Dojji

Did I really say "wrong?" I meant to say the exact opposite. *facepalm* Oh well, at least this time my Freudian slip wasn't sufficient to change the meaning of what I was saying and the gist of what I'm trying to communicate still comes through. But yeah, a SS with a great arm that does nothing else is worthless, like say Yuniesky Betancourt. Meanwhile a guy like Lowrie with range, hands, and an average to below average arm can still get by very well at short. After all, a below average SS arm doesn't necessarilymean a guy can't get by, since simple logic tells you that everyone cannot possibly be above average -- it just means he needs to make enough plays with range and hands to make up for the odd infield hit, and hit well enough himself to make up for any other deficiencies..

Again, grow up. This team isn't going to FA its way out of its difficulties. Other teams have this nasty habit of keeping their players.

Oh grow up. They offered Teixeira more money than he wound up taking to sign with NYY. THe man made his choice.

Soxprospects.com is a decent source for the minor leagues and will cover transactions made for the big club too.

Whoever brought up the extradition agreement between Britain and the United States may wish to check and see if the extradition is automatic. THere's all sorts of clauses that people can use in an agreement like that to keep people out of the hands of another nation if they happen not to like its government, what I don't know is if there are any between the UK and the US. I imagine that the other government would at least have the right to negotiate a little if they felt a need. I have no idea if anyone in the US government particularly likes Hicks though, especially now that Obama is the President. W was connected to Hicks' ownership group of the Rangers but only loosely so I have no idea where Hicks stands in the Good Old Boy Network.

no mention of 3B largely because he just doesn't play there very often and a team wouldn't be likely to acquire him to play there for that reason. A lot of guys who have been called "really a 2B" have gone on to have decent careers at shortstop. I can point to Michael Young and David Eckstein as examples. Arm at shortstop is important but it can be overrated if a player does everything else wrong. Of course there is a risk to it too. Mike Aviles of the Royals was "really a 2B" and they stuck him at short for a year and he overexerted his arm and wound up needing TJS. Now he's having real trouble getting back to his original performance level. That or he's just an older rookie who isn't that good.

I am of the VERY firm belief that Albert Pujols, if he leaves the Cardinals, will become a Met in short order.

Boilerplate responce to all Henry questions: He's largely hands-off, but keeps a presence in the front office and holds his people to a high standard. He wants to make money from his investments but by building the best team he can and recouping his high expenses at the gate with high ticket prices and a cohesive media and merchandising strategy -- in other words, he believes in "if you build it, and it's good, they will come" and "you get what you pay for" from both his own and the fans' perspective. He's not obliged to go into debt to pay for every little thing, so there will be some signs of his commitment to pay for a quality product almost immediately. They were improving Fenway almost the moment the sale was closed, I imagine it'll be the same at Anfield. Also he doesn't rape towns looking for stadium deals. Every improvement he's made to Fenway has been out of pocket. When there was a proposed stadium, the proposal was to pay for it out of private investment, and not via the good taxpayers of the city of Boston or the state of Massachusetts. He's all but unique among owners in the States for not doing this. Also he knows how to respect the history of a historic club. A little too much IMHO as I'm a staunch proponent of replacing Fenway with something better designed to accomodate a modern American fan (and his modern American fanny) but I do understand the arguments of the nostalgics, and they're arguments Henry respects. If Anfield isn't a dump, he's more likely to try to run with it than replace it and use its history as an asset to drum up support like he did with old Fenway. Heck, Fenway WAS a dump, even if it was a dump with a lot of history, and he STILL did it that way. Finally, I've never known the man to promise something to the fans of his team and then break his word. There's a financial value in integrity that serves to strengthen your relationship with your cash cow (IE the fans). Henry understands THAT too, far better than Hicks ever did.

the team will be worth paying a lot to see, if Henry has anything to say about it.

Don't honestly care that much about soccer, but we know the owner isn't going to neglect his earlier investments to favor LFC so my opinion is it isn't likely to effect us. Henry expects to make money running LFC, but not in the way people worry about -- he expects to make money by winning and putting a strong, fiscally efficient product on the field. This management group has turned the Red Sox, in probably only the 10th biggest market in the US, into the league's second greatest cash cow, and I think that even with the tremendous payroll he's still turning a profit. The only drawback from a fan perspective is that ticket prices are quite high, driven up by the positive aura of the team and huge corporate interest in the brand. That's the price of prestige though, and as long as the team wins and the product is exciting fans will keep their grumbling to a minimum.

That wound be fantastic. It sounds exciting to us fans and smells like money to the execs so as long as someone doesn't have an over-long stick up their "nethers" in one or another league office it'll probably happen at some point. Celtic FC have already broken the ground too. I would definitely watch.

So add 5 hours to that and you should get it around 5:30 to 6 New England time.

