How do you improve the Red Sox

So what? Does this really mean anything? This is a great way to look at building a rotation in the offseason, to figure out where to spend one's limited resources, but it makes no sense during the season. During the season, one has to look at the competition that exists, the dynamics of a starting staff, and the rest of the roster before you can say a rotation is likely to be good enough to win in the post-season. You cannot just plug in pitching staff WAR or do the kind of simplistic analysis that you did above and conclude the rotation is good enough to end all discussion of a rotation upgrade. 

The impacts of having a poor 4th or 5th starter go beyond the impacts on the games they lose. A string of poor performances by a starting pitcher stresses bullpens and puts pressure on the other starters, preventing them skipping a start or babying a nagging injury in August or September. It also puts pressure on depth. Just because teams win it all with good-but-not great or even subpar rotations doesn't mean that it is fruitless to discuss rotation upgrades. 

Our top three pitchers have pretty significant question marks. We have already seen our most consistent starter, Wright, have a  bad game during wet weather because of his difficulty gripping a wet ball, and that seems to be an unavoidable issue for him. Price has looked mostly okay, but not particularly ace-like, and there is that annoying factoid that he has traditionally sucked in the post season, with some rumblings that it may be a matter of stuff, not luck. Porcello is solid, but it is probably not realistic to expect him to shut down a top offense. Rodriquez is still bit of a short-term wild-card, he really doesn't have that long of a mlb track record. 

The question of how to improve the Red Sox is pretty straightforward. Better pitching and maybe an upgrade at the catcher position and/or left field. But that is not really the issue. The real question is whether one thinks they are good enough, or could be could enough, to win the World Series and how much of a prospect sacrifice one is willing to endure in order to increase the odds of winning a world series.

It is a given that upgrading during the season is going to be expensive, but would it be worth it? Cutting to the chase, do the Sox have a good enough chance, with upgrades at certain positions, of defeating the Cubs in the world series? Are these odds good enough that they justify overpaying for help? (Not to say the Cubs are going to make it that far, but they are a convenient benchmark to take measure of the Sox)

There is a real chance that DDo goes hog wild and makes a really big trade, but I think the trade deadline might be Cherington-esque, with no movement because the cost in prospects is too high to make a meaningful deal. And that would be okay. Making no moves may be the best decision if the cost is too high and the benefit too small/too high risk. 

Just to be clear, a certain amount of overpay to increase the odds of winning in the post-season would be fine, and improvements in the team may be necessary to win it all. But.... the trade landscape is so barren that any hope of a "reasonable" trade cost probably not realistic, therefore leaving the team with no method to upgrade that makes sense. 

I was arguing against the perception that we need starting pitching, which was flatly asserted as a truth. It's not a truth. It's not remotely a truth. If you believe it to be truth, you cannot answer the question "how do you improve the Sox?" accurately.

The facts about the quality of WS-winning #4 starters are completely relevant to that misperception. The notion that we need SP is a direct product of a wild over-estimation of the rotation quality that is required to win a WS.

Whether acquiring a SP might or might not prove to be a good way to improve the team, if it does not qualify as a need, is another question entirely. But as you say, given the cost, it seems unlikely. That doesn't mean you don't think about it now, however.

┳┻|
┻┳|
┳┻|
┻┳|
┳┻|
┻┳|
┳┻|
┻┳|
┳┻|
┻┳|
┳┻|
┻┳|
┳┻| _
┻┳| •.•) I'd consider buying low
┳┻|⊂ﾉ on Yordano Ventura
┻┳|

I mean honestly he probably needs to see an actual therapist or something, and on top of that he's also broken as a pitcher. He's a reclamation project in almost every way, but in terms of what he might cost versus his upside, I don't know that you can do much better.

This is the worst post I've seen here. Maybe we can retroactively repeat the Bagwell-Andersen trade, too. Trolling at its finest.

What, no Fisk fans here......Also, I can see the MFY trading peanuts for Ventura like they did with Chapman.

I honestly think Clay Buchholz remains one of the five best starting pitchers in the organization. His granular plate discipline stats, though worse than his career marks, don't really support the collapse of his strikeout/walk rates. His fastball has been out of whack all season, but that's the sort of mechanical/feel thing that can come back at any moment, and it's not like they're overflowing with superior options.

Since I saw the Angels Shoemaker start vs the MFY the other day, I can't stop thinking about acuiring him: he pounds the strike zone, changes speed, keep hitters off balance, it looks like he made some changes lately that made him very good;
His ERA is misleading (.337 BABIP, 65.3% LOB%), he's cheap with lots of years of control and the Angels are out of it anyway so maybe a package of low levels prospects with some projection may convince their FO to trade him.

While it's not the sexiest option, what about trying to get something like Pomeranz and Rodney/Villanueva from the Padres? Normally I'd want to stay the hell away from Fernando Rodney, but he's only allowed 8 hits and 10 walks in like 22 IP this year so he clearly has something left. Pomeranz makes next to nothing and can be controlled for a few more years so he won't be terribly cheap, but the Padres seem willing to trade him.

KC seems to be done with him. I've never seen a catcher let I guy go get his pitcher like what happened the other day.

Yet most Sox fans argue that Peavy was good for us. The Sox won despite Peavy not because of him. His 1 good solid playoff start is hardly praise.