Cherington: 'You can always do stupid things'

Red Sox GM Ben Cherington declined to handicap the odds of whether his team will make a move that can be considered big enough to generate a splash. That said, during a 26-minute session with reporters this offseason, he made clear on several occasions that there is a distinction between what the Red Sox are financially capable of doing and what they might actually do.

"You can always do stupid things that could be a 'Wow' thing, but we're trying to avoid those," Cherington said. "It's not difficult to find things to spend it on. It's difficult to find the right things to spend it on. That's what we're trying to do. There are plenty of people out there as free agents or through a trade that we know can help the team and help the team a lot. We're focused on that and trying to find the combination of players that will help us make our team a lot better next year.

"You can't rule [a 'splash'] out. I certainly wouldn't rule it in. I think if there's a deal that really makes us, the organization, stronger short- and long-term, we'll pursue it. Some of those might end up, can fit into that category, but I can't handicap it right now. We're still working on so many things. We're trying to get the right things to land for us."

Cherington went on to say that he didn't feel that the issue of whether a move qualified as a splash or not would be a factor in how the team goes about making its decision-making this winter.

"I think our fans want a winning team. They want a winning team year after year. They want a team they can root for and get behind and believe in. They want to see players they can get behind, believe in, root for. They want to see a direction. They want to see a sort of reason for things. They want to see a team that plays the right way," said Cherington. "There are different ways to get to that. Sometimes bigger deals help you get to that. Sometimes smaller deals do. We'll explore everything. Couldn't rule it out or rule it in."

The GM also suggested that the offseason is still at a relatively early stage. However, with Major League Baseball's winter meetings set to take place in Nashville starting on Monday, he expects that the pace of moves may start to accelerate.

"The water's kind of moving down the river, but hasn't gotten to a waterfall yet. The winter meetings is usually when the water starts getting a little quicker and things start falling. Some times there's a domino effect to these things, we'll see how it plays out," he said. "There's things we know we could do right now, things we're not ready to do right now. Things we're choosing not to do right now. So I think it's still a time, I still see the weekend before the winter meetings as pretty early in the offseason. There's a lot of time before pitchers and catchers report and plenty of time to do stuff."

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