callandor1000

I would like to see the Sox make Ellsbury a crazy offer. At least something to make him blink. I think most can at least understand the difficulty of offering a high dollar contract for a long time. Length is the biggest factor but we wouldn't be worrying if Ellsbury was hunting for 7 years 75 million. I would like to see him offered 4 years at $120 million with incentives to reach $130 million. I think Ellsbury has at least two really good dynamic years ahead of him. This would be good for both parties, IMO.

See, winning the division really means about as much as getting a second scoop of ice cream free of charge. Sure, its great. But you wanted ice cream anyways, so a second scoop while nice, isn't necessary. All that matters is making the playoffs.

But Beckett only really bested him in one area, and that was wins, and that was only by 1. CC had better ERA (not by much but still better), a better WHIP and more IP. Bucholz could finish up with as many as 4 more wins than Lee, a half a run better ERA and at least a pretty close WHIP. It'll be interesting, but I'd predict either way, the voting between those two will be really close.

I've never really seen a Dice-K outing where after the game I was like "Man, that was some good pitching". I've seen games where I was like "Oh, he's getting better" or "Oh, if he expands on that"or "Thank god its over" but he's as of yet to have an outing that amazed me. I just want one. Oh, I think its remarkable how few of runners that get into scoring position actually come around to score and that year he was virtually untouchable when he had runners on, that was special. But he allowed so many runners into scoring position, over taxed the bullpen and time after time looked like he was getting lucky to get out of jams (maybe he was lucky, maybe not). He wouldn't be on that mound for us if he didn't cost us $100 million.

I think he has a real shot. If he pitches like he's pitched his last 5 outings, he'll get a lot of votes. I happen to disagree that if the Sox don't make the playoffs that Bucholz will be out of it. If the Sox completely tank, then he'll be out of it no matter what. But as it stands, the Sox could finish with the 3rd best record in baseball and still not make the playoffs. I do think he needs to be within the 180 IP to have a chance. He can't let that ERA go up any, or the WHIP. Wins would be nice, too. If he can finish 18-5, or 19-5 and still keep a very similar ERA and WHIP Lee would be hard pressed to beat him out. Lee hasn't pitched nearly as well in Texas as he has away so with some luck, his ERA or WHIP could find itself a bit further up come the end of the season.

I dislike Drew. I'm annoyed how often he has a "hamstring" issue. Suck it the f*** up, bitch. I know you don't want to play. But ya gotta. You get paid to. Not much of a fan of Tek, really. Nor Cameron. Never really been much of a fan of Dice-K, and he's not really pitched well once, yet. He's had respectable outings, but nothing I would tip my hat to. I do like Pedroia, and Youk and Beckett, Bucholz and probably my favorite is Lester. And god, I miss Manny like no one's business.

Arthur Rhodes for Dice-K, straight up.

That was my bad. I almost didn't even reply to that aspect. Then I decided "what the hell, I'll put down a little something". Only when you mentioned something, did I think "Hey, now that you mention it, I don't recall anything about an option". Then I looked it up, and sure enough, you are right. My bad. I was consumed by my dislike for J.D. Drew. He could have mentioned something about J.D. Drew killing teletubies on live TV and I would have condemned him for that, too. Sorry. I understand that J.D. Drew gets paid $14 million a year to give solid effort, put up slightly above average numbers and do whats asked of him and seldom (to be seen by me) more. I might not have the intricacies of his contract ingrained in my mind, my bad, but I do understand the effect and value of his contract.

I've always despised college basketball. Its never been exciting and the format of the playoffs shows really just how s***** it actually is. This year, though. I decided I'd try to watch a few games. These are the major problems I had in no particular order and they all seemed to be linked in ways. Atrocious ball movement. Sure, every now and then you would see a little bit of almost decent ball movement, though usually in transition. The next issue is related to this and might contribute. Floor spacing, or lack thereof. Players tend to bunch way too much which makes it hard to have good ball movement. They tend to just drop one guy in the middle and bunch guys into the corners. Or when someone moves to the top of the key with the ball, two other guys come with him. The bunching tends to happen for the third issue. Relying too much on the 3. Teams try to live for the 3 pt shot. Because of this, there is rarely anyone inside the 3 pt arc other than the guy camped out under the basket. Now, you would think that taking a lot of threes would make it easy to occasionally drive to the hoop when in a half court set. Nope. This advantage of taking 3's is negated by the poor floor spacing. Those are my three issues. I was watching one day at the gym on a treadmill which is when I first noticed these issues. I was watching possessions (and having no particular favorite just wanted to see efficient basketball played) that were completely wasted. Missed guys who were open (they couldn't be passed to in most cases because the poor floor spacing filled in passing lanes) drove me nuts and the fact that it was so easy for anyone who drove to the hoop to have the defense collapse on them (again, all the offensive players played so close to each other that it made help defense a snap) that I wanted to hurt someone. So then I watched a few more games (these were all NCAA tournament games) and noticed the same problems every time by both teams. It's a disgrace to the sport. There is obviously little to no strategy or play calling, its just a free for all. The playoff format leaves a lot to be desired. Mostly, I think I would like to see best of 3 series starting with the Sweet 16. Losing one game doesn't mean anything. And winning one game often means less. Good teams can learn from mistakes and improve. You don't get that chance in the NCAA. Plus, this format gets those teams who were pretending to be good out of the way. Overall, I'm a huge basketball fan. Its by far my favorite sport. But I never want to watch a college game again.

