Dojji

I could be mistaken, but I also believe Magglio has 10/5 rights.

Apparently, he consideres it having an occasional bad game. Buchholz' numbers last year are anything but "mixed."

that sounds like a better deal than most of the FA's we can acquire, especially if he actually has range.

Not too surprising really, the writing was on the wall when Tek picked up his option. Kinda disappointing that we couldn't have found a way to hold onto him. He might not be the complete package, but he had some very useful skills in a catcher. I was kind of hoping they'd cut Dusty Brown and find a way to crowd Kottaras into AAA but I guess I can understand why that couldn't happen. He'll probably stick somewhere in the big leagues. Catchers with Kottaras' power potential are too hard to find for me to think he won't get another chance in a place like KC or Cincy.

I'm gonna have to hold to my usual line and say "fall and winter league stats mean practically nothing." Where we have a hole at SS, it's interesting to see Iglesias performing as he does. However, I'd like to remind the board that in late June, Nick Green's offensive numbers were pretty similar to that. It's nice that he can flash a bit of offense but Iglesias needs to prove he can keep that up over a season before I'm excited. I definitely liked him making pitchers work in those two plate appearances. Where is his defense? Is he raw or polished at SS?

"Running the bases?" Surely you can do better than that with a one-pitch starter. The guy's gonna get lit up. He has no secondary pitches, you can get away with that in the minors if your one pitch is good enough, but on any day your one plus offering is less than perfect big league hitters are going to slap you silly. And this guy's one pitch is a low 90's two-seamer. Not exactly Chien-Ming Wang's 96 mile an hour power sinker.. What you've got here is a middle reliever. If you're lucky, a setup man.

I wouldn't mind getting in on Granderson. Not exactly a conventional Fenway left fielder, but if there was ever a way great defense could make up for lesser offense...

That's kind of up to the Tigers isn't it? We'd have to offer some talent, no price for a talent like Miggy Cabrera could ever really be considered "cheap," but I don't think that the Tigers are in a position to hold out for Buchholz. Unless Theo's being incredibly anal about the value of his prospects, if the Tigers DO shop Miggy, the price should be one he's willing to pay.

I kind of agree with Kilo. If we put up with Manny we can put up with this guy -- as long as he produces at the plate.

Funny thing is at the end of 2006 everyone was calling it our worst disaster trade since the Babe. I spent a lot of keystrokes trying to defend that deal in that offseason.

I'd be surprised if we made a big trade. I think the objective this year is to make the postseason and hope for the best. We'll be in a much better position to go "over the top" next year. I think Holliday or Bay, and maybe in the best case also Roy Halladay or another top arm with a few years of projectability.

The only way to make that argument is to say that Anibal Sanchez (remember him?) replicates all or most of Beckett's performance over the last 3-4 years. Since he's spent most of that time hurt or ineffective, hard to make the case.

Because we'll never catch the feared and dreaded "Sabathia And Everyone Else" rotation of the yankees, right? The Yankees have an actual hole in their rotation, and the questionmarks that surround the idiot Chamberlain, the erratic Burnett, and the aged Pettitte are not trivial. Don't talk to me about Boston's rotation.

Two threads at least on the main page about moving Youkilis to third base in order to make room for another power hitter.

Lowell and Paps? Really? I mean, Paps I can see, since Detroit's closer situation has been a nightmare, but Lowell?

I'd almost rather give Aaron Bates a legit shot at playing time than play Ross Gload, Jr. on a regular basis. If we don't tender Kotchman, we can use VMart as our backup 1B, and that's a more suitable option IMHO. that would allow us to carry a 5th OF, which I think we're going to wind up needing since Hermida's not much good in CF.

Starters: C: Martinez 1B: Lowell 2B: Pedroia 3B: Lowell SS: Lowrie LF: _______ CF: Ellsbury RF: Drew DH: Ortiz Bench: Varitek, C Kotchman, 1B (Green?), IF Hermida, OF Rotation: Lester Beckett Matsuzaka Buchholz Wakefield Pen: Papelbon Okajima Bard Ramirez Delcarmen _______ _______ ------------------------ On the whole, we're in a pretty good situation in the field. Got some age in some crucial places, and we're not the defensive club we've been in seasons past but it's not going to be a franchise-breaking problem unless someone gets seriously hurt. The middle infield is a sideshow, we can run Lowrie and Green if we have to and if Jed is actually healthy at last that's better than most of the FA's. Or we could get Gonzalez. Or there's still a couple trades we could maybe pull. Regardless, not a lot of real room to either improve or get worse at SS IMHO. As long as we get left field sorted out to our benefit, we're good for another playoff run I like our rotation a lot, too. Matsuzaka's an enigma and Buchholz is a developing player, but I think we can stack our rotation against anyone's and expect good things. I think we've got some issues but so doesn't everyone, and this is still a top 5 rotation in the league -- right where we need it to be for a good shot at October. The bullpen is also, not as awesome as it was billed last April, but respectable. We don't have to put a ton of thought into who takes up the last two spots in the pen, and Bard, Delcarmen and possibly Ramirez are good candidates to improve next year. If we can score a decent second lefty I think we'll be doing well. On the whole, I'd say that we can't do too much to this roster that will make us anything other than an immediate playoff contender -- maybe not a world series favorite, but even if things don't fall perfectly, this team should see October barring a major disaster. There's plenty of room for improvement -- there always is. I do feel we're a top 5 team in every aspect of the game but defense, which won't kill us badly enough to take away our other advantages.

It's too easy to find another player who can do what Casey Kotchman does, and we could use a RHH off the bench. Right now only our two switch hiters even hit from that side and neither Varitek nor Lowrie should really be counted on for much offense.

I still think Westmoreland is very likely to be our LF of the future. It might just be his unhealthy start, but I don't buy him in center yet in the majors.

All you need to open the possibility is turning one game around and extending the series. A good SP can do that.

Murray Chass

what's he smoking? This is only remotely true if you assume he meant both conditionals, "good" and "young." We have Reddick, Kalish, Bowden, Tazawa and Exposito all within a couple years fo the big leagues. They'll struggle a bit at first, much like Reddick did this year or Pedroia did in 2006, but any of those 5 players have the potential to be solid major leaguers by 2012. Throw in lesser lights like Wagner, Richardson, Bates, and Jimenez, any of which project to at least half decent bench fodder, and our pipeline is in no particular danger of stagnating. That, and Bard's debut season was a wild success, Ellsbury has established himself, Buchholz is working on it, and the old homegrown core (guys like Youks, Lester, and Delcarmen) are a large part of how the team is getting to the postseason. And we even had enough youth to spare two really good young pitchers for the Victor Martinez swap. Now compare that to the Yankees, for whom the only prospects they intro'd in the last 2 years that they have anything in particular riding on, are Brett Gardner and Phil Coke. Makes you wonder who really is gonna have more trouble fielding a "good young team" in the near future.

No duh. If you can get either of Holliday or Bay it's a no-brainer. We aren't the only ones looking to improve our lineup though. A whole lot of other teams could really use either of those guys. Things fall wrong, we could wind up with neither because of circumstances completely beyond our control though, so it doesn't hurt to look at contingencies.