Sounds like the Reds will get so-so prospect SP Lance Broadway + another minor leaguer for Griff. Decent haul for him at this point in his career. The bigger gain the Reds get from the trade is freeing up the cash to resign Dunn.

Shawn Chacon had the right idea.

Dissapointing for Reds fans but great for Griffey fans - and he has a chance to be in the playoffs again.

Man. There must be 50 guys on Fofc's top ten hitter list by now. Or maybe Manny just bumped Biggio to 11.

Argh. I'd love to see Griffey get his ring, but the White Sox? Bah.

Believe it or not, Curt Schilling has a strong opinion about the Manny stuff:

Schilling: Keeping Manny could be a problem - Extra Bases - Red Sox blog

Does he think it's time for Manny to go?

"Would I be the only guy in the New England area that said no if I did?" Schilling replied to the question. "I think I'm probably with the consensus. It's very obvious from anything you see or hear he doesn't want to be here. And anytime that there's a piece of the equation you have a problem, and then not trading and leaving him here is a problem because you don't know what you're going to get."

Is Manny quirky or a distraction?

“..I’ve always wondered how we came to be OK with ‘… he’s just not gonna play hard today,’ and that was OK. We’ve come a long way, especially in this city as devoted and as much as the Red Sox mean to people, the fact that you could have a Dustin Pedroia, a Jason Varitek, someone who would bleed and literally play his nine breaths to make an out or get a hit or win a game, and have somebody at the other end of the spectrum from a committed standpoint, you know these players love the uniform, love the fans, and believe in Red Sox and what it means to be a part of this and then you have guys who really don’t give a [expletive].”

Don't know much about the two players we got, except that one guy was a rookie last year and hasn't made it back to the show, and the pitcher has done ok.

Too bad we couldn't unload Affeldt for anything.

I'm actually ok with trading Griffey, though he's my only current Reds jersey. Boo on that front. I'm also glad we didn't get Swisher in return as that may have signaled the end of the Dunn Era. I hope to hell we re-sign Dunn now, with Griff's contract off the books it should happen.

Also, this means Dunn - Hairston - Bruce should play everyday, which I like, for this season.

What do you do if you are the Reds with Hairston at the end of the year though? He's 32, hitting about 80 points above his career ave (.350), but dammit if I don't love him this season.

Also, take away Griffey's name and we just unloaded 10 mil from the books by getting rid of a .245 15 HR guy? Deal.

Both are depth type players at best. Richar had one really good year at high-A in the Arizona system back in 2005 but hasn't show much since. He's a career .288 hitter in the minors and a career .230 hitter in one season, last season, with the White Sox.

Masset is also 25 and joins his third organization in the last three years. Masset began his career as a starter in the Texas system but was moved to the bullpen later on and the White Sox have used him almost exclusively as a reliever (5.75 career ERA in that role) the last two years. The good news is Masset has pretty good career numbers against the National League, as he has a 3.80 ERA in 21 1/3 innings against senior circuit clubs.

When did Reds fans come around on Dunn? I thought they hated him.

It's popular to pick on Dunn in Cincinnati, but the bottom line is he's still our top hitter, no one in MLB has more HRs or BB in the past 5 years than the Big Donkey. His career high in HR is 46 and he's probably going to eclipse that this year, his current OPS+ of 143 is just under his career best of 146 in 2004.

The problem with the Griffey trade is that Cincy should have gotten either a B level prospect or salary relief, but got neither. I'll almost guarantee neither of these guys will be on the 40 man in two years and we still have to pay half of Griffey's salary and buyout.

I would have preferred to let him go in the offseason and take the draft pick compensation.

I can't believe the ChiSox are planning on playing him in CF.

