Grrrrr.
Not surprising given the Adam LaRoche trade but still a bit of a bitch; I wasn’t keen when the Sox brought Kotsay in from Atlanta but he just seemed to do everything well from the moment he joined the team. A sound hitter who could field well at first or in the outfield, Kotsay turned out to be an excellent acquisition who has lost out now on the basis that the Sox, deep in their offensive funk, just need something more.
Godspeed Mark.
Look at the birdy.
ESPN:
The Athletics and Cardinals have completed a trade that sends outfielder Matt Holliday to St. Louis in exchange for third baseman Brett Wallace, outfielder Shane Peterson and right-handed pitcher Clayton Mortensen, sources told ESPN The Magazine’s Buster Olney.
So the Cards have traded for Matt Holliday, in the midst of the worst season of his career (though his numbers are improving) and soon to be a free agent, for three prospects, including two rated by Baseball America as being in the Cardinals’ top ten.
Brett Wallace is expected to be a force at the Major League level, at least with his bat and that the Cards have ditched him and his zero service time for half a season of Matt Holliday is a frightening waste of resources by a franchise that only continues to be successful because of geographical good fortune rather than front office savvy.
K-Law on Wallace:
Still, his bat is so special that if he can improve to just a win below average at third, he’ll be a star. He makes hitting look easy — he hits lefties (.387/.479/.484 in 62 at bats last year) and righties, all pitches, all areas of the zone, whatever’s thrown at him — and has pull power to right and doubles power the other way.
The question for me isn’t whether Holliday will improve the Cardinals line-up as that’s a given, but that they will surely lose him over the winter as he is going to command big money and is a Scott Boras client; facts that the St. Louis brain trust will find very difficult to turn into a reasonable long-term contract.
The counter argument is that sometimes you have to go all out to try and win a championship, and if GM’s listened to me there would never be a trade involving top prospects since I am more than a little obsessed with seeing clubs promote young (and cheap) talent that they control for the best part of a decade. I figured it sorta makes good sense you know?
Still if the Cardinals go on to win the World Series then I’ll gladly accept that it was worth the cost; until then I hate this trade and thought process behind it from every angle except Billy Beane’s, who again comes away from a trade looking pretty damn good.
Nick Cafardo is almost begging the Sox to trade for Roy Halladay in the Globe today, basically repeating the calls from the majority of the Boston media for Theo to stop horsing about and bring the Toronto ace to Boston. Me?I don’t buy it since it just doesn’t fit the profile of Theo Epstein in his time as General Manager of the Boston Red Sox.
Epstein has to have his hands in the Roy Halladay hunt. No longer can anyone say pitching is not a need for the Red Sox. The once-deep rotation is now minus 11-game winner Tim Wakefield and Daisuke Matsuzaka, with two No. 5 starters in John Smoltz and Brad Penny who aren’t cutting it, and a youngster in Clay Buchholz who to some degree is still on training wheels.
This is true but it wasn’t too weeks ago that Brad Penny was seen as a revelation and sliced bread was the best thing since Clay Buchholz; they were over-exaggerations and so is this – Theo is a successful GM because he isn’t prone to these twists in the fickle minds of those people paid to write about the team, and neither should he be.
With the Sox farm system in great shape, it might be time for the acquisition of an impact player such as Halladay, who not only helps now but also gives you a Josh Beckett, Halladay, Jon Lester, Matsuzaka, Wakefield/Justin Masterson rotation in 2010 – if you trade Buchholz. The Sox also have the resources to sign Halladay and Beckett long term.
Yes they have the resources but again, what evidence is there to suggest they’d use them in this manner? Aside from the Matsuzaka deal (how good is that looking right about now?), which they essentially had to agree to given the cost of aquiring him from Japan, what big money, long-term deals have the Sox doled out to pitchers whilst Theo has been in command? Beckett was 26 at the time of signing his own multi-year deal whereas Halladay is 32 and isn’t likely to accept the same sort of discount that Beckett foolishly entered into.
The matter basically comes down to whether you think the Sox will surrender Clay Buchholz (and others) and then sign a 32 year old pitcher to a four or five year contract extension worth in the region of $20 million per annum, whilst at the same time watching as the recipiants of other such deals, albeit position players, like David Ortiz and Mike Lowell crumble as injuries reduce them to shells of their former selves.
