a700hitter

The guys we have signed don't even make it to the level of mud. Signing John Maine is a complete joke. The Mets, who completely suck, will not even touch this guy. The last time i saw him they had to pull him off the Mets mound, because he couldn't top 84. He said that his arm was sound. I can't see upside here at all. Whatever they are giving him would have been put to better use making a charitable donation. The same goes for the rest of the crew of Silva, Cook and Padilla. I give Padilla an outside chance of having a short period of usefulness.

They were very good on paper as of 4/1/2011. If Dice K and Buchholz and Lackey had stayed healthy, the team probably would have gone very far. We saw what happens to a team when it only has three starters. It crashes and burns. It is impossible to hold together a staff with two black holes at the end of the rotation. We know what happens in that situation. Looking forward to 2012, if we don't get another starter, we are going to start the season with 2 guys in the rotation that have never started in the major leagues and have no record of success as starters in professional ball. This has the potential to turn very bad.

This is very funny.

I keep forgetting about Tazawa since he got the surgery. Pre-op, I thought he had decent command and stuff with the potential to be a back of the rotation guy. He should be fully healthy by Spring training as he was back pitching in 2011. He's at a crossroads in his career at this point. If he doesn't step up to the next level this year or next, its sayonara for him.

He's an experienced guy with a lot of knowledge about the game and at age 71 he is still a fired up passionate fan of the sport. People need to read around the nicknames if they don't find them funny. There's a lot of knowledge behind those posts. He's not always right and he is the first to admit it. His posts are not offensive to other posters, so we shouldn't have a problem with him. If Benny feels slighted or insulted and asks Fred to stop, i am sure that he would. Seriously, in this age of reality TV where everyone is savaging each other and trying to outdo each other by acting like trash, are nicknames like Cherries Jubilee such an issue for people. How about getting the Jersey Shore and the Housewives of Where-ever-the-hell off the air? That s*** is offensive and will cause a loss of brain cells.

With regard to the issue of compensation for Theo, Selig has said: My inside source are telling me that we will get Bartman.

This is an Armageddon scenario, but one that is definitely possible, because they never determined what caused the stress fracture last year. If it is just his delivery that caused it, that could be a big problem. This possibility is a major reason why they need to solidify the rotation. With our current roster, we would be screwed. There is no quality depth at all. We'd be rolling out an assortment of bums, pig, misfits and losers every fifth day and losing almost all of those games while straining the bullpen for the other games.

Yep, you have definitely slammed me at times when you have disagreed with me, but you don't hold grudges and neither do I. You call'em as you see them. If people don't like that then they shouldn't be here. Posters may clash over issues, but it's not personal, and we move on.

This objective and accurate.

I don't think anyone has thrown in the white flag. We all just want a starting pitcher.

Massapequa. Where are you at?

You are right Fred. Without landing another starter, the Sox margin for error such as injury or underperformance will be very thin. I live on Long Island, but my daughter is living in Boston. It's about a 3 1/2 hour drive. I try to get up to see her once a month, especially during baseball season. She often accuses me of seeing her only because I am going to Red Sox games.

It's definitely not over, but I think the success of the offseason and the upcoming season rides heavily on getting a starting pitcher.

More contradictory conflicting reports from the wire:

Going into the offseason, we had one major need-- starting pitching. We had two huge holes at the end of the rotation. They moved Bard into the rotation and replaced him with Melancon. Eh. I am not crazy about that swap on the bullpen side, but fine if Bard can be a solid starter. That takes care of one empty rotation slot. They let Paps walk and replaced him with Bailey. Okay if bailey is healthy. I'm good up to this point. Here's where it starts getting dicey. They salary dump Scutaro (without a fulltime SS replacement inhouse) ostensibly according to press reports to free up money to get a pitcher. We get Cody Ross. I liked this more than you. We needed a RH OFer and he has had good splits against lefties. He also has good pop. But we still don't have the #1 goal-- the starting pitcher. If we don't get one, I don't know how the off season can be viewed as a success when we didn't take care of the primary need. Up to this point we have just shuffled some pieces around and replaced guys that left, but the biggest need has not been filled. i don't think that is an unfair assessment.

^See this is where you went off the mark with your last post. The rest of the post didn't matter, because you went off the rails right here at the beginning. No one is holding anyone to any standards. None of us is any position to do so. We are just talking sports. What we will think of those moves in October is not relevant now, and what we think now will not matter or be relevant in October.

Here's the latest off the wires. I have no idea how i will feel about this in October. Make a decent offer and cut the guy a check

I own up to everything I say. If I am wrong, it doesn't make the FO right. I was wrong about how the team would perform last year when the season started, but I was right in realizing that it had some very bad problems that needed fixing at the trading deadline. The FO didn't make those fixes and we lost. There is nothing remotely hypocritical or "having it both ways" about that. E1 often pulls this on me when he is upset about my opinion.

Seborrhea and psoriasis would be better than what we had in the 4th and 5th slots last year.

As I said in an earlier post, if I am wrong in liking a FO move and the move turns out bad, it is still a mistake. I did want them to sign Carl Crawford last year, but I would have preferred to get Holliday the year before. I think you liked Holliday too. Instead the Sox opted for Lackey. I do not think that Crawford was a huge mistake based on last year's performance. It was only one year. I have never said that it was a huge mistake, not yet. I reserve judgment as you would say. I don't throw the FO under the bus for putting a guy like Crawford on the team. If I criticize them for the move, it is because the spent themselves to the financial brink and left themselves with no flexibility for the future. They spent like drunken sailors and now they impose an austerity program. I am sorry but they have gone from one extreme to the other and that shows a lack of organizational discipline. Finally, please once and for all, stop making this and every other disagreement about your perception that I am somehow unfair to the FO. Let's discuss the news of the day and the current state of the roster. Is it really relevant what you think I will say at the end of the season if things go wrong? I guess I should be flattered if you think that is important or relevant, but I don't think it is.

At the end of the day, results are all that matters. Just because we were wrong about last years team doesn't make the FO right. The big difference is we can't lose our jobs if we are wrong about this stuff. I'll be the first to admit that i thought the Sox would steam roll into the post season in 2011. I was wrong. They were a very talented team, but the organization failed on many levels. I wasn't wrong when I took the position that the FO needed to do more than it did at the trading deadline. I was dead on right about that and the results bore out my prediction.