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I'm well aware of that. I'm saying, you couldn't, with your farm system, find an equivalent for those two?
But it doesn't matter. It's pretty clear Parking Lot McCourt's money has run dry.
EDIT:Why do you want to give up more prospects to get Bay, who is only going to block one of your young players next year. Instead you get a significantly better hitter who you don't have to make a long term commitment to, you get him for free money-wise, and you get 2 draft picks.
Well, the GM is wasting 30 million dollars this year on CFers who can't hit, and if he wasn't, or if MLB hadn't allowed a group with cash issues to buy one of the most prestigious franchises in the league, he could have probably afforded to trade for Bay. I'm ticked, congratulations Sox fans.
Pearce. Bautista to the bench, where he belongs. That, or McLouth to RF, and McCutchen in CF.
Pretty audacious for a team not involved in the trade :)
And as a quasi-Braves fan, WTF Wren. Your Baltimore team sucked and this team sucks. Common component? You. They must think the team will contend next year so why give up a good pitcher.
1B Adam
2B Sanchez
3B Andy
SS Wilson (they have a reasonable option on his contract, right?)
LF Moss
CF McClouth
RF Bautista?
That's not a bad lineup assuming Sanchez hits like he did in 2006 or 2007. They're only three starting pitchers away from contention.
Moss is already ready to be part of a "good lineup"?
RF is Steve Pearce.
Bautista and Mientkiewicz are great bench players. Bautista's an underrated player.
You could, for example, give up one of the young players whom Bay is going to be blocking.
It may be that he has simply cut of Colletti's allowance. Think about it, would you give any more money to the guy who blew over $100 million on Jason Schmidt, Juan Pierre, Esteban Loaiza, Andruw Jones, etc?
I thought of that too. I wouldn't be in the least bit surprised if Jones was released at the end of the season, or even right now. It's a sunk cost, and they can exceed his production at almost no cost. They no longer need him to start this year, and if they go into next year relying on him in any way, they're dumber than any of us thought.
Ohman's a free agent this offseason. So whether they think the team will contend next year (I think not; their public position is that it will), Ohman has no business on the 2008 Braves, who the organization has conceded will not contend.
Sunk costs matter when the franchise isn't willing to spend any more money.
Because he's better than any of them? Not acquiring a player because he blocks an inferior player is not a good strategy.
Why would that matter to Manny? He could just decline it. Do they care that much about Manny's next team losing a first-round pick?
Ah, of course. I was on the right track, didn't put it all together though. Thanks.
Lost draft picks are part of any team's cost/benefit in signing a marquee free agent. I think the idea is that suitors will offer more money to Manny if he isn't going to cost them picks.
I believe that if the Dodgers terminate either contract, any guaranteed money remaining would be payable in full. Given McCourt's apparent cash problems, that doesn't seem likely.
Post-waiver deal (seriously, is anyone going to claim them?)
I'm sure that the Dodgers will place them on waivers and would allow any claim that was made without requesting any type of compensation. But I highly doubt any team would make the claim in the first place.
Jones has a no trade clause. I'm not sure if that would prevent him being lost to a waiver claim.
You are assuming someone offered something more than the draft picks.
Just at first glance, it seems like the Dodgers lose this deal if they could have just gotten Bay instead of Manny.
Am I wrong in believing that if a team signs one of them for (to pick a number) $1M, then the Dodgers would be off the hook for $1M? If that were the case and Jones cleared waivers/they can't get a deal for him where they don't eat a lot of money, then it might make sense for them to cut him outright and hope some team saves them $400K. When you're broke any help is help.
One of us is crazy.
Not taht anyone would probably sign him anyway.
I wonder if he'll still make the Hall? Damn that was a steep decline.
EDIT: in reference to 329
Probably. People are saying that the owners aren't allowing Coletti to add salary though, and I'm sure the Pirates were not going to send along $2 million or whatever the rest of Bay's salary is this year. Also Bay is under control for next year, and maybe Coletti isn't allowed to add salary for next year either.
I think he's got a long way to go before this discussion takes place.
His career minor league line in roughly 2800 PAs is .287/.357/.461, he hit .282/.363/.471 in Pawtucket last year and .290/.356/.548 this year and has hit .291/.348/.456 in the majors. I don't think it's too much of a stretch to say he could be a league average corner outfielder right now.
The Dodgers are still Southern California's main team by far, but the Angels are cutting into that, and another season out of the playoffs while the Angels look ready to compete for a World Series would have looked really bad for the Dodgers.
