Red Sox Prospective Outfield-2011

In case you missed it, the Red Sox were officially eliminated from post-season contention last night, after both the Yankees and Rays won their respective contests. With that, it's officially time to start looking towards what the Sox can improve upon for next season.

Injuries, obviously, were the main reason for the demise of the Red Sox in 2010. In no area was this felt more than in the outfield, where opening day starters Jacoby Ellsbury and Mike Cameron played in just 66 out of a possible 324 combined games.  This left Boston depending on career minor leaguers such as Darnell McDonald and Daniel Nava to pick up the slack, which obviously produced less than outstanding results.

While Ellsbury figures to be a key part of this team's future, I have never understood why GM Theo Epstein decided it would be a good idea to invest over $15 million in a 37-year-old outfielder who was very clearly on the downside of his career with diminishing defensive skills.  Cameron should be bought out for the 2011 campaign, and Ellsbury should be moved back to centerfield where he rightfully belongs.

As for the corners, it gets a little tricky. There has been speculation that right fielder JD Drew will retire at season's end, with one season left on his contract. While quite frankly I'd be doing backflips, as I've always found Drew to be massively overrated (not to mention overpaid), this would create a gaping hole in right field, where prospects Ryan Kalish and Josh Redick are certainly not ready for full-time major league duty. Due to the Los Angeles Dodgers tumultuous ownership situation, it has been rumored that they are looking to slash payroll heading into next season. If the Red Sox could somehow manage to pry Andre Ethier away from Chavez Ravine,  it would do wonders towards getting them back to the top of the AL East in '11. Ethier, who would be 29 shortly after opening day next season, is batting .285 with 23 HR and 85 RBI with an .847 OPS for the Dodgers this season.

Ethier could be a fixture in the Sox outfield not just for next year, but for years to come.

In left field, which is considered much easier to play at Fenway than right, the Red Sox should take a look at soon-to-be Washington Nationals free agent Adam Dunn. He may not be the most fleet a foot in the outfield, but neither was Jason Bay during his year-and-a-half stint here, and we all know the adventure that was Manny Ramirez for the better part of the decade. Esptein preached "run prevention" heading into the season, indicating the Sox would rely on pitching and defense to win games, but that turned out to be a massive load of BS. Before injuries struck to Kevin Youklis and Dustin Pedroia, the Sox were near the major league lead in runs scored. But back to Dunn. Since breaking into the big leagues in 2001, Dunn has averaged an astonishing 40 home runs per season per 162 games played. At just age 30, he is almost a lock to join the 500 home run club later on in his career. Dunn had 5 consecutive 40+ home run campaigns in 2004-2008, and since moving to the spacious Nationals Park in Washington he has still managed 38 in both 2009 and this season, with a few games left to play.

C'mon, after watching Manny Ramirez for 8 years, how bad could Adam Dunn be under The Monster? The man hits bombs

With David Ortiz, Victor Martinez, and Adrian Beltre all slated for free agency, the Red Sox could be void of a true power threat heading into 2011. Adam Dunn would cure those ills, and then some.

So come next April, if the Red Sox outfield features Ellsbury, Ethier, and Dunn, just remember: you heard it here first.

LeBron and the Heat

Alright, so training camps are opening this week in the NBA. Which finally means the most anticipated season in recent memory is soon to be upon us. While action won't officially get going until the Heat visit the Celtics on October 26, ESPN's coverage of training camps and the exhibition season will give us a taste of the treat to come.

But while I'm ecstatic for basketball season to get underway, I am already so freaking tired of hearing the name "LeBron James". For the two seasons prior, all we have heard about is "oh boy, LeBron's free agency is finally coming up, I wonder where he's going to go?" Speculation ranged from his saving the basketball Mecca that is New York City, to joining the laughingstock Los Angeles Clippers (where he would forge a battle for LA basketball supremacy with Kobe Bryant), and seemingly thousands of other scenarios in between.

If I ever leave Pro Sports, I'm going to announce it on an hour-long TV special. Maybe on the old Friday Show or something.

