assuming Ryan Sweeney is the starter in right

Why on earth would that be the assumption?

Looks like Sox are focusing on defense this year.

Bleh.

I guess when you have huge amounts of revenue, and you're forbidden from spending it on amateur talent, and all the valuable players are tied up in long-term contracts, this is what ends up happening.

As I posted in the other thread, I expect Gomes to duplicate Dante Bichette's career numbers for the Red Sox, 19 homeruns and 0.6 WAR.

This is a terrible, terrible deal.

Jacoby Elsbury's job just got even harder.

A little more than I'd have paid, but who freaks out over 2/10?

This makes me sad, though I'm happy to see Jonny getting paid.

Look out, AL East! The road back to .500 begins here!

For a team tat desperately needs to acquire value, it is very unlikely that this is a positive EV move.

The road to mediocrity is paved with 1 WAR players! Outside of Pedroia, this team needs to put another 4-5 WAR player on the diamond somewhere.

Nava, Kalish, Sweeney, Ross, Gomes...these are not names that inspire a lot of confidence. Yes, there is still a lot of time, but right now this is a 75 win team.

For a team tat desperately needs to acquire value, it is very unlikely that this is a positive EV move.

But how well does that really describe the Sox? We really know 3 things about the Sox: 1)they really want to win some games, 2) they have excess funds, 3) they probably won't compete for 1-2 years.

Worst case scenario this deal doesn't hurt them financially and Gomes mashes lefties but not his K worth. Best case he's a good platoon guy this year and a great bench player for a hypothetically contending 2014 Red Sox.

Wow, a dozen posts in and there's already several flavors of irrationality. $5M for a guy who will give you 1+ WAR in less than a full season of play? And that's a problem? I hate Ben Cherrington and the moves this team has made over the last year as much as anyone, but this is a good deal.

I wonder if they're thinking of teaching him 1B. Anyway, perfectly decent 4th OF/1B/DH type. Ignoring defense (because it's no fun if you don't), he's had 3.4 oWAR the last 3 years and the Sox are paying him for about 1 WAR so close enough.

The road to mediocrity is paved with 1 WAR players! Outside of Pedroia, this team needs to put another 4-5 WAR player on the diamond somewhere.

Well, sure, but they don't grow on trees and, other than maybe Hamilton, not on the 2013 FA market. Ortiz and Ellsbury have some shot at being 4 WAR players. And, no, Justin Upton is not (consistently) a 4-5 WAR player.

2010-12 there are 27 players with 12+ WAR. The Sox have one and recently traded another one. Three of the others are 2B (plus Zobrist). Four more are CFs (hey, Michael Bourn!) 5 of them are signed through the end of the 3rd Obama administration. Five of them are arb-1 or younger I believe.

Granted, nothing wrong with a call to the Marlins to remind them that Stanton will start costing actual money soon. (Holy crap ... Stanton in Fenway! Boggles the mind.) Seriously, other than Bourn or Hamilton, Tulo is the only one I can see being available in trade right now; possibly Pujols if the Angels are a bit freaked out.

Yes, there is still a lot of time, but right now this is a 75 win team.

Bhahhaha...*right now*? Oh..oh..so much less.

Some of the responses to this signing here are stupid. This guy is basically Cody Ross at half the price Ross wanted. My guess is Ross isn't coming back and Gomes is signed to play the platoon role that Ross was signed to play last year before everyone got injured.

In terms of value, this is perfectly cromulent, and probably strictly better than signing Cody Ross.

But I really don't like Gomes.

Some of the responses to this signing here are stupid. This guy is basically Cody Ross at half the price Ross wanted

A 3.9 WAR player vs a 2.1 WAR player. One who's a competent outfielder vs one who's very bad. Same same. It's unfortunate BOS already has a kicka$$ DH, because Gomes ability in the OF is going to negate value he'll provide if Farrell actually platoons him. But, considering the gaggle of Nava, Kalish, Sweeney, and Gomes i'm sure the existence of platooning will be presented to him by Cherrington.

$5M for a guy who will give you 1+ WAR in less than a full season of play?

That sounds good!

