In response to Kingface12's comment:

The same way the CC deal was a bad deal before the ink dried.

In response to BarberNJ's comment:

And how many balls went through the hole in Sept/Oct last season?

 

I'm not getting this: we skimp on offense vs RHPs to improve our OF defense (Shane), but then trade it all back and then some by greatly diminishing our SS "D" for an offensive upgrade vs RHPs.

It's all backwards.

Call me "fussypants" if you need to vent, but this is getting worse not better.

Good signing.  Definate upgrade, Drew is a little above average SS and he can hit.   Iggy is not ready, he just can't hit and he may never hit.  Just because Theo claimed him to be the next Sox SS when he drafted him and signed him to the big minor league deal, doesnt mean he's any good.  Maybe Drew will be a stop gap if Iggy somehow crushes the ball in AAA but I somehow doubt that.  

it is true the crawford deal was terrible from the start - just like the lugo deal, the matusaka, lackey, and jd drew deals were, but it's also true that crawford was for 7 @ 142 and this is 1 @ 9.5. the point might be that the sox are overpaying for a bunch of mediocre talent, which is hard to dispute, but the impact of these "bad" signings cannot be compared to the kind of huge, colossal mistakes that crippled the franchise. you can completely disagree with the red sox purported philsophy of sorts of doing shorter term FA contracts (with a premium added for fewer years) but as walter in the big lebowski said, "say what you want about the tenets of national socialism dude, at least it's an ethos." 

This post has been removed.

In response to bt33's comment:

I would probably agree that $142M of bad money (money spent on crahp) spread over 7 years may be worse than $160M+ spreead out over 3 years to 8 players, but come on, we are spending about $77M this year on this... 

$39M/3 Victorino

$39M/3 Napoli

$26.5M/2 Dempster 

$26M/2 Papi 

$10M/2 Gomes

$9.5M/1 S Drew

$6.2M/2 D Ross

$4.25M/1 Uehara

Yeah, it's only "short term", but in 2014 we will be paying about $60M for SV/MN/DO/RD/JG/DR. That's an average of $10M per scrub.

You can also think of either Drew or Iggy as a bench player or depth at that position.

Yes, I feel much better viewing Drew as a $10M dollar back-up SS.

In response to moonslav59's comment:

 

Fussywussypants

"""Yes, I feel much better viewing Drew as a $10M dollar back-up SS..""        Nice       Kinda like reading the funnies on a Sun morn. 

In response to moonslav59's comment:

Moon,

We dont exactly know what the Sox thinking is, except the fact that they think another full year of AB's at AAA will help the still only 22yr old Iglesias. After 2013 he will start his 3 years of arbitration. Right now they would get nothing for him in a trade. He has hit enough at every level to warrant a starting job except MLB. After 2013 we will know if Iggy will be able to hit MLB pitching and if Bogy will stick at SS. All while Marerro is developing too. none of those guys are even 23 yet. I dont know why people are in such a rush to get the prospects here before their time. None of them are Trout, Harper, Strasburg, etc., and are not forcing us to promote them because theyre dominating the lower levels. Guys still need work.

Drew can be traded at the deadline if need be. Most of these guys can be traded if need be. They are trying to go to 2 years for Naps because they didnt like what the physicals showed in his hip. As of right now, Napoli might never even step foot in fenway as a red sox player. Long way to go until ST and lot can still happen before then.

Let them play the games and see where it goes from there. In 2011 I thought this team was unstoppable, but was taught the lesson once again that baseball isnt played on a piece of paper.

We have good news and bad news.   First , the bad news : Ben is signing a bunch of ham and eggers to excessively high contracts .  The good news :  They are not long contracts.

In response to dgalehouse's comment:

Which was the plan all along. Not sure why some here are surprised. Not completely thrilled about some names, but I know the guys we did sign will play the game hard and the right way. Ill go into the season with mild expectations, knowing that they are at least headed in the right direction.

If you just look at the players and not the money you can see a team forming that will be solid at every position.  While not superstars this team could compete.  We were never going to compete with guys like Beckett running the show.  There are only a couple of those guys left so they will be the minority now.  I understand BC not going with the prospects.  They proved they are not ready last year.  If they were (like Middlebrooks) they would have made a better case last year when the opportunity was there.  

If Stephen's best attribute is that he can be traded at the deadline, that should tell us something.

 

One of the few bright spots I saw in the 2013 season was that we were finally going to see what a great fielding SS can do. It wa one of the few things I, personally, looked forward to.

 

I do think Iggy has trade value, but he probably has more value to us as insurance in case SD gets hurt or as a late inning defensive replacment, but then again, how much value is that for a last place team.

In response to Mchampion's comment:

Were not a low budget team that needs to play the "kids" before they are ready, or at least closer to ready. The beautiful thing about being a large market team with a big budget is we can overpay certain FA to fill holes instead of exposing a prospect when hes not ready yet.

People whine about $$$ spent, but theyre not realizing that is an advantage that we have over a number of teams and should be appreciative we are in such a position.

No deal is more than 3 years. All the players acquired, while not MVP caliber, are gamers and play hard. Good clubhouse guys (yes, thats important) and can be used at more than one position.

