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I doubt Salty will see opening day in a Sox uni.

The BS spouted by player agents and their mouthpieces is another one of those elements of contemporary baseball that want to make me puke. I suppose they have to do it these days. If they don't the player probably complains that the agent is not pumping his tires enough. Although in this case they would be better served ratcheting back on the hyperbole at least a little bit. "The richest right-hander in history".....plllleeeease.

David Wright is a pretty popular Met. I doubt he can get anything like that deal elsewhere.

I am not surprised that KC would dip its toes in the water but I would not do this deal if I were KC. It would be a stretch for them to believe they had the answer to Lester's issues. At least we can hope that Farrell has the key. It will likely be half way through 2013 before Lester can really draw anything interesting in trade.

Well Cafardo would love to see Hamilton here anyway cause it gives him more good stuff to write about but I can also see how LL might use Nick as a way to pump up the tires on this deal. That said, I am not sure how much pumping it will take at least if LL is looking for fan support. At present there isn't much for fans to point to with any enthusiasm.

In the early days and for most of the life of FA in MLB, agents did not make public announcements about what their player's expectations. Now they do it all the time in an effort to set a very high bar. However it is as meaningless today as it ever was. The player's choices are sit or play for the team that offers him the most attractive deal. It does not matter what he wants in the least.

I am thinking Lackey stands a decent chance at 150 innings and/or 20+ starts because he will get a full ST and all the time he has used to ramp up to that ST. However I think it highly unlikely that he could do more than that. Of course it could be much worse. Without knowing who the Mystery Guest pitcher or pitchers that they bring in will be I think it likely that the Sox rotation is once again going to leave a bunch of innings out there for the bullpen to pitch.

It might get pushed to 5 years on Hamilton but I bet the teams interested in him will first try upping the per annum on 4 years until that negotiating effort runs out of gas or is successful with some teams then going to 5 years. There is only a limited number of teams that can play here anyway. 5 years might knock what few there are out. The problem with it is that offering 4 probably means you think the risk on 3 is not that great and you are willing to eat a year. That makes 5 tough but for all we know, maybe upping the deal at 4 years will also knock the same competitors out of the running. Still wonder how pissed off the Players Association is going to get over the Rangers publicly announcing that they would not offer Hamilton more than a 3 year deal.

Lillibridge???? What happend...did our resident bat boy decide to retire? I could see Lillibridge in that role.

Looking at Felix and Frankie as improvements is a version of the same mess we got into last year. When you are looking at your 4 and 5 to see improvements....you are already telling yourself that you are in trouble. That is the wrong end of the horse. Like I said in another post, we are just stuck with the wreckage of the Sox propensity to fill every hole with an expensive FA or by emptying the farm for some glittering star. We lost both ways. We lost some pitching talent. We lost some everyday player talent. We signed some guys with one foot in the grave and the other on a banana peel for big money and we just decided to take an overly optimistic position on every question mark that there was, giving players all the money without any assurance that the question mark was going to turn into a + sign. We want to nip away at the edges of this mess like looking at your 4 and 5 for improvements in the rotation. But this is likely just going to take some time to reverse. In a perfect world for us, there would be significant pitching upgrades out there that we could spend money on AND guys ready today to come up from the farm and be cost controlled, serious everyday ballplayers. Neither is the case. There aren't pitchers like that we can pluck out of FA even with the money to spend on them and we don't really have guys that are quite ready to come out of the farm system yet and be that kind of everyday player. We have Iggy...Mr Super Glove, Lavs....Mr. Potential Bat....Kalish....Mr. My Shoulder Hurts (but I'm ready now).....the rest of the guys that could come up this year are...Meh guys. Our big splash from the farm was hanging onto WMB. No idea why he slipped through Theos mill and did not end up traded somewhere for somebody. and.... We have the 2014 LT Cap penalties which appear a rough enough bruising to the backside that even the Yankees are taking note and planning to make sure they don't get whacked.

I think it likely now that Napoli has been in and out of town that the Sox will make a very serious run at Hamilton, will try to make runs at the short timer, pitching options out there and/or will package up Salty and God only knows who else in an effort to bring in a pitcher or two. The roster will end up being the usual suspects plus some of the young guys who will actually play this year instead of riding the pine. Could be a fun year with Hamilton and Ortiz right in the middle of the lineup. Hamilton will certainly out-slug that fraud AGons. They will be fun to watch I think, could even surprise a few people...maybe even me. I am not going to get my hopes up preferring to be pleasantly surprised instead of disappointed.

