Everything tastes like cloves

They put these suture type things in my mouth because my lack of wizdom teeth are giviving me flak that are made of cloves, so now I'm stuck at work tasting cloves all day.

I just listened to a speach by Dick Beardsley titled "Staying the Course." It was pdcasted by The Age Grouper over at http://theagegrouper.com/. I don't have the direct link because they just moved into a super space age website and haven't posted all the old episodes yet, but check it out if you have time... very inspirational stuff.

The reason for this post is the Red Sox, most notably the leak of Big Papi's steroid use and the looming MLB trade deadline. First off, Big Papi. Not much to say about that other than he's a cheater. Now, thats pretty rough because he's on my team, but I won't sugar coat it. I've heard a lot about "doesn't this taint the Sox '04 World Series title?" Absolutely not, and here's why: look at the teams the Sox beat in the ALCS and World Series- the Yankees and the Cardinals. The Yankees had guys like Jason Giambi and Andy Pettitte, and the Cards had Mark McGuire. Its as shame for baseball, that guys like Ortiz are cheaters in a game of cheaters, but then, that's not limited to this decade. You had generation of alcoholics, cheaters, guys who bet on baseball, and all sorts of black marks on the game.

First, we have a straight up deal for your reading pleasure: Casey Kotchman from the Angels to the Red Sox for Andy La Roche. Now, Kotchman is a leftie like La Roche, and he has more power than La Roche, but he's 26. Speculation is he'll be a bench guy, but you can't put a guy with that much potential on the bench, but Lowell isn't a bench player ether. We're going to have to stash Lowell on the DL long term until we can get a good look at Kotchman, and then make a call and play Youk at third. I think this is a good move because I really don't think Lowell will be a starter next season.

Up next we have a trade that makes me want to throw something at the computer screen. The Sox are sending highly touted pitching prospects Justin Masterson, Nick Hagadone, and Bryan Price for the Indians Victor Martinez. Now, Martinez can play Catcher or first base, but he's a below average first baseman, plus we have a logjam there so lets forget about that. Bringing Martinez to the Sox is a good move (note that I didn't say the deal itself was good) because we've gotten very spotty offensive production from behind the plate, and while I love Tek, he is coming to the end of his playing rope. Kottaras has played well, although his offensive production has been spotty as well. Unfortunately, Kottaras is now on the fringe and will probably be sent down and will be a September call up. The deal, however-- we gave up too much. Nick Hagadone is the eigth ranked Red Sox prospect by Baseball Prospectus, and Masterson the 53rd ranked prospect in baseball. With Cleveland so pressed for pitching depth, you could think we could exploit that and trade for less pitchers, not more.