I have no idea what the Sox are going to do next
The first round of the offseason is nearly over. For the Red Sox it is over – the one first tier FA left is Prince Fielder, and he’s obviously not headed our way. I had hoped the Red Sox would find the money to go after Darvish or Wilson, and Wilson’s below-market deal has left every team in need of pitching (read: every team) wishing they’d been involved. Darvish is looking at 6/110 or more, though, so I don’t have a problem with the Red Sox passing on him.
The second-tier FA market and the trade market always made more sense for the Red Sox. They need one more starter and one more reliever, and the depth on the market isn’t bad. They’ve been linked in rumors to Hiroki Kuroda and Roy Oswalt, both of whom would be fair acquisitions on short deals. Edwin Jackson would make a ton of sense, but he might as well be living in a cave on Mars for all the reporting that’s been done on him this offseason. Ryan Madson likewise fits this club’s needs very well, but ever since the Philly deal fell through, the wire has gone silent on him as well.
The Red Sox projected payroll remains the big question. Adding in expected arbitration awards to Ortiz, Ellsbury, Salty, Bard, Aceves, Aviles, and Morales puts the Sox at about $160M committed for 2012. Add in the ~$10M for extra fees, and the Sox are only $8M under the luxury tax threshold. The Sox could pay one more free agent without paying significant tax, but the second free agent would cost the team an added 40% on top of his actual salary. (This may explain their reluctance to get into the Wilson or Darvish bidding.)
The luxury tax situation, not unreasonably, has left the Sox exploring the trade market. They’ve been linked to the A’s, mostly, in talks about Andrew Bailey and Gio Gonzalez – who project to make several million apiece next year in arbitration. To acquire one of Bailey or Gonzalez will require moving Josh Reddick as well as some minor league talent, and this both may not project as a smart win/$$ move and creates a problem of moving pieces. Unless the Sox are willing to fully commit to Ryan Kalish as their starting RF coming off a lost season, trading Reddick would force the Sox to acquire a pretty good right fielder who could be trusted to play everyday if Kalish isn’t ready. The reason they went to the trade market in the first place was to save money, but in this scenario that money saved has to be plowed back into filling the hole the trade created. (And, as I mentioned, it’s hard to see how three years Andrew Bailey is a good return for five years of Josh Reddick, plus other talent – unless you think Reddick’s 2012 was a big fluke.)
The obvious solution, it seems to me, is to sign a second-tier FA starter and make Dan Bard your relief ace. Split 5th starter between Doubront and Aceves, and you got yourself a ballclub. I get that Bard has that five-win upside in the rotation, but the uncertainty of giving Bard a rotation slot creates holes on the roster that will be hard for the club to fill at a reasonable cost.
Matt Clement of Alexandria
Posted: December 22, 2011 at 02:43 PM |
57 comment(s)
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1. Jose Can You Seabiscuit Posted: December 22, 2011 at 03:03 PM (#4021707)I'm not saying they should just give Reddick away for the best deal they can get, they should deal him for someone they want but I'm a huge Bailey fan. The other thing about Reddick is that he will use his last option this year in all likelihood so the options involving him get a bit less after this season.
If I was Cherington I'd be dangling Middlebrooks anywhere I could, I don't think his value goes anywhere but down from where it is now.
Woah! I know I slept in late this morning, but woah!
--Your pitching post appeared to have math error in his portion:
"+3 RAA + 26 Rep = +39 RAR, 1/14, 3/36, 5/50 – Jackson"
Still likely to be a good value, but not that good. For some reason, I had written him off around 2008 and hadn't really paid attention to his numbers since. He looks like a really good option for someone.
--I bet he'd get a lot of attention if he were living in a cave on Mars.
On Yu, I think 6/110 (including posting fee, right?) looks like a good deal, given SG's translations. If they could afford that for someone, he'd be a good use of it, particularly given the salary cap implications.
/shakes fist towards CT...
[Edit: This is a response to #7, not #9. But damn, it's way funnier as the latter.]
