Hot stove update

I never did understand the signing of Edgar Renteria. The Sox's top minor-league prospect, Hanley Ramirez, was a season away. And if they weren't going to bring him up for this season, they could have re-signed Orlando Cabrera. So to sign Renteria for four years and $40 million made little sense to me.

And now they traded Renteria for Andy Marte, a third-base prospect, after trading Ramirez to Florida and getting Mike Lowell in return. Now the Sox have three third basemen -- Lowell, Marte and Kevin Youkilis -- and no shortstops.

Now the Sox are trying to re-sign Johnny Damon. If the rumors about trading Matt Clement to Seattle for Jeremy Reed are true, we better hope they can.

In other Sox news, the team announced last week that Jed Hoyer and Ben Cherington wil be co-General Managers. This has friggin' disaster written all over it. The team maintains that they are holding out the possibility that Theo Epstein will return to the organization, but if the issues that prompted Epstein to leave haven't been resolved, there's not much reason to expect that he will return.

About the only encouraging news coming out of Beantown is that the team has made overtures to Roger Clemens. The Sox should pay him whatever he asks for, and hope the Stinkins still hold a grude over the retirement that wasn't.