a700hitter

Dempster and Lohse might be moves backwards.

Friedman is a top notch GM. Gentle Ben is still unproven. Friedman may have out maneuvered our guy in this instance. Gentle Ben has to rear up on his hind legs and start making some noise soon.

I never had a high opinion of Bailey. He has not lived up to he promise he had as a prospect.

If we stand pat and enter the season with a rotation that is the league's punching bag, you know there will be people who will say that no one was available and ask "who could we have got?". LOL! They'll have a rationalization why we didn't get each pitcher on that list. This was a thin year, but one look at the list how's that there was plenty of opportunity to improve our starting pitching.

McCarthy wouldn't have cost us Ellsbury. We have the money to sign a McCarthy without losing much payroll flexibility. We really don't have a lot of trading chips-- Ellsbury is the major one. I wouldn't waste Ellsbury on Bailey.

I'd given up hope of acquiring a #1 this year. As Ex1 and I discussed yesterday there is no way of predicting when a #1 becomes available and whether we have what irt would take to get him in a trade. FA costs are prohibitive too, so we probably would get outbid. They need to strengthen the back end of the rotation and build good depth to deal with injuries. As for Myers, we just didn't have the pitching depth to allow us to make the trade. The Royals wanted 2 pitchers. If we traded Lester, we would be down to 3 starters, including a sophomore and a TJ post op. We'd have definitely found ourselves in the cellar again-- maybe worse than last season. Although Davos is just a marginal starter, do we even have a comparable guy to throw in with Lester. On the Rays side, maybe this guy Myers turns out to be the next Pujols, but in the short run they will miss Shields. He put up innings and worked deep into games. At times he was spectacular. He's a good on--maybe not an ace, but very good. IMO, you never have enough pitching, and when you think you have a surplus to trade you are usually mistaken. I am not looking to start a stat war regarding Bronson Arroyo, but we traded him when we thought we had depth, and we have not had thin rotations since then that we have had to patch together with an assortment of bums. I think the Rays have weakened themselves in the sort run. If we get Jackson and Marcum, we have a reallly good chance of vaulting over them this season. However, after trading Shields, the Rays may compete with us for those guys.

What do you think it would take to get Bauer?

I guess this means we will be seeing Youks in a Yankee uni. That is going to grate on me.

Failure is an orphan. He may be a scapegoat in the end.

I knew there was common ground. It just takes a while to get there.. They really have very little choice of what to do in 2013 and possibly 2014 unless they want to keep finishing last. IMO, if they finish last again in 2013, I think Ben will be gone and unlike Duke he will never get another job for a major league team. Good luck to him. His career is at a crossroads. He needs the team to show immediate improvement and future promise.

I am not sold on Lester being a#1 pitcher at this point. He has been headed in the wrong direction for more than one season, but Buch could take it to the next level. I agree. For better or worse, they are the top of our rotation in 2013, and I don't know when or where the next ace will come from. I don't think the FO knows either, so I think the only prudent strategy is to build the back of the rotation now with as people have suggested guys like Jackson, Marcum, or Jurjens. Doing nothing and waiting will just assure us of another last place season with no end in sight beyond 2013. I think we are in agreement as to what strategy Cherries should pursue for the remainder of the off season.

I disagree with those who say be patient and an ace will come. It doesn't happen that way. Unless you produce the ace in your own system, you need them to become available as a FA or trade for one. About now you are saying duh. Our organization seems to be very weak at evaluating pitching talent and developing it, so i am not holding my breath that an ace will come out of our system anytime soon. No one is projecting Webster or De La Rosa as #1 guys. As for free agency, very few aces hit the FA market. Most teams extend those guys for big bucks like Hamels and Cain. We thought this year would be a bumper crop, but it was one of the thinnest years for top pitching in a while. When and if a big ace hits the market, good luck to us outbidding the Yankees (and the Dodgers too). If we go the trade route, it will cost big time. You are not going to get the next big ace for the guys you mentioned. Teams don't trade those guys unless they are trying to win it now and you have a win it now piece for them. You said that we had talks for Bauer and Upton, but I don't think that was verified by any team sources. Anyway, it never happened, and Bauer was probably the deal breaker. If you are waiting for beane to give up on his kids, you'll have to wait until they are arb eligible. What year is that? Anyway, my point is that patience is not the solution. These aces don't drop from the heavens. Webster and De La Rosa project as middle of the rotation guys at best. They project more like Edwin Jackson than Felix Hernandez. However, we can build the middle and back ends of the rotation now without breaking the budget. There's no reason to be patient if we are waiting for the next Edwin Jackson instead of the next Felix Hernadez.

I have already clarified what I meant by that, so you can stop repeating the "no trade value" line as some talking point. I'll state what I meant once again for absolute clarity. They don't have the type of value that would net us a future #1 starter from another team. You completely avoided my previous post where I asked you what scenario you could envision where the package you put together could net us a #1 future ace from another team. Another team would part with such gold only if you could give them a piece to help them win now. None of the guys you mentioned would help anyone win now. You have not put forth a plausible strategy. As for alternative strategies, well, I am not the one claiming to have the answer or be on the right track on how to get an ace, but clearly, the answer is not to be patient with an implausible strategy to pry away another team's future ace by offering a package of mid-level prospects who cannot help them win now.

I didn't say that they have no trade value. They might have trade value in a salary dump deal- like the way we got Webster and De La Rosa, but they don't have the type of trade value necessary to pry away a future #1 from a team. Under what scenario could you envision the package that you put together in your post above netting us a future #1 pitcher from another team? None of those guys would help put a team over the top to win now, and the only reason why a team would part with a blue chip future ace would be to win now? I asked where the next big ace will come from, and clearly, you have no plausible strategy for getting one down the road.

I honestly think that the package mentioned in your post is not going to get any interest when trying to pry away a #1 type future starter. You are over rating their value. The Sox will need to dig deeper than that to get their next big pitcher.

Where does Pineda fit in the 2013 plans for the Yankees?

I realize that Felix Hernandez is not the next big pitcher. That is why I said "Felix Hernandez type pitcher". You are not going to get the next Felix Hernandez with a collection of guys who project possibly to the middle of the rotation.

But they are so uncertain with regard to their MLB prespects that the FO cannot sit and wait for one of them to be next big stud pitcher that we are looking for. No one projects any of these kids to be that type of pitcher, not even you. I asked you where we will get the next big pitcher and you answered that we could get him by packaging some of these guys. You don't get a Felix Hernandez type pitcher for a collection of guys whose ceilings are middle of the rotation. It ain't gonna happen.

That's right. Average major league pitching would have won several more games for us in 2012. It probably would have kept them in the Wild Card race.

Barnes has my interest, but he has to dominate at AA before he can be taken seriously as a future #1. De La Rosa is probably a bullpen guy. The rest are not anything to cause excitement. I don't think they even havre any trade value.

Okay E1, let's assume all Red Sox fans get prescriptions for medical marijuana and we start popping xanax too so we get all mellowed out. Where will the next pitching stud come from if he is not out there now? The farm system? I am not holding my breath, because organizationally we can't evaluateor develop pitchers well at all. When will such a pitcher become available? Is he playing in college? Has he been born yet?

IMO, Jackson at 3 yrs would not glut up the rotation. Lackey will come off the payroll in 2 years and we really have very little invested in our pitching.

Yep, the steak analogy was just stupid. I'm going for a second steak.