So that was quite the week, eh? The Red Sox didn't sign anyone. No one played any baseball games. There was a football game of notable unpleasantness. I got nothing, folks. It's the second week in February, and it's sunny and 50 in Boston. I'm not even sure where I live anymore.

This is a raw time of year for those in the writing-about-baseballing business. No games to report on. No free agents left, except for Roy Oswalt, who's still holed up in his volcano lair. Even so, I think we managed to put together a pretty solid week of Red Sox coverage and analysis here at Over the Monster.

To the recapping!

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It's been another relatively slow February day in the baseball world aside from an arbitration case that apparently was not, but there's still a few things going on in Red Sox Nation.

First, for the TMZ angle, we've got Kevin Youkilis, who's apparently engaged to one Julie Brady. Good for him! But the story goes from barely a bullet point to a minor media frenzy when you realize that this Brady is related to the other Brady, being Tom Brady's sister. Good on Youk for keeping it within the Boston, uh, family. Now can anyone dig up a connection between Kelli Pedroia and Paul Pierce?

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Alright, now that that's over with, onto things actually baseball related, like the presence of quite a few players at Boston's new spring training facility down in Florida.

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Earlier today, our newest writer Brendan called out Jon Heyman on going back to the old, tired angle of blaming Liverpool for all of Boston's problems. It's a great piece, so go read it, again if necessary.

Now, Brendan looked at this from the perspective of the Red Sox and their spending, pointing out that Payroll is just as high as ever and the only thing John Henry can be accused of is not matching the Yankees. I'm going to come at this from the other side. Thanks to the enthusiasm of my roommates, I have in the past year (I am ashamed to say?) become a fan of the English Premiere League, in particular Arsenal FC.

While I by no means claim to be an authority on the league or anything like that, this has led me to pay some more attention to the realities of the EPL, and helped me pick up on a bit of what John Henry's doing. And while we've tried to keep Liverpool as far away from this site as possible over the past year-and-a-half, this line of attack doesn't seem to be going away in the media, so here we are.

Let's take a look at how things go on across the Atlantic after the jump.

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[Update 10:45 am] Maybe not, says Buster Olney. And Paoletti's original tweet about the signing no longer exists. As of this moment, Ortiz and the Red Sox do not have a deal in place.

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Mary Paoletti of Comcast SportsNet New England tweets that, during an interview with sister station NECN, Larry Lucchino announced that David Ortiz and the Red Sox have an agreement in place, and will avoid Monday's scheduled arbitration hearing.

There is no word on the terms as of yet, but given the team president and CEO Lucchino dropped the news, it's likely a done deal.

Ortiz had filed for arbitration at $16.5 million after he and the Red Sox were unable to come to a deal in December. That figure marked a significant raise from last year's $12.5 million base salary, and just as far from the Red Sox' $12.65 million filing. Ortiz stood to make the most ever in an arbitration hearing, regardless of which side won, according to Maury Brown of Biz of Baseball:

The highest amount ever awarded in a hearing is $10 million (Howard won his case in 2007, while Francisco Rodriguez with the Brewers in 2007 and Alfonso Soriano with the Nationals in 2005 lost their cases). Win or lose, Ortiz smashes that number due to his long-tenure.

Both sides will avoid that, as Ortiz, like so many others who filed for a high figure prior to arbitration, settled away from the judge. This also means the Red Sox can continue their decade-long streak of avoiding arbitration -- the last arbitration case that went in front of a judge was that of Rolando Arrojo in 2002. You forgot he existed, didn't you?

Stop me if you've heard this one: Why did John Henry cross the road? He didn't, because he was too busy watching soccer! (ba-dum-bum) Lame as that joke is, I'm fairly certain the thirty seconds I spent thinking it up is more time than Jon Heyman spent deliberating before posting this little gem yesterday. Did you guys know that the Red Sox haven't spent much money this offseason? And that the rotation isn't yet set? And also that there might be (gasp) a platoon at shortstop? Crazy, right?

So timeliness isn't exactly the strong suit of the column. But really, it's not the weakest point. The weakest point is, well, everything else. It's as though Heyman took every straw man argument, every overblown critique, and every piece of pointless front-office mind-reading that's flown around Boston since the Cherington era started, and distilled it into 2-buck vodka. And life's too short to drink 2-buck vodka.

The central argument of the piece is threefold: first, that the Red Sox cheaped out this winter; second, that this has left the team fatally flawed; and third, that this can all be directly attributed to John Henry prioritizing the Liverpool Football Club. So let's take a look at each of these attacks, and see if any of them hold water.

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Garbage garbage garbage.

Link time!

When a new manager is hired, there's always a breaking in period. The players get to know what he likes, what he values, and what he thinks is important just as he gets to know the players, and their strengths and weaknesses. The same is also true of fans. After eight years of Terry Francona at the helm, just seeing Bobby Valentine in the dugout could be a confusing and traumatic thing. Fortunately, Tim Britton, cognizant of all this invented garbage, has undertaken to learn him some Valentine using the virtual pages of The Providence Journal to do so. Specifically, Mr. Britton spoke with Valentine recently and found out something interesting: Valentine doesn't believe in pitch counts. Not like he doesn't believe in [cover your eyes, kids] Santa Claus or the Tooth Fairy, but Valentine believes that different pitchers have different endurance thresholds. I have to say, that kind of nuance and subtlety is going to go over really well with some of the screamers on talk radio. Of course, there's some intended irony to that statement, as media screamer was actually Valentine's past job.

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Early this morning, Peter Gammons reported via Twitter that Rich Harden was taking the 2012 season off to attempt a comeback in 2013. Harden underwent surgery last week to repair a torn shoulder capsule that he has pitched with for years. That's not a minor injury, and surgery is no guarantee of a return -- ask Mark Prior about shoulder capsules some time -- but given the way Harden has bounced back-and-forth from the active roster to the disabled list over the years, it was time to give the procedure a shot.

This also sheds light on just what it was the Red Sox were scared off by, when the almost-but-not-quite trade for Harden fell apart on the eve of last year's July 31 trade deadline. Knowing Harden is injury-prone is one thing -- the Red Sox did trade for Erik Bedard hours later, after all -- but knowing he is injury-prone because he has a torn shoulder capsule is something else entirely.

The risk of Harden not being around to finish out the season was high, and Boston was desperate for starting pitching help, but not that desperate. Considering Harden gave up 1.9 homers per nine innings and posted a 5.57 ERA over his final 10 starts of 2011 -- this despite pitching in one of the pitcher-friendliest stadiums in the game -- being healthy enough to stay off of the DL wasn't exactly a winning situation either.

While the Red Sox never seemed to be in on Harden -- likely due to those medical records they saw last July -- they absolutely will not be getting him now, and neither will anyone else. Harden has always had loads of talent, so here's hoping that this surgery is what he needed to get his career back on track.

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