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Personally I'm not a big Dontrelle Willis fan. It's highly possible that he's this generation's Mark Fydrich or Fernando Valenzuela, there just isn't a whole lot to go on. So far he's only pitched two full seasons: one of them was pretty damn good, and the other was pretty brutal, especially when you consider that the 4.02 ERA he put up was in the NL in a pitcher's park. His rookie year was a bit of a mixed bag: he dominated early and was decent later in the year, but he got absolutely rocked for a while in August. He's not a guy I'd personally be that interested in acquiring. I realize that as a GM if that deal proposed comes up you have to take it. However, we all know that it wouldn't, and as long as we're speculating on stuff like that, there are maybe a dozen pitchers I'd rather deal McCarthy for in the theoretical realm.

We don't necessarily have to keep the guy on the major league roster. Granted I don't know all of the rules, but Houston took Will Taveras from Cleveland and payed them to keep the player. They then sent Taveras down to AA and obviously called him up for this season.

I'm too lazy to do it the hard way, I just bought a team signed photo. The only players that were on the roster that it was missing were Everett, Harris, and Widger. As for getting them the hard way, I'd just keep an eye out. Sometimes a notice will come up in the paper that someone will be signing somewhere. Obviously Soxfest is the easy answer if you can get a ticket. Another good option is some of the larger card shows in Chicago. I think the big Sun Times sponsored show was a couple of weeks ago (I know at least a couple of guys were there), but there should be at least one more later in the year (usually one in like August, and I think late March). Obviously you have to pay to get them, but it's a bit easier than trying to track down whatever guys you are missing at the game or at Spring Training.

It took us quite a while to hear about our tickets. We put our order in on the Monday night before the World Series started, hoping to cash in on the WS tickets deal. We lost out however, and didn't get a return call to get our ticket order in until the first week of November (think it was like the 3rd or 4th that we found out where our seats were). However, I'd imagine that the traffic will be a lot slower right now for orders, so I'd expect that you'll hear from them in the next 48 hours.

Personally I'd rather have Best Buy cards than Sox stuff right now, since I already bought so much stuff with the Sox logo on it. I'm getting older now anyways, so my haul is nowhere near as large as it used to be. :PI'm trying to decide how much to rub it in, since it seems like many of my relatives are Cubs' fans. I think I might buy a book for one of them called "The Million-to-One Team: Why the Cubs Haven't Won a Pennant Since 1945." Outside of that, I think I'll be more reserved unless provoked.

Great, so now they have one legit OF in Pierre. They'd have definitely been better off with Furcal however, and they only have Pierre for one year. Not only is Pierre a possible liability defensively, I'm not sure I'd count on him hitting as well as he used to this year. One thing to consider is that for a slap hitter like Pierre, you'd rather play in a spacious park than a band-box like Wrigley. There's less ground for the OF's to cover, meaning some of his bloop hits and hanging liners aren't as likely to fall in for a hit. That can easily be the difference between .300 and .275. That also probably robs him of most of his triples and possibly a couple of doubles. Furcal has more gap power and relies on bloop hits less, meaning I'd expect him to hit for a comparable average and considerably more power. Another possible issue is that they don't have a good small-ball type player that consistently makes contact behind him like Luis Castillo (is Walker going to start? If so, that improves the situation a little, but not much). That will hurt his run production because he will probably be forced to try to steal more often in order to get in scoring position, especially since Baker doesn't seem to be a big fan of bunting the guy over or using the hit-and-run. Unless Lee duplicates his performance of last season (highly unlikely), I don't see Pierre having the impact that they hope/think he will.

