Palodios

The Blue Jays added a considerable amount of talent... but did they have a very strong core to begin with? Bautista is obviously an elite player. Brett Lawrie is overrated. Encarcion and Morrow will come back down to earth. Romero looks done.Their bullpen seems to take big hits every year, and seems pretty unimpressive to me.

It happens extremely frequently, actually. I ran through a pile of pitchers, and they pretty much all seemed to have something like that. Follow up a very bad year with a very good year. It happens. Cliff Lee 2010-2011 Ra Dickey 2009-2010. Dempster 2011-2012. Liriano 2009-2010. Dice-k 2007-2008. Buchholz 2010-2011 Beckett 2006-2007 Beckett 2010-2011 (3 runs )

I didn't expand on my main point in my previous post: High ceiling, low floor pitchers. Marcum, Liriano, Jurrjens. Maybe Web even. Low risk, massive rewards. Or trade for Garza/Jimeniz/Santana, which are a bit riskier, but have high potential. The problem the Red Sox have had in the past with their depth signings is that they sign low potential, low floor guys. What did they think Aaron Cook was going to do? At the best points in his career, he's a 4.20 ERA guy, and at his worst he's a 6.00 ERA guy.

Based on what this team has, the only way for them to get into the postseason is having some good luck. They have a pile of players who, with good luck, could be very very good. Maybe it is in the Sox's best interest to just pile on guys who could get lucky and see what happens.

The Red Sox have a pile of players who could be worthless, or could be superstars. Napoli with a 1.000 OPS? Ellsbury/Pedroia with a MVP caliber season? Lester/Buchholz with CY young caliber seasons? Middlebrooks with a 30 home run season? Victorino/Kalish as a explosive 5 tool players? Middlebrooks/ Ortiz with 30+ bombs? Bard/Bailey/Aceves/Melancon having bounce back seasons at the end of the bullpen? There are a lot of question marks. Maybe adding some high ceiling, low floor pitchers is the best plan, and hope that everything goes the right way.

They traded their #2, #5, and #8 prospects already. If they end up adding d'Arnaud and another player to a trade to New York, they're going to decimate their farm system. As of right now, I would argue the Red Sox are probably just as good as they are, which isn't necessarily saying much. I don't think a knuckleballer is going to change much.

Some of the rules may have changed, but the way it worked last year was that if they are beneath the luxury tax for two years straight, the tax is reset from 40% back down to 22.5%.

Err... Hi Shaun. I know it is weird that you're in my apartment, but I'm a mile from Fenway. Can you go over and talk to Ben please?

Marcum, Marcum, Marcum.

Woah! The Red Sox made it under the luxury tax last year by just a few thousand bux. It makes me appreciate the mega-trade even more, very surprised they got it down below. http://www.weei.com/sports/boston/this-just-in/21247466/sox-went-under-luxury-tax-threshold-12

Woah! The Red Sox made it under the luxury tax last year by just a few thousand bux. It makes me appreciate the mega-trade even more, very surprised they got it down below. http://www.weei.com/sports/boston/this-just-in/21247466/sox-went-under-luxury-tax-threshold-12

I don't remember the exact math, but I think that if the Red Sox had exercised it last year, the money they would have saved from luxury tax would been greater than the major league minimum salary Lackey would make in 2015.

I've had a pile of different ideas about Ellsbury, and I do agree that holding onto him is probably the wisest move. However, if the Red Sox see 2013 as a season where they could make it to the playoffs, Ellsbury is a very big risk. He is always hurt. Always. That's why the Red Sox aren't going to sign him for big money. Some desperate team will see his potential, and not the injury issues, and give him 6/100 million dollars... and he'll be hurt for three of those seasons. He is not worth 100 million. Maybe he is when healthy, but "healthy" is not a word that describes Ellsbury's baseball career.

If he is going to accept a one year deal, you have to severely outbid everyone else. Rebuilding value in the AL East really sucks for pitchers, and being a noncontender won't help their chances of signing him either. My concern with giving him a two year deal is that the Red Sox have no money coming off the books next year so whoever they sign for two year deals will need to perform well next year-- I'm not sure if Marcum's health is there.

