repeat that all you want to, there's no way to get two front line starters this offseason so it doesn't matter anyway.

I'm not so sure. I don't see a lot of options that bring a gold glove at first and a 100 OPS+ actually. Just don't overpay for what he used to be.

I'd be game for it. I love Youk.

Maybe, but you have to make sure that you're approaching respectability from the right perspective. Just because the media or the fans respect a guy doesn't mean the players will. And two managers later don't try to tell me that the players have to sit down, shut up and take it. That's not what MLB has looked like at any time in the last 3 decades.

didacticism at its finest. You knew what he meant, don't be an *******.

I think that's a bit shortsighted. Hale's a solid coach, and I could easily see him measuring up to a managerial position.

It demonstrates arrogance and blindness. If you want to own those attributes, that's your call, but I was kind of hoping you'd decide you didn't want to and would rather demonstrate wisdom and patience.

Reddick's streaky. That's actually fine, and people would be defending him here if he were here. A player being streaky isn't the deadly sin people make it out to be as long as the numbers are OK at the end of the year. I'd take .31 HR's and a .776 OPS from an outfield slot right about now. He compares pretty evenly with Cody Ross on the season.

Keep them all. These things have a way of working themselves out, and being arrogant enough to think you can outguess random chance is how we wound up where we are right now not just with real holes on the team, but also with a lot of mediocre patch players like Aviles and Salty playing as well. To call a position secure for the future, you need three prospects potentially ready to play it in the next 36 months or less. Any time you move prospects to "clear the way" because one particular player is "your guy," especially before "your guy" has demonstrated over a full 162, you're inviting catastrophe. That "clear way" becomes a hole in a real hurry at that point. In other words, trying to chose, say, Ellsbury over Bradley, reveals your blindness to the fact that in the uncertainty-filled world of prospects and young ballplayers, we are very very likely to find a place for both over the course of 162+. Exactly the same way we could really have used Reddick this year, and DID make good use of him last year, despite him not being in the plans at the outset.

There's different ways you have to read the ball at short or second. I wouldn't mind seeing it tried, but I suspect there'd be some hidden disadvantages.

Why on earth would any of the really solid managerial candidates come here of all places? There's better places for an aspiring manager to put down roots right now. With the way the room is, combined with the way the office is, this is a job that grinds good managers up. Look what happened to Tito. If he can't hack this job, with all the advantages he had going for him going into the year, I can't see any manager with a good reputation risking it by agreeing to come here. Likely it's going to be a new retread every few years until a few people wise up or leave. That said my choice at the moment would be DeMarlo Hale. We got worse quickly after DeMarlo moved on. It might be a coincidence, but then again it might not.

Tek wouldn't be the first pitching coach who was a catcher. Heck, what position did Dave Duncan play? I think it's safe to say that Dunc was a pretty good pitching coach. There's a myth that only pitchers really understand pitching mechanics, but a myth is exactly what it is. Heck, a pitcher is usually only intimately familiar with what works for him, and to develop into a pitching coach usually has to spend a lot of time doing what Tek spent his career doing -- watching and observing the mechanics of a lot of different pitchers and correctly identifying what works for those pitchers. Tek has been correcting pitchers' mechanics from behind the plate for his entire career. More than once I saw him tap his shoulder or give some other quick indication to the pitcher of what was off with his mechanics that was making his command erratic. He could communicate it quicker than a pitching coach could since he had the pitcher's attention, and it allowed pitchers to correct their mistakes quicker when the catcher could correct a problem before the coach had to get involved. About the only difference if he was a PC is he'd have to walk to the mound to do it (or signal the catcher). That right there is probably that bit that's the lion's share of the difference between the team with Salty catching and the team with Tek behind the plate. Salty isn't nearly as good at it as Tek was, and he'd need to work danged hard to get anywhere near that level.

Like who? What's your definition of a true ace? Be warned -- this is a thornier question than it first appears.

How many bats like Napoli's remain effective deep into their 30's a700? Not a lot. Napoli may have 3-4 decent seasons left in his bat but he'd be beating the odds outrageously to have much more than that. A lot of hitters like that dry up and blow away as they're hitting their 30's. Jason Bay springs to mind almost immediately. Carlos pena, who's probably better on the whole than Napoli, started hitting the skids at age 32. He's hardly alone. Jason Giambi aside, work-the-count-and-hope-to-run-into-one hitters don't age well. I can see a short term contract for Napoli being a solid move but anything over 2 years is going to be problematic/risky. Especially if you're thinking he'll play at first base, which will require him to improve his game offensively up to something near his 2011 level.

I think you look at the kind of players teams might actually trade. A team like the Mets might deal Johan Santana, and a team like the Phillies might deal Roy Halladay, and those players could be useful enough to deal with the salary and talent they'd demand. Felix would be worth the salary, but the price in talent would be absurd, if you can even convince the Seattle franchise to do a deal at all. Because as it is right now, Seattle has absolutely no incentive whatsoever to trade Felix Hernandez to anyone, for any return, for any reason. Get that in your head. Seattle knows hust how irreplaceable this man is and has no desire to set themselves up to need to replace him. Over the next handful of years they have committed themselves to try to build a winning franchise around King Felix, and it would take the kind of offer no sane franchise could ever possibly make, in order to convince them to abandon that. You have to set them up with enough talent to win the World Series in the next 3 years, and the Red Sox quite bluntly have no chance of ever doing that, even f they were willing to. It's not happening. That said, I can't see us competing even with those guys in the rotation so "stand pat" may be our least horrible option.

He's not our next manager unless someone gets really stupid. But I think he's as good a candidate as you're likely to find to groom as a manager over the next handful of years. And I can definitely see him as a pitching coach.

It's not enough for the Mariners, and too much for the Red Sox. A deal for Felix Hernandez does not exist. The Mariners are too happy with the player to meet any reasonable price. You'd be better off going for a higher paid, older player like Johan Santana and Roy Halladay If we can flip a guy like Bradley and some other pieces for one of those two pitchers, that's likely to be the best we can do.

Napoli isn't as interesting as he would have been when I first suggested getting him. Low average high power bats are the opposite of what it takes to thrive in Boston and Napoli's in his 30's now. And can I just say that none of the rosters I've seen so far as 'ideal' rosters look particularly good so far? I see a bunch of wild card teams. If that's the ideal, it's time to punt.

No, you don't touch a deal like that with a ten foot pole. That's teh definition of one step forward, 5 steps back. You can't sign players to fill the holes a guy like Bogaerts could fill, no matter how you wave your hands and try to pretend that you can or that "an ace is worth it." I'd be willing to deal 2 of those prospects and some filler or useful roster parts in a deal for King Felix. All 4 is ludicrous. This is all besides the fact that the reason such exorbitant prices are being asked for Felix is because neither Felix nor Seattle feel any particular need to consummate a deal in the first place. This is the Hanley thing all over again. Hell, it's the A-Rod thing all over again. There's just names people obsess unreasonably on. As long as we focus on the big names, and demand our team brings them in, we'll never really be able to say we understand how a baseball team works.

Is it still an excuse when it's the complete truth? You can't sign an ace when aces aren't out there to sign. If you can't accurately analyze what's out there to work with and make a judgment call of what should be acceptable based on that analysis -- if you insist that they somehow create a championship roster year after year without even trying to determine whether or not the talent even possibly exists to accomplish that feat -- then you are out there on an island and your opinions aren't worth listening to.