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I wrote a very similar post here. on this very topic about a week ago. I came to the exact same conclusion as you. 3 wins for a team like the Red Sox is a pretty big upgrade and worth the money.
If Youkilis is an average third baseman, that means he's exactly as good as Mark Teixeira. Wow. Sign this dude, now.
Also, just for reference, the projections that I'm using put Youkilis at ~.288/.382/.482, so it's not like he needs to repeat 08 to be this valuable. Assuming Youk was an average 3B and had played there all of 08, he was about as valuable as Tex according to the stats used above. Youk'd be at 38.1/0/2.5/20=60.6. Tex was 46.1/10.1/-12.5/20=63.7.
*Albeit two years early. But I'd rather have the problem of too many talented players than the problem of not enough talented players.
To be fair, Teixeira probably would probably be about as good at third as Youkilis, and he's a better hitter.
What do you guys think a 3-4 year deal for Youk would cost right now? I'm guessing 6/9/12/option for 12-15 gets it done, and it quite a good value at that.
He would definitely object, as his playing time will impact future earnings. Not to mention, Kevin Youkilis should not move in deference to Mike Lowell, as he is a much better player at this point.
Mike Lowell shouldn't even factor into the decision of whether or not to acquire Mark Teixiera. Lowell was signed coming off a career year during his age 33 season, so it was pretty obvious that there was going to be a significant dropoff from 2007 for the life of the contract. The money is guranteed, so its basically a sunk cost at this point. If you can get a little something for him in a trade, that's a bonus.
The bottom line is, Mark Teixiera looks like a pretty good bet to age well and replacing Mike Lowell is about the only place you can really gain a 3 win improvement for this team, short of kidnapping Joe Mauer.
I'll make it my mission in life to let the world know how valuable Youkilis would be as a free agent 3B. Looks like a 20-25 million per year player.
Until either he signs an extension and it's a moot point, or you guys back off on Mark Teixiera.
BTW, Totalzone is awesome.
after Tex: Lowell - albatross, Anderson blocked permanently, Tex at 23mil/yr somewhere between liability..non-asset
Sox are meeting with Boras and trying to get this done tonight. Offer's reportedly 8/180.
It's not like they can't trade him. Their next big prospect in a system that's been churning out several good players recently? Gotta be worth something.
Also, $184 for eight years is only 23 dollars a year--what a deal!
Thanks, even though you did a much better job on the topic.
I got +13 from his career UZR/150 at third. Not a great way to measure it but it got the point across. I would assume over the coarse of a full season at third Youks will be something like a +3 or 4.
Let me think about it.
Nope, you guys are welcome to Anderson. If the Angels meet the Red Sox in the playoffs again, I think he helps our cause much more wearing your uniform.
A 5/75 player? Really? Can you show your work?
Also, can you use INFINTELY less hyperbole, and back up what you're saying with something other than Manny/Duquette fanboyism and total conjecture (severe budget problems?) next time you post about this?
It's hardly a problem to have an abundance of talent in the organization. They could trade any of Lowell, Youkilis, or Anderson and fill another hole.
That said, I'm with Karl on this one. 8/184 is insanity of a sort I associate with that weekend Paulson spent convincing everyone that if we didn't give him $750 billion dollars by Monday morning the sky would fall, and that if we did, pronto, the sky wouldn't fall.
5/75 sounds about right, with the emphasis on the 5.
AROM, I just love it when you and Halofan stroll across to give us your 2 cents. Its always good for a laugh, and yes we will still beat you in some early round of the playoffs.
Cannot be repeated often enough
Darren: I think you're wildly overestimating Youk's chances of playing third well, or even adequately. He's never played the position regularly in the majors, and he's going to be 30 this year. I don't think the question is how good he's going to be at it, but rather, can he still even play 3B as a regular?
It's no guaranty that he'd be a great defensive 3b, but to anyone who wonders if he can even play 3b as a regular, did you watch the same playoffs as I did? He made every play anyone could have hoped for.
But he's played it some every year and looked good doing it. The numbers are certainly higher than I would have guessed and are probably not representative of his true talent, but I don't think there's any doubt he can play it adequately or better.