MSU will be a tough team as the season progresses. As of right now it looks like their defense still needs some work. Neitzel is playing pretty well, which helps them considerably. He needs to be hitting the open shots when the ball goes into Davis or on penetration by their wing players. One thing that would really put them over the top is if Sutton or Gray turns into a real PF toward the end of the season. They need someone that can help with their post defense and rebounding. They don't need their PF to score that much because of their other options, so it's possible. From what I've seen, Illinois isn't there yet. Dee and Augustine are their only two players that they can consistently rely on, and if Dee isn't shooting well (like most of this year), things can get ugly. They should have handled UNC and Xavier fairly easily, but they struggled. I'll admit both teams have some talent, but they are also flawed teams, and a team like Illinois that has two senior leaders that were part of a Final Four run probably should have handled them more easily. They need someone else to develop into a reliable third scoring option (I'm not counting Smith because although he scores, he's been very inconsistent. That 23 point game is propping up his average). I'll be very interested to see the Illinois-Georgetown game. Georgetown is a big, atheletic team that could give Illinois problems, although their best two players (Bowman and Green) have struggled a bit early. Illinois is going to need a decent game to get by the Hoyas.

Put me on the list of guys that would love this trade if we pull it off without giving up B-Mac (can't see them trading him). I like Crawford a lot. He's pretty good with the bat, has decent pop, phenomenal speed, and from what I've seen is a very good fielder. He hasn't played that much in center of late, but he obviously can cover a lot of ground with his speed and has a decent arm. You'd like him to take a few more walks, but I can live with a .330 clip out of the 2-hole with his other talents. I'd imagine it'd really cost us to acquire him however, and pitching prospects would be key.

QUOTE(ilsox7 @ Dec 5, 2005 -> 03:46 AM) The BCS only works when there are two undefeated teams. Any other year, it does not work. I'd much rather go back to the traditional bowl tie-ins with the occasional split championship than allow some system to hypocritically choose who should play in a pseudo National Championship game. Last year, you had 3 major teams undefeated and 1 mid-major. Why was the BCS formula good enough last year to choose which 2 teams got to play for all the marbles, but that same ranking formula isn't good enough to use to fill out the remainder of the BCS Bowls? Or how about those years when there is 1 undefeated team and 4 or 5 with 1 loss? Again, you allow some formula to choose which of those 4 or 5 teams gets to play for all of the marbles. The BCS solves absolutely nothing unless the perfect scenario of 2 undefeated teams come to fruition. And time has shown that this scenario does not happen al the time. In fact, since 1998, a season has ended with exactly 2 undefeated teams only 3 times. So what about all of those one loss teams or 3rd undefeated teams that get screwed by the BCS formula? It's no better than the traditional bowl system, IMO. Of course, to end all debate, hold a 16 team playoff. You cut the season back to its original 11 games, therefore 2 teams in the country play 15 games. Big deal. They are playing 13 as it is. I'd still rather have two teams that are generally considered the best in the country play each other as opposed to everyone being spread out. That way teams are arguing over who had a chance to play for the national championship as opposed to who the national champion is. The old system wouldn't exactly have solved anything either. USC would have played Michigan, Auburn would have probably played Oklahoma (or maybe Texas), and Utah would have probably been in some crappy bowl game. You'd still probably have 3 undefeated teams, maybe 4, and no consensus. With that system you don't really determine a national champion. The only way that way works is if you have one and only one undefeated team. I don't really see how that is any better than the BCS. The only time you're really going to have a beef with the national champ under the BCS system is when you either have no undefeated teams with 3 1-loss teams or if the one undefeated team loses to a 1-loss team in the BCS title game. You've really only had two years in the BCS when you could make a case that the team that should have been the national champ didn't play in the title game. One is the year Oklahoma and LSU played for it and USC got screwed. That's a situation that neither system can resolve, because determining the difference between several 1-loss teams is very difficult. The other situation occured last year, when Auburn and Utah were still undefeated at the end of the year. I personally didn't have a problem with that one because most people seemed to believe that USC and Oklahoma were the two best teams, and that Auburn and Utah served more as fly-in-the-ointment than real title contenders. Auburn may have had a chance, but I personally don't think they could have beaten USC anyways. The real answer is a playoff, but you have to limit it to 8 teams tops. Otherwise you limit the impact of the regular season drastically. Personally I think 4 teams would work, but 8 includes more teams and limits the controversy. However, in the abscene of that, I'd rather have the two teams generally considered to be the two best in the country play each other than the old way. In my book there is nothing worse than a Nebraska-Michigan like split title, or a situation like in 1994 when PSU and Nebraska were the only undefeated teams pre-bowl game, both finished undefeated, and yet Nebraska got the title because the voters thought that they were better. That's not how you determine a national champion.

