Oregon doesn't play defense. Without Masoli, the offense will be plain vanilla. On 10/30, Oregon will be losing at the coliseum.
The way it works in the Pac10 is the Oregon teams lose in L.A. while USC loses in Eugene or Corvallis.
http://www.baseball-almanac.com/teamstats/roster.php?y=2000&t=BOS
Not really full of head cases though. This was pre-Manny being Manny. Jose Offerman didn't really have any blow-ups til he left. Carl Everett was the lone exception, but 2000 was his monster year and no one was really complaining about him.
There's no reason to dump Ells for pennues on the dollar. The sox should at least keep him until his trade value is up to what it once was. Otherwise, he's a 4thoutfielder at worst.