And that average of games played has to take two things into account. First is that Ortiz plays 1B during the majority of inter-league games at NL parks. And second is that everyone gets a bunch of days off with Tito managing them. Pedroia is the only player on the team that appeared in more games than Youk did last year.
It would be great in 2 years to see Moreno declare Youks his offseason priority, and then only make an offer for less money after the other interested teams have had large offers on the table for a week or two.
But I have no idea what that plan could possibly be. Looking over the free agent market and the known trade market, they could maybe swing something for a young catcher, but will probably re-sign Tek. That'll happen regardless of CC/Teixeira. Maybe they could sign Lowe. Unless they find some other double-secret player to spend their money on, though, they'll still be leaving a lot of cash on the table and fielding an inferior team.
My read on the offseason, from the beginning, was that the Red Sox had lots and lots of money and very few open roster spots, so they needed to go after the best free agents available. They did, with one, but they failed to get him. Theo needs to have another Smile up his sleeve to make up the wins that they could have gotten from CC or Teixeira.
JWH in 2008
The problem is that his AUM (assets under mgmt) have plummmeted. He went from multi-billions to less than $400m. So even with the outsized returns, he isnt making much coin. HF managers get the most out of their mgmt fees. And with the recent events, especially the Madoff affair, Henry will not have the same opportunities to either leverage up or attract new funds. Even stellar fund managers are facing huge redemptions.
Couple that with the overall economic backdrop and I can see the financial frugality. The Janks had a ton of money off the books this year so the next 2-3 yrs will mostly be ok. The back ends of these deals will be the killers.
MCOA, it's not Smile, it's Magnum. Smile is weak. Magnum stops bullets.
On the other hand, the Tribune Company is up #### creek money-wise, but no one is talking about the Cubs having to perform a San Diego like firesale, in fact, they are often cited as a destination for San Diego's highest salaried player.
Even if he say that karl is 100% correct in his assessment of Henry's cashflow, is there any reason to think that Henry poor --> Red Sox poor is a sure thing?
(Speaking as a Yankee fan, of course, I would root for that in a perverse way. But I don't see any reason to think it true.)
On a slight tangent here, I too thought of "Tex Marks the Spot" for Sterling's call. I thought it was so clever and then saw you had come up with it before I did. So you must be very clever too... or we're both stupid. Nahhhh.
(Also, I'm thinking he might go with "It is high, it is far, it is...gone! Deeeep into the heart of Texas!")
So there's that...
That being said, I'm not defending him since at least once a month he breaks out the "It is high, it is far, it is...off the top of the wall!" thing, which just makes me ####### nuts.
And if you're annoyed by bad HR calls, you would have hated Trup. Several times a week (once a game maybe?), he would go into his "way back, WAY BACK" fit before declaring the ball had been caught. It seemed that he particularly enjoyed getting these wrong on Red Sox hitters.
Michael Kay isn't up to the Trup level, I gather, but he does call every fly ball hit with any power (and some that aren't) as "deeep to right field." Sterling has a habit of annoucing catchable fly balls as "not deep" which I think must have developed in (subconcious) response to that.
2005 paid attendance
35,243 Patriots Day attendance
35,670 highest attendance for month (4/26)
33,702 lowest (home opener... lots of comp tickets for ring ceremony?)
2004 paid attendance
35,027 Patriots Day attendance
35,614 highest (4/29 game 1)
34,286 lowest (4/11, only a few tickets behind home opener)
2003 paid attendance
34,370 Patriots Day attendance
34,370 highest
26,688 lowest (4/16)
2002 paid attendance
33,864 Patriots Day attendance
33,864 highest
31,115 lowest (4/9)
2001 paid attendance
33,373 Patriots Day attendance
33,525 highest (home opener)
26,302 lowest (4/11)
2000 paid attendance
33,240 Patriots Day attendance
33,240 highest
20,313 lowest (4/12)
Looks like they've had no trouble selling tickets on the local holiday / day game / marathon / all-out party day. The day they used to have trouble selling out was the first home game after the home opener. FWIW, Wednesday, April 8, 2009 is already down to single-seat availability.
Like the Penny deal, though it's not Wade Miller -- Sox are paying 3 times as much.
Of course as Karl will point out, this group is cheap and incompetent. It's not like they put together 2 World Series titles and 4 ALCS berths in 6 years the way the Harrington/Duquette partnership did.
