The Red Sox will need to spend some money on Starting Pitching this season – and preferably and ace.. They orchestrated a trade for Closer Craig Kimbrel on Friday. A bona fide shutdown guy with 225 Career Saves and an ERA of 1.63 lifetime. The winter has just started for the Beantowners.  With many veterans currently aging, and the young nucleus all being under team control, the time to capitalize on the higher drafting as a result of finishing last in the AL East 3 times in 4 years is right now.

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Okay, for years the Boston Red Sox would never pay for a #1 Starter on the Free Agent Market – even their owns. They traded away Jon Lester prior to trying to resign him in 2014, and it backfired on them when he hit the Free Agency market not having played his entire career in Boston.

For the most part, I have agreed with the idea of not paying a guy as an ace.  Here is the problem..The team had finished last in the AL East 3 of the last four campaigns, and that is unacceptable.

You add in Ben Cherington doling out long term deals to Rick Porcello, Hanley Ramirez and Pablo Sandoval in the last year, and all had bad years.  So the temptation may not be to sign anyway.  Again, wrong.. You are the Boston Red Sox.

Well mired in the lower tiers of records the last 4 years (except for the 2013 season), the club has accumulated a great deal of talent in the Minor Leagues.

The franchise is in great shape heading forward, but this comes down to the right time to strike on the rest of the league. Read the rest of this entry →