QUOTE(Palehosefan @ Dec 5, 2005 -> 01:07 AM) Something else odd is that he was ranked 26th in his class coming out, not 26th overall, but the 26th best shooting guard in his class. Yikes. He was even listed as a SG? I'm not surprised that he was rated that low. How often do you see a big time prospect go to a school outside of the top conferences? Not everyone can get the big time players, and someone has to score no matter what team it is.

This signing doesn't worry me at all, since they are probably not going to add Millwood or Burnett. That means their rotation is going to take a hit, because Byrd is a passable #3 at best. His ERA has been in the high 3's the last 3 seasons, which is decent but not stellar. They still need another starter and another bullpen arm. I've been saying several bullpen arms, but then I looked at the numbers again and some of their guys are decent (like Cabrera, Miller, Rhodes, and Betancourt). they need a real closer pretty badly though.

I've always wondered why people felt this way about video games anyways. I don't see why regulating this should be any different than music or movies. People just seem to overreact about video games. So he basically wants to change the age for mature games from 17 to 18 (At least I think it's 17 now. It isn't an issue for me) and ID people when they buy these games like it's cigarettes or alcohol? How hard are those to get for underaged people?

QUOTE(ilsox7 @ Dec 4, 2005 -> 06:31 PM) It's a long debate. But the current BCS system is worse than both a playoff and the old system. How in any way is the poll system better than the BCS? You're going to let a bunch of sportswriters and errand boys for the head coaches determine the national championship? The BCS isn't perfect, but it's a lot better than the polls. If we still had the old system, USC would be playing PSU in the Rose Bowl and Texas would be playing Georgia in the Fiesta Bowl (or Sugar Bowl, whichever that setup used to be). Both teams would have a very good chance of winning, and we'd have solved nothing. About every other year, their isn't a whole lot of controversy with the two teams and they get a chance to settle things on the field. Even some of the other years the controversy is a bit overblown. Yes, a 4 team playoff would probably work the best. That way the regular season is still as meaningful as in any other sport, and you get a little more chance to settle things the right way. Then the controversy is a little lower on the totem pole, and there are usually only about 4 teams that stand out (this year isn't really one of them, although it probably would be USC, Texas, PSU, and OSU).

They are so screwed now that the player they had a man crush on is gone. The best they could do now is like Alex Gonzalez and Jacque Jones unless they decide to overpay for Damon. Looks like a 3rd place type year.

QUOTE(YASNY @ Dec 3, 2005 -> 02:32 AM) You base a large protion of your argument that prior to '05 Garland would only win 12 games per year and was 5 games under .500. Then, in a previous post you say, "(especially if you throw out wins, since that is highly dependent on other factors)" thereby discounting wins as a relevent stat. Also, more of those in disagreement have said that Jon would have to have a similar year in '06 to what happened in '05 if he was going to be a $10M per pitcher. You argue your point by saying, "The difference is going to be whether he has another 18 win 3.50 ERA year or if he puts up something like 14 wins with a 4.10 ERA. That's going to be what determines whether or not he makes more than $10 mil, not his age, what guys have gotten the last couple of years, or how badly the Yankees or Red Sox need pitching." How did I base a "large portion" of my argument on Garland's win totals? I only mentioned it in one of my several posts. I also mentioned it with his rather nasty career ERA every time I used wins, which is a bigger issue. The bulk of my argument was that he hasn't done too well most of his career, not that he doesn't put up good win totals. How am I supposed to quantify anything without using stats? Using terms like "mediocre", "decent", "solid", or "good" don't exactly help much, it's easier if I use numbers. Plus I only mentioned it because people seem to put value in that stat, although I personally don't. The half-run plus difference between the two is a bigger issue than the 4 win difference in my book, although I decided to put in both in to clarify.

