jung

Both your post Doc and SoxSport's post make a good deal of sense to me. I wasn't against Bauer so much as I just could not see the comparison to 2009-2010 Beckett when in fact Doc was talking about a much earlier period in Beckett's career.

I am looking at the moves they are making and suggesting they are not indicative of a plan that makes sense. We can talk and it does not effect anything. They have to act. They have to take a direction cause they have the job. Dragging that tired old Dempster deal out of the closet scares the s*** out of me. They have to drag that deal out to make a play for a pitcher? What the hell is that? That is just one example but you can make a case for all the actual moves that they are making that they do not suggest a cohesive plan. You can say the same for some of the moves that they are not making. The two moves they have made so far that you could rationalize are Victorino cause he frees you to deal Ells and Ross cause Sox catching has been s***. Napoli does nothing for me. Gomes does nothing for me. And This ******** effort with regard to the pitching is suggestive that we are going to get another bunch of annual dregs in here only even worse than last year's crop plus dragging the Dempster deal out of the closet scares the living crap out of me.

By the way...I have no interest in Hamilton cause he will create Buzz. I think Hamilton can be the center piece to a legit 2014 and 2015. However you need to sign him for 2013 to have him for 2014 and 2015. I do think it would be a much more interesting team to watch in 2013 with Hamilton and that is fine by me but I really want him as a cornerstone for the years that follow.

OK that I get Doc. Did not see that you were going back to that era of Beckett but i probably should have.

Well I would take what the Radio talking heads have to say with a grain of salt. However I have not been happy with what I have been seeing and have said so. Where I agree with the talking heads is in what I posted a couple weeks ago. It did not make sense to me to overpay for Napoli and players of his ilk when you really were not going to put the team in position to win in 2013 anyway. If you are going to overpay for the Napolis of the world, pass on him and really go big or go home by making a serious run at Hamilton. Rarely do you see a market as soft as it is for a player of Hamilton's calibre. Funny how his post season performance and demeanor appears to have really had an impact on his value in the market and the complete post season disaster that was Swisher seems to have not had the same impact on him. I think the combination of Hamilton's post season plus and probably more significantly the Rangers early comments on Hamilton have really hurt him. But that looks like an opportunity to me. Give me Hamilton plus the kids plus some pitching gambles (many of which are already off the board) and I would have been happy with that. Would have been an interesting team to watch in 2013 and a good way to set up for 2014 and 2015. This "strategy" they appear to be following appears to neither be fish or fowl, neither aggressive enough nor conservative enough, not focused enough on either the present OR the future....but more of what looks like an organization that does not know what it wants to do or what it should do and cannot decide one way or the other. Plus that Napoli hip issue really really bothers me. If that think really flares up, he could easily be gone for an entire season and then where are you.

I would love to see the Beard here. The Sox have so much to do before getting to the 9th inning but if they could make enough progress elsewhere, the Beard would be great in Boston.

Hindsight was not required to see that there were issues with the Beckett extension when it was signed. Don't think hindsight is an issue as there were plenty of folks on the forums that were very much against that extension. Not sure there is a direct comparison to Bauer though. Not really commenting on Bauer himself but not sure there is a direct comparison between Bauer and the 2009 and 2010 Beckett.

I think about 4/5 of the Sox rotation will likely battle for the 5 spot.:D

I agree with virtually all of the comments since I posted my radio talking heads post. As disgusted as I have been with the FO lately, if they thought Napoli or some combination of Napoli and Victorino were going to move tickets, shame on them....AGAIN. No way that was going to happen. Are they suddenly realizing that Napoli is a little more of an overpay than they should have made if nobody is really moving aggressively on Hamilton? I guess that might be a possibility but boy would they end up looking like a bunch of buffoons if they literally backed out on that score...Holy Cow!!! I thought right from the point that the Rangers set the tone publicly announcing an unwillingness to offer Hamilton more than 3 years that the bidding would consolidate around 3 years and the sparsity of teams that would be involved would make it hard to break that log jam. I think it likely that he will draw 4 years with an outside chance at 5 and not a snowballs chance in hell of getting more than 5. But all of that should have been known to the Sox and I hope it was. Most of us knew Napoli would not draw out the ticket buyers and the Hamilton would not draw big years nor many participants.

Radio talking heads talking about Sox pulling out of Napoli deal cause he has not created any buzz at all and they did not expect that. That probably means Napoli does not appear to be moving the ticket sales like at all. Also I guess the reports are that Hamilton has not as yet been offered four years from anybody yet. Apparently he has not seen an offer over three years yet. So suggestions that the Sox are possibly trying to back out of Napoli to take a serous run at Hamilton.

You can't hang all of this on BC. Do i think him a competent GM....honestly I don't. But I am not buying any of this BC, new found control over the FO bull either. The Sox and BC seem to have turned the position into something with very narrowly defined boundaries that are way inside the normal expectations for a GM....wayyyyy inside.

