All-Aughts Team of the Decade RP4: Derek Lowe

During Derek Lowe's tenure with the Red Sox, he was a 21-game winner, 42-save closer and 5.42 ERA starter. Lowe was consistently inconsistent and gave birth to what we all refer to as the "Derek Lowe" face -- a face of pure failure. All Star Game Lowe was acquired along with Jason Varitek in the Heathcluff Slocumb heist of 1997. After making his major league debut for the Mariners and tossing 53 innings, Lowe saw 16 innings of relief work in Boston. In 1998, Lowe was a swingman, making 10 starts and relieving in 53 others. As 1999 rolled around, Lowe eventually was anointed the closer and finished the year with 15 saves.

All-Aughts Team of the Decade 1B: Kevin Youkilis

A pudgy 25-year old named Kevin Youkilis made his major league debut in 2004, having made waves a year earlier for being the posterchild for Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game. In his first game on May 15 in Toronto, Youkilis cranked a home run for his first major league hit off Pat Hentgen. As he came to the bench after the home run, the Sox ignored him as if nothing had happened. Catching on to the hazing ritual, Youkilis grinned and high-fived the air, pretending people were there for him. It's one of the feel-good stories of the season the Sox would eventually break their curse in. Due to injury, Youkilis amassed 208 at-bats that season, hitting for a .780 OPS which remains a career low. The following year, he spent much of the year in Triple-A although he did see 79 at-bats in the bigs. 2006 is when Youkilis stepped in as a starter, moving over from his natural position of third base to first.

Red Sox need backup shortstop

With the signing of Adrian Beltre and impending acquisition of Bill Hall, it seems that the Sox only have one thing left to do: dump Mike Lowell to bring in a backup shortstop. Lowell is perhaps even more redundant with the acquisition of Hall, who can play third and has done so primarily for a while now. There are now four third basemen on the roster (Kevin Youkilis included). What the team lacks is a viable backup shortstop. While Hall can play every position but catcher competently, he hasn't tried his hand at short in three years -- and thus shouldn't be considered an option there. He figures to serve as the fifth outfielder and primary third base backup and likely first base as well. He also can appear at second base but is his position of least experience (assuming you sum all his outfield games). Assuming that the team dumps Mike Lowell (who deserves a better fate and I feel should have a nice season in 2010 but it is what it is, and I can't argue with the team's decision), who can they bring in?

Q+A: Boston OF prospect Pete Hissey

Pete Hissey was drafted in the fourth round of the 2008 draft and hails from Pennsylvania. Hissey, 19, spent his second professional baseball season with mid-A Greenville. SoxProspects notes Hissey as a speedy centerfielder with an advanced approach at the plate with current below-average power that has the potential to improve. In 369 at-bats for the Drive, Hissey hit .279/.356/.347. He currently ranks 34th on the SoxProspects chart, an impressive ranking for a 19-year old (ranks seventh among under-20 prospects). You completed your first full professional season recently. How do you feel you handled it both on and off the field? Was it more difficult than you imagined? I learned a lot as the year progressed, and found out how to take care of my body, balance my eating, and manage the ups and downs of the season. I stayed positive through the tough times and felt like my attitude helped me to turn things around.

2010 Fire Brand of the Year: J.D. Drew

Every year, Fire Brand gives out it's prestigious, most honorable Fire Brand of the Year award. Previous recipients, chronologically: Tim Wakefield, Bronson Arroyo, Mike Timlin, David Ortiz, Mike Lowell and Jason Bay. Wondering what the award is? Simple. The Fire Brand of the American League is a Red Sox player who exhibits character under pressure, an unassuming man who leaves the spotlight for other people but makes his indelible mark on the past season’s Boston Red Sox. A piece most people take for granted, but whom we would have missed dearly.

The Sixth Anniversary of Fire Brand

Today represents the sixth anniversary of Fire Brand, begun when I opined 'There is no such thing as 'The Curse of the Babe.' As is the norm on the anniversary, I want to take a moment out of our day to thank you, the readers, for making this site possible. I have strived to make Fire Brand a blog that traffics in reasoned analysis and opinion, something that was in short supply via Red Sox blogs way back when. Although the quality of Red Sox blogs have grown leaps and bounds, I feel Fire Brand still serves an important role in Red Sox coverage.

The Red Sox’s Christmas List

Merry Christmas, Happy Hannukah, Happy Holidays to everyone! While I celebrate both Christmas and Hannukah, there's no denying the holiday that stops America in its tracks -- that's Christmas. That's why I've chosen Christmas as the holiday of choice to reveal certain Red Sox personnel's holiday gift lists that were acquired in some unseemly ways. And away we go...

2009 Red Sox DiamondView

Back when the DiamondView was created over at Beyond the Boxscore, I was intrigued by the visual application of statistics. The Hardball Times is doing something similar in attempting to bring visuals to statistics. Essentially, DiamondView uses a ballpark to visually show people just how good (or bad) a player was at the four major aspects of the game: hitting, power, defense and baserunning. It can be a great point of comparison method for sabermetricians and a great way for non-sabermetricians to glean value from advanced statistics. Today, the Red Sox's DiamondView was released. I'm not putting any pictures in here, so you'll have to click to see them. But a couple thoughts:

• Wow, I didn't realize how amazing Kevin Youkilis was.
• Poor Mike Lowell really is a liability at this point, eh?
• And the cult bandwagon of actually appreciating J.D. Drew gets fuller.

All-Aughts Team of the Decade SP1: Pedro Martinez

Unsurprisingly, Pedro Martinez is the ace of the All-Aughts Team of the Decade. His 1999 and 2000 season were something to behold, and he is widely considered to be one of the top three Red Sox of all time. When Petey became a free agent following the World Series in 2004, I wrote an "Ode to Pedro" that I feel is an appropriate expression of what Pedro meant to myself and to Red Sox fans as a whole (although my writing could use a lot more polish). Rather then try to hack off a decent article on Pedro, I figured I would reprint part of the article -- the part that matters. After that, I'll wrap things up now that we have more perspective on Pedro. It is difficult to truly do Pedro justice in an article -- I don't think anyone will quite be able to capture how much he meant to the Red Sox Nation and how dominant he was on the field. It wasn't just his statistics. It was watching his pitches befuddle hitters. It was his strong attitude that batters took exception to. Pedro owned the park every time he took the mound. One might argue he still owns it: even if his stuff has disappeared, people still sit up and take notice when it's his turn to pitch.

Is Casey Kotchman our best bet at first?

As comprised today, Boston has two choices when it comes to filling it's first/third hole: Slide Youkilis over to third and commit to Nick Johnson as first-baseman... or leave the window open for Beltre with the expectation that Kotchman ends up at first. The question is: Is Nick Johnson appreciably better than Casey Kotchman based on actual value? To me, it's a rather simple answer: No. Casey Kotchman is the better option than Nick Johnson.