How about doubling down on Upton’s?  Sign B.J., swap Jacoby for Justin. It could happen, right?

This career comparison STILL factors in two years of injuries for Ellsbury.  The comparison is not real.  And even with that Ellsbury looks better.  And interesting how these comparisons never show some other important points – who has been benched time and time again for not giving effort and not caring enough about the team?  Not Ellsbury. 

Unless it is a great deal financially and he is willing to play LF (or CF when and if needed) we don’t need Carl Crawford II.

 Trade Ellsbury, Bard, Iglesias, and Miller to Zona for Justin Upton and Ian Kennedy.  Sign Michael Bourn or trade for Denard Span in CF.

 Id probally be alot more interested in both players if I could get both players. Both have had there slumps, an problems with effort etc but mybe a fresh start on a new team an playing togethar could motivate them to do great things. If they wanted they could dominate baseball. Both are so so so talented. BJ Upton has all of a sudden turned into Babe Ruth again. Jacking Homers like he cares. Last time I saw him put on a show like this was in the playoffs I believe in 08, he killed us in the ALCS an smacked 7  HRS in like 11 games between us an the White Sox in the searies before us. He can be a star an carry a team if need be, but its usually rare. I would love to have him if the money was right . Dream deal would be 4 years 12 mill 13 mill bet he gets a little more tho. Then you move Ells.

Melky Would be great to have on a 1 year deal. He can re establish his value. He was for real the last couple years. I saw him play an watched some big improvements in his game.  Being caught for a ban substance hurts his stock big time an we could get him for a steal, deff worth the gamble. But the down side is he is a big risk coming back from all this an can he still be the same player he was for a 1-1/2 prior to the incident.

signing upton to a big contract would be as stupid as signing crawford to a big contract. MOST big contracts are busts, do what the A’s do, organize smart and win games. most teams that have lots of bust contracts are has beens.

Is this conversation really happening?  BJ Upton is like a carbon copy of Carol Crawford statistically speaking.  Ellsbury has shown just last year that he can be one of the elite hitters in the game.  There is no discussion to be had here, no legitimate debate.  Move along nothing to see here…

Who cares about a low life piece of garbage.  I hope every redsox player,manager, an owner fall off the face off the earth exept for Big Papi.  This is the most Pathetic Organization an its sad when we had a team like this in our area. I will never root for the Yankees but I never will watch this organization again they are a bunch of Trash…… The Red Sox Organization should be destroyed like the Titanic cause this is worse than the Titanic.  Actually NO Baseball team in Boston would be better than this team We should have the Patriots,Bruins,an Celtics only

you’re close…look for the Sox to trade Ellsbury for Cliff Lee and some cash, sign Swisher for 1B, Upton for left, and then trade a few prospects for Masterson and Choo from Cleveland who are desparate to clear payroll. Outside chance of Vmart returning to play 1B and possibly could see Morneau play 1B.

There is an outside chance to get Gordon from KC to play left if they do not sign Upton…I’d prefer Justin Upton myself but don’t see Zona moving him

continue cleaning house! get rid of him and the rest of slackers.

 your first sentence explains why they need to trade ellsbury, two years lost to injury before the age of 28? not too dependable. and take away the one great year from last year and what do you have?

Bind and gag Boras. With those stats, he’s not going to get his asking price.
Free agency? PITCHING,PITCHING,PITCHING!

Watch that play when he dogs it going after a ball and gets in fight w longoria in dugout.

Upton in one word-Cancer

Sign Upton to p[lay RF …. opening season OF is Ross LF, Ells CF, Upton RF ….. see if Ells regains trade value and if that’s the case evaluate where you stand at mid-season and either keep him if you’re in the hunt, or trade him to a contender….

Both quality players, but very similar. The issue is their contract situation. To build a functional house, you must start with the foundation. Well, let’s apply this to rebuilding our Redsox. Allow our GM to build our Minor League system. Tacking on heavy payrolls/contracts at this point is the reason why the Redsox imploded in 2012.
More than a decade ago, the Tampa Bay Devil Rays brought in a Major League softball team. Buying Canseco, McGriff and Greg Vaugh to appease their restless fanbase. Let’s not go anywhere in that direction, please. Let our GM be allowed to do his job. We’ll have a great team soon enough. When we turn it around with some core players that “stay the course.” Then our beloved brass can start throwing a little cash around.
Now let’s talk about knocking the prices for tickets down so we can enjoy a couple of games a year with our family and grow the new product.