He has Boras as his agent, so I'm thinking he's going to be paid well. I also suspect that Boras was waiting for Darvish and Wilson to come off the market before he started talking up Jackson.
I was going to ask whose contract besides Papelbon did they lose, but I realized that I had forgotten about Drew. It's sad that he ended his Sox years with such a pitiful and forgetful season, but also funny that in his one awful season he actually didn't receive much mainstream criticism for a change.
Sometimes the best deals are the ones yadda yadda etc.
Hopefully it's a good call, and there's some happy talk around the interwebs about how McClure helped shape Greinke into an ace and everyone in baseball loves him. I certainly don't know enough to judge, but McClure's resume is not impressive.
I really like his chances of putting up those numbers again in the future.
I've never heard anything but extremely positive things about Jackson as a person from his time with the Rays.
This makes it more likely that the Aceves/Bard to rotation thing actually happens.
rotation - Lester, Buccholz, even-year-Beckett, Aceves, Bard
bullpen - Bailey, Melancon, Jenks, Albers et al...
Could this also mean that the Sox would be in on Yoenis Cespedes?
Okie signs with NYY
I agree with you but I hope it does not close the door on Bard as a reliever. With Melancon-Bard-Bailey (whatever order you want) you've got some weapons out there so you can probably piece games together a bit. That gives the Sox some wiggle room on the fifth starter to take a shot with Doubront/Tazawa or a lower end free agent (whatever this year's Freddy Garcia might be).
(Of course, I suppose the counter-argument is that Bard is also kind of fooling around with the rotation, to which I can only say fair enough.)
Few days late on this, but wanted to comment
That 2010 team had an awful defense, the defensive leaders by innings played were, Yuni Betancourt, Billy Butler, Jason Kendall, Mitch Maier, Scott Podsednik and Alberto Callaspo. Maier is the only one of those guys that isn't an awful defender. In fact according to BIS Defensive Runs Saved, the 13 defenders with most defensive innings for that Royals team were all negative.
Not to say the pitching wasn't lousy too, but any pitcher without Randy Johnson's K rate is getting hosed with that defense behind him.
The 2006 defense wasn't that bad, but the left side of the infield was Berroa and Teahen, not the most mobile group. I'm pretty sure that was the year Esteban German had a fly ball bounce off his chest in center. The starting staff was Mark Redman, Scott Elarton, Runelvys Hernandez, Luke Hudson and Odalis Perez. Plus 58 starts from guys that weren't as good as that bunch.
Bob McClure not fixing those situations is certainly understandable. I think he will be very good with this level of athlete.
I think the response to the title of this thread is "nothing." It is starting to become clear that the Sox are going with Beckett-Lester-Buchholz-Bard-Whoever and come what may. I don't understand how a team can suffer the catastrophic collapse of last year entirely because the pitching pukes on itself for 4 weeks and then do nothing to augment the staff. There is just too much faith being put in a return to health for Buchholz and the ability of Bard to adjust to being a starter for my taste.
I'm still moderately hopeful for this season. The offesne is terrific and Beckett/Lester/Buchholz (if healthy) is a terrific start to a rotation. There is no fallback though, if that group doesn't deliver this team is going to be a HUGE disappointment.
End of rant. I'll be more optimistic tomorrow.
They didn't exactly "do nothing," they acquired Melancon and Bailey, pushing Bard and Aceves into the rotation. And of course the big addition by subtraction: carving up that ####### Lackey.
The Patriots are still going to lose badly on Sunday, though.
But taking Cherington as his word, I mean, I'm torn. It's certainly not unreasonable to imagine this all working out. The club should project into the low 90s in wins, and if they're right about the Bard and Aceves conversions, a 95-win projection could at least be argued. My problem is that it's very hard to integrate the Scutaro trade into any kind of coherent narrative of a carefully-planned offseason, unless there's another good-sized shoe to drop. And not being able to limn out a larger plan makes it harder for me to trust that all the little plans that make up an offseason have been well and rightly chosen.
You're right though. One of the benefits of this rotation is that they aren't going to be committed to craptasticness. Aaron Cook won't get 28 starts if he's putting up numbers like Lackey did. Hell, if they can get a 5.00 ERA out of those 4/5 spots that's a huge upgrade over last year.