I always think people will get used to the fact I use hyperbole and exaggeration as a literary device in conversation :)

Is top 25 better? He's 25th all-time in adjusted OPS+ (2.5 active players ahead of him - Pujols, Frank Thomas and a 3rd we'll get to in a minute.) And while he's in decline now, they wanted to release him before 2004 and trade him either 2004 or 2005 trade deadline, when he came out to pinch-hit and drove in the winning runs.This is the type of mouth-breathing idiot I'm talking about. I love Dustin Pedroia, because he's what fans think David Eckstein is - a small balding unathletic guy OPS'ing .810+, but you really want to claim you'd rather see him or Jason Varitek in uniform than Manny? Dustin Pedroia has absolutely been on fire the last month+, and in June/July his OPS is about .920 - ie lower than Manny on the season. Jason Varitek had an OPS of .380 in June. We have members of the board that could do better than that.

People saying Manny isn't committed or isn't trying - post-ASB he's 13/37 with 6 XBH and an 8/4 BB/K for a .351/.467/.622 line (2 games missed). Clearly he is trying (every thing I've seen says he spends more time in the batting cage than anyone on the team), and even if he isn't he's still our best hitter. I will take the biggest asshole in the world if he's putting up numbers like that instead of some guy who's nice and gives 110%. Speaking of which, if you really want to trade Manny and replace him, an actual Top 10 hitter of all-time is sitting there for free. Trade Manny for prospects like Stanton and sign Bonds.

Or you could meet Florida's asking price of paying Manny's contract for the rest of the year, plus $2 million, plus prospects, plus Manny (and the 2 #1's after the year) for Jeremy Hermida, then swing Hermida and more prospects to Pittsburgh for Jason Bay. Throw in Jed Lowrie for Jack Wilson too like some reports have it, because there's another white boy OPS'ing <.700 for his career who plays the game the right way and tries hard. Thank god it appears to be dead.

(The Marlins are up there with the Twins for "small-market" teams taking advantage of suckers. They get close to $50 million in revenue sharing checks alone, spend $20 million on payroll and still try to get more cash. They turn the biggest profits in MLB and people baby them about how they can't spend like other teams.)

you don't watch much baseball do you?

If by fans you mean their manager, you'd be right. The same manager that loves bunting and keeping Jay Bruce in AAA until late May. Oh, and GM's like Ricciardi in Toronto.

Who, me? I watch the Red Sox most nights and the occasional national game.

so why would you want them to run manny out there on friday?

Dusty is an assclown, but you can't blame the Bruce thing solely on him. He's not the only one responsible for the call-ups.

They weren't likely to get pick compensation for griffey cause that would have required them to offer arbitration. Essentially committing them to pay him no less than 90 percent of his 2008 salary. Its not likely that junior gets any huge offers this offseason. Certainly not comparable to his current salary

Manny would be fine, were he the DH. He's not. And he tries when he wants to, and is beginning to show a history of ducking pitchers he does not hit well against. That was Schilling's point, and it's a great quote in OOTP: hustle goes a long way in this game.

don't forget faking injuries, assaulting clubhouse employees and general asshattery to go with unrealistic contract demands and the maturity of a three year old.

other than that he's great. team is really rallying to his defense as evidence of their great effort last night.

And pay 4 million for his buyout instead of 2? Doesn't sound like a lot but 2 million is 2 million. Same with his salary the rest of the year.

Bingo.

We need to save as much money now if we want to keep Dunn.

Let him go too. Start over and get some decent young corner OFers who can hit for a little power but can spray the ball all over the place. Most importantly....they don't strikeout all the time!

Schilling wasn't saying that Manny is a less valuable player than the nice guy.

He's just saying that when you have a bunch of guys on the team who are always hustling, etc, someone like Manny refusing to run out ground balls really stands out and is disruptive to the clubhouse. I'll take Schilling at his word there because he's actually on the team.

Schillling wants him gone, and is saying so publically. No teammates have come to his defense, and several others have spoken out against him in the past.

Maybe all that's not worth DFAing him, but it's certainly worth moving him for less value if you can do it.

Letting Dunn walk would be one of the most moronic things management could do, and I've got more faith in the Jocketty/Castellini train than that. You don't let a career OPS+ of 131 just... walk.

