DREW SIGNS WITH SOX

Remember last off-season when we pretty much refused to sign Johnny Damon to a legit deal? The Yankees snatched him up for 4 years and $52 million, or $13 million a season. Part of the logic behind the decision to sign Crisp and not Damon was that Crisp was younger. Damon would be near 36 at the end of a 4 year contract. Guess how old JD Drew will be at the end of his reportedly 5 year, contract with Boston. Thirty-six.

I'm being a tad unfair, especially to Drew. Drew is not a replacement for Johnny Damon. However, it just strikes me as odd that we refused to pay Damon, a proven commodity, $52 million, pretty much because he was getting too old, even though he had no history of losing a large amount of time to injury. Then, a season later, we sign Drew, who is quite injury prone, to a deal that is 5 years long and worth $70 million, or $14 million a season.

I think the Red Sox have realized that letting Damon go so easily to New York was a bit of a mistake. But signing JD Drew hardly fixes that mistake. Drew is a slight, very slight, offensive improvement over Trot Nixon, whom he is replacing. Drew has a better OBP and his OPS is consistently higher. However, to invest $14M into a player who has had such a history of evidence is a bit over the top. Especially when part of the reason we refused to retain Damon was because we were afraid he'd break down.

Drew will slot in nicely to the Sox lineup, when healthy. He'll hit after Manny and Ortiz, which will give us a nice lefty-righty-lefty combo. I think if Lowell produces close to what he did last year, you'll see Mike hitting 6th behind Drew. Drew is capable of good production, which is what you want out of a #5 hitter. He also plays pretty sharp defense, something which Willy Mo lacked. Speaking of WM Pena, he'll find himself as a 4th outfielder, but I wouldn't be shocked to see him see a good amount of playing time in a platoon situation.

Yesterday was a $100 million day as the Sox also reportedly signed short-stop Julio Lugo to a 4 year, $36 million deal. Lugo has been long sought after by the Red Sox. Lugo will be 31 next season. He hit .308 for Tampa last season before going to the Dodgers where he hit a mere .219. Lugo should hit in the .280 neighborhood for the Sox with about 15 homers. He'll probably bat 8th or 9th in our lineup which will provide him with some mop up RBI opportunities after the big bats. He doesn't offer a great deal in the power department, which is typical of short-stops. He only had 36 extra-base hits and 12 homers last year. His OBP is also not all that stellar at .341 last year and .340 for his career. He struck out about twice as often as he walked.

Lugo does offer some defensive versatility in that he can play pretty much any position. Defensively he is solid, but not as good as Gonzalez.

He is an offensive improvement over Gonzalez, which is nice. But he isn't four times the improvement, which is what the Sox are seemingly paying him as. $12M a season just seems like a lot for a guy whose career high in RBI is 75, career high in HR is 15, career high in OBP for a full season is .362, and who seemed to struggle with moving to a new team in the middle of last season.

The Manny Ramirez talks have, as I predicted, remained talks. They've also cooled down. The sox were shopping Manny around baseball during the recent winter meetings. However, there were no takers. It seems to me that we were almost asking too much for him. We asked for the Dodgers' top three prospects, and the best two pitchers San Diego has. All for an outfielder with 2 years on his contract for $20M a year. It was almost as if we were trying to make it seem as though we were trying to trade Manny, but knew we really wouldn't be able to get the deal done by asking for so much. Anyway, Theo and the Sox have declared a quasi-deadline for shopping Manny and that is midnight on Wednesday. After that, the Sox say they will continue to listen to possible deals, but will not be as actively seeking them.

So the lineup is starting to take shape. Here's what seems to be what will be the '07 Sox offense:

C - Jason Varitek
1B - Kevin Youkilis
2B - Dustin Pedroia
3B - Mike Lowell
SS - Julio Lugo
LF - Manny Ramirez
CF - Coco Crisp
RF - JD Drew
DH - David Ortiz.

Now a possible batting order:

1. Coco Crisp
2. Kevin Youkilis
3. David Ortiz
4. Manny Ramirez
5. Jd Drew
6. Mike Lowell
7. Jason Varitek
8. Julio Lugo
9. Dustin Pedroia

Not that bad. But expensive, though.

FOUTRE LES HABITANTS!

