soxfan34

Even though the sox dont have manny, it is a good line up...its not all star like the yankees but ellsbury has the potential to be a good hitter, and when he's on base, its like getting a double or a triple, pedroia is awesome, youk is mvp material, i cant wait to see what bay can do in a full season, drew pisses me off because he can play so good sometimes, and other times looks like he doesnt care. Hopefully papi will have a good year, hope his wrist is better and his knees. We need a good hitting catcher too.

min0 lee

soxfan34

20 something

I Are Baboon

LOL..."playboy."

soxmuscle

I watched a special on this heavyweight last night.

Age: 20 | Height: 5'7" | Weight: 150 lbs | Penis: 12 inches

soxmuscle

20 something? What does that even mean, you stupid bastid.

Age: 20 | Height: 5'7" | Weight: 150 lbs | Penis: 12 inches

min0 lee

With all of those hitters the Bosox have they can get by without a good hitting catcher.

I imagine Varitek can still catch and throw? I always thought of him as a good leader...hence why he's the captain.

Plus how can you forget this moment?

min0 lee

oooo...is that Bostonian?

soxfan34

Doesnt your mother get mad at you when you post her picture on the internet? Id hate to see what your dad looks like

Are you the one in green you little choad

soxmuscle

Nothing makes me happier in an argument with a retarded Sox fan than when he's a J.D. Drew hater.

How does he not care or look like he doens't care? Explain.

Age: 20 | Height: 5'7" | Weight: 150 lbs | Penis: 12 inches

soxfan34

It means im between 20-29, do you want a book that explains it? You stupid bastid

min0 lee

soxfan34

Obviously you dont watch baseball then. Not only do i see it but listen to sports talk radio, WEEI for example they say it. Watch ESPN, they say it. Man you are fuckin' dumb!!!!!!!

soxfan34

Yes, great moment in sox history.....Pretty soon their will be a picture like that if sox"muscle" haha doesnt shut his pie-hole

soxmuscle

Varitek most likely won't be back, Min0.

At this point in his career, he essentially turns the Red Sox into a National League team. In some cases, he's worse at the plate (i.e: C.C. Sabathia) than having the pitcher bat.

Varitek had an opportunity to make $10 million dollars through arbitration next year. By declining the Red Sox offer of arbitration, he essentially screwed himself. No team is willing to give up a first round pick to sign the corpse that is, Jason Varitek. No team, at least thus far through the free agency process.

I think many fans would love having him back at the right price, but he simply won't accept the right price and has Scott Boras as his agent to prove it.

1st round pick, Josh Bard > Jason Varitek back at $10+ million per season for the next 2/3 years

Age: 20 | Height: 5'7" | Weight: 150 lbs | Penis: 12 inches

I Are Baboon

JD Drew was going through all sorts of personal shit in 2007 and was clearly distracted and visibly frustrated. He was a stud in 2008, when he was healthy. I don't get where the "he doesn't seem to care" stuff comes from, either. He doesn't stomp his feet and slam equipment like a Youkilis, but he plays hard and hasn't once given any Sox fans a reason to think he doesn't care.

min0 lee

They should really ban Scott Boras.

soxmuscle

No, I just want you to tell me how old you are.

It's mind boggling to me how a simple question can't produce a simple response. I don't want to know the ballpark of your age, I already did that myself yesterday and came up with 10-20. Now I want to know your exact age.

Thanks in advance for finally answering the question.

Age: 20 | Height: 5'7" | Weight: 150 lbs | Penis: 12 inches

soxmuscle

Hahahahahahahahahaha....

What the fuck does whats said on WEEI or ESPN have anything to do with this conversation?

I don't give two shits about what is said on ESPN or WEEI.

Tell me why J.D. Drew isn't a good player and tell me why "he looks like he doesn't try." Not ESPN, not WEEI.. I don't care what they have to say. I want to hear the life changing insight of one, soxfan34.