But Jonny Gomes has not been that guy, over his career. He is a really terrible fielder, and not a particularly great hitter. He's got about 3000 career PA, and he's put up 2.3 bWAR and 6.2 fWAR. He's got a reasonable amount of value as a hitter, but he gives about half of that back with his glove. fWAR's lower replacement level in the NL makes most of the difference between the two WAR stats - they both rate his hitting and defense compared to position about equally, but B-Ref makes a league adjustment and Fangraphs either doesn't or doesn't make a large adjustment.

It looks like it takes him over a full season of play to put up that kind of value, and sometimes he just goes negative. Plus he's 32 with all kinds of old player skills.

Now, I'm basically fine with Jonny Gomes as a platoon OF / bench bat. There are a lot of guys out there who can fill that role, but Gomes is perfectly cromulent. Giving him extra money and an extra year, though, seems like a poor bet. It makes me worry (a) that the Sox see Jonny Gomes as a full-time player and (b) that the Sox are making bad baseball decisions. They spent last offseason making bad baseball decisions all over this place, and they retained the same baseball ops team. That's worrying.

(Also, Susan Slusser twittered that the Red Sox targeted Gomes as a clubhouse leader. I guess that could be good, and the clubhouse has been a problem, but this team needs wins and runs first.)

A little more than I'd have paid, but who freaks out over 2/10?

In itself, this isn't a big deal. I totally agree on the merits of the Gomes contract - probably a small overpay, a tiny drop in the bucket of the club's budget, for a player who should be a useful bench contributor.

My concern is what this signifies. It is at least possible, and slightly more possible when he's being paid 2/10, that the Sox see Gomes as a likely regular. He's not good enough to be a regular. It's also possible that the Sox have evaluated Gomes as being a $10M player, and given how poor their evaluations have been in the last year or two, it's concerning that they might be mis-evaluating players now. It could portend.

But it might not! Maybe he's a little better than I think, maybe the Sox just wanted to get him locked in before doing all the cool stuff they're going to do to fix the roster. This in no way precludes reasonable hope.

Now, I'm basically fine with Jonny Gomes as a platoon OF / bench bat. There are a lot of guys out there who can fill that role, but Gomes is perfectly cromulent.

Yeah, I was hoping the Tigers might sign Jonny to be a right-handed caddy for Dirks. Not for 2/10, though, especially since he's apparently sub-Delmon with the glove.

I always liked Gomes back in his St. Petersburg days: he has worked hard and gotten the most out of his limited talent. As many have noted, he can be a role-player for anybody, but if there was ever an example of parlaying a good half-season into a quantum leap in riches, it's this contract. The funny thing is that it's riches for him – the contract will triple his career earnings to date – but as others have mentioned, it's the kind of money the Red Sox find under the couch cushions.

But Jonny Gomes has not been that guy, over his career. He is a really terrible fielder, and not a particularly great hitter. He's got about 3000 career PA, and he's put up 2.3 bWAR and 6.2 fWAR. He's got a reasonable amount of value as a hitter, but he gives about half of that back with his glove. fWAR's lower replacement level in the NL makes most of the difference between the two WAR stats - they both rate his hitting and defense compared to position about equally, but B-Ref makes a league adjustment and Fangraphs either doesn't or doesn't make a large adjustment.

Gomes has needed a full season to accumulate 1 WAR in his career. But that's in large part because he's been deployed as a full-time player at times. 36% of his PAs have come against LHers, which is high, but nowhere near a true platoon role. Last year he was at 59% versus lefties, for example, and put up 2 WAR in 333 PA (that's too high for our purposes because he DH'ed a fair amount, but he's still 1+ WAR even if you stick him in the OF last year). He's replacement level for his career against RHers, so that's where all his value is. So if he's properly deployed, you'll get the 1+* WAR in less than the 600 PAs.

If it's April 1 and he's the starter, I'd be shocked. But it's November 22, and the reasonable conclusion here is that he's a caddy.

* I'm saying 1+ because Fenway should help hide his defense and aid his offense more than average as a RH pull hitter.

