This isn't a blue chipper we're talking about. He might pan out, but at this stage in his career, is he really worth much more than the $200,000 the Sox signed him for? If not, then this basically amounts to doing little more than paying Kotsay's salary. Kotsay's very useful insurance, and against RHP, I like a Bay-Ellsbury-Kotsay outfield than Bay-Crisp-Ellsbury. If Drew comes back soon, then this isn't a very useful move, but otherwise, it is.

Gotta get Kotsay on the Sept. 1st roster in case Drew no-come-back.

PS Are the current Red Sox the whitest team in the majors or what?
Most prominent non-white Red Sox: David Ortiz, Coco Crisp, Manny Delcarmen, Lopez. One superstar, a 4th outfielder, and two relievers... Lugo and Lowell on the DL, although most baseball fans would probably be surprised to learn that Lowell is Cuban.

So in that sense, I'd say Kotsay belongs on the team.

Most prominent non-white Red Sox: David Ortiz, Coco Crisp, Manny Delcarmen, Lopez. One superstar, a 4th outfielder, and two relievers... Lugo and Lowell on the DL, although most baseball fans would probably be surprised to learn that Lowell is Cuban.

And the two Japanese pitchers (Matsuzaka and Okajima) and the Navajo centerfielder (Ellsbury) and a Puerto Rican utlity infielder (Cora). That's 8 guys on a 25 man roster. At one point in 1979 or 1980, Jim Rice was on the DL, and Tony Perez and Mike Torrez were the only non-white guys on the team.

The Blue Jays have only a platoon catcher (Barajas), their starting 2B (Scutaro) and backup infielder (Bautista), plus two outfielder, Wells and Rios who aren't white. Oakland is even whiter than that.

I thought it was a shrewd pick up, Drew is no lock to return to form even if he can pick up a bat in a couple weeks

Another Paul Byrd type would be useful as well with the Beckett situation, no reason not to make a go of it

surprised to learn that Lowell is Cuban

Well I sure am. I thought he was Puerto Rican

Lowell's dad is from Cuba and fled to Puerto Rico.

Scutaro is Italian-Venezualan. I believe his mom is Spanish. My guess is that he's as white as Manu Ginobli.

How exactly is Lowell not white?

Elsbury's Mormonism cancels out his half Navajoism.

When you account for PT they're pretty damn white.

We've had this discussion before...Scutaro's parents are both white European people from countries in Europe whose indigenous ethnic groups are made up of white people like Scutaro. One might as well say Justin Masterson is black because he was born when his parents were living in Jamaica and he lived there for a few years.

There's no way the Red Sox are whiter than the A's, the Blue Jays, the Pirates or the Padres, for example.

The Pirates?

funny how all the 'sabr' teams (sox, Jays, A's and Padres) are the whitest...

Here are some videos of some of the Spinners players I took from yesterday's games:

Link

When you account for PT they're pretty damn white.

ZZZZ

Damn i don't know how I forgot about our Japanese players... my bad.

I took some videos of Lowell's first ever playoff game yesterday. Here's a link to the Youtube list.

I've been to four Lowell games over the last two weeks. Here are my general impressions about some of the players on the team:

Casey Kelly - Obviously, Kelly has not pitched for the Sox this season, so I haven't been able to see him in the role the Sox ultimately picture him in. Offensively, Kelly has shown his inexperience at the plate. He can't hit a NYPL breaking ball right now, which is probably to be expected, since he's only in the NYPL to get AB's. He has put some good swings on fastballs, including last night, when he crushed a pitch in the 9th inning to the LCF wall (Link) He actually has hit much better in the NYPL than he did in the GCL which speaks to the worthlessness of the SSS, more than anything. Where he does shine, however, is in the field. I cannot express how amazed I am that an 18-year old kid who was playing high school ball two months ago can be this good defensively. Aside from having excellent fundamentals (excellent foot work on positioning and throws, efficient arm slot, accurate arm) he has SS actions beyond his years. It's obviously a cliche, but you can tell he is the son of the coach. Also, he is huge. I mean enormous. If I didn't see his defense for my own eyes and only saw him I would think there is no way he could stick at SS size-wise. I could still see him growing into a Rolen-type player and moving over to 3rd, where he would play an exquisite 3B. Here are some of his fielding links (Link 1, Link 2)

Will Middlebrooks- From everything I saw from Futures at Fenway until now, he's the best player on the team. That's not quite borne out from the numbers, which have been rough for him this season. But I am comfortable saying that he will have a good season next year in Greenville. Early in the season, he simply wasn't comfortable at the plate. He would shift his feet around during the pitch, flinch on all breaking balls (and even some fastballs) and swing and miss way too much. The improvements made over the course of the 2.5 month season have been evident. For most of the season, he would stay up middle with almost everything
(Link). But last night, he finally showed some pull power hitting a game-tying HR in the bottom of the 9th (Link). He's a big kid who still needs to fill out some. At 3B, he's extremely athletic and has a cannon for an arm (Link). A couple of games ago I saw him make an excellent play in foul territory and then fire a pea to 1B. And as he has become more comfortable, he has been able to "just play baseball" and doing so has allowed his athleticism to come out. Earlier in the year, he was tight on the base paths and in the field. Right now, if he gets on first base, he's stealing, and I haven't yet seen a close play at 2B (Link). He has above-average speed now, which will probably be a tick above average after he's done filling out. Basically, don't give up on him despite the numbers. He really came around this season.

Kyle Weiland - There was a troika of college pitchers on Lowell who were all early picks for the Sox: Weiland (Notre Dame), Bryan Price (Rice), and Stephen Fife (Utah). From what I saw, I would rank them in that order. Weiland is a RHP who has a fastball that is generally between 91-94 mph, a decent curveball, and a currently below average changeup. Weiland's calling card is his fastball, which has good downwards movement and he can spot to both sides of the plate (Link 1, Link 2). While his changeup has been spotty so far (it has very little movement), he has flashed a plus curveball at times (Link).

Tim Federowicz - If Fed-Ex can find a way to hit at all, he'll be a good major league back-up for years. He doesn't have much power and I haven't really seen him hit anything hard so far, but his arm is so strong and accurate, that he could carve out a nice little career for himself (Link).

Pete Hissey - Hissey was the Sox 4th round pick this season out of high school in PA. They gave him 1 million to buy him out of a UVa scholarship. You can immediately see what the Sox saw in Hissey to give him that type of money. He's still rail-thin, but he has excellent speed (Link), a good arm, a well-leveraged swing (Link), at a patient approach at the plate. In fact, sometimes he was too patient. Like Kelly, he too was in the NYPL only because he signed late and the Sox wanted him to get AB's. However, in some PA's, it seemed like he went to the plate with the idea of simply tracking pitches. Often he would let driveable pitches go down the middle. It's OK, he's just a kid, and he's basically received no instruction yet. More importantly, his present tools package is impressive.

So Temple, where do you see Hissey fit?

:|

Um... yeah.

Nice video there, Temple. I was surprised to see how big Casey is compared to WMB. BA had a picture of him that had him looking just rail-thin. It's nice to hear about his SS play; I like him more as SS so obviously it's nice if he might be able to stick at the position.

How do you see WMB stacking up against Almanzar?