None of those are remotely possible, or desirable.  Lee is on the tail end of his career and far too expensive.  Swisher likewise.  Masterson is no better than the guys we have now, we knew that before, that’s why we let him go.  Choo is interesting.  Vmart, Morneau – never happen.

Ellsbury’s career path reminds me of Grady Sizemore.

Upton would not be able to play in Boston. He’s not a team player, would not handle criticism well at all. He and his brother can’t live up to the hype.

 I disagree with your evaluation of Upton.  Upton has significantly more power than Crawford ever had, and at Fenway he could potentially do even better.  Both players bring defense, but Crawford has always been a left fielder (and with the green monster, LF range isn’t as big a concern), whereas Upton is a center fielder.   You want a good fielder like Upton patrolling Fenway’s cavernous center field.  Crawford’s game is speed; he has occasional lefty pull power, but mostly his advantages are stolen bases, triples, and elite LF defense.  I think they’re different mentally, as the soft-spoken, humble Crawford is from spread-out Texas.  The brasher Upton is from the same Virginia area as David Wright (already proven to deal with northeast media pressure).

Best of all, Upton could probably be had for significantly less in terms of money and years than the Sox threw at Crawford.  I think it’s a moot point, as I expect Washington to offer Upton the most years and money, but I think Upton could have much better success than Crawford did.  Crawford never had a good role with Boston.

Why is the most popular choice to both trade Ellsbury and stay away from Upton?  Bradley isn’t ready yet; you want Lin playing CF in 2013?

Ellsbury is known as ‘Mr Glass’ around here. Also, with Boras as his agent, he will NEVER re-sign with Boston.

you know your a TERRIBLE team when you leader in ERA is 4.5, wow how did we not lose 100 games this year. so sad.

No wonder Sox fans are delusional when the local media keep feeding them stupid like this: “Both are considered premium defenders” … Really?
Then explain why they both have below-average range in CF despite above-average speed. Neither one consistently takes good tracks to balls, they both get caught turning the wrong way, taking a bad first step, etc., which they can (almost) make up for by running balls down.
Ellsbury at least catches most everything he gets to (although truth be told, he’s helped immensely by the mythically friendly Boston scorers). Upton is also below average in terms of fielding %.
What they both are is guys with the tools but not the instincts to be premium defenders in CF, who should really be playing LF, where they would be premium defenders.

 Hard to bench Elsbury when he ‘s not playing He has had 1 good year & wants to break the bank say aloha to this guy

Jacoby to Cincy!

He fuckan sucks

A lot of great WR in football are temper mental, not unlike truly great big men in the NBA. Lloyd has the personality quirks down pat, now let’s see if his stats can ever match up 

Anyone else shocked that he had  74 receptions for 911 yards and four TDs? Can anyone remember any play he made besides the bomb against the Texans? 

Ryan Mallet, LLoyd and a 2014 draft pick for Larry Fitz…

High cap figure. Restructure or release?

 Lloyd is NOT “great”, far from it. He is averaged who makes the hard sideline feet down catches. He was all that was out there are decent price plus willing, no begging to come to PATs because of McDaniels.

Ideally if the PATs could get Bowe or Harvin it would be 1000% more dangerous than anything Lloyd could bring.

 THere really isn’t a market for RYan as big as you think. First too many teams have already been burned by taking others teams “backup with stud potential” and lost out.
Secondly his body of work does not warrant it all. Lastly the PATs like Mallet and they still have until next year to have deal with free agent

well see yuh lloyd, why didnt anybody hear about this before?

He doesn’t suck.  Ocho Stinko sucked.  What did he have, like 8 catches for the Pats 2 years ago?  Hey, while Lloyd may not be a superstar, 74 receptions for 911 yards and 4 TD’s is pretty decent.  Especially considering we have Welker, and Hernandez, and Gronk all catching the majority of passes.  Plus Lloyd knows the system!  How many times have we heard how diffucult the Pats offense is?  Past receivers (Donald Hayes, the aforementioned Oucho stinko) just have had a hard time learnig it. .  Not Lloyd.  Keep him!  He is productive.  As far as his inconsistent behavior is concerned, too bad!  Live with it.  Not everyone has the same personality.  It’s not like he is getting into trouble off the field or refusing to work hard on the field.  Better the devil you know. 

