Punch and Judy Garland

I'm a big fan of Brandon and feel that he should already be in our rotation. He's done a great job out of the pen and I hope he's here a long time. Happy B-Day Mac if you still check the site!

espn is claiming its official. I think it was nice of Ozzie to take Magglio(and the right baseball move too) and its nice that both him and Magglio have sort of buried the hatchet. I would think that Jermaine Dye will end up starting in the OF but that's just my guess

I'm not surprised they didn't know who those guys were but it would not have been like that 3 years ago. Of course, I was showing up to signings for Baines and others and there might only be 100 people waiting

19 homers this year. Thats a ton for a guy who's missed some games. Number 467 and it was a huge one. Frank just might make a run at 40 bombs if his health is mildly better in the second half

6 out of his last 7 starts were good which is better than Sir Sidney

QUOTE(Milkman delivers @ Jul 6, 2006 -> 06:19 PM) A few things: Does anyone else think Ozzie purposely took Redman to drive home the point that not all teams should have representatives? Is Glavine starting for the NL? Does anyone have that picture of Barrett punching AJ that says "Frustration" and looks like a poster? No I don't think that was the reason. Out of 7 spots though, 4 had to be pitchers. That means if he takes Grudz then one of the hitters he chose couldn't go and it would be a pitcher instead. I believe Glavine would start the all-star game but he pitches on Sunday so Garner has to decide if he is willing to use his starter for only one inning. Carpenter and Schmidt are also going on Sunday leading me to bet on Carlos Zambrano (starting on Friday) to be the starter. Just a hunch

I'm surprised the M's couldn't get more for him, given this tough market for relievers. Nice flier by the Reds. If he doesn't work, oh well

Robbed? No. I voted for him but when a guy hitting 360 or so gets picked ahead of you, its not a robbery. He would have been worthy of selection though. However, there are always 10 or so guys or more that are on the outside looking in that should have been there

He wouldn't have made it without soxtalk, of that I am sure. Next year, we should team up with a messageboard for another team and do an NL trade. If you guys were like me, there wasn't anyone in particular you were DYING to see ont he NL team. I voted for Capuano but it was close. If we could make a deal with a messageboard for a team like the Brewers where we agree to vote for the other team's guy, we'd win by even more!

He's a rich man's Moose Skowron in the booth. THat is not a compliment. You feel like you are listening to your grandpa

His D is superb but our execution was HORRID today. As bad as its been this year with the exception of a few hiccups a few weeks ago. Lots of failed bunts and whatnot. We still won the game so we overcame the multiple mistakes but we'll need to execute better against a good pitcher in Zambrano tomorrow

UNbelieveable win. When Gload was up twith 2 outs and 2 strikes....it did not look good. Aj is the man. He is so big moment

WIth hindsight, I really regret the trade. I wasn't all that excited about it to begin with as Mac was ready and I love Young. If we could deal Javy and his big contract for a very good reliever (not Duaner Sanchez but someone on that level) I would do it and move Mac to the pen. At least he's young so if he puts up the same numbers there is an upside of development

any chance google earth chooses that day to take the picture?

I think using Mac on back2back days for a healthy number of pitches is a bad idea as he's not a true reliever. Anyways, the point was that we don't have a guy who can bail him out in the 3-4-5th innings so he better be on (I recall the Cubs game against him in the opener of 05). Javy Vazquez will likely not pitch in our postseason rotation, he is not really an asset out of the bullpen (hello Mr. Damon in game 7), and he makes a ton of money while being worse than Brandon. Why not deal him for a reliever that can fill Brandon's bullpen job and a top prospect in this market that covets pitching. Vazquez, perhaps, would be the prize of the trade market. Maybe you can even pick up an outfield bat for him. McCarthy has to be in the rotation by April 07, so Javy is unning out of time to pick up Cooper's tips. I love Cooper too but let's not pretend every guy he has worked with has flourished. That is mainly because no pitching coach can optimize every guy

Great win, great game by Juan. I think that, while one start doesn't mean THAT much, tomorrow is a referendum of sorts on Javy Vazquez for Sox fans. Given the marketplace, if he can't get it going we could move him for a set-up man and a top pitching prospect. He needs to show some stones tomorrow. We can't really use Brandon tomorrow so he better go some innings too

I can't specifically recall the circumstances in the Rowand game but the stakes were damn high on the crips play. It's a tie game if he doesn't catch that

Dee will make that team. They can use a guy like him. Utah isn't a typical West Coast team but now they have options of playing more up-tempo if they feel like it

Vic has a sizeable edge in on base and slugging over Pudge. You are correct about defense but let's not pretend that's a big consideration for the all-star game. Martinez actually isn't in a slump. He had a horrid May but his June has been superb. Great year for catchers though in the AL. Johjima(sp?) has been solid and really good as of late

I'd probably take ViC Martinez over Pudge but you made a good list. Pudge might be the choice over Martinez warranted or not

I think that Tejada is better at short than Jeter but Jeter has become a whipping boy of SABR guys (although mainly because he is given lavish praise all the time by other forms of media). Jeter isn't a bad shortstop. He's not a great defensive one either. It's not zero-sum though. THere is nothing wrong with being a solid and reliable shortstop. THe gold-glove is a farce though

Defensive metrics, which I don't totally buy into, show Young has been one of the worst SS in the league the last few years. In his defense, he was forced there from second by Soriano so I'm sure he's trying his damndest. He'd be a good choice at short because he's such a fine hitter. I chose Jeter over Tejada for one big reason: Tejada has collapsed the last few weeks. Tejada is one of the game's most exciting players but he went into the toilet(by his standards) after the Palmeiro incident and he has hit below .230 since the Grimsley story came out. I don't believe he did anything wrong(although I don't know) but I think speculation weighs on him too much.

I chose Glaus just because he represents more to his team, in my opinion. That team was desperate for right-handed thunder (although Rios and Wells both are above expectations). Whereas Crede plays on a deeper and better team. Both are having good years, Glaus has more pedigree, and I went with Glaus. 3rd is pretty deep with A-Rod, Crede, Glaus, Blalock, Chavez (slipping lately) all bunched up

Great fight indeed. I scored it a draw but I have some remorse giving the 12th to Wright (neither really punched for 2 minutes). I wish I would have put $20 on a draw since it was something like +1800! With Spinks-Karmazin, Mosley-Vargas, and Gatti-Baldomir we should have 3 pretty good boxing weekends coming up

While his K rate has been good, look at his homer rate. THe last two years he gives up around 33 homers per 200 innings. He has given up 9 in 95 in a hitters league in a hitters park. That means that you could argue that he's been better than he's going to be with the gopherball. You just don't know day2day what you will get out of Javy Vazquez. Let's give Cooper a few more months with him though