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You also can not argue that the O's rotation is not a better rotation than the Sox rotation and the Sox pen is likely not as strong as what the O's had last year. What are we trying to do as a team.....that has been something of a discussion all off season so far. If their "goal" is a mighty shove to the middle of the pack.....well done Sox....you are well on the way. Maybe a mighty shove to the middle is all that one could expect for 2013. However their hunt for rotation arms should be relentless and unending and if a package did arise that required Bailey he would and should be gone. What are you arguing....that there is no chance of Bailey being traded? How do you know who the Sox might trade or not trade? You don't and neither do I. Are you arguing that what is represented by the O's 2012 suggests that the route to the promised land is through the bullpen? I would say that is wishful thinking. The same sort of wishful thinking that creates this "anything can happen" approach to trying to get to and more importantly through the post season. I noticed that the "anything can happen" bunch quickly went into hiding last year when the obvious rotation issues that were there from day 1 came home to roust or should I say roast. It would be pretty difficult to make the case that you can ride a bullpen all the way to the promised land and if in fact the O's had made it to the promised land last year I would suggest it would have been because of their late surging rotation more than some bunch of pen guys coming into the 5th or 6th inning of every post season game resulting in the O's hoisting the trophy.

So you would not package up Bailey in a NY minute if he was needed for a trade package that would bring back a SP that did not have a big ? stamped on his behind? I would say stockpiling bullpen arms would make little sense if you were going to ignore such a trade possibility. The O's had young arms in their rotation that really had much more upside than either Morales or Felix and by season end they were pitching like it. That is what pulled the O's up to the second WC great pen and all. In addition I really don't think the other rotation arms they had, mainly journeymen really distinguished themselves as much as they did not cave. They played out their steady eddy hand to the max. The guys we have in the rotation will all have to do better than steady eddy maybe with the exception of Dempster. We have fewer young arms with upside than they had and more veterans with big ? hung on their backsides. If in fact the O's have any chance at all this year, it will be because Chen, Tillmen and Gonzalez build on their 2012. Hammel will likely be more of a contributor this year than last. I would trade our rotation for theirs straight up in a heartbeat. All things being equal even with the second half contributions from the young guns in the O's rotation and a great pen where it not for Uncle Bud's cluster f*** of a new post season format, they are going home at the end of the 162. It is my personal hope that a 2nd WC team NEVER makes it to the WS show.....ever!

If a deal could be put together that would bring us a SP that did not have a big ? stamped on his backside, and Bailey was needed to make that deal happen....in my world Bailey would be gone in a NY minute. Because in truth this discussion of this pen and the apparent high approval rating for its current makeup is the equivalent of rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic. We had great pens two years running. How did that result grab you. We go into this season with not one single SP that does not have a big giant ? stamped to his rump and the chances of them all panning out are pretty slim. While having a rotation full of ? we go into this season with less likelihood of putting up the kind of offensive numbers we appeared capable of at the start of last season. So I guess we can exhaust in our impressive array of one inning wonders and one inning wonder depth....till hell freezes over cause when the rubber does hit the road....I doubt whether having Bailey and Hanrahan or Uehara and which one backs up which other one will matter very much.

If a deal could be put together that would bring us a SP that did not have a big ? stamped on his backside, and Bailey was needed to make that deal happen....in my world Bailey would be gone in a NY minute. Because in truth this discussion of this pen and the apparent high approval rating for its current makeup is the equivalent of rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic. We had great pens two years running. How did that result grab you. We go into this season with not one single SP that does not have a big giant ? stamped to his rump and the chances of them all panning out are pretty slim. While having a rotation full of ? we go into this season with less likelihood of putting up the kind of offensive numbers we appeared capable of at the start of last season. So I guess we can exhaust in our impressive array of one inning wonders and one inning wonder depth....till hell freezes over cause when the rubber does hit the road....I doubt whether having Bailey and Hanrahan or Uehara and which one backs up which other one will matter very much.