I agree with MCoA's take in 20 & 21. This seems like an overpay -- I'd be quite surprised if there were other teams lining up to give Gomes anything similar -- but its not disastrous and Gomes could be a useful role player (assuming he doesn't fall off a cliff). At the same time, it doesn't do anything to allay my fear that the Sox are going to end up frittering away much the savings from the Dodgers deal by overpaying a bunch of mediocre players.

I've always liked Gomes, but his track record is a good season followed by several mediocre ones. 140 OPS+ in '05 as a 24 year old, followed by three well below average years. The Reds took a flier on him in '09 and were rewarded - 20 HR, 128 OPS+ in p/t duty in LF. But then he reverted to being an average hitter and awful defender and was shipped to Washington in 2011, where he did no better. He had another comeback year with Oakland last year, and it gets him a nice payday. Maybe the difference this time is that Oakland platooned him much more than he had been since leaving Tampa. But give his age and track record, there's a good chance that he's a replacement level player who's blocked at his natural position.

Just came to say what MCOA already said. Here's something else to consider: Jerry Sands looks like a really similar option who they already have on board. The Bill James projections have it Sands .262 .329 .483, Gomes .236 .337 .441. Normally, I'd say you get a bit more certainty with the vet, but dang, Gomes has been up and down a lot. I don't even like Sands much but I'd rather give him a chance.

2010-12 there are 27 players with 12+ WAR. The Sox have one and recently traded another one

if you had axed me who is #1 on that list I wouldn't have guessed it in a jillion years

You're comparing a projection with half its ABs coming in Oakland to a projectin with half its ABs coming in Fenway. How is that a meaningful comparison?

if you had axed me who is #1 on that list I wouldn't have guessed it in a jillion years

Zobrist?

Edit: Nope.

Meaningless to this discussion, but I've been assured that Gomes is a great guy on multiple occasions (I know one family that tries to lineup their annual pilgrimages to new to them MLB parks to root JG on) and he was really nice to my kid the one time I met him...

if you had axed me who is #1 on that list I wouldn't have guessed it in a jillion years
Zobrist?

Edit: Nope.

same list for pitchers

same list for pitchers

I wouldn't have guessed Josh Johnson was on that list. I assumed he just didn't have enough innings to generate enough WAR.

0 sellers (teams that agree to take the loss part of the zero sum win-loss game - which teams like the Yanks need to get the win) KNOW what to pay for someone who can be put on a mlb field without quack calls from the stands.

Gomes has been making the rounds for years on minor league deals, and now 10 mil from a 0 selling neophyte for the same as always stats.

Need to learn the rules. This is going to get the real, self-respecting. experienced, proffessional 0 sellers riled.

if you had axed me who is #1 on that list I wouldn't have guessed it in a jillion years

Ha! I did guess it. And I am terrible at that kind of stuff. But playing time is a big factor in WAR, so I guessed somebody who almost never misses a game.

if you had axed me who is #1 on that list I wouldn't have guessed it in a jillion years

Oddly, I would not have guessed him initially, but once you posted that, it clicked for me who it was.

I've always liked Gomes, but his track record is a good season followed by several mediocre ones. 140 OPS+ in '05 as a 24 year old, followed by three well below average years. The Reds took a flier on him in '09 and were rewarded - 20 HR, 128 OPS+ in p/t duty in LF.

400 PAs followed by 1,000 PAs followed by 300 PAs (2/3s season followed by 1.5 seasons followed by a half season). I don't think his OPS+ in those partial seasons was that meaningful in any other context than showing that most MLB players have a lot of variance in their results.

He's a 31 year old career 109 OPS+ hitter who is apparently a terrible defender. That's all you have to say.

Any "analysis" that ignores the fact that Gomes is a career .284/.382/.512 hitter against LHP is either being willfully ignorant or trying to ignore the guy's actual strengths and try to construe this in as negative a light as possible.

It looks like Gomes had a heart attack in 2002 at age 21 and is "well-known" for his charity work.

Leaving aside the on-field concerns (they're completely relevant to this discussion, but I can't really add to the ones already stated), it does look like the Sox have acquired one of the best men in baseball.

Any "analysis" that ignores the fact that Gomes is a career .284/.382/.512 hitter against LHP is either being willfully ignorant or trying to ignore the guy's actual strengths and try to construe this in as negative a light as possible.

