notin

Probably not, but his injury history should be more troubling than two post-season starts

No one understands the Quarterback Rating. And the NBA has some complex ones now too...

Why don't you think so? Please don't say because of his two post-season starts against Houston. Now if you say his history or arm troubles, I can see that...

I can say with absolute certainty it will have a greater effect than signing Jay Bruce. And it should...

Back when we all ended a lot of sentences with the phrase "just once before I die"

Not to mention, there is a definite PR value and ticket sales impact in signing/acquiring players of this magnitude. Jay Bruce is far less enticing to ticket sales than Yu Darvish...

Not to mention how minuscule differences in BA get magnified to the point where people think they are enormous. Or primarily using ERA to evaluate pitchers, knowing full well it can be heavily dependent on team defense. (I do this, too.)

One of two teams, I believe. And the only one in the American League... Nationals/Expos are the other. Am I forgetting anyone?

Yes. All players on the 40-man roster are considered major leaguers. Options allow teams to send 15 of them to the minors...

http://mlb.mlb.com/news/print.jsp?ymd=20110329&content_id=17188016 This explains it better than I ever could...

I'd be ok with 5 years. But part of me is hoping he ages like Edwin Encarnacion. ..

I think there's a good chance Holt handles the majority of 2b until Pedroia returns, assuming he's recovered. There was really no other reason to offer him arbitration, unless Dombrowski figured it might be too costly to re-sign a player coming off a career worst season and a concussion. ..

Arguably it's a museum and not really a club, although elected members do apparently feel different. I think it gets too personal at that point. Although I also think the BBWAA has made some really questionable selections as well. Not sure why the Hall itself can't handle the process internally...

Isn't that essentially the Veteran's Committee? They almost never vote anyone in. Santo was elected by the Golden Era Committee or Golden Age Committee or something like that, and I'm not sure who's on that one. Electing Santo was the first thing thry did upon formation...

Possibly Yu Darvish or Jake Arrieta if they are thinking of going in a different direction as well

No. Rule 5 apples to players not on the 40-man roster. Options apply to players who are. It would be closer to a minor league free agent situation.

I don't think an invitation to ST is relevant. He can't be on the 40-man roster and can't be on a minor league roster without clearing waivers, regardless of ST invites. I'm not sure whether or not he can go through ST with the AAA team. But even if he can, ST is going to end and he can only play in Boston without being exposed to the waiver process. And he will get claimed. Some GM somewhere will see him out there and think "Free backup catcher with actual potential. Thank you."

And here I was laughing out loud at your signature line and assuming it was directed at me. I don't care if you take yours down or not, but if you are offended by mine, I can remove it. Mine was inspired by and a response to a700's...

I did miss that. Ooops. Sorry. Swihart would have to be removed from the 40-man and clear waivers to be sent to the minors. Certainly this is an option as well. But despite his track record and health revord recently, I'm not so sure he'd clear waivers...

And Robinson Cano

The eye test really isn't a fair way to judge players you don't see equally.

I'm more on board with Swihart and Marrero than I am with Brentz. As for Holt, the Sox only have 4 bench spots amd a 2B position undetermined. The following players are candidates: Marco Hernandez (the reported frontrunner at 2B), Holt, Leon, Brentz, Marrero and Swihart. Only Holt and Hernandez have options left. I could also certainly see a situation where Holt starts st 2B and Hernandez goes to Pawtucket. But Holt's concussion last year might lead to more precaution...

Actually both fWAR and bWAR rate Bogaerts as better than Iglesias. Your choice to use bWAR to prove Iglesias' defensive value was questioned by me, as B-R.com does not really value Iglesias' defense as much as many of Iglesias' admirers do. It's OK to be a fan of the defensive player, but really, if you'er going to look for any stat r metric that says Iglesias is a better all around SS than Bogaerts, you are going to search for a long time. That initial "asset on both sides" argument was really not nearly as convincing about anything as you seem to think it was...

I don't think you are going to want to use bWAR here, and now that you have you must acknowledge the consequenses The difference between Bogaert's defense and Iglesias' defense is only 1.5 bWAR, or less than half of the contributions Bogaerts' gave at the plate in this one year sample size. You get too caught up in the negative number for Bogerts' defense that you tried to ignore that Iglesias defense - his selling point - isn't significantly better and only 1.1 dWAR above replacement level himself. And really, over the past 3 seasons, Bogaerts has given 12.5 oWAR on offense and 0.5 dWAR. So he is also an asset of both sides as well, right? Over that same stretch, Iglesias oWAR (4.4) is actually better than his selling point dWAR (2.6), which is probably a much less impressive number than many thought Iglesias would receive defensively, and a far, far cry from Andrelton Simmons' 10.2 dWAR in that same stretch. In fact, I don't think B-R likes Iglesias' defense as much as some of Jose's fans do. It credits more dWAR over the past 3 seasons to the following shortstops: Simmons, Brandon Crawford, Francisco Lindor, Corey Seager, Troy Tulowitzki, and Trevor Story (in less than 2 seasons!!) and has the same dWAR as Elvis Andrus and Adeiny Hecheverria. And that is from the names I looked at, as B-R.com is a lot more cumbersome than fangraphs for this kind of thing...

And I didn't get him anything. ..