Dojji

You know, I really think it might be a good time for Dumbo to toss his hat into the ring and go after Alex Gordon. I was very surprised the man has not been signed yet and we have a need for him Looking at the roster we have a very young, highly unproven outfield, and we'll likely be putting inexperienced players at both corner posts, which I consider less than ideal. it would be a good thing to get a guy like Gordon, who just helped his team win the World Series and is a solid veteran leader, and add him left field. It would diminish the opportunities for Castillo and JBJ but that's OK, I doubt both of them are going to be good next year anyhow, and I really suspect Gordon or no Gordon that we'll be making a play for a corner OF at the deadline regardless. Might as well shore up our depth now to avoid needing to make a desperation trade later. Going left to right Gordon-Betts-JBJ/Castillo would be a very strong outfield and should be well balanced for offense and defense. I think having Alex Gordon, who has a lot of recent playoff experience and is a team leader and someone who would help bring a sense of optimism to the clubhouse, would only help and would probably be worth going over the cap for. Just my .02

We do have some very strong depth in our rotation this year. Guys like Wright, Johnson and Owens could all be very good, and Elias has the makings of an interesting depth option as well, and this is of course before we start getting creative. We may wind up doing quite a bit of mixing and matching this year.

I personally think Bard was a lost cause before he was ever converted to a starter. Remember he fell apart not in 2012 but in the last month of 2011.

I think Wright could be a big part of what this rotation does in 2016. He's the natural first choice to replace any injuries at this point, and can handle long man duties out of the pen until he's needed. He's shown he can go deep into the game and a deep innings starter with an ERA of around 4 is a solid guy to have if he can repeat his performance over a larger sample size. I'm not saying he's going to be an ace or anything but Stephen Wright is a pretty good pick to be one of the pleasant surprises for this team next year.

And his teams were usually good bets to make deep playoff runs for most of Dombrowski's VERY long career in Detroit.

I agree with Jackson. I think we should also look forward to retiring Pedro's number as well as Rice, Evans and a few others. Heads would roll if they tried to retire Rajah, but that's strictly because of the off field crap that happened around him. Either way the requirement that a player retire in this team's uniform is completely out of touch with modern baseball reality. Todd Heltons are vanishingly rare in this day and age, and it holds up players who damn well should be honored to an impossible standard. We should have as many numbers up on that wall as any franchise in the league and more than most but that stupid retire-here policy, which, thank god, they're FINALLY discarding if this news is any indication, has held us back from that point and hidden from us a large chunk of this franchise's modern history. One person that I think should be honored that may wind up slipping under the radar is Jason Varitek. That man deserves a heck of a lot of credit for 2 different championships. He's the best catcher we've had in the modern era barring none and he and Fisk get to arm wrestle over who was the best catcher for this team overall. He deserves to be on the wall.

I agree. Every team needs a slump stopper. Doesn't have to be a pitcher but it has to be one guy who can take the team on his back from time to time and stop a bad string of games from getting out of control. Until recently, it was Papi, but he's nearly done so having an ace starter who can do the same thing from the other side of the ball will become critical.

My opinion is that they should find a way to respect the accomplishments of the man during his lifetime without lifting the ban.

Kazmir would be a good investment for the lower part of the rotation. I'd trust Kazmir over Buchholz at this point.

That I don't have a huge problem with, but the odds of Swihart playing 80 games while being where he is in the depth chart aren't particularly high, as he's sharing the roster with 2 other catchers of reasonable skill, so setting that as a victory condition is unrealistic. Let's not forget that before he turned out to need Tommy John, Vazquez was the presumptive starter and Swihart was considered to be at least a couple years away.

Nope. As a relatively neutral arbiter here, since I really don't like either of you very much, here's how it's going down. If Swihart doesn't catch 80 games, no sig for either one. We have 2 other catchers that are worth big league roster spots and Swihart was only up this year because both of them got hurt. Very real chance the franchise considers Vazquez to be ahead of Swihart on the depth chart at the moment, that has to be taken into account, and that may be true regardless of any performance or lack thereof from Swihart -- defensive catchers that can do what Vazquez is capable of are incredibly valuable, and the current defensive meta only makes that skillset even more in demand. Swihart winding up playing in the big league in another position, for example first or third base, both of which are distant but possible chances, also washes out the bet. If he catches 80+games at cather and is below average overall, Jacko wins. That means failing to provide a combination of offense and defense that's worth at least average value at catcher, since providing enough glove to justify his stick is all that we're really demanding from Swihart. If he catches 80+ games and produces at an overall average level or better, UN wins. With Vazquez as an option for starting catcher it's very possible that Swihart won't get that number of games through no fault of his own. I'd feel differently if he wasn't potentially blocked through no fault of his own, but insisting that he catches 80 games or else you win, when he may be stuck behind one of the league's best defensive catchers, is unfair.

