How do you improve the Red Sox

I concur. At this point E-Rod is kind of in spring training mode. It's hard to make a judgment on him now. The pitcher he is now doesn't necessarily mean that he's going to be the same pitcher down the stretch. If he struggles now thru August and then suddenly is back to being the pitcher he was last year come September, that makes for a starting pitcher you'd want to give a start to in the post-season.

At this point, the Sox have to hope that Elias is a serviceable starter and can hopefully be a reasonable alternative to start a post-season game should E-Rod not be himself. The best case scenario here would be that E-Rod gets healthy and is one of the four starters you feel comfortable with getting a post-season start and Elias becomes a solid #5 starter during the season and lefty LOOGY/long reliever asset out of the bullpen in the playoffs.

I much prefer the above because I, too, cringe at what it would cost to get a top notch starter, few of which are really available. And as far as Gray is concerned, I'm not convinced he'll be better short-term or long-term over E-Rod, especially if taken out of Oakland and placed into Boston.

The improvements the Sox need to make are around the edges, a solid reliever that Farrell will actually use - and I agree with Eric Van, that Farrell has missed the boat on Tazawa as the primary 8th inning guy and the idea of mixing and matching with Uehara and Ross in the 7th, but even with that the Sox really need to replace with a reasonable facsimile of what Carson Smith was supposed to give them.

And they need to get a LH bat that can play LF and free Holt to be a valuable utility man and/or pinch-hitter for Vazquez.

Those are the types of moves I'd like to see. I don't want to see the Sox give up valuable commodities to get Teheran from Atlanta, which I worry they will do.

Well I think Tehran would be pretty bad in the Al East too, so I'm with you there.

Unfortunately, the cost of the players you want are at an all-time high in terms of prospects so it doesn't make sense.

You mean Rodon?  Well he was drafted at 3 overall, so good luck.  Maybe in 5 years, Groome will be that guy, if he changes his name.  We're not getting Rodon.  Or Rondon from the Cubs.

I'm kinda confused by your post.

I hope Elias pitches well for us and we can feel less worried about getting a SP pitcher. ERod may just need time until he pitches like a strong 3. He looks uncomfortable out there yet. I like what I see out of Hembree.

Rodriguez has made 8 starts between AAA and ML (44+ IP), the it's still spring training fallacy is getting tired.
Come up with something better

How about he's in his spring training coming off a knee injury. Is that good enough for you? Geez, it must really suck to live in your world.

It's really amazing that you thought he'd come out of the chute pitching like Cy Young considering that he must have discomfort trying to pitch thru this. Can't imagine he's used to pitching in a knee brace. Must feel very unnatural to him.

I'm going to try some patience with him first as he tries to get his legs stronger (Pedro who knows a thing or two about pitching commented about his lack of leg strength and how he'd have to build it up during the course of the year.) That makes more sense to me.

Eduardo is clearly not up to full strength yet. He was up to 95 in the first two innings of his last start but then the velocity dropped dramatically. Like in the 91-92 range after. Hopefully he can continually build more and more strength, hopefully.

I don't have many worries long term about this but short term, I think even the Sox might be concerned. Who knows if he ever gets back up to full strength this year on a bad knee?

This isn't me knocking Eduardo either, I think he could be Jose Quintana Jr in the future.

Agree...seems for every Cespedes, there are 2 or 3 busts. The Dodgers just released Guerrero. Tomas is just fair. Abreu is somewhat coming back to earth. Castillo, well.....,  Puig is good, but has some non baseball issues (and some baseball issues), Moncada looks to be more in the Cespedes mold. 

Unfortunately, in a moment of impulsive weakness, they traded their Rondon. Cleuluis, we never knew you.

Yeah, he's had the equivalent of ST and three regular-season starts. Clearly, the chasm of difference those extra 20 or so innings make is so astounding as to make your point incontrovertible. By that reasoning, we should've panicked when Price's ERA was north of 6 and his velocity was way down to start the season too.

You can use all the semantic smoke and mirrors you want, but the underlying basis of his "ST mode" argument is valid: the guy is recovering from (serious, as in patellar subluxation) injury and has yet to build strength.

Thanks for playing, though.