jung

Agreed...2012-2013 offseason could be interesting from a number of perspectives. The Sox will I think just about be forced to resist the temptation to resign aging stars at high dollars leaving guys that have got to advance to stagnate in their roles. The Ortiz deal was so disappointing in that it represented the Sox FO of recent vintage. Lets commit to a guy that has marque value in spite of the fact that it is not likely the best overall move for the team. Lets ignore that he bats from the left side, ignore his age, ignore how in one fell swoop V's hands are tied to a very inflexible lineup. V is not exactly Earl Weaver waiting for a walk an error and some guy that hits a 3 run home run. Weaver was very successful by the way but he had a starting rotation that kept his team in games waiting for that 3 run dinger to happen. We don't seem to be quite there. I don't see even one Jim Palmer here, nor do I see the pitching depth behind Palmer that Weaver could rely on. I don't see a Dave McNally for that matter. 2012-2013 is full of opportunities to pull another Ortiz or move in a different direction.

45-50/4 does sound like a reasonable number for Lackey even in retrospect. The problem with that however is that they went after Lackey in a FA year where Lackey was the best pitcher available. Insisting on taking the top guy always costs a premium. I would have preferred that they go after pitching in years where there is more pitching depth or as I have stated before resist the temptation to go after the top guy at every position in every FA market. Take the 2nd guy or even the 3rd guy. You will pay much less for the guys in those spots than you will for the guy that is sitting in the 1 hole in any given FA market. However taking the guy in the 1 hole bears a certain amount of marketing cache that the Sox have not been able to resist for a long time now.

I can see how some folks would and maybe are bashing the team for being a bit more frugal but I actually do not think that is the perspective for most. I think the view that is hard to swallow is the expectation that there is no penalty in spending trends when the money is spent poorly. Sure FO people are let go. However if the expectation is that the Sox would continue to spend at the same rate simply because we want them to or because some of the people responsible for the signings are gone is unrealistic. In my view it is far more realistic to believe that ownership will require some level of frugality in response to a FO that has run amuck regardless of the fact that some heads have already rolled. Least we forget, this team was projected to lose money in 2011. No business is going to resign itself to losing money every year. That is a line that I suspect JH is not at all comfortable with especially when historically at least under his stewardship the club has been a printing press.

Practically every starting pitcher that is out from under his initial major league contract that it. Makes developing pitching and not trading away your young pitching talent to bring in glitzy bats even more important than it has been in the past. Everything in baseball is pointing to teams needing to think hard about trading off young talent against aging stars. While that has really been the case for a long time now, it is becoming more and more painful for teams to ignore that basic principle.

That may well be. However if they go over again this year I fear that they will doom themselves to several years of frugality in an effort to get back under again. The cap itself does not increase again until 2014. Next year is the year of the SP in FA market again. I don't see them going over by much and paying $.50 on the dollar in the process especially having established a record of the effort to get back under again after years when they believe they really have a shot, like the WS year. In fact they have already established a pattern that is sensible. The issue has not been spending the money or when they spent the money. It is has been an issue of the players they have gotten for the money spent. The pattern has been to spend above the cap in years when they thought they had a real shot at going all the way and then working to get back under again. Since they are not the Yanks that to me is a very sensible way to deal with the LT, even more so now that the 1st year rate is lower and the 4th year rate is higher. They have not historically played this like the Yankees, going over every year either by a little or a lot and with their revenue line, I still think going over every year will hobble the Sox where it has not been an issue for the Yankees. I do think there is more than an even chance that overarching much of this is JH looking to exit. I suspect his heart now skips a beat when he thinks about the monster payoff he will enjoy when he sells this team off.

I will consider it a better year if they play hard. That may be a pretty low standard to set but in fact playing hard for an entire season, presuming they have adequate subs for the inevitable injuries, can make a big difference in the outcome. Granted if they will need more BP muscle than they have now. But I would be amazed if they are not now trying to put together some trades that will bring them some added BP muscle. I don't think they have much of a choice but to trade salary to bring in salary.

