Boston Red Sox

The holiday season may be coming early for Red Sox Nation.

Or maybe, I should be saying: the Halladay season is coming early. The reports came out Tuesday from the New York Daily News that the Boston Red Sox were in strong pursuit of Toronto Blue Jays ace Roy Halladay. The Daliy News stated that the Sox were "in a full court press" to get a deal done by the start of the winter meetings of baseball's general managers, which is set to begin on December 7th.

It's all over the Internet: the Boston Red Sox are making a huge push for Toronto Blue Jays ace Roy Halladay.

I remember being about five or six years old and writing a letter to Santa every year around Thanksgiving. I would grab a sheet of the paper with the HUGE lines, and write a list as long as I could, with the smallest chicken scratch handwriting I could muster. It would include all things Ninja Turtles, Power Rangers, or Darkwing Duck. And I would never get everything I wanted, but if I had gotten just one or two of the items on my list, I would always be exceptionally happy.

I expect this list to have a similar effect.

The Red Sox finally winning the World Series was the best and worst thing for the franchise. It was the best day in most (well, at least mine) Red Sox fans' lives, and finally shut Yankee fans up, for at least one season.

On the flip side, winning championships is addicting for die-hard sports fans. Now, Red Sox nation wants to win every year.

Clay Buchholz is the pride and joy of the Boston Red Sox’s farm system.

With a minor league record of 31-14 with a 2.42 ERA, a 1.00 WHIP, and a 4.05 K/BB ratio, it was clear that Buchholz was destined for glory even before he hurled a no-hitter in his second career Major League start.

The Red Sox think very highly of him—so highly, in fact, that GM Theo Epstein lost out on chances to acquire Cliff Lee, Roy Halladay, and Adrian Gonzalez because of his unwillingness to part with Buchholz.

Last offseason, the Red Sox made a concerted effort to bolster their offense by signing Mark Teixeira. There were also several rumors of them attempting to trade for various offensive stars. They also seemed determined to upgrade their captain Jason Varitek with a younger, more offensively oriented catcher.

They pretty much failed in every effort.

However, the team projected as stacked, and there were few public concerns.

The free agency period is now upon us, so we have been hearing lots of talk about Type-A and Type-B free agents and draft pick compensation…and the discussion leaves some people wondering what is all means.

For those of you who think you need an abacus to figure it all out, let’s see if I can help simplify it a little bit for you.

For the sake of discussion, let’s say the Red Sox sign John Lackey…and let’s say they lose Jason Bay to the Mariners and sign Jermaine Dye to fill the void left when Bay leaves. The question begs: which teams would get what compensation, and why?

The Clay Buchholz rumors are flying again.

The Red Sox are interested in a big hitter, like Miguel Cabrera of the Detroit Tigers or Adrian Gonzalez of the San Diego Padres.

Trading for either Cabrera or Gonzalez would likely involve a huge package of young players, almost definitely including Clay Buchholz.

Buchholz has taken steps back from his no-hitter in September of 2007. But down the stretch in 2009, Buchholz was great, anchoring the Red Sox staff behind Josh Beckett and Jon Lester.