ONLY ONE LOWELL LEFT IN MASSACHUSETTS

The Red Sox traded Mike Lowell to the Texas Rangers for minor league catcher Max Ramirez. The Sox will also send about $9 million of the $12M Lowell is due to be paid.

Who is Max Ramirez? In 76 Pacific Coast League (AAA) games last year, he hit .234 and 5 homeruns. He has a chance to be the AAA PawSox catcher. Emphasis on the word "chance." He is a throw-in. The Rangers are basically taking $3 million off the Red Sox' balance sheets.



This deal only makes sense if the Red Sox acquire a corner infielder. Saving $3 million in exchange for replacing Lowell with Varitek (the domino line would go Youkilis replacing Lowell at 3rd, then V-Mart replacing Youk at 1st, then Varitek replacing V-Mart at catcher), is simply a bad idea.

The trade needs approval from multiple people. Because of the money involved, The Commisioner needs to approve it. The Rangers are also giving the oft-injured Lowell a physical.

Adrian Beltre is the popular rumor to replace Lowell, and Jesus Christ I hope that remains nothing more than a rumor. Beltre hit .265 last year with a pitiful .304 OBP. He belted a whopping 8 homeruns in 111 games. No thank you.



Miguel Cabrera is another rumored deal, and I think the most likely at this point.

Still, it's strange to make a deal that depends on a POSSIBLE future deal in order to make it work.

Sources:
MLB
Baseball Cube
Baseball-Reference.com

JEREMY LIN IS A BADASS

Harvard beat BC in basketball for the second straight year. And this time there was no readily available "hangover" excuse for the Eagles. How did Harvard beat BC? Three words: Jeremy fucking Lin. Last year at BC he had 27 points and 8 assists. This year he had 25 points, but the senior point guard from Palo Alto ran the offense that put 74 points on BC.

He's not going to the NBA, but if you love token college basketball players, you've got to check out Jeremy Lin. He dropped 30 on UConn (in Storrs) on Sunday in a game Harvard just barely lost 79-73.

TOUGH HOCKEY PLAYER

Brendan Witt of the New York Islanders played last night in Philadelphia after being hit by an SUV in the morning.

Story:

"The truck [a GMC Yukon] was making an illegal left turn and Witt jumped and slid across the hood before hitting the pavement. Witt brushed himself off and reassured the crowd who'd begun to gather around him by whipping out his credentials: "I've got to go play some hockey. I'm a hockey player. I'm OK. No big deal." After almost being scratched for tonight's game against the Flyers, Witt did end up making it to Starbucks and grabbing a latte."

Witt played 17 minutes in the Islanders' 6-2 loss that night. He had 2 blocked shots, and 2 penalty minutes. The GMC Yukon is listed as day-to-day.

ELITE EIGHT

The Celtics pushed their win-streak to 8 last night with a 98-89 victory over the Bucks. Four C's had double figures, with KG leading the way with 25. Pierce and Perkins each had 15, Sheed and Ray Ray each added 13, and Rondo had 11 points to go along with his 13 assists.

Winning games against Milwaukee isn't too exciting, but it's necessary. You absolutely have to win these games against these teams, especially at home. But after the game, Doc Rivers did address the Celtics' relatively poor rebounding prowess:

"We can get away with winning now, but we're not going to win in the long run if we don't start rebounding."

Celtics at the 7-12 Wizards Thursday night.

Source:
ESPN

Photo Credit:
AP Photo

SOX SIGN ATCHISON, YANKEES ABOUT TO SIGN GRANDERSON

The Red Sox off-season, thus far, has been nothing short of uninspiring. Dull, even. The blatantly planted story about the Red Sox' "full-court press" for Roy Halladay was nothing more than a tease, something to satisfy Sox fans' voracious new appetite for big acquisitions.

The Red Sox made a minor addition yesterday, signing journeyman reliever Scott Atchison. He's 33 years old, a righty, and pitched last year for the Hanshin Tigers of Japan's Central League.

He's spent a limited portion of his 10 year professional career in the Majors. Only 53 MLB appearances to be exact, spread out between the Mariners and Giants in '04, '05, and '07. Don't expect much from him.

Meanwhile, the Yankees seem to be on the verge of signing Curtis Granderson. Granderson hit 30 HRs last year, albeit with a .249 average. I don't think he's that great, and wouldn't want him on the Sox, but my point is that while the Red Sox bolster AAA Pawtucket's bullpen depth, the Yankees are actually doing something.



