Dojji

Before you get too carried away about Beltre, do bear one thing in mind Dipre. He bore my belief about Boston's park factors out completely. To the letter even. He's had several better HR years. 28 is upper middle of the road for him, which is about where Boston is as a home run park. Led the league in doubles though, which is about where Boston is as a doubles park. The short wall isn't easier than most other walls to homer over, but it's very easy to double off and that will provide a lot of value, especially in an RBI spot in the lineup. So I'd say get an opposite field hitter like Crawford in here and watch him hit that wall a lot. He always did seem to while he was just visiting. Scoring from second on a single is the easiest thing in the world for a guy like Carl, and right field gives him some room to run if he drives the ball that way too, he gets one of those things that bounces off the base and into that little right field alcove, he could go the distance.. Crawford might be the best Fenway hitter of the two in other words -- Werth won't be hurt by the Fens, but I think Fenway helps Crawford a lot.

Jason Place, then?

Covelli. Who was gone anyway from our perspective and wound up out for the year by June with shoulder issues. Anything we got from Ramram was more than a win.

We got a really good year out of him?

Royals are talking about dangling Robinson Tejeda. He's been effective in a couple different roles. Do you look to add him to our power-starved pen? And at what price? A quick scan through the Royals team and system suggests that the best trading chip would probably be a young shortstop to provide some redundancy in case Christian Colon is actually a second baseman in the bigs. We have a few of those. We could probably get something done with one of the more redundant ones.

He's worth another one year low money flier. He's a soft-tosser, those are a little volatile, I'd give him one more chance to bounce back before cutting the cord for good.

Sorry about the screed above. I know what Example posted was meant in a lighthearted spirit and there was no intent to criticize. It's just that it's really starting to get to me. 3 years is a long time to be stuck spinning your wheels, and seeing everything you try to do to get on your feet turn to ash -- or worse, get completely ignored while the person you're trying to impress doesn't even give you a chance to sell yourself... well, the amazing thing would be if I wasn't somehow frustrated and depressed. You guys have probably even noticed. I haven't even been up for a good round of arguments with Dipre in months, I just take the disagreement and move on, can't be bothered to hold up my side. I really hope something breaks in my favor soon. I'm well on my way to becoming exactly the last thing I ever wanted to be if things don't change -- the 30+ year old who's still at home with no real prospects of going anyhere or doing anything with his life. Scratch that. I'm 31. God help me, I'm already there.

Watch it. Not all of us have free time in the late morning and early afternnon out of their own free will and choice. Not to be an ass or anything, but that's kind of a sore spot. I mean sure it's not like I did a great job setting myself up for credentials, but it's been 30 freaking months, even with just a 2 year degree you'd think I could have found *something* by now. Instead all I'm getting is letters of rejection -- when they have the common courtesy to not just leave me waiting for nothing. Not even an interview in more than 12 months. It's gotten to the point whre I barely even check the paper anymore. I just can't stand the disappointment. Every time. Nothing I put my hope in has ever turned out good for me no matter how hard I've worked for it FOR NEARLY THREE FREAKING YEARS!!!!!! So don't come in with a "why aren't you working" when there's literally nothing else I'd rather be doing right now. Arggh. EDIT: So yeah, sorry to jump on you like that, but it's just an issue that's got a lot of emotional dead weight on it for me.

If we were to land Crawford and find a way to score Russel Martin we could have a lineup with Ellsbury, Crawford, Pedroia, Drew, Martin and Youkilis (yes, Youkilis) all with above average speed or better.

Probably not much, the team still should sell out next year no matter what, it's only in the next couple that there's any risk of that really changing. A team's prestige doesn't disappear with one bad season, we proved that in 2007.

I guess warped minds think alike, a700. We both saw Sheff's screed above and our first thought was "well maybe we could put him in the mix at 3B"

Bringing in Derek Jeter isn't something this team needs to be contemplating. We already have 2 decent answers at shortstop and one maybe two good prospects (depending on how seriously you take Yamaico Navarro) who are only a couple years out at most. I would be all in favor of bringing in a similar aged star as a one year stop gap in left field (paging Johnny Damon?) but not at short. besides, shortstop is kinda past Jeter at this point although everyone who matters is kinda turning a blind eye to that. Maybe he could be in the mix at third.

Worth considering, but i'm not as excited about Reyes as I used to be, and the Mets still have no one to replace him, so I still don't see this getting done.

Mauer's played with a bad hip a couple times.

Do not want Pierzynski. That sounds like a bad idea from the word go. He was never a great catcher's catcher, and he's reaching the end of his shelf life. Combine his terrible performance this year with that and we have a poster boy for the "pay him for how he used to perform" crowd. Besides, dude's an idiot. If you're worried about Salty, you want to bring in a guy who is what Salty isn't. That means a noodle-armed, inconsistent attitude problem is about the last thing you want. Martin is several times better than that as an option, even with the bad recent power numbers he's consistent enough offensivey to put up a decent OBP, he's got a good arm and he handles the pitching staff pretty well. He also has some medium-term bounceback potential as a doubles hitter in a better hitters' park. And for the clincher, his knees are healthy enough that he can steal basis, while Pierzynski has more than a thousand games on his. On the whole he makes a much sounder, saner investment. I'd happily trade a midrange prospect for him if the Dodgers were interested -- not a worldbeater but maybe a Che-Hsuan Lin type whose wheels and speed would play well in the cavernous Western stadiums.

I could stand it. He's only a year removed from some fairly nifty numbers.

David Ross is a career backup. A good one, but still more the good version of Doug Mirabelli than Joe Mauer. I wouldn't expect him to keep his numbers up in a starting role -- or someone would have given him one by now.

Yeah, there isn't a single veteran catcher on this market that I would consider anything other than a project. Olivo? Please. He's a slugger, but he'll hit for a sub-.300 OBP more often than not and make a lot of outs, and he ain't exactly a spring chicken. He spent the entire last half of last year undoing all the good he'd done in his first half. He's streaky, undisciplined, and undependable when the chips are down and the performance of the teams he's been on while he was on them is a big tell of that. Given my druthers, I'd prefer to bring in Russel Martin if he's non-tendered over Miguel Olivo. None of the explosive upside of an Olivo in power sense, but a solid and internally consistent skillset in its own right, combining OBP, solid defense and above average baserunning (well above average for a catcher). And unlike Olivo, Martin seems to be a well above average gamecaller and strategist, pitchers who throw to him seem to do better than average while they do so at least. It's no replacement for VMart, but then nothing on this market is so it's time to lower our expectations on that score.

Yeah except that that's not really the same situation at all, and Youk has been hitting at an elite level for 3 straight years. If Werth had 3 straight years where he'd demonstrated that level of consistency I wouldn't be nearly as nervous about him. I don't think he's bad at all, not really, I just worry we'll pay for "elite" and wind up- with "pretty good."

Not necessarily, if we have Lowrie, Scoot, Youks and Hall, we can mix and match a little if we have to. It wouldn't be a great solution, but it's better than the ghost of Miguel Tejada. A Hall/Lowrie platoon is about the best chance I can see of putting something together without Beltre or Youks playing third base.

Eh, rather just get Bill Hall back.