he does not even check his facts. It is one thing to say things for the sake of speculation that may or may not be true, but to just be plain wrong on one of your main points is reason to just not read further.

The Sox have 2 crappy back-up level SS-that we can all agree upon. However, the Sox OPS from the SS position (717 in 84 PAs for Lugo; 783 in 114 PAs for Green) ranks 4th in the AL. Yes, it is also 4th in the AL East, but outside of the AL East not a single team has a SS with a 754 OPS. Texas is real close. All the rest are not even close. If you want to make a point about our SS’s-talk about their defense, not production.

The rest is typical Mazz, from his man-crush on the exposed Holiday to guys that we would not get to guys we have discussed to stupid ideas…

if he is attainable for less than we think, why did the Nats sign him for 20 million? I mean, they didn’t think they would contend did they? Sure, if that is all it would take, I would be for it, but seems really strange a team that has never contended yet always tried to hold up deals for too much would ever, ever go for that.

We don’t have anyone with power in the farm system? I know that prospects are not as valuable as proven players, yet I don’t think its worth it to give up the entire farm. We should have just paid Adam Dunn some money this off-season and not wasted all our time on Texiera.

I believe they should trade for Adrian Gonzalez, move Youk to third, Lowell to DH, and jettison Ortiz..

San Diego would want a bunch in return but for the long term it would be worth it to have gold glove type corner infielders for the next 5-6 years.

That being said they must re-sign Jason Bay!

David Ortiz: It was great while it lasted, but it was over the day Manny left. Other teams will still pay big for a marquee player who will generate attendance lagging at other ballparks.

Daisuke Matsuzaka: Can’t go more than 4-5 innings and can’t win a game. The acquisition was huge, but the scouting has proved less than accurate since Dice joined the team. Worth is unlimited in a trade.

Jed Lowrie (maybe): Will the wrist ever heal? Who knows? Let another team take the chance.

Rocco Baldelli: Probably worthless in a trade. Stupid for Theo & Co. to pick him up in the first place. Maybe can be traded as part of a package?

Julio Lugo (maybe): An underperformer who still has value. Give Nick Green a shot or keep him as backup and get rid of Lugo and Lowrie and bring in a marquee shortstop.

There are more great players who may become candidates for acquisition than are referenced in this article. Francona is loyal to players to the detriment of the team. I love Big Papi and respect all that he has done for the team, but he is done. Gotta go. These other players are, in one form or another, either dead wood or accidents waiting to happen. Some of them (Ortiz, Matsuzaka, Lowrie, Lugo) have tremendous value in the marketplace and should command great prospects while reducing payroll or, at least, not raising it to Steinbrenner proportions. Just my thoughts. Feel free to disagree.

1. Re. Ortiz: Not every ball club has the luxury of selling out every game. There is still a perception by some that Ortiz’s best years are not behind him. He didn’t start to suck until Manny left. Injury or no injury, Papi’s “problems” are not entirely physical. He is still considered a “draw” to some clubs and a deal might be reached that is not as bleak as your post suggests.

2. Your point about Dice-K is well taken. However, what good is he to the team when he cannot last past a few innings and his “couple of bad outings” have been costly to the club. There is no doubt that he could supply the team with high level prospects in a trade.

3. I respectfully disagree with your Baldelli analysis, especially when you take out the salary issues. Nothing for nothing always equals nothing. I submit that he adds little to the roster.

4. You may be correct about Lugo. Again, we are talking about someone who adds little or nothing to the team currently and, as you correctly point out, we are paying him nearly $10 Million for his presence on the team.

5. The prospects may be the best thing we have going for us. Our farm system is second to none and I would be very cautious about giving away our future for some bigs. If it is possible, and you may be correct that it just is not, we should be trying to rid ourselves of some of our high salary / low performance players for guys with proven or potential success.

6. Your proposition about Penny only makes sense b/c he is, as you point out, short term. I like him and I have been pleasantly surprised by his performance to date. However, I disagree with the proposition that we can get an average prospect for Penny in trade. I don’t recall much of a bidding war when we picked him up. He stays because at best it’s a wash if we trade him, at worst a bad trade that will only reduce the depth of the pitching staff.

You made some great points in your post and I stand corrected on some of my ideas, but by opening with “you are an idiot” you reduce the strength of your good arguments. Last time I checked, we are both after the same things — another WS ring and not sacrificing the promise of additional titles in the years to come in our attempts to win a world series this year.

has been great this year, but I just think that, at some point, Theo and co. are going to want to jettison him to make room for Smoltz/Buchholz (you could even throw Bowden in there, depending on how high you are on the kid).

I think under normal circumstances, you’d be right that the team shouldn’t trade a player like Penny. But since he’s only on a cheap one year deal and will probably fetch a good amount, plus the fact that the team needs to clear a spot because of their starting depth, in this instance they should trade him.

Unfortunately, I don’t think he’ll be a particularly interesting piece to either of the teams that have the guys I really would want for this team: Cleveland (Martinez) and Washington (Johnson).

I am going to throw this out there and I expect to get a lot of resistence on both sides (not enough to get him and also giving up too much).

