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Our goal for player development and scouting is to develop a constant flow of impact talent through our farm system. Reaching this goal would have tremendous benefits:

1) We would have access to impact young talent for our major league club. Talented young players are more likely to stay healthy and are more likely to improve than older players, both good things.

2) We would have access to inexpensive young talent for our major league club, allowing us more resources with which to address our other needs.

3) We would have the solid organizational depth needed to address injuries and poor performance at the big league level.

4) We would have a surplus of prospects, allowing us more flexibility to address holes on the big league club through trades.

5) We would all have added pride in the Red Sox uniform, having developed our own major league talent from the bottom up.

How do we get there? I'll try to answer this thoroughly but also generally to avoid compromising any competitive advantage. (For example, if I indicated that we were going to spend $6 million every year on the draft, I'd be handing the agents way too much information. If beat writers read Sons of Sam Horn, so do agents, I'm sure.)

It starts with the draft. We are committed to finding the best available talent every year (sorry, I know that means nothing, but I have to say it... it's in the GM manual). In general, we look for low-risk, high-reward players. We make no secret about our belief that college players represent lower risks than high school players while offering comparable rewards. That said, we will not shy away from taking the right high school players, especially position players, in the appropriate round. In general, we want college players with tools, but we also want to find the college players who have good make-ups and those who have track records of consistent quality performance. In an ideal world, we would love middle-of-the-diamond athletes who have plate discipline and power as well as power pitchers with pitchability, command and clean arm action. Usually, these players are only available at the top of the draft. As the draft develops, we make judgment calls, balancing tools, track records, projectability, makeup and signability. I shouldn't go into further detail, except to say that we have a game plan and we know what we're looking for. All of our scouts came to Boston for our organizational meetings in December and we developed a game-plan, a philosophy on how we were going to scout and how we were going to attack the draft. Now it's just a matter of doing it. We were disciplined this off-season and are thrilled to have four picks in the first 54. If we draft well, two or three of our top college picks could be at AA as soon as 2004, making a real impact on our system.

With our emphasis on college players in the draft, we will rely on our international program to supply the best 17-year-old talent available... and lots of it. There is so much talent concentrated in the Dominican Republic and Venezuela that it is possible to get both quantity and quality at a reasonable price. (Scouting 17-year-olds is fairly imprecise, so volume is important). If you sign enough promising players, you'll find a Hanley Ramirez for $22,000 or a Denny Tussen for $16,000 or a Juan Cedeno for $30,000. We also will pursue the higher profile players when appropriate (Aneudis Mateo for $400,000), but our emphasis will be on signing lots of promising players to turn over to development. We will also pursue the right talent in other markets, including Asia, although our focus is in Latin America.

I should make another quick point. When we talk about risk-aversion and prudent spending and $22,000 investments instead of $2,200,000 investments, the point isn't to be cheap or pocket the money. The point is to produce players and get value for our dollars where we can, so that when it's time to let it fly for the big investment at the top of the draft or the high-profile international stud, we have the money available. We spend a lot of money on the draft and a lot of money internationally, but it only works if you make wise investments. If you draft high-risk players year-in and year-out or throw all your international money into one multi-million dollar signing, the results usually are not good. For us, the preferred approach is to focus on the best talent and the best investments to get the most out of our considerable resources, allowing us to go "all in" when the right opportunity presents itself. This is our approach to talent acquisition and we are committed to it.

I'm running low on time, so I'll be more general with respect to player development. All I will say is that we finally have an organizational philosophy -- a Red Sox way of doing things -- and, after a major overhaul of the field staff, we finally have the right people in place for implementation. I'll protect the company secrets, but I think it's well known that we care a lot about the strike zone, both for hitters and pitchers. One of the keys to unlocking a player's potential is helping him to control the strike zone. We will work long and hard to get the best out our minor league players and turn out as many prospects as possible. We will be not be afraid to try new methods, nor will we abandon proven methods. If there's someone out there who will help us develop a player, we will hire him. If there's something out there that will help us develop a player, we will buy it. Period. It's that important.