Point taken, but didn't he say things in spring training about how he wanted to put Corey Patterson out there instead?Because the team has a better chance to win with him playing? Pretty simple. http://www.fangraphs.com/winss.aspx?team=Red%20Sox Manny has 3.94 WPA. The Red Sox as a team have 2.03 WPA batting. If you want Coco/Jacoby in LF/CF, fine. If you think the team has a better chance to win I don't know what to say.I don't get your point here. Are you saying the other players regularly try as hard as they can, but didn't last night out of protest? Or are you saying they have an extra amount of effort they could be putting in each night but choose not to unless it's an important occasion? Neither of those make any sense.

If you want to talk about talented, mercurial outfieldiers JD Drew's sitting over there in RF. Well, actually he's played 7 games less than Manny, and historically plays fewer games than Manny.Yes, it does but talent>hustle. All the hustle in the world will never make Dustin Pedroia or Jason Varitek as good a hitter as Manny Ramirez is. If you want to complain about his defense, why not DH Manny, play Ortiz at 1B and Youkilis in LF? Because they would be worse defensively. Yet somehow Manny gets the blame for being a bad defender while Ortiz gets a pass.

Bay to TB for Reid Brignac and Jeff Niemann nearly official

Ramirez speculation is on to LA now... Sox want Kemp, Dodgers offering Ethier, who is Brandon Moss only older.

Dunn is better than anyone else we're going to get.

I can't even believe your line of thinking based on what we've witnessed recently.

I mean I guess he's awesome based on strat o matic and if you have no problem with the goings on here then he's your man.

Pretty sad commentary really but not surprising.

No, the idea is to get guys who are young, can hit for power, spray the ball, don't strike out, walk a lot, and hit for power. Since guys like that are a dime a dozen, I agree that you should let Dunn go.

You can't really compare the two, they both contribute to success or failure of a team.

Your logic is flawed. "Manny is better than Varitek, therefore talent is better than hustle" It's not that simple.

If you could rank players on a scale of 1-100, purely on talent, there's some point where you'd take a harder working player who was ranked lower than a loafer. Maybe an 80 guy who hustles is better than an 90 who doesn't care, whose teamates depise him, and who begs out of games against pitchers he's not comfortable against.

Maybe teams should start getting "serious" about these trade talks a day or two earlier. It just seems like they ran out of time on a bunch of things.

this post made me laugh...

I never understood the hate for Dunn. Of course you want more avaerage but the guy can change a game in one swing.

The Reds pitching is so young and talented ( assuming Dusty doesn't wreck all their arms) I can see them being a contender in the next 1-3 years. Keeping Dunn around adds veteren leadership and a big bat. Bruce is gonna continue to develop, Edwin is getting better, and Phillips is a stud( especialy on defense).

If they can add a little bullpen depth and maybe an above average hitting first baseman they can be scary.

But he could. If all he did was choke up a bit with two strikes, he would strikeout half as much and pick up an extra 30-50 hits. What a crazy concept. That's the selfishness factor for me and that's why I can't stand him.

SI is reporting Manny Ramirez has been traded to LA and a third team is involved.

Schilling would know what a clubhouse disruption looks like, or someone not working in the offseason and showing up 20lbs overweight :p and I'm not sure he's really spending much time in the clubhouse this year (wasn't Ortiz there when on the DL but Schilling off at home?)

More seriously and ignoring the messenger, I don't get this line of argument. No one has ever given a convincing argument that "clubhouse chemistry" actually detracts from a team's performance on the field. Do guys like Varitek or Youkilis not try as hard at the plate because they had a bad day? Does Beckett or Lester not give 100% on the mound because Manny's in left? If they actually do, what does that say about them? And if they don't, then where does it hurt the teams on field performance?

I'll take an OF of Manny, Milton Bradley and JD Drew with Bonds at DH any day of the week.Yeah, we've definitely never seen Manny not running out ground balls or heard about him being a clubhouse cancer before. Say in 2004 or 2007 for example. He clearly made those teams worse, and it's only my love of numbers and lack of ability to watch a game that lead me to wanting Manny on the team.

