Lead is back down to 7 games. Should we panic?

Edit: Curse you Kenny Williams for wanting Wily Mo+ another shiny young pitcher for Jermaine Dye. You sent Iguchi away for nothing..

Gabbard successfully shopped. FO shows confidence in Lester.

So with Gagne here on Wednesday, he replaces Gabbard on the roster. So who goes when Schilling is activated this weekend? Snyder or Lopez? I'm guessing Tito will want to keep the lefty, because managers always love to preserve their matchup options, and Tavarez will be left as the longman/mopup guy.

But who goes if they sign Kielty? The next bullpen guy off the bottom, or Wily Mo? I assume Hinske sticks, because he's lefty power off the bench and because he's the sole backup on both infield corners. I'd prefer to see the bullpen arm ditched and Wily Mo kept. There's no reason, especially since Okajima is no LOOGY, that they can't go with a 6-man pen. That would allow them to carry 14 position players through the August dog days.

I can see them ditching one of Tavarez/Snyder: both sort of fulfill the same role: multiple garbage innings who can emergency start. Snyder has reverse platoon splits, while Tavarez is Tavarez.

I assume Hinske sticks, because he's lefty power off the bench and because he's the sole backup on both infield corners.

Would we get draft pick if we offer him arbitration and he walks at the end of the season?

gabbard is replacement parts. he's been decent but there's no guarantee he'll stay that way. his k/bb numbers don't inspire confidence, to say the least. his splits aren't that great: after pitch 60, he's giving up over .300 in BA alone, and that goes along with his overall .224 babip (which means he'll be even worse than we imagine since most of his luck is coming the first time through the order). small sample, but still, he's another tavarez, and we already have one of those. i can't imagine him sticking in even the texas rotation. so, eh. i won't miss him. especially with schilling returning. and the move makes sense right now. the sox have a surplus of pitchers are better than gabbard at AAA and AA, so what's the point of keeping him around if someone will take him and give you a pitcher like eric gagne in return?

murphy pisses me off. why didn't he do what i wanted him to do? and engel (really?) beltre is as likely to be adrian beltre as jeff bagwell at this point, i'd have to imagine. so, again, eh.

the dye move made no sense for the sox, and it's hard to believe it was real. i can see the chisox seizing the opportunity with a media generated rumor to up his trade value and try to get something in return from someone for him. but really, what teams in contention really needed a corner outfielder? and of those, which ones made a good fit with the chisox?

i blame chb for the rumor. i can already sense that he smells blood in the water with drew and is awaiting an epic collapse by the sox to lay the blame at drew's feet. "if only we'd had dye!" he'll wail.

ugh, why do they need kielty? enough with the OF rumors. this reminds me of the brian daubach glory days when we had 20 1B-OF-DH types on the roster and no place to play any of them.

see it in your mind: 2001. daubach, troy o'leary, dante bichette, calvin pickering, izzy alcantara, morgan burkhart, hillenbrand, hatteberg. we cornered the market in that particular commodity. do we really want to start stockpiling again?

I assume the Kielty rumor is more than a rumor because Caron has mentioned it about 12 times per pregame every day for the last week.

Lead is back down to 7 games. Should we panic?

No. The two times the Yankees got it down to this level and I started to worry a little, it was quickly back up to 9 or more. One thing that's easy to forget when a team starts to lose a chunk off a big lead is that it can just as quickly head in the positive direction again.

and engel (really?) beltre is as likely to be adrian beltre as jeff bagwell at this point, i'd have to imagine. so, again, eh.

Well, if his projected range was genuinely somewhere between Adrian Beltre and Jeff Bagwell, I'd have to say this was a bad deal. Somehow, I think there's probably a little greater variance in his projection than that.

Someone posted Betemit's UZRs somewhere and he's hilariously bad on defense, which makes him pretty worthless. I was angry when I first saw the deal but am fine with it now.

The Gagne deal is of course good. Agree that the compensation picks will probably be worth about what the Sox gave up, so all Gagne really cost is cash.

The Dye stuff made sense so long as the only real asset the Sox gave up was Pena. Dye is substantially better vs LHP than Pena or Drew and they would've gotten picks for him.

I'm usually against deadline deals, but when all you're giving up is spare parts and C+ prospects it's hard to turn them down.

I want to see a Jeter - Betemit left side of the infield for a Wang start. Maybe they can put Shelly Duncan or Giambi at first, too.