Absolutely agree on the SP. That is why the strength of the bullpen is simply not an argument I have the stomach for. The bullpen was the bedrock anchor of the team last year. That and a quarter gets you a cup of coffee. I just don't see this rotation "emerging" as competitive in 2013. As I have said before while there are those with a more optimistic view, I think Felix upper reaches are a rotation 3. Morales has more upside but is more likely to crash and burn. I am torn on Lackey. As a number of pitchers proved last year, plate discipline appears to have become a lost art, particularly in the AL East where our post season representatives turned out to be an utter embarrassment to ML generally and the AL East most particularly. In reality that was a trend we saw developing all season as pitchers who could locate even with little in the way of stuff just cut through some of these AL East lineups like hot knives through butter. All you needed was a slider to be on your way to Cy Young consideration pitching against these guys. So who knows.....However if things were per normal I would be decidedly negative on Lackey's 2013 chances. I think Lester will recover and I think Buch will be Buch. But I don't expect Lester to climb all the way back to the top of the mountain in one off season. As for Mr Dempster I think the scouting reports will prove out. He will excel against the dregs and get his clock cleaned against the better teams. My concern in that regard is that there are a few more "better" teams in the AL than there has been recently.

Even your last post in a sense suggests that Bailey is now expendable and I actually think something is likely to happen there. Although it is often difficult for the Sox to admit their mistakes, Bailey was and is a pretty big one.

We already had Uehora and we still have a number of one inning wonders from last year. If there was a problem last year it was in deciding to start Bard, a job he wanted and that fit right in with the Sox one year austerity program and then deciding to sort of throw Aceves a bone by making him the closer. I can just imagine the pouty face Aceves must have been wearing when he did not get the job to start. That whole cluster f*** had much more to do with an inept FO that did not have a clue particularly when it came to pitching and that apparently had a tendency not to deal with players directly. We all hoped for the best with Aceves as the closer and even attempted to support the move at least as much as we could. However, Aceves never ever made sense as the closer after Bailey went down. Didn't on day one and didn't on day 162.

Well to be honest I am not sure which I am more non-plused by, whether Sands is a bust or not. If the Sox now have gotten Hanrahan so that they can really nail down a solid combination for the 7th, 8th and 9th innings, all things being equal that does not sound like a vote of confidence for the rotation to me. If the got Hanrahan as protection for Bailey thinking that they are really protection for each other, that sounds sort of lame as well. Bailey appears to be able to sustain an injury walking to the water cooler. Not sure Hanrahan is that bad. Maybe the real plan is to package Bailey up and send him on his way. That would at least be a vote of confidence for both the rotation and the pen.

Well I think ending up with Uehara and Bailey and Hanrahan might suggest that the Sox think they really need to try to bolster the pen such that they have a set course for 7th, 8th and 9th innings. That would not suggest much confidence in the rotation which also makes some sense. or.... they are planning to package up Bailey in some fashion and move him along.

That is a pretty good question kaps. Don't think he was exactly chop liver. However I think it is more a statement about having a very bad feeling about Bailey. If you have Bailey and as a set up man and he goes down, it is surely not as visible and telling as having your closer go down. Myself I don't believe in elite set up men and I don't believe in paying huge money for closers not named Mariano. Some very successful teams do not appear to be nearly as preoccupied with who closes as the Red Sox. I have come to decide that it is part and parcel of our overemphasis on the Yankees which I totally hate. We are not the Yankees....we will never be the Yankees and I don't want to be some northern version of the Yankees. Your point is I believe that if we gave up a guy that really ends up lighting it up and got a closer in return, that likely would be kinda' upsetting. I absolutely agree on that score. It will just become another in a long list of recent Sox issues for me to slit my wrists over. "The trade" is about the only thing that keeps me from hunting for sharp implements as it is.