QUOTE(nitetrain8601 @ Dec 2, 2005 -> 04:47 PM) Jon Garland was not brutal prior to this year. He was frustrating because he wasn't close to tapping his potential prior to this year, but he was an average pitcher at the very least. As someone stated earlier, he's also been a workhorse and good for 12 wins his whole career. Most of those starters have been as good as Jon if you discount Jon's last year. If you count that, he's better than them. And you're right. Starting Pitching is at a different market and if you think about it, it's more of a premium than hitting or relief pitching. Apparently you and I have a different opinion of brutal. I would think that a guy that we are talking about getting $10 mil a year in FA should have more than one year in which he was anywhere close to having an ERA under 4. Even with last year's 3.50 ERA his career total is over 4.40. That's a #4 starter at best, not a guy who should be talked about as an ace. He's going to have to prove that last year wasn't a fluke to have any chance at serious money. It's not like the guys making money were all absolute smucks either. Pretty much all of them had one year comparable to Jon's last year (especially if you throw out wins, since that is highly dependent on other factors), which is why he needs to seperate himself from the pack more. All of the guys that have gotten sizeable deals in the past couple of years have shown at least some signs of competency, like Jon last year. The difference is going to be whether he has another 18 win 3.50 ERA year or if he puts up something like 14 wins with a 4.10 ERA. That's going to be what determines whether or not he makes more than $10 mil, not his age, what guys have gotten the last couple of years, or how badly the Yankees or Red Sox need pitching. You missed my point on the "likely to improve" part, I worded it poorly. Guys like Clement and Burnett have elite stuff, meaning teams signing them obviously have hopes that he's eventually going to be an absolute shutdown ace. Teams aren't going to have that with Jon since he is not a strikeout pitcher that inspires awe in others. That will hurt his cause. The point is that the reliever's market is irrelevant because there's an entirely different pool of players available. It has nothing to do with the relative worth of the positions. It's obviously irrelevant to this year's starting pitching market too, since none of them have signed to ridiculous deals early like the relievers. Outside Burnett, these guys are going to have to wait and see what happens in terms of what they will make. The other point is that Jon isn't competing with the same amazingly bad pitchers that have gotten good contracts the last few years, he's competing with real and competent pitchers this time. Guys that have actually won 15 games more than once, guys that have actually pitched in the playoffs. Just because Matt Clement got like $9 mil a year doesn't mean that Garland is necessarily going to get $11 or $12 mil. He has to perform this year big time in order to earn that kind of money. Because of that, it's pretty meaningless to argue about what we all think he's going to get. I'd pay close attention to Kevin Millwood this year, as he'll be a half-decent guage of what Garland would get. He had a solid year, arguably better than Garland since he lead the AL in ERA, and he's had a better history of performance. He's also another pitcher that has less than elite stuff. If he ends up over $10 mil, than Garland might have a chance too even if he has a subpar year. If Millwood gets under $10 mil, Garland has very little chance because of the increased quality of the starting pitching market next season. Regardless of what happens with that, Jon is not going to get more than $12 mil a year no matter what he does, and he can't be merely passable if he really wants to get payed.

