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While we may or may not actually be in the running for Garza (I guess not) it will interesting to see what his price turns out to be.

I think the Sox have not opted for a third tier pitcher as yet because they are still holding out for a second tier pitcher falling as far as they hope. I just don't see that happening but at this point I understand why they would still be holding out. All things being equal if I were in exactly the same spot I think I would hold out as well at least having gotten to here.

I think the Sox as currently constructed can compete for a post season spot. I don't think they are legitimate contenders for the division as currently constructed. Frankly even with the new play-in I am not sure I care that much because I can't afford to just put my eggs in the "winning the division" basket. As for post season play, while I buy the argument that the team that gets hot around the post season has the best chance of winning I don't buy that it is a complete crapshoot. The thing that concerns me about the Sox is that they are showing signs of both aging by the calendar and aging by virtue of simple wear. Ortiz has clearly reached the period in his career where he may well age right before our eyes this coming season. Youk is brittle and the Sox decided not to opt for a DH solution that would allow his bat to stay in the lineup while getting him some rest at the same time. We closed off 1st base to him by bringing in AGons. Some have opined on this board that AGons really was complaining about scheduling and fatigue last year out of embarrassment over having been warned about the Home Run Derby before hand, choosing to ignore the warnings thus tweaking his shoulder. I don't think that argument holds water. I do believe that he tweaked his shoulder. However if I were him I would not have tried to hide that behind the excuse of fatigue at the end of the season unless it were in fact true that he was fatigued. Comparing the two I will take a guy that tweaked an injury that he has already proven that he can rehab over a guy that gets fatigued at the end of the season every time. You are asking me to believe that AGons decided to expose a potential chronic problem over an injury that he has proven he can rehab to complete heath or very close to complete health. My point is while I agree with AGons about scheduling and its impact on players some worse than others, I would not have mentioned that in the press at all costs. I take him at his word that he was in fact fatigued by the end of the year. So we have Ortiz, old by virtue of the calendar, Youk, by virtue of potential injury and AGons, by virtue of fatigue by his own admission. That does not sound like a team that has a good shot to get hot at the post season should they get there. I have argued here that if this is truly a staunch offense then we should be able to take one of those three bats out of the lineup and still be a staunch offense, particularly in the case of Youk. Youk had 80 RBI last season. Even a guy that gave you 40 would likely still have put the Sox within the top 2-3 scoring teams in baseball last year. He did score 68 times on only 17 HR so the fact that he got on base has to be considered as well. But tell me that I might very well be facing a shot Ortiz, a fatigued AGons and an injured Youk at the end of next season and even if everything else goes OK, that does not sound to me like a team with a good chance of getting hot for the post season. Notice I have not even touched on the Sox biggest shortfall at the moment, their pitching.

Finally an area of agreement. They absolutely need to let some of these guys pitch. It is my biggest irritation with their team building methodology. They never let these guys up for anything more than a cup of coffee and send them back down for a hangnail.

If in fact they try to off a bunch of these guys based on being out of options they are not going to get much for the whole fleet of them. While on the one hand I can see the Sox not being willing to risk that a guy cannot come up and play but has no options left, I would fail to understand why they think they would get anything meaningful in return. May be able to surround Youk with a few of these guys and get something done but somebody will have to be the linchpin to a trade if that is where they are with these guys.

It might be a mistake but the opportunity to spend big money this off season has already passed them by. Regardless of what they do in the FA market from this day forward we will not be able to categorize this off season as one where they were big spenders. Madson is the only guy left that sort of fits that profile and would have a spot with the Sox and they are not going to end up with Madson. They might end up with a Kuroda or a Jackson or an Oswalt but they won't end up with either three of them or two of them. At best they might end up with one of them.

Unfortunately the Sox have spent a good bit of that money unwisely. Appearances suggest that they are considering that factor more relevant than having missed the playoffs.

Gotta give something to get something. If the Sox really cared about the LH/RH thing they would not have given Ortiz arbitration. So it really does not matter what I care about. What the Sox care about is all that really matters. They would likely have to bring in somebody to hold down the 3rd base position defensively. As I have said before we can not claim this team to be an offensive juggernaut and then balk at every move that might pull one guy out of that lineup. Can't have it both ways. I would judge any team that could not afford to take a Youk out of its lineup to be weak offensively, not strong offensively. They appear to have made their bed with Ortiz. So fine if Ortiz is staying certainly AGons is not going anywhere. That leaves Youk the odd man out. I would even suggest that holding onto him this year given that they have committed to Ortiz would be a mistake.

Seems to me that the Sox have made it just about impossible to keep Youk. They have effectively closed off any opportunity for Youk at either 1st of DH. All he can do over at third is play a few games and hurt himself again, serving to reinforce the fact of his brittleness and proving to the league once again that he really should not be playing at 3rd. Someone trading for him would respect his ability to play 3rd but rightfully would trade for him as a 1st baseman/DH/3rd baseman.

Not only is Youk the Sox starting 3rd baseman but he would make a terrific 1st baseman for any team trying to fill that slot. In fact I would move him there immediately if I were a team that traded for him. That is where he should have gone for the Sox if they had not traded brought in AGons.