Well, if his projected range was genuinely somewhere between Adrian Beltre and Jeff Bagwell, I'd have to say this was a bad deal.

if he turns out to be only somewhere in between those two, i'll still take this deal. he's at least 4 years out from the majors now, is not on anyone's major prospect list, and is probably a high-risk, high-reward player. is it too harsh to say that it seems like those kinds of players are a dime-a-dozen in latin america? and for the record, he's very raw: http://www.soxprospects.com/players/beltre-engel.htm

42 k's in 121 AB! in the GCL! 3 doubles, 3 triples, 5 homers. good power potential, but raw. may be a wily mo type. can play center in a pinch, good arm, but not top flight defense.

and all you need to know about betemit is that he was traded by the braves for Danys Baez, Willy Aybar, and cash. like a good rat, the braves know when the ship is sinking.

Agree that the compensation picks will probably be worth about what the Sox gave up, so all Gagne really cost is cash.

The "Is Gagne going to be a Type A?" question isn't one that I think anyone's come up with a good answer to yet.

Rankings are based on two years (he pitched two innings last year), beginning this year it's down to the top 20% are Type A, and he's going to be a setup man mostly, so only sporadic save opps the rest of the way - meaning he can't pump a high-save year to help counteract missing virtually all of last year. It's a question that might not be settled until the rankings come out.

Of course, even a Type B still returns a pick.

How did Gagne earn a Type A rating last time around if the rankings are based just off two years? 15.1IP between those two years?

How did Gagne earn a Type A rating last time around if the rankings are based just off two years? 15.1IP between those two years?

I honestly don't know what happened there. Most sources are quite clear that it's based on two years.

It is two-years (under the new CBA, the section that matters is XX(b)(4)(b)).

Theo was pretty explicit at the press conference in saying that he'd be a type A.

Yeah, I suppose even pure setup guys have fared well in the Elias rankings if the other criteria are in place - Linebrink a year or so back was one of the top-ranked relievers (third overall, I believe), Arthur Rhodes was one of the top guys for 2001-2002, etc, etc.

I believe the rankings are adjusted for playing time lost to injury. I don't see how there can be any other explanation.

Kason Gabbard is no Barry Zito, but he’s not filler either. He’s a guy who has been a decent to pretty good in the past 2 years after a few years of injury problems.

Why, just last week someone said about him: the obvious conclusion is that he's a fringy guy who strung together a few good starts. Maybe he'll actually be better than that, but I see no reason to think it's likely. You two should talk.

Would we get draft pick if we offer him arbitration and he walks at the end of the season?

If he's a Type B, I'd think so. I'm not familiar with where they draw the lines these days, but I doubt he'd even be a Type B.

see it in your mind: 2001. daubach, troy o'leary, dante bichette, calvin pickering, izzy alcantara, morgan burkhart, hillenbrand, hatteberg. we cornered the market in that particular commodity.

No love for Rico Brogna (2000)?

Seriously, depth at certain positions is valuable not only in case something goes wrong for your team, but in trade if something goes wrong with another team. But too much depth, though, hurts your team by restricting your roster and doesn't get much in trade value because you're more desperate to free up roster space than other teams are to do business with you. Everything in moderation.

The Gagne deal is of course good. Agree that the compensation picks will probably be worth about what the Sox gave up, so all Gagne really cost is cash.

Depends on how you look at it. Had they signed him in the prior offseason, they'd still get the draft picks, and would still have Gabbard, etc.

I think this goes well with what Darren and I were dickering about before the season. IIRC, Darren had said he'd rather sign Gagne and take his chances because the upside was so worth it than to devote money to... well, I don't remember if the alternative was bullpen depth or bench depth. Whatever the case, I'd suggested that the level of risk around Gagne's recovery is precisely the sort of thing you don't want to devote a lot of guaranteed money to. In the end, Boston let Texas take the risk; and once Gagne demonstrated he bounced back from his injury to be an effective reliever, they picked him (and the draft picks) up in trade for roughly a prorated share of his FA cost, plus the players.

I still don't know if the difference - Pineiro/Romero performance and $, three players traded, four months without Gagne - is the proper "cost" for letting Texas take the risk on Gagne; I suppose it depends on the likelihood of Gagne's bounceback, and we don't know that. Well, I don't know that.

i blame chb for the rumor. i can already sense that he smells blood in the water with drew and is awaiting an epic collapse by the sox to lay the blame at drew's feet. "if only we'd had dye!" he'll wail.

If a tree falls in the forest...

What's up with JD Drew?

His son is having surgery of some kind, so baseball isn't his #1 priority at the moment. I wonder if the Sox can put him on family leave and bring up Moss or Ellsbury for a few games.

VI,

Thanks for pointing out my self-contradiction.

Do I contradict myself?
Very well then I contradict myself,
I am large, I contain multitudes.

Also, I'm a doofus.