7 replies to this topic

[Brett]

Everyone knows the Red Sox staff was undermanned this year, beset by injuries and ineffectiveness. But was that a fluke, or a Theo Epstein problem?

MLBTradeRumors went through Boston's rotation during the Epstein years with some interesting results (h/t to Toosh).

http://www.mlbtrader...g-pitching.html

In only three of his seasons (out of eight) did the Red Sox have an "above average" rotation. Given the Sox's spending habits, that's not very good.

It still doesn't scare me enough to not want Theo, but it's interesting. Thoughts?

[MichiganGoat]

It doesn't scare me but I hope (and believe it will happen cause its just good business and interviewing) that Rickett's really focuses on his pitching choices. I imagine part of this is due to competeing with the Yankees. Its possible that Theo (and his boss/owner) decided to out bid the Yankees on Dice-K and Lackey to keep them out of pinstripes. However if you compare the success of Yankees in terms of pitching its easy to see who were the REAL losers.

I know most of us see the two WS rings and say YES THEO IS MY MAN, but it's a smart move for Ricketts to look for red flags just because he won two WS.

[Buck]

Needless to say, after 100-plus years and the general red-assedness of New Englanders, there's a lot more patience in this organization than with the Sawks. Theo was put in high-pressure situations to keep up with and sometimes outbid the Yanks and therefor that meant maybe sometimes over-spending for a turd like Lackey or Dice-K if not for the simple fact of keeping him away from the Yanks but also because I assume he was oft-pressured into trading away prospects (Anibel Sanchez, Justin Masterson, Casey Kelly, etc.) for immediate help in the rat-race AL East. I'd like to think, given a little more breathing room in a more patient organization and a less competitive division, that Theo would be able to hold on to the pieces he picked and developed opposed to trading them and then in turn, wouldn't need to sign veteran free-agent arms that rarely seem to live up to their price tags anyways. I'm on the Friedman wagon but I think this article is a bit misleading in the way it paints Theo's decisions as it pertains to how he could handle the Cubs.

[Oswego Chris]

love the "Sawks" referrence, that's great...I don't think we as Cub fans can quite grasp the whole Yankee/Red Sox spending thing...the Yankees met with Crawford's agent just to make the Red Sox spend more...their rivalry is much more like the actual Cold War in that it is a total fight for supremecy in all areas ...so Theo had to spend, because he couldn't lose to the Yankees off the field as well...those pitchers don't scare me off...what's Cashman's rotation look like this year?

give me Theo or Friedman and I am a happy man...

[MichiganGoat]

Buck and Philoe those are my thoughts as well and I'm sure Ricketts has been thorough in his research.

[EQ76]

I think we'd all take the Red Sox 90+ wins per year and be happy with it.. I could care less if he makes an occasional bad starting pitching choice if we still have 90+ wins.

[King Jeff]

To be fair, not many of the Yankees high dollar free agent signings of starting pitchers have worked out either. Come to think of it, I'm pretty sure the success rate is lower than you would think around the league. Of the top of my head: Barry Zito, Mike Hampton, AJ Burnett, Jason Schimdt, Carl Pavano, Kei Igawa, Hideki Matsui, Kevin Brown, Johan Santana, it kind of makes you hope the Cubs go the trade route for pitching, doesn't it?

[Fearbobafett]

Let's also not forget that the Cubs were rumored to have the second highest bid on Dice K, so that could be yet another contract on our books.

I thought that the Lackey signing was solid except for the number of years. Pitching overall is a crap shoot, it should always be buyer beware. We could probably go through almost every team and come up with 3-5 guys that were overpaid for thier time and didn't pan out.