Love the Powder Blues
While the Sox maintained their one game lead in the division with a 5-2 win over the A’s last night, the big news in the AL East came out of Toronto. Though J.P. Ricciardi hasn’t officially declared his team a “seller” heading into the All-Star Break, and the trading deadline at the end of the month, he has made it known that he would entertain offers for his biggest asset, Roy Halladay.
Now don’t get all excited, because there are a few obstacles to the Sox landing the 32 year old Toronto ace. First and foremost are the pieces that they would need to give up to acquire him. Theo has been careful to avoid unloading the future of the franchise for a few years of a superstar (which Halladay isn’t simply because the team around him sucks), and Halladay is only under contract through next season, which would necessitate a huge contract extension to get more than a year and a half out of him. Clay Buchholz, Josh Reddick, Michael Bowden, Lars Anderson, Ryan Kalish and Daniel Bard are all guys that would be in play in any deal, and those are the guys that Epstein has been so reluctant to trade.
He's the Ace. You don't F@#$ with the Ace.
The Sox also don’t really have the motivation. They have one of the top staffs in the league, a devastating bullpen and the best record in the AL. Their areas of need are at third base and righthanded bat, provided Lowell isn’t able to return from his stay on the DL with that hip injury. The key in any Sox involvement here would be to prevent the Yanks from getting him, and by that, taking the position of dominance in the division.
The best part of this whole thing is that the Sox already have a guy who showed last night that he was the definition of an Ace. His Name is Josh Beckett and he has one of the best post season records in the league. He is now 6-0 after the Sox lost the game before, and 5-0 in front of the Fenway faithful. He is 10-3 with a 3.62 ERA after having a shitty April (2-2, 7.22) and would be one of the front runners for an All-Star start if he weren’t already scheduled for a start on Sunday (the game is tuesday night, which means that Wake should get the start). For the month of June Beckett was 4-1 with a 1.51 ERA. Are these awesome stats doing anything for you? Beckett does not need to be replaced.
He hit his 20th home run last night, naturally.
This is what you get for using steroids: Douche-Rod had a grand slam taken away from him last night by Carlos Gomez of the Minnesota Twins, who has been known to make some nasty catches out there in the Metrodome (the guy really is fun to watch, especially when he does it to assholes), and the Old Left Fielder had a hiss fit on the diamond at Citi/Taxpayer Field in Queens and got tossed from the game. We can laugh at their misfortunes because they are cheaters and deserve to be kicked in the testicles repeatedly.
Also, Don’t Smoke Crack.
Go Sox.
Done.
Let me unretard everyone: The reason we have prospects is for situations like this. The road to World Series Ringdom is littered with Clay Sucholzes and Michael Blowdons. In the offseason, there are a handful of teams that can compete in a bidding war for a guy like Halladay, but there isn’t a single team in the game that can out-prospect the BoSox. We build up our farm system and beef up these guys’ trade values by saying “no” to a few bad deals so that when the time comes where we can ADD one of the best pitchers in the game to two of the best pitchers in the game, the greatest knuckler ever to play and not have to give up a single MLB body, accept maybe to clear the roster spot, you trade the entire city of Pawtucket and a province to be named later.
Smoke crack.
Let me, um, re-retard people? The issue isn’t this season. It’s the ten years of facing buchholz and whoever else you have to ship out for the guy and the fact that you only have him for a guaranteed year and a half. And you face them 19 times a year. The primary goal here should be to direct him away from the yanks and towards somewhere harmless like the national league. We can win it all this season without him.
Smoke Pot.
I’m petrified of whatever minor league team Bucholz will spend the rest of his career on.