 No. I knew he’d put up numbers. I just think alot of ppl were expecting WAY more production for some reason.

Wes Welker can be heard hollering,..”Yes!

It’s to bad, I thought this guy would be what TB12 needed to stretch the field. He had some big drops in crucial situations. Can’t kill the Pats for looking elsewheres.

No chance

On one hand I agree with you.  But let’s surmise that we resign Welker, Edleman to go along with Gronk Hernandez and Ballard.   Let’s assume they finally stay reasonably healthy.  The missing piece is the down field threat.  I agree that Lloyd was an outside the numbers guy…..just didn’t stretch the field.  Can’t be a bad thing to explore something else. 

brandon (hit the dirt) lloyd was not what i expected.   alot of nothing, can’t run after catching the ball.  basically scared   screw

 That move might actually make sense for Arizona.  As it stands right now they are entering next year with Brian Hoyer, Drew Stanton (if he signs), and possibly Kolb if he reworks his contract.  New coach Bruce Arians has a track record of working with QB’s and Mallet has the raw tools.  With the 7th pick they don’t project to take a QB until at least the second round, if at all because this QB crop sucks.

While I greatly doubt that Fitz would agree and that AZ would trade the face of their franchise I do believe that the Pats are eyeballing that AZ second rounder.  In turn I bet they bring in five of the retreads on the market like Avery, Louis Murphy, Massaquoi, Steve Breaston and see what sticks to the wall.

So please help me out here! What exactly does inconsistent in the Locker Room mean? Is he bi-polar? Is he passive-agressive? Just what does this mean? I mean I get the inconsistency on the field stuff, you can see that, but what’s this all about. Thanks

I just didn’t see the dude get much separation from defenders on plays where his number was called.

Who said Lloyd “sucked”?
He was ok not “great”.

He is OK because he KNOWs the sytems.

In no way had he ever been considered a “stretch field” type. He makes great catches on sidelines getting his feet down. He doesn’t have great speed and hates contact and avoids it at all costs!!

He just all of sudden goes into a shell with NO warning but worse all no acknowledgement that it happened or happens.

They’re not making that trade, but nice try

His stats the last four years would disagree with you…but seeing as you said “1000%”, I’m guessing your not a stats guy…

Say what you really feel.  Jeez, exaggerate much?

Yes, exactly.  I don’t really know what they hell Bedard is talking about.  Do some actually reporting.  Seems like he’s just stirring up sh!t.

 Can’t they just medicate him for personality disorder??  heh

Well, considering his inability to take a hit when making a catch, he can be replaced.  It can free up money to go after a potential upgrade.  Perhaps someone who can stretch the field.  Seems every time the ball is thrown his way, he lays down.  I wonder how much the Wallace kid out of Pittsburgh would cost.

 If only…..

Of course, if it is reported by Greg Bedard, it must be gospel.  The talking heads are great at taking rumors and innuendos, and speaking as if it is fact.  Bedard based it on polling the majority of coaches and players to come to that conclusion, otherwise he would not publish gossip as fact.  Yup.  Sure.

Thankfully, the Patriots have competent people running their organization.  Brandon had decent numbers last season.  I thought (opinion not fact) that Brady had more confidence in Brandon as the season progressed.  Given the difficulty of some wide receivers to assimilate to Tom Brady and gain his trust/confidence, I don’t think that the Pats will just cut Brandon loose. 

Restructuring his contract would seem to be the more likely scenario based on what the Pats have done in the past.

Anyone that thinks that Mike Wallace could come in and be effective here is crazy. Pittsburgh runs the most simple offense in the league. There is no way he picks up this offense. Then Brady would get aggravated and never throw to him. Just like he does with everyone else. 

Not here they won’t…..look at his resume…he’s had more teams now than Plax has bullets….I’m no expert but he hardly made me think he was a “go to”….the Pats will re-load without this guy….

there is alot of good legs and hands available. 
player needs to fit the organization to be of any use, we
know now Lloyd comes up short with the Pats.
4-5th round pick would be nice.

