Boston Red Sox Ramblings

Sox bullpen get rocked by the might bats of the Orioles. When are people going to finally admit that there's something wrong with Papelbon. He's treading down the path of unstability, emotionally and performance-wise, a la John Rocker of the Braves. At least Smoltz had a better outing until the delay.

Sox might trade a reliever for Garrett Atkins (3B) of the Rockies. ATkins stinks. Move Youk to Third and try Lars at first for a couple weeks. Bailey did OK last night, he could take over if Lars struggles. Some Major League at bats in July would be good experience for Lars. But NO ATKINS! Nick Johnson would be better than ATkins for a average Boston reliever (like Delcarmen).

Great comeback today after a complete choke last night!

Could be a good signing for Boston if Lowrie or Green don't work in the coming years:

http://boston.redsox.mlb.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20090703&content_id=5675220&vkey=news_bos&fext=.jsp&c_id=bos

We could be seeing some BACKFLIPS in the infield like the old Ozzie!

Sox look awful going in to the All Star break. Oakland shuts out Boston and Smoltz appears done. Bring up the kids.

The pitcher that went for Oakland has some pretty good stuff. You might want to look into getting a couple of his cards... He's no second coming of the Freak or anything but looks to be a very solid pitcher.

His record is subpar and he's a lefty that is not as good as Lester or Glavine or Bill Lee in his prime. Not too impressed with him. Sox too caught up in NOMAR DAY.

He's on a last place team who doesn't score runs for him. Eck was saying that his team hardly scores any runs for him. They scored 15 runs in his 7 losses this year. Not good run support. The Sox had a AAA lineup. Bates, Lugo, Baldelli, V-Tek, and Green. No Pedroia, no Drew, no Lowell, not good...

You're kind placing Lugo at AAA batting proficiency. And I see Lugo had another error at shortstop. Sweet.

OK...you're Theo Epstein. A) Do you want Roy Halladay...arguably one of the best three pitchers in the game and a bonafide ACE? I think he's better than Santana and Sabithia. I'd only covet Lincecum more. B)What would you give up to Toronto to land him?

Look at this Rotation: the first three dominate a playoff series and if it's a seven game series...Halladay would be your man for that game.

Halladay
Beckett
Lester

Wakefield
Penny/Smoltz


I'd give up: Buchholz, Tazawa and a position farm player of Toronto's choice. I'd throw in Dice-K too but the $ and his recent struggles make him unattractive.

I would want to keep Bard and Lars if possible.

You make it happen if Toronto will deal him to an AL East team. I think we have the pieces to make it work. I would give up Buchholz, Bowden, Delcarmen and a position prospect player (but not Lars). I would also be willing to give up Saito if they wanted him thrown in.

Bottom line, if you're Theo you MAKE THIS HAPPEN. PERIOD. If they get Halladay then they win the Championship for the next two to three years easily. Beckett, Lester and Halladay. This is all you need to win rings...

Look at what San Fransisco is doing. They have NO OFFENSE at all but the best pitching in the whole league and they will make it to the playoffs and make some noise in it too... I would love a Boston vs. San Fran World Series.

It's fun enough thinking of the All Star game this year watching my two favorites going up against each other in the first inning. The Freak vs. Pedroia. Should be awesome!!! You can't lose in that situation.

San Fran is actually thinking about going after Halladay. Imagine 4 Cy Young Winners plus Cain?! (I know Zito is a bust and The Big Unit is hurt... but still 4 Cy Young starters is just that!).

Beckett/Lester/Halladay or Lincecum/Cain/Halladay

I would love the first better but I would love either to happen...

I think Toronto if they can get the proverbial sun and the moon would trade to the Yanks and Boston. Although it's likely Philadephia might get the prize.
Boston has the richest pieces on the farm to acquire Halladay. So if the Blue Jays want blue chip prospects they need to consider Boston.

Rumors that the Sox are interest in either Victor Martinez or Prince Fielder... Interesting. I would do either one in a second!

Fielder's knees will wear down like Mo Vaughn. But if Milwaukee wanted Dice-K for Fielder straight up...fine. I would not send Lars to the Brewers for Prince nor would I send Buccholz, Casey Kelley, Bowden. If the Brewers wanted Aaron Bates I'd offer him up to get Prince. I'd consider Brad Penny too.

As for Martinez. I'd give up Bowden and maybe a couple single or double A low risk prospects. But no Buccholz and Lars.

Lugo DFA'd.

Daniel Bard: 16 out of his last 26 outs have been by way of the K.

Bard has another great outing tonight 1.1 IP 3K to sure up Buchholz's win.

Saw highlights of Bard hitting 99 MPH with the greatest of ease while Bluejays batters were just watching the fastball blow by them. Awesome. Future closer of the Sox. DO NOT TRADE BARD!!

Buchholz looked pretty good tonight too. Timmy K on Baseball Tonight said the Jays would want Buchholz and Bard AND two more quality prospects. Screw that. Let some other team destroy their farm system to get Halladay. Toronto is asking for too much right now.

Sox are in a bad funk. Smoltz isn't cutting it. Buchholz needs to come up quick and Boston need to trade to get another bat in the line up. Anemic offense if irritating.