Duquette got us Manny, Pedro, Varitek, Lowe...and other important pieces of those teams...right, Karl?
I mean, I guess it's fine to say that whatever the Red Sox do, you trust them because they won two world championships. Ok, you trust them. I don't trust them in all things. I expect that given the money we all shovel into Henry's maw, the Red Sox will spend accordingly to create the best team possible. Right now, it looks like given the failure to sign Teixeira or Sabathia, they will end up holding a good chunk of that money. That's my problem. Certainly, as I've said before (see #52), I would love for the Red Sox to prove me wrong, to find much better ways to spend their money and produce a better team than they would have had if they'd gone 8/190 for Sabathia or 8/200 for Teixeira. That would be awesome. But I think it's incumbent on those who defend the team to offer more content than "I trust them" to defend the Sox choices. What do you think they'll do that will justify your faith?
I also don't think he's worth 4/60. According to Tango's calculations on fangraphs, Dunn has been worth $15M just once in his career. (Accounting for inflation, he was worth $20M+ in today's dollars in 2004, to be fair.) When you play a non-essential defensive position and still give back 15-20 runs per year with the glove, you have to hit like Manny Ramirez to be worth the big contract. Dunn doesn't.
They're going to have to spend some money in the next couple of years to keep or replace some players (Youk, Lester, Beckett, Papelbon, and Bay) and obviously they still need a hitter a couple years out as Ortiz and Lowell reach the end of their deals. We'll see how Lars Anderson develops of course and I imagine if they don't extend Bay this off-season they will be serious players for Holliday next winter. There's already talk of Mauer of course in two years and obviously there may be trades to be made that haven't even been considered yet. My feeling is that Epstein has demonstrated enough acumen for putting together a quality baseball team that I'm willing to take on a little blind confidence that the job will get done.
My original point is that a failure to spend isn't indicative of cheapness though. They were clearly willing to spend big money on Teixeira, they got outbid and I believe they were going to be outbid regardless of what they offered. It's just a fact that the Yankees can spend more and had an obvious need. If they were cheap they wouldn't have even explored Teixeira. I think the lower payroll this year is due in large part to an organizational success that they have developed many young players who have not reached a point where they are being paid market value.
If you are feeling like Henry has some obligation to give money back by lowering ticket prices well that would be nice but it's simply not realistic. I'd like to see them go hard after Sheets (I'm a big fan) and I wouldn't mind another reliever but I'd hate to see them spend just to reach an artificial payroll number just to satisfy the fans. I'd prefer to go into 2009 with a $110 million payroll than have a $130 million payroll but have money tied up in a 3 year deal for a mediocre middle reliever or a 4/60 type deal for a guy like Derek Lowe.
They won 95 games last year and I think are capable of doing that again. By the same token I think the division is tight enough that they could win 90 and finish third.
Yes I expet them to spend the money going forward as they sign the players I referenced before. I don't think it will be as direct as "we spent $15 million less in '09 so we have to spend $15 million more in '10" but what should they be spending on right now to reach whatever number you feel is appropriate? I don't think their payroll in '09 is going to be "well" under budget but that's a matter of semantics more than anything else. Spending money on a player like Lowe ties up not just the money but a roster slot. I would submit that the Sox would have been much more aggressive on Teixeira had they not re-signed Lowell last year though obviously that's unprovable.
In fairness it should be pointed out that they spent $194 million in 2007 (adding in the posting fee) so an argument could be made that a payroll reduction in 2009 is paying for that expenditure which we can all agree worked out OK with the WS title. I don't think that's what this is though. I think this is simply a case of a good team not having a need to spend a ton of money. They could easily add $30 million in payroll by signing Dunn and Lowe for example but would that really make the team better? I don't believe it would.
I get the impression you feel that Henry should be giving money back to the fans in some form. If I'm wrong I'm sorry but emotionally I agree with you but that's just not realistic. My company recently reduced it's payroll and I can assure you we are not returning money to our customers either.
You also have to credit the team for spending in ways other than the Major League payroll. They've dropped loads on the draft and have ramped up in the international market too. Maybe they're amortizing Dice's bonus over the first 3 years of the deal, when they figure to get the most value out of him? And maybe they'll be ready to throw another ridiculous (in a good way) fee out there to get Darvish or some other star.
