Kalapse

All I said was I'd take that TYPE of season from my leadoff guy every time, I didn't say anything about signing Scutaro.

QUOTE (bucket-of-suck @ Nov 26, 2009 -> 10:04 PM) Seriously, Swisher is exactly who he described. Average speed/.370 OBP ...and a horrible lead off hitter for the Sox after April of 2008. I was thinking more along the lines of what Marco Scutaro did last year, good contact (.282 AVG, 75 K), very good OBP, decent speed and not much in the way of power.

QUOTE (Jordan4life @ Nov 26, 2009 -> 02:09 PM) Well yeah. I mean that goes without saying. I can't support criminals. But Bonds is certainly no criminal. Not even close. Well technically he is. All the illegal drug use aside; perjury is a felony.

QUOTE (caulfield12 @ Nov 26, 2009 -> 01:59 PM) JJ PUTZ is a "gap" signing? REALLY? Are we now the NY YANKEES? It'll be interesting to see what kind of attention he gets, he's been hurt the past 2 years, terrible last year and bad in '08. He can't be considered a big time reliever at this point. 1.6+ WHIP the past 2 seasons combined with a BB/9 of 5.6. Though he's definitely not a scrapheap guy.

QUOTE (Jordan4life @ Nov 26, 2009 -> 02:00 PM) He's one of my idols. I've never cared about "character." Can you help my team win baseball games? That's all that matters to me. I really can't cheer for Brett Myers, anyone like him or any team he plays for. You really need to draw the line somewhere.

QUOTE (Tex @ Nov 26, 2009 -> 01:58 PM) I don't either, but neither do I think they have a terrible reputation or where as guilty as other teams. I believe Bonds would change the reputation for the worst. Which unlike pre-caught Clemens, no teams where really beating down the door to add him for a stretch run. Then we shouldn't have signed Andruw Jones.

QUOTE (Tex @ Nov 26, 2009 -> 01:50 PM) With one signing the organization would go from one of the cleanest to one of the dirty ones. No thanks. I prefer Thomas' legacy of 'roid free to having the poster boy wearing a Sox uniform. Now, if Ricky thought Ricky could still lead off, let's bring Ricky out of retirement Our catcher of the future is a roider, god knows how many others on the current roster and more than a few have gone through our organization in recent years including a couple from the '05 team. I don't think the Sox are all that clean.

Alex Gonzalez signed with the Blue Jays; 1 year, $2.75M.

3 shorties in 25 minutes?

QUOTE (maggsmaggs @ Nov 24, 2009 -> 07:41 PM) I have just watched season one and two in basically week. Onto season three as we speak. Though it might be harder because I had my friends DVDs for season two. I'm doing the same thing with Mad Men right now. I've been pretty sick for the past 3 days so I decided to finally get around to watching the show. I've burned right through the first 2 seasons watching one right after the other. There being only 13 episodes a season makes this less impressive (sad?) I did the same thing with Lost last year and a few other shows in the past. TV shows in general are just so much better when you watch them all for the first time in a marathon fashion as opposed to 1 episode a week. I had been watching Dexter since the beginning but I stopped midway through the 3rd, I'm looking forward to catching up.

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ Nov 25, 2009 -> 09:24 PM) After April he hit below .200 the rest of the year. I really wonder why Texas didn't want him back. As long as he doesn't play too much, its fine, they can always release him if he struggles and JR won't have a heart attack. I just hope Quentin and either Pods or Crisp or whoever else they get to play in the OF can stay healthy. I really don't think Danks will be ready to play regularly in the big leagues in 2010. Aside from April and May he didn't hit for much of an average, that's never really been his thing, he's going to draw walks and hit homeruns significantly more so than Josh Fields. He was great in April, respectable in May, bad in June, great in July and then he strained his hamstring at the beginning of August and struggled in his 76 AB. He was streaky, that's kind of why he's a bench player.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Nov 25, 2009 -> 08:07 PM) How many 40 man spots do we have available still? 1 with a couple of duds on there that should probably be dropped.