Youks value is not overblown by anybody on this site. He is the Sox starting 3rd baseman. If he is traded he will be a key feature of whatever trade he is involved in. His value is never going to be better than it is today regardless of the fact that it is not what it was a couple of years ago. He's getting older not younger.

I have said several times here that I think Youk will end up a key feature of a trade especially since they have passed on the need to protect him a bit from injury by turning the DH position into one that they can rotate players into. While it costs them a big RH bat that is one consequence of the Ortiz arbitration deal. It will take more than Youk to get even a decent pitcher but going the trade route opens up the number of SP options available.

I think a trade is the likely route especially if they are truly committed to Ortiz. As currently configured they have too much offense and too little pitching for me to take them seriously. I see posts here that make it sound like a monster offense goes directly into the crapper if we let go of even one piece of it. I would love to keep them all if we had pitching but we don't.

I might have missed a move somewhere but last I knew the Sox had tapped both Aceves and Bard to start next season. Has that changed or is that where we are at this point?

Jenks may really force their hand now. Although he was slated for the pen he occupied one of those spots where a guy from Pawtucket could come up into middle relief or "maybe" start. It is still one body down that they just could not afford as the season has not even started yet. It would be easier to figure out if we knew how many of those farm system arms they are willing to tolerate coming up this year and/or how serious they are about Wake actually being some sort of a security blanket.

By the way User thanks for the explanation...I do see the argument you were trying to make. I guess what I was saying was that the original poster made such a nebulous and overarching comment "to not underestimate the value of pitching in winning championships" that I did not see where he left any room for argument. It was such a nebulous statement although there were some data points attached to it. I actually think you make a better argument with regard to the statistical data points than to the basic comment. I wonder if this Jenks thing will make it impossible now for the Sox to acquire more pitching regardless of the cost. They are losing guys before the season even starts and they had so few bodies to begin with.

There are those teams that have had great pitching, the best pitching in the league and sometimes in both leagues but could not hit their way out of a paper bag. To some extent that probably accounts for teams that lead the league staff pitching stats but go home early. It is interesting that as important as pitching is in general, If you can't hit at all you just end up with a pitching staff that finishes the year at the top of the staff pitching stats. I do also think it is interesting that Ortiz seems to have become something of a lightning rod in that discussion. We had great offense last year but I do understand the reluctance to cut Ortiz away. That said before the Sox went down this arbitration route I had not really been thinking about leaving this giant hole at the DH spot if Ortiz was gone. I wanted to see some of the big Red Sox bats rotated into that spot so that the player gets some rest. I really have a problem with thinking the Red Sox starting eight should just play until they drop because we have done that already. Once you get there, either the guy that started the season a stud is something less than a stud or the guy that has been ridding the pine is all you have to play the position. While the Sox conditioning program took a good many hits because of the condition of the pitchers, I did not see many every day players balloon up last year. Some of them just wore out or got injured.

Well to answer the question more specifically User I suspect the straw man is that you are using the point that generally teams with better pitching make it to the playoffs to refute the comment about not underestimating the importance of pitching in winning championships. You guys may be talking about two separate things here, one of you separating the final World Series itself from the playoffs before it and the other not. However, I don't see how you can use the point that generally teams with better pitching make it to the playoffs to refute the argument that one should not underestimate the importance of pitching in winning championships either. You have to win your way to and through the playoffs to win a championship....no? You have done this with before User but I think you might be making the other guy's argument for him.

I would not recommend that the Sox simply follow the calendar and exceed the cap every other year, Bellhorn. However once they got back to 0% rate I would suggest that the FO will have much more freedom from their boss if they were not to exceed it more than every other year. If they did that their rate would never be worse than 17.5%. You are correct though. The ceiling does not go up again until 2014.

Jesus what the hell does it matter. My point has been that I don't think they will end up with them. In the first place, there are not that many of them. OK, Here is an example. Cafardo keeps reporting or "we" keep reporting that Cafardo keeps reporting that the Sox are still in the running for Oswalt and Kurodo. However Cafardo has said that they are currently outside of the Sox price range. I don't think their prices will fall far enough to satisfy the Sox. These are not exactly stud pitchers, none of them in this pack are and I think when push comes to shove, the Sox will not want to pay for these guys. The way the Sox have monkeyed around with their pitching options this off-season makes me think that when it comes time for a decision, the Sox will make a value judgement about the difference in performance between one of these guys and somebody they might bring up out of Pawtucket at mid-season and will decide that they will not be getting much for their $7-$10M investment in Mr XYZ whoever he is. I also think that term may end up being more of a problem than per year salary as none of these guys even give you the warm and fuzzies about something like 3 years. Shorten the contract and the per year goes up. It is probably worth pointing out that this board was all atwitter about guys like Buerhle and it was not until those guys started disappearing that reality sunk in around here and the fact that we were never in the running for those guys became the excepted view. We heard the same s*** about those guys as we hear about Oswalt and Kuroda now. "The Sox are talking to Buerhle blah blah blah." Again, I am not so much questioning that this is there strategy. I just don't think it will net them arms. I think they want somebody to fall into the $5M and less range depending on the specific guy and they want short years as well. Once you get there you are borderline picking guys off the scrape heap so I don't think the guys we are talking about will get to there. Somebody else will offer them more years or more money if not both. I also think that this is why there are still Wake rumblings because while I hate the idea I think the Sox figure if all else fails, meaning none of these guys fall as far as they want them to fall, then even Wake might be an option for half a season or something like that. Examples....Jackson is looking for 5 years. If the Sox give him 5 years I will burn my Red Sox hat. Oswalt has been trying to draw interest by claiming he is only interested in a one year deal but wants over $10M. Oswalt is probably the most likely guy for the Sox but he scares me the most. I think he could easily go out there and after his first start report directly to the DL. If we want to bring Ortiz back into the discussion I think if they had that $15M to play with the Sox would be a bit more willing to move their price range up and landing one of these guys would go from a tense, death row watch kinda' affair to falling off a log. I will be happy to be wrong on this but like someone else just posted tonight I am entirely from Missouri on this one.

