Hot Seat Answers #68 - BoSox34

[HollywoodLeo]

BoSox34, your Hot Seat questions have been asked in this thread. You have up to 7 days in which to answer these questions, should you choose to do so. Once you have done that, please select the next Hot Seat participant. Thank you for participating. The next Hot Seat (#69) will begin on Sunday, Jaunuary 18th, or when you're done answering, whichever comes first.

[HollywoodLeo]

epic fail

[HollywoodLeo]

He did answer some in the question thread, though

1.) I'll say this, if Penny can win 8-10 games for us this season with an ERA around at least 4.00, I'm happy with this signing given it's length and value. I believe he can add solid insurance at the least for our rotation this season. I always love these low risk, high reward type deals for any team. This team has enough foundation that we're not requiring Penny to come in and throw like the former ace he's showed himself to be in the past, although don't get me wrong, I'd certainly take that side of him

2.) Your first four believe it or not, I will keep in the order you asked.

A. Jon Lester defeats Cancer (One's personal life is always the most important)

B. Jon Lester defeats Colorado (the game he pitched was brilliant)

C. Dustin Pedroia wins the MVP (Gotta love the little guy, especially given his numbers in accordance to the position he plays)

D. A.J. Burnett signing with the Yankees will hopefully come back to bite them in the ass because of his health concerns previous to last season. Nothing like watching a potential Pavano part deux.

E. Manny Ramirez and his ungodly second half with the Dodgers really doesn't all bother me, I was just glad to get him and his antics out of Boston. While I'd be lieing if I said I wouldn't miss his production, I will not miss the constant split he and spitefulness brought to the Red Sox locker room. As long as Bay can put up numbers similar to last season, I'll find very little reason to miss Manny, if not for just the fact I won't miss his attitude.

F. Hanley Ramirez becoming the ungodly force and the pioneer for the MLB's future and potential poster child. It hurts me, because any Boston fan always knew the potential he had, unfortunately all we kept hearing was how doubtful it would be if he could ever put it together enough to make it past AA. Needless to say, I still cry myself to sleep at night thinking of what might have been. Hell, who needs AA when you can annilate at the major league level?

G. U-turn goes here, and I'm not even going to cite his name...

3.) To be honest, there really isn't any left that I would really want given what we would have to pay to get them. I like Lowe, but I would not even top the Mets offer of $36 million over 3 years, which Lowe rejected. And I laugh at the fact that Scott Whora's and Lowe are seeking $16 million per, yikes! My offseason, in terms of FA, went down the drain when we let Tex sign in NY. Theo will dab in a few FA's and we will likely bring by Tek for 1 to 2 years, but any other significant moves will likely come through trade.

I don't want anyone to think I'm skipping them, but Foster hit a sensitive spot in terms of UK Basketball, so I had to immediately jump to his set of questions

1.) What has happened to Kentucky Wildcat Basketball? That's a very good question you ask, and one that I'm about to have a very long answer for. We start with Tubby's last 3 years at UK, where we had fell off in recruiting substantially in terms of marquee talent, the kind we're used to here.

Tubby began to grow lazy in the world of recruiting, only landing one top recruiting class his whole tenure here at UK. And while, he had many players whom were solid talent or even no names, come along and develop in to elite players later in their collegiate careers, that spark of success seemed to dwindle and so did UK's name on the national front. It got to the point that many top recruits, would state the fact that they didn't want to come to UK for reasons of style of play. Tubby ran a very slow down based game that many modern age recruits didn't like because it didn't allow them to show their talents, which most one and done's seem to care about the most.

Tubby eventually saw the writing on the wall, he and his staff (which our AD Barnhardt had wanted Tubby to fire and he refused because of the deep fall of in recruiting) had recruited Patrick Patterson and Jai Lucas hard, knowing that he would need them to satisfy the UK fans and Alumni pushing for his resignation. After the early signing period passed without either signing, I believe Tubby saw that he couldn't chance losing out on them and dealing with the back lash, therefore he began to flirt with Minnesota, and by that seasons end, had left for the Golden Gophers. Which as you can see, is perfect for him. Funny thing is, he never took his UK staff with him to Minnesota, yet wouldn't fire them while at UK, ironic isn't it? Don't get me wrong though, Tubby was a great man and a perfect pioneer for our University, but his complacency made it evident it was time for him to move on.

Now on to the Gillispie era, and boy did the honey moon end quick when we lost to Gardner Webb. Big Blue Nation was pumped when Gillispie came along, he had done miraculous jobs at both UTEP and Texas A&M, winning Coach WAC coach of the year in 2004, winning Big 12 Coach of the Year in 2005, 2007, and winning SEC Co-Coach of the Year along with Bruce Pearl of UT last season. Not to mention his well known prowess as a great recruiter, and UK had seem to have found the perfect formula.

When UK came out last year and lost to Gardner Webb, Big Blue Nations erupted, mainly out of utter shock at first rather than disgust. Then as losses to San Diego (which actually turned out to be a very good team later in the year), and the horrible 40-point defeat at Vanderbilt, Gillispie continue to felt the unrelenting pressure. Big Blue Nation was constantly on the edge of it's seat but Gillispie had some marvelous moments as well, such as going 12-4 in SEC play. You also have to consider that our deadly SG Jodie Meeks didn't play most of the year as well.

It's taking time to rebuild the talent loss we had to endure under Tubby's former regime his last few seasons, also going along with Gillispie still being a young coach and I believe, still learning a few things as he goes along, the VMI loss was an testament to that. But he has shown some brilliant moments as a coach, watch both UT games last year, especially the second one when we were without Meeks AND Patterson, we lost the game but we nearly defeated them. Not to mention he has been sensational in recruiting bringing in the likes of Patrick Patterson, DeAndre Liggins, and Darius Miller thus far and has another top 10 class coming in next season. So don't sleep on us too much longer, next year or atleast by 2010 we should be exploding back on the national scene and making some noise

2.) Most of my baseball loving friends also are huge Red Sox fans, BoSox Nation is real popular around my area of the Bluegrass State but not nearly as popular as the Cincinnati Reds because of location. The Reds are a hop, skip, and a jump from my location (near Louisville).

3.) Are you kidding me? The Steel Curtain of the 70's and the likes of Rod Woodson, Greg Lloyd, Levon Kirkland, and even a little Kevin Greene in the early to mid 90's. They are up there in terms of prestige with the 49ers and Cowboys, what's not to love?