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ Nov 25, 2009 -> 07:06 PM) Maybe you should check the numbers. The last 3 years he's 220 for 1062 a .207 AVG. with 46 homers and 286 strikeouts. Over the sam period, Fields was 149-644 with 30 homers and 218 strikeouts. Sorry he's not a huge upgrade. He's a slight upgrade, and that might be optimistic. I certainly wasn't complaining. .338 wOBA last year from Jones. Fields put up a .336 in '07 and a .287 last season. Chances are you're getting an upgrade here. Even if you could get Jones's .317 from '07 that's a substantial upgrade from Fields. I don't think Andruw Jones is anywhere near as bad as he was in 2008, all his peripherals were way off from his career norms, those corrected last year and he produced nicely.

QUOTE (Melissa1334 @ Nov 25, 2009 -> 07:01 PM) i know,i was saying we need a leadoff hitter,that speed at the top Speed be damned. Give me a guy with average foot speed and a .370 OBP and I'm golden.

QUOTE (Melissa1334 @ Nov 25, 2009 -> 06:47 PM) then why all the talk about having a "leadoff" guy? Because he bats in front of your best hitters, that's why OBP at the top is so damn important, you need to get guys on base for your RBI men. The word "leadoff" refers to leading the top of your order, not batting first in an inning. That's why the phrase "he leads the inning once a game" is irrelevant, he's not batting at the top to get your inning going, he's there to kickoff the best part of your lineup.

John McDonald re-signed with the Blue Jays; 2 years, $3M.

QUOTE (Tex @ Nov 25, 2009 -> 05:53 PM) Sadly, with our current line up, he could be a late inning defensive sub. We only have 1 corner outfielder right now and our CF is an elite defender, little early for this kind of thinking. I'd also say the Vizquel signing improved our team defense quite a bit.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Nov 25, 2009 -> 05:48 PM) The difference in price between flowers and any other backup C should be miniscule. The league minimum is $400K and Henry Blanco made $750K last season.

UPDATED VERSION [11.25.09] (CLICK FOR FULL SIZE) Added Andruw Jones

QUOTE (Sec101Row1 @ Nov 25, 2009 -> 04:14 PM) Dewayne Wise signs with the Phillies Minor league contract. Apparently he couldn't find a major league deal, the Phillies are a curious choice; they have the best outfield in baseball and plenty of depth.

QUOTE (YASNY @ Nov 25, 2009 -> 03:25 PM) I don't know Kalapse, I think a lack of conditioning 2 seasons ago ... with his past ... kind of indicates that it just might be an issue. Besides, I seem to recall Cox wasn't real enamored with Jones at the end of his Braves career. He wasn't near the the defensive force that last in Atlanta that he had been prior. And that's why at age 33 no one is counting on him to start. If he wants to stay in baseball then he's going to have to conform to team demands much like he did last season, given the investment there really isn't much to worry about here. It's not like we gave him $4M to be our starting CF, he's making near league minimum to hit the ball hard and play the field every once in a while. He was starting to get people talking again last year until he strained his hamstring, there's still that possibility of a nice payday if he can put up a big year.

The Sox are the only team really doing anything right now, the fun doesn't normally until the Winter meetings (Dec. 7th-10th) but Kenny likes to get work done around the holidays.

QUOTE (YASNY @ Nov 25, 2009 -> 02:52 PM) My gut reaction is to disagree with the general concesus of this being a positive move. First of all Jones has a rep as player who dogs it, just ask Bobby Cox. He was almost certainly a roider who hasn't been able to cut the mustard lately. Now, he may be hungry and wanting to prove a point and could have a great year, but personally, I doubt it. I hope the concensus is right and I'm proven wrong, but this is the way I see this move. Low risk, lower reward. He took to the role last year and played well. The power is definitely still there so even if is/was a roider you're still getting that good pop. He's being brought in to start only occasionally but mostly to act as a 4th OF (he's should still be a good CF) and provide good right handed power off the bench along with good plate discipline. It's been 11 and half years since Bobby Cox pulled Andruw Jones off the field and he failed in LA largely due to a lack of conditioning, this wasn't a problem in Texas and really shouldn't be a concern here. If he preforms like he did last year he'll be more than worth the $550K price tag and ~300 PA afforded to him.

QUOTE (qwerty @ Nov 25, 2009 -> 06:31 AM) The list should completely have with who is type A, who is type B, and who isn't anything. I'm sure it would be beneficial for many here. Happy?

His OPS was right around .900 when his hamstring started bothering him last year (about 250 PA into his season, beginning of August), it turned out to be a strain and he spent 15 days on the DL because of it. He was having a hell of a year as a part time player before his hamstring started acting up.