Or maybe you're in the group of fans that doesn't want someone in "their" uniform unless they're perceived to be a good guy. FWIW - Varitek is an asshole, You is a douchebag and Pedroia is the cockiest person I've ever met. What goes on outside the lines has no effect on who I cheer for on the field and vice versa.


Bay to TB might not have gone through.

Good, screw those greedy Marlins.

Anyway, the debate over the existence of "chemistry" is an old one, and I feel the same way as I do about the existence of "clutch".

It's pretty obvious to me that both exist in my own life experiences, whether at work, or wherever, so I don't see why sports would be the one exception. Some people perform better in high-pressure situations than others, and groups that get along tend to perform better than groups with a bunch of assholes that nobody likes.

And like I said, I don't think we're really disagreeing that much - I wouldn't give Manny away for peanuts, but I certainly would trade him for less than equal value.

So latest word is that jason bay is going to Boston and Manny to the Dodgers. The Pirates are getting four minor leaguers.HA-ha where for the Marlins to screw themselves (and there fans) those greedy assholes:)

I doubt your conclusion about the amount of extra hits he could get, but either way, I don't see how a guy who leads the league in walks could be considered selfish. And I certainly don't mind a guy swinging away when he's 5th all-time in At Bats per Home Run.

Manny + Kent in the same clubhouse = :popcorn:

Because nobody does it anymore. The level of control you get by choking up is amazing. You sacrifice the power but you can get on base a heck of a lot more.

I agree it matters in basketball, football, soccer, lacrosse, sports like that. I just think baseball is different because it's such an individual sport. I can remember playing 2B with a 1B I hated. We would yell at each other all the time but I can't think of a single time it negatively affected me in the field or at-bat. When I played with the same kid in pick-up basketball games it would destroy the team if we were together.I think the debate is just over what "equal value" is. Clearly Manny's bat is better while his replacement would be better defensively and baserunning. The big X-factor is whether/how much chemistry issues matter - I think their effect is marginal while some are acting like they are so detrimental it's close to DFA'ing him.



Heyman at CNN/SI is reporting Moss+Hansen from Boston and Laroche and Bryan Morris from LA to PIT (Best part is his headline is right above Rosenthal: Manny Deal is Dead). Good deal for PIT if true - that's 2 cheap league-average starters and a potentially good bullpen arm. No idea about Morris.

Holy crap.

Yeah, I wasn't that excited about Manny straight up for Bay , though I knew "A" prospect would be included. However, I had no idea that the Sox would have to cough up Moss who is a decnt backup rightfielder and Hansen who has sucked so far but was a very high draft pickk with tons of upside. We really just gave whatever we had to. I also, think that if it wasn't for the last hour interest by the Devil Rays (same division as sox) the Sox wouldn't have agreed on this deal. So I think we wanted to get rid of manny but at the end we just wanted to keep the DevilRays from getting Bay and thusa lock in the East division.

Contrary to what many may think after my line of argument, :) I like the deal we got in the end, even if we pay the $7 million on Manny's deal. Jason Bay is close to equal on Manny once you factor in the extra relatively cheap year of control. Moss is a solid major league LF, but like David Murphy last year he was never going to get a chance in Boston. Hansen has the potential, but clearly needed a change of scenery. Hope for the Pirates sake his arm doesn't blow out and he locates his pitches - if he does, next year people in Boston will be bemoaning our bullpen and asking why we can't get guys like that (similar to Cla Meredith and Duchscherer among others from past years) and the Pirates can get a couple more prospects for him.

So it was basically Manny and an inconsistent 6/7 inning bullpen guy who might have developed into a setup guy. We didn't give up prospects that could have helped the club in future years.But Dunn getting on base just clogs up the basepaths.

lol

:(

a guy like Dunn just clogs the bases up.

Really a good trade for all 3 - Dodgers fans must be crapping themselves, they weren't even part of the discussion until today.

The thing with a guy like Dunn is he is who he is, you can't try to re-invent him.

If you try to make him into a .300 hitter all that is going to happen is his mechanics are going to get messed up.

