a700hitter

It's hard to say "be patient' if they roll out a horror show like last year. The fans were patient last year and continued to fill the park for the most part. If they roll out the current staff and the season starts to resemble 2012, fans will just stop buying tickets and watching. There just was nothing interesting or fun about watching the team last year. You can say "be patient", but people are just not going to watch something that is not entertaining. We are all crazy fanatics on TalkSox and the game threads turned into an abandoned city.

If they think the price for Sanchez is too high, they had better start exploring some trade options, because not adding to the current staff will land them in last place possibly topping their 93 losses from last year. I don't think ownership will want to live through another 2012 again.

Okay, 4/$60 is better than Lackey's or Beckett's contracts. Pitching continues to go at a premium. It's not like there is a bubble that will burst and the prices will come down at some point.

I hate finishing last. I am not expecting a championship caliber team in 2013, but a couple of starters would make this a competitive respectable team. $60 million for Sanchez is a much better value than $82 million for a pig like Lackey. Sanchez will not break our bank. The payroll is very low right now, and so far no one has given him the 4/$60. If that is the top, it's not horrible and the length is not that bad, and maybe it will be lower.

^ 100%.

I thought Stewart projected as a middle of the rotation starter.

Tito always took out the starter at around 100 pitches regardless of whether he gave up 0 runs or 6 runs or whether he got to 100 pitches in 4 innings or 7 innings.

I realize that Fred can handle himself. You need to control yourself and stop personally attacking people and attributing intent to posters based on your skewed filter. Serious, just the facts, mam. Leave out the editorializing about posters.

He never attacks a single poster. If you see his posts as an attack on you personally, it is your projection, not an actual personal attack.

I don't know if he was referring to a particular circumstance or event, but he is not running from or denying his missteps. That is admirable.

I agree that this has been a 2 year decline. People don't remember that after 2011, Lester and others were talking about him having a bounce back season in 2012. He was not pleased with his 2011. This is why 2012's debacle is so concerning. This is two years in a row where we are talking about a Lester bounce back. 2011's numbers look fine without context and we would kill for him to get back to that level, but it doesn't change the fact that his stuff and game has been slipping for 2 seasons. Last year was more than a slip. It was a cliff.

Also, in one of his post season mea culpas, Cherries admitted to have taken too long to act in certain instances. I do give the guy credit for taking direct accountability for 2012 and for recognizing where he fell short. That gives me hope that things will improve.

Fred's statement was that he felt that the GMs inaction cannot be overlooked and that our s***** pitching cannot be spun to look good. He feels that it is unreasonable to do otherwise. You are overly sensitive if you take that personally. Get over yourself. Your post was a direct frontal personal attack. I don't know how you can see that? You constantly challenge my cognitive ability in an insulting manner. I have learned to let that kind of stuff go, but you should know that it is personally insulting, nevermind offensive. If you can't see that your post to Fred was an uncalled for personal attack, than I question your cognitive ability. Seriously, can you just debate the sports and not the posters. You talk stats and WAR, and I am well aware of those stats. I was pointing out stats during the season to show that Lester's game has been declining for 2 seasons, not 1. This gives me cause to be concerned that this is a trend and not outlier bad season. I am sorry that you didn't see those posts or you forgot them. I know the stats. I know who is in our minor league system and how they are doing, so stop trying to act like I don't do my homework or know my stuff. I don't believe in using cherry picked stats to contradict what is clearly indicate by observation and other stats. Please support your own arguments without insulting others and worse yet wrongly assuming the intent of other posters. Your record in divining intent has been almost 100% wrong. You read stuff through a warped filter. It ain't working, so do us all a favor and just give us the facts, mam.

I am expecting a couple of deals before December 1st.

His best stretches last year were mediocre. He had no stretches where he resembled a number 1 or 2. It's as simple as that. His results were not skewed by anything. He was just awful.

There is one downside to signing Napoli. He will not be hitting against our pitching.

^ Thank goodness for the ignore feature.

I have to say that some of the things he has said in interviews since he has had the job give some people, including me, to wonder whether he has a good command of his job. This off season will be his proving grounds. As far as I am concerned, his grade is still incomplete. I can understand people having doubts about him. It shouldn't be a big surprise. Their concerns are not invalid.

People don't realize that we often differ in our opinions, because we address each other respectfully and don't attack each other. We have been agreeing about the need for starting pitching since last off season. Our opinion turned out to be fact in 2012. I still feel strongly about the need for pitching. Yes, it is an opinion, but our pitching was atrocious last year. I think it is a safe bet that if we don't add some pitching that rebound years will not be enough to make the staff be respectable in 2013, and Lester showed little to no signs that he was figuring things out as the season progressed. If we go north after Spring Training with the same guys that produced garbage last year, I don't think it is reasonable to expect much better than garbage.

UN doesn't get that this is all opinion. There is no science here. If it was science, we'd know the outcome before the season started. That would take all the fun out of it.

You always, yes always, look to make things personal. ^ This post is crap. You are acting like a huge blowhard. Learn to make a distinction between an opinion about sports and attacking people.:thumbdown

Then why was Cherington surprised at the deal if he was plugged into the process at the end? That makes no sense.

Edwin Jackson logs 180 -200 innings like clockwork. He's the kind of guy that would help at the back end of the rotation. He's not a star and he will not break the bank, but he is reliable. He's not a guy who we have to think whether he has potential to go 200 inn. He does it year in and year out. If we got him and Haren, we'd be set for the rotation. I don't see how that is cost prohibitive or unreasonable. The stronger bottom of the rotation would make up for the lack of an ace. Right now we have: Buchholz Lester Doubront (IMO he is not a #3) Lackey (He is a big ?) TBA This screams for 2 pitchers. They don't need 5 guys to pitch 200 innings. I am not saying that, but if we get 2 guys that have that capability to pitch 200 we'll have 4 guys that are capable of going 200. Injuries and other stuff happens so we would be very lucky if 3 of them logged 200. If 5 guys logged 200 innings, we'd win the division going away.

That's not the point he was making. There was no big deal on the table for the Sox. Cherries didn't know about a big deal until it was announced. If he wanted Johnson, he should have locked him down before the Jays negotiation got to that point. He didn't and he missed out.

The Red Sox were clearly interested in Johnson. He didn't get his lunch eaten because he passed on a big deal. His lunch was eaten, because Johnson (a guy Cherries was interested in) was in the deal. Cherries should have locked down Johnson before the other deal happened. From his statement, he was caught unaware of what his competitor was doing. This is not the first time that he has been caught unaware. That is why his lunch was eaten. You act like there was a big deal on the table and he passed on it. That's not what happen. Guys he wanted got traded before he got off his ass and got into serious negotiations. He didn't know what was going on as evidenced by his own statement.