Of the teams you have "in it" the following teams either lack the financial clout or have a 1B solid enough that the upgrade isn't worth the expense when they have problems to solve in other areas of the game: Minnesota (Morneau) Detroit (Cabrera) Philidelphia (Howard) LAA (Morales) Seattle (Money constraints) Colorado (Helton's contract is up so they might climb in but they have young players to re-sign) Cincinatti (Votto) SFG (they have some contracts to clear before they could make a move like that) The following teams are the ones I'd consider serious enough contenders to worry about in a potential Pujols race. St. Louis Toronto Texas Los Angeles Dodgers Chicago Cubs Chicago White Sox New York Mets Houston Baltimore Washington Atlanta

Simple justice really, he rules in favor of Henry and RBS and all debts get paid and all team financial obligations met and whatever is outstanding will be in the hands of someone whose financial standing and ability to meet those obligations is beyond question, or he can go with Hicks and Gillet and maybe that won't be the case. It's not a sure thing, at least, unless Hicks has definite proof otherwise and even then he's arguing against something far closer to a guaranteed discharge of all outstanding debts than anything he could offer. I don't think Hicks has a prayer here honestly.

I still would love to see it happen someday that Liverpool FC comes over and plays the odd exhibition against the New England Revolution. It would give the Revs a real boost into the spotlight, something they desperately need -- they're really not bad as American soccer goes, but I'm not even sure most Bostonians remember they're out there. And of course it would give us Americans a chance to see what all the fuss is about with LFC. Even better, do it at Fenway Park for a real introduction for Liverpool fans to the kind of business Henry has been running over here in Massachusetts. Can't think of a better way to get us more used to each other. They already do Hockey at the Fens, and I believe they've played American football there so I bet it could be done. EDIT: Yep, it can be done, and has been done in the past. Celtic FC has come over and the page about it is a nice little idea of how the Fens could accomodate a football pitch. http://www.tickets.com/footballatfenway/ I imagine Henry will be for trying it, since he has a stable cash cow waiting and probably at least a littie curious and it wouldn't hurt anything to try to tap into it. Any revenue stream is a good revenue stream. I bet between the few Revs fans, the curious Sox fans and the LFC supporters that followed the team over, you could fill Fenway.

I can see that it's an interesting sport, but I lack the background in it to really appreciate the subtleties.

Isn't this the guy who shot his way out of town back in '06? I bet he's loving this trade.

I'd need convincing that any one athlete should be paid an AAV of more than half the payroll of one of the league's lowest salary teams.

But it is the same people. Not the same biological entities, but the same sort, if you take my meaning. The sort that does drastic things to get attention and doesn't care about the consequences. They just did it differently is all.

And a very successful one who has proven, with the right hands downfield, that he can be a lot more than that when necessary. He goes short because his team, for most of his tenure, is a short pass team that plays possession football and by and large isn't trying for the big gainer except as a show-me to get someone off balance/ You don't go cherry-picking looking for the one stat that's actually slightly critical of a guy like Brady and then fail to note the reason why that number is the way it is has a lot to do with the way Bill Belichick coaches and less to do with what Brady's technically capable of. It's like criticizing Ortiz and calling him an average player at best because he's a terrible base stealing threat. It's something he doesn't do, sure, it's also something he isn't out there to do in the first place, so it's a useless thing to say.

There is no way on earth that removing a healthy, motivated, humble version of Moss from this team would have been a net improvement. The version that we had though, had some issues that sapped his value, I don't think it's possible to deny that. I think maybe one person is saying that this improves the team in the near term if that. Even Paladios is more saying that it doesn't hurt it all that much and I'm pointing out that the team was going to need to reposition and reclaim its roots sooner or later and so they picked sooner, while there's a postseason to play for and time to get the new-look Pats ready to contend for it. You people who are constantly telling us we think Moss's departure improves the team really need to take some remedial English courses.

We've spelled it out a dozen different ways, Emmz, what's so difficult here? THE defense isn't great, but playing old-style Patriots offense will allow it to play up better than it has been. Yes we did have a better defense at that time of the old Dynasty, we recognize that which is part of why no one's saying this team will definitely win Superbowls or that it's a dynasty team. The defense is younger than it's been in awhile though and has some up and coming talent. The fact that it's not dynastic level great doesn't mean that the defense can't be good enough to allow us to be a strong overall team that can go into the playoffs and have a chance. That's a reasonable goal at this time. The Moss style offense creates fast offense and a lot if time with the D on the field, playing the conservative posession game, moving the chains, going for short yardage, this is the strategy Pats fans knew from the dynasty days, and what it does is keep thee D on the sideline as much as possible so that they can play stronger and give a relatively limited offense a chance to win football games. It's a viable strategy that the Patriots have employed in the past, that we know BB can implement well, we therefore feel that he can reintroduce the elements of that plan in such a way that the team can continue to play well without their so-called top offensive weapon. Wes Welker is, IMHO, our top offensive weapon, he's our yardage guy, he's the guy Brady can find and get the ball to on a third and short or a third and goal. Moss makes the flashy plays, Welker makes the consistent ones and that is far, FAR more important. And don't you believe for one freaking second that every coach in football doesn't believe and say the exact same thing in the locker rooms when they're going over the playbook. Welker when healthy is one of the top of the league in receptions and for Patriot ball, that's exactly what's needed. Just because a guy can make bigger plays doesn't mean he's a more important player. The fact that they're having to try as hard as they had been to make Moss relevant to the play on the field, to the point of having to try to force plays to Moss, should suggest to any objective observer just how necessary he is to our offensive scheme. That should be coming naturally if Moss is what they say he is.