I don't think I'm using that French profanity correctly. I just did a simple Google search for it. In case you haven't noticed, the Boston Bruins are back in the playoff mix. They've won 4 of their last 5 games, including last night's thrilling 6-5 victory over Montreal at the Bell Centre.

The Bruins are still 5th in the Northeast Division, 28 points behind first place Buffalo. However, the Bruins are in one of the best divisions in the NHL. At the moment, the Northeast Division would have three teams in the playoffs, with 4th place Ottawa one point out of post-season qualification. The Bruins are now tied for 10th in the Eastern Conference with 28 points. They also have a few games in hand so they're in decent shape.

The Bruins have some big games with top teams in the next few weeks. They play the Devils twice, the Maple Leafs twice, the Habs twice, Ottawa once, Nashville once, and Vancouver once. And the season doesn't get much easier after December. The Bruins face a difficult road to the playoffs thanks to the unbalanced schedule and being in the top division in the NHL. But we have a shot to make it in, and we all know anything can happen in the Stanley Cup playoffs.

MANNY HASN'T BEEN TRADED YET

This past weekend was supposed to be when Manny Ramirez was signed, sealed, sent, and delivered to another team. Of course, the sports writers around the country couldn't figure out where he would be sent. The big rumor the past few days was that Manny would go to Los Angeles to play for Grady Little's Ex-Sox. However, the Dodgers describe any deal for Manny as being "5 percent likely." It seems as though the Sox are stumbling into the biggest road block in trading Manny: getting sufficient value for him.

In the attempted deal with LA, the Sox wanted a bevy of prospects, including 22 year old Jonathan Broxton who is projected as being a closer in the near future. The Dodgers didn't want to give that up. Who could blame them? Why mortgage your future for a player who will play for 2 years, eat up $40 million, and is extremely flighty and flaky.

The Sox tried addressing an issue in their talks with LA. We need a closer. There just weren't many closer free agents out there this season. The Sox even made strides to acquire Brewer Derrick Turnbow, who had a great first half of the season before imploding. He has great stuff when he's on, but he has trouble staying on. I'm sorry, but we need consistency at the closer's spot, not a giant question mark.

The Sox are so desperate, they might even try to get Keith Foulke to return to the team.

I still think we should sign Jose Mesa. He's had experience closing in the past (320 career Saves) and had a solid season in Colorado last year as a set-up man. He had 72.1 IP in 79 appearances with an ERA of 3.86. He also led the team with 19 Holds. He is pretty old, will be turning 41 in May, but I think he'd be a good addition to the bullpen as either a closer for a season, or a set-up man taking some of the stress off of Timlin.

The Sox also did not offer arbitration to Trot Nixon, Mark Loretta, Gabe Kapler, and Doug Mirabelli. They did offer arbitration to Foulke. Will Foulke take it?

So Trot Nixon, who has been with the organization since the days of Lou Gorman, is gone. My reaction? Meh. If you want my honest opinion, Trot was a solid player who was injury prone and ineffective vs. LHP. I feel as though this town overrated him a great deal because he hustled. Isn't hustling a ballplayer's job? All that Dirt Dog, football mentality crap was BS, if you ask me. He was a decent player, but hardly a star. In any other town, he would barely get recognition, but Boston has a way of picking an individual player and falling head over heels in love with him (See: Rico Brogna, Michael Bishop, Butch Huskey, Pokey Reese, John Valentin, and Kevin Millar)

I still remember when there was a rumor that Nixon would be traded for Sammy Sosa, and most of Red Sox Nation bemoaned the idea because Trot had so much potential. That potential was never fully realized. His best seasons were 2001, 02, and 03. Trot averaged about 26 HRs and 90 RBI in those 3 years. Since then, his playing time has dramatically decreased. His production numbers followed. Funnily enough, his salary had increased from $4.5 million in 2004, when he hit .315 in very limited time, to $7.5 million in '05 and '06 when he played a bit more, but still sat out 86 games over those two seasons.

Right now, here's the best I can do to show the composition of the 2007 Sox:
C Jason Varitek
1B Kevin Youkilis
2B Dustin Pedroia?
3B Mike Lowell
SS ?????
LF Manny Ramirez??????????
CF Coco Crisp
RF ???????
DH David Ortiz

SP Curt Schilling
SP Daisuke Matsuzaka?
SP Josh Beckett
SP Jonathan Papelbon
SP Tim Wakefield?