Then again, if the team keeps winning, I have a hard time saying that they should be spending more money. As long as they're making the playoffs every year, if their spending is dropping. If they get to a point where they feel their draft and international spending is feeding the team with enough talent, and their payroll drops to say $100 mil. (a $100 mil development machine!), who am I to complain. The money leaving them won't make me happier. That said, they better be in the playoffs EVERY SINGLE YEAR if they try to pull that. There better be no time where I say to myself, 'Shoot, if they only had a decent [blank], they could have made the postseason."
I think you're reading this the wrong way. I see it as the Red Sox are presenting product as a premium product and charging accordingly. As a Red Sox fan, I'm very happy with this arrangement, but when they appear to be skimping on acquiring talent, that pisses me off, because I'm paying for a premium team.
Whatever happened to the money they had set aside to bring Clemens back? I'm not at all that comfortable with the idea that they'll reinvest this money down the road. Of course right now there isn't anyone worth spending that money on other than their own players, so maybe we see an extension for Lester before the Season starts. I also don't expect them to outbid the Yankees for Holliday next year, either.
I'm annoyed with losing out on Teixeira because it looks like it completely screwed up their entire off-season/ longterm plan plan. I seem to remember reading that when the FO went to Dallas that Theo was willing to go to $190M; I don't buy the "Tex really wanted to be in NY" as anything other than Boras trying to soothe ruffled feathers with a big spender and think that the Sox could've closed the deal that weekend if they'd put an 'exploding' offer on the table then.
It might hurt to spend a team into unprofitability when liquidity is all the rage and it appears likely that franchise values will be falling. Still, two or three years from now, I'd guess that many teams who took a dip in the FA market in 2008-2009 offseason will be happy. Just my guess though.
Other than Derek Lowe. If the only offer on his plate is 3/36, the Sox absolutely have to get into the bidding.
Take a four-year sample of their wRAA + UZR from fangraphs. I'm taking a four year sample because it is the worst possible for Mike Lowell.
I get 0.4, 3.5, 5.2, 3.5 for Lowell (total 12.6) vs. 2.7, 2.0, 3.1, 1.9 for Dunn (total 9.7). Give that any sort of normal projection weighting and Lowell comes out even better. Adam Dunn hits lots of homers and draws lots of walks, but he does everything else so poorly that he's not much better than average overall. I don't see any reason to ignore Dunn's terrible defense. (I thought Dunn sucked in the OF when I watched him, and all his other numbers are bad, too.)
Obviously, we don't know how well Lowell's going to return from surgery, but replacing him immediately with a highly-paid player who may not even be able to fake it at first (he's been really, really horrible there the last couple years and reportedly dislikes playing the position) doesn't seem like a good idea. I was lukewarm on Teixeira replacing Lowell - though obviously it would have been a solid upgrade - so I'm definitely not interested in Dunn.
Derek Lowe filling our empty 5th starter slot, though, sign me up. I'd be interested in a healthy Ben Sheets, but I don't think one exists. I watched him pitch that last game in Milwaukee, and he was a shadow of his former self.
I expect the Red Sox to get outbid by the Yankees for any free agent the Yankees want. I also expect most, if not all, of those free agents to choose the highest bid. In my mind, I think the best way for Boston to compete is (a) to develop a lot of prospects, (b) identify quality players on other teams, (c) use some of (a) to acquire some of (b) 1-3 years before free agency, and (d) in that span sign those players to long-term extensions. Signing free agents should be Plan B.
Absolutely correct, if the "down economic times" are short-lived. If they persist the team would be at an economic disadvantage, those huge-but-not-absurd contracts looking more absurd each day. (I'm not going to pretend to know what the economy will look like 2-3 years hence.)
Personally I'd be in wait and see mode on this. If the Sox become a team that is consistently 7th-10th in payroll when they have the werewithal to be top 3-4 (i.e. the Boston Bruins model) I'll be irritated. I think the current incarnation of the Sox is in a position with several key young players under control and a couple of others (Ortiz, Beckett and Bay specifically) who are underpaid relative to market so I feel it is unfair to assume Henry is in money hoarding mode here. It's a perfect storm for Henry where he has a team that is capable of a 90+ win season AND can do so on the cheap (in Red Sox terms).
