Dojji

Nevermind that, exactly why are the Orioles taking on veteran salary? Do they think Millwood makes them competitive in the East? Are they that desperate to dump Ray? what is up there?

My guess is they want to check up on Lowell to confirm that he's going to be able to start the season. I doubt their standards are going to be exactingly high on this one -- Ramirez was more or less blocked anyway.

I'm not sure we take a step back with Beltre, I'm just not convinced we take any steps forward. And there's a quite a bit of volatility there. Beltre is streaky, inconsistent, and a guy that's difficult to make up your mind on. Plays great one day awful the next. If he's on some other team you remember the good times, and if he's a FA you want him on that basis, but if he came here the fans would eat him alive during the slumps.

And between one blink and the other, Mike Lowell is apparently no longer with us. A lot of people seem to take that to mean that we have an argeement in principle for a third baseman. Since the only 3B of any quality is Adrian Beltre, they naturally zero in on that name. Personally I think they're kinda jumping to conclusions. With Youkilis' ability to play third, the Sox could just as easily have plans to sign, or trade, for a first baseman instead. For example, Adam LaRoche, who's a personal favorite of mine. He isn't a superstar but is pretty much your prototypical bricks-and-morter first sacker. 25 HR's, a .270 AVG and a decent OBP year in, year out. Nothing fancy, nothing to be ashamed of. He's not the sexy pick, but he'd replace the offense lost from dealing Mike Lowell, plus a little bit, and would field his position adequately, representing incremental upgrades in both run creation and run prevention. That, and he doesn't cost a pick which helps that potential move keep its low-risk flavor. And then there's longer shots -- Russel Branyan, Aubrey Huff, that type. High risk, high reward. Branyan is intriguing because he's really come on over the last couple seasons. He wouldn't be the first player to suddenly get it in his mid 30's The guy we traded Lowell for has to be considered an option too. Max Ramirez is a legitimately talented hitter and has the potential to be a real menace with the stick if things fall right for him. And of course, the 600 pound gorilla in the room -- the the guy forum culture immediately thinks of when first base is open -- Adrian Gonzalez. How we could come away with him without putting Fenway in hock I'm not sure, but that's a guy who would give our lineup a radical makeover some feel it needs. That said, SD has little reason to trade him just now. You don't see legitimate 40-50 HR power very often, even at 1B, and he's not expensive yet -- I'd guess he'll be a Padre until he GETS expensive. Or of course, it could be something completely off the wall, too, that catches us by surprise. Are there any 1B free agents coming out of Japan?

Well Dipre's actually in a great position. He can pound Beltre to his heart's content while holding out for Adrian Gonzalez on the other side of the diamond. It's safe to say that this offseason suddenly got a lot better for at least one Dominican. Youkilis' ability to play the hot corner is what allows that of course, and it's also exactly why we shouldn't settle for Adrian Beltre. I'd rather pick up a first baseman who's a better hitter than take the halfhearted, uncreative way out.

That's about how I feel about Beltre, who has the lowest OBP of any of the guys we've been linked to or could be expected to inquire about.

The important word here, of course, is "through." He was here from 2006 through 2009. Anywho, not important. That's not the only alternative. As far as I can tell no one's signed Andy LaRoche or Russel Branyan. Branyan in particular is fairly interesting, and not that much older than Beltre.

Yeah. Because he's been on the team for 4 years. He's been here for the 2006, 2007, 2008, and 2009 seasons.

It's a bizarre move. The only way it makes sense is if the Sox think Max Ramirez is a sure thing either at C or 1B. Since we already have Anderson, and Rizzo will be in AA by midseason if not before, one would hope they see him as catcher. I think the best thing you can say about it is that the DEAL ITSELF is fairly low risk. They gave up a guy who wasn't coming back after this deal anyway and got a talented younger guy for him. That said, the roster implications are not that low-risk unless someone other than Casey Kotchman is our everyday 1B.

Right, his comeback in these last 3 years solidified a position that had been a real sore spot for the Sox since the days of Wade Boggs -- similar to our issue right now at SS actually. He's also the alltime leader in RBI on this team, among third basemen. Not that the competition is exactly fierce, but it's his to remember us by.

Risky, but interesting. They got a talented hitter back, which is worth the money they ate, and I guess they figure they have options to replace either at 3B or 1B. And in fairness, they do, including Ramirez himself. I'm hoping this doesn't mean we're just going to sign Beltre and pretend we've upgraded anything meaningful. That said, I do not have a good feeling about this trade. It's a risk, and the backfire potential is high. Ramirez' performance last season also makes me nervous -- to win the trade, he has to perform, and he was totally neutralized last season. I would rather have seen them go after someone further away, a couple A-ballers say, than raise the specter of Casey Kotchman as our everyday 1B.

