Dojji

So are his 6 MLB games that you seem to be judging the guy on. At least the 16 AAA games agree with a larger 88 game sample size in AA which helps lend them credibility. You're really trying very hard to disbelieve in Navarro, there's absolutely no need to be so relentlessly skeptical.

His attitude is called into question? Not by any serious baseball person I've ever read. Yeah, the WEEIdiots have had their say, but if a man's got broken ribs, he's got broken ribs. There's injuries you can play through and injuries you can't -- broken ribs fall in the second category. And he tried to hasten the rehab and get back quickly. Twice. And wound up reinjuring himself each time. He would have been better off showing a bit of "attitude" and telling the team and the fans to GFY until he wasn't at risk of reaggravating the injury. And by that I mean, WE would have been better off. Moral of the story here is don't believe that the WEEIdiots know what they're talking about.

We'll see if someone overreacts. Teams won't line up to pay more than they feel they have to. No denying Rasmus is WORTH a great deal in trade, but the situation may lower the actual sale price more than we think right now.

His value didn't decline by all that much. About the only thing we've proved that might lower his trade value is that he isn't as aware of the 3B as he might need to be in order to play left field safely which is what resulted in the collision with Beltre. Not a surprise considering that as a natural CF he's playing out of position in left in the first place. Beyond that, what new information is actually out there that negatively effects his value? That a direct knee-on-ribcage collision while running top speed will result in fractured ribs? That's hardly unique to Ellsbury.

Any player MIGHT not be able to bat .200. In case you hadn't noticed, Navarro put up solid numbers in AAA before he got called up, his bat is closer than you're trying to make it appear. He's not ever going to be Derek Jeter, but he isn't Tony Pena, Jr. either. For a shortstop I don't see any reason he can't meet the very low offensive standards of his position.

Hey, you want to overreact to a freak injury be my guest. 30 GM's out of 30 want Ellsbury on their team, I promise you that.

No, what I know about his skills from scouting reports, firsthand accounts I've read, an analysis of his minor league numbers, and lurking at Soxprospects.com, all leads me to believe he's fairly underrated and the big question isn't the D but more will his bat click. Defensively I've heard a lot of praise of his range and his ability to make the big play, with the questionmarks hovering over consistency, not ability, which is true of a lot of guys who get to the top level at a young age. Offense is simiar -- tools are good, approach needs work. Another year or two in the minors wouldn't hurt him and would probably do him some good, but if he was needed as a fill-in next year I think he'd be serviceable. Just keep your expectations modest, this guy isn't Hanley. Of course this is all on the theory that we don't want to just hand the job to Lowrie and go get a Nick Green type if Scoot goes down. Me, I'd be fine with that. Lowrie isn't Tim Naehring, his wrist seems positively fine and there's no other outstanding injury concerns with the guy, you might as well see what he is.

Not much. Freak rib injuries don't hurt value nearly as much as apparent major attitude problems. I don't think that once Ells is finally all healed up, he'll be any more likely to rebreak his ribs than he was to break them in the first place. It's not likely to be a chronic issue. Rasmus' going nose to nose with the management on the other hand is a much bigger problem exactly because it might happen again.

"so far" is an extreme small sample size.

Depends on what you need. And I wouldn't discount Navarro too quickly just because he looks a bit raw, he'd have some rough patches in the bigs but he's further along than people are giving him credit for. Navarro is quite underrated.

Rasmus is solid and would help us. Legitimate 5-tool potential there. I would gladly swap them Reddick and Ellsbury if they're sick of Rasmus.

That wouldn't be so bad. Not that we wouldn't miss him, but we don't have a shortage of viable replacement SS between Lowrie and Navarro, and possibly Iglesias by midseason if that's not working out.

He's 28, in 6 years he'll be 34, it's entirely possible that he'll still have all the speed he needs to be effective. SOme speedsters excel into their mid 30's some don't, it'll come down to his ability to get on base IMHO -- which is the big issue with Crawford.

At a nadir. Expensive pitcher who's gotten worse every year is not going to fetch you Colby Rasmus.

Could we please create a process whereby a manager can make an umpire go review a reviewable call? Leaving replay to the umpire's discretion is leaving the job half done. Umpires don't like admitting they're wrong any more than anyone else does.

They didn't get him because they wanted to stick him in the minors forever. It's a very high chance Saltalamacchia is with the team next April.

Bard will have bad years too. Whether you want to believe it now or not.

Absolutely. This kid's young, cost controlled and very talented. Even if you don't have a position for him here (and IMHO with a kid like this you MAKE one) this is still a guy you go after, if only to keep him out of NYY. I would eat Cameron's contract if the chance to obtain Colby Rasmus for a reasonable price came along, I absolutely would. It's also one of the few trades where I wouldn't make a fuss if Theo sent Jacoby the other way since a very talented replacement is coming back in the deal.

It's not stupid to pitch a guy on 3 day's rest if there's something at stake, pitchers can take it as long as you don't overdo it. What's stupid is there's nothing at stake here. The season is over in terms of a playoff run. Not the best time to be pushing probably your best arm into a potentially injury-inducing overdrive

I wouldn't rule it out actually. Not too many of the guys who got injuries this year are low risk to repeat those injuries. Youk, Ells and Pedroia are really the only injury cases that are completely out of left field. Cameron's, Beckett's, Daisuke's and Scutaro's health issues in particular come as no real surprise nor for that matter does Varitek's (or any catcher who gets hurt, those guys really put their bodies on the line at times). Frankly I'm amazed Drew hasn't gone down for an extended period as well. Also, the depth responded about as well as you could possibly expect to getting its own playing time, especially Lowrie and McDonald, so I'm not sure the bounceback just from health would be as drastic as you might think.

You make it sound like the concepts are mutually exclusive. having them there as fodder for good trades that put you in a better position to win is one of the reasons you develop prospects.

Sometimes it's time to play the prospects, but any time you can squeeze another big bat into the lineup instead is not that time.

Lowrie and Iglesias are not Hanley Ramirez. We need a big bat. He's a way to get one. If you need to, convert him to third base in order to justify it and play Lowrie or Iglesias at short..

Technically the phrase should be "if you think that _____ you have another THINK coming." Just saying. It bugs me a little. The other way makes no grammatical sense whatsoever.

I think there's a difference between segregation, in which the players accumulated stats in a system with flawed rules, and the steroids era where a number of star players flouted the rules that existed. No one was breaking a baseball regulation or a US law by playing during the segregation era. Sure the competition was lighter than it could have been, but everything done by the Hall of Famers was done according to baseball's rules and traditions of the day unless it specifically wasn't (such as Shoeless Joe Jackson for example). The paradigm was wrong, but the players following that paradigm don't deserve to be punished for that. Steroids on the other hand? These guys broke the rules, and the fact that they did it in secret makes it plain that they KNEW they were breaking the rules. that's a whole different kind of culpabiility and a different level of consequences that need to be assigned. Segregation was a systemic problem, maybe the Commissioner and the lawmakers and decision makes that kept blacks out of the league should have been punished but that's about it. In the steroid era. individual players deserve individual consequences for their individual behavior.