Upside is what the Littlefield Pirates didn't understand, and Huntington clearly does. I'd be really happy about this trade if I were a Pirates fan.

Where is the upside of Ohlendorf and Karstens? Oh right, they were passengers on Cory Lidle's plane, along with Jessica Alba's virginity.

"Bryan Morris: 21 years old, in A ball, already lost one entire season to injury, 72 K and 31 BB in 81 innings. Not a prospect."

Yeah, um, not so much.

If Wok didn't exist, we'd have to invent him.

I don't disagree with this, but I guess this means the end of the "Manny's a great LFer in Boston's quirky LF" stuff and the beginning of the historical revision of his D.

Exactly. Familiarity with the Monster in LF is the only reason a butcher like Ramirez could even pretend to be within screaming distance of acceptable.

I like this karl mangus fella.

He's sharp, I'll give him that.

Btw, are we calling up Chris Carter now that Brandon moss is gone?

I'm surprised nobody wanted Carter. HE was the superior hitter to Moss but he can't play defense.

karlmagnus - the Red Sox will win the World Series again before England wins the Ashes.

:)

"Jose Bautista, who has not had a terrible year"

He's costing the team an awful lot of glove runs, and his bat isn't anything special. LaRoche is a big upgrade.

The Alvarez thing doesn't worry me much, since:
a) Alvarez isn't signed yet.
and
b) I've been mentally projecting Alvarez as a 1B anyway.

HE was the superior hitter to Moss but he can't play defense.

Its because all he does is catch touchdowns. They are of very little use in baseball.

Not sure I agree, but at least he's a prospect. Very weird though to take LaRoche when they just drafted Alvarez.

Who they have not signed yet. A lot of the top 10 picks have yet to sign, but Coonelly has been making noise about being "frustrated" with Alvarez. Also under the new rules, if a team doesn't sign their 1st round pick they get an extra pick the next year the slot after. So if the Pirates do not sign Alvarez, they get pick #3 next year (in addition to their regular pick (likely around 8-10).

Now with LaRoche, Alvarez is superflous- I don't think the Pirates are going to up their offer, either Alvarez is going to have to cave, or he'll go back into the pot for next year.

That may well be true Phil; I'm planning to have myself cryogenically frozen until the MCC's genetic engineering labs under the Lords pavilion have done their job.

Effects of this trade:
Dodgers could make run at NL West
Red Sox no change still fighting TB/NYY for AL East or Wild Card
Pirates could reach .500 record next year or not.

My AL only fantasy team - decimated.

Sucks to hear that...

Of course, the smack-talker that has Manny in my AL-only league will get just enough FAAB back to get blitzed in his attempts to get any NL import better than Griffey. Meanwhile, if the trade I have to acquire FAAB gets accepted, I can have my choice of Tex or Bay...

Can my 10-point offense that could (in a 10-team 4x4) lead the charge into 2nd place?

b) I've been mentally projecting Alvarez as a 1B anyway.

That's better than me. I've been mentally projecting that Alvarez would tear an ACL or suffer kidney failure before the team would have the chance to move him.

Has there been a Theo interview at all yet?

Another point about Bay: the Red Sox are clearly pretty high on him, and quickly looking at his spray charts he's more of a pull line drive hitter like Lowell, so perhaps they feel he is a good fit for Fenway? Manny really isn't/wasn't a good fit at Fenway, it seems like he hit a lot of balls to right that were caught because of the deep RCF wall and the triangle.

What what they said about David Murphy. And Brandon Moss has much better power than Murphy.

Sure, but David Murphy is a fourth outfielder who just happens to be playing every day. In 518 at bats in the majors, he's .280/.328/.471, mostly playing his home games in Texas. That's a 110 OPS+. That's a good 4th outfielder or a passable starter. The fact that it's also a guy who might drive in 100 runs hitting fifth behind Kinsler, Young, Hamilton and Bradley doesn't make him a good everyday left fielder. It makes him an average one in a great situation. These are numbers pretty much like Buckner's numbers in 1985 and 1986 when he was hitting behind Evans and Boggs or Barrett and Boggs most of the time and drove in 100 runs when that was a lot, despite being a below average offensive 1B. Driving in 100 runs in those seasons was par for the course. Losing Moss will be no worse than losing Murphy or Murton. They're all decent major leaguers, but they're also all the kind of guys you can come up with one of every 2-3 years if you have a decent organization, and the 6 years you control them are probably worth less than having Jason Bay for $7.5 million for one year.