True the dynamic duo, Manny and Ortiz, in the middle of the Sox order was critical to their success but they had the dynamic duo in a number of years. They still could not get it done until they had the pitching as well. I do agree with those that think we should go after guys like Marcum and or McCarthy in short term deals as a means to shore up the pitching near term. If they don't do something like that for 2013 I just don't care who is coming to the plate to hit for the Sox...they really will be to thin in the pitching to get anything done. Yet there is nobody you can really look to as a FA pitcher this year that instills any confidence that you have really done anything to change the pitching enough. Point is no matter what we do, because of the pitching situation, I think 2013 will likely end up being a lost year for the Sox. Again that does not mean we should not do a deal like Hamilton. I just think that in reality we will be preparing for a real run in 2014.

Well the "Sox willing to go 5, Napoli willing to take 4 thing did not make sense". I am not sure what that tweet was trying to accomplish either. A little surprised if in fact the Sox did not make Napoli any offer at all. It would certainly suggest that they are going to run at Hamilton. I have not believed that they would run at both and as my post early suggested, why the heck would you overpay for Napoli when you have the opportunity to overpay for Hamilton. Interesting that Henry showed up for that meeting. Wonder if he was simply looking to gain as much intelligence as he could about Napoli and about the Rangers generally including the aforementioned Mr Hamilton. No telling what information might fall out of a meeting like that intended or not. As much as I like Nava, I cannot believe that the Sox are going to be satisfied with Nava platooning in LF. Nava is not a platoon player. Nava is a backup and that is it. That said if they are satisfied with Nava platooning in LF maybe that is a statement on how the Sox really feel about 2013.

Well nobody has a 5 that goes 200 innings but whether Lackey is the 5 or not, I think there is little chance that we see 200 innings out of him in 2013. Lester is so far the only guy we have that looks like he could go 200 innings and we would not be surprised at that. Lester could always go 200 innings....the issue this year will be whether he can recover enough of his ability so that he stays in games long enough to go 200. In truth though even at 200, if that is the best on the staff you are already starting to leave innings on the plate for the pen. If Buch goes 180 I would be OK with that and totally surprised if he goes 200. I would not count on Lackey for more than 150 if that. Felix might be ready to go somewhere between 150-175. Hopefully, Mystery Guest is at least a 180 kind of guy. That is probably not enough innings out of the rotation but unless Mystery Guest is some stud, I don't see how I can realistically expect more than that.

God how we love to set ourselves up for more 10-8 defeats. Although I have to admit that whether it is because of the Green Monster or the fans propensity to be overly focused on bats or some combination of the two, the truth is that historically the Sox have never focused enough attention on pitching and have rarely had enough pitching to compete for anything. The one thing that distinguished its two championship teams from the run of the mill, great in early summer but fading by September Red Sox team is that those teams had enough pitching to truly compete. While there is not much pitching to be had in this off season, if they sign to many 4-5 year deals for everyday players ala' bats, they will likely end up right back in the same frying pan they just jumped out of.....maybe with a little more flexibility if they don't jump into 7 year and 10 year deals.

The 2004 and 2007 teams were much better balanced teams though. There was a healthy mix of star players and tough, smart veteran ballplayers. After 2007 Theo really went off the deep end trying to fill every hole that developed with a costly FA. Worse than that, the Red Sox were making the market for players. I don't know how in God's name Theo convinced himself that made any sense. It finally got to the point where the Sox were competing with themselves for players. Other organizations must have been laughing their asses off. You know the Yanks were. "Hi, Mr Agent, we are just calling back to see if you guys are still considering our last offer." "Yes Theo at this point your's is the offer we are spending all our time with, just making sure we fully understand it...dotting our i's and crossing our t's." "Great Mr Agent....actually we would like to up our last offer anyway. Is that OK with you?" Granted I don't think Theo takes full blame because I see the hand of LL in some of this and I think Theo as much as confirmed that after he left. Still and all, Theo was in the best position to have made a case for not going down that road. Instead he just wallowed in the wretched excess, made big deal after big deal, offering guys with one foot in the grave and the other on a banana peel huge money. If we dig out of this as quickly as people hope we will, we will never really understand the full extent of the damage that was wrought during that period. But I suspect we are not going to be that lucky.

The Post season is not July though. Hitters face teams that have generally better pitching in the post season and the pitchers on those teams are as focused and the intensity level is as high as it ever gets. Often the intensity levels for the hitters is also as high as they are ever going to be. Swisher got overpowered at least in this last post season. Other Yankee hitters had their problems but Swisher got flat overpowered. Swisher could be a nice pick up for the Sox if he can be had for decent numbers. He is just another of a very similar basket of everyday player offerings out there this off season. There are no perfect answers to many of the questions the Sox have. The posts regarding having emptied the tank for Agons and Vmart and then letting go of AGons and Vmart are right on in that they left a big hole in the developmental curve that the Sox are left struggling to fill their ML roster. You might even make the case that Bailey for Riddick did not make things any better.

