Dojji

Every year. Every. Damn. Year.

I'm still on board with the idea of signing Eovaldi and making him our closer. With his stuff he'd be lethal, and if you look at the guy's track record as a starter... well... he's more of a candidate to move to the pen than his short tenure with us would lead one to believe.

I disagree that he fell, he reverted to form after a near-career year in 2007, what he did in 08 and 09 was pretty consistent with his career performance level, and he was battling a nasty hip injury towards the end of his contract, but he wasn't worth the money at the time. Still a very solid 3B though, right up until his body fell apart on him

Oh and since this has kind of become a thread about reminiscing over beloved players in the team's past -- I feel Mike Lowell deserves to be brought up. I loved Lowell a lot. Not the flashiest player by any means but he had power, had very good hands at third base, and was a master of using the Monster, always good for a clutch double while he was here. Shouldn't have re-signed him after 2007 but considering he was a throw-in on a deal for another player he did us proud.

Fisk had the better offensive numbers, but as a defender, team captain and battery mate Varitek was superior, and Varitek led his teams to 2 World Series which Fisk came close but never actually pulled off. If Tek hadn't captained 2 World Series winning teams I'd agree with you, but accomplishing the hardest thing in major league baseball twice with a different cast of characters each time carries a great deal of weight with me.

Varitek is literally the best catcher in Red Sox history. Anyone who's alive long enough remembers him. He's one of the most famous Red Sox of the modern era and one of the most cerebral players in baseball in his day. And yes, he probably still is underrated. IIRC he's somewhere in the front office these days working with our player development team. Which is a fantastic place for such a cerebral former player. Makes you wonder how much of a role he might have had in the development of some of our young studs.

BTW there's been a player who's been rattling in the back of my mind and I was trying to recall who it was and it kept not coming to me. I know I loved him back when I was a kid and just starting to get into baseball. Was a kid who could defend extremely well made a lot of contact and hit a lot of doubles, played on a team that made some big playoff pushes but never sealed the deal I've finally remembered the man's name. Jody Reed.

While I'm on the subject of relievers who definitely didn't get enough love -- Javier Lopez. Sidewinding lefty that won a ring with us and then 3 more with SFG, never got a lot of love but he was actually extremely effective as a ground ball LOOGY

Yeah, he had an extremely impressive career for a guy you haven't heard of in a decade.

I wouldn't give Iglesias a corner infield position. He's mostly valuable for his defense up the middle. Put him on the corners and it plays to his weaknesses and negates his strengths. That said I wouldn't mind bringing Iggy back if a hole opened up for him -- but at the same time, Bogaerts is second only to Betts on the list of "players I retain at all costs." Either Bogaerts or Betts are good candidates to rebuild a core around.

This might be a bit controversial since he's one of The 24, but I put forward the name of Mike Timlin. A middle relief guy who actually played a very important role in both 2004 and 2007, but whose name probably won't even show up on a trivia question today.

Based on these criteria what about John Valentin? Very good SS-3B who got kind of overshadowed by the emergence of Nomar

It did indeed, but if you're looking for an excuse to hold that against him, I strongly suggest you look elsewhere.

You can literally say that about every single successful pitcher in the history of major professional sports.

not worth 8 figures no, but if that's a guy's worst year, he's pretty darn good.

As time passes, Kevin Youkilis fits more and more into this category.

Yes he was, he just wasn't as very good as you wanted him to be. It was Kimbrel's worst year of his career so far but it was still more than acceptable. Heck, nearly every closer I've seen suggested to replace him had at least one season worse than Kimbrel's 2016. A certain variability is a given when dealing with relief pitching, and if that's Kimbrel's worst, then his worst was still pretty darn good.

Evans got a lot of acknowledgement in New England though. Everyone here knows he ought to be in the Hall. He's an interesting pick but I'm actually going to suggest that he's not qualified on that basis I'm going to go ahead and suggest that one Covelli Loyce "Coco" Crisp deserves some recognition in a thread like this. he was a magnificent defender in centerfield and made a huge contribution to the 2007 World Series including some absolutely jaw dropping defensive plays in the critical ALDS against the Guardians, but people are gonna look at his numbers and say "meh, just another guy." Heck, they did that while he was here.

He will always know that he made it to the bigs. Good for him. Happy retirement Mr. Butler.

And this costs time and, depending on the 'someone else,' other resources, that you didn't have to spend gambling unnecessarily on untried closing options, and usually in a buyers' market.

Our starting depth in the minors is already better than most of our opponents, and with talented relivers like Workman fighting for roster spots, I feel like this is an attempt to invent a problem where none exists. My concern is honestly about the 2-3 year window more than immediate depth. We solve that problem by maximum stability on the big league roster until the youth percolates up and is ready to replace them.

Replacing any position has costs in time, money and talent that aren't necessary if you can afford to bring back your guy. Furthermore replacing a closer is not all that easy and replacing any MLB player or role is susceptable to setbacks and mistakes that can torpedo whole seasons and drive the cost yet higher. Everyone here has seem failed closers. Everyone here has seen both professional closers fail, and people slotted to move up into the closer's role not get it done. There is both a material and opportunity cost in attempting to replace a closer, just like with any other baseball role, and one o those risks is the potential need to do so multiple times if the first guy fails. Incurring those costs and risks when you don't have to is usually foolish. You guys talk so much about the cost of paying our closer... I wish you'd give at least some thought to the potential costs associated with NOT doing so.

OK, you want my plan? We have no direct way to replace Kimbrel right now. It's not rocket science to say, OK, in that circumstance we shouldn't deliberately create a hole in our roster for no actual reason. If Kimbrel's agreeable to come back for a reasonable price, bite the bullet and sign on the dotted line. This isn't like many of our closer controversy years. We have the choice to avoid the controversy altogether. We don't HAVE to have a closer controversy this year. We CAN keep our closer. And that means that if we have a closer controversy this year it's because we chose to have one! And the history of previous "gap years" between closers suggests that that is a terrible, terrible thing to decide to do when you don't have to, especially when you have every chance to win the World Series. We have both the money to pay and the playoff window to justify paying it. there is absolutely no need whatsoever to deliberately create a hole in our roster for no other reason than a slavish devotion to Jamesian philosophy.

His 4 blown saves in the World Series clearly do. The man could not get it done when it mattered most. I will concede though that he was sabotaged by one of the most pathetic displays of infield defense I've ever seen, but he didn't help himself out either. I mean, if this was an ordinary year, I'd say whatever, you guys are sufficiently determined to learn this lesson the hard way, again, for like the 3rd time since 2001, then hey, go nuts. But I thought this year was about having a great chance to go back to back. Cheaping out on the back end of the bullpen isn't going to get us there. This is kind of a golden opportunity you're squandering here by caring more about baseball politics than putting the best possible team on the field. So yeah, I feel like this matters and don't think that deliberately accepting the second best closer is a strong move, especially in a position as fundamentally short-term as closing.

There's a cycle I've seen already several times in my years as a baseball fan. The cycle goes as follows: We have a good closer We take good closing for granted We start to assume that any random schmuck can close So we get any random schmuck to close And we realize any random schmuck can NOT close. This can take a few years if the GM is particularly stubborn about it And then we spend years trying to find a good closer and not being able to And then we eventually get lucky and manage to acquire a good closer, often very expensively. And then we have a good closer. Rinse, repeat. So can I just take a second and argue in favor of actually being smarter than the average banana and NOT repeating this cycle over and over again? Or at least keeping the part where we stupidly underestimate the value of a strong back end of the bullpen to a minimum?