Only in Nick's world does Mike Napoli not constitute adequate protection for Big Papi. Napoli's slash stats and HR total should be almost identical to Ortiz's in Fenway. Figure both for about .260/.350/.500, with 25-30 HRs.

Well, since Mr. Cafardo brought it up... I'm pretty tired of the ignorant hoopla around the Francona book. I've read the whole thing. There isn't anything extra negative about any ofthe owners, except for a few points about Lucchino that everyone already knew and then the way the ending was handled, which I think all involved would have liked it to have been different.

The "sexy players" quote was attributed to Epstein, not Tito and the not loving baseball owners thing wasn't a shot, just a statement that Tito's lives and breathes baseball. He grew up in the game. Our owners, with the possible exception of Lucchino (slightly) have made their lives doing other things. They may be BIG fans and they may have major interest in the game, but they don't bring what a Francona or even a Bobby Valentine bring to the game. No knock there, just an observation. 

The problem with jounalists and newscasters is they're paid to sell their respective medium. If there's nothing happening, then they try and make something happen out of nothing.... I stopped reading Shaunessy's column years ago because it was full of garbage. After last year, I'm almost there with this one... I can go to MLB.com for the facts

In what new math is 26/30 saves/opportunity better than 25/28?