a700hitter

By tight community, I don't think he meant monolithic, but i will not speak for him. There are still only a small handful of regular posters that are here day in and day out.

If it was limited to that, it wouldn't be a problem. Differences of opinion about issues are too often all it takes for open season.

These slow news days are killing me. Let's get on with the season.

There are plenty of unlikeable posters here. I don't think that should be the standard to be followed with regard to justifying insults or attacks.

Slow news day, so let's mock the other posters. And people say that my posts are negative. Shouldn't this line of discussion not be in the Red Sox -- Off Season thread?:dunno: @VA and Emmz. @E1, would you consider the posts to which I am responding "necessary" or "well-reasoned"?

No one's posts are necessary. I like to think that most of my posts have been relevant to the topics being discussed and they are always well reasoned. I almost never post about other poster's agendas or motivations.. I only do so if those things are questioned about me first. My posts are just a running record of my opinions about the Red Sox and other things. It seems to have generated a lot of discussion throughout the years. That's what a message board is about-- people's opinions. I don't post a lot just to accumulate numbers. The numbers scare me a little, because they indicate that I spend too much time doing it. If I were to start including spreadsheets of stats in my posts, I'd spend even more time here.

I really do look at the stats to confirm my opinion, but i am too lazy to put them in the posts. I spend too much time at this as it is. If I started adding spreadsheets etc. increasing my time here, my wife would divorce me and I'd lose my job, and I'm not sure in what order those things would happen.

That's interesting. Do you have to keep three players? If you keep no one, you get 3 picks at the beginning?

If your keepers don't affect your draft order causing you to lose picks in certain rounds, I would keep both Kershaw and Weaver. I'd also keep Cano, but not Crawford. You should be able to pick up Crawford in a middle round depending on how deep the league is.

So the keepers will not affect your draft order--i.e. you won't lose picks in certain rounds? That's important.

Pal is no pessimist. That is not an accusation that could be leveled at him. I think the answer is that some issues are so glaring, so stark that they really can't be disputed.

We're agreeing a lot lately, because this isn't about philosophy or building a farm system. This issue is pretty clear cut. We both know what kind of roster it takes to be successful in the ALE. We might differ about how you get there, but we both know that this team is missing something. It's not missing much, but it is missing something crucial. If someone showed me this post ^ and asked if I wrote it, I'd have to say that it looks like something that i would write. Don't let that scare you. Once the season starts, we'll probably find ourselves disagreeing about some stuff.

I have been waiting for the offseason to conclude before making any predictions, but I will start to put some out there. I will probably update this post frequently before camp opens. Here we go: David Ortiz wins his arbitration case ($16.5 million) but pouts for the entire season because the Red Sox disrespected him at the hearing and he demands a trade at the trading deadline, making the decision to offer arbitatration a complete cluster f***. We get 700+ innings from the 1 through 4 spots in the rotation. No one pitching in the 5th spot in the rotation pitches more than 50 innings as a starter. The 5th spot becomes a fiasco. Andrew Bailey hits the DL before the All Star Break. He is shut down in September to get TJ surgery in September. Ellsbury does 30 -30 again. Crawford steals 50 bases Pedroia is a 20-20 man again Cody Ross hits 20 HRs Salty keeps throwing balls into CF. He'll lead the league in passed balls without Wakefields help, and he'll keep striking out more than one-third of the time Iglesias will win the starting SS position when camp breaks, but is OBP at the All Star Break will be .250. Youkilis will play the whole season and his OBP will be .370+, but his power will be down. Ortiz's power will be way down because pitchers will just stop pitching to him with no protection behind him. Wakefield will pitch for the Sox at some point in 2012 but not win any games. AGon hits 35 HRs After signing elswhere, it is divulged that the Red Sox never met with or offered Oswalt a contract. The player we get as compensation for Theo never wears a Red Sox uniform. Of course the Sox will sign Roy Oswalt within 24 hours of this post, so I will delete it.

It is a tough line to toe, and I think they have succeeded at confusing everyone.

The mixed messages coming from the FO seem almost irrational at times. They are certainly not articulating any coherent strategy.

Are these liste in the order of the rounds in which they were picked?