Lateral Quicks wrote:I don't see how the Red Sox can compete next year, which is apparently what they're trying to do. They've now traded away 3/5ths of their opening day starting rotation, and in return they get a fringe - though young - starter, a decent offensive player who's having a terrible year and carries a substantial contract, and a decent outfielder who's only signed for one more year. With starting pitching so expensive, and with a mediocre offense, I really don't see how they fill out that team. They'll have to spend a lot of money, that's for sure.
I can't say it'll work, but if you see a huge market team acquiring inexpensive assets for next year and leaving a gaping hole, I think you can assume they plan on filling that hole with giant buckets of cash.
In that vein, I'm sure it helped to deal Lester to Oak, as they know for a certainty Beane won't be in the market to keep Lester. MIL probably would've been better in case Lester realizes he likes sunshine and an LA team throws money at him, but otherwise they probably like their chances getting him to agree to take their money if it's equal to other teams.
Bring Lester back, but now with Cespedes just bouncing flyballs off the monster all day behind Papi and spend another 28-30m more on Scherzer or Shields. Let Kelly fill the 5th role 'til June to avoid potential super 2 on Owens or Ranaudo, use Webster and the rest of what's there to battle for the spots in the middle and things could work perfectly. Maybe get really crazy and spend 25m again to finally bring Hanley home and play 3B. Of course that's a dozen things that have to go right and requires allocating a half a billion in future salary, but they'll likely get enough of it to still look better next year than this year. Being a GM is so much easier when you have 50m or more extra to spend over your competitors.