a700hitter

I think the + was a PTBNL-- again not a big cost. Let's face it, Lars was a zero cost as he has zero future with this Sox and almost no trade value. They had to offer something, hence the PTBNL. It was not going to be a top tier prospect. The whole thing backfired on Theo. If you remember, he was desperately trying to pry away Bruce Chen from KC in the final week and Capuano on the last weekend. I still don't know why the Mets declined. They let Capuano walk. I guess they have bigger dummies in their FO.

Thank goodness that this chapter is finally closed... about 2 years too late.

The bad news for Saturday was that Benny Boy still hasn't gotten the team a starting pitcher. He is busy trying to limit the damage he caused by offering Ortiz arbitration. What evr time he has left over he is using to lock down a pscho journeyman Padilla. On the bright side, Bobby V has gone on record saying that neither Wakefield or Varitek has any chance of making the team if they come to Spring training. Thank you Bobby V for being the bad guy and shutting the door on these over the hill has beens. Apparently Benny Boy doesn't have the intestinal fortitude to break the news to them.

I should have clarified. The type of pitcher being discussed in the poll is a quality pitcher like Oswalt, not a garbage journeyman psycho like Padilla or a chump like Silva.

At what cost? They had a deal done for Harden in return for Lars A (who has absolutely no future with the Red Sox and almost no trade value). The Sox pulled the plug. Stupid move, especially in light of the fact that they knew Bedard had a knee injury and a history of being brittle. Giving up Lars A was essentially no cost. It would not have compromised the future or gutted our farm. Harden would have been a nice insurance policy, and if he had won 1 or 2 games, we wouldn't be having this discussion. Theo didn't make the move. His bad, and that is why injuries were not an excuse for 2011. iortiz is 100% right. Injuries come with the territory. It's not a platitude. The top of the food chain (the owners) didn't say "aw shucks that's too bad. We had some bad breaks." They fired everyone's ass. Everyone's. There is your proof that it was not an excuse. Injuries are a loser's lament. People remember who won and who lost. No one cares that Jim Rice was injured for the 1975 post season. The Reds of the 1970's will always be remembered as the Big Red Machine and 2 time champions. You are right that sometimes a team can't plan to deal with injuries, but last season was not one of those seasons. They could have made moves that would have been costly like Fister (great move by the Tigers) or a cheap move like Harden. They had another zero cost move available--Millwood. They let him go and he did pretty decent for Colorado. They did neither the cheap moves or the expensive moves. That's why the injuries are not an excuse for 2011. They had options. You have no argument. None.

When my ass is bleeding, it's hard to think that it is only intermittent. You are right. We have had the ebb. Now we could use some flow.

There can be no injury excuses in 2012 unless the team charter plane crashes. We have no pitching depth. Everyone knows it. Some kind of injury, minor or major will happen. With the lack of depth on our staff, a couple of minor injuries causing a couple of the guys to miss 3-4 starts each could be very devastating. Ben needs to get something done and his options are dwindling.

They constantly remind me of why I hate them so much.

iortiz, as usual, I am in full agreement. Our starting pitching is 3 deep. Saying that we lack depth would be an understatement. We only have 3 legitimate major league starters. Period. If one of them gets injured, it would be disastrous, but whining about it would not be justified. The problem is staring everyone in the face. Ben need to do something about it. Carlos Silva is not the answer unless the problem is that you need someone to take home the left overs from the after game spread.

Why would the Yankees screw us just once when they can screw us twice?

I don't remember who he said it to, but Willie Mays imparted to a young player one of his secrets for being great. He told the kid that he just tries to hold his own against the good pitchers, getting 1 hit in 3 or 4 ABs made him happy, but he feasted on everyone else. That's always the way it is for pitchers and batters alike. This kid is good. I'd love to have a 22 year old kid at 6'7" pumping easy gas at 97 with a good breaking ball.

This is a reasonable position. Change a few of your reasonable assumptions as to why they might be improved and make an opposite but still reasonable assumption and the analysis ends up somewhere between "about the same" and markedly worse, which is where I believe that Pumpsie and others are on this issue, but they get ridiculed for it. I'm not quite sure why, because their analysis leaves them somewhere in the middle of the spectrum, which is where you are. Don't get me wrong. I am not saying that you are the one heaping ridicule. I am not saying that at all. You are the only person who took the time to try to make the case that the 2012 pitching will be improved and you came out in the middle somewhere leaning toward improvement. When all the blather is boiled away, this staff is about the same as last years. If injuries and unexpected performance occurs it will be markedly worse. If we have good health and some break out performances, it will be markedly better. There's a lot of common ground in the opinion in this thread, but people are too busy bickering.

This may make you feel better about things, but I don't feel better about it. The Yankees like the Sox needed pitching. A lot of people here are willing to trade Youk -- an All Star cleanup hitter-- to get a pitcher. The Yankees filled their hole by trading a prospect-- a very good hitting prospect-- but still a prospect-- and he's a DH prospect. I don't feel good about this.

Even after the defection of Papelbon, the Red Sox were positioned such that a few acquisition (nothing too splashy) would reassert the Sox as a dominant force in the AL. Via a trade, we replaced our closer with a pitcher with great stuff but questionable health. We also added a late inning reliever in Melancon. We are one solid starting pitcher away from materially improving our pitching over the 2011 version. We are still waiting. Today, the Yankees solidified their status as a dominant team. They went from having a staff with an ace, an emerging ace in Nova and several question marks to a staff that is 7 Starters deep at the major league level with the killer Bees waiting in the wings. Benny Boy just got a lesson from Cashman. Hopefully, he is a fast learner and responds appropriately.

Write the damn check already, Ben!!!!

The Phillies and the Yankees have more depth in their rotations than the Sox do. If the Yankees lose CC, they still have a solid 5 guys with Nova, Pineda, Kuroda, Garcia and Hughes with AJ for depth. Edit : They can survive losing one of their top 3. We can't.

I'm hoping that montero hits .360 next year, but that will not change the fact that the Yankees just filled a hole for many years to come with a kid with a lot of upward potential. It pisses me off much more than the Kuroda signing.