Depending on how late this whole thing goes, Napoli may get stuck taking a one year deal somewhere along the way if all this really goes south. Then again considering how much attention this thing must be getting within MLB circles he might do just as well to take what the Sox are offering. It at some point gets unrealistic to suspect that other teams will not saddle him with the same language if he looks for two to three years. As I have said before I think the notion that the Sox are or would in the future be alone in trying to insert this sort of language is naive in the face of the kind of money at stake these days. This sort of contract language is a ham handed way to deal with the issue for sure. However until it can be dealt with in the CBA, where it should be dealt with, this is what we will likely be left with.

I don't know what to think about continuing to try to nap Napoli. Have the Sox both succeeded at this and been burned enough to be smart enough to not leave any loopholes for Napoli to jump through. Apparently the Sox succeeded in that regard with Lackey and failed with JD. However it would have been harder for Lackey to jump through a loop hole as at some point he could no longer pitch effectively and very likely could not have even gotten the ball to home plate without the surgery. JD, clearly found it much easier to dance around the Sox contract language. If the Sox get burned in this Napoli deal, that would be a big hit to any confidence Red Sox nation has left in this Keystone Kops routine. So there is losing the player without compensation to a preexisting condition and there is another ugly PR hit to consider. I am actually encouraged that Napoli's people have rejected contract language. It would appear that the Sox have buttoned it up pretty good. That is also the reason why I don't think they should back down on the language. I would be willing to bet that a few shekels more is not going to entice Napoli although a lotta money would probably do it....probably more money than any of us would be interested in on Napoli.

Well I think we might be overestimating how soon these guys will be ready to make more than minimal contributions in the near term. I also think that the odds of success in the ML being what they are there may well be one diamond in the rough in the bunch we got back with the remainder sort of meh contributors all said and done. Even that ain't bad. Our problem at this site is that regarding trades and prospects we tend to add 2+2 here and get 5 very often when in truth you are lucky to add 2+2 on young players and trade returns and get 4. By the time we are done, we have just about every guy "succeeding" and then we have the team succeeding based on these individual guys succeeding. In truth if you hit on half of these deals you are doing well.

There's a recipe for success for ya'...spot starting guys from the pen....and with that rotation, you can just about bank on those guys being out there spot starting at some point in 2013. Not sure they can really have hoped for much better for 2013. It just does not sound like a plan that is even a roll of the dice at competing though.

Sure there still dickering over the language. The Sox want language that protects them with more surety than they had in the JD Drew language and Napoli's people don't want to give it. Sounds to me like one side or the other will have to capitulate. Just the fact that they have taken it this far suggests that they would be dead and to stupid to fall over if the Sox were the side that capitulated.

I think the longer the Napoli thing goes the more I suspect the hip issue is of very serious concern and as somebody has already mentioned likely limits his catching stints to 0 games. I really don't know why we would still want Napoli. He is a poor defensive 1st baseman with bad wheels just a step a way from a very long stint on the DL. Tell me again why I should be excited about that!

I did not want to see the Sox having to sow up a uni tutu for that prima dona anyway.

I did not want to see the Sox having to sow up a uni tutu for that prima dona anyway.

I did not want to see the Sox having to sow up a uni tutu for that prima dona anyway.

I don't think the Sox are trying to screw him either but if he reports are accurate I just don't know what they do from here. Yes JD' deal took 50 day and the Sox STILL did not like the way that worked out. In this case it appears that the Sox made an offer post physical, Napoli rejected, the Sox came back with fewer year at the same per annum and that did not go anyplace either. So I am not sure the Sox have more moves to make and one side or the other is going to have to capitulate.

IMO the Sox would dearly love to have somebody actually say they wanted Iggy and if a pitcher is what's coming back I think they would be packing Iggy's bags for him.

Well I don't know if it is better but it wil be interesting if they try to fill 1st base internally.

I would not at all be surprised if the Sox tried to fill the 1st base spot internally if Napoli falls through.

No wonder they expect him to fill out. He is already bigger than Jackie B and he must two years younger I would think.

Holy Cats.....none of the other guys some of you folks have accused of being the infamous Dutchy could get within a 5th of gin and 12 Seconal of this guy.