Dojji

I think it's fair to list Cherington as a pleasant surprise. He turned this franchise around in a process I was convinced would take 3-4 years, in a single offseason, by making smart, precise signings that improved the team without overextending its resources. Nava is not much of a surprise. His current numbers (~800 OPS, .380 OBP) are where I said he'd probably level out. Frankly remembering last year's second half, I suspect Nava may be well into his second half skid again. Looks like the team has noticed, and fortunately Carp and Gomes are taking up the slack. I agree on Salty and Uehara. I think Miller is now underrated. He's sooooooo overpowering I'm surprised they haven't gone to him more in late innings the way the Dodgers do with Kenley Jansen. And no doubt in my mind that the biggest surprise, pleasant or otherwise, is Lackey. Fortunately for us, he's a pleasant surprise.

What you look for isn't the big name to put you over the top. You make an assessment of your needs and add supporting talent that makes sense. Just remember the difference between solid supporting cast, and barely adequate shlub. The thing is in our case our needs are pretty small. What we really need is a bit of SP depth and late inning bullpen help. Who doesn't need those things? Basically our biggest needs are things everyone always needs and what that tells you is that we're pretty well put together. What I'd love to do if I could find a way to do it, is orchestrate a trade that solved a problem position for the team going forward. First base is probably the single biggest area of focus because unlike other potential issue areas like SS or RF or 3B we don't have a stable of prospects waiting in the wings, and our current starter is effectively a temp -- around only as long as it makes sense to both teams, or 3 years, whichever comes first. Naps is not a bad first baseman by any means but not a real longterm solution. I'd love to see this team pick up a younger longterm option at 1B if one becomes available. Eschew the knee-jerk reaction and make a move to set us up with not a superstud, but a quality 1B in his mid to late 20's who'll go 20-25 with something in the .270/.340/.460 range or a little better and man his position defensively. If we find that guy, I'd rather pick him up than go after someone's favorite name. And who knows? Like the other wish list items you can dream up, it's possible we already have that guy. Mike Carp looks like a new man since coming to Boston, and he certainly has the talent to play the role I have in mind. And if we are going after starters, I stand by my statement that Ervin Santana is one of the more interesting targets out there. More interesting than Cliff "Much Too Expensive" Lee and Matt "Going The Way Of Mark Prior" Garza. We've made the kind of mistake each of these guys respectively represent, too recently. I don't want a guy who's arm is going to fly off, and we just had to sell low on too many big contract guys for me to be comfortable adding another one.

It's my second team, in case that wasn't obvious. Santana's BABIP is low but not absurd, and is the whole reason for the other two things you cited, and while it screams regression, it doesn't scream that hte man will suddenly suck. As I said, Santana's xFIP is 3.5-ish. That's a regression from an ERA in the low 2's sure, so you're not wrong, but a 3.5-ish pitcher who's as durable as Santana is is an upgrade over 3 different members of our rotation.

Which part of Santana's peripherals don't you like, the K/BB north of 3, the hit rate well south of 8, the 1.038 WHIP or the fact that he's on pace for well over 200 innings this year? Sure, he's outerforming his FIP. A bit. His FIP is in the 3.89 range. His xFIP is even lower, 3.52. 100 innings of that would hardly hurt us. The man isn't quite as good as his ERA suggests, but he's a good strong durable 2-3 starter, and that's something you can't have too many of. On the very short list of players it really makes sense to go hard after to upgrade a rotation, Ervin Santana is right near the top right now. NWIH he finishes the season in KC, it might as well be us that pays fair price for him

As would a rental of Santana.

Napoli's only here through the end of the year. I love Napoli, but I love Butler more, so if he was in the deal, for all I care Napoli could go back to the Royals in the deal, or stay and help split 1B defensively. You don't block a deal for a hitter like Butler because you have Mike Napoli. Get him out of that park and give him the Monster to aim his line drives at and I'm convinced his OPS goes up at least 50 points on a year.

The uncertainty around Buch and Lester is what has me thinking about Santana. You can do without top starters if you have a rotation chock full of good-enough starters. I have no compunction about dangling Doubront and a second tier prospect, say Brentz or Almanzar, to bring in one year of Santana. His history suggests he'd be worth the investment.

Do we have any interest in Ervin Santana? My gut doesn't love the fact that he's thriving in a pitchers' park but my brain says he's always been durable and that we wouldn't necessarily need him to pitch like an ace, just to make all his starts and get through 6+ innings. I think of all the pitchers you know are probably available, Santana looks like he might have the best combination of durability, performance and price. I'd be willing to empty the proverbal shot lockers in a blockbuster if it got Santana and Billy Butler both here, holding back only Bogaerts. My instincts say Butler would take off like a rocket with the Monster to kill balls off, and while he's not anyone's idea of a great defensive 1B, it's a position he can play until the DH spot is clear.

