Koji, Taz and Ziegler got pretty big money all things considered.
DD has decimated the farm but he's been pretty good at keeping the payroll within budget.
I started following the Sox in 1969. I didn't pay much attention to the front office management of the team until they started doing things like not sending a new contract agreement to Carlton Fisk on time.
I think the real question is whether JH is willing to pay the price and suffer the future tax ramifications for signing EE. It would appear that up till now he has not been. But who knows if EE's price really drops.
Moreland was a solid signing, just not a sexually arousing one. I guarantee one thing, that signing won't be the deciding factor on whether they sign one of the boppers or not.
It may well have been Theo who chose Crawford. But Larry had actually come out prior to that and prior to the Gonzo trade and virtually assured Red Sox Nation that the team was going to make 2 major acquisitions, one by free agency and one by trade. It was kind of an amazing pronouncement...it definitely seemed like the FO was anxious to assure fans that the team wasn't happy about 2 straight years with no postseason wins.
Come on folks, it's almost Christmas, let's be a little more charitable toward each other. Kimmi's analogy may not have been perfect, but it doesn't warrant such abuse. It's like partisan politics here. You Americans are such hard-asses.
'Big splash names' is kind of derogatory, isn't it? Kimbrel, Price and Sale are all legitimate top-of-the-line talents. Was Manny Ramirez also a 'big splash name'?
I tend to think of Crawford and Panda as the 'big splash names' because they seem to have been too much about selling tickets and not enough about improving the team.
If that actually happened they should have called his bluff. I really don't believe a guy as competitive as Lackey would have stopped playing baseball for the sake of a spiteful disagreement. He and his agent agreed to the damn contract in the first place and he did get paid a lot of money while he was playing injured and recovering from surgery.