a700hitter

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.

The Red Sox need reliable innings eaters at the bottom of the rotation, because they are weak at the top of the rotation. We do not have a #1 stopper horse. We just don't. They need to compensate for the weak top of the order with a stronger bottom than most teams. This will not break their bank, so why is it unreasonable?

If Lackey and Doubront both shoot out the lights, we still only have 4 starters. That is just not going to enough if the 5th spot in the rotation is filled by dumpster finds like last year.

Sounds very romantic.

I'm sure that you have been called worse. I think we can drop it.

You not over-reacted, but you misinterpreted too.

You admittedly dish the snark most of the time. If that's how you want to be, that's okay, but you need to be prepared to be told to f*** off every so often.

Last year we gave Ross a 1 year deal for $3 million.

You over-reacted and acted like one. Your post that I responded too was nothing but a sarcastic insult from beginning to end in response to a joking post of mine, so knock it off.

Maybe there will be another great discussion like the one about D.C.'s market. By the way, they went to the post season for the first time since the '30s and they finished 9th out of 16 teams in attendance. It looks like star players and winning didn't help all that much. The last place Rockies and the 101 loss Cubs had better attendance.

No, he's not a bad component part.

1 pitcher will not be enough IMO, unless that pitcher is Felix Hernandez, and that ain't going to happen. If we get no pitchers, we will be a last place team again. If they are lucky they will finish 4th, but they would lose more than 90 games. One pitcher could get them to .500, but no chance at a wild card. Two pitchers should make the team respectable and competitive for a Wild Card. Who is available? I'm not sure . Haren, Edwin jackson, MCCarthy, and Sanchez are a thin free agent class. Chances are that they will have to look at a trade. Pitchers will change uniforms as the off season progresses. If people want to give him advance excuses in case he doesn't get it done, that is fine. The result will be the same whether he is blamed or blameless-- a last place team not worth watching.