I use wireless headphones and they weren't turned on, so same. I had no idea there was sound. I did run a very exhaustive disk and virus check just to be on the safe side. If anyone else hasn't, please do. Cached files stay forever unless you're careful. You never know.

He does alright.

Ference Jagr and Peverley gone. I think Kelly stays. I think his checking and PK ability are invaluable for the deopth of this team and we're going to be making big sacrifices in personnel on the PK no matter what we do -- I don't think we can lose all of Ference, Pevs, and Kelly and still maintain our PK effectiveness. I think we have the scratch to keep everyone else as long as we aren't determined to bring in new blood in the forward corps -- which I don't think we actually need. I think we should seriously consider losing one of Seidenberg and Boychuk. We need a faster skating defense if we want to get to the next level, that's what the young guns proved to us in the middle two rounds (and what the final round proved to us when the young guns came off the ice). Given my druthers, of the two, I grit my teeth and move Seids. Boychuk is a little younger and a little stronger, and I like his defensive style a great deal when he can keep his head and stay on position. He also was a force for us these playoffs in a way Seids really wasn't. If we want to keep the defense we have, then we need to find a new home for Rask and upgrade at forward, because I don't think it gets better unless we manage to get faster somewhere. I think getting and faster on the backend in excuange for smaller size is the smarter of the two ways to improve. Here's my preference: Lucic-Krejci-Horton Marchand-Bergeron-Seguin Spooner-Kelly-Soderberg Merlot Daug as 13th. Don't see a lot of weaknesses in that forward corps, and I think this is the big reason why you keep Kelly -- if you're promoting both Soder and Spooner, you need a veteran center between them and Kelly fits that particular bill nicely.. Chara-Hamilton Boychuk-Bartkowski Krug-McQuaid Rask Svedberg Bring in some big body to play 7th D and be a good positional guy.

No really. It is.

The edit button is your friend a700

Mmmh. Hitting is such a psychological thing. If a guy can thrive as a pure reaction hitter, I don't necessarily want some habit-bound task-doer cluttering up his mind causing him to overthink just becasue that's the way it's usually done.. Giving a man knowledge at the cost of confidence is a trade-off.

Keep an eye on Michael Almanzar as well. He's a dark horse, but he's always oozed talent and lacked the skill, now he's finally putting things together. He's tentatively still in the mix at third, I suspect if he makes it to Boston it will be as a first baseman however.

While I don't disagree with any of the names you mentioned, where they beat Paille is in overall contribution throughout the playoffs. The Smythe is for the Finals itself. If a guy with 2 GWG's in a best of 7 isn't at least mentioned, then hype and status have been given too much play in the ultimate team sport. Most of the time the Smythe contenders are going to be the overall best known players on a team. However, if a 4th liner could never win the Smythe, I'd call that a flawed system and expect people to agree. And if a fourth liner can win the Smythe, Paille needs to be talked about as a dark horse.

I know Rask has got it in the bag at this point but if he hadn't, you might have to look to Dan Paille as a Smythe contender, 2 GWG's so far and active in a near-perfect PK, if he pots another one, he starts to make it interesting.

I think BH04 was talking about trading WMB.

Eh, at this point it's not entirely beyond the pale to start talking about Bogaerts seriously on the big league forum. This kid is coming, and soon. We'll probably see him cameo with the team by the end of the year.

Pretty much. Flacco might not be all he's cracked up to be in some respects, but the team that has him doesn't have a quarterback problem. The same can't necessarily be said for Sanchez.

I disagree: Alan Webster is an excellent young SP prospect who's pitched well in a cameo here already, de la Rosa has some serious talent, and that's before we even dip into the actual replacements.

I think that putting de la Rosa in the bullpen during a season where they're trying to stretch him out after some health-related downtime is a spectacularly bad idea. I would have no problem with calling up Webster for that kind of duty though.

I'll be honest. I never expected Gomes to be one of our starting position players. I wasn't sure if it would be Nava or Bradley or someone else, but the kind of guy Gomes is never seems to play up to their ability at Fenway. Cody Ross was the exception by a lot. Middlebrooks on the other hand, I have no idea what's going on there. Thank God for Iglesias.

I agree. Nava's emergence was at least not completely unprecedented, since he'd shown good plate discipline at the big league level last year. lackey's return to his old form after several years of injury and suckage came right out of nowhere and I'm absolutely delighted that it did.

Claude Julien just named an assistant coach to Team Canada for the 2014 olympics The Canadian coaching staff will be coach Mike Babcock, and assistants Claude Julien, Ken Hitchcock and Lindy Ruff. linky goodness I think Bergy's chance of making Team Canada just went up significantly.