Dojji

That's one heck of an if at this stage of his career. I'm really nervous about Bard's chances to convert. Not going to say it's impossible, I am going to say that this is a situation where you have to weigh in the value of the bird in the hand. If we had nothing to lose I wouldn't be as against it, but that's not the case -- nor is it true that you can definitely just crowd him back into the bullpen if he fails -- a great deal would depend on how he failed.

Personally I think the kid's a catcher. He's shown a real ability there and didn't look lost behind the plate in some pretty crucial situations down the stretch last year. They put him out there with the season on the line in the last 2 games and he didn't kill us (our problems in those 2 games came down to the bullpen and other factors of the D)`. I think people may be overreacting to the stuff about Lavs's glove.

In other words you think Tim Federowicz can be one of the best offensive catchers in the league. Tim Federowicz.

Man is this forum decaying. The whole Marchand fiasco, and not post one here?

If Tim Federowicz is more than a career backup I'd be very much surprised. He's a very very good future backup mind, the kind you can send out there for 40 games a year without worrying too much to let your starter rest, but h'd have to have a team that can stand putting a Jeff Mathis into the lineup in order to be the starter, and those are pretty rare. Moving Fed to the National League is the kindest thing we could possibly have done for him. He'll have a much easier time finding an opportunity for himself there.

His defense didn't look that bad with the SSS we saw at the end of the season. No one is lining up to give him Gold Gloves, but there are worse catchers that start regularly.

Kinda.

Yeah, because if Lester, Beckett and Bedard weren't going to stop the chaos of that collapse Kevin Millwood was the perfect guy to bring in and solve the problem.

When was the last Commissioner of any sport who was popular in his day.

If you could own a big market team or be a Commissioner, you take the option to own.

What makes anyone think that will be happening?

Did Stern? We're talking about a temporary fill-in and emergency depth here. Sweeney's the starting outfielder but you can't have three outfielders and I don't even slightly trust Aviles in right.

Could they break camp with someone like Che-Hsuan Lin to cover the position defensively? Like they did with Adam Stern a few years back I mean?

http://www.bolgernow.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/simpsons-angry-mob.jpg

That is a good deal if true

I'm holding out to see if Lavs went the other way. If he did, we didn't come out ahead.

Yep. This won't bite us in the rump at all.

http://jdlong.files.wordpress.com/2009/07/wrecking-ball.jpg Sometimes it's time to let your team come of age. Can't go clinging onto ancient history forever.

When you have a good offense, you're often better off erring on the side of caution.

That's a factor, but even if you control for it, Bogar was bad. The last really decent 3B coach we've had was DeMarlo Hale.

The more deals of that nature we do, the longer and longer it will take to get the young studs we need out of our own system.

The 4 and 5 spots in the rotation shouldn't be locked down by people making 8 figure salaries. As it is those positions are only open because of injuries to Lackey and Daisuke who are walking violations to that cardinal rule. Those spots should be held open for viable young pitching, but since we haven't seen a young pitcher we haven't wanted to trade for one last feeble grasp at the Series at any point in the last 5 years that's going to be a problem. Frankly, Lester, Beckett and Buchholz should be a good enough top 3 to keep us relevant even if we have trouble filling the bottom 2 spots anyhow. But since Lackey and Daisuke are eating the money you need for your bottom 2 rotation spots without returning any significant value, I'm not sure what you expect them to do. Realistically what the team should do, from purely a roster standpoint, is punt for multiple seasons, start letting some contracts run out and trying to improve their batting average at the draft. This team has been running the roster like it's one big piece away from another Series ever since 2007, and it's not sustainable. You can see the signs of wear pretty easily in the farm system right now, looking around at just how little high end talent we have in the upper minors anymore. What little we have always goes out to finding that one last piece, so it'll never get any better either. And we all pretend that we can afford to part with any one prospect because it's just a rookie after all, meanwhile we once again sign expensive veterans to fill that spot and bog down the roster even further. This will not get better until we accept the fact that we have an aging core and need to rebuild it. It's that or continue to delude ourselves year after year and wait until the crash comes in earnest, and wind up where the Mets are, or even worse, where the Astros are. We need to pull back for awhile, possibly as much as half a decade or more, and really rebuild the team from the ground up. It won't happen though. Too much money at stake.

Oh I don't see him as the clearcut closer by any means. He's in the mix along with Bard and Aceves* to my mind, and of the three, I go with Aceves. He was one of the few relievers we had who pitched consistently well all year and he handled a lot of clutch situations in the middie innings. He's not a conventional closer but I'd love to see him get a look. *Yes, I do see Aceves breaking camp in the bullpen. Not overly impressed with his performance when he's been a starter, and he carved out a very unique and impressive role for himself last year in the bullpen that we'd be insane to sacrifice.

I don't know what big moves you guys are expecting. Love it or hate it, our core is locked in for the most part. We have a very heavy commitment in the roster, it doesn't come as a shock that the team is trying to build around the edges rather than try to add a big piece. It's not like adding big pieces last offseason turned the team into a huge winner, maybe these supplimental talents are more important than folks are giving them credit for.

He blew up in a whopping 2 games in 2010, and in 2009 over about 15 games he had an ERA in the mid 3's for NYY. "Awful" is overselling it.