lospunchados

It wasn't quite that simple. Most reports had the Royals wanting young outfield help (probably Jackie Bradley)back and would send pitching ( like a bullpen arm). It wasn't myers for lester straight up. Good dealfor both teams though as the rays need hitting and got some more young arms to stock pile.

Lackey

Ok i figured it out, Lord Snow, do you hate Hawaiians?

Sure, probably, but a lot of people are acting like Gomes is a step down from ross. They have very similar obp against righties (.005 higher for ross) but ross has almost no power against righties averaging about 1 homerun every 33 at bats were as gomes is about 1 every 20. If he has to play all the time he shouldn't be a huge drop from Ross.

Yep, i agree. And who is taking lackey off our hands in all this?

Ok, so Victorino has had two seasons he has hit under .270 against right hand pitchers, last year was one of them. that makes him a platoon player? Gomes might be a platoon player, but he still has a higher OBP than Ross and hits more homeruns than Ross. So if Ross was, so is Gomes i guess.

Great point about Ross. He had an off year before we signed him. We usually are a buy low team. Pretty sure we had a number of guys on the 2004 team like that. They had off years or never really had reached their potential so we took adveantage of that. Now both Napoli and Victorino signed for a good chunk of money, but both would have got more money and years if they were free agents the year before. The Redsox have done this lots in the past with guys like Ross, Damon,Beltre We only got Ross as cheap as we did because nobody wanted him last year, he signed 3 weeks before spring training started. As for someone saying that Victorino and Napoli had the biggest ops drops in baseball, that is true. That also doesn't account for the fact that, if Napoli had enough plate appearances to qualify, the season before he would have had the 150th best single season slugging percentage of all time. Napoli last year, in a terrible year still had an above league average obp and was ranked 11th in slugging percentage amongst 1st basemen ( 4th for catchers). Victorino despite a terrible year still was at league average for obp and stole 39 bases. He also is a very smart base stealer with a career 82% average. If you really want to complain, complain that the sox added two hitters that will probably strikeout 25-30% of there at bats this year (Napoli and Gomes)

The offense isn't that bad really, I mean seriously is it worse than the lineup we threw out there 50% of the time last year? still were in the top half of AL scoring.

Compete, yes it can, Win the division probably not. Cherrington could have gambled? Actually no. He hit a lottery by getting rid of 200 plus million in salary last season ( thanks again Dodgers). He really believes in the farm system and is bringing in small pieces that will either prove useful in 2-3 for when the young talent comes up or get rid of them. When that happens spend some money then. You really want to spend 90 million on Grienke and hope he can handle Boston and the rabid fan base and media attention. He had to leave baseball for over a year to deal with an anxiety disorder. It could work out fine, or maybe not. I mean Edgar renteria worked out great. I'm just saying it's a big risk, so it seems unlikely, might happen but seems to go against the ideas that the FO and Ownership are doing right now. The only names on that list that you gave that would be good fits are Swisher and Sanchez, but Sanchez appears to want a long contract. AS for the lineup being terrible, there are many worse out there. The line-ups we through out there last year still scored the 5th most runs in the AL, and we added speed and power. The pitching needs to step up, the lineup isn't dominant like ones we have had in the past but i think you are undervaluing it.

Sounds the same as Ross to me. Ross career average against righties .253 obp .312 Gomes does have a lower average a pitiful .223 but his obp is virtually the same at. 307. Gomes also hits a lot more homeruns than Ross. In his career Gomes has 14 more homeruns in about 260 less at bats. The knock on Gomes is lots of Strikeouts ( even more than Ross who k'd way more often than the power he provided)

I like ross too, but if healthy, Gomes can easily put up ross's power numbers at Fenway.

You really don't know what you are talking about. I like Ross but saying Victorino is a backup is nonsense. In an off year Victorino had .005 lower obp than ross. If you look at Victorinos stats what happened is exactly what happened with Varitek a couple of times, He couldn't get it going from the left side of the plate. In 7 other previous seasons he has averaged under .275 twice, last years .229. Cody away from Fenway was just as bad hitting .232. The thing is, Gomes if healthy very easily can put up Ross type numbers ( especially moving from the cavernous Oakland O.co stadium to Fenway. Victorino is much more comparable to Crawford right now. If you really want to see his so called decline here is the graphs of the two players compared to league average. Ross gives you more power. Victorino less strikeouts better obp, more SB's and better D. otherwise fairly similar. http://www.fangraphs.com/comparison.aspx?playerid=1760&position=OF&page=1&players=1677

This is not my favorite signing but here are some facts. The Cameron comparison is way out of wack being ( as stated by others ) the five year age difference. Victorino has improved his walk per plate appearance and is at or above the league average. His strikeoutout per plate appearance has dropped every year and is well below league average. he has averaged 30 stolen bases per year the last three years. still an above average defender. AT this point in his career ( and Carl Crawfords) at worst he is a slightly less dynamic CC with better plate discipline, less strikeouts, similar power and probably similar SB numbers. And he costs about 8 million per year less and he probably won't bitch if he is hitting 6th or seventh.

Espn is reporting that Mike Napoli has signed a three year 39 million dollar deal with the Sox.

His contract is only for two years with two options. so four years is definitly not guaranteed.

The list of ss is not very good and the best one has a club option. Unless you want to trade for Elvis Andrus you might as well give someone here now a shot at ss to start the year. Shortstops Jason Bartlett * Yuniesky Betancourt Geoff Blum Ronny Cedeno Stephen Drew * Alex Gonzalez * Cesar Izturis Jhonny Peralta * Luis Rodriguez Marco Scutaro Omar Vizquel Jack Wilson *= club options or buyouts.

are we getting back Lawrie too?

If that is the plan going forward then the Front office better sign or resign a couple of bats, because we need more offense to have a guy hitting that poorly at the end of the lineup.

He is still under contract for next year.

THey invested a ton into Fenway. It would have to be a mind blowing offer to walk away from Fenway, because selling the team won't happen without fenway and nesn in the package.

yeah he had looked pretty good in the minors this year too with 39k/3bb. nice debut for him though. He might thrive in the cavernous petco park

I disagree in that they were being run like the raiders they made gaint corrections and a step in the right direction with there moves.

I'm not sure who you are talking about but the guy i am talking about has zero dl trips and has 13 hr's in 38 games and one stolen base,and won the golden spikes award in 2012 for amatuer player of the year. http://www.milb.com/milb/stats/stats.jsp?sid=milb&t=p_pbp&pid=572287

They just drafted a catcher this year in the first round also. They don't want Lavarnway, and still that isn't enough.

I agree 100%