No sense in mentioning pitching options missed at this point because all we are going to hear back is that the grand Sox "wait it out" plan is still in play. However, I think when it is all said and done, it is the mid-pack pitcher that would have been the best fit for this team this year and I just don't think the Sox will end up with any of them. I will grant you that the guys like Jackson and others in that crowd all have their shortcomings and are all being overpaid. But that is what is happening with pitching these days. They are all overpaid. That is also what makes it hard to swallow the idea that there is the grand Sox strategy of waiting for some significant discount to happen within the ranks of the remaining pitchers this year. That may well be their strategy but it is hard to see how it is likely to bear results. As I said earlier I think you will see some reduction at the last minute but significant reduction???....about as likely as holding out for pink elephants and blue moons. Also although a different topic altogether, I don't put much stock in what LL says either. Everything he says is designed for effect in my experience and I don't think he much cares how close he gets to the truth. That may in fact be appropriate for his position. Certainly BB of the Patriots never tells us much and I get the feeling that if he has to tell a white lie in order not to tell us something he does not want revealed, he is going to do it. The difference I think is that you don't come away from discussions with BB feeling like you need a long hot bath....I kinda do feel that way after a presser from LL. I really have been reluctant to point fingers at BC. I think his hands are tied even more than Theo's ever were. I think he has been put in some really bad spots. As I said early on about the Ortiz arb thing and has been repeated tonight by muggah and me again, I think there is a pretty darned good chance that marketing influences have played into the Ortiz arbitration deal and that is not BC. That would be his boss at work.

Well there are three possibilities at this point: - they don't break the cap - They just barely break the cap - They go flying past the thing like it was not even there I think that last option is just not possible this year. To many players have already gone by and it is not like the Sox are interested in even a large sampling of what is left. That leaves either breaking it by a little or not breaking it. If they break it by a little that would be a real shame as indicated earlier. Staying under this year sets them up to be able to be able to make signings next year, while staying under. As others here have mentioned a good deal of money comes off the books next year and the cap ceiling is going up next year. Staying under this year and next would be great as two years in a row under gets them back to a 0% tax rate.

The Southern Democrats lead by a relatively young Strom Thurman were a force to be reckoned with at the time as it was very difficult to win national public office unless you had them in your camp.

If memory serves me they had Mays in hand if they wanted him. Crazy Tom Yawkee.

This is in my view a legitimate concern. The Sox according to LL seem stuck in cement with regard to their cap tactics. LL claims that they try to stay near the cap limit whether they go over it or not. I think that was OK the way the cap rates where structured in the past. You could make the argument that as long as you stay really close to the cap limit who cares about the rate. Based on the old rate structure if you go over by $1M, worse case you owe $400k. However the cap rate structure has now changed with the first year rate down by 5% to 17.5% but the 4th year rate up 50%. So now you are almost encouraged to bust the cap in alternate years so that you are either at 0% or no worse than 17.5% but punished severely for busting the cap 4 years running. Granted even at 50%, if you are always right around the cap what does it matter. However I think that what is likely, especially with the way JH seems to be looking at things lately, is that there will be a year where the Sox really want to go after somebody or a few somebody's hard to make a run but the FO will be blocked from going after the players they want because JH is not going to pay $.50 on the dollar in tax. How easy would it be in this day and age to see an opportunity to bust the cap by $10M. I don't see JH at this stage of the game wanting to pay another $5M in tax. If they go over by a little bit this year that would be a shame as they will set themselves up for 2013 being a 4th year running over the cap. There is a good deal of money coming off the books next year and the cap ceiling goes up again next year. I still think it would make sense for them to stay under if they can because with all that money coming of the books next year and the cap ceiling going up there is a good chance that they will be able to sign players and still stay under next year. If they can stay under this year and next year they are back to a 0% rate setting themselves up for what I would like to see them do from here on out as a cap strategy. I would like to see them set themselves up to go over in alternate years if they have to, playing both the money that comes off the books and the ever raising cap ceiling so that if they need to and want to they can go over in alternate years never paying a higher rate than 17.5%. I think if they can set themselves up that way, it will appeal to JH's business sensibilities and the FO will have the freedom it will need and want to go over the cap.