What's this I hear about Manny and Clement being traded for Tejada?

[rockymountaindem]

Are they insane?

[MaineDem]

1. Whom do you mean by "they" being insane?

The Sox or the Os?
:)

The orioles don't want to trade Tejada within their division so I'm not sure it'll happen.

[rockymountaindem]

2. The Sox

Seriously, Tejada for Ramirez? That's like buying a $5 bill with a ten!

[NJ Democrats]

3. The new rumor is a 4-way

Boston Gets: Tejada and Joey Gathright
O's get: Kris Benson, Matt Clement, Julio Lugo
Mets: Manny, Dannies Baes (spell? TB's closer)
Rays get: Aaron Heilman, Jae Seo, Andy marte, Kaz Matsui

If they do it Boston will barley be in 3rd next year, but would compleatly miss playoffs.

[MessiahRp]

4. I disagree with that...

If they have to trade Manny and he's forcing their hand with it, Tejada is the best he can do. Signing Tejada also paves the way for a long term extension with Ortiz down the road since the two are close friends.

Gathright gives them blazing speed and if his bat develops they can replace Damon in CF on the basepaths at least. He provides a Juan Pierre style hitter at the top of the lineup.

Moving Manny and Clement also takes a lot of salary off the books. Nobody in Boston really wants to give up Marte but we have Mike Lowell there and we're kind of tied there. The outfield would still need another bat and I am assuming Preston Wilson is the option in Free Agency they would pursue unless they feel that they can use David Wells to get a bat somewhere and that is not entirely out of the question.

Remember that Wells still has to be moved and a lot of the chatter Sox fans keep bantering about is making a deal with LA that would bring JD Drew over. LA is in on the Wells talk and would like a quality starter and they could conceivably move Drew to free up some money for other moves (since they dramatically overspent this offseason). Obviously Boston would have to include a prospect to make that deal work.

The Sox have a glut of starting pitching so they have to move Wells anyways now and Clement might blossom well under Mazzone in Baltimore because he didn't look entirely impressive in Beantown.

There are still moves to be made but if we have to move Manny the four way is the best prospective deal because it gets us Gathright to play Center whom I consider infinitely better than making a deal for Seattle's Jeremy Reed.

If those moves all materialized, the lineup would still be pretty solid when you consider it:

CF Gathright
RF Nixon
LF Drew/Wilson
3B Lowell
SS Tejada
2B Loretta/Graffanino
1B Youkalis
C Varitek

SP Beckett
SP Schilling
SP Wakefield
SP Arroyo
SP Papelbon

And this doesn't include the possibility, however remote, that they might make a run at Roger Clemens for this year.

Boston will be right in this thing. They have a few more moves to make.

Rp