Red Sox To Sign Kelly Shoppach

If you’re gobbling up 15-20% of your budget on a back-up catcher with the holes we have in the rotation and pen, then it’s an issue. If, as is now being reported, they’re a planning on going over “budget”, then maybe it’s less of an issue.

He was a late 30 something, and that was a stupid deal.

and a cheap complementary bat is something that has been greatly needed. Not an expensive one, a cheap one. Like Shoppach.

I seem to remember they have a catching prospect who is though… can’t think of the name

for Marcum and Hart. Not the best trade idea since the Brewers have Lucroy.

I think those reports from 3 years ago aren’t really valid anymore. By the accounts I’ve heard over the last two years, he’s hugely improved at everything. I just think dark cloud of being called ‘the worst catcher ever’ is still hanging over his reputation even if it isn’t remotely true anymore, it’s just one of those marks that takes time to go away because it got people looking only at the negatives of his game rather than the positives.

I don’t think he’s this amazing defensive catcher, but I don’t think it would hurt us in the least, especially if Wake does indeed not return next year.

Me, I don’t just simply accept that the FO knows what they need and knows what they’re doing. ESPECIALLY with a newbie GM. I could possibly be okay with this in the future, if the other needs are met satisfactorily.

Catchers with great bats are extremely valuable, a pitcher with a walkrate over 4 per 9 does scare me a little bit. He’d be a welcome addition don’t get me wrong, but not for Lavarnway.

since he was so godawful as a starter last year.

Is that we’re going to be looking at pretty much the same group as last year who combined to be two rather ineffectual starters.

is to debate moves like this. And to second-guess. And to get excited about moves. And wonder why the hell someone would sign a guy. Of course the front office wants a good product as much or more than we do. And of course they’re better at this job than I am (or Rogue is…or Sean is…or you are…). That’s why they’re making millions in Boston and we’re living paycheque to paycheque.

But you can’t shrug off all their moves because of that as “I’m sure they know what they’re doing…they’re professionals.” These professionals, and others like them, have made some pretty dumbass moves over the years. Dumbass moves, by the way, which have put us in this tight budget we currently have.

I don’t hate Shoppach as a player. But I legitimately wonder if he was a good get with the limited budget we have. After Lugo & Lackey (and probably Crawford) and the others like them…that’s a very legitimate wonder.

There are some deeper issues on that team that I don’t think have been taken care of. They had an entire month to figure out how to change what was happening to them and they didn’t.

As for Bard, most of the outcomes that leads to are bad. If the Sox try Bard in the pen, and don’t make a relief or starting move until then, it’s a bad decision because most anyone worth a damn will be off the market by the time they know what he will be. Or they sign a starter or reliever in belief that he will end up in one role or the other and that’s a guess. There is no way to say if Bard will end up successful, I do know that the things that make a player a good reliever are not the same things that make them a good starter. I do believe he has had fatigue issues after 60 something innings the last two years as well, so I think even if they do make him a starter, I expect no more than 110-120 innings out of him, and that isn’t enough to make it worth it to me. And if he fails there is a solid chance we end up doubled up on relievers and didn’t spend the money on a viable starter.

And it’s not that I don’t think the ownership cares, I think it’s that Theo had a very strong hand in the guidance and now they are all set to their own devices rather than the ones Theo allowed and they don’t know what they are doing.
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Because of what’s happened, this isn’t an offseason to sit around and wait for something to develop, this is an offseason to be proactive, to go out and offer your Melky Cabrera equivalent to the Giants before the Royals do so you can get Jonathan Sanchez instead. To show that even though we don’t have Epstein anymore, we’re still going to be active and sneaky and doing things. Right now it looks like we’re waiting for people to come to us and that’s not the way you look when you get as embarrassed as we did in September.

but we’ve got even year Beckett, which is always a disaster, a Buchholz with a recently broken back, so who knows how that will turn out, and Lester is almost guaranteed to have a mediocre april. It’s not something we can really rely on in 2012.