Age: 20 | Height: 5'7" | Weight: 150 lbs | Penis: 12 inches

soxmuscle

I had this argument the other day with somebody.

Drew had a .927 OPS in 368 at bats last season.

Only 12 players in the Majors last year had a higher OPS. In order Albert Pujols, Chipper Jones, Manny Ramirez, Milton Bradley, Lance Berkman, Ryan Ludwick, Alex Rodriguez, Carlos Quentin, Mark Teixeira, Kevin Youkilis, Matt Holliday, and Hanley Ramirez were the only players who had a better season than him.

100 more at-bats, at-bats he would have seen had he not been hurt, and JD Drew might be the MVP of last season, not Dustin Pedroia.

So, soxfan34....

If you want to argue whether or not he's injury prone, your argument might have merit, but saying he lacks hussle or doesn't try it times, just proves what you have ultimately proven all along: that you are as dumb as rocks and don't know your ass from your elbow when it comes to sports.

Like I said, go kill yourself.

Age: 20 | Height: 5'7" | Weight: 150 lbs | Penis: 12 inches

soxmuscle

Teams should really not hire stupid general managers who constantly fall for his shit.

I'm glad the Red Sox held firm and didn't give in to Scott Boras' bluffs. Lets be honest, Scott Boras told the Yankees how much the Red Sox offered and were allowed to beat that offer, something the Yankees will do 100% of the time.

If it were any other team who was in the lead for Teixeira's services, Teixeira would not be a Yankee right now.

Age: 20 | Height: 5'7" | Weight: 150 lbs | Penis: 12 inches

min0 lee

The Yankees make a lot of money and spend it on their team, it's not against the rules.
Like I said before, I would rather have an owner who spends his money on the team than...a owner who has to get rid of his players because of his divorce or the owner who buys the league, wins the World Series and then dumps his players the following year for them to lose 100 games or a owner who pockets the money.


KC Royals owner.
While Glass increases the value of his investment, Royals fans are stuck with baseball that's embarrassing and demoralizing. Kansas City suffers jokes by Letterman and Leno; Jimmy Fallon punked the Royals in Fever Pitch. It's difficult to imagine Kauffman ever allowing his investment to slip so low. But that's the difference between Kauffman and Glass, as businessmen, owners of the Royals and as community leaders.

Simply put, as long as the Royals continue to lose, there will be no statues of Glass anywhere around the stadium that bears his friend's name. Unlike Mr. K, Glass is not an entrepreneur: He has no long-term plan for building a successful franchise that will produce winners. Rather, Glass is modern CEO: He has worked tirelessly in the corporate boardrooms of baseball to ensure a healthy bottom line for his investment at the expense of the community that bears it. Glass was instrumental in establishing a revenue-sharing system in which the rich franchises compensate poor franchises. Essentially, Glass has led the fight to create a baseball welfare system that ensures that his investment makes money whether the team wins or not. Glass has shown that he is not interested in building a winning franchise that will bring sustained growth to his investment through gate revenues, merchandising, and other success-related revenues. Rather, he has taken care of his bottom line by aligning the industry structure to his interests. This, from the CEO of Wal-Mart, whose employees are reportedly encouraged to apply for welfare and public health benefits in small towns where the company won't pay a living wage.

Glass pays his baseball operations people far below the industry standard, he refuses to pay top prospects the signing bonuses of their peers, and he has squandered the Royals' best players by dumping salary and demanding too little in return. Baseball insiders have talked for years about the Glass family meddling in baseball decisions, leading to the disaster on the field today. For instance, Former Mets GM and ESPN analyst Steve Phillips told Kansas City sports talk radio that he knows "for a fact" that Allard Baird was not allowed to listen to deals involving Royals captain and perennial trade candidate Mike Sweeney. This year, Sweeney was booed after a check-swing grounder on opening day, and now has a bulging disk in his back that leaves him with almost no trade value.

