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I figure Fehr is like Scott Boras - for the most part, he does his job extremely well, and most of us would absolutely want him defending our interests should they need defending. He miscalculated a bit where drug testing was concerned, initially valuing privacy over public perception, but it's...

Ah, but is Nick Green a positive influence, or does Julio Lugo's presence just hurt everybody that much?

Baseball Reference. Everyone who likes baseball should have it bookmarked. I gather they have sister sites for inferior sports, too. I get a little suspicious of highlight-reel defense sometimes - diving catches just as often indicate poor positioning/range as excellent defense. Maybe...

Nick Green is having the best year of his career at 30. If he were hitting home runs, people would be making ugly accusations. And don't look, but Ortiz has an 1123 OPS for June as of now. The weird thing about short right now is that Lugo and Green are just about even, offensively...

It's called "selling high". As good as Saito's been, he's a one-year signing who is probably the highest-risk guy in the pen due to his age and the fact that he's coming off injury. Trading him wouldn't do anything to Boston's long-range plans, and short-term... Well, the shortstop situation...

It's certainly looking like they'll come out of this series against four division leaders (or, at least, four teams that led the division at the start of the series ) in pretty good shape, with the next really difficult-looking opponent coming when they face Toronto and Texas after the all-star...

It's Francona's new brainstorm - play Lugo once a week, and he'll cram a week's worth of production into that game. End, game, end. I've got a pile of screeners to review and this is the second night in a row where my plan to stick one in after the end of the movie has been foiled.

Yep. Hopefully rain won't wipe it out.

Absolutely. I'm just one guy with an HD DVR, but the shot from behind home plate clearly showed the ball disappearing behind the foul pole. If the manager did ask that it be replayed, and the ump refused to do it, the umpire should be disciplined. (And Manuel probably should have kicked up...

They really should have - that "foul ball" in the 11th was pretty clearly behind the pole as it passed. Why Manuel wasn't pitching more of a fit and demanding replay is beyond me.

Papelbon's been doing that all year. The word is that he and the team have changed his mechanics a fair amount because his old ones were causing soreness or the like. It looks like they've traded some control or command (whatever "command" is) for less injury risk. Speculation is that the Red...

Well, you'll notice I didn't say I'd implement it right away; there would be a lot of R&D put into it, beta testing it for an entire season before going live, comparing it to PitchFX and every other system being used to track the trajectory of pitches currently in use, and working with the...

How would this have a bigger effect on robot umps than the fleshy variety?

The 100 pitches thing is a rule of thumb that is applied too consistently, but it's going to be hard to get rid of because it's (a) easy to remember and (b) like the save rule, in that it gives managers an easy way to avoid actually thinking. Even without pitch counts, though, the complete...

How can you eliminate the pitch count? It's a measurement, not a rule. I mean, Hypothetical Commissioner Seaver could say he'd eliminate the save, but the definition of the "save situation" is out there, and it will be used whether I like it or not. As to reducing the number of teams -...

Hey, given how much range he's got, he IS a monument! (Sorry... It was just sitting there, and I couldn't pass it up!)

Hey, the fans were on him for his cruddy performance during the regular season. Even for a catcher, a 73 OPS+ isn't pretty, and there were long stretches when he just looked lost at the plate. That said, I don't think there was ever much backlash against Tek - say what you will about Boras...

In Varitek's case, it was conferred by the front office as part of his post-04 contract. Of course, his being voted to the All-Star team last year probably says something about what the players around the league think of him (and how much they must truly despise A.J. Pierzinski). Going to my...

Assuming he travels with the team and isn't the DL... It'll be huge. The CHBs and talk radio hosts will try to rile the fans up or act like he wasn't popular by the time he was traded away, but their job is to be jackasses. I've yet to meet a fan here who doesn't adore Nomar, and when Johnny...

The Sox and A's are playing like they've got a plane to catch in Oakland - six innings in less than 1:15. And not to jinx anything, but at this rate I'm about half an hour or so from feeling ridiculously happy for Tim Wakefield.

I don't know if you've noticed, but Mike Scioscia takes every single little thing that doesn't go his way in a game like a personal affront. It's not quite as bad in the regular season as it is in the post-season (maybe he likes to play to the cameras), but if he's going to give the "did you see...