I agree that J.D. Drew is not worth the money. I'm the type of person who is always thinking about whether or not something is worth the money. It doesn't even have to be something that I'm purchasing or am interested in purchasing. Someone else could be buying it. Dollar value is something I uncontrollably rate. That being said, J.D. Drews monetary value to the Sox is not what bothers me the most about him. I dislike the way he plays the game, honestly. He goes to do a job and that is really it. You rarely see a personality other than coldness from him. And its not even that coldness that some guys are famous for. The deep, intense coldness. I like a guy who brings personality to a team. I just don't see him helping the chemistry of the team. I also don't see him hurting the chemistry, either. I just like something more from the players on the teams I cheer for (selfish of me, I know). Back to his value. I think all the time what we might have had a chance at getting instead of J.D. Drew. Maybe we would have gotten Texeira if we didn't have money tied up in Drew. Maybe this year they might have gone and gotten Granderson. But when it all comes down to it, going into the 2007 season, despite the front office situation being a mess, we got a bunch of guys (Drew included) and changed our offensive and defensive (not pitching) outlook completely in a way that won us a World Series. Drew isn't the type of hitter that strikes fear into pitchers. He doesn't light up your clubhouse or fans. He plays solid defense. He doesn't sweat mistakes or missed opportunities. He just goes out and plays (well when he doesn't have a sore back or pulled hamstring). Something more could be desired in his conditioning, thats for certain. But for the most part, and this is what shines for him, he's consistent over the course of a season. It's no use gripping about Drew. We have him. It's doubtful we could move his contract. We have decent depth in the outfield now but long term outlook is uncertain so picking up his option isn't bad. Side note. Did anyone hear about A-Rod? He got arrested last night for sucking off Justin Bieber.

AL East Boston Baltimore New York Toronto Tampa Bay AL Central Detroit Minnesota Kansas City Chicago Cleveland AL West Texas Los Angeles (WC) Oakland Seattle NL East Philadelphia Atlanta Florida New York Washington NL Central Cincinnati St. Louis (WC) Chicago Milwaukee Houston Pittsburgh NL West San Francisco Colorado San Diego Arizona Los Angeles

I wasn't trying to use how he plays against AL East teams as how he will perform overall in Boston. I'm sorry I didn't make that clear. I had wrongly assumed that it would be self-explanatory. Well I don't care half as much what this guy does against the rest of the MLB. My point with pointing out how he plays against AL East teams is not to illustrate how he plays against everyone, but how he's going to play in a good chunk of the games he has to play now. Hitting wise, if we're "upgrading" from Lowell then wouldn't it be more intelligent to upgrade with a player who is proven against the teams that we play the most? I mean he can be average against everyone else as long as he's plus against teams in our division. We have guys already who can play very well against everyone. It's a tough division and if you can't perform against the teams you play the most then playing well against everyone else means less (not nothing, but less). And this is just to point out that he's moving to a very tough division and has to face 3 or possibly 4 tough teams rather than just the Angels. This move shouldn't be labeled at this point as an obvious win. It shouldn't be labeled as an obvious loss, either.

I'm a man of many opinions on every subject I can think of. I don't always state them clearly, which I apologize for. I warned awhile ago that I'm a messy poster and this is what I meant. From now on, I'll post my personal opinion (which is very rarely substantiated by numbers and often times if it does involve numbers its just a weird number that only means anything to me) and then I'll post my opinion based on numbers. They often vary greatly. My personal, gut opinion is that this will be a bust. He'll do just as I say. He'll even likely spend a good bit of time hurt. My numbers opinion is he'll bat .395-.305, 32 HR, 95 RBI, 15 of 22 stealing bases, with a .355 OBP and a mid .800 OPS. Sorry for the inconvenience, and I'll be sure for now on to post both of my opinions from here on out. I always have two opinions on things, its just I tend to favor my personal gut opinion. I'm correct more far more often when I go with my initial instinct and opinion.