the main point that’s now missing…

The most laugable aspect of the trade is the fact that the Sox bullpen now sits just 6 members deep. Since January, we’ve been hearing things like “we need 7 men in the pen” and “we need a (mopup) guy who can go multiple innings” yet when the Sox make a trade to acquire a 6th outfielder (7th, if you count Alexei, the opening day CFer) that narrative gets buried. And to top it off the Sox pen allows 6 runs in 2 innings blowing a game to the second-place twins. You just have to laugh.

Junior will be fine in center field. It’s an easier position than the corners. I bet you didn’t know that! Don’t you remember how much better our center field defense got when Ozzie replaced Rowand with Everett in 2003 and Anderson with Mackowiak in 2006?

Your insane GM,
Kenny

Swisher at First:
This guy is an awful first baseman.
Why does he want to fall backwards after every single throw over there? Yes
Alexei and Profundo have rocket arms, but not knock you on your ass with a throw arms?
No.
I seem to recall in little league you stretch in the direction of the throw from the bag to catch the ball as far away as possible and still touching first.
This guy has said he always played first until he got to the bigs and then moved to the OF, so you’d think he would know how to play over there.
I just dont see why he wants to bail out when the ball arrives. It sickens me.

Adding the Hall of Famer:
The good news is Swisher was a pretty bad center fielder too, so I thought having Griffey out there would be a push essentially, but those fielding numbers look pretty terrible, even though Im not so sure I know what RZR is. Couple that with the feedback from Cincinatti and this could be pretty shitty.

Our best case scenario has Griffey going all Edmonds for us and steps his game up.

When I first heard the deal on the radio this morning, I was like, ‘sweet!’
But the more I thought about it, the more I was scratching my head like you, da cheat.

My basic opinion on the deal is that it cant really hurt us. He’ll likely take the spot of Wise or Anderson who are essentially the same players. His swing is still sound, right? And .241 is better than our dueling Mendoza’s Swisher and Konerko. If Konerko gets straightened out, then they can interchange the old boys and keep them all fairly fresh without losing a lot of the firepower. Griffey > Wise IMO.

The Sox got to be in first place by pitching pretty well and hitting more HR than any other club. Adding a guy with 608 of them cant really hurt, can it? The team cant change its identity, Ricky Henderson wasnt available on the trade market, so why not reinforce what the team really is.

Piching:
This is where Im a bit concerned. The bullpen is banged up. Milwaukee Linebrink is what I thought we signed all along, even though we got half a year of San Diego Scott. My wife hates Dotel despite my stat based defenses because she says he’s not clutch, and shes not even aware of his shaky closer past. Can Contreras come back with anything at all? Do we have anyone other than Richard that can start? I dont hate Richard, and wouldnt mind him staying on in Masset’s spot, but I rather not have him learn the ropes as a starter. Put him on the Buehrle career path. I cant help but think a Gio Gonzales would be helpful here… Is Poreda ready to go? If 2008 is going to end up like 2005 or even sniff 2005, we need a new Jenks. A kid that is on the farm that can come out of nowhere and help out the squad.

the sox wouldn’t of had to make this move. So maybe Griffey coming in will light a fire under him, which is a possibility. Maybe it will also light one under Konerko and Swisher since they are competing for playing time. Swisher’s missed scoops were pathetic today- as one of the best players on the southside there is no reason why he shouldn’t have at least gotten Uribe’s…..however, Konerko would have probably thrown the force out into left field and we would have been screwed that inning. Oh well, lets just hope the offense gets going….in the very least getting Griffey led to the dismissal of Nick Massett, which was about 4 months over due in my opinion.

“Has Livan Hernandez made his last start for the Twins?”

two weeks of implementing a platoon at first base?

if you are in fact doomed?

What’s not being discussed here, or anywhere, is that Griffey’s OPS against righties is a full 100 points higher for his career than lefties—and it’s roughly .950. Anaheim, Boston, Tampa and the Yanks all have 4 right handers in their current rotations. Could Kenny have made this move with the playoffs in mind?

“That single bomb falling from the sky won’t destroy our entire city. Trust me.”

KW just makes another risky, high-profile trade that begs a jumbled mess of questions such as, “Who’s on 1st?” and “What about a relief pitcher?!”

Last night’s game seemed a live-action mockery of the trade.

Swisher’s on 1st. Nooooo problem there. Assuming every ball thrown to him is perfect and he is able to stay upright, foot on bag.

And in terms of relief pitchers – Logan looked perfectly in control. So did Dotel. What was it? – 70-some-odd pitches in 2 innings!? Yeah, we don’t need to think about pitching when we got a line-up full of power-hitters. And to our line-up’s credit, 6 runs should be enough to win a ball game.
Unfortunately, the Twins were able to match that score with 2 swings of the bat.

It was ugly all-around. We shoulda fought for that forfeit and saved all the embarrassment that followed. Too bad the Twins fans didn’t keep up their classiness just a few minutes longer…