I would also guess that anybody that can actually pitch will be overpaid and once you get to the dregs they are really going to be dreggy this year. Also the Sox issue with spending of late has been making bad choices and I think their confidence level is pretty low in the exec offices. Signing Manny's and Pedro's is not the same thing as resigning Beckett which had many people here gagging and signing CC and and Cameron and Jenks and on and on and on...even to some extent Lackey and AGons cause both were known health risks, one with an issue at the time unresolved (Lackey) and another having not swung at a single ML pitch since coming out of shoulder surgery (AGons) and the Sox in the infinite wisdom gave both of them ALL THE MONEY. Make signing that going into a sales process for the team and you have not adding any value anybody will pay for. All you have added is payroll.

I seem to remember that was last year's strategy as well. What was left was not worth the time of day. How did that work out? I would have much preferred they sign some 1 year deals with risky candidates. I am sure what will be left will be on one year deals cause at the rate they are going nobody will give whats left more than a one year deal but the money will be short as well cause they will be bottom of barrel guys. I would have preferred they take more risk and sign guys that have the potential to be a much bigger impact guy if he works out than guys that are the equivalent's of this year's Cook. Heck they will likely be lucky to run into this year's Cook once they "pounce". Pay for the opportunity to pull somebody in that might truly have an impact...figure it out through the course of the season....try to sign the guy before the year maybe to something like a two year deal before the year is over. I am not sure there would be a better plan than that with pitching in such short supply in this years market but with money to burn. Seems to me they are going to end up with a bunch a' guys that will be lucky to get out of the 4th inning and burn out the bullpen AGAIN.

And why is it that they will pounce on the pitching remnants having passed on the meat and potatoes? Granted this year's menu is pretty light on interesting candidates but this pounce at the end thing smacks of being ready to pounce on the guys nobody else wants when you consider who is off the board already. Their "pounce" seems more like the last gasp of an aging king of the jungle short a few fangs and way to long in the years.

Well as I posted across in the other thread when the Sox do nothing to address a glaring weakness and then dust off that tired old Dempster deal, one goes from concerned to alarmed. Never mind that the pickings are slim for pitchers this year. As they sit right now, they will be lucky to end up with a 7 as the first number of their wins total for 2013. If they they don't allow the kids to play, don't improve the pitching the least little bit yet don't really do more than they have so far, to make a 2013 effort, that is a forfeit of the year...the complete sacrifice of a year without accomplishing a thing. That is not anything that anybody up there in the executive offices is going to be able to explain because there is actually only one way to explain it. They simply do not know where they are...who they are...and where they need to go at this point. They are in the only situation worse than thinking you are a couple players away from making a run and willing to make crazy deals to get those players. They are stuck in the limbo of not knowing whether they are really in rebuild mode or in contend mode. In truth...they are in rebuild mode but apparently haven't the guts to admit it to themselves....let alone anybody else.

No wonder so many of us were scared shitless by that Dempster move. To see the Sox basically do nothing about the pitching and then drag out that tired old Dempster yen that they have been nursing for God only knows how many years is scary as s***. That thing has been there gathering dust for something like two if not three years now. The best they can do is drag that tired old bag of bones out of the dead deal closet? These guys are really starting to scare me now. I'm serious...these guys may be in more trouble than even those of us that have not been very impressed have been thinking.

Well right now, with the staff where it is, resigning themselves to this bunch is not even the gamble that they made last year on the rotation. This is not a gamble. If they sit here, this is not a gamble, this is a white flag.

I don't see Felix as a guy that will ever work his way past a rotation 3 for any AL team with real aspirations for going someplace. The only guys that seem to make it to FA these days with a chance to sign them are rotation 3's or worse. So, I am not convinced that they should keep Felix if he can be packaged up to really do something. However I just don't know where these guys are going any longer. Couple decent deals for bats but bats has always been where the Sox FO seems to focus to much attention anyway. As I have said before if it were my FO I would turn it into the best pitching talent evaluation and acquisition team in baseball and if my ability to rate bats suffered for it...so be it. The Sox seem lost when it comes to pitching and that IMO is going to become more and more of an issue in the coming years.

Ah yes, another example of the Keystone Kops routine down at Fenway.

I think Doubront becomes trade bait somewhere along the way but yes, 3 LH starters in Fenway does not make much sense.

Never underestimate the Sox ability to convince themselves that Mo, Larry and Curly are enough pitching. But wave a big bat in their faces and it is spare no expense time.

I tried to make that argument before last season even started and basically drew reams of fire. I love pedey but the expectation that he is just going to produce just as much when he is ailing is simply fan worship. He is not a God. He is a human being. He plays very hard and sometimes sustains injury because of it. He is also very tough and will attempt to play through it as much as he can. But to think that he will produce the same is simply wrong headed. He won't...he hasn't and the older he gets the less likely that he will.

With our luck DeLaRosa will be a stud...as in a 2x4, 16" on center found in your typical newly constructed home.

Well I still don't think Hamilton will end up getting big years from anybody. So if the Sox should go that way hopefully they will not find themselves where they have so often been these past few years, setting the market for players. As for the pitchers they have been focused on....I would be willing to buy the smokescreen thing were it not for the fact that they actually made an offer to Dempter. Dempter saved us from that deal, not BC or LL or JH or BJ or anybody else.

The only guys that will truly get thrown off are our catchers. Anybody know if any can catch a knuckler? Salty can't for sure.