At least Charlie Finley cared if Kansas Citians came to watch his ballclub. But David Glass doesn't need to care if they come to The K. When Glass' marketing department has to rely on Finleyian gimmicks like Hot Dog Derby T night, he sends the message that he, in fact, doesn't care. Because David Glass the CEO has established a winning bottom line for the losingest franchise in sports, Royals fans are a negligible commodity. Just as Charlie Finley is still hated in Kansas City for insulting it with gimmicks and losing baseball, David Glass is earning the city's wrath for forcing the team to give away T-shirts with hotdog condiments on them. Finley owned Kansas City's baseball team when just having a team was enough. But David Glass owns the team when the city needs its success, and he's being stingy on the hotdogs.

A city like Kansas City needs its professional baseball team to be successful. As the recently deceased Hall of Fame sportswriter and Kansas City community leader Joe McGuff noted, "Sports franchises are quasi-public institutions. You're saying to a community 'Come out and support our team.' It's 'our' team; not 'my' team. So I think that's ... it's very important that you have ownership that people have confidence in. There's no divine right that says Kansas City's always going to have major league baseball. That's always something you have to work for."

McGuff was instrumental in bringing the expansion Royals to Kansas City in 1969; 16 years later he threw out the first pitch of Game 7 of the World Series, in which the Royals brought Kansas City a world championship. More than anyone, Joe McGuff understood how professional baseball changed how Kansas City looked at itself, how the Royals brought pride to a city that lost much of its industry and stockyards, and now how professional sports helps give Kansas City an identity to fuel its urban renaissance.

On his deathbed, Joe McGuff told his award-winning colleague Joe Posnanski that "we have to keep the Royals." Joe knew that the Royals are tied to Kansas City's future. The city knows it too: More out of civic pride than a desire to watch Doug Mientkewicz bat third for a hundred-loss baseball team, Jackson County, Missouri voted nearly $500,000 in taxes to keep the Royals and Chiefs in Kansas City. With the passage of this tax, which hurts many of the area's poorest citizens, Jackson County truly owns a part of this franchise. David Glass may own the Royals, but they're more than a quasi-public institution to Kansas City.

David Glass still lives in the bubble of Bentonville, but $425 million says that he owes the community a return on its investment. In other words, he needs to understand what the Royals mean to Kansas City and act like a community leader. If Major League Baseball fails in KC, it tells the rest of the country that Kansas City isn't a viable American city. If the Royals lose in historically bad proportions, and is propped up by a corporate welfare system, it tells the rest of the country that Kansas City isn't a place you want move your company or your family. Simply put, the Royals being a national joke affects how others see the city.

KC Digs In

min0 lee

The Bosox offered him $170. he took $180.....his wife didn't want to go to Boston.
Other teams offered him good money.

soxmuscle

I don't buy the whole "his wife didn't like Boston" thing.

Using the Red Sox for the sole purpose of increasing the Yankees offer isn't a wise thing to do and Scott Boras knows this.

As he'll soon find out with Manny and Varitek, taking large market teams out of the market before the market even begins isn't a good idea.

On top of ruining potential destinations for his clients, the Red Sox have the second most money of any team in the league. It hurts Scott Boras more to have no relationship with the Red Sox than it hurts the Red Sox to not have a relationship with Boras.

As for the "Yankees aren't going anything against the rules" post. That's not what I said or intended to mean. The Yankees simply will not allow the Red Sox to outbid them for players of his caliber. They just won't. I think it's pretty safe to say that Mark Teixeira wouldn't have been a Red Sox if the Brewers were the leaders for his services.. even the Angels.