Maybe in a vacuum. -- Beltre was much less effective than Lowell last year, and Lowell had much more reason to be ineffective. -- Beltre is going to require a multi year commitment in order to keep him. -- Safeco or no Safeco, Beltre just isn't that good. You're not going to convince anyone who takes a second to really think about it that Fenway is going to add 30-40 points to Beltre's OBP. It's a decent hitters' park, especially for RHH, but it's not Coors or NYS. You're leaning too hard on park factors on this one. He's not a bad option, but don't mistake him for the second coming of Mike Schmidt. He's a streaky, fundamentally unsound hitter who makes a lot of outs but shows flashes of excellence and boasts good D. A rich man's Pedro Feliz. That's just about it. And with his own recent injury problems, and frankly the heavy big league workload he's already taken on (this will be his 12th big league season, even if he is only 30 that's still a lot of miles), I'm just not sold on why we need to take a risk on the guy. Not at all. Typical Dipre. Your argument is weak? Resort to ad homenim and hope no one notices. You know as well as I do that Mike Lowell only represents one more year of commitment. You know that Youkilis' ability to play well at 3B combined with his vastly superior offensive chops to BOTh Lowell AND Beltre limits the downside of waiting to make a move. You also know, just as well as I do, that the low-risk move is to wait for the 2010 offseason to tweak our situation at corner infield, both in terms of our own farm and in terms of which FA's and veteran trade targets are likely to be available. You also know that it's important to save our bullets for the areas where we really need to upgrade, particularly LF and bullpen. But you're hot for Beltre, so you want to ignore all that and go on a FA fling and God help anyone who actually expresses a reasonable contrary opinion, right? Missed those bone chips in his elbow did you? Or the ELBOW SURGERY HE HAD THIS SEASON??? http://mlb.mlb.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20090627&content_id=5570628&vkey=news_mlb&fext=.jsp&c_id=mlb Low risk my big fat white butt. Under the circumstances, I'll take that one for its humor value.

Beltre doesn't have much IsoD. A lot of the strength of an argument that batting average isn't much of a measure of talent ring slightly hollow in his specific case. You can't pretend there isn't a risk involved in bringing in Adrian Beltre. Even if you want to wave park factors around like a war banner, the fact is that Beltre was not good at staying on the field last year, and has never been that good at gettong on base. (as mediocre as Lowell is at OBP, he's substantially better on average than Beltre). Also, you're selling Lowell's defense way short. This is the first year he's even been below average for us, and there's plenty of extenuating reason to explain why. It's by no means a slam dunk that Beltre, who's had major injury problems of his own recently, is going to return to his form from a couple years ago, or that Lowell won't recover some of his range with an offseason to work on the hip.

And we need a 1B or a DH. It would be a good move.

Because that gets the next two years off the Royals' budget, and if they can snag a prospect, so much the better. Like I said, I was just throwing out an idea.

Just to throw crap against the wall, how about Lowell and a two-bit prospect to the Royals for Gil Meche? They have a good 3B in Gordon, but they have a black hole at DH and could use to be rid of Meche's contract. Meche isn't the sexiest talent in the world, but he's at least a decent inning burning guy for the bottom of the rotation, so if the overall cost in talent is low, it's worth a look..

In a perverse kind of way I'm glad to see that. At least it means that we have some hope for the guy next year. At the same time, not telling the team you're hurting for two months.. oy.

Remember that we'll also have to replace at least one of our corner infielders in that offseason Teddy. Unless the plan is to move V-Mart to first base/DH? That might work in that case.

I still say he would have made a pretty decent shortstop. But it's not up for debate that he's far and away more polished as a pitcher. Maybe he takes that athleticism and makes it useful on the mound. Having a pitcher who actually defends his position well is, after all, a good thing. And if he does an Ankiel he still has SS to fall back on.

Our rotation is already competitive with anyone in the league. Beckett and Lester are a solid 1-2, and a good year from Daisuke and/or Buchholz pretty much puts us over the top. If those two BOTH have good years, we're set. I think 95% of our effort needs to be spent at this point on replacing Bay.

Clinical depression is only tangentially related to social situations, RSS. It's a medical problem. Boston's not the worst city for medical care either.