Well, DJ went from playing in the Bay Area, to playing in the Bay Area, and now playing in the Bay Area.

as well. It’s one thing to sign these guys to split minor/major league contracts if they can get the player to agree to that, but I’m sure they have to be added to the 40 man roster… so it’s odd to me that the Red Sox would be willing to clear 4 spots like that.

I can think of a couple scenarios that might explain it, but actually in checking right now it seems that 3 of the 4 have already been added and that they did indeed have to DFA 3 guys to make room:

http://boston.redsox.mlb.com/team/roster_40man.jsp?c_id=bos

Charlie Zink, a knuckleballer, was DFA’d to make room for Baldelli; don’t know if he’s been claimed yet.

I read about another two guys getting claimed immediately upon being placed on waivers, Dewon Day by Tampa Bay and Virgil Vasquez by San Diego. I don’t think they’ve officially added Smoltz yet, and since he probably won’t pitch ’til June and ended last year on the DL I wonder if they have to add him to the 40 man at all, or if they can put him straight on the DL without DFAing somebody else?

They also just re-signed Kotsay apparently, so that might be another roster maneuver…

Anyway, I agree with you a team can realistically only add so many free agents or so many guys like this without completely mangling their 40 man roster. The point I was raising and considering was that signing guys on “make good” deals has been a tactic Oakland has used in previous years, and that other small market teams could afford to use, as a way of potentially acquiring impact players without breaking the bank on big free agent contracts… and if the Red Sox and/or Yankees start outbidding small market teams on these sorts of opportunities too, then… that’s just one more avenue for obtaining premium talent closed off to all but a handful of MLB clubs then, isn’t it?

And I suppose you could argue that when you’re the Yankees and/or Red Sox a strong farm system is almost more of a luxury than a necessity, in some ways… so maybe they don’t mind losing a couple reasonable prospects if they can get the potential return of a healthy Smoltz or Penny in their rotation, a healthy Saito setting up Papelbon, and a Rocco Baldelli who may finally be able to stay healthy and be about as good a 4th outfielder this year as any team in baseball could hope to have.

when talking of acquisitions of this sort. The A’s are a team that has made a specialty of this sort of acquisition under Beane’s leadership, actually.

The “low risk” part of it is generally because the player is given only a one year deal and only some money is guaranteed up front, usually a small amount relative to the potential value of the contract if most or all incentives are earned due to player performance. And the guaranteed money in the contract is generally very little compared to the accepted talent level of the player, should the player regain full health and perform at or near his expected level.

So it’s “low risk” because it doesn’t obligate the team beyond the given season, and because the team will only be paying the full value of the contract if the player is healthy and performs well.

I don’t remember NFL refs always being this incompetent, but we baseball fans should just be glad our guys are pros.

Braun just couldn’t coach offense, and it seemed like most of the time the strategy was to pass the ball around the perimeter and hope something would happen.

Warner.

Just biting my tongue. I wish I could say more to clear up any misunderstanding but I can’t/will not. It has nothing to do with what your parents’ intentions are; in fact, I think the idea your folks have is pretty cool.