The Sox may be forced to it but if they only sign one arm, they will just be to thin in the rotation to be a legitimate contender in 2013. Lackey has to come back and perform his first year out of TJ , Lester has to return to form, Buch has to build on his 2012 and go 30 starts and at least 180 innings. The surest thing would be Felix doing the job of a 5. Everything else is a question mark. So having Napoli and Hamilton might be fun for the fans but if they go into the season that thin in the rotation, Lackey, Lester, Buch, Felix and Mystery Guest and I guess Frankie waiting in the wings I doubt they will go anywhere in 2013. Maybe that is fine but making the case that we should sign Napoli and Hamilton because that plus one pitcher makes us a contender for the division in 2013...well....I think that is wishful thinking. We just won't have enough quality arms and will be relying to heavily on guys that will all have to turn their question marks into + signs. Usually some will and some won't. It is rare to see that many question marks all turn into + signs. If we sign one arm we are one injury away from inserting Frankie into the rotation...OK I guess but I just don't think that the remaining rotation arms will likely be reliable, stable and solid enough to get away with that. The arms we could get this year are either guys closer to the top of the rotation that have potential "issues". Maybe Grienke is in that category or we are talking about guys that are maybe a solid rotation 3. Since nobody is really talking about getting a real stud for the rotation this year as that looks like it would be very difficult, what we would end up with looks like a middle of the pack rotation at best. You could make the case that signing bats and one arm this year sets them up to figure out the pitching by 2014. That is a plausible argument. However I think arguing for signing these guys cause they will make us a contender in 2013 is as I said before, wishful thinking. It could be a good way to set up for 2014 though.

I think the Sox will be willing to spend per annum on Hamilton with the issue coming down to years. Nobody is going to give him 7 years especially with his own current team already setting a ceiling of 3 years in their negotiation with him or at least publicly stating that was their limit. As for Napoli vs Hamilton I suspect that if the money for Napoli is not crazy the Sox will prefer Napoli. If the money gets crazy for Napoli, why spend crazy money on Napoli when you could spend crazy money on Hamilton. I doubt you would see the Sox sign both as before you know it they will have gone through a big chunk of their LA money still needing pitching. I don't think they want to burn through a really high % of that money in one off season and clearly need pitching. If Hamilton comes here just don't let him get near Beckett's former digs. Hamilton won't even have to leave the elevators to get in trouble down there.

I would assume that any pro baseball organization is going to do everything in its power to maximize its revenue and its bottom line and if a WS run can be accomplished within that spectrum, then they will take it. I am no longer even sure that a pro baseball team will do everything in its power to win a WS since the team is made up of players all with disparate goals and aspirations. The money has just gotten to crazy to even assume that all players are in this to get to and win a WS. Although I more confident in the team in that regard than I am the organization.

Jays have not bought the div just yet. But I suspect they know that and will try to shore up some of the ? in an effort to grab that ST, most likely to succeed spot. That said, that spot has not guaranteed much lately. It really does right now boil down to Johnson. If he is healthy and pitches at his best, the Jays may have bought the div title. If that does not happen, from where they are today I think they will have made up a ton of ground in the AL East but will not have assured themselves of more than being in a dog fight to the end.

Given the sparsity of talent out there, the Sox have to make a run at Napoli.It should be interesting to see how far the Sox are willing to go on Napoli. The reality is that it is hard to think about 2013 as potentially the Sox year. They just have to much personnel ground to make up and the Jays have clearly decided to push all of their chips to the middle of the table in 2013. Although as much wheeling and dealing as the Jays have done, if Johnson does not pan out, all of that wheeling and dealing might not get them very far.

Of course the league is pumping its own tires about PED's leaving the game. Until their testing is more comprehensive than it is, they really don't have a clue. I had a more optimistic view myself for awhile but they keep catching guys and given how many holes there are in the league process, I suspect they are catching a small percentage of the guys that are juicing in some way, shape or form. I will remain skeptical if they keep catching at least one guy a year.

And if we pass on all of them it simply does not matter whether Napoli plays 1st or Mickey Mouse plays 1st.

I don't know why Salty's remarkable record of K's should be more acceptable than Granderson's in NY. Salty K's as much as Granderson does while hitting fewer home runs and is truly weak as a catcher, and as a handler of pitchers. Lavs has at least to this point been considered the better bet with the ability to replace Salty's offense with more upside potential performing the function from behind the plate. Salty is more likely to become the guy used in trade unless the Sox are ready to throw in the towel on Lavs. Actually I think it is more likely the other way around with the Sox more ready to throw in the towel on Salty.