The Ultimate Champion

QUOTE (caulfield12 @ Aug 26, 2012 -> 09:24 PM) Making it even more doubtful we'll pick up that 2013 option... Just too big of a risk, trying to trade him. Of course, the danger is having too many lefties with Danks, Sale, Quintana and ???/???. Santiago, Humber, Axelrod, Castro, Molina and Rienzo are all in the mix, one would think. That's a pretty gruesome mix. Kenny does 1 of 2 things this offseason IMO: he continues adding youth (late September fade/quick postseason exit) or he tries to extend the window another year. If he goes the youth route then you'd have to think vets are traded & in those deals we end up adding much better pitching prospects to the equation, completely excluding Axelrod, Rienzo, etc. Or if Kenny goes for it, we'll add a vet or it'll be a good, relatively proven young guy like Quintana as the #5.

QUOTE (mataipaepae @ Aug 26, 2012 -> 09:43 PM) Why its having too many lefties a problem? You can have 4 righties and that is fine. If you play the Rays 90 games/year then its great, but generally most teams have RH-heavy lineups and when you have 3+ lefties in a rotation it allows a RH-heavy lineup to focus on one side of the plate 2+ days in a row. If you're running out 4 Cy Young candidates with electric stuff then it probably doesn't matter, but for Danks and Quintana it would be an issue, and with Liriano's control issues it would be an issue for him as well. Managers like the R-L-R-L rotations just like they like those lineups with the idea being not to let anyone/any team get too comfortable.

Tyler is older and therefore a non-prospect/nobody/etc and yet he looks a thousand times better now than he did when he was supposed to be this good catching prospect. Maybe he's a player now. He'll never have a career offensively like AJ; very few will & hopefully now people can see that. But Tyler has however earned himself a shot at regular playing time in MLB, if not here than elsewhere. It's way too early to call anything on AJ, Meyers, Peavy, Youk, Liriano etc. as the division race + postseason will give Kenny his 2013 plan of attack. It's important to also acknowledge that Gavin, Pauile, Crain, and Thornton (2014 buyout) will be in the final years of their deals in 2013, plus the big immovable salaries of Rios and Dunn now look tradeable. Kenny could go either way this offseason. Maybe we win it all, all the vets come back, and Flowers is on a new team starting, or maybe Kenny lets teh FA go, trades a couple of the 1-year-left players, deals Rios and/or Dunn to shed a big deal, etc. and Flowers is our starter. Or maybe it ends up being a bit of both. The important thing for Tyler though is that now he looks like he's going to get a shot at a big league career.

Just checked MLBTR & saw this. A rogue LA-based PS3 has apparently become conscious and has locked itself inside the bathroom of the Dodgers GM's suite. Apparently the machine has refused to leave until it has executed a trade with Boston. God help us all.

Boy I tell ya Keith Law is bout as useless as a rubber on the prick of a porcupine have mercy

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The Guillens are late this year. Usually they're looking forward to the following season by the time May rolls around.

If both Veal and Septimo have to be exposed to waivers, I'd try to keep both. Neither would make it through and there's potential for quality there both this year and down the line. My guess is Olmedo goes because the Sox believe he'll pass waivers (or don't care if he's claimed) and then someone else hits the DL. Maybe Jones and Olmedo otherwise. Santiago coming up does seem to indicate the loss of another lefty or a starter, but I can't see them just letting go of Veal or Septimo for nothing and I don't think anyone else is hurt. Hmm.

QUOTE (KyYlE23 @ Aug 7, 2012 -> 01:00 PM) Removing a guy that plays once a month isnt going to screw with chemistry So dumping a player who may be there only for his influence in the clubhouse isn't going to affect the clubhouse? That makes no sense. "Upgrading" over Hudson is absolutely pointless anyway. There is nobody good out there, and if you find someone useful, he's replacing Olmedo. The Hudson stuff is even worse than the complaining over Flowers' lack of offense.

