Dojji

you do know that Jason Groome has yet to sign with the Red Sox yes?

I have no idea what you're talkin about. We gave away some legit top prospects and big league ready ones at that, to get to all of our WS. Especially 07 and 13. 07 in particular was pretty much made by the Beckett trade where we lost Hanley Ramirez and Anibal Sanchez, people were HOWLING over that one. Luccino who authored the trade over Theo's head, was lucky that both Beckett and Lowell showed up big in the Series in 07, that shut a lot of people up but until that went down there were howls of anguish on the Red Sox forums over that one even though it did set us up bigtime. m.

Not sure Pomeranz is a #2 outside of Petco, going from the most pitcher friendly park in the league to one of the more hitter friendly, and going to the best offensive division in the better offensive league, but that's fine since all we really needed is a #4 and he should be good for that. If there's one thing about the whole trade that does make me legit nervous though, it's the idea that Pomeranz as a fulltime starter may be a Petco mirage. I hope not, and I don't think so, but the worry will be there until he shows up and delivers.

Hey scouting the statline has its place as long as you don't read too much into the future based on the present.

There's a distinction, but in this context it's not a significant one. He was rebutting the idea that our WS teams were significantly homegrown when they were clearly not.

I think that DD picked well who to trade for. I would have liked to keep Espinosa, but not at the cost of abandoning a season in a year when we have every chance of making the playoffs. if you have to mortgage the future to pick up a guy, Pomeranz is a decent pick, anyone better established is going to come with either more questionmarks or a higher price tag. DD did a good job here.

you're splitting hairs. It was "homegrown FA FA trade" and that was MVP's point. The fact is if there's a team that could afford to deal a stud prospect to win now, we're one.

Right, this was a fundamentally fair trade. The Padres are a farm team that lives and dies on prospect development, and got a darn good one. We're a team that frequently buys talent and desperately needed a middle of the rotation starter, and we got exactly what we needed in exchange for a thing that if we're being honest, SD is in a position to prize far more than we do. It remains to be seen how it plays out, but the optics of the trade are fundamentally fair. It was a value for value trade, and both teams are in a position to value what they gained more than what they lost.

Funny how 2 of those WS were on the backs of traded-for pitchers. 04 Schilling, 07 Beckett

The only two words needed to understand this trade are as follows. "Sellers. Market." We needed starting pitching and everyone knew it. And starting pitching is the one thing that is never out of demand. No team is going to cut us a break in that circumstance so anyone we got would cost us something we don't want to lose. Of the available guys to lose, a very high potential A baller is one of the better choices. Of the available options of who to get bent over for, Pomeranz is a surprisingly good choice, I like the way DD is thinking here, he's got the demonstrated skillset to be durable and reasonably effective, and anyone better established than Pomeranz would be even more expensive. I'm also glad that we picked up someone reasonably young when we're trading top prospects away. We won't have much direct control over Pomeranz, but if it works out, he's young enough to re-sign and that's a good thing. I get that Espinosa is a potential stud, but we don't need potential right now. We are in range of a playoff berth for the first time in 3 years, this is absolutely not the time to be penny wise and pound foolish with our prospect pool. We absolutely could not fail to trade for a starter, doing so would be tantamount to throwing the season away. Since we were officially desperate other teams were going to ask for the moon and stars for anyone we picked up. This is the best deal DD could make and a better one than I could have thought of if I'm being honest.

you're wrong about Lowrie. IIRC he played an emergency callup in Boston, then went to AAA. I'm pretty confident that the same is true of Ellsbury.

I see no reason not to be aggressive with Benintendi. There's no particular reason it couldn't work. I was skeptical until he sarted producing at the AA level. I consider that to be the hard part of rapidly transitioning to the big leagues, because it's clear that the team thinks that way. He's done the hard part by rapidly adjusting to AA ball and learning to be productive there. With that hurdle cleared there's no particular reason not to start giving him big league work. It's worked out for us with other players, recent notables being not just Ellsbury, but also Jed Lowrie and Justin Masterson, both of whom quickly also adapted to the big leagues and played at at least an adequate level for us for the most part.

