FredLynn

Depth. As in the Aegean stables? That kind of depth? Reminds me of a joke I heard. A curmudgeon met his end and went to hell. At the gates he was met by the Devil Himself, who bore a remarkable resemblance to Alex Rodriguez. The Devil offered our curmudgeon the choice of three rooms in which to spend eternity. They proceeded to examine the first room. In that room everyone was walking around on their hands on broken glass and nails. No one seemed to be enjoying themselves much. In the second room the curmudgeon observed all of the denizens in a room full of thumbtacks and razor wire, and they were all on their hands too. The Devil then showed the unfortunate curmudgeon room #3. Here, all of the souls were walking around waste deep in horse s***-but at least they were able to walk around normally, on their feet-and there was a Sox game being televised on a wide screen TV for all to see (Wakefield was pitching, and the Sox were already behind 12, 266, 745, 806 to 0). It was an easy choice: the curmudgeon chose room #3. He entered and began discussing baseball with anyone who would listen. About 10 minutes later a loud gong was heard along with an public service announcement which said: "OK everyone, coffee break is over. Everyone back on your hands"

I can sense your enthusiasm about these signings, and I can't say as I can blame you. After all, these are diamonds in the rough, clearly; most of them should be expected to complete the top end of our rotation. How can we possibly fail to win a ring with the likes of Silva, Cook, Miller, and soon, Wakefield out there mowing down the opposition this summer? I know that I will be just glued to the television set watching every pitch.

I would say that his results are nothing like Foulke's. Foulke had pinpoint control of where his pitches were going. Thats what made him successful.

Sure, another reliable RP is a must. I have no idea who that would be. More importantly, I don't see any SP riding in on a white horse either.

Well, we do have Albers. Oh wait...Albers' career ERA is over 5; and his ERA with the Red Sox starting Aug 1 was 9.97. He stinks. But we have Jenks....but he stinks too. And who is the "one more signing"? Gagne? Wonder what he's doing.... I see Bailey, Aceves, and Melancon as probably being pretty good. Thats about it.

Exactly. If Epstein had not hamstrung the franchise with all those loser contracts we would have had the money to go out and buy top tier FA SP. Now they are gone, and we are left with nonimpact second tier bums who are expensive. Garza could be had if we want to complete the rape of our farm system, but that would be pretty stupid. So would spending $15M to get Oswalt or Kuroda for one year. They will not solve our pitching problems. Contrary to what UserName thinks, we do NOT have the pitching to compete for a ring right now and are not likely to get it before the end of the season. Could it happen? Sure. But again, I would not bet money on it. Lets just keep it real here.

No Sox fan wants to wait until next year. I would love to compete for a ring every single year. I don't see that this year unless the owners have a major change of policy and open wide their wallets and trade away some key prospects. I hope that does not happen. Its not good strategy IMO.

Actually, its about "win later" but NOT "win now". I think its a pretty unrealistic expectation, no matter how well intentioned, that this franchise or any franchise can position itself every single year for a run at a championship. Unfortunately, Epstein left us in a huge mess, and that will take time to clean up. I wholeheartedly support the FO not spending any money this year on FA. I hope they can remain under the cap because this is simply not our year. Sure, if they really opened up their wallets and traded away some of our top prospects, completing the rape of our farm system, we could compete this year. That, unfortunately, would screw us for the next 3-4 years. I am all for realizing the fact that we won't be in the race for a ring this year so that we CAN be in the race in 2013 and 2014.

I would prefer my SP to be Lee, Halliday, Hernandez, Carpenter, and Sabathia. Neither wish list is going to happen, but you are right: if it did, we would be in good shape.

He needs to work his ass off to improve defensively. If he accomplish that, he really has no value. The age of players being just a DH should be ending. It takes up a roster spot with someone of limited utility and decreases the flexibility of the team. We have two catchers now; Lavarnway should go back to Pawtucket to work on his defense this year.

Yeah, except his analysis is faulty: we are not getting another good SP, and if we manage to get some good BP arms, that is going to be lucky because RP are a crapshoot. So we can sit and discuss the things that MIGHT BE, and thats fun to do, but as things ARE, we are not good enough to challenge the better teams (and there are 8 or 9 of them) for a ring.

Besides that, Iglesias has shown zippo with the bat in AAA. Horrible, in fact. No way he has much trade value right now.

Do you want me to publish the definitions of those terms to prove that I know what they mean? Just because I think that they are nearly useless when compared to OPS and ERA (and WHIP and wins/losses and stats compared to the other teams in the league that year) does not mean that I don't know what they mean. I know what castor oil is; that doesn't mean I drink it.