Dojji

Already decided that have you? Whether or not he starts to get the job done as the season warms up?

Under the same treatment I would have lost it weeks ago. Pablo is really getting the rough end right now.

Why would you send Roenis Elias down? He has 2 years big league experience, it would be a weird decision to start him in the minors, arguably he was better last year than 3 members of the current rotation.

That, a700, is 100% speculation and you know it.

but if you go for a less expensive closer you're taking a risk on a guy with less of a track record, the kind of pitchers who get paid as closers are the ones that stand the test of time. And those are not very common.

Absolutely, but the problem is about his athleticism, not "he's fat lol." The problem is that as he's gotten older it's harder to be both fat and athletic.

Well it is implying that bullpens are not important, but that's OK because they aren't as important as the lineup or the rotation. That doesn't mean there's never a time to break out the checkbook and sign a reliever. Even in the bullpen, you frequently wind up getting what you pay for. The price of cheaping out on the pen is increased risk. If you can manage that fine, and it's definitely possible to get as lucky as we did with Koji Uehara, but it's also as possible to get as "lucky" as we did with Dan Bard, Andrew Bailey or Eric Gagne.

There have been fat baseball players before.

Well it really depends on how well Papelbon ages as a reliever. His successful transition away from the fastball is actually an extremely good sign for that. being able to transition from a power pitcher into more of a command and guile pitcher shows the kind of intelligence it takes to pitch well deep into his 30's. That being the case, if he can manage to keep adding tricks as he loses velo, he may be able to remain fully effective through the life of another 4-5 year contract and I could see a team in need of help on the back end taking that gamble with him -- he's been a decent investment for the money so far due to his durability and dependability. Papelbon provides stability in an area where stability may be more important than overall quality of performance. That can be worth paying for, if you're satisfied with your offense and defense and feel like you're a closer away fron contending.

Why wouldn't you? Do you want to have to keep taking the same risks over and over year after year just waiting for the next one to screw you over? We've had to do that dance in the past, and been screwed over by it plenty of times.

Yes, that's why the best relief pitchers make half or less what the best starters or position players make. True they are less vaulable than a position player or an SP. That argument however is not indefinitely valid. There is a point at which the market will bear a reasonable price for closing talent. How many times have we failed to "easily" replace our closer just in the last 20 years? Papelbon is still the most successful closer we've had in years, perhaps the most successful closer we've ever had if you count only contributions made in a Red Sox uniform. here's the bottom line: If it was that easy to find a great closer who could play solid high level baseball in the closer's position for more than 4 years at a time, we would have found more than 1 of them in the last 30 years. There IS a value to stability in the closer's role, we have ignored it to our peril in the past, we will ignore it to our peril in the future.

We have exactly zero players right now that are definitely ready to take over as the starting third baseman of a contending team. Shaw is not anyone's first choice as a starting third sacker. The bench role he's playing now is acutally more or less ideal for him unless he keeps hitting over his head, which I honestly don't think he will. Beyond him we have a bunch of nobodies and maybes. There's good reason to see what Panda can give us before we panic and throw our flock of maybes into the lineup every day.

They can't if the team is otherwise competitive. If they're well out of it, that changes things. it also changes things if they're dominant. So it does still depend on the overall situation. If Panda is doing meh but not terrible and the team is a few games out, that might be enough to bench him, but if the team can carry Panda over the first couple months, or the team is already irrelevant, he should probably get a longer chance to see if we can at least give him some value in trade.

But you're not paying for past performance. At least not on papelbon's current contract. The contract is nearly over yet he's still performing at a high level. papelbon is appropriately paid as a high level performer in his field. he is not "overpaid" unless any amount of money appropriate to a 11 year MLB veteran who can still pitch at an all star level is an overpay. We should have learned by now that there is a risk to cheaping out at the closer's position. We thought we'd be just fine plugging in another less expensive closer and the result was an absolute gongshow in 2012. We got lucky that Koji's been durable enough (it was a serious question at the time) to pitch at a very high level over the last few years. And if you think Koji doesn't have some HUGE questionmarks Papelbon doesn't have to deal with going into this coming season, then you missed the fact that Koji missed a large chunk of last season and is going to be 41 this year. There's a reason we sprung for Kimbrel in the offseason. The fact is we got hella lucky that Koji didn't implode by now, we took a pretty significant risk expanding his role at his age.

the difference in construction between various lineups is so minescule as to be effectively a complete nonissue. It's the difference of a bare handful of runs a year.

thus what I mean about presuming failure in order to predict it. I'm all done with Buchholz, I could never see him in a Red Sox uniform again and that would be just fine, and I actually would love to see him replaced with another arm (which is what *I* mean when I say we need another starter) but I do hold out some hope for Porcello. He's been very solid in the past.

most teams have problems if 2 of their 3 top pitchers suck. You're presuming a failure condition then predicting failure. This is not a surprising result.

I have never denied this. there is a difference between possibly finding ways to cheap out successfully at closer, and saying a player who's one of the most consistently effective at his position, a very dependable closer who has always been able to take the innings and make the saves over a 11 year career and shows no real signs of slowing down, is overpaid when he makes half what the best starting position players and/or starting pitchers make. Make no mistake, a player of similar prominence in any starting position on the field would make more than 12-15M. I wouldn't say he's overpaid or underpaid. I would say he's paid like something that's actually a very rare object in professional baseball -- a durable professional closer that's been able to stay in the field as a closer without major injury,loss of command, or just plain getting figured out by hitters, for over a decade. Closers don't tend to get paid because closers don't tend to be as durable as Pap has been. Closers that are that durable, get paid. Prove me wrong.

Phrases that could have referred to either team under discussion in bold.

Could probably use a corner outfielder too

What about weakening one position to improve as many as 3?

If they could use a trade to rebuild their offense which is absolutely terrible outside Jose Abreu, and replace Sale with a reasonably talented pitcher who could provide a solid fraction of what Sale gave them and had at least 1 additional year of control, they'd probably improve both their short and longterm upside at the same time.

Yes, clearly the fact that other top closers are cost controlled due to lack of MLB experience and Papelbon is not has any bearing at all on this discussion

I think they'd want the one with MLB experience, UN, that's why I feel they'd insist on Eddie

I can understand a trade of Swihart too, IF the team has made the decision that Christian Vazquez is their starting catcher. but I do think that we're going to lose pieces we'd rather not, if the player coming back is Chris Sale. And I think that that's perfectly OK as long as the deal is fair and you know what you're getting into. you don't get to keep all your prospects if you're also aiming for the top, that's alright. prospects are a means to an end not an end in themselves. Knowing who to keep, who to move, and when to make a move, is part if the job of the GM and keeping all the prospects is never exactly the right move