So much for Darvish talk. I never thought they would take a shot at him. Still think that if they make anything that looks like a major move this off season it will be a trade offing salary to take salary.

As for staying under or going over the cap, if they keep up this cheap skate stuff and still go over the cap they will not go over by much which is about the dumbest thing they could do. Going over by just a little bit dooms them to three straight years over the cap and would keep them from making any major moves in 2013 when they rate would be 50%. The only way to not pay out big money if you keep going over is to go over by very little. They don't have enough money coming off the books next year to matter in that regard. I am worried that we might see several years in a row of this sort of personnel activity. Feels weird not seeing the Sox vie for more significant talent. I still think any major move they make will be via trade...giving salary to take salary.

It doesn't! You try assuming a nice comfy slouch on the clubhouse couch holdin' on to your beer in one hand and your chicken wing in the other with an acute case of inflamed balls. Impossible to get comfortable. Man those Red Sox know how to suck it up....or is it suck em' down.

Regardless of the fact that the posting fee does not go against the LT, I don't think any number like $100M for the kind of risk that a SP from Japan represents sounds like anything this version of the Sox will go near with a ten foot pole.

Maybe the kid will learn more. I am assuming the "kid" is Lavarnway. Maybe it is Salty that is going to be on the outs. Much chit chat today about how Sox FO was really much more displeased with Salty's performance last year than they were letting on at the time. That would not be a surprise. Depending on Lavarnway and and Mr.$1.35M would be a hell of a gamble if that is what the Sox have in mind. You can say this much for their player personnel moves so far. They have been unpredictable with regard to "who". They have been very steadfast about "how much"......$0!

If you guys are going to make the order of measure reliability, it would be Shoppach at least in my opinion.

Good point folks. I think if you remember, when it was all coming to an end for Manny in Cleveland the relationship between Manny and Guardians Management was really going downhill. Manny did not think they were doing enough to maintain a winning profile there and he was really not interested in staying. He had his complaints here as well but less about the progress the team was making and more about just well Manny being Manny.

Since the 2012 season will be a bust for dice you can basically close the Sox book on him now. So we will have gotten two good years out of him offset by four atrocious years.

This to some extent depends on whether or not the Sox are insistent on getting back to a 0 LT tax rate. I have been frustrated by the uncertainty myself and MLB has not released the 2011 tax bills yet. If they went over in 2010 and 2011 then they will need to stay under in both 2012 and 2013 to get back to where they appear to want to go. This is why going over by a ridiculous $1.5M in 2010 was such a crime. The LT is much like a speeding ticket. It is not the size of the fine that gets you with a speeding ticket. It is the three years of excessive insurance rates that kill ya'. With the LT it is not really the one year tax hit that kills ya'. It is the corner you get boxed into by putting yourself at risk for the really high 3rd and 4th year rates. It depends on how deep that line in the sand is and whether JH is going to insist on seeing them get back to a 0 LT tax rate again.

Based on the cost and what I believe to be a significant difference between the quality of offensive talent that pitchers in Japan face when compared with pitchers here, I would say that the combination of posting fee and per annum contract cost makes the risk very hard to comprehend. Did dice pitch competently and even above average all be it for a relatively short period of time? Yes he did. Did he ever pitch like anything close to what the Sox paid for him? No he did not. Did he ever pitch aggressively here like he apparently did in Japan? I would say no. Even at his best here, he picked at corners and never really went after anybody. Did not matter if you batting 4th or 9th. Again that is the part I worry about. Japanese teams often have two, maybe three hitters that are pound for pound comparable to hitters on MLB teams but have nothing like what pitchers have to face 1 through 9 on an MLB team.