It doesn't make him selfish, it's just the kind of player he is.

Wow... Pittsburgh ended up with a MUCH better deal than they would have gotten with the Florida proposed deal!

I wish Manny similar success to what Nomar and Pedro enjoyed after they left town.

I can never root for bay again. good to see him go to a team in contention however. Know nothing about the specs other than Hansen was supposedly highly regarded at one point. I would have preferred hermedia just cause he's above league average in the past and still young. A lot of people will probably dog the Pirates for not getting a ton for their guys. But even with a couple more average pitchers this year they would probably be at .500 or a few above right now. I wonder if this means they will bring up Andrew mcclutcheon now or continue to let him develop.

I'm not that impressed with Moss or LaRoche (unless it helps his brother hit in the first half). I know Hanson is a high potential guy but has had many chances already and probably isn't a future closer if Capps recovers. What about the other guy from the Dogers. For some reason the Tampa offer impressed me the most.

Moss is a solid MLB regular, but he never would have gotten the chance in Boston - certainly not while Tito is managing (Moss should have been getting more AB's over Coco and Ellsbury when Ortiz was out. If he didn't get his chance then, when would he?) We have multiple solid AAAA outfielders to backup in addition to Coco - Van Every if we need someone to play the field, Chris Carter if we just need a DH/PH for September.

The only options to replace Manny as our big RH bat this offseason would be signing Teixiera to a huge deal and moving Youk from 1B where he's borderline GG to LF where he's average defensively, trading for Bay where we would have had to give up more straight up with the Pirates instead of having LA add Laroche, or trading for Holliday from Colorado, which would have cost as much or more than Bay (and his road splits are a big decline.)

In 2010, maybe Josh Reddick will be ready, or we can resign Bay if he does well here. Then we have to start worrying about replacing Ortiz/Drew as the big LH bats (Lars should be ready by then.)

Hansen has the potential, but he's still not throwing strikes. He's also out of options, and it wasn't guaranteed he'd make the roster next year. Combine that with the injury risk from his delivery and he (along with Moss) is much better for the Pirates than us. I wish we had gotten something to replace him in the pen this year like Ron Mahay, but hopefully Hunter Jones gets his chance now.

Why not? He's always been a good player for the Bucs and apparently a good guy, too. I despise the Red Sox but I still hope Bay does well there.

Why doesn't Andy LaRoche impress you? He has some really nice stats in the minors.

Piss on the beaneaters

Anyways I guess laroche is supposed to be good at some point. I could deal with a two laroche infield I suppose. I wonder if this means they project Alvarez as more d a rf or if this was just a deal for now.

Anyways I have the feeling that in 2 years well be having the same conversations about doumit to the yanks and mcloth to the sox. Or vice versa.

Niemann has #3 potential, but Brignac is ridiculously overrated. He had one good offensive year in the CAL league, but is Brandon Wood redux.

LaRoche is a much better talent who should have been playing earlier in LA. Similar to Moss, but LaRoche didn't have better players blocking him.

Hansen's a lottery ticket. He has the stuff, but his control is off. In the minors it was because Boras changed his delivery and he lost his slider, but even now that he's gone back to his orginal, violent delivery he still throws too many balls and walks too many guys.

I knew LaRoche was a high end prospect, but didn't realize how good his minor numbers were. I do get concerned when even top prospects bat near the mendoza line in the first 100 or so games. I know limited sample, but worries me as a leading indicator.

I have no problem with this trade, the goal realistically is to be competitive in 2010 or more likely 2011 and Bay and Nady probably aren't part of that plan. I think McClouth and Doumit will still be under Pirates control in those years.

I could see the pirates over 81 wins next year and in the wildcard mix in 2010. By then they will still have to find a middle infield and have the dollars to keep mccloth doumit and mahalom

Their revenue's also on the rise ($137 million last year), so they've set themselves up if they increase the payroll (they spent 60% of their revenue on payroll in '04, and only 39% in '07). If they get back up around 60% they'd be close to $85 million or more, assuming continued revenue increases.

