a700hitter

They turned out to not be bargains.

I am hoping right along with you.

Where I come from, the expression would be to tell the FO to "s*** or get off the pot". At this point, I just hope that( they have a plan that can be executed. The recent rumors and ina9tion leave me wondering whether they are just in disarray.

IMO, the stories about Wright are obviously propaganda. The question that I have is whether they have resigned themselves to go with what they got because they don't believe there is a better alternative or they never had a, intention to spend money on pitching for financial reasons that are not public information. I don't know what these Wright stories mean.

A number of us have been coveting Bauer. He has been landed by the Guardians while Ben sits with his thumb firmly planted in his ass.

I don't like this no matter what spin people put on it. It is going to be tough for me to watch.

Leave it to the Red Sox to look like asshats with regard to it's best acquisition of the off season.

The pitching just gets more expensive every year. if they sit out this season, next year prices will be even higher.

Here were some 2012 projections using a method allegedly similar to James' method: http://www.talksox.com/forum/721022-post14.html So much for projections.

Kazmir only hit 200 innings once. He was not the same kind of horse. When they lost Jackson they went from 1st place to 3rd place. When Garza left they dropped from 96 wins to 91 and then 90. It had an effect.

Good God another knuckleballer! This team needs to get some top pitching evaluators into the organization.

I am curious does anyone know what Bill James' 2012 projections were for Bard? Also, how many years in prison did James project for Joe Paterno for obstruction of justice in the Sandusky case. They need to get this fantasy team guru out of management and hire more top scouts.

Other than Buchholz, our entire rotation (all 3 of them) scares me.

I think the Rays will feel the loss of Shields, especially in the second half of the season. I don't think you can trade a quality pitcher that throws 200+ innings without feeling it. His loss will really be exacerbated if their staff suffers any injuries. I think they will look to pickup some of the guys we are targeting to fill that gap.

... And it would be great if we could pick up Joe Hardy on a 1 year contract with the Devil.

I think Ben should consider pursuing Chris Capuano from the Dodgers. The Dodgers have probably squeezed him from a starting role.

James clearly has gone nuts. It should have been obvious that he had gone nuts when he protected Paterno in the Sandusky case in that interview.

If the Yankees sign Ichiro and Ibanez, they will have an all left handed outfield.

I think TalkSox is almost unanimous on what has to be done at this point. If we can all agree on the strategy, it should be a duh moment for the FO. Unless they have some other big deals brewing, they need to pursue the agreed upon strategy. If they are working on something else, they had better lock it down fast before the other options are all gone.

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.