Shop a Starting Pitcher?

With the depth the Sox have at starting pitcher, they are in a great position to trade from a position of strength if the return is right. I don't think there is a rush to make a move. There could always be an injury in spring. If not, Dempster can move to the bullpen. Owens will start the year in AA. Britton is almost certainly a reliever at this point and there is a chance Workman and De La Rosa are in the bullpen to start the year as well. Barnes and Ranaudo need more AAA seasoning and I don't think you want to count on Webster at this point as one of your top 5.

If the return is right I would consider moving virtually any of the top 6 starters. Of course Lester, Buchholz, Lackey, and Doubront would take more than Peavy or Dempster. If the Red Sox eventually have to move one and there isn't a knock-your-sox-off kind of deal available, I would just assume dump Dempster for as much salary relief as possible. I could also see the Sox moving one of the prospects (most likely Ranaudo IMO) as the center piece of other roster upgrades should the need arise.

I think chavopepe2 has the right idea. No need to rush into a deal. Buchholz is always good for an injury. The Sox will need their depth. Dempster is more of a sure bet than Workman right now, but that's not saying anything given how mediocre Dempster is. Workman might benefit more from starting at AAA to start the season and if the Sox have an injury right off the bat Dempster might be more of a fit, but as the season wears on I see very little reason to have Dempster around.

The Sox can certainly use the payroll flexibility so they can assess what they need most come July 31st.

Dempster is the obvious candidate to go given that he's the worst of the six starters.

Peavy gets lumped in with Dempster a lot and I think that comes from how bad he looked his last two starts. I tend to think that he made a big change in his delivery and did it on the fly at an odd time, and I think that affected him. I'd like to see what he can do with his original delivery given a proper spring training following the off-season. He could recoup a lot of his value and perhaps pitch as well as Lackey did in 2013.

As the season wears on I would think Workman, Webster, and Ranaudo would be candidates to step into the rotation if the need arises.

I will disagree with JackieWilson (unless I misread his post) that a package starting with Webster has any shot whatsoever of bringing in George Springer from Houston. That's fantasy. Springer is going nowhere - Houston will be building around him, and with Choo gone, Hamilton will be in CF for the Reds if he hits enough.

I would think any depth the Sox get in CF would be of the backup variety and perhaps Dempster could be used in that type of deal. The Sox had Castellanos and got him pretty cheaply. Guys like that can be had, but barring injury, I would expect Bradley to hold his own offensively and play great defensively.

You read me correctly.

I saw Webster as a starting point.
I would include a couple other top 50 guys including a catcher and a top 50 lower level guy together this done.
Jake Marisnick of the Marlins or even Marcell Ozuna for Webster might work as well.

Let's not make this a thread for proposing trades. We've got a whole subforum for that and those discussions have been going on all offseason.

I disagree somewhat with the depth because you need to take context into the equation, but you're close. Britton isn't a candidate to fill in for a spot start. Nor are Barnes or Owens until late in the year because neither are on the 40 man roster and are the furthest from the majors. I think they'll want De La Rosa to get some consistent work further removed from TJS, so he's not a call-up candidate but rather a spot start to reward good performance. Really, your SP depth is limited to Dempster, Workman, Webster and Wright. Each of whom is context based, too. I think Dempster is traded, so I'll ignore him for now*.
Based on how the organization (Farrell) has gushed about Workman all offseason I think he's the first guy they give a chance to. He gets the "oh crap, Clay's septum deviated and he can't start today" starts. If there's a longer fill-in then Webster is given the shot because of his upside and the organization's need of a young starter to take over a rotation spot in 2015. Finally, Wright is plenty good enough to fill in for spot starts when Workman and Webster are unavailable.

*Dempster:
The SP market is waiting for the Tanaka market to drop; following that you have Garza, Santana** and Jiminez. Additional wildcard is Price but let's ignore him, too. Once those 4 are off the market you'll see teams that need to add arms to shore up their rotations. I wouldn't be surprised to see Boston trade Dempster to LAA or ARI.

**Santana:
How in all hells did this non-tender candidate from last offseason suddenly become a worthwhile starter? He's a mid-rotation starter who will give you innings. Since Dempster has become a starter again, he's been a 2.5-3 win pitcher, 2013 notwithstanding. Santana is way more up-and-down, but over the life of a contract is probably a 2-3 win/season pitcher. I don't get the industry buzz over this guy.

And this is really the difference now, a deal removing a starter really only opens up a spot for a Webster or Workman to get their shot.

In general though, I really think people are distracted by the $500k option on Lackey and failing to consider his age. If he can return some good pieces, I'm all over that. Though there are exceptions, 35 year old pitchers with his skill set typically start (or are already in) a steep decline at this point. Sell high.

IIRC, the $500k option is voided if Lackey is traded.  Therefore, he is worth a lot more to the Sox than to anyone else.  He's likely going nowhere.

I believe we looked into this and decided it was false. There have been no confirmed reports that Lackey's option voids if traded-- just an MLBTR link to a tweet that was subsequently deleted. Lackey does gain 10-and-5 rights (the right to veto any trade) after the 2014 season, though.

Right now trading Dempster merely to clear payroll makes no sense. The Red Sox are in a good spot right now as far as payroll goes and have no need to clear Dempster unless they sign another player.

The only way you trade Dempster in my view assuming the roster is just about set, is if you are getting something valuable in return like a young corner OF prospect that you could slip into RF in 2016 after Victorino is gone.

The Red Sox do have some intriguing pitching prospects, but not a single one has demonstrated consistently at the top levels the complete set of skills necessary to be a successful starting pitcher in the majors. I don't mean that to imply that some won't, just that they haven't so far.

With that as a caveat, I will add a couple more. Who knows what kind of pitcher Buchholz will be next season? And Dempster really shouldn't be a starter for this team.

So, maybe the Sox really only have four reliable major league starters.

Barring an opportunity to make a significant upgrade at a weaker position, I think it would be risky for the Sox to trade any SPs until they see what they have in the spring.

I agree but even then they still have a $13M pitcher who although he threw a lot of innings last year, wasn't all that effective.  I doubt you could get a team to eat most of the salary, $10-$13M.  But you might get a team to give you a prospect if the Red Sox were eating the entire boat. 

Unless significant payroll is added to the roster, I wouldn't give him up unless I got our projected future starting RF in return.

I also agree that it doesn't make sense to trade Dempster now unless you are either getting a good return OR you are specifically moving the payroll to reallocate to another expense.

Also, I think you are right on about one of the primary questions for this teams future: Victorino's replacement in RF. Virtually every position other than RF and 1B has a long term solution either in the majors or in the high minors - and in some cases there are multiple layers of options. I suspect the Red Sox will be heavily involved in the 2016 RF market, which at this time looks quite strong (crossing my fingers Jason Heyward makes it to free agency!)