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Missed Hillenbrand and Urbina. Won't lose too much sleep over that.

So you expect another September collapse of historic proporations? No, of course not. That was completely without precedent and will not be repeated. Reason would dictate that the 2011 team, left unaltered, would make the playoffs. Let's stop being silly here Fred. Seriously. The results from 2011 were not a reflection of the actual quality of the team. Going simply by whether they made the playoffs or not is a really poor way of evaluating talent. It is worse than looking at team batting average or some other archane statistic. It is looking at results that will not be replicated. I don't think the team is making decisions based on whether some small portion of "realist" fans will or will not jump off a cliff based on their decisions about spending more. It is so freaking selfish to say that Henry, who spent hundreds of millions on new players just LAST YEAR has lost interest in winning. Another example of catastrophizing at its best. Do you really question whether the Red Sox have a "serious will to win" in their FO? A team that spends millions on draft picks and expensive international FAs, while making the biggest splash in the 2010-2011 offseason, you're REALLY going to ask that. Just read what you are writing man, and ask if it REALLY reflects the "realist" perspective that you so strongly believe you have.

The Sox should not get all worked up over Papelbon. He's a very, very good closer. However, he's going to be getting a king's ransom for a job that other pitchers can do a good percentage of the time. He isn't Mariano Rivera. I would love it if he came back at a reasonable price and with PHI off the market I suspect it could be possible that he's back without paying him $15m/yr. Of course if he wants to go elsewhere then so be it. Take the draft picks, sign some other guys and move on.

Just so I can understand the language that's being used here... 2011 was "miserable" and "disasterous" and there is "nothing to be positive about" according to SBF. What adjectives would you use if they, say, finished in 4th place, or had a .500 record, or had results like the other 70% of teams? "Nothing to be positive about" is absurd. The Sox still have an ownership group that wants to win badly. They still have a core of young players that other teams would be envious of. According to Baseball Reference they had the 2nd, 4th and 5th most valuable offensive pieces in the AL in 2011, and ALL 3 WON GOLD GLOVES. Christ, none of us like how the team collapsed, but to continue with the "woe is us" attitude is just tiresome. This isn't the Kansas City Royals. Don't cry too much. They will be just fine moving forward.

Cuban CF Yoenis Cespedes is getting some play at Soxprospects, and rightly so. Here's a kind of funny scouting video and Kevin Goldstein's article at BP: http://www.baseballprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=15469 This guy could be a relatively affordable gamble on a solid talent. I hope they are aggressive. Gammons (grain of salt please) seems to think they will be. EDIT: Goldstein's article is hilarious, BTW.

It's not really over the top. It's a surprising grade given how much focus you have had on the poor performance. I'm with ORS, it's a solid B, likely to make its way into the A- category when compared with every other GM out there. Finances are only part of the story, as there is no doubt that Theo did many things right. He did well despite his struggles with FA, which would have done lesser GMs in. I don't take it personally. He's gone, time to move on. (hence my next post)...

I think this captures it perfectly. I come off sometimes like a Theo-obsessed douchebag, but that's not my feeling at all. I just think that it is only fair to evaluate players, managers, parents, etc., based on what happens in reality, not in some Platonic ideal world, which never has and never will exist. Thanks for putting it so clearly ORS.

I don't think anyone who criticizes him hates him. I've just read you in particular being critical for the past 7 years, and I think that you're consistently over the top. You and I know that if you had your way most of the Sox best homegrown players would have been dealt for players who are either not in the league anymore, or who would have no place on the current team.

Right, but this is all about your expectations, which are notoriously unrealistic. You expected that they should have won more division titles, despite being outspent by the Yankees every year, and it wasn't even close. Yet, you expect that the Sox should beat every other team who they outspend. In other words, Yankee fans should have rightly expected to win the division every year because they had a huge financial advantage, even over a relatively wealthy team like the Sox.

I suspect you didn't listen to that interview. I heard it. He did not "disavow" Theo's position. He pointed out some of the aspects that he might look at that Theo did not, but he didn't say "that was a crappy signing". You will undoubtedly say "if you read between the lines he did" but I would say that is not "wasting no time in disavowing". That's not at all how that came out. Nice try.

I heard Cherington once almost pushed Theo off a bridge and was banging his wife. I'm still puzzled by your fascination with division titles in the wild card era. They really aren't the most significant measure of success. Given that Theo just put up the most successful tenure in sox GM history I don't see how you can be disappointed. Or, I don't see how a person who is reasonable could be disappointed. I know you well enough to not be surprised. you are the guy with fingers crossed who prays to the heavens for a key strikeout or basehit, promising untold loyalty and humility if you can only win this one time, then quickly turn around and ask "what have you done for me lately". Yeah it is your right as a fan to hindsight the very moves you were a fan of, or to conveniently forget the joy you felt in 04 and 07, but I have a harder time separating the difference between being a fan and my day to day personality. I don't hold sports figures to higher standards than I hold everyone else in my life. If I thought it was a good move then I can't do too much second guessing-- it just feels intellectually dishonest. If I realize that winning WS titles is really hard then I don't s*** on those who got my team 2 of them.