I'd probably agree with you except that the Angels needed power from the left-side of the plate. From the other side, as long as Rivera plays, they are pretty solid.
This is a nice deal for the Sox in that they get a good player for cheap. However, losing Manny is a big, big deal. It will be an interesting next two months.
Shouldn't someone have offered more than that? Is he likely to net the Braves any draft picks anyway?
At some point it comes down to winning ball games. Not wanting to give up Kemp I can understand, but Either's only 3 years younger than Bay.
Not contingent on anything arbitration-related? Just dropping the options?
(Bay vs. RHP: .307/.386/.566, Bay vs. LHP: .190/.333/.345)
EDIT: Hm, Manny also has a weird reverse split this year. I'm sure it's probably just SSS, but still weird.
As far as I can tell, yes, just dropping the options. I would imagine the arb-related picks are a non-trivial part of the attraction to this deal from LA's perspective.
I don't get your point, AlouGoodbye.
And he's been so reliable in the past...
Manny helps the Dodgers more than Bay to win right now.
Giving up extra value to acquire Bay instead of Manny hurts the future.
So both from the perspective of winning now, AND from the perspective of winning in the future, the deal the Dodgers did is better than giving the Pirates Laroche + Ethier + Morris + mediocre MLB reliever for Jason Bay. AND it saves them money.
So any way you look at it, Colletti did it better this way.
That's a good point. The only problem is what do you do with Blake DeWitt?
Manny is now in Hollywood.
Fools, you have no idea what you have unleashed on America and the world.
Unless the Dodgers relegate Jones and Pierre to the bench.
Fools, you have no idea what you have unleashed on America and the world.
There is no possible way that this will be worse than the Manny drama the country endured during his time in Boston. It's likely to be much more entertaining, under the assumption that Manny cheers up for the rest of the season.
Yes, if I was Dodgers GM I would have tried to switch Laroche out of the deal and switch in Ethier + another pitcher instead, and told Torre to play Laroche. But if that couldn't be worked out, and the current trade was staring me in the face, I would absolutely have pulled the trigger on it. There are very legitimate concerns about Laroche, he is far from the sure thing he is made out to be on this board. Well, now he will get to play every day so we'll all get to find out.
That's true, but you never know unless you play him. They found out that Blake DeWitt isn't an MLB player as of yet, and that Casey Blake is still Casey Blake. They never found out about LaRoche, we'll see if it bites them in the ass.
If I'm PIT, there's no way that I'd do that trade.
I like the trade that got done for PIT. LaRoche will be an above-average 3B, Moss is a good bet to provide some cheap and solid production, while Morris and Hansen have an outside chance of turning into something useful. Apparently they couldn't get the one mega-prospect, but they got a fair return.
Of the three teams, the Dodgers did the worst. They traded a very useful player for a two-month rental that they don't really need. Unless they can offer Ramirez arbitration and get draft picks for him, I think that they overpaid.
Boston basically treads water. Bay=Ramirez when defense and baserunning are considered. Moss and Hansen were spare parts, but they were MLB-ready spare parts. If Drew goes down, they're going to miss having Moss to step in (although I guess they could try Ellsbury there).
EDIT: I see that Ellsbury has started a dozen games in RF for Boston. Does he really have the arm to play right in Fenway?
Most of the value of this deal from the Pirates' perspective obviously depends on whether Little LaRoche can get his power back. Morris is interesting, but definitely a reach. I'm suspicious of the Pirates actually helping a player to get better, rather than worse, but stranger things have happened and a couple of hitters are having *really* good years under the new regime (McLouth and Doumit in particular).
Not really. If Drew goes down, they probably play Ellsbury there and hope for the best, or move Youkilis to RF and Casey to 1B. They don't have a good replacement, unless Bay is better than I thought.
Can Bay play RF? I have no idea.
I also don't understand Manny/Boras' strategy of making sure nobody picks up his options. Are teams really going to be lining up to give him a multi-year deal at $20m per? I have hard time seeing anybody want to give him more than something like 4 years $60m
I agree. Boras and Ramirez have greatly overestimated his market value. Who wants to sign a player who all but quit on his team in the middle of a pennant race, right before a series against their archrival?
His defense is shoddier than ever, he's no longer an elite hitter, and his attitude stinks. My guess is that Ramirez will get something pretty close to what Sheffield got a few years ago: $28M/2yr. Maybe he'll get a guaranteed third year or a few extra million per year, but the total contract value is not going to be for very much more than $45M.
