I've become increasingly worried about the post-Epstein Red Sox brain trust. First, trading Lowrie and Reddick for relievers. In hindsight, those trades look terrible, but even at the time, trading good and promising position players for relievers? Best-case scenario, you'd get maybe 60 good innings out of each guy. Even the players we thought Lowrie and Reddick were when they were traded have to be worth more than that. The Youkilis situation was just so poorly handled. As Chucko indicated above, it's stupid to essentially destroy someone's trade value before you try to move him, but that's what they did. Not exactly an inspiring start to the new regime.

YOUKILIS AND 5.5 MILLION DOLLARS TO THE WHITE SOX FOR TWO BENCH PLAYERS? OBAMA AND THE CHICAGO MAFIA STRIKE AGAIN! I CAN SEE OPRAH'S FINGERPRINTS ALL OVER THIS ONE.

I think they should go one-up on the Tigers and play Youk at shortstop. He'd have better range than Jeter, right?

No Rickey Henderson? Your outfielders are hard to argue with, and Edgar's awesome, but my team has to have Rickey leading off. I agree with you 100% though, the arguments are what's fun about this sort of exercise. My team would match yours, with the following changes: C I.Rod, SS Ozzie (not Guillen), Henderson replaces Aaron, DH Manny being Manny, and my starting pitcher is either Maddox or Randy Johnson. P.S. Any list of this sort which doesn't have Mariano Rivera as the best reliever is just trolling.

When you say "a smarter manager wouldn’t hesitate to use Jansen instead of Guerra in the ninth", I get what you mean. But really, a truly smart manager would use Jansen in high-leverage situations regardless of the inning. Of course, if that's what's going on, then you're absolutely correct that Guerra should be secure as the saves guy most nights.

Any reason for not discussing Rodney? He's got the "proven closer" street cred, after all.

Well, what's the alternative? Guilty until proven innocent? That's the standard you're suggesting. The "legal slight-of-hand" protects all of us. Sure, it sucks when someone who seems obviously guilty goes free, but those protections are to try to minimize the risk of innocent people being convicted. In the abstract, we'd love to see the bad guys get what's coming to them every time, and if the authorities bend the rules a bit and don't follow proper procedure, what's the harm? Until one of us gets falsely accused of something, that is. Anyway, Mr. Goldman's "weekly liberal diatribe" isn't really about much of the above. It's a workplace grievance issue. It's kind of like if your employer decided to dock your pay because your computer showed someone accessing BP during working hours. If you could show that other people had access to your machine during that time, wouldn't it be better if the boss had to prove it was you before docking your pay? But I guess that's a "legal loophole" too; if the bosses say you did something, that's proof enough, right?

Nice article, but if any of your family are subscribers, you can go ahead and make alternate plans for Thanksgiving.

I was wondering if Lyman Bostock would be on this list. I was 15 years old when he was killed, and had the same reaction as you did. Interestingly, I was just thinking about him a couple days ago when I read a story about some recent players whose careers have declined rapidly for one reason or another.

I can't believe number one isn't, as he's still known in New England, Bucky F'ing Dent.

"it wasn't not Jim Tracey's fault" Was the double negative deliberate here? I'm not sure whether this was a typo or if you're implying it actually was Tracy's fault. Good article otherwise. Think the Rocks will consider moving Ianetta in the off season?

Why not save some electrons and just tell us when Justin Duchscherer's is NOT hurt? He sort of reminds me of the old Chevy Chase bit on SNL: "In other news, Generalissimo Francisco is still dead!"

Sit Reyes, eh? I wish I had seen this on Sunday, seeing as I'm in a weekly transactions league. Glad to see you'll have these up on Fridays, that'll be a big help.

Miguel Olivo with a higher WARP than Ichiro! Anyone care to put any money on that?

We asked you not to mention the phantom tag. Good recap. I hope you're right about Aviles getting PT over Getz.

The point of the exercise is that you crunched some numbers that don't support answering the questions you were trying to address. No sweat; that's why this kind of stuff should be peer-reviewed before it's posted. But you continue to talk around the criticisms: there's "much turbulence" in a staff, which suggests that sixth starters get plenty of work? Maybe so, but your study does nothing toward answering that proposition. Nada. Zip. Zero. It's really kind of embarrassing, as far as I'm concerned. As you can tell, I just get rather worked up over people applying statistical techniques in such a sloppy fashion. As you ask above, "is this going to be on the exam?" If so, you flunked.