QUOTE (Quinarvy @ Aug 7, 2012 -> 04:10 PM) His record says he's good at finding scrap heap guys. Mostly pitchers and bench types, but Uribe was kind of in that mold. I wouldn't consider buy low types like AJ and Pods 'scrap heap.' Dye, Thome, Youkilis, etc. were all more of the buy low past proven performer types.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Aug 7, 2012 -> 03:03 PM) The facts tell different. Either Kenny saw something the other GMs who could have claimed him did not, or the other GMs knew they were passing on a starting CF. Which one is it? For me, his record at finding guys in the minors tells me they knew exactly what they were doing. Maybe most if not all teams saw De Aza as a potentially good 4th OF type and Kenny was the only one who felt he was worth a roster spot, which would say more about the Sox minor league depth vs. other teams than anything else. Maybe other teams would have taken De Aza too if they didn't feel they had better players in their own organizations to protect from the Rule-5. And maybe Kenny would have kept those same other players over De Aza. De Aza has been an overachiever here and it has to be pretty hard to "find" those types of players. De Aza is far from a flashy athlete and IMO his success has a lot more to do with his work ethic, attitude, overall baseball aptitude, durability, and ability to make adjustments as necessary. I imagine it's very hard to scout for those kinds of qualities and I highly doubt Kenny knew he'd end up with such a good everyday player when he made that waiver claim. Also, for every De Aza there are probably 10 more Danny Richars, D'Angelo Jimenez's, Armando Rios' etc. who KW scouted from other farm systems and then traded for or claimed, only for things to not work out in the end.

QUOTE (Noonskadoodle @ Aug 6, 2012 -> 02:11 PM) Nats claim Cesar Izturis. He would have been a nice player off the bench. Given our position in the claiming order, it's going to be hard to get just about any relatively useful, low salary NL player.

Hudson appears to be a clubhouse guy, and if he is, Kenny isn't going to screw with the chemistry to make an upgrade so slight that it probably doesn't even translate to 1 extra win through the rest of the regular season and into the playoffs. Olmedo is someone to upgrade over because he's only been here briefly, but even an upgrade there is far from dire. Whoever is out there, it makes sense to get a guy who can play 3B, pinch run, and preferably someone who has caught a few games before given how often Robin likes to have AJ PH for Flowers. The bat really doesn't matter at all since whoever we would bring in couldn't be expected to contribute offensively anyway. Defense + baserunning + attitude/personality in the clubhouse is all that matters.

QUOTE (Wagz @ Aug 6, 2012 -> 03:26 PM) I agree one thing I've always respected about him is he does have that never say die attitude. This year is the perfect example of how were "rebuilding" ya sure in first place. This actually was a rebuilding year. For two seasons in a row we ended up getting a huge surprise, with last year's team being way worse than anyone could have reasonably expected and this year's team being way better than anyone could have reasonably expected. Last year we added a bunch of expensive vets to try to win, and that failed, so we had to rebuild. Coming out of ST this year we ran out a bunch of "see what they have" types in De Aza, Viciedo, much of the bullpen, etc. The Jason Frasor trade perfectly exemplified where we thought we stood, as you usually do not deal a solid MR type for longshot prospects if you think you're going to contend. Much of our core this year was made up of players we either heavily shopped but couldn't get offers on (Thornton & Floyd for example) and other players that nobody would have taken at all without the Sox eating more than half of their remaining contracts (Dunn, Peavy, Alex). This season has been just as accidental and just as surprising as last year's crapfest was. Also, I know there were quotes last offseason about the Sox retooling instead of rebuilding, etc. The reality is that the Sox tried to rebuild but couldn't get good enough offers on some players and simply couldn't move others. Retooling is another way of saying "we have a weak farm system and other teams don't want our vets that badly so we'll half-ass a contending season since we more or less have to." I don't think the Sox were ever planning a total rebuild, but I think the signs are pretty clear that Kenny wanted to do more selling than he was able to.

QUOTE (daggins @ Aug 5, 2012 -> 01:12 PM) You mean beyond the fact that even when healthy he has been hammered by AAA teams, repeatedly? Also he is going to be 25 next year and has had two down years in a row? Age means next to nothing for a pitcher. If the stuff is there and he's throwing good strikes with it then he has a chance.

