Daily Links - The Happy 4th Edition

Happy fourth!

Link time!

The trade deadline is fast approaching and over at The Yankee Analysts they're talking, of course, about the ...Red Sox? Well, yes. The topic du jour is whether or not the Red Sox can and should trade for Jose Reyes. It's an interesting idea. The Sox could, in theory, add Reyes defensively as there are no shortstops in the majors or AAA who come close to the production Reyes can offer.

A larger question is would they win the bidding that would almost surely accompany his entry into the marketplace, and the largest question is, should they. There's certainly an argument for it. In the abstract, writing "Jose Reyes" into the lineup every day sounds like a good thing, but specifically it depends. It depends on the Red Sox financial information (which we don't know; i.e. can they take on payroll?), and it depends on the Sox and Mets evaluation of Red Sox prospects. Seems to me some non-Boston team would have more to give up and would give up more for the star shortstop. Of course there will be more to come on this and other related questions as July 31st approaches.

After a winter reading about how perfect Fenway Park will be for Adrian Gonzalez, Gonzalez has started out a bit slow. But now he's crushing the ball. This brings Steve Slowinski asks over at Fan Graphs to askt has Fenway helped or hurt Adrian Gonzalez? The answer is, of course it's helped. Duh. But it's worth seeing how much and in what ways.

Micheal Bourne wishes Astros fans were more like Red Sox fans. Winning a few games now and again might be a step down that road.

The Baseball Prospectus folks give us their All Star selections (free), both as a group and individually. My only quarrel is that Dustin Pedroia was left out unilaterally yet Robinson Cano received numerous starting votes. Pedroia had a tough first two months, but right now he's leading Cano in WAR (Fan Graphs version) 3.8 to 2.5. Pedroia's defense is light years ahead of Cano and Pedroia's OBP is similarly impressive comparatively speaking, coming in at .394 to Cano's .343. A vote for Cano is a vote for slugging percentage, homers, New York, and reputation. Also Pedroia's been a better player than Cano over his career. Ben Zobrist, by the way, has Pedroia bested by 0.2 WAR. So there's that.

More BP: Larry Granillo goes through all the teams and comes up with the players who should have their numbers retired for each (free). For the Red Sox he lists Wade Boggs. Boggs was a great hitter for many years for the Red Sox and would no doubt have his number retired by the team except for this one little thing. Granillo writes,

There's no legitimate reason that Wade Boggs shouldn't have his number along side Yaz and Williams (and above some other, unnamed numbers). The club must really dislike that Yankee Stadium victory lap.

Well, yeah. No legitimate reason other than that very legitimate reason. Boggs spent eleven years in Boston before joining the Yankees for five seasons. Boggs wasn't a bench player for the Yankees for half a season. Over a quarter of his career was spent as a Yankee. During that time he won the World Series with the 1996 team and famously rode an NYPD police horse around Yankee Stadium in full uniform waiving to the crowd. Sadly that pretty much disqualifies him.

Finally, when ever Wade Boggs comes up in conversation I have to link to this. Happy fourth, Red Sox nation. Have 64 on ol' Wade.