Gene Honda Civic

I don't uderstand the if garland is #5 then he will have a lower ERA... You're still pitching every 5th day in the same league. You're facing the same hitters, in the same situations.... Nobody cares what number is attatched to your rotation spot. ----------- pitchers often don't suceed when they first come up.. Randy Johnson was 10-13 with a 4.48 ERA in his first two seasons, back before R/G got out of control. 4.48 was well over league average for the time. Curt Schilling was 0-4 in his first two seasons, with an pitiful ERA of 9.25 You'd be hard pressed to be an accurate judge of a pitchers longevity in the Big leagues based on their first few innings in the bigs.

Are you trying to make a case for Grilli?

They could bring in the expansion Jerusalem Torahs, and make it a 4 team deal -- I hear there's a pretty heavy Jewish population there.

No, I'm just saying that all these players that everyone is lusting over, and crying PR disaster if we don't sign them, are essentially Jon Garland clones... I know Jon Garland has value. But all I ever hear from Sox fans is how much he sucks. -- There was a thread I started late last night in my insomniatic state titled "the Market" you should read that if you've missed it. Basically, with all these essentially average players getting outrageous contracts, it doesn't make sense for a finincially resposible team to sign any of them. The should spend the $ on the top tier talent, and not bother with the overpriced middling players. Signing a bunch of those guys is a good way to have an expensive losing team... You need some Top tier guys (MB, FG, PK, FT), home grown talent that produces (ARow and JG fall into that cetegory, Juan Uribe too because he's still relatively cheap) Hopefully if a couple of more cheap guys produce (Crede, Willie, Pods) The sox will be in good shape -- As for Grilli -- I don't think anyone here hates him as much as me. I will say this, and I'm not one of those typical chicken little sox fans, I will be calling for more than KW's head should Grilli be our opening week 5th starter. We have at least 3 or 4 better options than Grilli on our roster for that job, and I can't believe that seemingly everyone in the organization doesn't see it that way. In fact, I dislike even the thought of Grilli so much that I avoid almost all topics like this.

buehre -- 125 Garcia -- 114

Just for s***s and Giggles -- Johnson -- 144 ERA+ Hudson -- 138 ERA+

I don't really know if there was any impact pitchers on the market outside of Pedro. Player ERA+ Pedro 167 Ortiz 103 Pavano 100 Wright 91 Perez 102 Clement 98 Lieber 104 Millwood 111 Alvarez 113 Benson 103 ERA+ is park adjusted ERA, 100 being average. I don't think I missed anyone, but those names were just off the top of my head. That's a pathetic pack of pretty f***ing ordinary pitchers. No reason to get upset about not getting anyone there... Especially considering how many people hate Jon Garland and his career 101 ERA+.

Your grasp of our system is staggering :rolly

It's amazing what signing an injury plagued third baseman, an innings eating walk machine, a no-hit shortstop, a light hitting utility man, and trading your best player can do.

The signing a matheny has more to do with Sabean's love for old declining players. See Grissom, Vizquel Tucker Seriously, I wouldn't be surprised if I read this a rotoworld one day.

Pierz is widely regarded as a BAD defensive catcher -- He threw out a whopping 15% last season And Davis must have friend in the official scorer's box. Seriously in that one game where Cotts was credited with 4 WP, 1 flew to the backstop, but the other 3 were PB's no doubt. Fielding percentage?

:fyou Randy --- You're breaking my interweb.

Burke was the personal catcher for Buehrle, that increased his number significantly. That being said, there is nothing I saw last season from Davis that indicated that he was a good defensive catcher. His handling of Cotts in that one game where he had 4 "wild pitches" was absolutely pitiful. Burke can't hang on to a ball on a play at the plate though -- it's not like either of these guys are anywhere near good defensively. I think, if you're looking at AJ, you have to ask yourself which player is a better fit for the team. Burke - Should hit for a higher average than Davis - cheaper than davis - poor defense - MB's personal catcher Davis - Prolonged slumps - more power - more expensive - poor defense It's clear, to me anyways, that should we sign AJ, Davis should be shown the door.

He did add to his "Stuff" last season -- He was working that cutter pretty well.

I don't understand the Garland has great stuff argument... I'm a garland fan, but I don't think his stuff is any better than say mark buehrle's, who's not considered a "stuff" pitcher Guys with great Stuff get strikeouts, no matter what their ERA. They miss bats. Garland doesn't. The sinker isn't his best pitch. It's not even his second best pitch.... The two games last season where Garland's "stuff" was most dominant was in these two starts, niether team would be considered an offensive powerhouse. -- http://sports.yahoo.com/mlb/boxscore?gid=240604112 http://sports.yahoo.com/mlb/boxscore?gid=240620120 Both of those games garland went with essentially FB, Curveball... When he can spot his curve down in the zone he's a + pitcher. If that pitch isn't working, or he's not able to spot it, he's marginal at best. If he's going to suceed, and by succeed I mean perform at an above average level @ the major leagues, it's going to be because he's mastered the Curveball.

