leg injury add it to the amazing amount of
injuries Dice-K had last year and now I am sick of it. Send
him, Lars Anderson, and some small level prospect to Hoyer
for A-Gon and if you get the deal sealed you get a huge bat
and you still have Buchholtz and Wake becomes the major
number 5 or you make a push for Ben Sheets, your call. Either
way Dice-K better be 08 good this year if he even wants a
sliver of a chance of redemption at least in my book. This is
getting annoying, but hey just think about it send Dice-K and
some prospects for A-Gon. It could work. Although Dice-K’s
contract could get in the way. Anyways enjoy Jan. everybody.
Spring training is coming closer and I’m pumped for the
opener vs the Yanks. We start off with a sweep (which could
happen with CC and Texiera’s April play) that would be sweet.
Well enough of by daydreams. Go Sox!

forgive me for doing the Bill Hall, Big
Unit, and Lackey Halladay post twice I double clicked because
it was slow to download.

here is my simple breakdown of the bats and pitching

batting lineup:

1: Ellsbury (great base stealer and bats 300)

2 Pedy (great high 290s and 300s bat and will be better this year without his wife being on his mind and the baby. He also hits in 80 RBIs and jacks 17-20 bombs

3 V-Mart (bats 300 and can jack 30 homers he also drives in 100 RBIs so he could be this year’s Jason Bay in batting and in RBIs)

4 Youk (bats 300 and jacks 25-30 homers. He drives in runs and has a great glove so he will be a key point in our offense and defense too)

5 Papi (can jack 50, but will likely hit 35 if he doesn’t slump. He also can bat 280-300 when he is not having slumps every other month. He will be key and will have to step up again. The light is on him and if comes up he is easily the best power DH in the MLB)

6 Drew (hits 280-290 with 20 homers and drives in runs every now and then. His big thing is walks and making the pitcher throw 5-10 pitches a count)

7 Beltre (can hit 35 homers and if he hits as well as he can he could be a monster bat in Fenway and also our best bat in general)

8 Cameron (will bat 25 homers and drive in 80 RBIs. Does not walk a lot, but fields great overall not that great, but should be a solid 8 batter)

9 Scutaro (he walks and he has high pitch counts and bats just about 270-280. He’ll be ok, but his glove and walks will be good enough. Throw in 12 homers and 55-60 RBIs and he’ll be one of our better SS in the Theo GM reign)

rotation:

1 Beckett (ace of the rotation and is the best postseason pitcher in baseball. Could win 20 to boot this year)

2 Lester (could be the best southpaw in baseball right now. Add on the fact he is a 200 inning pitcher and he has a high strikeout count he is the second coming of Johan Santana maybe even better)

3 Lackey (eats innings and is a very good pitcher. Nice pickup and should be the missing piece in the rotation that will put us over the top)

4 Dice-K (if not for the World Baseball classic he is a year removed from being the ace of the staff. If he comes back into form make that four aces in one rotation)

5 Bucholtz (has ace talent, but is not there yet, but if he plays like he did last year that would be great, but stick to V-Mart with him he worked well with V-Mart)

6 Wakefield (high era, but wins 15-18 games anyways so he is a great number six option)

this is my simple breakdown of the Sox team starters. I might do the bench and bullpen later so anyways tell me what you think in the comment box. Go Sox!

let me start off by saying the Big Unit Randy Johnson is simply a legend. He had 300 wins, second in strikeouts, second in Cy Youngs, World Series win with Schilling, and didn’t use roids. What a career. I remember seeing him for the first time and he just was something in his prime. Now that is over let us get to Bill Hall. The trade is a GREAT move for the Sox. He can play a ton of different areas and can bat as just a bench player 270 with maybe 10 homers. Not bad. He is far better then Kotch in my opinon, but more then that he basically means Mikey is going to stay put which is great. I mean come on you have one First basemen and if you can teach Mikey the slot he’d play solid there. We shall see however he might have to stay just because nobody thinks he can stay healthy or hit anymore, but I just see a clutch bat and leader in him and we really need any bat that we can have this year. Now I think the Sox have gotten loads better on O. Yeah losing Bay really, really sucked, but that does not matter right now.