I think the plan has always been for Swihart to break camp in Pawtucket at the start of the year, and we'll see what happens from there.

I think we have too many question marks on the offensive and defensive sides to make us feel like instant contenders. I think we have some things to work out. With good luck we contend this year, with average luck we're a year away as our youngsters mature, with bad luck we're a .500 team again.

They used to say that about us you know.

We have too many other good options for me to believe that Farrell will permit Sandoval or Hanley to be gaping holes in the defense

He may break camp as the long man anyway TBH

Pedroia is always healthy in the offseason. He is nearly always injured while playing. I would still like to move the man whilke his value is high. His constant injuries do not bespeak a long career into the mid to late 30's, nor frankly does his size and build, which result in a lot of those injuries as he has to go at 120% just to compete with larger players. He's a good veteran second sacker with an MVP background who's still well above average but I am not comfortable with what I perceive as a very high chance to decline early.

Steven Wright becomes an interesting name in that context. He averaged nearly 6 innings a start himself, with a reasonable ERA, last year as a SP. If we haver durability problems in the rotation next year his name might be one that comes up. Wright as a starter last year (ignoring his relief outings), 9 starts, 52.1 IP, 3-4, ERA 3.98. Over 32 starts that's about 180 innings pitched or so with an ERA of maybe a tick under 4 maybe a tick over. That's not an ace or anything but it is pretty nice to fill out the 5 spot. Wright is worth a look.

Good for him. I'd be interested in seeing him if he wanted to come back to beantown

Not just the Royals. In 07 we had Pap, Oki, MDC, and some pretty good depth behind them (Javier Lopez was very good pitcher that the Sox found off the scrap heap that has had a really solid career since, that year was Timlin's swan song and he went on an impressive run just as Eric Gagne fell apart completely, he really was the guy that made the Gagne trade not kill us, and even Kyle Snyder managed to not be completely ineffective that year). This team has built good bullpens and won with them in the past.

Actually Elias has comparisons to #2-3 guys like Anibal Sanchez, and to add a decent to great relief prospect into the mix is a fantastic trade for Dombrowski. It looks like the M's were looking for a veteran to add some stability to the middle of their rotation and Miley can give tham that. I can see why the Mariners made the move but it definitely helps us too. If you look at the Mariners' rotation they didn't get a lot of innings this year from anyone in their starting 5 other than the King. Their next best starter only gave them 170 innings. In that environment it's a lot easier to see the appeal of a guy like Wade Miley to them, a guy who's going to make all his starts and reduce the load on the bullpen and the prospects -- especially if a trip to a pitchers ballpark may improve his numbers. I wouldn't judge this trade as a steal for Boston until we see how Aro does in a Mariners uniform. He's pitched very very well in the minors and I'm guessing he's a key to the deal from their perspective, similar to the Shields trade by KC that also brought them the guy who closed out the World Series, or the Beckett trade that landed us Mike Lowell. Frankly this looks like one of those trades where both sides can look at it and say "We gave up reasonable value to get what we wanted and our team is now better than it was." The Mariners rotation was very light on the kind of professional inning stuffers that Miley represents, and we definitely gained in terms of both upside and roster flexibility.

That's not entirely false but I'll nuance it a bit. It really is based on whether they trust the player in question to perform at a certain level. The higher a performance level the more it's safe to feel that the money was justifed. This isn't injustice but true justice.

It is way too early to have this thread. It needs to be at least halfway through the season before we even have meaningful data on DD, and without that we're comparing a track record on one side with nothing but hope on the other, and that's not fair.

Meaningless when Buchholz rarely hits that ceiling and can't sustain that performance level over a full season. I'll take 200 innings of a tier 3 pitcher ofver 12o innings of a potential tier 1 that frequently doesn't live up to the billing. Buchholz is on his way to being a scrapheap guy when his contract plays out IMHO. The world has seen guys like this before, Rich Harden springs to mind, and guess what happened to him. I'd love to see them try Buchholz out of the pen at some point, just to see if reducing his innings load might help improve his outlook for finishing the season healthy and being able to end a season on a high note for once.

In my mind the real crime is the past contracts that are clearly more exploitative than present, since they can clearly afford boondoggles like this the players of the past are still UNDERpaid. People still have this delusion that if player contracts were cheaper the price of tickets will go down. It's an exercise in putting the cart in front of the horse. They will charge what they think they can get away with charging at all times, price will only go down when demands go down. Good ownership like Henry will try to keep reinvesting to keep demand high, rather than simply letting salary stagnate and pocketing the difference. But a cheaper roster will never mean cheaper seats all by itself.