Truth!! I’ve been saying this since the beginning…Also,Belichick NEVER said this guy was a deep threat….The idea that Lloyd is or was a deep threat is completely Media driven and spoken….

cut him

He doesn’t suck at alll.

I say we trade Llyod for a mid-round pick. And get David Nelson and Mike Wallace. Wallace, Nelson, Welker, Gronk, Hernandez, Ballard and Edelman sound like a good receiving crop.

 Ok numbers but Lloyd never intimidated defenses… every opponent always covered him one on one… which let the good teams shut down the possession game …

BL simply could not get separation … especially in critical moments … never a threat to break a long gain or run through the defense… Pats really need to redo the passing game if they want to win another SB in the Brady era…

Take BL’s $5 M and Welker’s $10 M and you can find some pretty strong replacement talent…. with a lot left over to take care of other needs by the FA route

You have no clue what you’re talking about.

What about those of us who are sick of Josh McDaniels and his system that works until clutch time? Maybe we can send him packing?

I sort of expected more from him.

I want to know where these reports were during the season. He was the 2nd most productive receiver on the team for all of you bozos who thought he sucked. Don’t worry though, most people seem to remember him having an unimpressive season so there are a ton of you. 

Bottom line is the guy can contribute (and has to some degree). We can’t ramp up a new WR season after season. He’s our OC’s guy, and that’s as it should be. He’s at least on Brady’s radar, which is more than I can say about some of our recent failed WR’s.  He’s healthy and motivated, but just a little odd (different, introvert, but not overconfident?). Maybe we should task our staff to step up to the plate with a little more of “their coaching talents” with this guy and to aid in his “locker room and practice field” adjustments. Maybe the press should get out of his face a little and allow him to not be so perfect “all the time”. But, then we all know today’s press is all knowing and perfect “all of the time”. Just ask them. Look, some marriages take a little longer to jell than others, but with patience and interest they become more meaningful and productive in the long run. You have to admit, he’s made some bad plays and good plays, but the good is greater than the bad. I for one, hope they keep him in the family and tell the press to go to he–!    

Reports on CNNSI stating Amendola will test the market.  Wonder if the Pat’s will kick the tires?  Speculation has been that Brady’s willingness to take aslary haircut implies that the Pat’s will make a sincere effort to resign Welker.  Wonder if that is the case?  Maybe they get Amendola cheaper? Pro’s :  He’s younger.  Con’s:  Not as durable.

Glad they are making these decisions.

What about Dwayne Bowe or Mike Wallace who can stretch the field?

you’re right on. the stinko sucked to no end. 15 catches to 74. We did however, expect more of this guy, ESPECIALLY down deep. IT wasn’t there. If you aint gut the yac for the intermediate catches, you have to catch some down deep in the end zone or at least the red zone from way back on the field before you lay down. You know, if Hernandez and Gronk showed the knack of being healthy together on the field for LONG stretches, esp. playoffs, i would agree, keep him. Since this isn’t gonna happen, we need an upgrade from LLoyd to compensate for this. you just can’t go on like this year after year after year, being a top 3 offense during the regular season and then being figured out deep in the playoffs or at the SHOW. You need a new weapon, a new wrinkle. It could be something like a Corey dillon power running back, or could be a 6’5 Burress type wide out that just scoops everything away from the 5’10 corners on the lollipops to the end zone.

I’m not assuming ANYTHING. Both Hernandez and Gronk play to give thier bodies up and Gronk esp. is being held together w/ rubber bands and duct tape. This why welker is, unfortunately, so damn valuable. the poor guy takes a lickin’ and keeps on tickin. As a passionate fan though, i’d like to punish Welker somehow after these drops in the playoffs, superbowls or games for seeding position, maybe put a water cannon on him. He has been so frustrating at those times and i don’t care what ANYONE says, Belicheck takes account of it. we all know what we have in Gronk by now; an incredibly gifted, injury prone guy who is a total immature jerk off the field. Unfortunately, i see opposing defenses triple tackling poor Hernandez. They swarm around that guy like flies. I like my odds on a bet that those two don’t stay on the field together for 14 regular season games and byond in the playoffs.

It’s on josh, this one. it’s all on josh. Just like bringing in Haynesworth, Adalius and El stinko are all on B B