Beltre, Cameron, Scutaro, Hermy, and now Bill Hall should all hit very well in Fenway (I really like getting Hermy since he still has talent and could be something still). We now have I think enough O that we could average 5.0 runs a game. More like 3.5, but the stats will be higher due to playing the O’s and right now the Rays who have just two good pitchers and one who can’t pitch on the road making Matt Garza the ace. Not bad on O. If V-Mart plays with some more power aka maybe more like 30 bombs and Cameron jacks 25 and Beltre jacks 30 and Papi jacks 30-35 we have decent power. Throw in Youk’s 25-30 and Pedy’s 17 with some 9′s here and some 20′s here we’ll have solid power in our lineup. Bill Hall does not add a ton of power, but thinking back we had nobody on the bench last year so giving Tido options is nice (by the way I swear to God if Tido isn’t re-signed I will call for Theo’s Harvard head). On another note I thought to myself yeah it would have costed a lot, but Halladay would have been sweat and then thought wait a sec Halladay has never played in the post-season.

Think about it. Halladay always has a rough patch late in the year. So if he has let us say a 3.40 era in Sept. what’s to say come post-season he is like a 3.50 era pitcher? Cliff Lee was badass in the post-season and his entire time in the NL so just think about the Lackey move and think which is better. Lackey is what our pitchers needed. A guy who eats innings for breakfast. 2-70 to 2-90 era if he stays healthy and guess what he usually pitches great in the post-season. He shut us down last year as an Angel (thank god we don’t have to worry about him pitching vs us again) and he played solid vs the Yanks in the post-season. This is in my opinon a very good move that just cost 85 million instead of 85 million and a farm system which was Halladay (take it back more like 115 million). That and you don’t know if he can pitch in the post-season. I though it was something to think about. Anyways enjoy Jan. everybody! Spring Training is coming! Go Sox! 

You may think Jason Bay was just a good 35 homer 260 bat who was not a good fielder, but that is wrong. Jason Bay is really a 40 homer guy with 280 batting and he is a very solid fielder and it was as stupid as it gets on his part and Theo’s part to let his time in Boston be short. I mean the Mets Jason? Do you want to see the NL/ALDS series again let alone a world series? And then Theo oh Theo why do you get such positive views. You have a world series from a team that was basically built before you and just needed a pitcher (aka Curt the Bloody Sock Schilling) and then 07 you had a great batting team with the two best post-season pitchers possibly ever (Beckett, Schilling) since then a heart breaking ALCS and then an ALDS sweep.

Then A-Gon well I don’t know about you guys, but people who come from the NL to AL usually suck. Beyond that let us look at the guys we’d be giving up.

Ellsbury (300 average and 70 stolen bases makes him too good to give up)

Buchholtz (possible ace at the very least a great number 2)

Kelly (possibly the next Roy Halladay oh my god he is the best ever pitcher)

Lars Anderson (has Teixera like talent, but needs to grow)

Ryan Kalish (could be a solid player and I like what he offers)

Westmoreland (I can’t spell his name right, but anyways he might be the next star bat and he is part of about six other guys that could be star bats to go along with Youk, Pedy, and Ellsbury)

That is a ton of talent a king’s ransom really. Now think about giving up all that talent just for a 280 40 homer bat when we had Bay who was that and now have Beltre who in Fenway could be a monster bat for us (could is the key word there). Now I love a power bat just as much as the next fan, but great pitching, stolen bases, and then giving up to three star talent bats is too much for one very good to great cheap bat.

Now moving on there is the major thing here we have to ask. Did the Sox have a good off-season? Well the Hermida move I liked. Getting Lackey and Marco Scutaro were both good moves (although Scutaro I’m not too sure about, but I think he’ll be good) and Beltre and Cameron were really ok moves which could become great moves (well Beltre at his best could be flat out amazing). So all in all a A is deserved here. It was the first really active off-season from Theo. Yeah Beckett and Schilling were good, but I’m talking a big move and then three four other solid moves and this was finally that year I was looking for from him. Jason Bay though was a real shame.

I want Josh Beckett signed and I want Mauer if were gonna get him through a trade. I know it’ll take a lot, but who has the bigger checkbook? Yanks or Sox. Oh yeah… Yanks. Next year would be insane with Mauer in FA. Bottom line we may have gotten by leaps and bounds better or maybe just a little better. Yanks got Granderson (could hit 35 bombs in that park) and Nick Johnson (down grade from Damon) and then finally Vazquez (great in the NL, but AL I could see him as a bust they were better off with Melky in the outfield and having two great pitchers and leaving it at that). Well only time will tell, but the Rays are still there and they were silent, but still they just had a slow start last year that they could not recover from.