This is a statistical analysis of the GIGO type. I would posit that, given the number of pitchers who break down, the "fifth starter" going into the season, if he's at all effective, would frequently end up being the 3rd or even second starter by the end of the season in terms of games started. To summarize the results of this "study": there's not much difference between the number of games pitched by the guy who pitches the fifth highest and sixth highest number of starts per team. Really? Wow! I'd be quite interested if there's much difference between the number of doubles hit by the players that rank fifth and sixth on each team too, that's about as relevant and interesting. To quote Diego Montoyo, "I don't think that means what you think it does."

Heck, people in Montana drive 100 miles for milk.

I like Branyan as much as the next guy, but I think the M's as an organization have learned a lesson about "free talent". That was Branyan last year, and perhaps Garko this year. If Branyan would come back for one year at say 3 mil plus incentives, that'd probably be about right for a player with his track record; not too long of a committment, and one you can run from if he crashes and burns. Just like Garko; if he performs, that's great; if not, cut him loose and pick up some other nearly-free hitter. In this context, I'd argue that Griffey is not freely replacable. Perhaps in the context of talent, yes, but his value to the franchise is now that of popular elder icon. Maybe if he decides to hang 'em up, the M's could give his roster spot to some other well-loved graybeard like Edgar Martinez or Jay Buhner.

AT EASE GRADY, WE CAN'T ALL BE GREG ODEN Do you think he really asked for a 10-inch-pianist?

Oops. I missed the news about Garko. Interesting pickup.

I think this projection bodes very well for the Rays. I doubt they'll put up with such sub-par production from the DH spot. Johnny Damon's been making noise about "preferring" to play for the Rays this season; that alone (or a similar upgrade) would push the team up into Sox/Yankees territory, wouldn't it? Personally, I'd love to see what Branyon could do with the job. All those at-bats in the AL East hitters parks could lead to some freaky numbers.

Hey fellow M's fans, as of today (2/3), BP has our team projected to finish last in the West at 77-85 (see Depth Charts). That's with Byrnes taking half the playing time in left field. I'm not complaining about the moves Jack Z has made this offseason, but might we go out and rent someone like Damon for this season?

"Finally, there’s a lot of work going on behind the scenes to bring you more of the content you want." The first time through, I read this as "more content than you want". From this site, that could never happen.

As a long-time Mariners fan, I have to disagree with you a bit ElAngelo. Bavasi's suckitude goes well beyond any objective, quantifiable amount, and into metaphysical realms that mortals are not meant to understand, and seek to do so at their own peril.

There's one obvious solution to the problem of playing in cold weather in November, and it could solve a lot of the other problems too. Play the games in Hawaii. That evens out the travel for the players and fans from both countries who wish to attend. Extending play for a week might seem a lot more palatable if players could entice their families with a trip to Hawaii in November. In Japan, the city of Naha in Okinawa has a climate like Hawaii's, Japanese spring training facilities and a stadium that seats 30,000. Alternatively, neutral warm-winter or domed-stadium cities could bid for the series, just like it's done for the Super Bowl. San Diego, Miami, Tampa, LA, Las Vegas for example, even Toronto and Seattle could get in on it.

Well, given his seeming total lack of concern with or even awareness of the importance of walks, especially for a player like him (Ichiro doesn't worry about walks, why should I?), I'm sure he was unaware of the criticisms inherent in the questions. Joey, Ichiro is a singular talent. Your comment would be like a pitcher saying that Mariano Rivera pretty much gets by on one pitch, so I can too.

You're right Jeff. They've lost their marbles.

There's a newsletter?

"Do we have to put "Don't Stop Believin'" in the discussion for best rock song?" Um, Will, how about you stick to the medicine?

Your driver's license says that you're 6'0" and 200 pounds? Quite suspicious, when you remember that this is considered the ideal height and weight for a baseball analyst.

I just hope we find out where he's going before my NL roto draft on Sunday; I could use a fifth starter. Thanks for correcting your minor mistake so quickly.