(all according to Forbes.com)

A few thoughts....

Boston has only Boston to thank for Manny's attitude. He's been doing this for years but now that he isn't the MVP candidate that he once was, they've decided he wasn't worth the headache. Bay is an upgrade for Boston in the sense that he is cheaper (not that money really was an issue) and he isn't a headache. Then again, I can't see how Jason Bay will scare pitchers like Manny did. That isn't a good thing for Drew and Ortiz. And Bay is coming into a stadium that is better for hitters, he's also going to the AL and has struggled in interleague play. And now he's in the midst of a playoff race.

As for the Dodgers side. I like the idea of getting some sort of power hitter for the team. And LaRoche hasn't quite panned out like the Dodgers hoped (But neither did Edwin Jackson either), but now the Dodgers are paying like 50 million dollars to three OF's, two of which probably won't be on the field other then in situational roles. But who wants Pierre for his contract duration or Andruw Jones?

I think the Dodgers have no interest in picking up Manny's option and will be happy to take the draft picks

They are going to have to make some moves to reach either of those goals, I think. They currently only have one player with a .900+ OPS (Doumit), 2 players with a .850+ OPS (Doumit and McLouth). Meanwhile, Jack Wilson (.666), Freddy Sanchez (.603), and Jose Bautista (.745) will continue to receive a ton of AB's until LaRoche supplants at least one of them. The other LaRoche is a servicable below-average player for his position. The Pirates lost their two best offensive players this year (even though Nady was a perfect sell-high candidate). Doumit is having a classic 27-year-old breakout year, but I think he should be able to maintain an .800-.850 OPS over the next couple of years. The rest of the lineup will be filled with prospects who could pan out and players with limited ceilings.

I'm not sure that lineup can compare with the rest of the offenses in the division. And then there is the pitching (the weaker part of the team). It is young with upside, but the Pirates haven't done so well in developing young pitchers. This year, Maholm (3.79) is the only starter with a sub-5.00 ERA. I have no confidence that any of the three other young guns, Duke (5.27), Snell (6.04), and Gorzelanny (6.57) will ever approach their ceilings.

While I think the influx of young talent is nice for the Pirates, I think next year is going to be uglier than this year. They need to add a few components and hope that by 2010 things will start to turn around.

At least you have some hope, though. I'm a Nats fan. :(

I appreciate the analysis and I do agree with most all of it. Laroach and moss are both going to get a long look the rest of the year in the starting lineup. The offense obviously will go down the rest of this year but I think guys like Sanchez and laroache were headed back to their historic levels.

The pitching is obviously shit. But hope springs eternal.

Neal Huntington said Joey bats is a utility hit as of now. He will probably get non tendered or traded.

Sanchez has been an amazing out machine all year. They did some crap with batting the pitcher eighth and I was waiting for someone to tell him how many more runs would be created by moving Freddie to the bench.

And here I thought Tampa just dropped the "Devil" in their name.

Curious, but what's Manny's WBA or whatever when he decides to not play because he doesn't like the pitcher going that day?

Two things occur to me about this deal:

1. I am more interested now in watching the Dodgers play.

2. As a fan of a team that has been swept twice by the Red Sox in the postseason in the last four years, Ortiz-Manny-Lowell scared me a lot more than Ortiz-Bay-Lowell does.

Dont forget JD Drew!

I'm not.

The same as JD Drew's or David Ortiz's when they're injured. And infinitely better than Jason Varitek's, Julio Lugo's or Alex Cora's when they are in the lineup.Hey, that's the reigning World Series MVP! :lol:

Hey, Bug?

Red Sox are picking up the tab on Manny's contract this year.

Manny agreed to decline arbitration in exchange for the Dodgers declining his '09 and '10 options.

This isn't costing the Dodgers a penny in real cash.

And AS MVP. And I still don't want him anywhere near a team I like.

Only All Star MVP...Lowell was the 07 World Series MVP.