Age: 20 | Height: 5'7" | Weight: 150 lbs | Penis: 12 inches

min0 lee

I think it's pretty safe to say that Mark Teixeira wouldn't have been a Red Sox if the Brewers were the leaders for his services.. even the Angels.[/quote]



He simply didn't want to play for the Bosox.
For Teixeira, the choice was Yankees or Nationals

min0 lee

Red Sox didn't need Teixeira
Friday, December 26, 2008 | Feedback | Print Entry
Posted by Rob Neyer

The Red Sox are in trouble. Just ask Nick Cafardo …
The Red Sox never needed Mark Teixeira.
That's what I kept hearing from Sox defenders after the Yankees scored a knockout punch in the heavyweight fight with Boston. The Yankees, as we warned all along, swept in and grabbed the prized free agent of the 2008 offseason.
Of course the Red Sox needed Teixeira.
If they didn't, they wouldn't have offered an eight-year deal for $170 million. If they didn't, they wouldn't have flown to Texas to meet with Teixeira, then kept talking right up until yesterday afternoon when the Yankees came in and trumped them.
--snip--
The Sox were willing to invest in Teixeira long-term, even with young Lars Anderson about a year or two away from the big leagues, because they believed a player of his caliber would not be available again in free agency for a while.
--snip--


Those who think the Sox didn't need Teixeira can make the argument that they already have a pretty formidable team that reached Game 7 of the American League Championship Series. But they had targeted Teixeira as the piece that could take them over that hump.

Right. The Game 7 hump. Because everyone knows that winning one game depends on replacing one player with another, slightly better player.
I don't mean to pick on Cafardo. At least he does list all the counter-arguments, and falls short only in failing to realize that the counter-arguments actually carry the day this time.

Look, there's a big difference between needing and wanting. First, make a list of the things you want. Then make a list of the things you need. The second list is a lot shorter than the first, right? The Red Sox obviously wanted Teixeira. They've got an immense amount of money to spend, and there aren't actually many players worth spending it on. Teixeira is worth it, and the Red Sox know the math a lot better than I do. So, of course, they wanted him.

Needed, though? Hardly. Last season, the Red Sox outscored both the Rays and the Yankees handily, and (more impressively) they led the American League in OPS in road games. The Red Sox featured a championship-quality attack in 2008, and figure to do the same in 2009.

And then, of course, there's young Lars Anderson, who just turned 21 and has already spent half a summer tearing up the Double-A Eastern League. The odds are against Anderson becoming anything like Mark Teixeira; few prospects do. But there is a considerable chance that Anderson will, in four or five years, be (roughly) as good as Teixeira.

The Red Sox wanted Teixeira, I think, because he was the best player out there, and next winter the free-agent crop will be exceptionally thin. The best available infielder next winter might be Adrian Beltre, and the only eligible outfielders worth mega-deals might be Jason Bay and Matt Holliday (and I suspect the Red Sox will try to lock up Bay between now and then). The Red Sox, I think, were worried about that $170 million burning a hole in their pockets.
Which leaves me to wonder: Where can the rest of us sign up for a "need" like this one?

soxmuscle

What's this all prove, Min0?

Age: 20 | Height: 5'7" | Weight: 150 lbs | Penis: 12 inches

min0 lee

Teixeira Bans Himself in Boston

By Murray Chass

December 24, 2008
With the focus of every signing or trade being on the rivalry between the Yankees and the Red Sox, this needs to be said first about the Yankees’ signing of Mark Teixeira. The Yankees didn’t snatch him away from the Red Sox because they outbid or outsmarted the Red Sox. Teixeira didn’t sign with the Red Sox, a baseball official said, because he and his wife, especially his wife, didn’t want to live in Boston. If necessary, they were going to choose the big bad city of New York, and they did.

“He just didn’t want to go to Boston,” the official said. “He didn’t want to be a Red Sox so Boras called the Yankees and said he really wants to be a Yankee.”

The agent, Scott Boras, of course, didn’t let his client’s preferences get in the way of negotiating a top-tier contract. If an agent can lure the Yankees and the Red Sox into a negotiation, he is not going to tell either that the player doesn’t want to play there.

Boras’ response to the official’s explanation was interesting for its lack of a flat-out denial.

