Thursday, December 09, 2004

Finally, some Sox news!

Sox go out and raid both Bay Area teams, signing Dustin Hermanson and Jermaine Dye to fair, and fairly cheap deals.

Given my complete ignorance of the NL aside from the occasional Brewers game, I thought Hermanson was still with St. Louis, and that he'd spent most of his career in St. Louis. Wrong-o! The team he had the longest stint is actually Les Expos. Bullpen help is what we needed, and I guess we got it. In theory, this now leaves the Ozzman with 3 guys with closer experience in the pen in Hermanson, Marte and Shingo. Is he backing his way into closer by committee?

I remember going to batting practice at the Cell in April of 2001 and watching the Royals shag flies. Some character named Dye was standing out in CF and having fungoes hit at him right to the top of the wall, where he'd proceed to make a Randy Moss-like grab and pluck the ball out of the air just before some grubby little kid (or grubbly 26 year old) tried to snatch it as a souvenir. This Dye fella went on that night to go 2 for 4 with a homer, a double, a stolen base and I was impressed.

Unfortunately, I'm not sure that's the Jermaine Dye we got. He's has a couple leg injuries over the past 4 seasons which have affected his hang time and his baseswiping speed, I'm sure. But still, 9 million over the course of 2 years for a guy who hits above .270 and has at least some pop in his stick is nothing to bitch about I guess.

The tree is up and lit, but not trimmed. Hopefully that gets done tonight. Off to Seattle first thing tomorrow, I may be back with more later.