You're still missing the point. Many of these "mediocre starters" have been better pitchers over the last few years than Jon has. The guy has a 4.42 career ERA and was 5 games under .500 before this year. That can't be blamed on brutal pens or anemic offenses either like it can for some of these other guys. Jon was simply brutal before this season, plain and simple. Plus he doesn't have the electric stuff that many of the guys of his status that have been getting these contracts do, meaning it's harder to convince people that he's going to improve dramatically. Another major reason that these mediocre pitchers are getting these deals is teams that are trying to improve their pitching and there simply wasn't any quality pitching on the market. This makes what little crap is out there more valuable than it really is. Do you really think that the Yankees would have given Pavano 4/40 if any one of Jason Schmidt, Andy Pettitte, Barry Zito, or Mark Mulder were on the market? What do you think the effect will be when all of them are in the same FA class? There's going to be fewer massive contracts available to mid-level pitchers because the teams that have money to spend will go after these more proven guys. Plus by the same logic you're using to claim that Jon is a $10 mil pitcher, what does that mean guys with Cy Young awards are worth? $15 mil? $20 mil? There's only so much a team is going to pay for a starter. Maybe the supremely talented starters like Pedro and Bartolo Colon (forgot about him before, 3 starters over $10 mil. BFD.) can get significantly more than $10 mil. But that's about the ceiling for someone like Jon unless he has a season that is good enough to vault him into the category of the pitchers I previously mentioned. How good do you think your fan base is going to feel if they end up paying 5/60 for Jon Garland, a guy most of them have probably never heard of? That's why teams are going to get the best guy available first. There may be some big contracts handed out to starting pitchers, but Schmidt, Pettitte, Zito, and Mulder are almost certainly going to get them long before Jon does, making it less likely that someone with a ton of cash to throw around that is pitching desperate is going to splurge on him, unless he has a big time season. The money that the relievers are making is fairly irrelevant because it's an entirely different market. That's kind of like arguing that Jon is worth $12 mil because Paul Konerko got it. They fill entirely different roles on the team, and thus the amount of money people want to pay those players is very different. There just happened to be two very good left-handed closers available, something that is usually in short supply. A soon as one of them starts a game, I'll worry about how it affects Jon's value. As for their other relievers, overpaying for decent options is nothing new. The Yankees have drastically overpaid for guys like Steve Karsay and Flash Gordon (although that doesn't look that bad now) in the past, and guys like Armando Benitez and Troy Percival were getting some pretty big contracts too.

God, I am so sick of these Cubs' rotation versus our rotation arguments, especially when most of the people arguing don't look at it objectively. Outside of this season, what have our guys really done? Okay, Buehrle is a good pitcher and is the most consistent of the group, so we don't need to argue about him. Hernandez and Maddux are both pretty mediocre and old at this point, so let's remove them also. McCarthy is a rookie, so we don't really have enough information to really consider him either. For that reason, let's just deal with Freddy, Jon, and Jose versus Carlos and Mark. Freddy is a talented but inconsistent pitcher. He's posted three seasons with an ERA under 4 in his 6 years (one of them was shortened by injury), winning more than 15 games once in those years, and in two other years finished with more than 15 wins (this is back when Seattle could hit). However, you can also argue that he benefitted from a pitcher friendly park through most of his career. He's a pretty solid bet for over 200 innings and about 14 wins, but it gets dicey past that. He'll benefit in that department from more run support this year. Jon and Jose were complete hacks before this season, meaning who knows what you're going to get from them in the future. Jose was pretty solid early in the year and obviously good in the second half, although his playoff performances were only decent, giving up 3 earned in all but the Boston start. His numbers would have been better if not for a brutal stretch right around the break. His 4.50 plus ERA days seem to be gone, but I don't see him being as dominant as he was in the second half. His playoff outings seem to show that he wasn't quite as sharp as he was to end the season. Jon was brilliant in April and July, not very good in May, brutal in August, and pretty good in June and September. I'm not really sure what that adds up to. Basically he's still an inconsistent starter, but his lows aren't quite as frequent or bad as they used to be. I still wouldn't say that he's reached his potential with any kind of certainty as of yet. Both may be solid next year, but right now we just don't know. On the other hand, Zambrano and Prior are among the most talented pitchers in the league, and haven't underachieved as much as some make us think. Carlos has had 3 years as a full-time starter, and in those years he has posted ERA's of 3.11, 2.75, and 3.26. His win totals were 13, 16, and 14. Considering their frequent scoring problems and their abysmal pen, those win totals are pretty impressive. You can't blame all of the no decisions on Carlos throwing too many pitches too early. He can be inconsistent and run up pitch counts, but he's been their most dependable starting pitcher over the last three years. Basically, I'd say he's a younger, more talented, more consistent Freddy Garcia, who's cheaper on top of all that. He'd definitely be an upgrade to our rotation, and would be #3 behind Mark and Freddy at worst right now, and probably would be #2. Prior has had some injury problems (two of them were because of fluky collisions during the game), but has ranged from pretty good to dominant when healthy. His 2003 season was the most impressive of any of the pitchers on either team, following a pretty impressive debut season. His 2004 was slowed by injuries, but was still not horrible. His ERA was 4.02, and he only lost 4 times in 21 outings. The problem is he also only had 6 wins, meaning he had a whopping 11 no decisions. He had injury problems again this year, but still made 27 starts. On top of that, he overall numbers were pretty good. He finished 11-7 with an ERA of 3.67. He only had one bad start before he got nailed with the liner in Colorado, and had an ERA of 2.93 at that point. After one good start on his return, he got hit a bit, although he was decent to end the season. If he can avoid the fluke injuries like the collision with Giles and the liner off his elbow in Colorado, he should be at worst pretty good. You can say what you want about the AL/NL ERA difference, but Zambrano and Prior are two very talented pitchers that would be an upgrade over our rotation. Jon and Jose aren't even close to being as dependable right now, and the chances that the Cubs' duo outperforms Freddy are pretty good. That doesn't necessarily mean that they are guaranteed to do it, especially since Jon and Jose are major wildcards right now, and Jose has the stuff to be just as dominant if he keeps his s*** together. However, the odds are probably better that Carlos and Prior string together several good years from this point on, and would be much more valuable to our rotation considering their youth and affordable contracts at this point in their careers.