How cheap the Red Sox are being with Jason Bay is inexcusable. Then again, they painted themselves into this financial corner these past few years. We shouldn't give them a free pass for the freedom with which they've spent recently.

$47.8 million of the $122 million the Sox spent last year went to JD Drew, David Ortiz, Mike Lowell, and Daisuke Matsuzaka. That's 39% of a very large payroll, assigned to a DL addict, a PED addict, an aging corner infielder, and a guy who can't pitch past the 5th inning.

I remember the '07 World Series parade, and how we all chanted "Re-Sign Lowell!" We were just as dumb and sentimental as the Sox front office was. And now all of us are paying the price for paying these guys.



I don't mind losing a bidding war to New York. Or at least I don't criticize the Red Sox for not having as much money as the Yankees. But I do mind self-elimination from even trying to win a bidding war, because JD Drew and Daisuke Matsuzaka have $22.3M coming to them.

I sincerely doubt the Sox will do much this off-season. They'll do something, similar to the Scutaro signing, then hype it a la Dan Duquette when he signed Jose Offerman. But the real big winter for the Sox will be the 2010-2011 off-season, when money will be freed up, and the free agent crop will be much healthier (ahem! get Mauer, move Youk to 3B, V-Mart to 1st, ahem!).

Sources:
Boston Globe
WEEI
The Baseball Cube
ESPN

BRAD PENNY TO GET 750 MILLION PENNIES

Or $7.5 million. That's what the Cardinals are going to pay Penny this season. The 31 year old struggled in Boston, but flourished in San Francisco. Last year, the Cardinals took another struggling ex-Red Sox in John Smoltz and turned him around. Penny was 4-1 in 6 starts for the Giants, compiling a 2.59 ERA.

Source:
St. Louis Post-Dispatch

BOSTON COLLEGE VS. USC IN EMERALD BOWL

Normally, an Emerald Bowl berth is yet another ho hum Boston College post-season appearance. But when it's up against USC, that's no longer the case. Thanks to USC's 4 losses, the Emerald Bowl was able to snag USC. The Trojans had been in the BCS for 7 straight years.

It's a bit of a rematch, and a bit of a preview. BC's basketball team was eliminated by USC in the Tournament last March. And these two football teams will meet in 2013 (in California) and 2014 (in Boston).

This is great news for Boston College, who achieved an unexpected 8-4 record. Even without a win, this game will bring a lot of attention locally and nationally. Attention=recruits. Recruits=winning. Winning=more attention. More attention=more recruits.

The game will be December 26th at AT&T Park (where the Giants play) in San Francisco.

THE BIPOLAR BEARS

This is about the Bruins and their manic-depressive swings in quality of play, not about sexually curious polar bears.



The Bruins played two games this weekend. On Saturday, they played hockey against the Maple Leafs. I'm still trying to figure out exactly what kind of sport they tried playing Friday in Montreal.

It's time to build your vocabulary...

Hubris (hju:brɪs) -Noun:
Overbearing pride or presumption; arrogance

The Bruins' arch-rival is hubris, not the Canadiens. This is what led to their downfall in Quebec. This is what turned a 7-0 game into a 7-2 game on Saturday. Overconfidence, resulting in relaxation.



To be fair, when the Bruins are at their best, they're calm and collected. Calm isn't a long trip away from relaxed. Calm hockey is winning hockey. But relaxed hockey is losing hockey.

The B's made countless mistakes on Friday, and they paid for them. They got a wake up call, showed up on Saturday, and scored 7 goals. Then they relaxed a bit, and let Toronto score twice in 2 minutes.

I remember last season, I'd kind of dread the Bruins going up by 3 goals in a game. It seemed like when they were tied, up 1, or up 2, they played excellent hockey. Up 3, and they tried to play "prevent hockey" which absolutely does not exist. And after sweeping Montreal in the playoffs, their overconfidence seemed to hurt them in the Carolina series.

The good news is, the Bruins are having to deal with hubris. Hubris is a byproduct of winning, and that's what the B's are doing. It's sort of like going broke buying condoms because you're getting laid more than Wilt Chamberlain. It's an enjoyable predicament, but it still needs to be addressed at some point, or tragic downfall in the Greek theatrical sense will follow. For that calmed confidence that results in win's like Saturday's can also lead to relaxed losses like Friday's

In a weird scheduling quirk, the Bruins host the Maple Leafs again on Thursday.

Source:
ESPN

Photo Credits:
AP Photo