“I don’t think the geographics were going to be outcome determinative if things were closer,” Boras said in a telephone interview Wednesday. “The family issues and where they reside were obviously part of the decision. Tex and his wife had their discussions. I don’t know what that dialogue was.”

But the agent added, “To say Boston was out of the picture, that wasn’t the case. He strongly considered the Red Sox.”

If Teixeira considered the Red Sox, he did so only until the Yankees jumped in with their 8-year, $180 million offer. Until then, it appeared that Boras was using one of his favorite negotiating tactics - the existence of a mystery team or teams.

They were present at a meeting Boras and Teixeira had at the Four Seasons Hotel in Irving, Tex., Dec. 18 with Boston’s top three officials - John Henry, the principal owner; Larry Lucchino, the chief executive officer, and general manager Theo Epstein. The Red Sox officials thought they were close enough to a deal that a visit might clinch it.

But when the Red Sox offered $168 million for 8 years, or $21 million a year, Boras told them they weren’t even close to other offers they had. It was after that meeting that Henry issued a statement saying the Red Sox were not going to be a factor in a Teixeira signing because of the offers Boras told them he had.

Henry wasn’t saying the Red Sox would cease their pursuit of the first baseman, but he was calling Boras’ bluff, in effect saying if you have the offers you say you have we aren’t going to match or top them, but if you somehow don’t really have them, send us a signal and we’ll continue talking.

The Baltimore Orioles and the Washington Nationals, close to Teixeira’s home in Maryland, were also bidding for Teixeira. The Orioles were believed to have offered $150 million for 8 years and the Nationals $160 million for 8. The Nationals reportedly raised their offer to $180 million subsequent to Teixeira’s meeting with the Red Sox. So who made the offers that Boras said the Red Sox weren’t even close to? Ah ha, the mystery teams, of course.

Boras doesn’t like being accused of bluffing or prevaricating.

“Every negotiation I do,” he said, “people don’t really know what teams have an interest. I have a number of teams that felt the team that signed the player they didn’t know was involved. I field offers. Whatever teams tell me I keep in confidence. I’m not going to disclose what offers teams make.”

The Yankees were not a mystery team in the Teixeira negotiations. Boras would never keep the Yankees a secret. He wants everyone to know that the Yankees are bidding for one of his clients. It’s good for business. But the Yankees, as of last Thursday, an official said, had not made an offer. Their first offer came five days later, the day they reached agreement.This is true, the Yanks came later on.

At best, according to the official, Boras and the Yankees were talking parameters. General managers like to talk parameters these days. By doing that, they don’t get locked into specific figures, and an agent can’t shop their offers with other teams.

What impact will the Teixeira signing have on the annual race to the death? Who knows? That’s the beauty of baseball. There are no guarantees, not when a team with a payroll less than one-fourth the size of the highest payroll wins its division’s championship and goes all the way to the World Series. We all know this but soxfan34 has to state the obvious.

That’s why they play the games. Except when they play the games next season the Yankees will be more prepared to win enough of them to finish first or second than they were last season.

It was only a year ago that the Yankees signed four attractive free agents, as attractive a group as any team has ever signed in a single off-season, and you know what happened. The Yankees failed to make the playoffs for the first time since 1993. Will CC Sabathia, A.J. Burnett and Teixeira propel them back into the playoffs next season?

The Yankees, outbidding other teams by $75 million for the three players, are betting $423.5 million that they will return to October with Sabathia and Burnett in the starting pitching rotation and Teixeira at first base.

Then again, they thought incorrectly that they would play games last October for the 14th consecutive year after re-signing Alex Rodriguez, Jorge Posada, Mariano Rivera and Andy Pettitte. The Yankees committed a total of $388.4 million to that quartet and saw them and their teammates finish third in the American League East and out of the running for a post-season spot.

All right, you say, this time it’s different. They have added Sabathia, Burnett and Teixeira and still have Rodriguez, Posada and Rivera and probably will have Pettitte, too, once he realizes that he might want more than the $10 million the Yankees have offered him, but since they made that offer they have spent $423.5 million and they don’t have any more millions left for him.

