So what you're saying is David Ortiz will spend the next 2 years completely injured.

On the plus side, Lester was at his best with Farrell around, no?

Oh, I think I got it.

The team is wandering through the wilderness, like Ben Affleck's brother in Gerry!

No matter how we perform in 2013 I'm optimistic that it will be a low stress year. After the daily drama of Valentine and the intensity of September, 2011 I'm looking forward to what could well be a very fun season. I figure either it will be a bunch of new guys playing great and entertaining baseball like 1999 or 2003 or it will be a mediocre team with some entertaining young players like 1984. Even if we suck I'm confident it won't be anywhere close to last year.

So Extra Bases has a list of everyone's contact status. After listing the free agents Pete Abraham drops in a "good luck Daisuke." I don't know why it is but Abraham has a hair across his ass regarding Daisuke that I think is not even remotely professional.

I don't know why it is but Abraham has a hair across his ass regarding Daisuke that I think is not even remotely professional.

Might have something to do with Abraham not being paid by the hour.

So Extra Bases has a list of everyone's contact status. After listing the free agents Pete Abraham drops in a "good luck Daisuke." I don't know why it is but Abraham has a hair across his ass regarding Daisuke that I think is not even remotely professional.

Just his style. It happened with a few players on the Yankees, over the years, like Pete was taking personal pleasure in their struggles and failures.

I've never understood the "hair across his ass" expression. Does that actually happen to people, anatomically? Does it bind the ass together, thus making... daily activities... more difficult?

I've never understood the "hair across his ass" expression.

I'm thinking it's more like a comb over. If you had an arse with a comb over, you'd really have something to gripe about.

Polly-anna scenario

Sign Ortiz
Bard, Lester, Bucholz find there karma under Farrell
Sign Ross ( if willing to stay )

Get rid of Acevedes.
Give injured closers one more year
Obtain a left Fielder or First Basemen to complement middle of order

Bench next year keep youngsters.

Catching needs to improve also ( but give Salty another shot )

It that took much to ask?

Ortiz has entered Thome/Hafner territory, can't stay healthy even as a DH. Not worth any amount of money

Does it bind the ass together, thus making... daily activities... more difficult?

Yes, and as a result it makes you really mad at Daisuke, who promised to bring you one of those heated self-cleaning Japanese toilets but never did.

The reason I pointed this out in the first place is because of how often I see it in discussions of the Sox plans, whether they be on SOSH, here, or in the media:

--'The Red Sox shouldn't go after a big name star like Hamilton--it was those huge contracts that got them in trouble in the first place.'
--'Pitcher X hasn't been perfectly healthy, and the Sox medical staff can't be trusted get him through a season. Pass.'
--'No way do I want the Red Sox trying to make a trade, they always get screwed.'

At the end of it all there's nothing that you CAN do. In the end, the Sox just have to get better at all of these things.

1. Dardevil was ok.

2. Sox won't win 82 games.

3. Reindeer Games had its moments.

Daredevil was awful. Reindeer Games was great fun AND had Charlize Theron's tits in it. Sox WILL win 82 games (exactly), and Darren's #12 has 2 out of 3 - which as anyone will tell you, ain't bad. I don't think we're quite at the point yet where we should automatically assume every trade the Sox make will work out poorly (though we should for major FA signings and player injuries).

In the end, the Sox just have to get better at all of these things.

Agreed. There isn't a single acquisition the Sox can make that won't resemble, in some way or another, an acquisition that went poorly in the recent past. There is a big difference between actually learning from a mistake and simply avoiding anything that looks similar.

I've learned a valuable baseball lesson by reading this thread tonight: Darren definitely has a hair across his ass for Ben Affleck, and Darren should therefore never ever watch movies again ever.

Hold me.

I hadn't really thought of it in these terms, but I think Darren's right that we've been cringing in advance of so many possible moves. The Sox have had just about every kind of thing not work out for them over the past two years.

But it also seems like the players out there fit into some broad categories of scary acquisitions. There are a bunch of guys who seem like lesser Crawfords, outfielders with ok to good bats whose value comes equally from their defense and baserunning as much as their offense (Pagan, Victorino, Bourn, Upton). Then there is an injury prone slugger whom we'd want to keep away from the club's medical staff (Hamilton). Mike Napoli seems like the one guy who doesn't immediately get the cringe going. I can't tell if I'm worried about verging on opposed to signing those guys at market-ish value for good reasons or not.