Well then I must have vote for Buchanan then, because I thought I voted for boston, and it only shows 1 vote for Boston.

A friend of mine was killed by similar drunk driver. He had 27 drunk driving charges across multiple states... He was driving a tractor trailor at the time.

He did most of the catching of Garcia, but Burke took over as Buehrle's personal catcher. Burke has caught Garcia on a few occasions though. If piersinski is gonna sign with the Sox, it mark the disappearence of Ben Davis. This would have to happen soon, the sox would have to non-tender Davis. Burke is not going anywhere, he'll catch buehrle every fifth day, and would fill in whenever Pierz needed a breather.

actually, I beleive the organization is much more confident in Arow than Uribe. I heard Kenny back in October say that locking Arow up was a priority of the off-season. I saw Rowand give an interview from what appeared to be a hotel lobby on the eve of the winter meetings. It would seem to me that he really didn't have any purpose there except if they were negotiating his new deal. I expected Uribe to get a 1-year deal. then they would look to give him an extension at some point during the season. This is fine with me though. You have to remember what the market was like for SS's Christian Guzman got $16.8M!!! Uribe >> Guzman

True. Idealy you'd have your guys come up to the bigs and contribute at a high level right away. THen you could sign them, with confidence, to long term deals before they reached arbitration eligibility. This is essentially what Oakland was able to do with the big three. Their position players took longer to develop though, and they had to go through the process of arbitration, and then free agency. If the Twins only had a little bit more money, they would be a model of this system also.

until he puts up another .800 OPS season, the .265 career minor leaguer is going to be below average, regardless of his SB total. -- I'd love to be wrong, but I don't see him ever approaching his 2003 campaign again... frankly I'd be ecstatic with .270/.333/.400 out of him -- but that's still below average for a LF.

The problem isn't the bidding war for the middle of the pack guys, it's that it appears that there's not going to be a seperation from the middle to the top tier guys.... Pedro @ 13M vs. Clement @ 10M -- Nobody can convice me that Pedro is only worth 3M more per year than clement... It's all a backlash from the ARod contract. The owners don't wanna hand out exorbitant contract to the top guys and hadicap their team, and they've colluded the market down for them. Simultaneously, they've drastically increased the market for those middle of the road players. When MLB has a "Free agent recommendation form" a team can fill out to get advice on how much to pay a player, you have to wonder about why the going rate for an average SP is 3/22.5 -- Benson set the market there, no doubt due in some part to this form Major league baseball it seems didn't take to kindly to the talk of collusion the past two years as average salary dropped. All they've done is incorporated sanctioned collusion in the form of free financial "advice"

yes, but forgetting the character assisination of Carlos Lee, the team would have been better served keeping Lee, and signing a marginaly below average SP to fill the 5th spot. With the trade, we're looking at having a below average LF, one average starter(JG), one ? of a starter(JC), and one highly overpaid average starter with potential(OP or MC) Without the trade, we'd have an above average LF, one average starter(JG), one ? of a starter(JC), and one respectably paid marginally effective pitcher. I realize I'm neglecting Vizciano from the equation, there's a couple of reasons for that. 1)for the most part Relievers are easily replacable. 2)I haven't seen him play at all, and it's hard to evalute him sight unseen. He could be Damaso, He could be Mike Jackson. If he's Marte, then we've got something, but if he's anything less we lost the trade pending a miracle. On a side note, boy does it feel good not to be sick anymore... Since sunday night I've felt like crap. I've slept for most of tuesday and alot of today. I finally feel better. It's 3 in the morning, and I'm nowhere near tired.

Seeing this would have garnered a response from me regardless, but I just posted something you must read in the thread called "the market" With the trade that we just made that weakened our team offensively, we put ourselves in an even worse situation financially. The top tier pitching talent is no longer available via free agency, and there is currently a bidding war for middling talent. NormallY I would just advocate staying out of such bidding wars, but with the offense weaker, the Sox need to make sure they have average or better SP's for all 5 spots in the rotation. They've made it such that they may have to overpay in one area, just to compensate for what was lost in another(through the trade)

With the Sox quickly approaching what will, no doubt, be considered an overpriced signing by the baseball community at large, I thought I would post this article I found at USSmariner. http://ussmariner.com/index.php?p=2130 It's a mariner's site, but this still applies fairly universally. emphasis is mine. The point is that teams would probaby(it can't really be proved yet without the top Boras guys signed) be better off overpaying for superstars, who will bring more wins, than overpaying for the abundance of middling talent out there. Pedro @ 13M is a bargain vs. Clement @ 10M --- Pedro has never had a below average season, and his worst season in recent years last year was still better than Clements best. Pedro has an amazing career ERA+ of 167 compared to Clement's below average 98 -- Pavano got $10M for being exactly average over the course of his career. -- Jaret Wright got 21M over 3 seasons for being well under average on his career. These are guys who are performing on the same level as Jon Garland. There is a good discussion about the entry if you follow the link I included at the top.