QUOTE(southsider2k5 @ Dec 2, 2005 -> 12:42 PM) You want to explain last years starting pitching contracts to me then? And how many of them got $10 mil a year long term contracts, like have been thrown around on this topic? To the best of my knowledge two: Carl Pavano, coming off a Cy Young-type season, and Pedro Martinez, arguably the best pitcher of the last 8 years or so. As I said, unless Garland has a season similar to what Pavano did right before FA, I expect him to get contracts similar to the Jarret Wright's, Russ Ortiz's, and Odalis Perez's of the world, only probably more years since he's younger. That's probably where he fits in: among the decent but not stellar starters (or in the case of Wright, mediocre guys with potential). In other words, probably 5 years for $7-$9 mil a year, depending on what kind of year he has and how desperate some of the fringe contenders are. I expect Schmidt, Pettitte, Mulder, and Zito to get the largest contracts of the group because they are bigger names and most people think they're better and more proven. Seriously, what has Jon done that makes him so much better than the likes of Ortiz, Clement, and Perez? The only possible argument is he won a ring, and since he only pitched two games in the playoffs you could argue he wasn't that important to the run. He's really done nothing to prove that he's among the elite starters, so until he does he'll probably be paid like those other guys.

QUOTE(Tony82087 @ Dec 2, 2005 -> 12:17 PM) Mike Hampton. First off, that contract was signed when everyone was being absolutely stupid about signing players to long term contracts, especially pitchers. Darren Driefort hadn't even proved anything as a starter, and he got $11.5 mil over 6 years even though he had never pitched 200 innings or finished a year with an ERA under 4. Second, Hampton had two 15 win seasons and a 22 win season under his belt before he signed the deal, and his ERA had been under 4 for the previous 6 seasons, with 4 of those being under 3.50 and one of them at 2.90. People forget that he was a pretty good starter before he fell apart in Colorado.

Come on people, Jon Garland is not going to be more than a $10 mil pitcher, and he's really going to have to kick some ass to get that. You need to ignore this year's FA market because it's abnormally thin and there is a lot more money to throw around than most years. He's not going to have as much demand as several of the other starters because he's not a strikeout pitcher and he's been historically mediocre. Even considering the other players available that are like him, his resume and reputation is much weaker than that of guys like Pettitte, Zito, and Mulder. The general consensus around the league seems to be that this year was a fluke and he'll go back to his old self next year. The guy has one good season in his 6th year in the majors, his 4th as a full time starter, and suddenly he's the second coming? He wasn't even that dominant, and someone is supposed to pay him like he's Pedro Martinez or Johan Santana? I can't even come up with 10 teams that he would be the unquestioned ace on right now. This is just like the Konerko situation, with everyone panicking that he's going to be on another team on a ridiculous deal like 6/100. Let's drop our Sox bias for a second and objectively look at him. He's a young pitcher (although he'll be 27 when he's a FA, which isn't all that young) without elite stuff that has had one good but not great year in his major league career, maybe two years by the this time next year. And he's going to get $12 mil a year for 5 years or more? Please. Just relax and let things happen, don't panick about what you think might happen if some GM has a brain fart.

