a couple people have posted that the redsox would also be sending prospect in the trade. I have not seen that anywhere on the major sites ie espn,yahoo or the local talk radio station. I don't understand why the sox would need to do that. Not only are they trading manny, but they are paying his contract. For a team in contention that should be a good 3 - 4 players. Hermedia and 3 prospects to the pirates should be enough for turnbow and bay considering the trade they made with the yanks recently.
IMO it is mandatory for the sox to move him now. If he remains on the team, they will not make the playoffs and become a distant 3rd place team. He has pissed off the ownership (who used to love him), pissed off theo, pissed of francona and pissed of his teamates. He is a selfish duche and not only will he tank it at times the rest of the way, the sox will continue to spiral downward with him in the clubhouse. Not even his friends on the team (cora, lowell, big pappi) are coming to his rescue like they have in the past.
As for the pudge discussion. Yes I think he is a solid defensive catcher. He does have a rocket of an arm but no he doesn't call a good game. No it won't show up anywhere in the stat sheets, but the fact that his own pitching staff was sick of him should be enough of a reason to believe he didn't know how to call a game. The fact that he has played with several teams over his career and he hits like he does should also point to the fact that he must do something wrong to not be kept. Freaking brandon inge is wanted by both the tigers manager and the tigers pitching staff to call the game then pudge. That should send up a red flag for you.
Whoever compared jason varitek to piazza is a
ing idiot. He is one of the best playcalling catchers in the game. He only got voted onto the allstar game this year, by other mlb players because with his stats he didn't deserve it and if francona had a say in it, he would have taken lowell over varitek. Curt schilling is know to be one of the most well researched pitchers in the game. He jots down notes every inning, he had a plan of attacking hitters. He always called his own game. After coming to boston and pitching one minor league game, he let varitek call the game. Does varitek have the best arm, no it is avg. He doesn't let many balls get by him, his throwing accuracy is avg. A lot of the sb throughout his career in boston has had a lot to do with how slow some of the pitchers are to the plate. I don't care who is catching, when the runner has an extra 2 - 3 steps because of the slow movement to the plate, it is damm near impossible to get them.