Once James and his old team, the Cleveland Cavaliers, were eliminated from the post-season by the Celtics in the Eastern Conference semi-finals, the media furor around "King James" soared to heights previously unimaginable.  Even while the NBA playoffs were continuing on, the LeBron Watch became a daily segment on almost all ESPN programming. He even got his own section on ESPN's scrolling bottom line, which is generally reserved for daily scores and other sports news that's actually happening that day.


This all led up to July 8, when LeBron finally announced his plans for this coming season. In an hour-long special title called "The Decision", which featured studio analysts and all sorts of other quirks, James announced that he would be "taking his talents to South Beach". Thus, he would be joining up with incumbent superstar Dwayne Wade, as well as fellow free-agent signee Chris Bosh.  Much of the hype dating back to previous months was the possibility of several marquee-free agents-to-be joining forces with one another, creating somewhat of a superteam.


In the aftermath of "The Decision", LeBron was blasted in a variety a ways, from all sorts of angles. The majority of negative sentiment towards James stemmed from his decision to announce on national TV that he would be leaving his hometown Cleveland Cavaliers.  Could he really be so narcissistic to stab an entire city in the back on a grand stage, a city which had showed him nothing but support and adoration for the first 7 seasons of his career?


The next wave of negativity came from LeBron's plan to join up with other superstars, rather than to compete against them and win championships. This is where I personally turned against LeBron. Since his high school days, we've been hearing about how LeBron has a chance to be the greatest basketball player of all-time. Not just a chance, but that it was an inevitability. He was supposed to be not just the next Michael Jordan, but better than Jordan.  And for awhile, it seemed like he very well could be on his way to at the very least coming into the same galaxy as His Airness.

Think Michael Jordan joins up with Patrick Ewing and Charles Barkley back in the 90's?

Here's where the problem lies: Michael Jordan didn't run from his challenges as LeBron did. MJ won his titles, more or less, as the only elite player on his team. Sure, he had plenty of talent around him. Scottie Pippen, Horace Grant, Dennis Rodman to name a few of his sidekicks. But MJ won 6 NBA titles as the only truly "elite" player on his team.  And it took him until his 7th year in the league, when he was still a young 28 years of age. LeBron's decision to join up with other superstars Wade and Bosh is very much a cowardly one. Believe it or not, LeBron doesn't turn 26 until December of this coming season. Is one supposed to believe that at such a young age, LeBron had to wave the proverbial white flag and acknowledge that he could not win a title without the help of not one, but two other superstars?


As Jordan himself said, he never would have joined up with his rivals. He, along with retired NBA superstars Larry Bird, Magic Johnson, and Charles Barkley, to name a few, echoed in the notion that they were too busy concentrating on beating their rivals rather than forming alliances with them.


The final and most important point as to why LeBron's decision will hurt his legacy in the long run is that the team he joined, the Heat, is by no means "his" team. Dwayne Wade has been the Heat's marquee player, crunch-time scorer, face of the franchise-guy for the past 7 seasons. Are we supposed to believe that LeBron's arrival is going to diminish those responsibilities for Wade?


Like it or not, LeBron is now a sidekick. Perhaps the greatest sidekick of all-time, but a sidekick nonetheless. And that is why in infuriates me that ESPN is devoting so much of its coverage of NBA training camps on LeBron, where he really isn't even going to utilized as the best player on his own team. The two-time reigning MVP, his numbers are almost certain to be reduced sharing responsibilities with Wade and Bosh.


LeBron did indeed have a chance to become the greatest player of all-time. It's really a damn shame that we were deprived of the rest of the journey.

Patriots vs. Bills-Week 3 Thoughts

One week after being handled down in the Meadowlands by the hated New York Jets, the Patriots returned home to face fellow AFC East rival Buffalo. Over the past decade, the Patriots and Bills have been a tale of two franchises. The Bills have not made the postseason since 1999, during which time they have an abysmal 2-18 record against the Pats. This includes 13 victories in a row reeled off by New England, dating back to 2003. The Patriots, on the other hand, have made the postseason seven times during the Bills stretch of failure, which includes three Super Bowl championships and they came damn near close to winning a fourth. Anyways, that's all in the past now. Let's turn our attention to Foxboro on Sunday, where the Patriots escaped with a 38-30 victory.