Can't really answer the question until we know the outcome of Danks' surgery. Sale is going nowhere (although given his tremendous value I'd shop him and see if someone makes a stupid good offer), Quintana shouldn't be either given performance vs. cost + control, and it's hard to have 4 lefties in a rotation. Danks vs. Liriano is the question I think since you don't need 2 expensive lefties when you already have 2 good, cheap ones. I think Floyd is gone for sure. Kenny has been shopping him for a long time now and he hasn't done enough to warrant an extension. Humber will likely be moved and I'd expect Peavy is a good bet to come back on a reworked deal. Actually, the more I think about it, I'd definitely shop Sale. He'll be getting to arb quickly and he'll be worth a ton there, and the innings & durability questions would make me pull the trigger if some GM offered a sick package of prospects headed by an MLB-ready All-Star caliber position player, specifically a 3B. I wouldn't move him though unless I got a package of players that made me think I had at least one MLB-ready All-Star and 2 near-ready above average starting pitchers or position players. And at least 2 of the 3 would have to have high floors. In fact, if you trade Sale I'd try to get Liriano on a nice deal to kind of replace that top-of-the-rotation kind of lefty and then market Danks if he comes back strong. Lots of possibilities exist with the Sox current rotation depth.

QUOTE (Marty34 @ Aug 1, 2012 -> 09:36 PM) Tough on some posters here, but really who knew? When you have the worst manager in baseball it's kind of hard not to improve. That's like saying "who knew Youkilis would be better than Morel/Hudson?" To quote the great Farmio, "Really?!" Yeah.

QUOTE (justBLAZE @ Aug 2, 2012 -> 02:19 AM) Is that you? What happened to KHP ? I think he vanished forever, thank god. Man that guy was annoying!

QUOTE (Soxbadger @ Aug 1, 2012 -> 07:40 PM) I could go back and read this thread all day Soxtalk last summer through fall was kinda like how Petsmart is sometimes with all those yappy little dogs everywhere angrily barking at nothing.

QUOTE (Kenny Hates Prospects @ Oct 6, 2011 -> 04:49 PM) People are freaking out because they're afraid Robin might bunt in the wrong situation, pull a pitcher too late, etc. Well if those were the main problems we had last year then we wouldn't have finished where we did. And we ALL know that Davey Martinez would have never made a bad move, or at least if he did, he wouldn't get criticized much at all over the course of a season because he's so smart and Maddon and Rays way and fap fap *splurt*.... ATM the players don't seem to give a s*** and the last manager was a distraction that made things even worse. Players that needed to play weren't even put in the lineup. Robin is as good a bet as anyone to remedy those areas, and if he does that, I really don't care if he's a poor in-game manager at first because we'll still end up being a much better team than we've been. holy s*** this guy is f***ing brilliant

Tear the old deal up and come up with a new one. Same for Youkilis and maybe Liriano as well. And then let's extend Sale while we're at it and try to get Quintana on one of those cheapy Sergio Santos type of deals. But first things first, win the World Series and up the payroll.

Who does Kenny pull off the waiver wire? There is certainly a UT type out there, probably a reliever too. Any expensive closers worth taking a shot on?

3 years team control over Humber is good value for a team not planning on extending the QO, especially when the player is holding up deals with his 10-5 rights and the Dodgers are lowballing the Cubs. I'd offer that, or maybe expand it to include a lefty and/or a utility player. Dumpster > Humber might net us an extra 1-2 wins over the season, plus give us another, more dependable arm to pick from when (not if) we get to the playoffs. That said, it's been on the radio that Dumpster doesn't want to come here. That's pretty dumb if true, but whatever. Edit: I like Santiago, but I think his future is going to be as a starter and he's probably out of the picture here. I'd stick Humber + Santiago out there and see what Theo thinks as far as the framework for a Dempster deal, with maybe another piece coming back too. I'd even go so far as to offer something a little better for Soriano and a bunch of money back. Assuming we could get pretty much his entire contract eaten in the deal, I'd surrender one of our questionmarked young OFs in exchange for a 4th OF/secret weapon PH/extra DH when PK or Dunn needs the day off. He's an AL player anyway. Not sure that's very realistic though as the Cubs probably want a nicer prospect if they're going to be eating so much cash.

KC at Seattle: 5 total runs scored through 6 innings, and then 7 combined in the next 2 (so far).

I wonder how many M's fans like to rearrange the letters in Mike Carp's last name to spell Mike Crap. I'd prolly do that if I rooted for the Mariners.