Dojji

Ditching Ortiz could easily be the smarter move in retrospect, especially if Youkilis continues to have health problems trying to hack it at third. Eventually we might wind up needing to give Youks a lot of DH time and shift Aviles to our everyday 3B. Hopefully that's an adjustment we can make this offseason, but I'm not sure we're that lucky anymore. Thing is, I have my doubts that the organization could and would have used that money to beat the price anyone paid for any of last year's rather underwhelming class of available free agents. If we assume Kuroda was going to continue to lie to us about wanting to play on the West Coast right up until the moment he signed with New York, which is pretty much how it played out, the only FA I would have spent any of that money on is Buehrle. And he's much, MUCH better off in the National League.

Yep. What a career that Curt Schilling guy made for himself as a closer, eh? I'm not a fan of Bard to the rotation, but holy hell people. get a grip. It's a lot easier to finda guy like David Aardsma or Grant Balfour or Javier Lopez and get a good year out of them as a closer or MIRP than it is to find an equivalent starter, so in my mind it's exactly as simple as that.

You only believe that because you're willfully blind about what Scutaro actually provides. Who cares that his shoulder is dead, he's got back problems, he has effectively no range and can barely make the throws, right? He actually hit in September, therefore people should be lining up to take a 36 year old player with documented health problems and a fair sized contract who plays a borderline defensive game in a high leverage defensive position off our hands. Right? Believe you me. That deal wasn't about value. It was about Scutaro being done in Boston and going where he wanted to go to play backup for the year or two he just might, with luck, have left to his big league run. No one was going to knock the door off its hinges for the privilege of bringing Marco Scutaro onto their team. We in Boston have forgotten what an actual shortstop looks like. This misplaced love for Scutaro is Exhibit A. Hopefully Iglesias can come up and remind us.

I was never that enamored with Scutaro, and it's telling that we never made the playoffs with him on the roster. Has Marco Scutaro *ever* played on a playoff team? *search* Ok yeah. One season with the A's in which he was the utility man. I was glad Scoot was moved. The man is a really really really good utility man, but not a starting shortstop on a playoff team. And that was before he started to seriously have trouble making the throw from the hole, or even to his double play partner. And with his growing health issues I would be frankly amazed if Scutaro played 100 games this year anyway. He was only ever here in the first place because Lowrie failed so hard so if he wasn't going to stay on the field either (and he probably isn't) it was time to move on. We needed to go in another direction -- badly. And if there's one move that's going to bite the Red Sox FO hard in the butt this year it's Bobby V. Say what you will about Tito, he could manage the media side of things 5,000 better than Valentine, and that's really important in this market.

WE HAVE LIKE EIGHT STARTERS!

What exactly was Cherington supposed to do in one offseason in which all the cards were played before his job was finalized? He acquired as much depth as he could, to the point of IMHO overpaying for both Melancon and Bailey. (We could really use Josh Reddick right now, and I frankly think Kyle Weiland is going to floor us in 2-3 years). The one thing you can't accuse him of doing was going hard after bullpen fixes. He wasn't the one who let the Papelbon situation reach critical mass after all.

AL East: Yankees AL Central: Tigers AL West: Angels ALWC1: Red Sox ALWC2: Rays ALDS1: Yankees v Angels ALDS2: Tigers v Red Sox ALCS: Yankees v. Red Sox NL East: Marlins NL Central: Reds NL West: Giants NLWC1: Dodgers NLWC2: Phillies NLDS1: Marlins v Dodgers NLDS2: Giants v Reds NLCS: Marlins v Reds WS: Yankees v Marlins (Sorry guys, we're completely outmatched by the NYY rotation on paper) World Champions: Marlins.

I don't think he's going to be a good pitcher or even an average pitcher this year. But dang, just to get the confidence of an MLB team and be out there at that age is just nuts. At this point he might have an outside chance at the Hall of Fame just for having pitched at such an age.

Nothing you said is untrue, but it doesn't change anything I said either.

No, not a bridge year. There's a difference between a bridge year and letting kids develop in place. This is the issue I had with dealing Masterson when they did. He had all the potential he's showing now, when he was here, ground ball pitcher with strikeout stuff, poised with all the talent to dominate in the rotation, but no one seemed to want to let him go through his growing pains in the rotation and everyone kept wanting to squeeze him into the bullpen instead as a result. Heck I'm as guilty as anyone else when it came to Buchholz, but that's mostly because my first impression of the kid was as a guy who couldn't buy a third out to save his immortal soul and when he wasn't missing bats, the ball was getting launched. Masterson had neither problem. Masterson could wind up as one of the top pitchers in the league for a long time -- he's got all the stuff he ever needed to do it -- and they sacrificed that for 1 1/2 years of a catcher who should have been DHing because "he's a reliever!" Just because that's what he first started succeeding at. Still frustrates me.

How many of those were Paps coming in to hold the tie?

Mid 60's games is fine for a reliever who's a closer and your best reliever. Little heavy, but standard for a closer. Again, Paps was one of our most solid pitchers out of the pen. He's a guy I want coming out regularly. If you think 60 IP is abusive, take a look at Keith Foulke's workload sometime.

They actually had a fairly solid plan going into the season. It just didn't work. Any one of Miller, Wakefield and Aceves could have stepped into the bottom of the rotation as Lackey and Daisuke fell out of it, and there was no particular reason Lackey and Daisuke had to fail so hard either. When your plan is 8 starters deep, that's pretty decent. And we went into the year with a couple bit options (Weiland, Tazawa, possibly Millwood) who were worth a cuppa as well. Sometimes plans don't work out. When that happens it sucks, but it is disingenouos to intimate that there was no plan.

Bard isn't going to be great this year. He's too green to be consistent. He's going to be somewhere in between 06 Lester or 08 Buchholz. Hopefully he can figure out how to come up with that one clutch pitch and wriggle his way out of trouble like Lester was great at even before he became consistent. If he doesn't, he's probably going back to the pen.

I do like the 1-2 of Masterson and Ubaldo. I don't think they have the high end firepower to contend, but they might be a surprise if Choo and Ubaldo make good on their potential this year.

Sure. I wouldn't call him a bad player, but I'd count him. Good hands, good OBP, horrible range, no power... eh. I can't hate him. Here's a better question: Does Mark Bellhorn count?

Actually I hope Buch will not be the Buch we all know. The one we saw last year was unusually good. Far better than the bomb-prone, ten cent head guy we were looking at before. We need to get 200 innings of 3 ERA from Buchholz. The problem is, he's literally never been able to give us that.

It's a matter of opinion. I just basically wanted to hear about people who fans here loved but weren't exactly superstars.

I kind of liked Scott Cooper. I always thought he was better than the numbers you look back and see.