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Signing 32 year old guys to 4-5 year deals in order to win today is foolish.

We can't sign young superstars. They aren't eligible for FA until they are old guys. We'd love to sign Ryan Howard to a 6-year deal. We need a 1B with power and he would be perfect long-term. Edgar wasn't supposed to give up 30 errors. No one in baseball saw that coming. He hit about as well as we thought, so that was fine. Clement is only a 3 year committment-- now only a two year one. The Yanks own Pavano for one more year than we own Clement.

Next year could be a trying year for Red Sox fans so we'll see how they deal with a team that wins 85 games and misses the postseason, if that's what happens.

In hindsight, O-Cab at $7M would have been smarter, but Eckstein would have been even smarter-- and no one saw that coming.

One thing the Sox are doing began with Hansen-- signing "unsignable" 1st round draft picks to major league deals. Poor teams can't do that. Too risky-- and it is a risk, maybe as much as signing these FAs Gammo thinks is so stupid. We could have had Mark Teixeira manning 1B since '03, but we were interested in signing known quantities to big deals instead of risky draftable players. I think that's changed permanently. We probably could have had Kazmir, I bet, too (we would have had to really spend a lot to outbid the Mets). The baseball draft is weird because teams won't draft players if the player makes it known they won't sign with that team because a better offer is available with a different team.

I just hope the Yanks, Mets and Angels don't fully adopt this strategy-- at least not for a few years while we snap up risky prospects that pay off huge!

You can't sign them, you have to draft them, manage them intelligently through the minors and then resist the urge to trade them in haste just to try and make the playoffs. By the way, how'd you like the D played by Adam Everett last night? We could have saved ourselves big $$$ by not trading him for Jurassic Carl or we could have had Bagwell for 15 years instead of Captain Belch, Larry Anderson. Mike Boddiker for Brady Anderson and Curt Schilling? Eckstein was in the Sox system and was let go.

This just reeks of poor scouting and talent evaluation and the "have to win now" mentality. I realize that not every prospect works out in the long run but look at the A's today as well as their players all over the league. They figured it out as did Cleveland.

The Sox did okay with Kevin Millar (*2/3 years), Bill Mueller, Todd Walker, K-Horn (year one), Timlin, Embree (2/3 years) and Wells. Wells cost them good money but it was all incentive based and a great move by Theo. You win with guys like that. The Yankees did that with O'Neill, Tino Martinez, Knobloch, Brochus mixed in with some superstars and great pitching.

The Sox fans have to get over the fact that they cannot spend like the Yankees and they have a choice to make. Are they willing to play the game of having to be appeased for 86 years of failure or having gotten a wonderful WS are they willing to rebuild and contend for years? $100 million payroll can get you to the dance with some stars, role players and exciting young guys that make them a lot of fun to watch.