Red Sox trade Argenis Diaz to Pittsburgh for Adam LaROACH. Bad trade as I never liked Laroach! Here's the scouting report on the SS we gave up:
Scouting Report: Diaz is an elite defensive shortstop, and if he improves his concentration on routine plays, he could compete for a gold glove in the bigs right now. He has plus range, excellent footing, an impressive glove, and an outstanding arm. Makes impossible plays in the field. However, he does make a lot of errors on off-the-mark long throws off of grounders that he has no business getting to in the first place. He also really struggles with routine plays on occasion, almost as if he has a mental block. That is a definite area in need of improvement. The other key for Diaz is how much he will hit. He's a slap hitter with below average to average on base ability and without much power, but he's swung the bat very well during a few prolonged stints here and there. Good bat speed through the zone. Struggles with advanced off-speed stuff. Can show lack of plate discipline in stretches. Hits lefties significantly better than righties. Excellent at laying down bunts. Won't steal a lot of bases.

This trade will be better than you think... We already signed a defensive stud at SS with Iglesias.

Theo has been busy today...
Lugo traded to Saint Louis for Chris Duncan. Boston will still be paying all of Lugo's salary. Duncan it is believed will be sent to Pawtucket. A little to no impact trade.

No holes Bard
Posted by Tony Massarotti, Globe Staff July 28, 2009 10:20 AM
"Just a few feet from where Clay Buchholz spoke, as the notebooks and cameras clustered near the starting pitcher's locker, Daniel Bard stood in relative serenity last night. The annual major league trading deadline is now just three days away, but rest assured that no one will get within an arm's length of the Red Sox' latest phenom.

And so on and on it goes at Fenway Park, where the Red Sox posted an 8-3 win over the Oakland A's last night as the hype over Bard continued to grow: another night, another appearance, another pair of strikeouts. That's 19 whiffs in 10 1/3 innings this month. Boston's blossoming setup man has struck out 19 of the last 35 batters he has faced -- that is a whopping 54.3 percent -- and the oooohs and aaaahs are now coming from executive offices throughout the game just as surely as they are coming from the capacity crowds at Fenway.

On the field and off, Bard is blowing everyone away.

One thing about the trading season: teams get so entrenched in the bargaining that reality gets distorted. It's like an arbitration hearing without the money. One side pumps up the commodity it is trying to sell, the other picks it apart in hopes of bringing down the price. If the players in question ever had the luxury of overhearing the conversations, they'd emerge with either an even more distorted sense of self-importance or an incurable inferiority complex.

Last week, two of the game's executives, despite being hundreds of miles away from one another, were downright stereophonic in their assessment of the Red Sox. The Sox are growing arrogant, they said. They overvalue their prospects. The success of young Boston players from Jon Lester and Jonathan Papelbon to Dustin Pedroia and Jacoby Ellsbury has created an unrealistic outlook in the Boston organization, not to mention an inflation of the Boston farm system perpetuated by the Sox' subwoofers in the media.

Yes, with regard to drafting and player development, the Red Sox have been good. But they have not been that good because there is a great deal of luck involved, too.

All of this brings us to Bard, who is becoming to baseball what Ernie Els is to golf: The Big Easy. Listed at 6 foot 4 and 200 pounds, Bard looks like he's playing catch with a 12-year-old when he delivers the ball to home plate. The radar gun nonetheless lights up like a Roman candle. Every time Bard enters a game, fans at Fenway begin sliding forward in their seats as if preparing for the grand finale at the Esplanade on the Fourth of July.

Of course, because Bard is here and succeeding in the major leagues now, eyes are popping just as surely as Jason Varitek's catcher's mitt. The numbers support the prognosis. That was hardly the case last year with Buchholz, whom one of the two executives recently labeled as, at best, a middle-of-the-rotation starter with a questionable frame. And it is not the case now with Lars Anderson, the 6-4, 215-pound potential slugger who is batting .260 with a .389 slugging percentage this year in Double-A. Anderson, said the same official, is not quite the hitter the Red Sox are making him out to be.

But Bard? There are no real arguments about Daniel Bard or, for that matter, budding prospect Casey Kelly. The difference is that Bard is now vaporizing hitters at the major league level. The one question about Bard, conceded one of the two executives, is that his "makeup'' remains a question, which is to say that no one really knows yet if he has the inner stuff of a big-time closer. There really is no way to know that until Bard has to take the mound again after a badly blown save. On the field and off, Bard could be as pressurized as Jonathan Papelbon or as downright cool as Mariano Rivera, but what matters, in the end, is what is inside. None of us watching from afar ever should confuse perception with reality, personality with character.

In the end, what the Red Sox have here is perhaps their most valuable commodity in the hours leading up to 4 p.m. on Friday, when the baseball season effectively starts anew. Maybe Daniel Bard will be the next Kyle Farnsworth; maybe he will be the next Papelbon. At the moment, he looks far more like the latter than the former, a shiny new toy working absolutely perfectly after just being pulled out of the box.

Last night, just as Buchholz was preparing to leave the clubhouse in anticipation of his first start this year at Fenway tonight, Buchholz said he was "pretty confident'' he would remain with the Sox through the trading deadline on Friday. The likelihood is that he will stay. Meanwhile, the man who could be Buchholz's closer someday is continuing his meteoric ascension to cult-figure status, that rare kind of talent that can electrify nearly 40,000 people in the span of maybe 15 pitches.

Daniel Bard is going places just as July 31 nears, it seems, but you can be fairly certain that Red Sox have no intention of letting him go anywhere."

I would rather see Buchholz be traded than Bard.

Good article. Another 2 K's in 1 inning last night...

Tonight is a HUGE start for Clay... should be interesting.

Bad loss last night for Boston. Papelbon ONCE AGAIN not only struggles but blows a three run lead spoiling a win for Clay. It's time to start preparing Bard for the closed role. Also two bad plays by Green at shortstop didn't help matters either.

Sox lose to Oakland again... but news has just surfaced that in 2003 David Ortiz (along with Manny) tested positive for 'roids. Bunch of fools. List keep growing and growing.