Rizzo already projects as a similar player just two years later for league minimum salary. That trade is clearly a disaster, rather than the laughable steal by the Red Sox that all of the non Red Sox fans on BTF declared it to be at the time.

Cmon, it's too early for that kind of certainty. And evaluating that trade only starting now ignores the 2011 season - in which Gonazlez provided way more value than the pieces sent to SD.

The difference is this is a losing team with a $150M payroll, not a $70M payroll. For $150M, you'd like to have at least a few elite talents locked up long term.

Thankfully for the Sox, they don't have to compete in a wins-per-expenditure to get to the playoffs.

And depending on the level you set 'elite,' very few teams have multiple elite talents locked up long term.

Cmon, it's too early for that kind of certainty. And evaluating that trade only starting now ignores the 2011 season - in which Gonazlez provided way more value than the pieces sent to SD.

In evaluating Gonzalez I pretty much assume that his true talent level in 2011 was at 2012's level. Do projection systems factor in lucky BABIP's?

FWIW, BP projects him to 28 HR and a .306 TAv. They have him going .286/.366/.485. Which means they see this progression for his TAvs:

2010: .326
2011 .318
2012: .286
----------
2013: .306

So they see him bouncing back up a bit, though not to 2010/2011 levels. It's a reasonable projection, but I also wouldn't be surprised if he stays at his 2012 level or slips further.

FWIW he hit the same with the Dodgers as he had in 2012 with the Red Sox.

He's not back on the field now. He's going to miss Opening Day. They're hoping he'll be back some time in April, but we'll see. Citing a107 OPS+ over all of 125 PA as data that he's back to normal is also pretty silly, especially given that it came on the strength of a .200 ISO, which is something absolutely no one expects Crawford to do over a significant sample.

I typically dismiss small samples too, but they can be indicative of whether a player is injured. A player who has nothing isn't likely to hit to a 107 OPS+ - close to his career averages - in 125 PA, certainly not on the strength of power as opposed to BABIP.

But you seem to be criticizing the use of small sample size on the one hand (107 OPS+), but using it as an argument in your favor on the other hand (.200 ISO).

The difference is this is a losing team with a $150M payroll, not a $70M payroll. For $150M, you'd like to have at least a few elite talents locked up long term.

Of course. The Red Sox do not project as a playoff team despite having a very high payroll.

Over the last three or four years, the Red Sox planned to lock up a set of elite talents at commensurately high prices, and they chose horribly and had some bad luck. So their payroll was full up for years to come with projected non-elite talents on elite contracts, and they made the trade. That's the problem from the beginning. For the Punto Trade, you're already dealing with a situation where you have an unacceptable payroll : elite talent ratio. If you're critiquing the 2009-2011 Red Sox offseasons, I'm with you. But in regard to the Punto trade itself, the Red Sox are in much better shape to acquire or extend elite talent than they were before they made that trade.

Teams that win 74 pythagorean games don't typically make the playoffs the next year, and I'd be surprised if this were such a team. It's not a young team. And as Darren's numbers above show, the new players improve over the replacements by 2-3 wins. Okay, Ellsbury/Lester/Bucholz should improve, but a lot would have to go right for this team to make the playoffs.

I agree with the general point - an 83-win season would be a reasonable expectation and hopefully a solid step toward a true contending club in 2014-2015. Looking for more than that from this offseason would have been unrealistic, and planning on the playoffs with this roster would be unreasonable.

There is a bit of a category error here, however. Darren was not comparing 2012 performance of traded players to 2013 projections for new players. The new players improve over the 2013 projections for the traded players by a little bit. They improve over the actual 2012 performance of traded players by quite a bit more.

Crawford, Gonzalez, Beckett, and Punto combined for 3.1 WAR in 2012, so the replacements project to a 6-win improvement. Obviously this isn't how one should do projections, since there's 20 other guys on the roster and aging and regression to the mean and all that. But the improvement that Darren is showing is in 2013 projections, so if you want to talk about improvements from 2012, Darren's comparisons aren't talking about that.

There is a bit of a category error here, however. Darren was not comparing 2012 performance of traded players to 2013 projections for new players. The new players improve over the 2013 projections for the traded players by a little bit.

Got it, thanks for the clarification/correction. I didn't read it closely enough.