I think Theo should go now to the Marlins b/f somebody else does and offer Buchholz, Bard, Lugo and tons of cash (throw in a minor league IF if you need to) for Hanley Ramirez. It may not even be enough and he may not be available (although I would hazard a guess that just about anybody wearing a Marlins uni is available at some point during every season) but if Theo can pry HanRam away from the Marlins, it would solve the SS position debacle he started as soon as he let OCab go after the ’04 WS win. And, Ramirez adds legit 30 hr power and 30 stolen base potential to boot from the SS position.

I know it is a lot, but I think HanRam is worth it and would love to see him in a Sox uniform (again).

In the Hanley trade scenario I presented, the farm would still contain Lars, Bowden, Reddick, and a few others. Buchhy is a lot to give up and Bard throws 99 mph heat (pretty straight heat in the games I have seen so far). They need a bat and they need a SS (I do agree with Mazz there – SS, DH, and CF have been light in the hitting dept). Hanley is one of the top 10 players in mlb today. Take a chance and get a SS and a hitter in the same deal.

let’s go back to Pittsburgh and get a “young” CF. Yup we got Ellsbury, and let’s keep him too. But our outfield is still short a good RF. I’m not nor ever have been impressed with JDD. So, with a 4th outfielder you could use any of them as DH (much better #‘s than Ortiz) and let the other 3 hold down the OF duties. So let’s go after Nate McLouth. He’s 28, hits lefty, plays all 3 OF positions, got some pop (like 25-30 HR), K’s alot less Ortiz or Drew, got some speed (20+ SB/ almost never gets caught) and hits around 265. What would them want for him, don’t know, but it’s the best at the lowest cost to the Sox i can find.

Papi’s dropoff is not normal. A great hitter doesn’t simply forget how to hit. I’m sure the Sox have been studying the tapes, but i wonder if Papi has developed some eyesight problem. I think we owe it to him to try to figure out why he has had this catastrophic crash in seeing pitches (late on the fastball, early on the change) instead of merely getting rid of him.
Ells is another problem. He’s a lousy lead-off hitter who doesn’t get on base enough, a decent but not outstanding center fielder, and a player whose strength, his speed, is likely to diminish quickly. I don’t know why we didn’t keep Coco instead.
Kotsay is not a major league DH. Drew has the OBP to bat second, but he doesn’t get enough hits to move Pedey to third. If we can’t get Ortiz back on track, we’re in trouble. None of the usual suspects—Martinez, Cust, Holliday, etc—can replace him. I don’t think we can count on Tek and Bay to continue their heroics all season. Vizquel isn’t the SS he used to be,and he can’t cover for Lowell’s problems going to his left. Our best bet, assuming that the starting pitching will return to form, is to package Lugo and a prospect for an outfielder, bring up Anderson, and try him at first/DH to spell Lowell (Youk to third). And hope that when Lowrie gets back he’s the second coming of Pedroia; he sure looked like it in spring training. If we’re in the top five in OBP, ERA, and defensive efficiency, I like us a lot.

If Jed Lowrie were healthy. Theres no doubt in my mind that the first piece of flotsam that we need to unload is Julio Lugo…..Offensively, He’s mediocre. Defensively, he’s a walking bobble….He causes so many errors other infielders error as well.

Why is no one on earth mentioning him? am i correct in saying that our two problems are stability at shortstop and the the lack of production from Papi? well why not kill two birds with one stone, get an elite shortstop who can take over the three hole or hit clean up. I would give up buchholz, delcarmen, and kalish. oh, and lugo.

Here’s one out of left field, literally: Marcus Thames. Thames can mash, has a game suited for the green monster, and can spell Ortiz at DH while Big Popup figures it out. He also doesn’t fit in the Tigers’ plans, who have been rotating young talent (Clete Thomas, Ryan Raburn, and Josh Anderson) while Thames recovers from an injury. (He’s had 6 hits and a walk in his last two games for Toledo). Also, the Tigers will have Carlos Guillen back at some point.

What would it cost? Mark Wagner would be who the Tigers want, and might even be willing toss in a not-quite-as-far-along catching prospect to make it happen.

If Ortiz was hitting his weight, and Beckett and company were pitching to the standard we are used to seeing, then we would be in first by six games. In my opinion, Theo isn’t going to do much if we continue to stay near the top of our division. No one is going to give us a big bat for Penny. I’m not sure you touch our kids, unless you bring in supreme talent. Beckett is aging, and at the end of a contract. Daisuke is solid, but not our ace. Lester is going to be our workhorse. Four and five can be argued for the next couple of years. Getting rid of Buch and Bowden would be a mistake imo. Starting pitching is very hard to come by, and lets not forget the division we play in is stock piled with great young pitching.

I think Pittsburgh would consider trading Freddy Sanchez if the Sox covet another infielder who can play Shortstop. He is on par with Lowrie as a glove but hits more consistently. Sanchez was always a gamer in the Sox organization playing through nagging injuries and like and he is a simply a BETTER player than Jason Donald will ever be.
The key to the Sox’ SS woes is not to upgrade the glove at the expense of the offense. As someone said, they are around #4 in the League for SS offense and they should try to stay in that range and find a way to move Lugo. Lowrie & Sanchez would do fine with Green back on the AAAA shuttle where he spent most of his career waiting for an injury.
Sanchez also gives the Sox a chance to DH Lowell on occasion as Freddy can play several infield positions.

 Do you think Branyan from Seattle could be an option if Ortiz keeps sliding.