Dojji

Interesting question. Do you think Adrian Beltre could have technically done better over multiple years than he did in one year in Boston the year he signed here? Maybe a 3/21 deal with someone based on his then-current numbers and impressive D, which would have turned into highway robbery once he was out of Seattle?

Just because our LF is small doesn't mean athleticism is useless there. You're trying to make out like it's all one way or all the other. Sure our LF is small which allows a relatively unathletic big bat to hide there, but that doesn't mean good D in left is useless either.

True. I was wrong. I'm man enough to admit that.

That and, why the heck not seize what chance you can without overpaying? Even if the end result is not a very good chance, I'd still rather see the FO go all out to get the best chance they can within the reasonable constraints of a team that has to think about more than this year.

I would have dealt Sands, but only because I liked the return. I like strength in the middle infield positions more than I like a guy who has shown signs in the past that maybe he's AAAA. I would have been fine with giving Sands a shot if he was still here, but Holt answers a different but equally important suite of questions for the Red Sox. And have you seen the spring Sands is having in Pittsburgh? He wouldn't be breaking camp with this team anyhow. Right. Anyone criticizing the Drew signing because of Iglesias showing in spring training has managed to forget the healthy dose of salt with which we're supposed to be taking Spring numbers. Iglesias hasn't had a chance to show us anything yet to even suggest the Drew signing might have been unwise because while he's played well, it's all been in exhibition games.

And if he'd done nothing but pray for Iglesias, are you really going to try and tell me that you wouldn't be standing here kavetching about the lack of action at short and the paper bag bat we'd be shoehorning into the lineup? I have no problem with honest criticism of FO policy. Dishonest use of hindsight to invent reasons to complain sets my teeth on edge.

Like Drew couldn't have been re-signed if he'd produced. Year-long auditions prior to bigger contracts for players who are coming off extensive injuries are the norm. It's nothing anyone hasn't seen before. Heck, we saw it a few years ago with Adrian Beltre, and my only regret was that the FO was so fixated on Adgon they didn't take the steps to keep the guy here. If he'd signed Drew to a multi year deal you'd be complaining abut that, God knows. It's really hard to take the complaints seriously of a man who will literally find a reason to complain about anything. Signing Drew made sense when he did it because Iggy was hitting with a wet paper bag. A healthy Stephen Drew would have outproduced that version of Iglesias comfortably. He's not as flashy a defender as Iggy, but on a healthy ankle, he's sound and solid, and his bat is comfortably above league average at short where Iglesias looked like (and still might) producing comfortably under the Mendoza line. Now that Iglesias has shown some progress, people want to pretend Cheringtin is somehow at fault for correctly hedging his bets?

A man with a brain injury that could be exacerbated by playing, and people think he's brittle for sitting out? Preposterous. Unless you think baseballs are magnetically attracted to Drew's head due to some unknown phenomenon, the only fault Drew had was not ducking fast enough. This could have happened to anyone -- literally. After watching really good players whose dedication to playing at all costs I do not question, like Patrice Bergeron of the Bruins, lose full seasons to concussions, and a player whose grit cannot be doubted like Marc Savard, who played through a fractured bone in his back for an entire playoffs, end his career to post-concussion symptoms, I take concussions very seriously. Calling it a brain injury is medically accurate. Calling it something you just get up and play through is hilariously wrong. Tragically wrong. Could-kill-someone wrong. If you want to survive you don't futz with the brain. Managing any concussion goes beyond sports activities and affects quality of post-playing careers, as countless athletes who have fallen into brain-trauma-related symptoms later in their post-playing careers demonstrate. In short, this is serious ****, and our curmudgeons reveal their igonrance when they huffily pretend otherwise..

Taking a quick glance at the Royals team, I think after this year people won't consider them pushovers either. Their pitching rotation has the potential to be really good if Erven Santana rebounds to his normal numbers. Their lineup is weak but it's built around some talented young position players who if any 2 of them break out, could provide average offense. And I'd much rather have their catching situation than ours, that's for darn sure. I just don't see that huge advantage we're supposed to have over that team as built. Especially if David Ortiz is not healthy. They have their own question marks but they're centered mostly around players on an upward trajectory. If Lester and Buchholz don't bounce back in a huge way, the Royals could easily finish ahead of us.

Yeah, fair enough.

But if Iglesias and Drew are having an in-season competition for SS, what room does that leave for Ciriaco? What, you're just going to dump one of Drew and Iglesias regardless of what they're doing, just to keep Ciriaco on the roster, and pretend that ever made sense? With Brock Holt in the minors along with Drew Sutton we're not lacking for utility men. I have no problem moving Ciriaco in the right deal, and I suspect it'll happen sooner rather than later,b ecause right now Iglesias is going to have incumbancy going for him and the franchise is not going to declare Drew a sunk cost without a single regular season plate appearance. As long as Iglesias is playing strong and Drew is healthy, they're both going to be on the big league roster, whether you think it's a good idea or not. Sometimes it just works out that way. Hate to lose him, but he'll have a better shot to get the opportunities he deserves somewhere else. And if there's a shot to swap him for Jarrod Dyson, that becomes "the right deal" pretty quickly, even if we have to sweeten our side of the deal. The sheer speed of that 4 man outfield gets the imagination flowing like nothing.

