The State Of Boston's Pitching Hunt

Per Cafardo (emphasis added):

League sources have indicated an outcome should occur soon. The teams have submitted names to the Commissioner and it appears the commissioner will soon make a ruling. The two sides had agreed that a “significant” player would change hands. That was the agreement in allowing Epstein to escape the year remaining on his contract and become president of baseball operations for the Cubs.

I was not under the impression that both sides agreed on a significant player, I just thought it was Lucchino being a dick and throwing out the arbitrary high-ball “we’ll take Starlin Castro and Matt Garza” opening offer in hopes that Theo would bargain towards the unreasonable position (not that I think either Castro or Garza will be coming back). If both sides agreed on a significant return, that makes the resolution of this a bit more interesting, i.e. not an argument about which piece of organizational filler we get.

C’mon, Scott.

He was retiring or pitching for the Marlins this year, by the sounds of it.

So not really a sure thing as far as being productive in 2012 goes. Surgery is listed as, “debridement labrum & bursa & rotator cuff”

Fail.

… I am resigned to it

(j/k)

However, I’d take issue with the idea that we didn’t stockpile arms in 2011.

Remember, at this time last year, we had a starting rotation of: Lester/Beckett/Buchholz/Lackey and Dice K, with Wakefield still hanging around as an emergency starter and this Alfredo Aceves guy that was a potential starter.

Behind that, we had Doubront (who had looked reasonably good in 2010, and might have earned a rotation spot in ST except for the whole out of shape issue), Weiland, the Andrew Miller experiment, Tazawa eventually coming back from his injury, Kevin Millwood and I feel like a few other guys with opt-out, low risk minor league deals.

That seems like a hell of a lot more depth than we have right now. We don’t even have the front six that we had heading into 2011 (results are all fine in hindsight, but that looked like depth last year), nevermind anyone with the potential of Aceves/Miller in the depth guys. Mostly, it looks like we’ve got a lot of Millwoods in the Padilla/Cook/Silva signings, and less promise in the Andrew Miller experiment (even if he worked with Cliff Lee during the offseason).

I hope I’m wrong but…

I am not on this “John Cusack, Mayan Calender, the world will end in 2012” attitude that seems to represent the majority of the people who post on this site.

Red Sox still have quality players at a level similar to other teams who are competing for the AL title. No reason why the Sox cannot get hot and win 100.

… though, he is still with the Astros, right? I feel like we’d have kicked those tires before the Lowrie trade, if there was an opportunity there.

I just think once the free agents are gone, other teams may try to hold us for a king’s ransom.

I just can’t imagine the Sox taking on his salary if they aren’t willing to offer more than $5-6 million to Oswalt and Jackson

The Mariners were supposed to contend with Lee and Felix two years ago, but ended up sellers and trading within the division to the Rangers.

So… until we get there, we won’t really know. Of course, Bedard should be available from the Pirates, but… um…