Winter meetings, Day 4: It's over
1:05 PM Thu, Dec 11, 2008 | Permalink
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BY JOE McDONALD LAS VEGAS -- Baseball's winter meetings are officially over. The Rule V draft was just held at the Bellagio Hotel and the Red Sox picked up pitchers Miguel Gonzalez and Miguel Marquez. Boston also sent Double-A pitcher Beau Vaughan to the Texas Rangers to complete an earlier trade for reliever Wes Littleton. Vaughan, 27, was 2-1 with a 2.12 ERA and 16 saves for the Sea Dogs. The former third-round pick in 2003, the right-hander spent the end of the 2008 season with the PawSox. Red Sox GM Theo Epstein just met with the Boston writers and discussed the selections, but when he was asked about the buzz that he is close to signing free-agent Mark Teixeira, Epstein again did not get into specifics and spoke in general terms. "We are still in the middle of the process," he said. "We're not at the end. We're in the middle of the process with a lot of guys." He did admit that he made three offers to available free-agents. Jason Varitek was one of them. The other two were likely Teixeira and a pitcher. "There were some other guys we discussed parameters with. It's kind of a fine line between offers and non-offers," Epstein said. He also said there are some on-going talks with players and he seemed pretty sure nothing would get done today. Epstein is leaving here around 2 p.m. and felt the four days were productive. "It was productive," he said. "A lot of talks went on. It wasn't the most efficient. We're through it and we made some progress on some fronts and we'll keep going." When asked if he is optimistic about signing a free agent, Epstein said he's still in the mode where he has to be patient. "People don't leave Vegas after four days usually optimistic about anything," he joked. "We're optimistic about where we are as an organization and our foundation -- those core elements. As far as specific moves or adding certain players, until you get those things done you really can't be too optimistic."
"He was pitching really well in Mexico," Epstein said. "Probably better than he had before he went down with a knee injury. He really competes and he's athletic." The scouting department believes he could be effective out of the bullpen. "When you have three good scouts who feel that way about somebody then you should take him," explained Epstein. "It's going to be tough to stick with a competitive club, but it was the right thing to do to take him and we'll see what we have in spring training." Gonzalez primarily has three pitches -- fastball, slider, changeup. His fastball is clocked at 92 MPH and he has plus-command. 
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Did the Red Sox lose any players in the Rule 5 Draft? If so, who, and which team selected them? thanks.
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I'm guessing Theo said "There were some other guys we discussed parameters with." Rather than perimeters. But who knows... maybe Theo was discussing circumferences and other mathematical principles with the free agents.
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I'd assume he meant "parameters", but maybe he was discussing perimeters with C.C. before the Yanks signed him. I know if I was in on him I'd be talking bout circumference.
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Jayne, Read the article. It says plain and clear that the Red Sox "did NOT lose a player in the draft" in the THIRD line of the article. Did you bother reading it or did you just jump right down to the comments section?
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The Red Sox did lose a player in a trade today though as Beau Vaughn was sent to the Rangers to complete the Wes Littleton deal.
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I sincerely apologize for missing that little tidbit of information, but thanks for being so rude, I guess we all can't be perfect like you
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At least it wasn't Mo Vaughn.
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