The Boomer

The only real possibility is in drafting. In the FA market, I agree that there's little information advantage. Although if you knew a player preferred to play for your team, you might get a better negotiating position. My opinion is that Theo did this in the Beltre deal and it was a win for both sides.

I wouldn't equate Garcia or even Colon to Zumaya, who was basically a lock to be miss a large part of the season on the DL. As it turns out, that number is 100%. But it was going to be above 50% in any case, at least based on his past history. GMs buy reclamation projects because your options are limited; you can't just go out and find a proven, cheap closer or corner outfielder most of the time. Why not take a shot on Zumaya for less than a million dollars? IMO, Cherington only has Aviles and Sweeney that kind of fit the Zumaya mold. Ross is a known quantity, as are Punto and Shoppach. The rotation is a big question mark, but not because we signed an Oswalt for cheap, but because we are trying to convert one or more good relievers to starters. I think it's true that performance in MLB has a lot of discontinuities. But that works both ways. For every Jose Bautista who suddenly figures out the game after scuffling for years, there's a Grady Sizemore who can't get it together consistently after looking like he would be all-world. I would bet that the standard deviation of performance in MLB is much higher than in the stock market.

Chippewa Falls is just over the border though.

Ex post facto, yes. But there were (and I suppose still are) serious questions about Aceves's back. My personal opinion is that the Sox got a better return for him because they used him in a way that worked for him (mostly long relief and a few starts). However, that limited his reward, because the big win is if he can be an effective #3-4 starter. We'll see about that this year, I guess.

Hi all, I just wanted to say hello to the rest of the crew here. I am looking forward to some baseball in 2012!