News and Notes While Waiting for the Julio Lugo to get on Base

So I’m on vacation out here on Cape Cod (in the pouring rain) with nothing to do but watch TV, read Red Sox rumors and eat fried sea food (mmm). I’d be at the beach except it’s only 50 degrees and Noah is outside looking for two of every animal… that’s neither here nor there. Let’s talk Sox news.

Lester staying in AAA: I’m ok with this. He needs to make 2 or 3 more “look guys I’m ok” starts and get ready to carry the back end of this staff. Besides they still haven’t found the best drug cocktail to subdue Tavarez when he informed he’s going back to the pen. But let's not wait too long. I would like to see Lester before someone gets hurt and we have no choice but to call him up.

Helton to the Sox? To the Yanks?: With Colorado coming to town the rumors of Helton moving to the northeast still persist. Lowell plus a young arm to the Rockies for Todd Helton seemed likely before the season started, but it fell through. Now the Yanks need a hard hitting first baseman and Helton is still flagged as available. This makes more sense for them right now (Helton said he wants to go to a contender) but what would the Yankees trade for him? Not sure if there is a match here unless the Rockies decide to pull a Philadelphia from last year and ok a trade that would be vetoed in a heartbeat in your fantasy league. If the Red Sox don’t plan to keep Lowell, I would thing getting Helton and moving Youk to third again would be a good deal… but we may need to wait till the off-season for this to pan out.

Lugo to the bottom of a well: Well maybe not a well but at least to the back of the batting order. This guy is doing so poorly he should be batting 11th. Forget leadoff, I don’t think Lugo should be in the two spot. Moving the hot hitting Perdoia up might make the lineup a little top heavy, but they need to get people on base for Papi and Manny to smack in. Lugo shouldn’t have more RBI than runs and he shouldn’t weigh more than his OBP. Bat him 8th for awhile so I can start complaining about Coco again.

The Helton You Say!

This happens almost every year. A trade rumor comes around that is SO juicy yet SO foul tasting… I want to distance myself from it completely. Maybe it’s because the guy we might be getting is overrated or maybe the other team is asking too much, but no matter how good it looks… something is fishy and I want no part of it. Before it was guys like A-Rod and Tejada. Looked good on paper and the deals were almost done, but nobody was really happy, too much was about to be given up and they never got the trigger pulled.

This year it looks like Todd Helton is the target. And just like before, talks are serious, high level and continuing. The current mumblings are that Mike Lowell and Julian Tavarez are going to Colorado for the hard hitting Helton. I guess that will put Youk back at 3rd base. That’s really something… woo… Todd Helton. Wow.

So yeah… it will never happen.

Now, I am not 100% sure it won’t happen, but I would put my certainty in the high 90% range. First off, this guy is owed A LOT of money and the Sox are going to want the Rockies to foot some of that bill. Big sticking point. Second, the Rockies also have mentioned interest in getting Manny Delcarman or Craig Hansen to sweeten the deal. Our psycho pitcher, defensive double hitting machine and our young reliever core? That’s asking quite a bit. Lastly, it’s freaking Todd Helton?!?! This guy is a big shot! The Red Sox only get big shots when:

a) Nobody had a clue it was going to happen.
b) He’s washed up and we get played for suckers.

So since I am talking about this right now… it isn’t option “a”.

So wow… it would be great if we got Todd Helton. A normal priced, 100% healthy, not old as the hills Todd Helton. But I don’t see that happening.