CP ????????
RP Mike Timlin
RP Julian Tavarez
RP Hideki Okajima

Still many question marks.

Do you ever get the feeling as though the Red Sox lack a bit of a long term plan? It seems like the past 6 years, we've had more than our share of players for one or two seasons. Just think, this will be the second time that both Kapler and Mirabelli will be leaving the team. Loretta was a one year acquisition. The Sox will be getting a new short-stop this season for the 3rd season in a row. They also might have a new closer that is actually their old closer. If we do sign Matsuzaka, it will be yet another in a long line of expensive attempts at getting a top of the rotation pitcher.

Since the 2004 championship team, we've seen a new first baseman, will see two new second basemen, three new short-stops, a new third baseman, possibly a new left-fielder, a new center-fielder, a new right-fielder, and at least six new starting pitchers (even more if you count all the part-time #5 starters we had last season).

SLOPPY PATS

The Lions outsucked us. Both teams tried their best to lose the game, the Lions just wanted to lose it more than we did.

The Patriots barely escaped the clutches of the hapless Lions. We really only played a few minutes of football and were fortunate to come away with an important win.

The Pats turned the ball over three times in this one, but thankfully, the Lions either failed to fully capitalize, or simply turned the ball back over to us. We allowed Jon Kitna to pass for over 300 yards on us. That's inexcusable. We went down to the wire with the worst team in the NFC North. That's inexcusable. We continued to put the ball on the ground. That's inexcusable.

I'm glad we won, because if we didn't, the AFC East would be a 1 game affair between us and New York. Also, any hopes of a first round bye would fly out the window. We've got to play better than this, though. Miami will probably not play as poorly as Detroit or Chicago did. We either have to stop playing crappy football, or we will pay for it.

Speaking of 9-3 teams that are capable of doing better, Boston College was officially invited to the Meineke Car Care Bowl in Charlotte. They'll play the Midshipmen of Navy. This will probably be another Bowl win to add to the streak, but it will also be an empty win, as we could have been playing a Bowl game that mattered.

Speaking of Navy (good transitions today), they were the only team this year to beat the UMass Minutemen, who advanced to the I-AA semi-finals after beating UNH yesterday. UMass will play Montana on Friday night in Montana. The game can be seen on ESPN2. UMass alum Bill Cosby will be watching, and so should you.

Speaking of college football playoffs. Don't you think it's about time Division IA had one. They're the only league in college sports without a playoff system. They're the only majorly watched American sport that doesn't have playoffs. And don't you think it's weird that in the 32 team NFL, 12 teams are selected as being worthy of contending for a championship, but in the larger 119 team D-IA, only 2 teams are deemed worthy of that right? Seems kind of silly.

SOX GET SOME BULLPEN HELP FROM JAPAN

Whether or not the Sox land Matsuzaka is still unclear (could you imagine the reaction in Red Sox Nation if they didn't?), but they will get some help from Japan's Nippon Professional Baseball League.

They signed lefty reliever Hideki Okajima for two guaranteed years worth $2.5M total. Okajima will be 31 next season and will probably be used as a situational lefty, and perhaps a set-up man against predominantly lefty batters in late innings.

I think this a great pickup for the Sox. If it doesn't work out, we only lose $2.5M, a pittance compared to the other deals we're on the verge of making. And if it does work out, we land a solid lefty out of the bullpen. He also might help Matsuzaka adjust to American baseball and American life. The two can compare notes on MLB hitters and compare MLB hitters to NPB hitters.

This offseason has seen several Japanese players being taken by MLB teams. In the next few seasons, I think we'll see more and more of this. I think there will also eventually be a negative reaction towards this on the part of both MLB and NPB. As far as MLB is concerned, the big market teams have a huge advantage in getting Japanese players. They're free agents with transfer fees and teams like us and the Yankees have the capital and the budget to shell out large posting fees on risky acquisitions. Other teams do not. NPB will see more and more of its talent leaving for America and might try to stifle the flow of players.

I think many, many years from now, like 30, 40, or 60 years from now MLB and NPB will merge into one league with teams across Asia, and the Americas. But until then, I think there might be some sort of limit imposed on MLB teams "raiding" NPB rosters, and you might see something like a luxury tax imposed on posting fees in order to give some $$$ to smaller market teams so that they might benefit somewhat from the addition of Japanese ballplayers.