Beane quotes are relatively useless to me with regard to sabermetrics. Yes, he became famous because he sought the undervalued talent. Much of the credit really belongs with Bill James who-as I am absolutely sure you know- provided the basis for the system of in- depth numerical study of baseball players in the 1980s. Beane and co are just one example of how it can be played out. Theo and co are another. There are plenty of examples. OBP is a building block of the study, but because sabermetrics is a strategy of looking at player evaluation, it changes as the game does.

http://www.bostonherald.com/sports/baseball/red_sox/view.bg?articleid=1378238&position=1 Hmm, Lauber says that Cherington is Theo's protege. http://espn.go.com/blog/boston/red-sox/post/_/id/15243/sox-cubs-dipping-into-same-managerial-pool Hmm, so does Gordon Edes... Yes, it is clever to say that Cherington is actually Duquette's protege, as if Cherington has been learning and practicing "the Duquette way" since Duquette was relieved of his duties in 2002... but it isn't the case. In the sense of how the word is meant to be--not merely having a passing association with someone, but actually being mentored, guided and promoted by them--Cherington is definitely Theo's protege. I know you're mostly f***ing with me though, a700. Would you really like to return to the days of Dan Duquette? Seriously?

Significant home/away splits tell me that he really benefits from playing in Oakland: 2010: 2.56/3.92, WHIP: 1.20/1.43 2011: 2.70/3.62, WHIP: 1.23/1.42 Look at his WHIP and results against the better teams in baseball the last few years. I'm not blown away. Combine not pitching at a stellar level away from OAK with going to a much tougher division and I'm not treating him as a #1 or #2 until he's shown that's what he is.

I don't know about this. The A's are weird with their moves sometimes. They can't honestly say that Gio is a #1 or #2 caliber pitcher. I don't think you're wrong that the cost could be prohibative, I just am not convinced that the A's could pretend that Gonzalez is a #1 or even a #2.

1. None of this has to do with being a good manager. 2. Ted Williams or Jim Rice's hitting philosophies matter little to the Jarrod Saltalamachia's of the world. Being an elite all-time hitter and telling people to just rip their pitch is great for Adrian Gonzalez but is worthless if the guy just struggles to make contact. A manager manages a team of actual players, not Mantles. 3. Your saber-nerd comment is offensive to this saber nerd. All we care about is not walks and power. Get real.

They could start by letting Ortiz go and replace him with Lavarnway and/or a RF like Beltran, who kills two birds with one stone. I think they will have to spend money to fix the holes they have, I just think they will be as conservative as they can be and not blow a hole in the wallet as an overreaction to the collapse in 2011. Hence, Reyes, Wilson, etc., are likely off the table. A guy like Darvish could make a bit more sense if they want to make a bigger splash because they can at least spend the money off the tax.

Are you kidding me? You think Theo was a poor judge of talent? I suspect that makes you a poor judge of talent. There may have been mistakes with regard to some FA signings, but even those poor FA signings were talented players. Renteria was a key player on the Cardinals and widely acknowledged by all talent judges as one of the best SS in the game when signed. Every metric and observer of the game saw Crawford as at least talented. Even Lackey was the top starter on a yearly playoff team in Anaheim and was a first round pick for them. This is just silly. He may have been a poor judge of the future, but not of talent. His drafts were among the best in baseball year in and year out. WTF does being too cerebral for you have to do with whether a player is talented? Oversold? What does that even mean? Like, didn't sell them for a bucket of baseballs? Kept them because they were better than most same-aged players? Please explain. Hilarious use of hindsight. You're a fan of keeping MVP caliber prospects, but not the rest? So, bye bye Papelbon? See ya Buchholz? Bard? You sucked as a starter when you were drafted, bye bye. Good thing they traded that Masterson guy, huh? He wasn't an MVP. I'm sorry that I seem so snarky SBF. I'm just so tired of the anti-prospects position. It's like half the posters here want to go back to 2001. You literally have no clue about which prospects are MVP and which are not. If a team has a group of 10 guys with the ceiling to be MVP caliber players, you don't just know the two who are going to be that good in 7 years and trade the rest for aging, overpriced, mediocre SPs and utility infielders. Hell, at worst some of those guys will become aging, overpriced, mediocre SPs and utility infielders. More often than not, the odds say you should hold onto all 10 players, enjoy the benefits of an all-star or two and don't sweat the fact that some of the players don't turn into that. Of course, that means that in the process the rest of the league sees that, say, Michael Bowden isn't as good as he could have been, but that's a small price to pay for literally winning on a lottery ticket ever 4-5 years. Just for fun, can you tell us which of the as-of-yet "undefined" prospects in the Sox system are the MVP caliber ones and which ones to let go? Bogaerts, Middlebrooks, Coyle, Cecchini, Brentz, Head, and Swihart. Who is the MVP 8 years from now? Of course you can't. That doesn't make you a poor judge of talent.

It is becoming habit. I've found we disagree about baseball in many, many areas, so it isn't surprising that most of your posts rub me the wrong way (intellectually, not personlly). Because Yankee fans in NY are an objective group when it comes to evaluating the Sox? I think you're in the center of provokation territory but feel like it somehow gives you a stronger grip on reality. I disagree. New Yorkers like nothing more than to talk s*** about the Red Sox, valid or not, and vice versa.

Please. The team is still "prominent". They had the best record in baseball for most of the season. They have 3 of the top 10 offensive players in baseball and all 3 won gold gloves to boot. They have a very, very good team. CJ Wilson sucked in the playoffs and isn't worth the money he will likely be asking for. Jose Reyes will be asking for Crawford money. If they sign him you can change your signature like you did when they signed Crawford, claim credit for the move, and then blame the FO for having their clocks cleaned by Brian Cashman when the team doesn't win it all. Yadier Molina I could be on board with. Of course, I've never heard he was available. Is he?