In a couple of years if guys like Lester, Papelbon, Youkilis get away without viable replacements for want of a couple of bucks, then I think some criticism is more than warranted.
That wasn't the question. I didn't ask about John Henry making a profit. I asked about John Henry suddenly cutting payroll by tens of millions and pocketing those brand new tens of millions on top of the normal profits.
This has been discussed before. None of us really knows, of course, on a certain level. My guess is the Red Sox could go up to $210M or so plus luxury tax if they really wanted to. I certainly don't blame Henry for not doing so. That said, it is important to recall that when the Red Sox went over the luxury tax line a few years ago--by like 3 or 4$M--Henry issued a public statement apologizing for it and explaining how he is 100% behind Selig's economic policies. So, essentially, the Red Sox payroll will be as high as Bud Selig allows it to be if Epstein thinks that going that high makes the team better.
In terms of this year's FA class, I think the Red Sox also decided that Sabathia wanted too many years and Teixeira isn't quite good enough to go 8/190 on. When Epstein said a few weeks ago that if you talk yourself into thinking you "need" a player, "you're lost", that was an indicator of what was going to happen. Finally, it may be true that the Yankees would have just kept going no matter what it took to get Teixeira and Sabathia--but no one knows that, either, except the Steinbrenners.
Do you?
EDIT: in your post, "keeping the team competitive" is doing all the argumentative heavy lifting. And it seems based on a binary, rather than relative, conception of competitiveness. My point is that a team can always become more or less competitive, and in general, adding payroll is a good way to be more competitive. If they choose to run with a lower payroll - entirely to give more money to John Henry, as you said - they will be less competitive.
vi, though, is arguing that since the Red Sox can be "competitive" in some absolute sense without as large a payroll, he's ok with John Henry just redirecting $20M in Red Sox revenues from payroll to his pocketbook. That's a very, very different argument, one that I find utterly bizarre coming from a Red Sox fan.
Obviously, if I'm wrong, and the team is equally good at getting to the playoffs every year under tougher financial straits, then, ok, I'm not upset. But I don't see any reason to believe I'm wrong.
Not only am I OK with it, I favor it. I'd rather see the Red Sox win with a lower payroll than a higher one. Not because I care whose pockets the money goes into*, but because I think winning the next World Series** with a payroll more in line with the rest of baseball will likely be more satisfying than one obtained primarily through flexing the club's considerable financial muscle.
* Unlike most of us here, it's important to point out that it isn't any of my money. I live more than 1,000 miles from Boston, so I'm not shelling out any dough for the high ticket prices or whatever the cable package might be. I'm likely to be a lot more indifferent to the club's payroll than season-ticket holders.
** I'm certain my attitude about the most satisfying way to see the club win would be much different if Boston didn't have two World Series titles in the last five years. I consider myself pretty spoiled.
Darren, I think it depends on which part of which post Tex-to-the-Yankees reports you believe. I tend to think that if JWH has told Tex face to face that he'd give him $190M, but the offer was leaving the room with him that he and Boras (who were looking at a previous best offer of $168M from the Sox) would probably jump on it just like Damon did. Maybe Tex only wanted to go the Yankees, but I tend to think that as a Boras client he was following the highest offer, and it's not like the Sox couldn't afford to pay him at that level.
Now it appears that they're going to have to try and pay in talent for something that they had a chance to get for just cash. What are the chances that they don't overpay in prospects for the type of hitter they're trying to get?
Yes, obviously if they spent more money - and spent it wisely - they could do better. I'm still not seeing where they've lost an opportunity to spend money wisely. I suppose they could've spent money unwisely - improving but at a cost that makes John Henry get less than he expects to get - but the business model they have seems to have worked pretty well to date.
To their credit, they extended Pedroia. They cleared out Coco, too. If they can find a way to sign a good player to a non-regrettable salary, great. I'm not disappointed if they don't, and I'm thrilled if they do.
*Matsuzaka wasn't a free agent.
EDIT: Honestly, I'm seeing this wishcasting moreso from other people than on this site. As you can see, it's getting to me.
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