SOX CLOSE TO SIGNING DREW

According to Gordon Edes, the Red Sox are very close to signing JD Drew to a deal as long as 5 years and worth as much as $70 million. Whether or not the 5th year would be guaranteed or an option year is unclear.

Essentially, we replace Trot Nixon's production and DL stints with JD Drew's only for more $$$. Drew could be on the verge of a break-out like the Sox think he is. But he could also be on the verge of a breakdown. Do we really want to invest that much money into a relatively unproven free agent commodity?

MANNY, MATSUZAKA, SEAU, BRADY'S JUKE

This offseason has been Manny, Manny, Manny. The Sox seems as though they're trying to move him. Of course, trade rumors being "broken" by news companies can hardly be treated as real news. Often, a simple rumor or suggestion is floated around and someone reports it publicly.

The fact of the matter is, Theo and the Sox are always trying to improve the team and have demonstrated a willingness to trade "franchise players" to do that. (See: Nomar Garciaparra)

There's dozens of rumors floating around the internet and ESPN and WEEI. Some are probably without any base. Some of them are blatantly lopsided for one team or another. Some of them are probably actual offers that have been discussed, but probably won't go beyond the discussion phase.

I just don't see us trading Manny Ramirez, at least not trading him by himself.

I'm somewhat alone in this one. It seems as though every sports reporter who has "sources" is claiming Manny WILL get traded, probably by Saturday. The problem is, they all say he will get traded to different places. Gammons seems to think a deal with the White Sox will occur. Buster Olney says that the Dodgers, Padres, and Giants are the front-runners to land him. Michael Silverman says it is the Rangers or Angels. Gordon Edes reiterated the Angels, Padres, and Giants and also added the Phillies, Orioles, and Mets.

In short, almost every team with the capacity to spend money is reportedly going to get Manny Ramirez.

Fueling the trade talk is the impending signing of JD Drew to a deal that will probably give the lefty somewhere close to $15 million per year for 4 or 5 years. People are saying he is a replacement for Manny. That notion reminds me of when the Sox signed Jose Offerman as a replacement for Mo Vaughn.

JD Drew, ladies and gentlemen, is not even close to Manny Ramirez's level. JD Drew is closer to Trot Nixon's.

If the Sox shell out $15M per season to Drew, they'll essentially be saving $5M from what they would be paying Manny. Of course, any deal Manny is a part of will probably involve the Red Sox picking up some of his $20M salary for the next two seasons. So that little chunk of money saved by going with Drew would be gone. Also, Manny will cost the Sox $40M over the next two years, whereas Drew could be holding down $60M over the next 5 years. We trade one big contract for another.

Then there's the dropoff in production. Of course, it is impossible to predict what Drew's production will be in 2007, or 2008, and so on. But if his past is any indicator, it is safe to say his numbers will fluctuate wildly. Drew's RBI totals for full seasons played (400 ABs or more) range from as low as 56 to as high as 100. His average in all seasons has had both up and down swings of 50 and 70 points.

I'll give JD Drew this much, recently he has showed some signs of stability in terms of production. His average has mellowed to the .285 to .300 range. Also, his OBP has been pretty good the past few years.

But then there's the question of health. We all know Manny Ramirez is a variable in that sometimes he decides not to play. But Drew is just as much of a variable, if not more of one, because of injuries. Drew has only had one season with 500 ABs or more, Manny has had 8 in his 14 year career. JD Drew has reached 135 games 4 times in 8 full-time seasons. Manny has reached 135 games 9 times in 12 full-time seasons.

A lot of people are getting paranoid about Matsuzaka's injury vulnerability because he has thrown so many pitches in his young career. But not as many voices have chirped up about JD Drew's vulnerability.

Look, we all get annoyed when Manny isn't trying and takes time off. But isn't the effect of that almost the same thing as an injury? It seems to me like we'd be missing JD Drew a lot due to injury.

Then just look at the production. Manny, ironically, is one of the most dependable production players in the game. You're going to get around 40 homers and around 120 RBI form him year in and year out. His lowest average in a full-time season was .292. He almost always is around the .300 to .325 range. His OPS is always hovering around or above 1.000. He is a producer.

