User Comments, Suggestions, or Complaints | Privacy Policy | Terms of Service | Advertising
|
Demarini, Easton and TPX Baseball Bats
|
AllianceTickets.com has cheap MLB Tickets. Get all your Colorado Rockies Tickets, Seattle Mariners Tickets, San Francisco Giants Tickets and all your favorite baseball tickets here. We also carry cheap Denver Broncos Tickets, Seattle Seahawks Tickets and Denver Nuggets Tickets. |
For wholesale prices on baseball gifts and equipment, check these stores out! |
Page rendered in 0.5823 seconds
61 querie(s) executed
Reader Comments and Retorts
Go to end of page
Statements posted here are those of our readers and do not represent the BaseballThinkFactory. Names are provided by the poster and are not verified. We ask that posters follow our submission policy. Please report any inappropriate comments.
Bard for Bell makes no sense for us.
A better Arroyo is worth like $50 million when he has no service time. Bowden is more realistically a worse Suppan, with a lot of uncertainty
The problem with this story is a) it's sort of like the ones we tend to hear whenever a Boston prospect struggles ("We're having Lars swing with one arm this year--just to make it challenging for him!") and the tinkering they do with pitchers has pretty mixed results.
The V-Mart thing boils down to whether he can catch or not. If he can't do so reasonably well, you've got a 1B who's a solid but unspectacular improvement on LaRoche. If he can catch, he can get Kottaras out of the lineup and take ABs from Tek and play some 1B/DH.
I saw something very interesting about the possibility of getting Gonzalez on SOSH last night. It was a link to this foxsports article, with the following quote:
Moorad goes on to say that it's still unlikely that they deal Gonzalez. I think it's interesting though that they've reached a stage where they're discussing it with upper management.
And if the Red Sox are willing to kick in John Lester, they may be able to get Chris Young!
Why can't he stay at catcher? He's been playing quite a bit of first base because Ryan Garko suck(ed/s), it helps keep VMart fresher, and they like Shoppach's defense. AFAIK, there's no reason he can't play catcher, unless you mean they don't want to piss off Varitek. In which case, yeah, it makes a lot less sense to trade for Martinez.
We can't go benching Varitek and his 1% caught stealing rate for some piker. Seriously, though, I thought the knock on VMart was that his arm sucked and he can't through anyone out. Not true?
Now, if Lowell is not DL'd, the bench would look something like:
Green
Lowell
Kottaras
Baldelli
I'm willing to give up Buchholz to get Gonzalez, but not Martinez.
???
Seems like an earthquake is about to hit Boston
Gonna be a fun 6 hours or so, I think.
you guys are getting ridiculous about Bard.
what about Ramirez as the future closer if they trade papelbon? or okajima if they re-sign him?
That's the standard knock, but my personal opinion is that it's way, way overblown. He's had a rough year (7-for-39) throwing out base stealers this season, but in '07-'08 his CS% was 33.3%. He's pretty athletic (consistently low WP/PB rates) and has worked really hard to become a better defensive player.
He's not exactly good back there, but he's good enough - assuming his CS% dip this year is a blip and not an indication that his elbow is shot after the surgery last year. FWIW, nobody's said a word about the elbow being a problem and it doesn't appear to be affecting his bat like it did in '08, so I lean towards the blip theory.
I really, really like Victor. He doesn't complain, he's not out there looking for attention, he's just a tough, talented ballplayer who does his job. He's been the de facto captain of the Indians for the past few years, and if intangibles can help a ballclub win, he's the sort of guy that brings them by the truckload. You guys will really like him - if that elbow isn't shot.
You're right. The only way the Sox can trade Papelbon is by making it look like they can't get him signed because they don't value closers the way other teams do. They can't do that for a couple years, when he's getting close to free agency.
I personally don't buy the "closer mystique" thing so much. The vast majority of times when a genuinely good middle reliever is called on to close games, he's successful. The reason a lot of people don't believe this is that when teams are desperate enough to try this experiment, they often don't have any really good middle relievers. Plus there may be a few guys who really have buckled under the pressure, or who pitch much worse three games in a row after two days off, etc., than one the more regular schedule middle relievers get. Ramirez is good enough to close. So is Manny Delcarmen. Delcarmen would probably be a below average closer, but I bet he'd be better than 1/3 of the closers in the big leagues. Really, I think anyone in the Red Sox bullpen could manage closing, without costing the Sox more than a couple games a year compared with Papelbon.
