Who Had The Best Offseason?

[love_that_reefer]

Who had the best offseason?? Was it the Yankees with all their spending and still having a smaller payroll than last year? Was it the defending AL Champs getting Burrell and rebuilding their pen? The Giants who made upgrades without sacrificing a draft pick? The Red Sox with all their little risk, all reward type moves? The Braves getting back to its roots with starting pitching? The A's with Giambi, Holliday and the best bullpen? Tell me who you thought had the best and why.

[love_that_reefer]

I went with the Giants because they added significant pieces to the puzzle without jeopardizing the future. They have perfected an effort to win now while rebuilding at the same time. The Giants added Affeldt and Howry to the pen, their major weakness and added Renteria for the offense. Acquiring Randy Johnson gives them one of the best rotations in all of baseball. Four significant moves and without giving up one single draft pick in the process. Name another team that did that.

[cjkalt]

I'm going to take my hometown Red Sox, sure the Yankees added CC, Tex, AJ but AJ carries a lot of risk, Tex is only a decent upgrade over Giambi (Average and Defensively, power is about the same), and CC has choked in the playoffs in his young career, and they spent a ton of money to do it, and hurt their farm system by giving up draft picks.

The Red Sox signed (and I'll prolly forget one) Penny, Smoltz, Baldelli, Saito for the total price well below AJ's salary. Penny 2 years ago was a CY Young Candidate, Smoltz can be a great 4/5 starter or an elite guy in the back of the pen, same goes for Saito, he's been one of the best closers the last 3 years, and Baldelli always had talent and now with his medical problem apparently cleared up he could have a breakout year.

Now will all of those things happen, of course not, but the reality is that 1 or 2 can and that will give the Red Sox even superior talent/bench depth.

The lack of bench depth and talent beyond the 25 man roster is what killed the Yankees last year with their older roster and will happen again this year. Is their 25 man better than Boston's? Its probably very close and it depends on how you rate the older players but Boston clearly has the superior depth and will lead Boston over NYY again (for 1st or 2nd).

This is all made possible by the great FA signings by Theo that could eventually lead the Red Sox to draft pick compensation too

[Porter]

I went with the hated Yankees. If Burnett stays healthy and keeps his control under wraps. Swisher decides to stop hitting .210 and having CC at the level he was in the 2nd half of the season. And Tex is a much better upgrade than Giambi at 1B.

[catman]

I agree that the Red Sox had the best off-season. They filled all the holes that needed to be filled.