Now, we can bring the "kids" along at a good pace and not throw them into the fire before theyre ready and field a competitive team.

People whine about $$$ spent, but theyre not realizing that is an advantage that we have over a number of teams and should be appreciative we are in such a position.

I realize it all too well, and that's why it hurst even more to see us squandering our advantage.

  I'd like to think Drew might be playing some 3B and or 1B as well.  And I wouldn't mind if Ciriaco wasn't here.

  Either way, Stephen Drew for 10 million is really hard to believe.

This post has been removed.

In response to Hingham Hammer's comment:

History tells us that teams that rely this heavily on free agents get older fast.

In response to moonslav59's comment:

I really like to know who you could get for him? Can you give us some examples?

In response to Seeger88's comment:

No. That wasn't my plan A, B or C, but I'd still rather spend the same amount of money and get guys that will be on the uptick in 2014 and beyond, not in the nursing home, or whose performance level is so much higher that even in decline, they'd be more helpful in 2014, 2015 and maybe beyond than these guys.

Let's see, on a spending big mentality plan (not my plan) for $160M, maybe we could have gotten Sanchez ($80/5), Napoli ($27M/2), Pagan ($41M/4), McCarthy ($16M/2), Uehara ($4/1)

This is less per year and only Sanchez is 5 yrs.

My plans had these basic ideas in mind:

1) All moves should help in 2014 and beyond. If they help in 2013 (along the way) it's a plus.

2) Keep the budget cleared for a better FA class in 2014.

3) Try and keep some top prospects to help after 2013.

 

I'd have prefered to trade away all our FAs to be (Ells, Salty, Breslow) and get the draft pick for Papi.

Then, I'd sign younger guys like McCarthy and make trades for guys like Myers or J Upton and Brett Anderson.

In response to hill55's comment:

We got a lot younger after the Dodger trade... now this...

HIJOLE!

smart move, if he has a huge year we will get compensation pick next year. 

I really like to know who you could get for him? Can you give us some examples?

The guy is still young, has 4 years of team control, and is a Sox top 10 prospect. As part of a package, we could get something of value from someone, but as I said, I think he's probably worth more to us, in case Drew gets hurt in 2013  or Bogaerts is moved to 3B or 1B by 2014.

I was happy to have him at SS for us in 2013. I think a couple GMs might feel like I do about the great value of a defenswive whiz at SS.

In response to moonslav59's comment:

there's no disputing the fact that the third year in particular for victorino and napoli could come back to haunt them and that tying up this money could prevent them from making certain moves next year in free agency. in terms of "value" there is little doubt they are getting short-changed, though wrongly or rightly I think there's some level of consciousness on the part of the front office/owenership that this is the case.

I guess my only response is that IF you buy the basic philosophy (and I know that's a big if for a lot of people) that this team needed some fiscal responsibility and had to stop with the horrible long term flyers, perhaps this is a better approach? one still has to acknowledge that if you sign mediocre players to shorter contracts you still have mediocre players however. in terms of free agency, I guess the opposite approach would have been to go after greinke, hamilton, and sanchez and forget stockpiling lesser talent to fill the gaps. they also theoretically could have traded some of their top young talent for quality players. they did have a lot of holes to fill though and not making moves was going to likely lead to another season like last year. this to me seems like an attempt to stay the course by putting a reasonably competitive team on the field for the next few years. I realize not everyone thinks they've done that. 

now, they never should have been in this spot in the first place, because the leadership shouldn't have made bad, hueg money deals, but they're in the spot they're in. Ideally, they would have had an overiding philosohoy that would have prevented some of the horrendous moves that were made, but they didn't. the front office was in dissarray and maybe it still is.

if the kids were ready to go now I'd say these latest moves would block young talent from getting into the line-up, but that isn't the case right now. perhaps beginning in 2014 some issues might start in that regard - i guess we'll see. there's no doubt that some of these decisions are based an fan appeasement, which is part of what got them in trouble before - making deals to create headlines and sell tickets/promote the "brand". perhaps these, in their own way, are no better than some of the longer deals they made before - at least then they were swinging for the fences... ?

of the signings, only ueahara made absolute sense and the rest of the guys come with issues (injury/age/down years/fielding deficiencies, etc). year one and two they're probably overpaying about 12 million per or so to get out of the additional years. this is not totally insignificant, but don't know that this team was going to completely turn it around right away no matter what they did. As built, assuming decent seasons from bucholtz, lester, and Bailey I see this as about a .500 team (perhaps a little better/worse). 

again, this is far from a dream and so I understand anyone really unhappy with this personnel, but these moves are also being influenced by the mistakes of the past that put them in a postition where they needed to acquire players to fill a roster riddled with holes. this fan base would definitely not stand still for them not spending 150 million or more and they'll likely climb to 170 at this rate. 

the obvious better plan would have been to sign younger players and build in a real, organic way, but they'd never do that because they'd be too afraid the fan base wouldn't accept another season below .500 with them spending well below their capability. in order to do this you've got to take the hit for a few years with a roster that include players who are growing on the job, ala oakland and other small market teams. just not the way it works here and probably never will be.