Dojji

The 2003 lineup had Pedro

Reread my post. No one is unmovable, but at the moment, Giancarlo Stanton is the closest thing I've seen.

It's both actually.

I could stand to see them make a move for Nakajima. It would be a good risk considering how badly we need a competent shortstop -- and thus just how low the standard would be right now for Nakajima's signing to be considered a success..

Not even the Marlins are that cheap. This is so far beyond infeasible that it's the closest thing I've ever seen to a player acquisition that is actually impossible. Not prohibitive, not too expensive to be worth trading for, not just a mismatch between what we have and what they want. An actual player situation in which nothing we could do or say could ever concievably land this player on our team at all, under even the remotest most cuckooland scenario you can dream up. If they really want to shed salary, they have talent they can bundle to intice a bite that's worth waaaaaaay less than Giancarlo Stanton. Yes, he is up for arb, and yes, this is the Marlins, and no, even with those facts both together, it's STILL absurd to even contemplate ANY scenario in which Giancarlo Stanton is in a Red Sox uniform next year. See you again in two or three years on this one. It would take Stanton at least that long to shoot his way out of Florida.

This is absurd. I think that Stanton would have to murder a Marlins staffer to fall so far out of favor that they'd listen to offers on him. The Marlins are pretty much hanging their entire franchise on this guy's future to help them fill their stadium. If a single baseball player in the entire major or minor leagues is not available to be acquired, it's Giancarlo Stanton. Used to be King Felix Hernandez, and while it's still ludicrous to contemplate a trade in that direction, it's less so than a deal for Stanton. I mean think about it rationally. If Stanton were a Boston Red Sox, would YOU trade that away? Not in any deal that wouldn't bankrupt the receiving team! We haven't done a deal with the Marlins since 2005 for a reason. They might trade away talent, but they demand big league ready top prospects in return, and that's exactly what we're short on. Now imagine Bogaerts debuted this year instead of playing in AAA, and had hit 20 HR's, then followed it up the next 2 years by hitting 30 HR's. And you have Giancarlo Stanton. Tell me you'd ever consider trading that. Yes, the fact that it's the Marlins puts a small dent in the absolutely ludicrous ridiculousness of the idea, but not enough to actually make it anything but absurd.

I can. The Marlins would be insane to trade Stanton before he gets expensive. The only reason they traded Hanley is that he both got expensive and tailed off in his performance. I expect the same process with Stanton -- as long as he is productive and cheap, he's a marlin. I get sick of hearing everyone's phantom deals for someone else's cheap young stud that they will never, ever, EVER trade. Happens every year and every year it's just as stupid. The remaining 28 teams in the league do not exist for the sole purpose of being talent farms for the Boston Red Sox. If you need get your offseason kicks by lusting for some small market's big name, focus on Billy Butler of the Royals. That's a much more attainable goal. And by "much more obtainable" I mean "will still cost us Bogaerts or Middlebrooks, but isn't astronomically absurd to even contemplate." Butler is an adequate 1B defensively, only DHing for KC because Hosmer is better. And that swing in Fenway would be a terrifying thing. If you want someone who can help us beat CC Sabathia aod David Price, and actually has some shot f being in a Red Sox uniform, then go ring Dayton Moore's phone.

I don't think Giancarlo Stanton is available for ANY price right now.

I don't want him anywhere near Boston's bar culture. That would be disastrous for him personally as well as professionally. Beer in the clubhouse and a man with actual alcoholism (not a drunk, there's a difference) is a bad combination.

We need to do both. But realistically improving over a position where we got good production is a lesser priority over improving positions where we got very poor production, such as SP, because of diminishing returns.

I'm not looking backwards. I'm looking forward to next year and trying to figure out who the best available option is if we decide to go with a veteran first baseman. RIght now, Youk's right up there. You really think a team with this kind of payroll is going to roll into next year expecting Jerry Sands and Mauro Gomez to figure out 1B between them?

Youk could fill the hole at 1B better than most other available options. It's worth considering. I don't want him to come back here and play third base. THe move to third coincided too closely with a collapse in Youk's performance.

Considering how little Doubront has proved, that's an odd position to take.

Good. He's a very smart man, but he's not ready for the big show yet as a manager. A few years of coaching experience will help him a lot WHEN, not IF, he manages in the bigs. Besides, managing players you used to play with isn't a good way to go so gaining some distance on his playing days plays in his favor anyway. I would not be surprised if he's somebody's bench coach pretty quickly.

No. Sorry, Delmon Young is talented, but he's never put it together and I wouldn't pay him FA money to see if he might. He's a useful option as a 4th OF if he can play multiple positions. Besides that I'd rather take my chances with Kalish. The only guy i could see Young pushing off our projected roster is Nava, and that mostly because of his superior athleticism and potential -- performance wise Young vs Nava is a trade-off

DeMarlo Hale is so far still the best candidate no one is talking about. Course I have no idea whether he's even interested. But if he is, there's not a lot of these guys I definitely take over that experienced and competent a coach.

