What Can Be Done to Fix the Sox?

They can play bad teams like the A's more.

Can you read, pal? I said those guys could have been used as part of a package to get useful ML pieces. I never mentioned Donaldson, Stanton or Price. 

I recall reading comments from a GM in a Gammons Sunday Notes column years ago about how the most important scouting a team does is the scouting of its own young players. You need to be able to tell whether Lars Anderson is going to be a middle-of-the-order bat or fizzle out. Getting the evaluation right can also help you avoid trading Jason Varitek and Derek Lowe for Heathcomb Slocum.

Obviously no organization is going to be perfect at this. There are going to be misses. But it's important to be skilled at evaluating your young guys and trading the right ones at the height of their value rather than waiting until they've turned into Bryce Brentz or Lars Anderson.

Not to single you out, but I really disagree with this.  While drafting is a crapshoot, the amazing thing is that the Sox got almost nothing out of the 2007-2011 drafts despite spending lots of overslot money.  That has created organizational holes that the RS have not been able to fix.

Right. Of course, teams consider draft picks important. That's why they put so much analysis and scouting into trying to get them right.

In fairness to Theo, though, the 2007 draft did produce Anthony Rizzo. But the 2008, 2009 and 2010 drafts were bad.

When you find a team that doesn't miss on a draft pick in MLB, check to see if they can walk on water. It's much more of a crapshoot than football, basketball or hockey. Baseball hitters just don't face good pitching while scouting them, it's way more projection than the other sports. Do some research on Top 10 picks who never make it. Then compare it to other sports. Not even close.

Thanks for the spreadsheet. The $112 million bottom-line it lists for 2016 is quite misleading, though. It doesn't count Ortiz, whose option is likely to vest based on his 2015 PAs, so add $16 million or so right there. It assumes a $245,000 buyout for Clay, not the $13 million he'll make if the team picks up the option. (Can they afford not to pick up the option? He leads the staff in FIP and WAR and in today's BB $13 million is practically bargain basement for a decent SP.)

It also doesn't include benefits and those count toward the luxury tax. And the values it lists are year-to-year salaries, not the AAVs.

Finally, if the RS come in at $189 million or more this year, they're probably going to want to stay below it in 2016.

You mean after his 10-year career as a starter?

I have a different take. 2012, 2014, and 2015....and the collapse of 2011 too happened mostly because of the underperformance of old players. The best way to fix an aging roster is to bring younger players on to the major league roster. In most cases that takes time. If you don't have players like that, that are ready to explode on the major league scene, you are going to have to suck it up for a while and then trade the valuable veteran talent that you do have for even more young talent. That takes time however as young players always take longer to make it than you think. Look at the Royals. Generally speaking the problem of an aging core of talent can't be fixed in one off-season, and if you try you'll only push yourself further away from the promised land as the Cubs and Astros both did before hiring new regimes.

The Sox of course can't admit to their fans that they are building for the future, else folks start to scream. So they shipped off pending free agents for major league talent, signed big name free agents, and force fed younger players to the big leagues with minimal AAA experience. No I don't know what deals were available, but you can't tell me that the Red Sox could not have traded Lackey and Lester for strong minor league talent. Instead they traded both players and ended up with more underperforming veterans. Even the Peavy deal was for two lower upside high minors arms as opposed to higher upside talent that was further away.

Unless the Red Sox look in the mirror and accept that they have an aging underperforming core that needs some time to be replaced. They need to supplement their already strong cadre of prospects with even more talent. They cannot afford to give up draft picks, sign veterans to long-term deals, or to keep veterans that might bring them even more young talent. Really they have been trying the same thing since missing the playoffs in 2010 and it hasn't worked. If they keep doing it, we'll be sitting here next year at this time in last place with jmei swearing that Daniel Nava will turn it around soon and all we need is a couple of tweaks to be ready for 2017,

I think it's inevitable that overtime they will under perform and they have done just that. Even with The Yanks payroll you won't win if your core players are old.

Whatever the Red Sox do, it should include getting JBJ some real at bats at a Major League level. It's hard to believe that a player who is so capable of doing what he has consistently done in AAA can't hit enough to be a valuable player with THAT glove.

This is not a player to give up on as easily as the Red Sox seem willing to do.

Yeah, it's not really a philosophical thing-- they've sometimes traded prospects/young players (Masterson, Rizzo, Reddick, Lowrie, Iglesias, De La Rosa) and sometimes kept them. The argument instead boils down to "be better at player evaluation." Which is a very fair basis to criticize Cherington and the rest of the front office for-- of the recent signings and acquisitions, most look bad (Hanley, Sandoval, Porcello, Miley, Breslow, Kelly, Craig).

But those failures are failures of execution, not of strategy. This isn't Amaro and his unwillingness to rebuild (see: the Pinto trade or last year's trade deadline) or Jack Z and his obsession with right-handed power. I don't see a systemic bias, just a lot of individual bad decisions.

ADD: the one thing you could maybe accuse them of is being overreactionary. Not enough offense and too many young players last year, so a few big contracts to veteran hitters last offseason. That's why I would be disappointed if they threw $200m at Price or Cueto this offseason. If you believe in a philosophy, one year of bad results shouldn't be enough to get you to abandon it.