Voting in the 2012 All-Star Ballot

Evan reveals his ballot.

Behold! The Cafardo Mail Bag!

To those of you who read Nick Cafardo regularly, this will come as no surprise to you. Mr. Cafardo has…

Valuing the 2011 Free Agent Class

As I was reading Jim Bowden’s “Pricing the Free Agents” piece on ESPN last Friday afternoon, I could hear the rising and…

Poll: How Much Does a Manager Matter?

Boston’s search for a new field manager continues and it will do so without the option of Mike Maddux, who…

Searching for a Right Fielder

As much fun as it’s been dissecting every rumor, and providing rational responses to every over-the-top editorial written for the…

The Sox Need a Starter, Not Beltran

I feel like my writing about Andrew Miller might be bordering on overkill, but you know what, he’s just not that good…

Should the Sox Bring Back O-Cab?

The MLB trade deadline looms and the Sox are making their calls and doing their research. The club has been tied…

Red Sox Banking on Some Great Genes.

If blood lines mean anything, the Red Sox may have hit a home run when they made center fielder Reymond Fuentes their first-round pick (28th overall) in the 2009 draft. The 19-year-old Fuentes is a first cousin of New York Mets’ All-Star center fielder Carlos Beltran – who also graduated from the same high school (Fernando Callejo in Manati, Puerto Rico) as Fuentes. Fuentes, a high school sprint champion, was rated as the third-fastest runner among draft-eligible high school players. He’s been clocked in 6.2 seconds for the 60-yard dash. Not surprisingly, Fuentes admits he models his game after his star cousin. “I consider myself very similar to Carlos because when he’s playing, he just plays the game and nothing else,” Fuentes told The Boston Globe. “When I play, I get very focused on what I do. I don’t pay any mind to anything outside the game.”

Could Creative Thinking Lead to Beltran?

Sometimes the best trades are the one's that weren't the most apparent to the public prior to them going down. Like the deals that brought Josh Beckett and Curt Schilling to Boston previously or the deadline deals that sent Nomar Garciaparra and Manny Ramirez out of town for positive gain, the current Red Sox front office's ability to think creatively around trade options has done them well. The fact that Theo and team made a compelling offer at the deadline for Felix Hernandez only cement the point that the "obvious" trade, at that time Halladay, isn't always the only, or the best, option. The hard think about writing about "those kind of deals" is that until they are whispered, it is complete conjecture. Without inside information on the other team involved, it would be hard for anyone in our shoes to lend credence to any particular move. That said, one whisper that caught me thinking this weekend comes from Michael Silverman of the Boston Herald.