I'm not sure they did. Not really. Aviles at short had "least bad option" written all over it. Remember that the alternatives were Iglesias or what we thought Ciriaco was at the start of the year (a AAAA nobody). Not a lot of good choices there. Now in retrospect Ciriaco may have been a better answer. But who knows, if we'd tried Ciriaco he might have gotten exposed and left us twisting in the wind the same way Aviles did. One thing for sure, anyone talking seriously about releasing Aviles in favor of Ciriaco is nuts. The difference between the two players doesn't warrant that and of the two, Aviles has been a competent (not great, but adequate) starter in the past, and Ciriaco never has. Ciriaco's speed is impressive, but unless he's going to couple it with at least a slgihtly better OBP, I find myself considering that speed-without-OBP vs. Aviles' inconsistent power a total tossup, and on the whole there's probably room for both players next year. They really should have spent that money they wasted on Crawford on Jose Reyes instead. If we're talking about free agency, one of the best ways to use FA is to fill holes your farm can't fill. Our farm was in a much better position to fill in at left field than it was at shortstop, especially before we traded Reddick.

Not really a reasonable statement. How many of our current shortstop options would YOU play ahead of Alcides Escobar? Just because the Royals are a mediocre team doesn't mean they have chumps at every position.

Yes it can happen that way -- over a period of time. Maybe a decade. Maybe more. Then whatever mistake you're most inclined to default in favor of making, either parsimony or overspending, will start catching up to you, your core talent ages, and you eventually run into situations where you have to choose between one or the other -- and a failure to make that choice results in the answer being "neither." That's what happened to us this year.

I'm not so sure that's true. Tito did big market well, but in charge of a small market does he do things differently? We don't know that yet.

Billy Butler has played first base only a little more often than David Ortiz has over the last 2 years plus thanks to the emergence of Eric Hosmer. He's not a horrible 1B, I'd compare him roughly to Ryan Howard or Prince Fielder as a defensive 1B. He's no butcher but he's definitely there for his bat in other words. But he's been a DH for 2 years and I'm sure his defensive game has eroded a bit as he's focused exclusively on hitting. I don't see why people are so dead set against bringing Youk back. It's like the fact that he isn't what he was when he was the best offensive player in the league, means people can't grasp the idea that he can be useful still even in a diminished form. That gold glove defense hasn't gone anywhere and his OPS+ was a solid 100. And I suspect that if you moved him back to first, he'd be healthier -- a lot of his recent injuries have come defensively, if you put him at first, some of that pressure is removed. Who knows, maybe he gets his old swing back.

By "not that often" he means 5 times in the last 10 years. Crisp trade (Shoppach) Gagne trade (Murphy) VMart trade (Masterson) Melancon trade (Lowrie) Bailey trade. (Reddick) If we hadn't made those 5 trades, we'd have additional options at catcher, corner OF, shortstop and starting pitcher. Sounds like a laundry list of our biggest issues right now. (I could see an argument for not counting the crisp trade, since CoCo played a role in winning us a World Series, even if it wasn't the role we were hoping he'd play, but Shoppach still looms large on the list of the "players we maybe should have kept in the first place.")

It's a classic case of confirmation bias. They went into it saying he sucks, he started out brilliant, faltered, tended down to average, and the conclusion is he sucks. I don't suppose it occurred to any of the geniuses-in-hindsight here that this was functionally Nava's rookie season? And that while physical development is unlikely, he still has a chance to develop his approach through experience? Nava was never going to get by on physical gifts, but he doesn't need to. How far would he really have to progress from where he finished the season to be a worthwhile tweener COF? He'd need to gain exactly 8 points in overall OPS to become a starting caliber COF on a developing team. That's really not that hard to contemplate. People get these ideas stuck in their head and they lose all grasp of reality or sense of perspective. Nava isn't nearly as good as he was during his crazy run, and he isn't nearly as bad as he was during his crazy slump. He actually improved his chances at sticking in the bigs overall this year pretty significantly. Why is that so hard for people to grasp? It's really no that inconcievable that Nava could work out here, especially if he can refine his switch hitting and stay out of the big nosedive slumps. He could even remain a pleasant surprise next year -- UNLESS your demand if corner outfielders is 40 HR's and a middle of the order bat, which Nava could never possibly be, but in that case I'd quite bluntly like to ask you what planet you've been on over the last 5 years because those guys are disappearing from the league. Corner outfield isn't nearly the power position it was 10 years ago when Manny was in his prime.

A simple "I haven't seen Bogaerts" will be fine. If you're too arrogant to admit that you're talking from within a rounding error of the same level of ignorance as any of the rest of us, well, that's par for the course for you. Doesn't change reality one little bit.

By saying those things, you are saying he's Miguel Cabrera, because that's what Miguel Cabrera is. You're shying away from that comparison once I attach a name to it because because me pointing out what the attributes you're describing combine into, and the kind of player that is, makes you realize how limited and wrong your argument is.