BoSox AFL Update

With the conclusion of every major league season comes the beginning of the second season of “minor” leagues in baseball – the Winter Leagues. This 2009 off-season, the Sox have placed 17 promising prospects across four leagues, including some of the most exciting names in the organization, such as Casey Kelly, Ryan Kalish, Jose Iglesias, and Yamiaco Navarro. The Winter Leagues are one of the more interesting annual rituals of the MLB, aside from maybe the Rule 5 Draft, as every team in baseball pours their most highly touted prospects into one pool where they duke it out for organizational supremacy.

The Science of Selling Felix, A-Gon Short

In our versions of an offseason blueprint the Red Sox could follow (1, 2, 3) one topic that came up fairly often was how realistic or unrealistic our proposed trade packages were for certain players. Let's recap: Mike Lowell, Casey Kotchman, Clay Buchholz and key minor league pieces (defined as anyone sans Kelly, numbering two) for Felix Hernandez. Money comment: Getting King Felix would be nice, but you are crazy thinking Seattle would have any interest in picking up Lowell or Kotchman. Why would they pick up $16+ in salaries? Lowell is going nowhere unless we pay his salary, which is crazy. - MEe Clay Buchholz, Lars Anderson, Manny Delcarmen, Michael Bowden, two "second-tier" prospects to San Diego for Adrian Gonzalez. Money comment: Delcarmen is a stiff. Bowden is a stiff. Anderson has done NOTHING in the minor leagues. Clay Buccholz has major league stuff but has yet to prove himself for an entire season. For this you'll get one of the best young power hitters in the game? I think not!! - Nick If our proposed deals are not up to snuff, that's not good. Let's try to figure out what a proposed deal could, should be.

Jays turned down Sox’s 6-for-1 offer on Halladay

I'm on the Rotoworld.com beat, and this just came across my desk:

Bob Elliot of the Toronto Sun reports that the Red Sox offered the Blue Jays six pitchers for Roy Halladay at the trading deadline. The names: Daniel Bard, Michael Bowden, Clay Buchholz, Felix Doubront, Nick Hagadone and Justin Masterson. That's quite an impressive array of names, and it's shocking Toronto didn't snap it up. The scout that revealed this deal said the Jays had difficulty projecting Masterson's future, and -- probably most important --- "the Jays were worried about Halladay beating them next year." Obviously, Masterson and Hagadone are no longer with the Sox club so it's unlikely a deal could be reached in the offseason. If it's going to take more than that package to land Halladay, GM J.P. Ricciardi won't find any takers.

What do you think? Are we lucky the Jays turned the deal down?