As for your other questions, the signing bonus budget will fluctuate year to year but will be very considerable every year. One of the best ways to capitalize on our large-market status and vast resources is to spend wisely and spend big on amateur talent. It's impossible to predict how many young players will reach the big leagues every year, but we hope they come in waves. I hope, within a year or two, that you will see obvious signs of progress in the quantity and quality of our prospects. The real results will not show for three or four years.

In my opinion, "fiscal responsibility" and "payroll flexibility" are not ends in themselves, but they are more than just a means to enable us to "overpay" in order to "win now." They are part of a comprehensive plan designed to turn the Red Sox into a championship organization.

Why are we fiscally responsible? Not because we are cheap; we are not. Not because we are afraid of large commitments; we are not. Not because we would rather pursue non-tenders or particularly enjoy reading through thousands of minor league free agent reports instead; we don't (well, maybe sometimes). Quite simply, we are fiscally responsible because the alternative would be a disaster. Fiscal irresponsibility is the single quickest way to hamstring a franchise for a decade. You don't have to look long and hard to find examples of the dire consequences caused by two or three bad contracts, by two or three times when you give in to the "win now" temptation and end up with a bloated roster and no way out.

We are fiscally responsible and we value payroll flexibility because we trust our ability to evaluate talent. Our attitude is: give us a talented core and some flexibility and let us go to work. The more talented the core and the more flexibility we have, the better off we will be. Injuries and down-turns in performance will be more manageable if we have flexibility.

There's no such thing as the perfect ballplayer, but there is such a thing as the perfect fit. When the right fit comes along, we will stretch ourselves (and have stretched ourselves) to acquire the player. That said, we think we have a handle on a player's value to our club, and we won't do something that doesn't make sense just to make a splash.

One more point to consider when assessing our perceived strategy, there are literally hundreds of factors that go into player evaluations and negotiations. Of those factors, we can probably only discuss a small fraction with the mainstream media. I wish I could share all of our thinking, all of the facts with our fans, but that would be inappropriate in certain instances and would compromise our ability to compete. I think our beat writers are terrific. Just keep in mind that, sometimes, (as Neil Young says) there's more to the picture than meets the eye.

There's no doubt that management of our confidential information and management of our PR are issues. It's always better to play your cards close to the vest. This off-season, for whatever reason, our intentions have been too public. We are taking steps to ensure that we improve in this area.

Regarding Contreras and Colon, we had interest. That is clear.

As we discussed above, part of our long-term strategy involves keeping the great players that we already have. Of course, our goal is to retain all of these players. That said, negotiations do not take place in a vacuum, and a lot can change over a year or two.

I pretty much answered that one above, but I like your thinking.

That's a good question. For players in the rookie leagues and the lower levels, we focus more on traditional scoutings and tools. As the player rises through the minors, we shift our emphasis towards performance and statistical evaluation. When a player reaches AA, we balance these two schools of evaluation 50-50... and it more or less remains that way.

I can cop out and say the most important tool for a hitter is plate discipline. If you insist on one of the traditional five tools, my answer would be hitting and hitting for power.

For a pitcher, as far as tools go, we focus on command and arm strength. The real essence of a pitcher's ability cannot be expressed using just tools.

We will combine live advance scouting, video advance scouting, and statistical advance scouting. Dave Jauss is our advance man in the stands, while Galen Carr does the video and statistical analysis. We also use outside statistical resources.

We actually just purchased some new software that should help Galen and Dave provide even more thorough information for Grady et al. I could tell you exactly what we prepare for Grady, but I'd have to kill you.

Thanks for the question Eric.

For you stats-guys (just kidding), strikeout rate is a terrific indicator of future performance. We always look for guys like Chad Fox who have the chance to dominate and keep the ball out of play. They are very difficult to come by.

There is more than one way to skin a cat. Groundball pitchers who have had consistent results are also attractive commodities. Both Mendoza and Timlin are incredibly consistent, posting good year after good year, and they are both able to pitch mutliple innings.

It's hard to find the perfect reliever.... you want to jump on the good ones at the right price. It helps to discover one as a MLFA and such, too. Notice the K-rates of our MLFA signings.