Cheech Tremendous

No, you're wrong. Boston had already agreed to trade for Giles. That's not a block. Also, any speculation that it was a block was shot down by the local Boston reporters right away. It's still unclear what his role would be, but for $8 million (remaining '08 salary + trade kicker + '09 buyout) it wasn't to screw Tampa and it was definitely not for 2-3 starts per week. There would have been some sort of OF/DH rotation had the trade gone through, and despite what you want to think, Ellsbury would have been the odd man out. Man, you've really been on my case since I started posting again. I don't know anything about Giles as a person, but I find it hard to grasp why a player would choose to ride out a season for the worst team in baseball over having a legitimate shot at a ring, be it in Boston, Tampa or Anaheim. San Diego has 19 home games left this year. It's not like he has to uproot his family. It's just an extended two month road-trip. The guy would be a free agent at the end of the year anyways. He would have gotten a nice $6 million out of the deal as well.

The book was fantastic, but I don't feel that the source material would lend itself very well to the big screen. Hopefully I'm wrong.

Josh Smith has signed a five year, $58 million offer sheet to play for the Memphis Grizzlies (!). The Hawks have one week to match the offer. They've previously indicated that they'd match any deal, but I wouldn't put it past that ownership group to screw this up.

Brian Giles used his no-trade clause to block the deal to Boston. I was positively giddy about the idea of adding him to the lineup. Have fun wallowing away for a team that might lose 100 games instead of competing for a championship fucker.

Just got done checking the odds for the basketball tournament. US is the favorite to win the gold at 1/5, followed by Spain at 5/1 and Argentina at 12/1. This is absolutely preposterous. Anyone who has paid attention to international basketball over the past ten years would find it hard to accept the Americans as the favorite, let alone a runaway favorite. The US team can win the gold, and they probably should. However, this team is really no different than the ones that failed in 2002, 2004 and 2006. They are still porous on defense, shaky in the post and inconsistent with their perimeter shooting. Rebounding is an issue as well. The problem is not the talent level, but the way the team approaches the game. While they generally had no problem in the warm-up games, it was still obvious that they want to play NBA basketball instead of FIBA basketball. That's going to cause a mess of problems when they get to the medal round.

I love Jericholic.

This might be a dumb question, but I haven't been around in a while and I've missed a lot. Why is the Comments Which Don't Warrant a Thread topic back? I thought everyone loved when we got rid of it. What happened to Town Hall? Or Q&A?

Heh. So I guess the TNA Exodus is over then?

I said I hoped that it meant Ellsbury would go back to AAA, not that he would. Two nice games in a row doesn't hide the fact that he's been fucking awful this year and the bottom third of the Red Sox lineup hits worse than a Little League team. Give him a month to work out his problems and bring him back up when rosters expand. I know he's the centerfielder of the future, but he's not doing anything to help this year's team win a WS. Oh, and let's no go overboard about his defense. Right now he's fast, and well, that's about it. He has some work to do before he becomes an elite outfielder.

Buster Olney reporting that the Red Sox put in a waiver claim on Brian Giles and are in active trade discussions to acquire the veteran outfielder. One can only hope that the plan is to shift Drew to center, put Giles in right and send Jacoby back to AAA. However, I fear that this may have something to do with Papi's creaky wrist or Lowell's bad hip. In other news, the Tampa Bay Rays acquired Chad Bradford for a PTBNL. Bradford strengthens an already awesome bullpen for TB.

I hate the fact that this thread will probably be my legacy at TSM.

If K-Rod gets 60 saves he'll win the the Cy Young going away... and sabermetricians will cry themselves to sleep.

I've convinced myself that I have an outside shot at the playoffs if I can pick up some pitching before the deadline. I'm willing to offer up some of the young studs I have (Andy LaRoche, Jeff Clement, Lastings Milledge) as bait. Any takers?

Whoa, what's that about? I said the Dodgers got a steal in acquiring Manny for LaRoche. Don't get so bent out of shape over a joke about his defense.

Don't worry Dodger fans, I have an idea on how to deal with Manny's defensive deficiencies.

