S5Dewey

Dodged that bullet!

Does anyone else feel like if we can get Barnes through this inning we've then got Kelly followed by Kimbrel, but we have to get through Barnes first? Ugh

And often times they're pipe dreams put out there by some writer who thinks "this would be a good idea!" and it somehow gets traction. Often times it comes from media people, one of whom would say, "What do you think the Red Sox biggest need is?" and they get the reply, "They should be looking to get a player like Machado." Suddenly someone else reports that the Sox are serious about Machado, which may be no where near the truth. I realize that it's the job of writers to report news but I wish they'd be a bit more judicious in what they report as news. Otherwise it's fake news.

I hate Fake News.

My bad. You're right. And as an interesting sidelight the Pawtucket Red Sox has no player listed on their roster as either a SS or a 1B.

I'll trade none from Tier 1, None from tier 2 and all of those listed from Tiers 3 & 4. To expand on that a bit.. Devers is not available - unless we can land a young, cost controlled 3B and I don't see any of those peeking in the windows. We've had little success at developing stud pitchers and with the trading of Kopeck Groome is the only one we have left who might have a future. We need to let Moreland go at the end of the year and bring up Travis permanently as our 1B. He has the qualities I want at 1B. Big, hits well, good Defense. Ockimey (I hate to see him go because I've had the pleasure of meeting him personally. Nice kid) still has to work on his defense but if we promote Travis there's no place for Ockimey. Chavis is the last of these three whom I'd trade. He's our insurance if we can't sign Bogaerts. He's no XBo, but he's the best SS in our system. Swihart is a player whom we'd be doing a favor if we traded him. I'm not crazy about trading him but he's like all three of these guys in that you do have to give quality to get quality. Everyone else - Yep.

Those of us who believe that hitting can be contagious also believe that one power hitter can affect the entire lineup.

I mentioned this possibility a week or so ago and it wasn't well received. :-) In thinking about it a bit more I now realize why. With Marrero at 3B our problem isn't the defense from 3B, it's the offense there. What we'd essentially be doing is trading Marrero for Lin - which I see as more of a wash than an improvement. Both of them have good gloves but can't hit a lick. You'll remember that I'm that 'solid up the middle' guy, the one who would have a GG'er at every position up the middle regardless of their offense (a bit of hyperbole there, but you get my point!) and give up some defense at the corners to get Silver Sluggers there. However, this team is so offensively challenged that we need all the offense we can get from every position. Consequently I don't see how trading Marrero for Lin solves our offensive problems and is, as I said, a wash on defense. We'd be doing nothing but rearranging the pieces on the board with no net gain at the team's weakness.

The thing is, nobody put a gun to anyone's head during the negotiations that net these contracts. The teams that give these contracts believe (know?) that they can pay this money and still make a profit. It just gives us some idea of how much money there is floating around out there in Major League Baseball. OUR money... that is. :-(

But I agree, that Verlander deal doesn't work for either team. That's too bad, too. Verlander is the kind of guy who could be a big help in a pennant drive.

No. I was thinking that even if we paid ALL of Sandoval's salary they still wouldn't take that deadwood.

And they'd reply, "We'll take Groome and Chavis straight up, but if you try to make us take Sandoval the deal is off".

That says nothing. You'd do anybody.

That makes sense. Marrero is only weak on offense, where the other guys who've been playing there have been weak on both offense and defense. It's a strange way to prove it, but it does substantiate that defense is at least equally as important as offense.

Me too. I always saw him as a poor man's Brandon Moss. And I liked Moss.

UPDATE: Snopes officially semi-debunks this story. http://www.snopes.com/racial/language/le-a.asp It's a bit comforting that I wasn't the only one taken in by it though.

I dunno.. it could be true, it could not be true, it could be that I got the state wrong. I'll admit that I see a lot of stupid stuff coming out of Florida so maybe that clouded my memory.

There was a guy on SOSH - IIRC he posted under the name of Eric Van - who did exactly that. This was some years ago and I don't know if he's still there but I understood that happened.

And aren't we glad we didn't overpay for Sonny Gray back when we had the chance?

I'm really good with this post. While I like the idea of being "all in" for 2017-18 i'm not "all in" for trading away what could be one of the best pitchers going forward after that who could be kept for a reasonable price. That would be (IMHO!) Stupid!

I hadn't heard those whispers but I'm not crazy about it unless we could get him VERY cheaply. IMO a new 3B would help this team more than another pitcher.

For all the hand-wringing that took place over the winter regarding how we were going to "replace" Papi things are looking pretty good. As expected, this team's run production is down but DD's attitude appeared to be that while we couldn't replace his offense we could still win games with solid pitching and defense. We're currently 4th in the AL in both ERA and WHIP and the BP is among the best in the league. In addition, other than 3B our defense is as good as anyone's and better than most. We've committed 50 errors but 17 of them have been at 3B. No surprise there! While it's hard to predict how many errors a "real" 3B would make, he remaining 33 (+ a reasonable number from 3B) would still probably make us in the top 5 in baseball. (Miami is 5th with 38.) And we're leading the AL East in spite of the fact that we're 3rd in the division in runs scored. So... in spite of the fact that we're not scoring as many runs as last year our balance between pitching, defense, and offense is carrying the team. Maybe this DD guy knows what he's doing after all!

Here's one for ya... my favorite. IIRC it was in Florida where a mother had a hissy-fit when the school couldn't seem to get the pronunciation of her daughter's name right. The name: La-a Scroll down now..... The correct pronunciation (according to her mother) "LaDasha"

Mmm... Cakewalk!

It sure would be nice if Kelly could be our Andrew Miller. He could come in during any late inning where there's trouble, put out the fire, and let Kimbrel vulture the Save. That's not totally unrealistic... is it?