JD Drew is not a producer, at least not yet. Last year was his first season with 100 RBI. Manny, over his career, has an RBI every 4.34 at-bats. JD Drew has one every 6.21. That means that approximately every 3 RBI Manny gets, JD Drew gets 2. That adds up.

Drew is hardly even an upgrade over Trot Nixon. Yet Drew might get twice as much as Nixon got last season. Both are lefthanded outfielders with recurring injury problems who never reached their potential and absolutely suck against left-handed pitching.

JD Drew is just not the best option for us, folks. For the amount of money he'll get, and the amount of time he'll spend on the DL, and the amount of time he'll struggle against lefties, and the amount of time he won't produce as much as Manny, he is just not worth it.

If we trade Manny Ramirez, we're losing a great deal of production. Signing JD Drew and Julio Lugo will not replace that production. We can absorb the impact of lost production by signing better pitchers. However, this off-season should be about improving offensive production as we only scored 820 runs last year. We should be scoring 900 and up. Instead, it looks like we might be scrambling and spending to keep our offensive production where it was in 2006.

LUCHINO GOES TO JAPAN
Sounds like a really bad Italian kids movie. The Sox made a "fair" and "comprehensive" offer to Matsuzaka. Still no word yet on how fair it was and how fair Boras and Matsuzaka think it was. There's a rumor that the Seibu Lions might be willing to chop off some of the posting fee in order to help facilitate a deal between the Sox and Matsuzaka, as well. We have little more than two weeks to sign Daisuke.

And for the love of the Baseball Gods, can we throw out the nickname "Dice-K"? That's such a stupid and moronic nickname. And why do we even need to give him a nickname? Are we going to confuse him with the other Daisuke we have on the team. How come we don't use his nickname in Japan. The Monster. I like that one. It's also a nice tribute to the late Dick Radatz.

And can we stop worrying over how many pitches Daisuke threw over in Japan. I'm sick and tired of all this Baseball Prospectus BS. You know they actually came up with a stat to determine how much wear a pitcher's arm had on it. Come On! Everybody's arm is different, and everybody pitches a different way. There's no way to accurately gauge every pitcher's wear and tear based on some universal stat.

SEAU OUT FOR SEASON
After injuring his arm, Junior Seau is officially out for the season and is perhaps done for his career. Seau came into Sunday's game 2nd on the team in tackles with 69, tailing only Teddy Bruschi.

With seau gone, the Pats will most likely shift Vrabel back inside and use Banta-Cain on the outside. Larry Izzo and Don Davis could also see some time in the inside.

BRADY'S BIG JUKE OF URLACHER
The play of the game on Sunday was Tom Brady's 11 yard scramble for a 1st down in which he made Brian Urlacher miss.

It's important to note that Urlacher seemed to hold up just a little bit as he was approaching Brady. Most QBs would give themselves up and dive there, but Brady kept going for the 1st down. Urlacher, who is a smart player, knew that if he hit Brady after he dove, there would probably be a flag resulting in an automatic 1st down. The NFL has cracked down, a bit too harshly, on people hitting the QB. It was a great, smart, brave play by Brady, but it wasn't as if he totally schooled Urlacher And 1 mix-tape style.

GRINDING ONE OUT

Coming into this game, the Patriots were 2-3 against .500+ teams. They lacked a win over one of the top teams in the NFL. The Bears were the class of the NFC, which isn't saying too much, but they were still 9-1 going into this game. The Pats have shown that they can and will beat bad teams, but against good teams, they had struggled and frequently found themselves losing.

The Patriots finally got a win against a top team, but it didn't come easily. Both teams had trouble hanging onto the ball. Had the Bears done a better job of capitalizing on turnovers, they would have easily won this game.

The Pats started their second drive of the game in great position on Chicago's 39. They got it up to the Bear's 24 but Brady threw towards Watson who couldn't pull it in, and it was intercepted by Chicago. Had Watson caught it, it would have been a touchdown. Instead, it was a turnover.

The Bears marched down to our 22 before being stopped and forced to try a field goal, which was missed after a false start penalty pushed the ball back 5 yards. A team playing great football against us could have turned our turnover into 7 points instead of 0.