With Sabathia and Burnett in the rotation, as long as Burnett avoids injury and the disabled list, the Yankees’ pitching will be a strength, not a weakness the way it was last season after general manager Brian Cashman decided Phil Hughes and Ian Kennedy were going to pitch the team into October. Hughes didn’t survive April, and Kennedy might as well not have.

Teixeira will inject an on-base and run-producing punch into the offense that was missing last season, when the Yankees scored 179 fewer runs than the year before and plummeted from leading the league in runs scored to being seventh.

It’s humorous to view the signings of the three free agents in the context of Cashman’s stated position a year ago when he talked about spending less money on expensive free agents and focusing on building from within. One missed post-season, and he changed his philosophy instantly, sucked into the Steinbrenner way of doing business.

Cashman should not be criticized for the signings, spending more in a week than George Steinbrenner ever did. But he should at least acknowledge his mistake in thinking that the Yankees could be a playoff team with Hughes and Kennedy in the rotation. That was never going to happen, and it didn’t.

This year Cashman is saying he knew he could afford to pass up a trade for Johan Santana and hold onto the kids he would have had to give up because Sabathia was going to be available. But Cashman has gone far beyond Sabathia with his signings and has left officials of other clubs shaking their heads.

“It is what it is,” Andy MacPhail, the Baltimore Orioles’ head baseball executive, said after the Yankees signed the two pitchers. “There’s no sense carping about it. They operate the way they operate.”

The Yankees operate the way they operate because they can. While the rest of the economy is depressed and showing no signs of recovery, the Yankees are awash in cash. It’s as if they are the beneficiary of Bernie Madoff’s Ponzi scheme.

What they are is the beneficiary of a new Yankee Stadium. Talk about cash cows. They can only hope that runs will cross the plate as abundantly as dollars flow through the stadium gates. Other teams are cutting back; the Yankees are spending full speed ahead.

“We’re in an economy where hearts are breaking, and these guys are going to the public for money,” an official said, referring to the Yankees’ request to the city for additional tax-exempt bonds. “Do you think there are ethical issues?”

“They’re all outraged,” a member of the Yankees family said of other teams. “We know they’re outraged.”

But other teams are only too happy to take the Yankees’ money. The Yankees will pay more than $110 million in revenue sharing and luxury tax this year, and with the added revenue from the new stadium next year they expect the bill to be about $150 million.

That 2009 bill will be a lot easier to pay if the Yankees are 2009 World Series champions.

min0 lee

What I am saying is that he flat out didn't want to play for Boston, this is the one time I believe money wasn't an issue. I don't think it's hard to believe.

I understand playing for Boston now is the in thing but not every player feels that way.

min0 lee

Did Red Sox botch Teixeira negotiations?
Views16387Comments1012
04:47 AM ET 12.29 SHARE PRINT IT MY T&R
Any suggestion that the Red Sox could not (and can not) compete for free agents with New York is utter nonsense because the Sox have signed free agents in the past. With Mark Teixeira, the Sox were not nearly as aggressive. The bottom line is that other teams (excluding the Yankees) were in the same neighborhood, which allowed Teixeira to drag out the process. Had the Sox come out of the gate with, say, an eight-year offer for $184 million, maybe they could have gotten the deal done. Maybe it would have taken $192 million. But if the Sox came out strong -- very strong -- and gave Teixeira a short window to accept, their chances might have been better. If Teixeira then had balked, the Sox would have had their answer: Teixeira never wanted to come here. Instead, the Sox left the door open for the Yankees to swoop in, which created an array of issues. Most notably, by the time Teixeira made his decision, CC Sabathia and A.J. Burnett both had signed with New York, making the Yankees a more attractive destination; earlier on, that was not the case. By allowing the process to drag, the Sox enhanced New York's position.

Boston Globe