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. 

Well, for one, $13 Million, while tied for 5th highest on the team, is not that much for a starter who has had some flashes of brilliance. There are probably a few starters that make more than Clay this season that did not have as good of a year last season. Obviously nobody would pay $13 Million for what Buchholz has done this season, but we don't have the benefit of that knowledge prior to picking up the option. If we did, I'd have enough money from the stock market alone to never have to think twice about adding guacamole to anything.

Since we don't have the knowledge of 2016 stats at the time of the option, we are left with 2015. At that point, The Shark had a 4.31 xFIP, his lowest K/9 since 2010 with 6.86, his highest HR/9 since 2010 with 1.22, and his lowest GB% since 2010 with 39%. This was good for 2.7 fWAR based on the fact that he pitched 214 innings.

Clay Buchholz, in that time, had a 3.30 xFIP, his highest K/9 in the majors since 2008 with 8.5, his lowest BB/9 in the majors ever with 1.83, his highest GB% since 2011 with 48.3%, and had his worst BABIP in a season since 2008 with .329. He had a 3.2 fWAR in only 113.1 innings.

Since The Shark had his worst season since 2011 last year, would you have been comfortable offering him 5 years at $18M per year, or Buchholz on 1 year $13M (and a club option for $13.5M next season. I also wouldn't use the term "handcuff" with regards to a 1 year deal. He can be gone for good next season for all I know. Contracts like Crawford, Sandoval, Hanley, and heck even Price may have or may continue to handcuff us.

Dombrowski also wouldn't be the first person I'd blame for the Buchholz contract/underperformance either.