I don't think the Sox have to say a word about their strategy. However you don't have to be Karnak the Magnificent to look at what they are and are not doing and make a reasonable supposition. "The next Envelop please"

I don't buy the culture thing with Japanese pitchers either especially with V as manager. However you just can not convince me that the pressure batter to batter is at all comparable. Everybody that has seen dice pitch in both places has said that dice' was worlds more aggressive on the mound over there compared to over here. This picking around the edges thing that we have seen over and over again here, did not happen over there. It is my understanding that he went after hitters. So my concern with bringing pitchers over here is that not very much of what they do in Japan makes much of a difference when it comes to pitching here. It is way different and I think the biggest difference is the quality of the lineup 1-9 here compared to there.

I would like to be optimistic. It is more fun than being pessimistic. But everything I hear and see coming from the Sox themselves is headed the other way. Do you actually think the idea that both Aceves and Bard will be prepped to start is a good thing? Does that not speak volumes for the amount of money BC has to spend or I should say the amount JH is willing to give him? I guess there could be any number of reasons why JH appears to have decided to draw a line in the sand. I have said for a long time now that these are better business people than they are baseball people. If I were to view what has happened here purely from a business perspective, drawing a line in the sand makes all the sense in the world. Frankly doing less than that makes no sense what-so-ever. This however is baseball where there are championships to be won as well as dollars to be earned. While JH surely knows about championships as well, I just think he has opted for the line in the sand approach. If we take the manager mess as an example, the business side of the house has done a very poor job of keeping baseball operations abreast of its intensions. I have a bad feeling about this. I am inclined to think that the same thing has happened again. JH and LL peeled back a bit of the curtain in the manager hunt but did not give BC clear direction. I suspect based on BC's very early comments about spending money this year, once again JH and LL peeled back the curtain a bit but failed to give BC clear direction with regard to resources at his disposal this off season until maybe just very recently.

The Sox need another head case now like they need a hole in the wall. This ain't the Sox of Manny being Manny days.

Well I believe that the guys that have reported here that arbitration offers are no longer binding (or said another way it no longer requires a hand shake deal between a player and a team to overthrow an arbitration move) as I posted earlier that is part of the new CBA and I just don't know if that is one of the clauses due for implementation mid season next year or immediately. They are dividing up many of the stipulations of the new CBA and implementing them on two separate dates. So the Sox may have a little more to bring to the table. I just don't know. Frankly without that hanging over his head I would expect Ortiz to immediately reject 2/16. By the way, I still think having Ortiz around costs to much money but it may not be that simple. Ya' gotta' walk the walk though. If they think they are this offensive juggernaut then I would have thought the money could have been spent more wisely. I think in part Ortiz has looked attractive because they could make the term very short....either one year or two. There are other bodies I would have loved to have seen them use that money on but there is the strong possibility that none were impressive enough for the money they had to deserve deals of three or four years. Would not be unusual for younger players to expect at least a three year if not four year deal.

That is one huge difference between the NFL and MLB. You can take a chance on guys like Haynesworth and Ocho and get away with it because you can just cut them....just like that. Alvin turned out to be fat useless jackass (what else is new). See ya' Alvin. Can't really do that in baseball.

The point is that saying that he will be the closer if starting does not work out, is the same thing as saying they are not going to briing in anybody that would be a better closer than Bard. By default they are saying Bard would be the better closer on the roster but they value him more as a starter.

I don't know if the Sox meant to let slip that there was no plan to bring in a closer that would be better than Bard in that announcement but I suspect that the jury is just about in at this point with regard to the LT cap limit. I don't see any chance of them breaking it at this point because they have now commented directly or indirectly with regard to every part of this team and they have surely made very specific comments with regard to pitching. If they were not going to spend money on pitching, there is little sense in spending it anywhere else.

The scariest thing about the WEEI bulletin is not that Bard will come to spring training as a starter. The scariest bit to the WEEI piece is the part that says that if starting does not work out for Bard he will become the closer. We just found indirectly that there is no plan to bring in Madson or anybody else of consequence as a closer for this team. UNREAL!