Dojji

I wanted them to nontender Kotchman. He's a dangerous guy to have on a roster because he's a tweener. He's not good enough, but he's good enough that someone could get snookered into thinking he could be good enough, if that makes sense. And having him on the roster makes better, less tweenerish options less attractive than they probably should be.

I have no doubt that there's at least a few combinations of + that would take Kelly or Westmoreland out.

Yes he does because otherwise he'd have nothing to say.

Main targets =/= sole targets.

Theo has never been adamant about staying under the lux tax.

I agree that it is logical. I disagree that it's the logical way to look at it, which implies an unjustified exclusivity.

I agree that the type of players you want are guys like that. The problem is that those aren't the only guys we have who you could justify and A-Gonz trade for. At least a few of the of the Weiland-Reddick-Kalish-Anderson-Rizzo-Expo-Bowden-Bard grouping have to be somewhat tempting.

The problem comes when these sources start cyclically quoting themselves and it becomes difficult to tell where the first one came from. For all we know someone's misinterpreting speculation as a sourced quote and it sort of went viral.

That should be at least tried, IMHO. Lowell's always had great hands. Maybe you can squeeze one Kevin Millar-esque year out of him there.

I could stand writing Lowell off, but if they're going to replace him, I'd rather not replace him with a guy with an even worse OBP, given an alternative.

Boy did this get off topic in a hurry. I don't suppose we could all calm down a second?

I guess I just don't see what the concerns center around. Has that been reported? Was there an injury that was kept from the sportswriters? Is it something about the knee problems from a couple years ago? Because just generically, just based on the numbers and the news reports I've read, it makes no sense to be overwhelmingly concerned about Bay's health -- no more than for any player you're giving a multi year megabucks deal to anyhow. As for taking a physical, that tends to be a formality, as well you know. Without knowing too many specifics, I wouldn't get too hyped up about the fact that the physical associated with a deal that only came public yesterday is yet to be completed. I suppose you have a point, but calling one of the top 5 HR hitters in the American League last year, and a consistent .900OPS guy, a "middling" player, should entitle you to a bit of ridicule IMHO. It's one of the ways forumites convince each other to get properly informed after all.

I don't see the big health concerns, Dipre. He did have a bad year because of his health problems in 2007, but he's followed that up with two consecutive years of full health. That's usually enough time to say a guy is over his problems. And again, he's going into his age 31 year. While injuries might catch up with him by the end of the contract, if they did I'd call that more ordinary aging than any specific injury risks associated with something in Bay's specific past. I don't think Bay is any more likely than the average ballplayer to be significantly injured over the next 5 years. All told he's less of a health risk than guys like JD Drew whose signing you defend fairly passionately (and for the record I agree with you there, I just think it's hypocritical to downplay Drew's injury risks while inflating Bay's) Personally I think that the Mets' contract offer is fairly defensible, considering the level of consistent offensive production Bay has put up since he joined the league. There's only 1 year in the deal that would run past the age 35 threshhold where you're starting to really risk severe decline, and the Mets really needed the kind of power that can play in their cavernous ballpark, so it's easy enough to see why a RHH who can hit 30 regularly in PNC would be worth taking a risk on.

Sure, but don't pursue those negotiations to the exclusion of Plan B. Make sure you get SOMETHING.

A second rounder is still more than I'd have given up for Scutaro. I mean I do understand Theo's thought process here, but at the same time that's the same thought process that brought Julio Lugo to Boston, and it's a mistake I'm not keen to repeat.

I still kinda wish they'd just go after Konerko or Berkman. Pay the lesser price, get loaded up for one season, and have the guy come off the books when Lowell, Ortiz and Lugo do, and watch what guys like Anderson, Rizzo, and some of the longshots do in the minors. 2011 is a potential "major reloading" year and we're going to have a lot of holes to fill in that offseason. It's not really a good time to be depleting your upper minors.

