Flotsam and Jetsam

Miscellaneous thoughts and observations.

Was not a fan of Erik Bedard but with the news that Clay Buchholz has a stress fracture and will be out for season it becomes very clear that Red Sox had to obtain a starter. There are worse things than getting a guy with a career 3.69 ERA to be your 4th starter... Stealthy Bastards. I would so drive around like that for hours at a time... Excellent run down of the prospects involved from the Red Sox perspective. The key to understand is that there was no room on the Red Sox 40-man roster for the guys they traded. There was a good chance the players could have been lost with no return in the Rule 5 draft anyway... Best protest sign at the Capitol... Of the players the Red Sox traded away - catcher Tim Federowicz had the best chance to actually be in the Red Sox long term plans. However, with Jarrod Saltalamaccia blossoming and Ryan Lavarnway being a total monster at AAA Pawtucket (.352 BA, .428 OBP, 1.113 OPS with 13 HR) there just wasn't room for him... I've seen a number of people who wonder why the Rockies were so willing to part with Ubaldo Jimenez as if that created a buyer beware situation. But couldn't the same be said of the Indians and their prospects? Why would the Indians part with stud pitching prospects? Maybe Jimenez really is "just" a #2 starter but how many top prospects ever even develop to that level?... Heh heh - Forty Fords. I can identify about half... Macro-economists have successfully predicted 9 of the last 5 recessions... Love stuff like this - Americanisms... Speaking of Harrison Ford movies - yesterday I realized that the actress who played the IRA girl in Patriot Games - Polly Walker - went on to be Attia of the Julii in Rome. I will never be able to watch Patriot Games the same ever again... Very cool timelapse video of the fog in a San Francisco neighborhood... One final Trade Deadline note - how funny is it that Baseball-reference.com lists Ubaldo Jimenez as the most similar pitcher to Erik Bedard? This about that for a while.