We got the ball at our 35 and moved it all the way to Chicago's 11, thanks in large part to the 26 yard run by Dillon and the personal foul on Chicago after it. Maroney got the call on the next play but put the ball on the ground and it was recovered by Chicago. Two trips deep into Bear's territory and 0 points to show for it.

The Bears once again took the ball very deep into our territory before grossman fumbled on a botched handoff and Seymour pounced on it. It's important to note that against a team that was playing better than the Bears were, we'd probably be down 10- or 14-0 by this point. Instead we were still tied at 0.

The Pats put together a nice drive and Maroney punched it into the end zone to give us a 7-0 lead.

The Bears replied with a drive that ended with a field goal. The two teams exchanged punts, then we got the ball with less than 2 minutes in the first half. Despite having two consecutive plays overturned against us, we came away with points as Gostkwoski hit a career long 52 yard field goal.

We went into halftime with a 10-3 lead, but we easily could have been down by that point. Thankfully, the Bears were playing pretty poorly and weren't making us pay for our mistakes.

To start the second half, Chicago went 3 and out, then we did, then Chicago did again. We drove the ball and got to midfield. Brady threw to Watson who got as far as the Bear's 23 yard line before he fumbled. Caldwell recovered and moved the ball forward 8 more yards before the Bears stripped it and recovered the ensuing fumble. It seems like we've had a high number of these kinds of fumbles during what could be really big offensive plays.

Once again, the Bears drove far into our territory. Once again, they screwed it up. Grossman threw a pass to Asante Samuel, who returned the pick for 27 yards.

We weren't able to capitalize on the interception as Brady threw one that Brown couldn't reel in and the Bears picked it off at their 47. The net result of the two turnovers was beneficial to us (Bears lost 24 yards of field position), but we could have done much more. Even if we don't get a first down, we were in a good spot to punt the ball inside the 20 and take control of the field position battle.

The Bears were able to take advantage of this turnover and got into the end zone to tie the score at 10.

The Pats responded with a very nice drive. The big play was a 40 yard 3rd down pass to Watson. The Pats tried a double reverse that was just a bit too complicated double reverse, but it resulted in an 8 yard loss. Ironically, had it been a single reverse, the field was wide open. We seem to be trying gadget plays a lot, which is good, but they're often extremely complicated and result in big losses. After that, Faulk caught a 9 yard pass. It was his 262nd reception which sets a new Patriots record for receptions by a running back. On 3rd and 9, Brady had an excellent scramble for 11 yards, eluding Brian Urlacher to get the 1st down. After Evans got 6, and Maroney got 2, Brady snuck up the middle on 3rd and 2 and got 3 yards. On 1st and goal, Maroney got to the 2, then on play action, Brady hit a wide open Ben Watson for the touchdown. The drive took 6 and a half minutes off the clock.

The Bears drove into our red zone, but the defense stopped them and limited them to a field goal. The game was still in doubt with 3:36 on the clock and only a 4 point lead.

Surprisingly, the Patriots passed a lot on their ensuing drive. And it worked. They moved all the way to the 22 yard line. They appeared to be on the verge of kicking a nice insurance field goal when Dillon put the ball on the ground and the Bears recovered. Chicago would have 1:52 to move the ball 78 yards and win the game.

They only had the ball for a few seconds. Samuel picked off Grossman for the 3rd time, tying a Patriot record that was last attained in 1983 (in the regular season that is, we all remember Ty Law's 3 INT performance against Indianapolis a few years ago in the playoffs)

Victory formation. Kneel, kneel, kneel.

Nice win by the Patriots, but we gave Chicago every opportunity in the world to take this one from us. All our turnovers could have come back to haunt us, but only one did. Had Chicago played better, we probably lose.

We improve to 8-3 and maintain a 2 game lead over the Jets in the AFC East. The season gets much easier for us in the remaining weeks ahead. We're host 2-9 Detroit, then we go to 5-6 Miami (who have actually improved recently), then we host 3-8 Houston, and go on the road to play 6-5 Jacksonville (who may or may not be in the playoff race by then), and 4-7 Tennessee. Our remaining opponents have a combined record of 20-35. We should be able to win all of those. Jacksonville and Miami might be trouble, especially if we can't stop fumbling, but we should end the season with a record of 13-3 or 12-4. This will be good enough for a home game in the 1st round, with an outside shot at a 1st round bye.