I don't get the assertion that he'll be a DH in a few years. It smacks as conventional wisdom or stereotype rather than analysis. Sure, he's not very good now defensively, but he's played pretty consistently to his baseline since he came back from surgery and he's only like 31, it's going to be 3-4 years before you would really expect decline to impact his performance to any great degree. Add in the fact that you don't bring in a guy like Bay to be a defensive wizard anyway and I just don't really see the impending disaster. Now when he does decline in earnest it's not going to be pretty, and if he was 34 I wouldn't touch him at all at that price, but I just don't see why a 4 year contract for a 31 year old player is such a bad deal. In fact as ballplayers go that strikes me as a pretty fair price considering that Bay was the best or second best hitter in the FA pool. He'll be a very useful player through the life of his contract and the good will probably still outweigh the bad at the end of the deal. And as for "middling talent," I don't know what you're smoking but I hope you're enjoying it. Bay was our best power threat last year. He had a low batting average but all his other numbers played up to a very consistent, high level of offense that he's put up every year but his injury-riddled 2007. A consistent .380 OBP and a consistent .520-.540 SLG are not "middling" in anyyone's lexicon, and neither are 30 HR's a year Jason Bay is one of the best offensive players in the league.

That is pure nonsense. He got a grand total of one appearance in the playoffs, not enough to determine if he was dominant or not, and he played to his astoundingly excellent career averages last year anyway. The standard of perfection you're holding Papelbon to is re-freaking-diculous.

But only if you're comparing Papelbon only to Papelbon. Compare him to just about any other reliever and he's just fine -- he even compares well enough to Mo.

He'd walked 8 hitters all year the previous season. His bb/9 was still a quite reasonable 3.3 Only 16 more walks all year. His last 3 years of walks were 15-8-24. It's a career high sure, but a career high for a guy with legendary control, I don't see the issue here.

He'd walked 8 hitters all year the previous season. His bb/9 was still a quite reasonable 3.3 Only 16 more walks all year. This is an exaggerated issue IMHO. His last 3 years of walks were 15-8-24.

In fairness he's still one of the most effective relievers in baseball, and it would be impossible to be as ridiculously unhittable as he was in 2006-2007 for a whole career after hitters had seen you a few times. We're talking about a reliever with a career 1.85 ERA who played exactly to that average last year for pity's sake. If that's unsatisfactory it's probably time to adjust expectations. Most pitchers would kill for a "down" year like Papelbon's 2009

And the question you're dancing around, and failing or refusing to tackle head-on, is what the cause of that is. Is it because it's particularly easy to homer out of our LF compared to other ballparks? Or is it because it's a hell of a lot harder to homer out of our CF and RF? Both causes would yield the same sort ratio. And quite frankly, both your data and mine point out that it's pretty damned hard to hit it out to right or center at Fenway. In order to prove either of us wrong or right, we need to figure out a way to tell the difference between a left field that's "particularly good," and one that's only "not particularly awful." If all you use is total HR's hit at Fenway, you're not going to answer that question. The fact is that the total number of HR's hit at Fenway over the last year or so is fairly low. Overall park effects have listed us in either the middle or the bottom 15 as an overall home run park each of the last several years. So left field gets a larger cut than average, yes, but it's a cut of an average to below average sized pie. See how that works?

If Hit Tracker breaks it up by which field the ball was hit in, I can't find it. Anyway, food for thought. http://baseballanalysts.com/archives/2009/04/home_run_park_f.php Fenway comes in pretty much average in overall HR's and only allows 54% hr's to left -- which is pretty danged average despite our issues in right and center. Most parks give up most of their HR's to left. It's simply a result of the fact that there's a lot more pure RHH than they are LHH and switch hitters combined. Is our differential a bit more exaggerated than most? Kinda depends on the year. And at least half of what we do see is a known problem hitting HR's to RF and CF, rather than any particular advantage to left. How about instead of passing the buck onto me to try and prove a negative, go ahead and find some evidence that it's a unique park effect favoring our left field, as opposed to an artifact of our deep RF and CF which are particularly difficult -- or merely the fact that we cater to RHH and LHH that hit to LF more than most teams because of the monster, creating a statistical chicken and egg question.

You get those numbers not because LF is great, but because RF is freaking horrible and CF is worse. You can't make the claim that LF is a uniquely easy field simply by comparing it to our own RF and CF, which are uniquely difficult fields. If it's that easy for a RHH to homer at Fenway, maybe you should start listing the RHH's who had multiple years with other squads and had unique personal bests in homers at Fenway. And I'm going to cut off the obvious counterpoint by reminding you that Garciaparra was hurt. Bay's a technical fit, since he eclipsed his previous personal high of 35 bombs by hitting an incredible... 36. Manny's personal best is a tie at 45 between one year with us and one in Cleveland. Other than that, maybe Kevin Millar? It's not really a very long list anyway.