Dojji

He's the best defensive catcher of the bunch who had very solid offensive years for a catcher in 2007 and 2005, gets on base well, and held up his end of the Brown-Kottaras platoon very well indeed in AAA this year. Combine the good D with his offensive breakthrough over the last 2 years and yes, he probably should make it. But he won't. Both Bard and Kottaras have higher offensive upsides. Right, which is why I went out of my way to say Kottaras wasn't a poor man's Napoli fercrissakes. With a low AVG that didn't get fatally worse as soon as he hit the big leagues. THAT was my point. Yeah which is why I said he wasn't and listed the reason why. Just that that one year was an example of a player with a low AVG and a similar skillset succeeding in the big leagues. Dude, read my posts k?

I would love to see the return of Kapler. He's a fit since he's a RHH who can play RF and (theoretically) CF and spell two LHH's who we're interested in how well they'll last a full season at their positions. If he can bring the same level of offense here that he brought to Milwaukee in his comeback year, bring on Gabe Kapler. Just say no on Lowrie/Lugo platoon though. One player or the other.

You mean the sort of strides Schill made in early spring 2008?

Not sure the Twins are the right target for Bay. I was thinking more about a team like the Mariners, and maybe bringing in Jeff Clement. Or a midseason trade to St. Louis for Anderson if and when Ludwick returns to terra firma.

I see no reason not to let the people we have play out April. All of Kottaras, Bard and Brown have the upside to be interesting as catchers, with Brown as the guy who probably should win out and Kottaras and Bard as the ones who probably will. I think Kottaras is somewhat underrated here. He had a pretty good offensive season (.804 OPS) and the big knock on him offensively was a low AVG. A player CAN succeed with a low AVG though and Kottaras has the power and patience to be that kind if player While the comparison isn't perfect, Kottaras' 2008 AAA campaign resembled Mike Napoli's 2005 run, although with significantly less power. Does that mean that Kottaras is a poor man's Napoli? Hardly, since it was only one good year and Napoli is probably better defensively, but Napoli demonstrated that a low batting average in the minors is not an automatic bar to big league success for power hitters and a guy who bears some resemblance to him should be given a chance to show what he can do in the big leagues. I think Kottaras will pleasantly surprise us. Who knows? Maybe in 5 years we'll be singing David Wells' praises like we have for the past decade with Heathcliff Slocumb.

It won't happen. Front Office has repeatedly said they value strong defense at first base. If Bay is committed to moving on after this year or won't resign during the season I could see trading him and signing Dunn to play LF, but Dunn will not play 1B in Boston, I'll stake what little reputation I have left on that.

Sure because that's what I was doing. Definitely. Rather than offering a MLB-ready starter and our top catching prospect and swinging a good veteran for a SS prospect.

Read: your stereotypical rental: a productive veteran signed to short years at a need position for the Phillies And one of our top prospects who's a terriffic defensive catcher. Who was a first round pick and could make the big leagues midseason if a team needed him I thought that was pretty realistic. A bit ambitious I grant you but not outside the realm of possibility. It sort of depends on how Houston and Philly feel acout the prospects they'd be getting. Picking up a veteran need and a SP prospect for a blocked SS prospect isn't the worst thing for Philly who's in GFIN position for the next couple years and probably should be making a deal of that kind with Donald anyway. As for the Astros they might need someone like Bard or Reddick to sweeten their end of the deal but if the Astros are committed to getting cheaper there are worse ways to do it. Hey. I think Anderson could kill the ball with the Sox out of camp this year if he was needed but I'm not in charge of personnel development. A guy like Berkman gives us a few years of solid production from 1B without increasing the likelihood that Anderson will wind up in a different uniform. And if you're as worried about Lowell as some of you guys sounded when I was opposing the Teixeira signing, moving him at all is probably an additional benefit.

Anyone But Wakefield.

