Jack Flap

Agreed...like I've said before, give me the most talented roster to get through the regular season with, and I'll be able to go into October with confidence every time. I know it's popular to think of the postseason as an entity all to its own, but putting as much emphasis on 3.1 innings out of 230+ last year (or Price's 66.2 career playoff innings spread out over nearly a decade) as some people do is simply silly. Everyone is aware of Price's postseason stats and would like to see him pitch better...and my guess would be that no one is more keenly aware of this than him. I just don't see the need to continually harp on it in every thread, or hound him about it on social media the way some fans apparently do. (I remember reading after we acquired Sale that he doesn't have a Twitter account...probably wise on his part.)

According to the Boston Globe, Eduardo Rodriguez “tweaked” the same right knee that made the Red Sox’ pitcher miss the first two months of 2016 while pitching for Navegantes del Magallanes in the Venezuelan Winter League. Rodriguez reportedly left after the first inning after feeling discomfort in the knee. Red Sox president of baseball operations Dave Dombrowski told the Globe in an email, “He tweaked his knee last night pitching. It doesn’t appear to be anything serious.” http://fullcount.weei.com/sports/boston/baseball/red-sox/2016/12/28/eduardo-rodriguezs-right-knee-back-in-news-thanks-to-winter-ball-injury/

Sounds like he is in danger of getting Stephen Drew'd at this point. If we could do it without going over the cap, I think Dave would make a move...but I'm not sure if the money is there, even with Buchholz off the books.

Precisely. All valid points. Obviously the Espinoza trade is not a reason to keep Pomeranz in the rotation if he truly belongs in the bullpen...however, if the rhetoric that people used to justify the trade at the time (that he was a top-half-of-the-rotation type starter just beginning to break out) was actually true, then he probably should be starting.

Would never happen, but I'd give him a minor league deal in an instant, if only for nostalgia.

Sound advice.

Yeah, I wasn't referring to your post, but some of the earlier ones. Someone called it stupid and dumb a page or two back.

I think Eduardo is one of our best 5 starters as well, both now and going forward...I just don't think he's separated himself enough from the other two guys at this point that it's ridiculous to even talk about. (Reposting because the mobile version of this site keeps deleting my post when I go to edit it..? Sorry.)

I don't know why some are acting like this is such a black-and-white decision. Assuming everyone is healthy and looks strong in camp, would starting Wright and Pomeranz (both All-Stars in 2016) over Rodriguez out of the gate really be so indefensible?

He could always surprise us, but a 23 year old playing in A-ball who didn't crack Philly's top 30 prospects doesn't exactly scream big potential to me. I'm pretty sure Marco was younger, playing at a more age-appropriate level, and more highly regarded when we acquired him.

Anyone who thinks we didn't get enough here should really question what we would be willing to give up from our system for Clay Buchholz and his $13.5 million salary if he was on another team. My guess is it wouldn't be much. If we ever hear about Josh Tobias again it will be more than I expect. The $ was the real point here.

Come for the baseball discussion, stay for the vodka recommendations. I love it.

A straight salary dump for sure. I'm glad I didn't have any expectation of getting anything significant back for him. It does make one wonder if DD wants that money for other purposes...otherwise we probably could have just as easily made this trade in March.

Fair enough. For what it's worth, I don't see us "falling off a cliff" any time soon, either.

You all need some Krampus.

Well said.

From where I sit, this whole conflagration started because several people were talking about Sale's jersey-cutting incident (and let's be honest, you can think he's an extraordinarily talented pitcher and be ecstatic that we have him and still wonder WTF he was doing there), and a700 responded with a rant about a bunch of people who hate Sale and Price because they pine for the glory days of Ben Cherington and think Dombrowski has ushered in the death of the franchise. Since these crowds of people who keep denouncing the Sale acquisition don't seem to exist, several posters guessed that he might be indirectly talking about them and mischaracterizing their own views and decided to rebut these remarks, and things got overheated and personal from there. I've never had a problem with differing opinions, but I think we all need to be careful not to slip into arguing against straw men or reducing the opinions of those we disagree with to a caricature...and I include myself in that. As you said, we're all fans of the team, and most of the time people's reasons for their stances are a lot more complicated than simply hating Player X and loving Y. Baseball can't come soon enough indeed.

I'm really late here, but it's good to see you, dgale...hope you stick around.

So is it your opinion that none of the players Dombrowski traded will contribute in the majors during this decade? That's not an attack, but an honest question. You seem pretty hung up on the year 2021 for some reason...is this the arbitrary date when prospects are supposed to arrive?

I don't know of anyone who does. I've taken issue with some (not all) of his moves, but at this point I'm perfectly content to buckle down and see how things play out, and I think that's true for most people.

I pretty much agree with all of this.

Other than from Slasher (no offense), I really haven't seen much Price 'hate,' either.

Precisely. If anything, a lot of us who were against the Pomeranz trade (and were subject to a lot of "You just never want to trade any prospects" type straw-manning as a result) seem to be pretty okay with the Sale deal. I'll leave it to the 700 Club to figure out why that is. I've seen a range of nuanced opinions on the trade, but very little outright opposition (I feel like Kimmi has been one of the most vocal against, though I wouldn't want to speak for her), and certainly nothing approaching "hate" for Sale himself. Whatever one thinks of Dombrowski, his strategy, or the long-term impact on the system, there's no denying that we should be a much better team for the next 3 years with Sale in a Red Sox uniform.

Would that involve someone whose name starts with Q and rhymes with 'Iguana'?

Not surprising since, with one notable exception, Ben's years as GM were not very good ones, and Dombrowski's style is built to win favor with fans who prefer flashy, exciting moves over a more patient, cautious approach. It's evident that we have some people here who couldn't care less about prospects or the farm system or much beyond the immediate future (I don't say that to be insulting, but it's what I see in some of the posts I read), which translates into a lot of DD love. There's no denying that Dombrowski has set us up quite well for the next several years, but the real test of his mettle will come down the line when Cherington's players and the others he acquired by trading Cherington's players are going into free agency and he's run out of Cherington prospects to trade. As it stands, this is still very much a team with Ben's fingerprints all over it, whether people want to admit it or not.