Leon's surge is bad news for Hanigan. They almost have to let Sandy Leon ride this out. Besides, Hanigan wasn't hitting. Like at all. And Leon is a very very good defensive catcher, nearly as good as Vazquez. Since Hanigan can't even caddy the knuckleballer I can't see a real good reason to keep Hanigan around at this point when Leon's getting it done and we have too many other catching options to give everyone time. We could probably afford to just DFA Hanigan because we're still 3 catchers deep in active players even without him. Besides Vazquez and Leon, and the injured Swihart, Dan Butler is a guy with some talent and big league experience, and he's hitting well in Paw. There's no real reason not too believe that Butler could come up and play backup catcher effectively enough, he's as good as most teams' third string catcher anyway, maybe better because he seems to have some stick. I just don't see a desperate need for Hanigan right now.

There was nothing magical about that previous batting order. We did well because we had all pistons firing and the pitching was at least adequate. Now the pitching is struggling badly and some of our hitters are slumping. It's as simple as that. A shakeup of the lineup wouldn't be a terrible idea if it could help get some of our hitters out of the ruts they're in, but other than that, I can't see it making a huge difference. We need to find a way to get the rotation going

The rotation was built on hopes and dreams to begin with. We needed at least average luck and didn't get it. SEasy to say we shouldn't have been in a position where we had to rely on things going right, but you don't go from terrible to tolerable in a single year without a lot of luck.

Holt himself is probably pushing this. He can't be enjoying just sitteing there not doing anything while the team is struggling this badly. Wouldn't be the first time a team failed to say no to a player who has no businss on the field but was trying to overcome physical inability with "pure grit." I think someone with decision-making power in the Boston hierarchy learned the wrong lesson from Schilling's heroics in 04 and forgot that the patient frequently has no idea how badly off he actually is. For example they really should have forced Lowell to get his hip seen to back in 09 and let Lowrie cover the position while there was still potentially time to get him (Lowell) back for the postseason, and Beckett had no business on the field with his lat in the condition it was in in 08 either.

Agree. Nothing wrong with riding the hot hand.

Some of the best ballplayers in the world were douchebags. Just saying, read a bio of Mickey Mantle sometime. Heck, Josh Beckett could be a complete ******* but nobody cared when he won us big games. Lackey got it bad here because he was an unproductive douchebag. People homed in on the douchebaggery but the real issue was the lack of production. He gets outs in any year other than 2013, the hate never happens.

No, but you can win it all with a group of guys who can improve their worst skill to average.

Our 1-2-3 in the roation is fine. Check out Price's numbers since april if you disagree. What we NEED, is depth. Not a top of the rotation guy, that's a waste of resources. Our 1-2-3 will do just fine as it is right now. We need solid rank and filers, not flashy headline guys.

Wright or Papi for me. Papi because of the retirement year if I had to choose one

In other words "on pace" has no value as a prediction and should not be (and usually is not) used as such. It has value as a documentary on what has already happened.

Ian Kennedy and Ervin Santana. I fully expect you to turn your nose up at both names, but they're the kind of guy we need right now.

Yes, we do need a starter. Preferably more than one. And we absolutely need to not live on the pipe dream that any of our current guys-with-issues will arise from the dust and save us. Fresh meat is what we need right now more than anything. No we do not need a top of the rotation guy. In fact given the state of our depth an ace is the last thing we need. we desperately need to marshall our resources in favor of durability over quality right now. Reliability is the #1 thing we need and are not getting from the bottom 2/5 of our rotation right now. I would rather have 2 guys who could take the ball every 5th day and bank on Price and Wright at the top of the rotation with Porcello as the workhorse #3 rather than spend the farm to bring in 1 ace right now. 2 more guys who could pitch on at least a 150 inning pace with a nonawful ERA would be enough to win us the division.

The tortoise bats cleanup