Dojji

Shoulda kept your mouth shut and just changed it Coco. None of us would have really known.

You realize we'll never go much of anywhere unless the rotation steps it up more than a little, right?

That's a fair point. Not gonna fight you over that.

Heh, the funny thing is if Jose Molina was abut 6 years younger he'd be more or less what I had in mind. After I've got my lineup set I'll probably grab Yorvit Torrealba or someone like him. 20 HR catchers might be hard to find, but platoon/defense first catchers are not.

Batting average is a relatively poor basis of comparison. Martin does have a better OBP t han Napoli but Napoli wins everything back with slugging. The plan is to pick up a nice defensive backstop and rotate Napoli in as a C/DH

There's still some value in the infield but if you want a well-known, young player you'd better move pretty fast.

Your rotatin is excellent, but you'll have to really scramble to find a good balance of offense and defense to support them. You've still got no up the middle talent. And of course, my front 3 (Greinke-Shields-Zambrano) can stand up to your front 3 while at the same time I've got my primo positions covered with solid two-way talent.

Prolly did.

Thank you, Campbell. The Bruins will be playing with an edge now in game 6. Nothing brings out the intensity like being the victim of injustice and seeing a clearly wounded teammate throwing himself into the fire for his team.

Sorry, talking down to the quality of most of the posts I'm dealing with. I mean, you asked some legitimate questions and made me actually dig a bit to defend my point but most of what I was responding to was basically "Lopez sucks because he just does."

I've been reserving judgement on Masterson for his first few starts because he wasn't fully stretched out, but if he doesn't start doing at least a little better his third time through a lineup I think he's going to wind up in the bullpen pretty quickly, at least for now.

Lopez is always in danger of being underestimated because officially he's a "soft-tosser who walks people." Even worse, he doesn't have a lot of sexy strikeouts to show for it either. Very, very easy to view that kind of pitcher with suspicion and head for the bomb shelter when they take the mound. It doesn't matter that he has an average WHIP rather than a bad one, or has been all but impossible to drive the ball against. Heck, it doesn't even matter that he changed his arm angle and started clearing the low 90's on occasion, he's still "a soft-tosser who walks people." And thus by definition sucks no matter what and any success he actually may have had must be luck. Must be... Gotta love preconcieved notions of ballplayers doncha? The Church of the Sacred High 90's Fastball is always amusing as well.

Except for the times when it isn't. Dangit Campbell... I thought you were all about being tough on illegal hits to the head -- THIS IS EXACTLY WHAT THAT WAS!!! Love to have a dose of whatever the disciplinary committee is on. must be good stuff.

I neither believe in one-batter relievers nor think that Lopez should have been used as one. He did hold lefties to a .587 OPS last year but that was in a direct contradiction to his normal career trends in which he was far more effective against righthanders (.688 OPS against while facing righthanded hitting) In short, it doesn't matter how Lopez fared as a LOOGY because LOOGY should never have been his role.

Alright, at this point I'm trying to combat anecdotes and emotions with numbers and that's a losing proposition. Lopez will have officially "sucked" no matter what the numbers look like because you guys will find some excuse to believe the numbers don't mean what they say.

Firstly because we always had better options. Secondly because he does walk batters, which is a problem -- although not the death knell you make it out to be. Thirdly because he doesn't strike people out, which is considered a prerequisite for late inning work with surprisingly few exceptions. I personally believe Lopez was misused in Boston. Not because he should be a setup man but because he was given the chance to clean up after himself much too infrequently. A guy who gets as many ground balls as Lopez does can usually work around a walk or if his defense is good and he's a bit lucky, even turn it to his advantage with a ground ball double play. Don't presume to tell me what I think. Honestly? Each of the 3 years he spent in Boston there were relievers like Gagne, Timlin, Hansen, Seanez and Tavarez who scared me far more than Lopez did. I'll take messy and effective over messy and ineffective. It's only this last year where the rest of the bullpen was so loaded and Lopez was so rough out of the gate that I even thought a roster move might be necessary. And frankly, if we weren't so deep and had to stick with Lopez he'd probably bounce back given half a chance. You're right -- JC Romero never had as good an ERA for 3 consecutive years as Javier Lopez has for 06-08

Any team struggling to assemble a bullpen would make a play for the guy. If nothing else the Nationals won't let Javier Lopez get past them if he gets that far. In fact they might pledge a PTBNL to make sure they get him.They're beyond desperate for bullpen help.

Which part didn't reflect it? The 1.36 WHIP? The h/9 WELL below 9? The fact that in those 3 years he only gave up seven total homers? I'll be the first to admit he is a stranger to the strike zone but it is very, very hard to square up on Javier Lopez. He got a ton of soft grounders. And the only number that isn't an asset is bb/9. Every other number Lopez put up 2006-2008 is good to very good.,

Lopez by ERA+ by year. 2006: 173 2007: 153 2008: 190 I don't give a flying twinkie how he looked. Prior to this year he was getting results. It's a shame he can't seem to get that back this year but I have absolutely no doubt whatsoever that some team will be glad to take him off our hands.

Bay and Lowell can't carry the team forever, granted, but other than Bay we really don't have that many of our guys running hot right now. Not looking forward to what this team will do with Pedroia hurt. Ortiz coming around would definitely help that...

Of course the Yankees are gioing to have a devil of a time attracting pitchers unless they do something about that Los Angeles Coliseum right field of theirs..

We're 20-12. How is that not successful?

Honestly... I can' understand the attitudes of Sox fans who look at every good player we have and start immediately imagining them in pinstripes.

What was even more to the point is that half the Montreal fans,all but the most partisan, were defending Aaron Ward -- a Bruin -- and calling a spade a spade.

Not a single pitch to Crawford was in the strike zone. Only one pitch to Upton was clearly in the strike zone.