mvp 78

To think he has Pujols, Dunn, Fielder, Howard tools is kinda overstating it a bit especially when you compare performance by age. Also, 40 homers isn't as easy as it was a few years ago. Could he hit 25? Maybe. 40? Highly unlikely. I'm not trying to bag on the guy, but 40 homers is a stretch. Saying it's easy to see when he's never shown it doesn't make sense to me.

Truck Day is one of my favorite holidays as it brings a little warmth to a dreary part of the year. Seeing the Sox play catch and scrimmage BC just makes the weather feel more tolerable as it reminds me that spring is coming.

162-0 Get swept in the playoffs

If he gets 1.5 million to sit at home, who cares? It's not like he has to go collect unemployment.

See how ST works out (injuries/effectiveness) and give him a roster spot if others falter. If everyone else remains healthy and look good, he gets released before the season.

There was no way they'd be able to resign him though. If the pitching prospects turn out to be decent, it would be a good trade for the Royals.

RHP Ellsbury Pedroia Crawford Gonzalez Youk Papi Scutaro Drew Salty LHP Ellsbury Pedroia Crawford Gonzalez Youk Lowrie Drew Cameron Tek

Alomar and Larkin.

He doesn't have the pitch selection. He doesn't want to be a starter.

Less sour than Werth, Lee, Soriano.

Me no read good... In that case, I really hope Salty gets a real chance. Learning from Tek is a great opportunity for him and with this lineup, there'll be little to no pressure on him to produce right away. I just hope Beckett can learn to eventually pitch without his binkey.

He also had a mancrush on Lugo for a long time until Lugo actually started playing here. With Martin, the grass isn't greener. Stay away.

Well, I wasn't selected to attend, but I went as a tagalong with two of my friends. We got to Fenway right before 10 in hopes that we'd be able to see Crawford. Unfortunately, that meant my friend's wrist band was numbered fairly high so there was going to be a long wait until we were called for tickets. Anyway, it was a cool event to go to. Wally and Paws (the PawSox mascot) were there along with the mascots for the Spinners and BC. Santa was there in a Sox hat taking pictures with everyone. Jason Varitek was interviewed by the PA announcer Carl Beane. The interview was fairly bland an not memorable. Tek was then available for autographs if you waited in a massive line. Carl Crawford followed with an interview that occured right after his press conference. His interview was a little better. He's excited to play against Carlos Pena when he comes to town with the Cubs. He said his son was a big Sox fan and Carl didn't realize that until he signed. He didn't stick around for autographs. Afterwards, Daniel Nava was interviewed to little fanfare. Fans asked a few questions. I was going to ask a question about when he'll finally get his 2nd homerun and if he was pressing at all over his next 187 ABs, but decided better of it. The EMC club is pretty cool. All the Sox HOF plaques and "memorable moment" plaques line the wall. All of the CY trophies were attached to the wall next to some of the HOF plaques. Some pink hat gargoyle was leaning up against the Lonborg CY not knowing what it was, or just not caring. There were a bunch of gold gloves sitting in a case in the EMC club. I'm not sure if it was a complete set or not. All the MVP awards were in there as well. The WS trophies from 04 and 07 were down the hall. If you wanted your picture taken professionally it was $22, but they allowed you to use your own camera as well. There was a raffle upstairs ($5 buy in) for a bunch of signed jerseys and balls (Reddick, VMart, Baldelli, Cameron, Scutaro, Oki), but not too much other stuff going on except for the mascots walking around. The food wasn't from Aramark, so the dogs weren't Fenway Franks. We ended up getting ticket packs online long before our number was called, so we decided to leave and check out the "Great Fenway Yard Sale." On the way down to the outfield concourse, we were allowed to walk around the Monster seats, which was cool for some of the people who hadn't been up there before. The yard sale was basically the Filene's Basement of Red Sox items. There were two huge crates filled with bricks. If you bought a bag for $20, you could fill it with one brick and whatever else was in random boxes on the concourse. The other boxes had used jerseys (reds, greens, greys, and home whites) with a wide assortment of past Sox players for $65-$75. Since I'm not a Jason Shiell fan, I decided to pass. There were also media guides from the past 25 years, baseballs that were used as decorations, and other random items. You could even buy concourse tv's and other media equipment for $10-$25. Things I didn't see: the closed off yard sale room with individually priced items and the batting cages. Apparently, you could take batting practice if you waited around long enough to have your number called for tickets. Since we had already purchased tickets online while we were waiting, we decided it wasn't really worth the wait. All in all, it was a fun, free event. I had no real expectations of what it was all about since I had never been before. Oh, walked into Fenway right before us for the Crawford press conference. I should have given him a chop block when I had the chance...

If Martin comes cheap and only plays part time, I'm ok with the pickup. Injuries have killed this guy to the point the Dodgers wanted to put him at 3rd but figured Blake and whoever else would give them better production. I don't see him as ever being a fulltime guy again. Kiss goodbye to the 2008 stats and allstar appearances (not that those really matter). The Dodgers pitched well with him behind the plate, but that was more due to their division than anything else. I guess I'm not understanding the fascination. He's not much of an upgrade over a cheaper Salty. Spend the $$$ on the bullpen and Bill Hall instead.

Russell Martin has sucked the past two years and there's no sign of him turning it around. If you want a .250 hitter with no pop, at least make sure he's good defensively. The advanced stats don't look any better. Everyone, please put your RuMart boners away.

The 2010 Sox had little personality. This should help the 2011 Sox.

Gammons never said that they were going to walk away and settle for signing Werth. You're reading into it too much.

Which is why you couldn't expect jack if you traded him.

Except that your version is different than Gammons...

The leap in logic from "they want Werth and Agon" to "they were ready to walk away from Agon to only get Werth" is shakey at best and not supported at all in example's post.