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July 26, 2007
Sean McAdam is back once again for another edition of projo SoxTalk. Click here to listen to the full audio file. The topics of discussion: The Red Sox' frustrating loss to Fausto Carmona and the Cleveland Indians; the latest on the trade market; whether the Yankees still need to make a deal; and the coming influx of young pitching talent in the Red Sox-Yankee rivalry.
Here are some excerpts from Sean's comments:
On last night's game: "When you face a pitcher like Carmona on a night like last night, where he clearly has terrific stuff going, you have to force the issue a little bit. You have to be aggressive; you have to try to create some things. You certainly can't sit back and expect that you're going to come up with a three-run homer against him or a big inning, so you have to peck away, and even with the speed of guys like Crisp and Lugo, that isn't the kind of game that the Red Sox do well with."
Trade prospects: "I think it's more likely that the Red Sox work out someting at a lesser level than Teixeira. There is some interest in Ty Wigginton with Tampa Bay, who can play three of the four infield positions, probably even play a little bit in the outfield or DH, and would be a nice versatile bat off the bench. But I'm also told that Tampa Bay has for now got its asking price too high. There continue to be talks with Pittsburgh surrounding the Wily Mo Pena for Salomon Torres exchange, but unless a Teixeira trade or something else kick-starts activity, I think were probably going to see most of what we see -- and I don't expect that to be a lot -- take place on Monday or Tuesday."
On the Sox and Yanks of tomorrow: "Both teams I think have sensed where the market has gone on free-agent pitching, having both been burned and rewarded on the free-agent market. ... The best way to combat that, of course, is to develop your own. So as they continue to do on the field, both the Red Sox and Yankees have mirrored one other in their approach to the draft the last few seasons, focusing ... predominantly on stockpiling as many young arms in their systems as possible, and now that those guys are in Double-A and Triple-A, and not far off from contributing at the major-league level, there's going to be an interesting influx of talent coming up the next couple of years with homegrown pitching prospects."
Posted by Mike McDermott 
at 10:39 AM to McAdam
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George | July 26, 2007 1:26 PM link
Sean, I really think at worst the Yanks will be the wildcard so what you will have are two teams with great pitching (Angels & Sox) and two teams with great starting pitching (Yanks & Tigers) but great offense. The Sox would need to score 5 or 6 runs in some of those games to beat those team. And let's not forget the importance of home runs in the playoffs. Right now, I don't see it. They've made too made average guys look great and too many good guys look like hall of famers.