Posting has been a little sporadic as I had a little incident at home with a keyboard and a glass of water. . . the water won. But, I'm hooked up with one of those wireless mouse/keyboard combinations and life is much better. Anyway.

Lot's happened this weekend and I wanted to comment on a couple of the moves. Being I live in Connecticut and the Sox/Yankee rivalry is heated 24/7 I thought I'd start with the Sox/Cubs/Expos trade. It has been really interesting to hear the reaction about this trade. People really don't care about what Montreal did (they actually did pretty good), everyone loves the Cubs deal but the Sox on the other hand has been a mixed bag. There are those who are sick of Nomar's attitude and are glad to see him go and there are those who recognize Orlando Cabrera is not the player Nomar is. It has also become pretty clear that Nomar was not going to re-sign at the end of the season. I don't think many people believed his comments after the trade when he said he was shocked and hoping to spend the rest of his career in Boston. Knowing this, it looks like Theo Epstein the GM for Boston caved into an unhappy Nomar and made a trade that does not help the Sox short-term but does help some long-term. The defensive argument is garbage. With less than half the season left, the marginal gain for Cabrera over Nomar is minimal if at all. Nomar has always been a good defensive SS, as has Cabrera. Nomar is coming back from an injury and probably would have been fine after the rust wore off. This trade was not made for defense. If Theo was that worried about defense he could have put Pokey (currently on the DL) at SS. Also at play was Theo dumping Nomar now and getting something in return, because unless Cabrera is a total disaster, he'll probably sign in Boston longterm. To me, I make this deal if I get Matt Clement, as a starter is what the Sox really need. Then, I sign Cabrera in the offseason after Nomar walks. By the looks of it Theo didn't want to deal with a long drawn out negotiation. That's too bad. He just hurt himself and the team short term. From a Cubs perspective there's not much to say. They made a hell of a deal. They replace an absolute awful offensive SS with a premier player in Nomar. Costing them a couple of prospects but that doesn't matter as much when your team is built to win now. The Expos did good as well As they got a good defensive replacement for Cabrera in Gonzalez who will walk at the end of the year. As well as two solid prospects who could help in the near future.

No, I didn't forget Doug Mientkiewicz was technically a part of this trade. But honestly, he was only a part of the deal to make it look like the Sox got two starting players for Nomar. If a team agreed to eat his salary the Twins were practically giving him away. The Sox did this and gave up a prospect. I have no idea why the Sox need another guy to fight for playing time with, Kapler, Nixon (though he could be done for the season), Ortiz, McCarty, Millar and Dave Roberts who they picked up from LA. 6-7 guys for 3 spots. I thought McCarty was the no bat all glove guy at 1B?

Moving a little west. Great deal for Cashman and the Yank's. What the heck was Kenny Williams thinking? I'm not saying Esteban Loaiza is a great pitcher or anything. He's come way back to earth from last years fluke season. But, Kenny took over the contract from the Yank's. That's ridiculous. Maybe I do this deal if the Yankees are paying for it but that's about it. Family or no family. Contreras isn't that good of a pitcher. He's a two pitch (splitter, fastball) pitcher and that won't get it done. I could see him turning into an excellent setup man one day but that's a lot of money to pay a guy pitching the 7th or 8th inning. Well done by Cashman. Get's payroll relief and a more consistent pitcher. If the Yankees can't turn him around what makes the White Sox think they can?

Talk about scraping the plan. The Mets are currently 6 games below .500 and 9 games out of first. Yet, in the mind of management they have a chance to make the playoffs. . . huh? The deals they made are beyond ridiculous. They gave up a bunch of high-level prospects who could turn into good players or could be used to make trades down the road when the team is really ready to compete. All this talk of trading for and then signing Benson is nice but if you really wanted him why not sign him in the offseason? You won't give up Scott Kazmir for Alfonso Soriano but you'll give him up for. . . wait. . . drumroll please. . . Victor Zambrano? Rick Peterson better live up to his reputation. Great job Chuck LaMar (did I just say that??) and Dave Littlefield (did I just say that too??). Jim Duquette, you better get your boys into the playoffs.

The final big deal of the day went down between the Marlins, Dodgers and Arizona (actually, there was a separate deal with Arizona but I'm lumping the two all together). First, the Dodgers got Milton Bradley to move to leftfield allowing the Dodgers to trade some prospects to the Diamondbacks for Steve Finley and Brent Mayne. Then the Dodgers gave up fan favorite Paul Lo Duca, Juan Encarnacion and Guillermo Mota for Brad Penny, Hee Seop Choi and minor leaguer Bill Murphy. For the most part, fans seem to love the deal for the fish and hate the deal for the Dodgers. . . but I'm not sure why. The weird thing is, those that love it, don't love it because the Marlins solved the catching problem with a catcher who can hit for a high average or because they added a very good arm to their bullpen. They love it because Paul Lo Duca brought his chemistry set with him? All the coverage of this trade has focused on Lo Duca's chemistry. And how he's got a "winning attitude." Excuse me, but, what has he won? I'm sure he's a great guy but come on people. Haven't we taken this chemistry thing too far. If chemistry is so important, what happened to the Mariners this year? I've been told they've had great chemistry for years and this year they brought in a proven veteran and a great guy in Raul Ibanez and Mr. Sandfrog himself, Scott Spiezio. Who was a part of the World Champion Angels squad. Net, net. The Mariners were good before because they had good players. They are bad now because they don't have good players. Period. Back to the point. Short-term and possibly long-term the Dodgers did well in this trade. They picked up a young 1B hitting to the tune of 270/388/495 who will cost next to nothing for the next few years and a starting pitcher with a 3.15ERA and 105K's in 131.1IP. That's yummy. The one part that I feel I should at least mention is there are concerns about Penny's shoulder. But, I'm sure LA did their homework. Finally, this deal moves Shaun Green back to his natural position of RF. All in all. Not a bad job by LA. Florida, not so well. Aren't they supposed to be a small market team trying to conserve payroll? Why not hold onto Penny and Choi and make a minor trade for Toronto Catcher Greg Zaun? Doesn't that make the fish a better team as well?

I've worn myself out. As always if you have any thoughts or want me to cover one of the other trades drop me a line at BlueJayBanter@Hotmail.com.