I'd like to mention one last thing about Manny to the Dodgers. Los Angeles made a hell of a deal to acquire the bat they were looking for, but watching Manny fumble around in the spacious confines of Chavez Ravine is going to be something to behold. There's not really a way to describe how bad he is defensively and having to cover another 50 feet or whatever of outfield is not going to improve things. And this:

You think so? Brandon Moss wasn't a top 10 prospect heading into this year and he didn't exactly light the world on fire in his stint with Boston. He's got marginal power, which makes him a liability offensively for a corner OFer, but he lacks the defensive chops for center. That smells an awful lot like a 5th outfielder to me. Maybe he'll blossom with a starting job in Pitt. Can't say that he's ever been much more than organizational fodder in Boston, however. Craig Hansen is a wreck. If the Pirates can fix him, more power to them, but I wouldn't hold my breath. He averages almost two baserunners per inning and thrives on filling up the bases to make things more difficult. The slider's devastating (when he can find the plate), but he doesn't trust his stuff at all. He was supposed to be major league ready in 2005 coming out of St. Johns, but he's only gotten progressively worse since then.

No, I don't grasp it. Great teams with great managers are supposed to be able to overcome this bullshit. Why isn't Terry Francona, who's reputed to be one of the better players' managers out there, able to reach this guy? Is he too upset about being banned from wearing fleece? What happened? These things should be overcome. Maybe part of the problem is that the organization has been openly treating him as disposable for about five years, which is certainly not as smart as, say, putting luxury seats on the Green Monster. They tried their hardest to placate Manny for years, but everyone has a breaking point. What more can you do with the guy? He openly dogs it when he's not happy and makes crazy trade requests out of nowhere. The front office is tiring of this act year after year, Tito can't reach him anymore, his teammates openly despise him and the media's running him out of town (didn't anyone actually read that Peter Gammons article)? I don't understand the hand-wringing over a 36-year-old .900 OPS free agent to be with abysmal defense and laughable baserunning. Manny is not a baseball god. He's a malcontent making $20 million. How does one deal with that? Okay Czech, purveyor of wisdom, how does one "reach" Manny after he stands with his bat on his shoulder in the bottom of the 9th against Rivera with the bases loaded to prove a point? How do you get warm and snuggly when he takes himself out of the lineup against contending ballcubs because he's sad about making $20 million next year? Where's the love when he takes 5.7 seconds to get to first base in the midst of his team being no-hit? What do you do when he sits out the final month of the season because the team isn't in the pennant race? Enough is enough.

By going from Manny to Bay, and considering the free agents they have, they should have $30-$40 million to play with this offseason with the only true question mark being an upgrade or replacement at catcher. That gives the team a ton of flexibility to try and do something about SS or CF.

Your first impulse was the correct one, because now the Red Sox are not as good as they were with him. I think Red Sox management has gotten a little cocky. When they jettisoned Nomar, that was different, because he was still old and bad, and improved by replacing him. This is different. How long does Boston have Bay? I disagree. When considering offense and defense, Bay/Manny is probably a wash or a minor downgrade at worst. But now they have the Manny conflict settled and have their right-handed power hitting LFer for next year at a $12.5 million discount. And do that they just had to give up their 5th outfielder and heart attack inducing Craig Hansen? I can live with that. I don't think you grasp that Manny had to be moved. There was no other option. Granted, you never want to move one of your best players in the middle of a pennant race, but all things considered the team came out well.

The Red Sox overpaid for Jason Bay, but I'm just happy that Manny is gone. Moss and Hansen are decent, cheap players with upside but I don't see us crying over the loss in the future.

Boston Globe says: Manny to Dodgers Morris (AA pitcher from Dodgers), Hansen, Moss, and LaRoche to Pittsburgh Bay to Boston

Yeah and about 590 of them came when he was still a halfway decent ballplayer. Ken Griffey is a league average hitter and a below average defender. He's an upgrade over Paul ".650 OPS" Konerko, but that's not saying much. And since when is Jason Bay overrated?

Bay to the Red Sox. Manny to the Dodgers. Details on the way. EDIT: I'll wait to hear which prospects they had to give up, but provided it's not one of the top guys I'm ecstatic.

I questioned the Sox deal a bit when I thought Griffey would DH and spot the guys in the corner, but CF? Are the White Sox fucking crazy?