Right now, I'm thinking that maybe giving Marcum 15-20 million at one year might be the best bet. I emphasize this frequently, but picking up players with AL East experience should be much more of a priority than it has been-- especially players that can manage ERAs in the mid 3s within the division. And sure, Marcum has injury problems, but this year is feeling like it is a "if everything goes right..." kind of season while the Red Sox wait for their prospects. Why not add a guy-- when everything goes right-- can have a 3.34 ERA in the AL East?

The problem with the Dodgers is that they have spent a significant amount of money on players that aren't really all that good. Hanley, Greinke, Crawford, Agon, Ethier, Beckett... not one of those guys are worth the contracts they picked up.

Is it just me, or does the whole American League look weaker? The Yankees brought back the old gang, but one year older. Jeter/Rivera/Arod will be dealing with injuries among others. Martin is gone. Soriano/Swisher are likely gone. The farm system looks nothing like it did this time last year. The Rangers lost Hamilton, Napoli, Young. They added Soria but they lost quite a few bullpen pieces. The Tigers look good again this year, and the Angels could be scary good if they find pitchers to replace Haren/Santana/Greinke but it feel like talent is spread out between teams right now.

Now seems like the perfect time for the Red Sox to re-open talks with the Rangers about Ellsbury. It seems like their lineup has been decimated-- Hamiltion, Young, Napoli are all gone. Word is, Justin Upton is no longer available. Choo definitely is no longer available. Swisher and Bourn are probably going to cost outrageous money. The cost for RA Dickey is going to be two elite prospects. They need a big acquisition, and Ellsbury has the highest ceiling of any of the outfielders available.

You also need to factor in the 3.9 million to account for the megatrade, since they owe the Dodgers 12 million.

Lord Snow, I would highly recommend you stop making threads like this.

He's been the GM for only a year. I have liked most of his moves so far, except for the Bailey trade. Also-- he wanted nothing to do with Valentine if you recall.

Overpaying him more or offering an option for the third year that he actually thinks is possible... but probably isn't.

In all fairness, there is a big difference between a 3.72 ERA and a 2.22 ERA. And even if Dempster is a guy who can only beat up on bad teams, there have been plenty of times lately when the Red Sox needed to go on a run against a Cleveland or a Kansas City and they simply couldn't put 3 wins together. I don't like Dempster. He's mediocre in the NL, and he's 36 years old. But I'm trying to see what is there-- if anything.

Where did you hear that from? If they offer him three years, the deal is a bust before it is even signed. You don't give 3 year deals to 36 year old pitchers, no one is that stupid.... I hope.

I'm trying to rationalize this. Trying very hard. So here are my rose-covered glasses view point: The perception is that Dempster just can't get outs against elite teams, so let's look at Dempsters worst four starts of the year. Those starts pretty much killed his season. But without those four starts, he had an ERA of 2.25 and never gave up more than 4 runs. That's pretty sweet, right? [table] Oct 3-- Oakland. 1st inning -- single, single, double, one run scores. 4th inning-- A walk, a double, and two bloop singles, by Moss, Reddick, Donaldson, Smith and Dempster is out of the game. Both inherited runners score. Sept 18 -- LAA-- 1st inning-- a pair of bloop hits and a steal led to a run. 4th inning-- single, walk, single, walk. The score is 3-3 when they pull Dempster. Two of the three inherited runs score. Aug 13 -- NYY-- 1st inning was perfect, 2nd inning was perfect. 3rd inning was ugly. 4th single, out, double play. 5th was perfect. 6th-- one homer, three outs. Not a good game, but there were stretches where he did dominate the Yankee lineup. It just didn't include the 3rd inning where he gave up 5. Aug 2 -- LAA-- Another ugly game. Pujols, Trumbo and Trout took advantage of him, badly. [/table] He had some bad games, but who knows, maybe he won't be a complete failure in Boston?