30 days 'til the BC game at JetBlue Park.
They lost Papelbon from the pitching staff, but not Bard.
No but they lost him from the bullpen. The fact is that they had to replace their two best relievers which is what Bailey/Melancon do. The issue is whether or not Bard can be an upgrade over their #4 rotation slot.
Yeah you're right. I just think they needed a 200 inning guy and adding Bard The Starter does not address that need with the level of certainty I was hoping for.
Bard's conversion will mirror that of D-Lowe's in 2002, and Aceves is 24-3 in the first 240 innings of his career, which is like a Jack Morris level 7 of knowing-how-to-winningness. I'm forcing the optimism here, obviously, but it seems like the recent very good reliever to starter conversions have worked well in the few cases it has been tried recently. I wonder if it would make sense for the Brewers to try it with K-Rod...
Aaron Cook/Junichi Tazawa/Felix Doubront/Chuck Rainey
Hence my concerns if Aceves is in the bullpen. The problem is if he is in the rotation the bullpen looks thin to me;
Bailey
Melancon
Albers
Morales
Bowden
Doubront (both Bowden and Doubront are out of options according to MLBTR)
someone else
That looks thin to me. Add Jenks and it's still a bit thin except at the dinner table but I don't think counting on Jenks is a particularly wise move at this stage.
Padilla is still a free man...
I'm not sure, but forget about snatching up Casey Fossum, Duquette beat us to it (really).
(a) What we've seen is the plan, except for the other dropping shoe.
(b) What we've seen is a plan, part of which was to create some payroll flexibility for use at an opportune time; that they simply dealt with the payroll thing after they'd made their major moves; and the Scutaro deal was the first reasonable option they were presented with to do so. (I doubt this, but still wanted to list it.)
(c) What we've seen is a highly amorphous plan, one that evolves with the circumstances, and in the end does not resemble the initial plan.
If it's (c) then it's harder to evaluate the offseason than we typically would, especially if we're looking for a larger plan in which to fit the puzzle pieces.
As a hypothetical* let's say you have the 12/31/2011 Red Sox in the field, and there's a man on second. A ground ball is hit to short. Because Scutaro won't field it (due to his declining defense), it goes for a single to LF. The runner will make it to 3B, but because Crawford is fast he gets to the ball in shallow LF and the runner is held.
However, on 1/1/2012 you learn that Crawford will be out with a wrist injury. Their new medical staff, headed by Darren, reminds them that wrist injuries never heal fully nor quickly. So now, that runner on 2nd is more likely to score on a grounder to short. IOW, the loss of Crawford for a period makes Scutaro's defense a bigger issue. That can be solved for through a different LF, a different SS, or a different pitching staff; and given their roster construction (and the opportunity Colorado presented them) the SS solution was the best one to take.
So, is it (a), (b), or (c)? Beats me. Could be (d) no plan. Or (e) started with the wrong plan, ended with the wronger plan. Or something else. I guess where I am with this, as I alluded to earlier in another thread, is that the reason I don't understand Cherington's plan could be that it hadn't occurred to me that he could be operating in a different way than I'm accustomed to. Maybe when he goes grocery shopping he decides the menu based on what looks good and what's on sale, rather than going with a specific shopping list; and maybe we've grown accustomed to the latter.
* Let's all recognize that this is a rather extreme case that isn't meant as the foundation for this argument. Rather, the extreme example really serves only to illustrate the concept more clearly.
I don't see why you prefaced your example as such a crazy, crazy thing. Didn't Cherington pretty much say that with Crawford's injury the outfield depth was insufficient? So you move Scutaro, the only real non-pitcher, non-prospect that can be moved and get then use that flexibility to get outfield depth. Why is that so crazy?
The way you describe it isn't crazy. My example takes the non-crazy part, focuses on one game state, and blows it to infinity.
Understood. I would imagine a GM would be paralyzed by indecision if they tried to base decisions off of such specific plays as you mentioned. So yes, crazy.
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