cabiness42

Supposing Boston does decide to get rid of him soon. Do the Sox (A) offer Boston some low level prospect to get him back (B) hope to just pick him up off waivers or © not even try to get him back at all

Tracing all elements of this trade back to players who were drafted or signed as free agents with the Sox: The Sox traded Carlos Lee, Orlando Hernandez, Chris Young, Boone Logan, Josh Fields, Daniel Hudson, and David Holmberg for Scott Podsednik, Travis Hinton, Tyler Flowers, John Gilmore, Santos Rodriguez, Daniel Webb, Miles Jaye, and Kevin Youkilis While receiving various amounts of utility from Luis Vizcaino, Javier Vazquez, Brent Lillibridge, Edwin Jackson, Mark Teahen, Jason Frasor, and Zach Stewart in between.

This. But, if that's not an option, then the Horseshoe just opened up in Cleveland.

Want to get viewers for the ASG? Let Dickey pitch all 9 innings for the NL. I want to see the AL's best hitters trying to hit that damn knuckleball.

I believe that the law of conservation of Masset applies to Zach Stewart, no?

So is he gonna live in Skokie?

Best wishes to Brent in Boston. I hope he enjoys great personal success yet manages not to improve that team too much.

I guess if he's standing next to RA Dickey . . .

Stewart and Lillibridge weren't good enough to help the Sox stay ahead of Cleveland and Detroit, but now they're going to push a team past New York and Tampa?

So they had to DFA Fukudome to add Bruney to the 40, which seemingly means that JorDanks is up for good.

For the most part, the biggest salaries on this team are also the ones producing the most on the field. Konerko, Dunn, AJ, and Rios are the top four on the team in OPS. Peavy is second in starter ERA (third if you count Q). You trade any one of those guys away, you 100% eliminate any chance to win this year, and in the case of Konerko and Dunn, you probably eliminate any chance to win next year as well. Plus, any team that might consider trading for Rios or Peavy is going to take the same stance that the Sox are taking when they look to add players. They'll either take on the contract OR give good prospects in return, but they won't do both. So the Sox either get salary relief, but no talent which forces them to go right back and bid on high-priced free agents, or they remain stuck with a high payroll and players that may or may not pan out in a year or two. The people you can trade that give you significant salary relief yet don't kill your chances at winning this year are Gavin Floyd, Matt Thornton, and maybe Jesse Crain.

I only play one FB game (poker). But for that game at least, you can change your settings so that every single time you play the game, it doesn't tell everybody else about it. Plus, you can change your settings so that you don't see when everybody else tells you that they are playing games.

Top 10 hitters: Frank Thomas Luke Appling Eddie Collins Nellie Fox Minnie Minoso Paul Konerko Carlton Fisk Robin Ventura Harold Baines Magglio Ordonez Top 10 pitchers: Ed Walsh Ted Lyons Red Faber Mark Buehrle Billy Pierce Wilbur Wood Bobby Thigpen Ed Cicotte Joe Horlen Jack McDowell I always have a hard time slotting the two groups in together. I'm pretty sure I'd put Frank overall #1, but don't know where I'd go from there.

I understand the rationale behind the rule--FOX has paid a lot of money to have exclusivity in their time slot. I just think there has to be a solution out there that gives FOX (or whomever succeeds them) what they want without blacking games out.

I do think that point is valid and should give the Sox reason to consider deeper discounts on season tickets. A higher season ticket base is the best way to decrease supply. I know in 2006-07, the Sox sold a lot of season tickets and that made the areas where I like to sit (Club level and lower box) in short supply, which forced me to decide in February-March which games I wanted to go to in order to ensure I got seats I liked. This year, I was able to wait until May to buy tickets for both of my games, and I got seats that were probably occupied by season ticket holders in earlier years.

Here is the map: http://assets.sbnation.com/assets/1133/bas...ritorialmap.jpg The biggest problem is when a team's blackout area does not coincide with the distribution of the channel carrying the team. For example, the Sox blackout area covers Indianapolis, yet the cable and satellite systems in Indy do not carry CSN, unless you buy the special sports package that is an extra $10/month or whatever and along with CSN includes 49 other channels that you'll never watch. So in Indy, you don't get to see Sox games on your regular TV lineup, but you also can't see them if you buy MLBEI or mlb.tv, because the Sox want to protect CSN's advertisers even though nobody in Indy gets CSN. Make it simple--take a look at where each team's primary channel gets distributed, and then set that as the blackout area. Then every team's games will be available either via your regular TV lineup or via MLBEI/mlb.tv. The other fan-friendly thing MLB can do is find a way to make FOX games available in the areas where they aren't on. Maybe there could be a special FOX package for MLBEI/mlb.tv that gets you access to all of FOX's Saturday games and FOX gets that money.

I don't believe that, but if that's actually true, then bringing up a lefty to replace him doesn't solve that problem.

It's not Ohman's fault he faces too many right-handed batters. It's not his job to signal to the bullpen when a righty comes up. This is one of Ozzie's faults that seems to have carried over to Robin. Ohman has a 0.77 WHIP vs. lefties.

The way I see it, both sides have some fault for low attendance. The Sox have not priced tickets, parking, and concessions in a way that works based on the economy and the team's recent performance. For their part, the fans have been slow to respond to the success that the team has had. There are affordable options for going to games if you really want to go.

You always have players to make deals. It's a matter of how highly your organization values the player you want compared the the players the other team is demanding. Also, in a lot of cases, having the $$$ to take on extra payroll decreases the amount of talent you need to send away. KW got Rios for nothing because he had Toronto in a spot where they weren't able to pay even a little bit of his salary in order to get talent in return.

I think the Sox and Cubs epitomize the extremes of stupidity in fanbases. Cubs fans keep going like sheep to Wrigley no matter how bad the product is, creating absolutely no financial incentive to the team to put a winning product on the field. Sox fans insist on seeing some almost-unrealistic string of spectacular seasons before they'll think about buying a ticket. When the team starts having some success, there is no money flowing in to use to try and build on that success. There needs to be a happy medium. Have your base number of games you're willing to go to no matter how bad the team is, and then start going more often as the team enjoys success. Don't sit on your ass and say that a month in first place isn't enough to get you to the park and then turn around and b**** that the Sox didn't spend extra money at the trade deadline.

It depends on the amount of disposable income they have and how far they live from the park. I'm almost 300 miles away with two small children and I still make it to two games a year, so I'd hope most people in the Chicago area who consider themselves fans can do at least that much.

I've given up checking to see if the Sox are going to be on ESPN, TBS, or MLBN, though they are playing the Yankees next week so they'll probably be on then.

The numbers vs Greinke are very split: AJ, Beckham, and Rios have been fantastic against him Konerko, Ramirez, and Hudson have flat-out sucked

Sorry if this was already brought up as I skipped over a lot of the bickering that ensued after this post, but the $25M offer was over several years. The upfront amount likely would have been less than the cost of taking on a contract like Youkilis'.