FWIW - 'Tek signed autographs for all the neighborhood kids on halloween and sat out front of his house in newton in a lawn chair, youk stopped for burritos for the team on his way to the park earlier this year and signed autographs for the hundreds of middle school kids who were at the burrito place (early release day), and I have nothing to say about pedroia

So the Dodgers can still offer arbitration and pick up a couple draft picks? That makes the deal much sweeter.

I think the Pirates did very well, overall. I'm not as down on them for the Nady/Marte deal as I am high on the Yankees for making the trade and I like the Bay trade.

One of the Pirates biggest problems is outside of McCutchen they have damn near nothing in the minors. These two trades gave them quantity in Moss, Hansen, Morris, Ohlendorf, Karstens, Daniel McCutchen. They got quality in LaRoche. Then they got a high upside gamble in Tabata. Not bad considering what they gave up.

These are moves the old front offices in Pittsburgh were unable to make. I don't think the Pirates are going to be good in '09, but the creativity and willingness to deal Huntington showed is definitely reason to believe the Pirates will have another winning season eventually.

I do have faith in the current regime that they will find talent and help it develop. For insance their shoestring budget bench has come up huge this year. The Doug m guy with the hard to spell last name has been much more versitile than I thought. He's played third and right good enoughn to spell some guys. Plus he has that classic gritty white boy hustle team leader thing down pat and only makes about a mill. He will Be a good manager in the future

The pitching being this awful is not a good sign however. I dunno if doumit not being a great catcher is some of the problem. It can't help. If they can get guys back to merely pitching average next year they should improve some. Although they obviously lost a lot of offense.

Laroache just has to work out and right now his major league record is weak. Hopefully he can inspire his brother to hit before July. When Adam is on he's a fuckin beast. He was killing the ball for about the last 100 or so AB before he got hurt. Before that he was weak sauce

Doumit and mclouth really responded well this year which is a great sign obviously. With the power porch in right they could use another lefty power bat. I think moss and Andy are both rightys though. They have jobs to lose

I'll amend my statements if they don't pay the ransom for Alvarez. They knew going in he was an excess of 10m guarantee guy with boras so they better not go cheap and claim foul play

Hansen might get a look at closer. He probably has better stuff than capps. I'm glad capps was hurt cause he was getting lit up before he went down.

I sure hope zach duke is hurt. Otherwise he needs to get sent down or moved to the pen. 11 something era in his last 5 starts. He's never going to be the elite guy he flashed as a rookie but I don't think he's this awful. Although his last 2 years seem to indicate he does suck.

I'm fine with Votto. Look at you, Lathum. CIN > NYM?!!

Boston Red Sox - Ramírez lobbied to stay - The Boston Globe

Of all the Manny moments in Boston, the last ranks as one of the most confounding. Within an hour after Red Sox general manager Theo Epstein informed Manny Ramírez he had been traded to the Los Angeles Dodgers Thursday, Ramírez's agent, Scott Boras, called the Sox back, according to a source with direct knowledge of the negotiations. If the Sox dropped the option years on his contract - which they had agreed to do if they traded him - Boras said Ramírez would not be a problem the rest of the season.

For the Sox, the source said, Ramírez's pledge of good behavior only served as a tacit admission that his disruptive conduct of the last couple of weeks had been calculated, and they had had good cause to suspect more was in the offing if they did not trade him. The Sox told him thanks but no thanks, what was done was done, and pack plenty of sunscreen.

You think Manny realized he overplayed his hand at the end?

Gawd, Gary Matthews Jr. is such a waste of a player.

Just had a fun little scuffle in the Royals game. Olivo gets hit (again) by the White Sox- that's gotta be at least 3 if not 4 times this year. Probably not intentional this time with the bases loaded, but it was already 6-0 and looking worse.

Olivo runs out at the pitcher but gives the pitcher a second to react and Pierzynski grabs him from behind. So he gets what he really wants, a chance to punch AJ, who looks like a real tool with his goofy blond hair, a couple of times.

Also, John Buck gets to enter the game as a friend of mine put it, "using a little poetic license", as a pinch runner.