When I say "escaped" with a victory, that is not to imply that the Patriots played poorly. But tt was expected to be a much easier contest against the hapless Bills, who had already made a quarterback change just two weeks into the young season.

The Patriots offense didn't disappoint, that's for sure.  Tom Brady rebounded from a dismal performance against New York to complete 21 of 27 passes for 252 yards, as well as 3 touchdown strikes. Two of these came to Randy Moss, who caught the 150th and 151st touchdown pass of his career. He trails only former 49ers great Jerry Rice for the most receiver TDs in NFL history.

Brady also continued to get the rookie tight ends involved. Aaron Hernandez caught a game-high 6 balls from Brady for 65 yards, while Rob Gronkowski added 3 catches for 43 yards and a TD.

The rushing attack was the best it's been for the Patriots all season, with third-year man BenJarvus Green-Ellis rushing for 98 yards on 16 carries, including a score. Danny Woodhead, fresh off joining the team two weeks ago, also scored his first NFL touchdown on a 22-yard run in the 2nd quarter.

The defense, on the other hand, had an up-and-down day. They gave up a total of 374 yards of offense, including 134 on the ground. They allowed the Bills to convert 5 of 10 third-down plays, but the most important number of all would have to be 30.  As in allowing 30 points to the punchless Buffalo Bills, led by quarterback Ryan Fitzpatrick, who was deemed before the game as "the sparkplug the Bills needed".  Fitzpatrick did his part, to be fair, keeping the Bills in the game. But the Patriots defense did make plays when it mattered most, including an interception by safety Brandon Meriweather on what proved to be Buffalo's final offensive drive.  Patrick Chung also picked off the Harvard grad earlier in the game.

All things considered, you have to be happy with the Patriots performance this week. The offense firing on all cylinders, which included the running game for once. If Green-Ellis can continue perform at a high level, it will do wonders for Tom Brady and the Patriots passing attack. Teams used to the Pats throwing the ball at will are suddenly going to have to keep an eye on the run as well.  Giving up 30 points on a regular basis isn't going to get the job done, but as long as the D can step up in big spots with the offense continuing to gel the Pats should be just fine moving forward.

Next up: a Monday night showdown in Miami.

2010 Boston Red Sox

Over the past weekend in the Bronx, the Red Sox had one last chance to salvage what has been a very frustrating 2010 campaign. Marred by injuries to key position players, as well as vastly underperforming seasons from several pitchers, the Red Sox have played third fiddle in the AL East for most of the season, looking up at the New York Yankees and Tampa Bay Rays. That said, they have remained within striking distance over the long haul, never being in a position where they could be totally written off. Their best chance of getting back into the race was a late August series with Tampa, where after winning the opener, the Sox pulled to within 3 1/2 games in the wild card race. Of course, they promptly dropped the next two contests, and a week later were swept away by the White Sox at home. Call it resiliency, call it inconsistency, but the Sox continued to hover on the fringe of contention, 5 1/2 feet under but you couldn't totally write them off just yet. This weekend, the Red Sox had what was truly their final chance to make a post-season push in 2010, with a 3 game series against the Yankees. The Sox looked very good in taking the first two, but on Sunday night, Jonathan Papelbon and Hideki Okajima failed to secure a lead for the God-knows-how-many-time again. In a way, the weekend was a perfect microcosm of the Sox season. Inconsistent starting pitching, a surprisingly potent offense, and a bullpen that would just make you sick to your stomach time and time again.  All things considered, the Red Sox still have a chance to win 90 games for the 8th time in 9 seasons. There's no doubt that's a great accomplishment, but unless the season ends with a post-season berth, it has to be considered a disappointment here in Boston.