And I agree with what I'm interpolating as your broader point, that if our 1-2-3 are all aces, and our offense piles up runs, then our 4 and 5 could be Lenny and Squiggy and it won't matter a whole lot. We'll still win 95 and run out three studs in the playoffs.
Back in the winter of 2006-07, i spent a substantial amount of time/energy debating the defending logic (at that time) between signing Lugo to stupid money, and simply handing Alex Cora the starting the job. I pretty much feel now as i felt then on this matter, in that the general concept of aggressively chasing down the marginal paper upgrades is a good thing, as long as one does not over-extend the realm of reality existing around it in the process. Ya know, such as getting so caught up in the attempt to avoid the unfathomable thought of slating Alex Cora as *gasp* the Boston Red Sox's
starting SS, one starts seeing/viewing the alternative potential possibilities based more on what they want/need to be there rather then.....well, what's actually there.
I like a guy like Maholm, but at the end of the day, there's a big difference between that sort of appeal and competitive'type interest. He's a lower end scrub bet, who currently is just a better surface bet then the potential scrubs we already have access to, any one of whom (including Maholm) i doubt many of us posting here would be all that shocked to see get lit up like a Christmas tree if/'when given the opportunity. Somebody that minus the reasonable upside potential, you don't go to the financial wall for. That latter which is a potentially critical aspect in all that for me btw, as i'm sure it's been established by now (and in other threads here) that i see the current budget crunch presenting a much harsher surrounding reality then most seem to atm.
Bottomline, if i'm GM of this team right now and i have $5m left on the year to spend on a bottom half starting pitcher, i'm in no hurry to hand that out to some low end scrub option unless i feel i'm getting a pretty buyer-friendly deal/opportunity in the process. Otherwise, better to just keep all the leashes short for now (and don't kid yourself imo, as anybody that gets handed that $5m right now will be getting a fair amount of rope along with it), hold on to that money for the time being, and play out what i have before potentially deciding latter if/when i need a filler upgrade. Of course, keeping in mind that pretty anything i do right now will probably play out to be an upgrade to what we saw in 2011.
Wasn't trying to be too hard of Buchholz either....but yeah, that is what it is and a much more key factor going in all this atm. It's not like he's some 22-23 year old spring chicken anymore either, or somebody projecting to have some un-prototypical career path ahead of him either for that matter. 2010 was great and all, but if we are going to see a lot more of that, his time for the "doing" there is right now. And if we are sitting around at this time next year again talking about Buchholz in terms of but/if's, it's probably a fairly safe bet that's taking place in an even uglier setting then we see around us now imo.