Agreed. When are the Bruins going to come down from this "peak?" After the initial roster scuffle in the first 2-3 weeks it's been solid peak from beginning to end and Kessel, Krejcii, and Wheeler don't look like they're going anywhere anytime soon! I don't think that even injuries are going to slow this train down at this point. Other than obvious disasters like injuries to Kessel, Savard or Krejci there really aren't a lot of ways to bring this team down. We've gotten virtually nothing from Bergeron and have spent more time without Sturm than with him, and have had to cope with injuries to Ferrence and Ward on the D and as a result, discovered Hunwick. And if one of MFTT and MFMF decide to get hurt, we've got Rask down with the Pruins.

If we had ABW for the 4th game we win that series.

Look at the guys I'd be giving up in my deal. Only Exposito of the two players is in the top 10. If we did this deal this way we actually get cheaper and more productive at the same time, we keep our draft pick, and giving up an A-ball catcher is not that big a price to pay -- we rate him highly but the world has seen Luis Expositos before and there's 3 decent catching prospects ahead of him in our system, usually a good sign a guy's expendable. As for Johnson, Kris Johnson is the living embodiment of a trade piece, as he's talented in a Nate Robertson sort of way but unlikely to crack the rotation in Boston.

Pah! Anyway I agree with 700hitter. We lost in the playoffs because our starting pitching didn't stand up, both with the whole Beckett thing and with needing to use Wakefield in game 4 because of a lack of rotation depth. There's definitely ways one more big name starter could help us. Personally though I'm holding out for that big starter to be named Michael Bowden.

Why are we making this about Teixeira again?

Buchholz-Bard-Reddick-Lin

The upgrade was marginal for a $23M contract for the next 8 years. Getting Berkman doesn't limit our future options like Teixeira did and is a contract Houston would be willing to consider dumping for a good prospect return. Berkman's only locked down till 2011, which doesn't block Anderson and his contract is actually CHEAPER than Lowell's so improvement on the margin comes with better roster flexibility, not worse.. THe kicker for me is the contract. It would be a very Sox-friendly deal as it's similar to Papi's, which you all agreed was a good contract to wait for to advance Anderson.

Here's a name I'd love to see on a thread like this: Lance Berkman. If Houston is regrouping it could happen. A three-way with Philly, Houston and Boston would get that done and it might improve the team without exorbitant costs in talent and dollars for the Sox. Philly gets: Mike Lowell Kris Johnson Houston gets Jason Donald Luis Exposito Boston gets Lance Berkman Something like that works on paper. Lowell winds up on a contender so I doubt he'd complain, and we get a very nice switch hitting power 1Bman with Youks at third and not too far out of our way prospect wise.

Kilo is going after me for a long-ago criticism of Buchholz that he couldn't hold a lead. Only thing is instead of "hold with a lead" Kilo's snarkfest always turns somehow into "pitching with a lead" so basically he's going after me for a long-dead strawman of his own devising. And yes, most of what I hear Bowden praised for is what you might call pitcher's skills. Command, makeup, decision making, and mound presence.

Well said on Bowden. I love his stuff and makeup and think he might just be the best pitcher's pitcher in our system right now.

I would cringe if the price went that high, but I can't honestly stand there and say I'm not tempted by the concept of what Hanley could bring to a weak position in the Boston lineup. This isn't Furcal and this isn't even a situation where the incumbents are doing OK, they're not. Guy's Nomar Garciaparra with more speed. If you think you can get Hanley, you have to get Hanley.

Actually it does work better than I thought -- I was just throwing that out there but that could actually work. Baldelli certainly is durable enough to be the righthanded hitter in a true platoon and it'd be a way to guarantee him playing time and get him to sign. EDIT: Van Every-Baldelli platoon of CF.

The Marlins are nuts. Why not just give them Reddick instead and they can put an actual corner outfielder in the corner outfield spot?

Huzzabawha??? They have a CF.

Andruw Jones? *barfs!* I guess I can see kicking the tires on him. It's hard to imagine a guy who was once on par with Torii Hunter and Vernon Wells as the ultimate centerfield troika falling so far. But the guy has fallen off a cliff and if you believe the rumors he's ignoring all the coaches. He was all the headache of Manny with none of the production last year for the Dodgers. No thanks.