From Boras' perspective, this makes all the sense in the world since he only makes a percentage on the deals he negotiates. Right? So if he can get Manny any kind of deal worth more than the $20m he's due, he's made Manny a little money and picked himself up a commission.
Or am I wrong?
Because Manny can't DH for the Dodgers.
Tim Wakefield.
Remember that weird contract Wakefield signed a few years back? The one with the perpetual one-year team options at $4M per year? They've renewed those on Wakefield the last two seasons, and I'm sure they'll be doing it again this year.
Imagine if the Sox agreed to shut Manny up and stop his "ow, my knee hurts" antics by declining his options in the middle of this season? Imagine if you're Theo Epstein and you have to look Wakefield in the eye and say, "yeah, sorry pal, we know you're a good soldier so we can't help you. Manny won't play unless Manny gets his way, so he doesn't have to honor his commitment to us. But you do."
The team also holds options on David Ortiz ($12.5M in 2011), Josh Beckett ($12M in 2010), Coco Crisp ($8M in 2010), and Hideki Okajima ($1.75M in 2009). They might not pick up all or any of those options, depending on what the future holds. But how could they hold any of those players to those options against their wishes if they declined Manny's just to shut him up?
I give the Red Sox management all the credit in the world for sticking to their guns here. They'll face a lot of criticism if Jason Bay wilts in the heat of the pennant race or the playoffs. But they did the right thing today.
Oh, and I'll be amused if Manny tweaks a knee down the stretch and needs assistance on the field. The $64,000 question: would the Dodgers send out a trainer or Ned Colletti to negotiate a multi-year extension?
From what I understand, you are. Boras doesn't get an extra cent if the option is picked up. This is allready a guaranteed win for him.
He is SO in the loop.
Player 2008 EQA
Manny .306
Bay .319
Bay's career EQA is .305 but that includes his injury plagued 07 (.262), his EQA was .313 in 06. Manny's career EQA is .315, but was .289 last year and he's 7 years older. Bay is universally viewed as a substantial defensive upgrade over Manny.
Why shouldn't the Sox have the reasonable expectation that Bay provides significantly more offense than Manny over the next year and half?
Why isn't Bay viewed as a significant upgrade for this years Sox team?
Time for a Brian Wilson moment: Wouldn't it be nice, etc.
There is talk on Dodger Thoughts (comment 199) that is somewhat interesting:
A Yankee Blog trying to burn the Red Sox... unprecidented!
All the numbers I've ssen have Bay average to slightly-below-average. Certainly an upgrade over Manny defensively.
And I actually think Bay should be able to at least reproduce Manny's offensive numbers too. He'll be moving from a slight pitchers park to a heavy hitters park, and it going to be placed in a lineup that offers him much more protection than he has ever had before. On the downside, he should be expected to loose some production moving from the NL to the AL, but then again, he never did get to hit against the Pirate's pitching...
their neutralized stats (courtesy of baseball-ref) favor manny the past few years, but it's not too substantial.
combining: manny's 6 year older than bay, bay's a better defender, and is signed for one more year affordably - i'd rather have bay.
that's not even considering the other off the field factors..
Seconded. Ethier is exactly the kind of low-upside player the Pirates DON'T need to be pursuing right now. If you tried to shoehorn in a current OF instead of a prospect, I would've come back with a deal built around Kemp.
Bay's numbers went in the tank last year, when he played through a hurt knee and couldn't run or pivot. In all other seasons, including this year, he's averageish or maybe slightly above.
He does have a pretty crap throwing arm, but since it's LF, you can probably deal with that.
Fools, you have no idea what you have unleashed on America and the world."
A remake of Kazaam?
I hope they don't compromise the artistic integrity of the original.
The guy who runs those numbers, people know him.
I have the dissenting opinion here.
LaRoche, IMO, will be a disappointment. He's not aggressive enough at the plate, and major league pitchers will be able to take advantage of that.
Moss isn't a good bet to do much of anything in the majors until he figures out how to make consistent contact more often.
-- MWE
I'm not really sure how this:
qualifies as trying to burn the Red Sox, but hey, whatever.
As far as the defense, I use ZR just because it's readily available, not because I think it's better than the advanced metrics, although it usually correlates pretty well with UZR over multiple seasons. If UZR and +/- say Bay is average, I'd tend to think he's average. Manny's probably not a -40 defender, he's more likely a -15 to -20 defender once you factor in the Green Monster, so it looks to me like a 3 run upgrade on defense over the rest of the season, with similar offense and likely better durability in Bay. Seems to me like the Sox at the very least did not downgrade.
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