I would not be surprised to see a White Sox, particularly AJ, hit later on in the game by a scrubby reliever for the Royals.

SI

Oh, and Teixeira is great. Thank you, short porch in Yankee RF.

I think GMJ owes Teix a chocolate shake or something.

Apparently there are no limits to the depth the Angels will go to hand this game to the Yanks. Maybe they're trying to help the Yanks get into the postseason to make sure they play them there.

It's now a tie ballgame. Two more errors let the Bombers tie it up again in the bottom of the eighth.

People should be watching this for the pure comedy.

Comedy. ARod hits an inning-ending double play ball with the bases loaded. Except Figgins boots it. Everyone safe. Still one out. And now we're losing.

This is just pathetic. Three errors in this inning. Four in the game. A fifth (also by Figgins) was ruled a hometown hit. Absolutely abysmal decision making by management in the sixth in keeping Lackey in. And wasting some terrific play by the offense trying to generate runs with Vlad on a day off and Torii in Arkansas for his grandma's funeral.

No one's watching this?

Another ball off of Figgins' glove into left field. It probably deserved the hit it got because it wasn't an easy play, but it was made hard because Figgins leaned the wrong way off of the bat. It was definitely a makeable play. More runs score.

Oliver then struck out Sexson for the second out which should have come seven batters ago. Good idea, Darren. If you strike them out, the ball never has a chance for our pathetic defense to fuck it up.

Well, out of the inning. We allowed so many runs, Rivera doesn't even need to come in.

I was watching and couldn't believe how they were giving them runs.. The Nady homerun then the Tex slam was pretty entertaining ball.

I was also watching the Angels make 4 errors and give up 10 unearned runs, it truly was comical. The new additions in the Yankee offense, Nady and Pudge, came up big today. The new addition in the Tigers bullpen, Kyle Farnsworth, blew the save.

never!

Votto is a nice player but hasn't shown the development I expected from him. He seems to get HR's in bunches then dissapear.

This is only Votto's first season. He is hitting .270-something with 13 homers with 60 games to go. I mean, we lived with Sean Casey hitting .300 with 2 home runs a season for like 7 years. I think Votto has a chance to get there within the next year or two.

His defense needs some work though. He has botched more than a couple of simple bouncers to first this year, and needs to learn when to come off the bag to avoid an error instead of trying to pick a bad throw clean, then watching it bounce into the seats.

Manny has had a solid three games thus far. 8-13 with 2 HR's

Nah, he got exactly what he wanted, the option years waived. I don't think he cared whether he went to LA or stayed in Boston, as long as he could be a free agent at the end of the season.

Boras talked him into it so he can get a cut of Manny's new contract (that's what Boras does, it's Boras first, client second) - it's certainly no slam dunk that he can find that $20/year million in free agency, especially after all this.

Woohoo, first place for the Twins! And they've managed to get there even with Go-Oh For Four-mez in the lineup everyday.

Hey, we did our part in KC this weekend. Hell, we'd like our fruit basket at the end of the season for helping you out ;)

2-7 Twins
5-7 White Sox
6-3 Tigers
4-4 Indians

SI

After incident with the champagne Torii Hunter sent the Royals in 2006 I'm not sure we can do that.

Thanks though. :)

Ozzie admits to ordering past retaliation - MLB - Yahoo! Sports


So telling the truth might get you suspended

If all players told the truth teams would have trouble fielding an entire roster.

Yes, because no one has ever come back from a 6-0 deficit with 5 innings to play. Give me a fucking break. Did Ozzie stop pinch-hitting? Allow relievers to continue to be smacked around, because after all, the game is over, why waste any of your other pitchers?

There's a lot of really stupid unwritten rules that must have been established during the dead ball era.

If you watch the fight, it was clear Olivo didn't want to go after Carrasco. He gave DJ quite a bit of time to react and didn't really go after him. But as soon as Pierzinski tried to get him a little harder, he went right after AJ. Olivo is built like a fireplug- he didn't want to go after the spindly pitcher, he wanted the bitchy opposing catcher and he got his wish.

SI