He's a great platoon hitter, who's a horrible fielder being paid $5M per for 2 years. The end.

**I wish TOR had signed him somehow for 1 yr to platoon with Lind, since he's still not fu#k!ing going away it seems.

Any "analysis" that ignores the fact that Gomes is a career .284/.382/.512 hitter against LHP is either being willfully ignorant or trying to ignore the guy's actual strengths and try to construe this in as negative a light as possible.

I hope the Red Sox have paid $10M over two seasons for a platoon bat to start approximately 60 games a year at either LF or DH. That's a high price, but he can probably be reasonably effective if his PA against RHP and time in any large defensive fields are limited as much as possible.

I worry that the Sox have paid $10M over two seasons because they want him to do more than that, and he takes runs and wins off the board every PA he has against a righty and every extra inning he plays in the field. I'm not ready yet to trust the Sox front office that they're looking at this the right way, especially given that this contract seems a couple million higher than it needed to be or was expected to be.

Yes, he's technically blocked at DH, but he doesn't have a 27-year old David Ortiz doing the blocking. At some point David will stop doing his thing, and the Sox will need a non-embarassing DH.

Gomes is only an acceptable DH against lefties, though.

400 PAs followed by 1,000 PAs followed by 300 PAs (2/3s season followed by 1.5 seasons followed by a half season). I don't think his OPS+ in those partial seasons was that meaningful in any other context than showing that most MLB players have a lot of variance in their results.

Fair points. My impression from his Reds days is that he's a highly intense guy who's prone to long slumps, perhaps because he's the type to get too hard on himself when he's down. That kind of player might come with a higher performance variance.

Depends on what you mean specifically by "acceptable".

Two weeks while Ortiz gets a midseason rest is more acceptable than two months.

Any "analysis" that ignores the fact that Gomes is a career .284/.382/.512 hitter against LHP is either being willfully ignorant or trying to ignore the guy's actual strengths and try to construe this in as negative a light as possible.

Assuming that's how the Sox are going to use him. And then your analysis has to account for the reduced playing time. As pointed out above, that reduced playing time might actually be a good thing but somebody's got to be on the field.

Or to put it another way, if you're paying $5 M for the RH side of the platoon, where's the $10 LH side of the platoon player?

But alos 284/382/512 against LHP isn't that uncommon. The average AL RHB hit 262/330/428. Francoeur for his career is at 289/341/479. Andruw hit 286/384/540 in 2011 and 256/373/538 in 2010 (not so good in 2012). Cody Ross 284/353/575 for his career.

At one level, Gomes must be one of the better "lefty mashers" because otherwise he'd be out of a job with his defense. But he's "lefty masher" in the sense that he doesn't hit well enough overall to start, I'm sure there are lots of full-time RHB who put his LHP splits to shame.

This article is in-depth and I found it interesting, though more than two years old: Gomes' path to MLB

I'm confident the Sox are hiring Gomes as a lefty-mashing bench player, and as a character guy as well.* A team's perception of his value as a LH pinch-hitter will be higher if that team sees itself as a playoff contender; I take that as a positive sign.

* With the A's I think the common wisdom was that he was good at "keeping the clubhouse light."

Or to put it another way, if you're paying $5 M for the RH side of the platoon, where's the $10 LH side of the platoon player?

My guess is that Kalish will be part of that equation. Whether he will be good enough to be the big side of a platoon is in question but I think he will start the year in such a role.

For now I'm choosing not to worry to much. If they deploy Gomes as MCoA suggests then I'll have six months to scream about it. They made a similar deal with Punto a year ago and never converted him into a starter.

Nicky's lasting contribution to the Red Sox may have been to get Beckett and Crawford safely out of town.

Or to put it another way, if you're paying $5 M for the RH side of the platoon, where's the $10 LH side of the platoon player?

It's probably Kalish or Nava. I doubt they'll sign another platoon OF. They may (and should) still sign or trade for someone to cover the other OF corner though (presumably the Kalish/Nava/Gomes platoon covers LF and the yet-to-be-acquired OF plays RF). Personally I'm still hoping they sign Hamilton to play RF.