I think Ciriaco could start at short for a team with a hole there, or at second for a team with a hole there. If he's squeezed out if his job in Boston he'll land on his feet somewhere. Too many people need a MIF who can put the bat on the ball. I imagine we could get a pretty solid deal from a team like the Royals (just to pull a name out of a hat) to make Ciriaco their 2B. Second base is one of their weakest positions right now and he would be an instant upgrade. Anyone else think we could throw Ciriaco into a modest package and pick up Jarrod Dyson coming back the other way? He's a bit of a Gathright, but I'd love to have his speed backing up all 3 outfield posiitions and able to pinch run off the bench. I think he'd be perfect. A Bradley-Ellsbury-Victorino outfield backed up by Jarrod Dyson would be droolworthy levels of speed. Bats lefty too. Hmm. I think I have a new pet trade proposal.

Considering he's a MIF who hit .293 in a backup role while playing solidly at short, more than you might think. That combination is getting rarer. To put it in perspective, Ciriaco's numbers last year kind of echo the performance we got from Orlando Cabrera after the trade. Not quite as much power though. I could see a team with a hole at a MIF position giving us something for Ciriaco. Not a king's ransom, but maybe an RP or a bottom of the rotation prospect.

you know, if Iglesias cracks the roster, and Drew recovers quickly, that might not leave a ton of room for Ciriaco. And we do have Brock Holt in the wings. Should we be thinking trade?

.668 OPS. Not gonna get it done at CIF. That said none of the other conventional options are exactly blowing us away either. Nava's probably the best of the bunch and he's at .745, albeit with a .415 OBP (yeah he's hit for that little power) Nava has lit .310 with a .333 slugging. Only one of his 13 hits was not a single. Until I saw that I wasn't convinced it was actually possible. That said, his batting discipline has continued strong and that's worth a lot in the right role.

I'm sure it was their long term plan, but yes, it's a pretty safe guess that the progress of Bradley in particular caught them by surprise, and Iglesias' big spring can't have been forseen. That said it's still down to these players to sustain their progress once the real season starts. If they fall back to the level one might normally expect of people of their age and experience level, "he had a great spring" isn't going to sound like a very good excuse.

What brought him up was the fact that he was just optioned to the minors today. I'd give Bogaerts another 2 years. But then, I'd give Bradley one more. I'm all for caution when it comes to promoting prospects unless you're sure he's a starter right now because of the real damage jumping the gun can do.

I have no doubt that Bradley can learn to get by in left for however long it takes to move Ellsbury on. We're so set in CF (Bradley and Victorino can both play well there) that if Ellsbury isn't sharp he can be sat. And then Bradley moves to CF where he probably belongs. And perhaps Nava (who really improved in left last year) can work his way into the platoon and our outfield D will at least be no worse than it was in 07.

Drew bats left, that will help him get back into the lineup. I would not mind at all having Drew and Iglesias push each other for playing time all year. A nice best case scenario presents itself there.

I'm on record that starting next year YOU will think it's a blunder. Especially if we don't get anywhere in particular this year. And I won't have to wait for 2019. Once we do nothing this year and squander a year of control. we'll be hearing about it from then on. It'll just start building into a crescendo in 2019.

Truly. A world series caliber Cardinals team fronted by Albert Pujols, Scott Rolen, and Jim Edmonds, all of whom are or will be Hall of Famers, and the only noise the Cardinals made was when they got after Wake in game 1, who only started a game because the entire rotation was hopelessly bushed after the ALCS. After our bats managed to top theirs in game 1 they were almost completely quiet the rest of the way (scoring 2, 1, and 0 runs in the final 3 games of the series). I think they knew Game 1 against our 6th starter was the only chance they were going to get to reverse the momentum of that ALCS win and with the Sox pulling yet another comeback in that game, it just took the air out of them. They weren't ready for an entire team playing at the peak of its power. .

If this kid starts in the bigs, then when he starts to get expensive, the fact that he's more expensive than he has to be when they could have just sat him for 12 games will be counted as one of "Cherries' blunders" in the calculus of hindsight that takes place in every single season after this one. I don't even have to call it a prediction or put any money behind it. Every single person on this board knows it for a verified fact.

I called it up thread. Workman is a guy who could help us in either a bullpen or a rotational role if we need him. We have a lot of guys ahead of him though so hoping it doesn't get that far. He has my attention though.

Tuukka's good but top 5 money is a stretch, especially since the Bruins probably don't need a super elite goaltender to make the playoffs. Like I said, my ceiling for Rask is TT's cap hit. If he wants to be paid more than a 2 time Vezina winner and Cup champ, he's SOL.

Mmm. I think part of the problem I'm having here is that Rask has never really sold me. That, and I think that Kudo isn't very much behind him in talent, if at all. Big part of it is that I have a big problem with letting a player just inherit a role. Rask never managed to beat TT for a starting role, and there's a lot of similarities between TT and Kudo so I'm holding out some hope he gives Tuukka a run for his money, even if only to see if Tuukka really has the ability to fight for his job against a real challenger the way Thomas did every year. I'd rather find that out this year, when he's on a one year deal, than find it out after an extension if he gets Luongo'd. If that's even a concern I'd rather fleece someone for Rask and run with the Russian with Svedberg in the wings and Subban on the way than see Kudo go to the Leafs and start killing us for half what Rask makes. In the end it depends on what Rask's price is. If he wants anything north of 5, cheaping out on goaltender to beef up the defense starts to look like a viable strategy. I'm not paying Rask a dime more than TT's cap hit from his last contract, and if he doesn't like it he's welcome to win a Cup for us, or even a Vezina trophy, and unless he does that I'd rather pay no more than 3-3.5M or less (my guess for what Kudo would get from another team anxious for a cost-effective starter) for what looks so far to be similar production. Rask has more upside but if that upside isn't going to be on display after this many years, I dunno if we'll ever see it.