QUOTE(Jeckle2000 @ Dec 1, 2005 -> 05:07 PM) Am I the only one who realizes that even 12-win Jon is worth about 7 mil a year in this Market... Next year if Garland has another CY Young type season don't be shocked if he makes that BJ Ryan deal look like chump change... I doubt the last part severely, especially the "another" CY Young type season since he wasn't even in the running at the end of the year. Pitchers are getting ridiculous deals, but not that ridiculous. Plus most of the guys getting the monster deals are more of the power pitching variety, something that Jon doesn't fit. Russ Ortiz is probably the best comparison style-wise. In the 4 years before he was a FA, he won 17, 14, 21, and 15 games, and only one of those years was his ERA over 4. Ortiz got just over $8 mil a year for 4 years. Carl Pavano had a Cy Young like season right before he hit the market, winning 20 games with an ERA of 3. He got just barely under $10 mil per over 4 years. His injury history probably dropped that a little, but pursuit of him wasn't exactly low. Odalis Perez is another guy who probably has a better resume than Jon, and he got $24 mil for 3 years. Jon's salary isn't going to be ridiculous even if he performs well this year, especially with bigger name options like Schmidt, Pettitte, Mulder, and Zito out there. If Jon has another season with an ERA of around 4.40 and 12 wins, I doubt he even gets $7 mil a year. He just hasn't shown a whole lot despite the fact that he's been in the majors for a while.

Shannon Stewart and Luis Castillo would be a pretty nice 1-2 punch. Their real need in the lineup is more power, however. Mauer is a pretty solid hitter but seems like a stretch to hit more than 20, and the same goes for Hunter (okay, he's more like between 20, and 30, but still not exactly a slugger) and most of their other players. They need Morneau to develop into the 40-homer beast many projected him to be, or at least have Kubel come in and be an impact player. Their lineup would still be far from stellar.

QUOTE(GreatScott82 @ Dec 1, 2005 -> 02:04 PM) Boston offers Manny Ramerez to Philadelphia for Bobby Abreu but the Phillies rejected! It doesn't look like he will be staying in Boston after all. Boston is shopping him not only listening to offers. Looks like the Ortiz-Ramerez power-combo is finished. Does this mean the Thome-Konerko power-combo is the new best in the AL? It depends on where he goes. If Manny were to actually go to one of the teams he wants to play for, I'd say Vlad/Manny or Hafner/Manny would be better, although the latter is highly unlikely. Depending on what kind of talent Boston got back, Ortiz and the new guy might still be better, like Abreu/Ortiz and the previously rumored Beltran/Ortiz. Also, there is a lot that has to go right for Boston to be able to unload Manny, so I wouldn't say that he is absolutely gone from the Red Sox until the trade is finalized. Either way, I'd still say that A-Rod/Sheffield is the clubhouse favorite at least until we know that Thome is his old self again if Manny moves.

QUOTE(witesoxfan @ Dec 1, 2005 -> 01:49 AM) I could very easily see this, but I'm not sure I see it this year. They will need a leadoff hitter this year, and I'm not sure exactly who they'd have leadoff if they were to trade Crawford. I will say that they do have a good young corps of hitters...hell of a scouting department they have. Crawford, Baldelli, Gomes, Young, and Garthright in the OF alone, to go along with Cantu, Upton, Huff, and probably others I'm not considering right now because I just don't know enough about the Devil Rays. If they were in any other division, they'd probably be 1-2 years away from being a hella crazy force. They're way off from having a competent pitching staff though, which kills their chances of really competing. Kazmir and Baez are their only legit pitchers, and IIRC most if not all of their top prospects were/are position players. They desperately need to deal Aubrey Huff for a #2 pitcher.