Seriously?

The Red Sox made a "serious" offer to Jon Lester, rumored to be between 110 and 120 million dollars for six years.

Russell Martin, a decent, but not front tier catcher, just received over 80 million dollars for five years.

With a host of teams involved (at least Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, and Toronto), an offer of an AAV (average annual value) of possibly sub 20 million isn't insulting, just not competitive.

As a public relations maneuver, making an offer is a start. As a competitive bid for one of the top two starters in free agency when baseball swims in money, it's more of a sad joke on Red Sox fans than 'serious'.

Red Sox management hasn't proven itself anything but fortunate from 2013, sandwiched around a brace of disasters. Just as success leaves fingerprints, so does failure. And every Red Sox fan knows whose fingerprints are on this one.