My final thoughts are on the Rays is that they could either become a semi-500 team or an AL East contender. Also the Wild Card is scary now. Ms are good. Texas is good. Rays might be good. Me thinks we need to win more then 95 this year. I think Theo thought that too which is why I think Lackey will help if he stays healthy. Five either ace or number 2 pitchers could get us 100 wins and that should be enough for the Wild Card if not the AL East. Also say good by to the Angels. They lost a ton. Their once great bullpen is now ok. They lost Fig to the Ms. Lackey to us. Replacing Vlad with Matsui I think is stupid (by the way I wish we’d have looked at Vlad and maybe gotten him back into LF form cuz he would have been much better then Cameron and for possibly around the same price). That team is now in rebuilding or at least it will be soon.

Now on the Ms. Getting Cliff Lee, Fig, and keeping King Felix was a great off-season for them. They could get Matt Holliday (at least I would if I could snd he would have hit great in Fenway) or someone else. Losing Beltre won’t hurt them even though he might have a monster season with us he hit just horribly in the Ms park. However they might miss his glove. Texas is just about the same which makes me think they might be good, but it is all on Josh Hamilton staying healthy and the pitching playing well (without Millwood that will be mighty hard for them). The Os got better with some pickups. I still think they suck (no pitching, ok hitting, but I think we still have better offense then them) so their getting better just not quickly enough to be in the hunt for the post-season soon.

Finally to finish up this post I’ll say this much. The Sox will be better. They might not look it right now, but even though I think Beltre might be a down grade from Mikey and Cameron is not even miles as close as good as Bay you upgraded most likely in pitching and at SS which has been Theo’s own personal Hell, Lugo, Rentasucky, and Gonzo (shutters). Well have a good new year everybody and Go Sox! 

what an off-season and wow have we gotten worse. Not to be mean to Theo, but Beltre is a down grade from Mikey and Cameron is a down grade from Bay. Heck Marco Scutaro might be a down grade from Gonzo, but Lackey was a great signing. Maybe I’m wrong. There are two things that could happen.

1: Beltre, Scutaro, and Cameron play well aka great D and each 20-25 homers with Beltre having a good shot at 30-35 (which might make up for Jason Bay) and Lackey adds that extra fire-power to make the Sox Pitchers so good that the Yanks will have trouble scoring..

2-Beltre, Scutaro, and Cameron bomb and there is a shot Lackey gets hurt and we get beaten by the Rays for the Wild Card (by the way I think the Rays got worse getting rid of Kazmir so maybe the Sox will do better vs them this year) and Sox fans want Theo’s head.

and then there is the third thing that could happen

3-1 happens and Cameron, Beltre, and Scutaro play great the rotation becomes too good to be true and our bats play solid and we have a nice shot at the World Series.

Not bad pray option one happens. By the way glad we did not throw away the farm system for Halladay. Lackey is a guy who can give you 17-20 wins and a 2.75 era if he stays healthy and we gave up a pick which we basically got back through Bay and Wagner. That was a great move Theo. The Phils however were stupid I mean get Cliff Lee he plays just awesome for you then you trade him for Halladay who will be likely just as good since Lee was as good as it gets for you as a team. Lights out in the regular season and post-season and you gave up more guys in the farm-system. Well enough about the Phils I think the Sox had either A-amazing off-season and put us ahead of the Yanks or B-just another lose a great player and be told in 2012 we’ll be much better season. Well hope it’s A, but anyways Go Sox! 2010 here we come!

This series is gonna be gritty and tough, but we do have a good shot. Lester, Beckett, and Dice-K went out strong with Clay sucking it up, but still we won hence I am not going to make Clay look bad. All and all we look strong for the ALDS and ALCS as well as the WS, but Clay has to be better and we need the other three to pitch as well as they have and get better as we go deep (or we get kicked out of the postseason). We have to fight hard and go for the WS. We have a great shot at it so here we go to LA. GO SOX!!!

The Red Sox are five wins (or five Texas
loses) from being the AL Wild Card and when you have four
good pitchers just getting into the postseason is all you
need. Let us hope we sweep the Yankees just to prove that the
team they faced was not the real Red Sox and that the real
Red Sox are ready for the crown of MLB. Go
Sox!

For those confused as to why there are two
Finally posts it is because I clicked save twice aka it is
nothing so there you go.

Today marks a seven game lead over the Texas Rangers and lucky number 9 is within reach, but we still got to get there sadly. We have in Sept. out hit, pitched, and played the Yankees and Rangers so I’m feeling sort of like this is team that is finally coming together for the first time this year.

Go Sox!