I just can’t see it, even if the Yankees end up going after him, as they clearly will; we’ve waited a long time to see Clay Buchholz fulfil his potential, and whilst we aren’t there yet, the time is clearly coming as this kid has way too much talent and appears to gotten his head screwed on during his return to the minors; wouldn’t it be better to just wait that little bit longer to see all that patience bear extremely good fruit?
if the Sox can’t get to this guy its time to shut up shop and wait till next year.
Hmmm.
I’ll take that back shall I?
Clay Buchholz could only manage four innings and the Sox bats couldn’t muster even a whimper as they were shut down by Dustin Nippert and Doug Mathis; who are they might ask? Well exactly. That the Sox got shitcanned by a pair of below average pitchers, in the best (save Yankee Stadium) hitting environment in the Major Leagues, just goes to show how bad things are at the moment.
The problems start right at the top of the line-up, where there seems to be a curse (don’t start) on the raft of excellent players we’ve tried in the lead-off spot, a place Jacoby Ellsbury now currently sits and is again seeing his OBP get sucked into the black hole that I think Dan Shaughnessy created.
The science bit: -
| AB | AVE | OBP | |
| Jacoby Ellsbury | 277 | .277 | .309 |
| JD Drew | 58 | .190 | .299 |
| Dustin Pedroia | 103 | .214 | .264 |
Those are the numbers of our most regular lead-off men, pretty godawful I’m sure you’ll agree, even considering the sample size. The ability to get on-base in front of Papi, Youkilis and J-Bay is obviously pretty important although they’re not exactly on fire themselves, with or without men on base.
Whether Adam LaRoche can help is debatable but something needs to change; the MFY are starting to look like the team they’re paid to be and DevilRays are lurking in the shadows, only a Roy Halladay away from making things interesting.
The off-day couldn’t come at a better time, and with a homestand on the horizon against Baltimore, surely better times lie ahead. (Fingers well and truly crossed)
Desperate times...
The end at last.
As George Carlin once said, “Busy, like a dyke in a hardware store.”
30 minutes from game time, and the Sox have continued their hectic day at the (front) office by dealing away misfit “shortshop” Julio Lugo to St. Louis for Chris Duncan, an actual Major League player no less, and presumably a shed load of cash to cover the rest of his ridiculous contract.
Enough has been said about Lugo so I’d prefer to concentrate on the guy we got for him from the Cardinals, OF/1B Chris Duncan, who comes to us in the middle of a second consecutive pisspoor season but by simply having a pulse, he is more useful to us that Julio has been.
Harsh maybe? Well tough.
Duncan has zero defensive ability but comes with some pop and draws a fair few walks; at this point he is probably Triple-A filler on a team like a Sox but judging by my assumption that we’d end up releasing Lugo, this is as good a result as could be expected.
Look in to my eyes...
So much for the terrifying visage of Vicente Padilla stamping down on the already dormant Sox bats; he’s been seen off by flu-like symptoms which hardly adds to the picture (albiet sarcastic) I was trying to build up around the enigmatic (read: rubbish) Texas starter.
Anyhow, the Sox will now face Dustin Nippert, who doesn’t really deserve to be in the Majors based on his performances to date – if the Sox can’t get to this guy its time to shut up shop and wait till next year.
Meanwhile the latest addition to the team, Adam LaRoche will join the team on Friday.
It's amazing what you can find on Goggle.
Yeah I finally got sick of Blogger and it’s awful posting system, so I’ve decided to give this Word Press thing a try.
Some would probably argue that it’s the quality of the writing that will need to improve and those people I say pick up your things and get out! But hostilities aside I hope that an easier method of posting will encourage me to spend more time on the blog; the season is getting interesting now that the Sox have bombed out of first place for the time being and whilst I fully expect them to win the division, it wouldn’t be the same if the Yankees didn’t try and cut in on our dominance every once in a while…you know, just to keep Hank satisfied.
I haven’t quite got the hang of this site yet so stay with me whilst I figure things out – I’ll be watching Clay Buchholz take the mound later tonight as the Sox try and avoid a sweep in Texas, something they could do with pulling off since this losing streak is strangling us in the standings.
Clay will face Vicente Padilla, who despite a terrifying face is a pretty average pitcher who happens to get paid three times as much as he’s worth – if only I could do that in my job. Ah well, the game begins at 8:05ET which is a shade past 1AM here in England, giving me plenty of time to listen to WEEI and wonder about the stupidity of sports talk radio.
Cheerio people.