I think there's something to be said for not substantially weakening your 25 man roster to add to another area. Bard is arguably the 2nd best reliever on the team. If we need to add a bullpen piece to a deal it should be MDC or Ramierez.
well ideally, it would be Hunter Jones or the hotdog vendor from grandstand #15, but there's another team in any deal that dictates what 'should' be included.
Far be it for a Yankee fan to weigh in on this, but I agree w/Nate that some of you seem to be overvaluing him. He's been great this year, for sure, but he's not better than Papelbon or Okajima, IMO, and getting a guy to do his thing doesn't seem to be that difficult. Joba jumped in to it, Hughes has now. It seems like teams have realized you can convert a hard-throwing young guy into an effective (for a while) short reliever.
I don't need to add speculation about going from being the lower-pressure guy to being the higher pressure closer guy, but that's a factor to consider as well. If you can get something for Bard, in part b/c he's been so outstanding in this short trial, I say you do it.
Wasn't Bard at one point a top starting prospect?
IMO nobody (considering ceiling and contract issues), but I'm still not going to declare him better than Paps due to SSS issues. It's also nice that Tito can use him as a 'relief ace' type and still have a 'closer' at the back end of the pen.
well, right now, I can't name any. But going forward maybe Papelbon, Okajima, Ramirez.
maybe no one will be better than Bard, but I dont know why everyone's so certain.
Still, if you asked me, if the Red Sox are up by a run in the 9th inning against the Yankees next month, who do you want pitching? I'd say Bard, and I think I'd say it rather quickly. It could flip back to Papelbon if he gets his #### together, but for now I'll take the guy who struck out 20 guys in 12 innings last month and didn't walk a single batter, while giving up 4 hits.
Really? Because Papelbon has blown three saves and hasn't looked good getting others? Chances are Bard is not the 2nd coming. I was incredibly suck of hearing about Joba and his greatness and Bard is quickly getting to that level. Just give it a rest until Bard has been doing this for a year or three. (Obvisouly not you specifically JoelW - just quoting you as the last relevant post.) If Bard needed to be in the deal to get Adrian Gonzalez or Halladay I would hope the Sox wouldn't hesitate to sign.
Great point.
Don't worry, that's what old friend Arroyo is for.
Yes, he's a top prospect too (though not as great as those 2). But I took your post as an argument that Bard as expendable because guys who dominate in the relief role are so common--these 3 guys are hardly common.
Well, yes actually. He's looked terrible most of the time.
Well, not atrocious, just not good.
It's on. Go to the page and you can get in.
In terms of Red Sox deals, I wouldn't be totally surprised by a blockbuster Martinez, Halladay or Gonzalez deal or even no deal at all. Pretty much anything else would surprise me, though. I don't think anyone saw Adam LaRoche coming.
No, but in hindsight, it was quite a sensible move, and they really didn't give any talent up.
Good bandaid player, insurance policy.
FOX Sports, too.
I want Gonzalez too. And a pony.
I think VMart + Halladay is more helpful for this season than just AdGon...
Keeping up his habit of contributing nothing, Tim Kurkjian says of Vmart "he had a different handshake for every player and he's ambidextrous so he can throw with each arm." Great job Tim.
I have a feeling that after Boston put together their Halladay package, they started looking around saying, "Hey, if we're willing to give these guys up, let's see if we can get some other superstar."
It was here:
http://twitter.com/BNightengale
My guess is Bowden + ??? Doubront?
A little old, no?
Hope that makes sense?!?
3:03 p.m.: SI.com's Jon Heyman reports that the Braves would be interested in Adam LaRoche if the Red Sox make him available. LaRoche, who spent the first three years of his career with the Braves, would probably be expendable if the Red Sox complete the Martinez deal.
3:06 p.m. USA Today's Bob Nightengale, who broke the news of the Victor Martinez deal an hour ago, tweets that it is a done deal. He does not indicate which players the Sox are giving up
Details?
3:19 p.m. The Globe's Tony Massarotti confirms that, according to a baseball source, the Red Sox have traded Justin Masterson, Nick Hagadone and Bryan Price to the Indians for Victor Martinez.
And he actually hit a bit in July, is controllable and has an option.
Didn't trade for Kendry Morales, decided to take Kotchman instead, and then flipped him for Adam LaRoche.
You must be Registered and Logged In to post comments.
<< Back to main