***World Champion Red Sox Offseason Thread***

[NT!]

i have been refusing to jump on the santana bandwagon because he has thrown a lot lot lot of innings and he seemed to decline last year for no particular reason. he hasn't pitched well in fenway (small sample size, i know) and he will basically have to be picture [censored] perfect in every possible way in order for the ass clown boston media to accept him in the same town as saint beckett. a couple of bad starts or a DL stint and all you'll hear the WEEIdiots talking about is the 20 million dollar BUST who couldn't handle the spotlight and doesn't have any heart, and how we gave up cancer boy just to keep him away from the yankees.

that said, getting him without giving up buchholz or jacoby just seems insane. unfortunately what it means is that masterson will be the next joe nathan, lester will morph into andy pettite etc etc.

[Scary_Tiger]

[ QUOTE ]
i have been refusing to jump on the santana bandwagon because he has thrown a lot lot lot of innings and he seemed to decline last year for no particular reason.

[/ QUOTE ]

I certainly think it's mostly variance. The guy is just sick, he had a higher ERA this year, but there's no indication that it wasn't variance.

2004 228 IP 156 H 24 HR 54 BB 265 SO
2005 232 IP 180 H 22 HR 45 BB 238 SO
2006 234 IP 186 H 24 HR 47 BB 245 SO
2007 219 IP 183 H 33 HR 52 BB 235 SO

The guy is a great hit preventer, won the gold glove in 2007 so is probably a decent fielder, averaged 225 innings a year, 9.7 K/9 and 4.9 K/BB are really sick. He gives up some homeruns, but a 1 HR/9 is respectable and his HR numbers only look a little high because he throws so many innings. For an idea of what HR/9 looks like, 2006 Josh Beckett was a 1.6 whereas 2007 Josh Beckett was a .77. Santana has also averaged 33.5 starts since he became a starter.

[Zutroy]

He is slowing down a touch, it would seem, as his HR/G shot up quite a lot last year but it could just be variance (though his xFIP has risen every year since 04). However, I still think he is worth the proposed package. Keeping both Ellsbury and Buchholz is pretty sick.

[VickreyAuction]

BP article with who masterson and lowrie are, what they've done, what they project as

[NT!]

the word now seems to be that the sox would consider adding ellsbury if the twins add somebody else too. i kinda think the sox have been pretending ellsbury is more untouchable than he is and plan to use him as a trump card if need be. something along the lines of ellsbury, lester, masterson and lowrie for santana and neshek sounds pretty good to me.

[SL__72]

I would be shocked if the Twins traded Neshek.

[Dynasty]

Trading Elsbury and Lester (with others) to get Santana looks good to me.

Becket/Santana/Matsuzaka/Bucholtz is a dominating top 4. It looks like a World Series winning rotation.