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2013: $6M (all Beckett)
2014: $10M ($8M Beckett)
2015: $3M
2016: $5M
2017: $7M
2018: $10M
Outside of the benefits of dumping Beckett, that's a small $$/win profit weighted heavily to the not particularly near future. I'm not a fan of dumping Gonzalez. Gonzalez and Crawford have to be a package deal, or the Dodgers need to be giving us a bunch of prospects.
By the way, this whole thing is insane.
BOS gives up Gonzalez, Beckett, Crawford, and Punto (plus some nontrivial cash considerations, presumably)
LAD gives up Loney and four prospects (Rubby de la Rosa, Ivan De Jesus, Jerry Sands, and Allen Webster)
That would definitely qualify as the long-awaited Smile and Magnum (Smegma?) trade.
What was the last bit of evidence that the current front office is not "pretty incompetent"?
Also, is the phrase "unveil his Magnum" as gross as it sounds?
It sounds like the latter is what's going to happen. I don't like trading Gonzo either, but that's the price of getting shot of the Beckett and Crawford contracts.
Magnum. (It's an old ST bit, in reference to the impossible mega-trades that Theo Epstein would meticulously construct, but never quite complete every offseason and trade deadline. They seemed like classic lost works of art, never quite ready for the public. I called it Smile, Darren preferred Magnum.)Well, they were going to need to be highly competent to produce a winning team in 2013-2014 anyway. This has made that job easier. Maybe they still screw it up, but if you're starting with the presumption of incompetence, then your baseline for 2013-2014 should be two more years out of the playoffs regardless.
Oh come on, it's much, *much* too early to be passing judgment on Crawford's contract. /crispix
And I don't actually disagree with any of your thoughts here, except that I don't think it's as simple as laying out the monetary values and calculating some expected return on presumed future investment. Dumping Gonzalez to shed Crawford basically means starting over, which may very well be the way to go, but that's a lot of talent to just drop.
Also, I'm annoyed we'd still have Lackey. Sigh.
Remember this is Ned Colletti we're dealing with. Don't give up hope yet.
Players that are free agents after 2013, aka, the likely trade crop:
David Wright (prolly resigned)
Brian McCann
Shin-Soo Choo
Corey Hart
Josh Johnson
Matt Garza
Tim Lincecum
And a bunch of guys that are 'meh', old, or some combination thereof.
My vote is to spend it all on Brazilian, Dutch, and Australian hookers.
My first instinct is that it's worth dumping Gonzalez in order to get out from under these contracts, but who the hell knows until we see how much money the Sox have to send along with the contracts.
One side note in all of this: getting rid of these contracts ups--I think/hope--the possibility they re-sign/offer a whole lotta $ to Ellsbury, which is a move I generally am OK with.
Dare they play Ortiz at 1B next year?
I'm leery of both of those guys. Hamilton is a big risk (IMO) with anything more than a 3-4 year deal (which he won't do, presumably); Swisher is...well... Swisher. I'm not a fan.
I was mining the trade market, and noted free agents AFTER 2013, not before it.
Choo would be a really good fit on this team and in Fenway's RF.
EDIT: I see Nate clarified his own post as I was drafting this one.
Yeah, things will get pretty wild from here on in if this goes down, that is for sure.
Hopefully its somewhere good.
Deep fry him first and you won't even have to ask.
This tells you all you need to know about our respective intellectual levels.
@33--
That's my point. Even if you like Gonzalez, would you be happy if the Red Sox had signed him for 6/130 coming off these past two years?
I wouldn't have punted on Beckett in isolation (and can see the side of the argument that Gonzalez would be worth his deal), but getting rid of Crawford too and possibly getting talent back makes this a good deal.
This tells you all you need to know about our respective intellectual levels. "
But if I call it Poetica Comedia, I'm just pretentious. No fair.
You're probably going to have to wait until 2019.
We have traded Josh Reddick, Kevin Youkilis, Carl Crawford, Jed Lowrie, Adrian Gonzalez for a couple of relievers and 2 fringe prospects. ####### INSANE
The fact remains that I have seen nothing from Cherington that gives me confidence that he's going to spend this money right.
And Dan, if you'd slept 10 more minutes maybe they would've fired Valentine.
Gotta enhance his value.
They have to replace their contributions for, what, about $60 mil/year? That seems quite doable.
CF: Ellsbury?
RF: Ross?
3B WMB
SS Aviles? Ciriaco? Andrus if Ells is traded for him?
2B Pedroia
1B wtf?? Kotchman? Pena? what a joke. I wouldn’t be surprised if the team brought back Pena and everyone crowed over what a great move it was.
C Lavarnaway?
This team has literally become every mouthbreather who called into WEEI with a stupid idea.
We traded Rizzo and those other guys for two fringe pitching prospects?? Let the best 3B in the league walk (Beltre) because we were so high on Youk and AGon...now we're just letting them all walk ...for ####### what??? Money? To spend on who? At a minimum that's 12 WAR walking out the door. Crawford could have come back some next year...Beckett showed me he can still hit his spots. AGon is a ####### god on a steal of a contract!? GD IM LIVID.
There is no upside to this. It's 2009 except the FA field is a billion times weaker. If I hadn't of sworn I would never dump Boston, I would do it in a heartbeat. You know your team has ###### up when you feel Schadenfreude for your own team.
The implication of his post, though, seems to be that the Red Sox either will not spend the ~$75M they have under the salary cap, or that they'll spend all $75M just on Josh Hamilton and Casey Kotchman. I predict(~!) the Red Sox will not give Josh Hamilton a $60M per season contract.
Really? It wouldn't surprise you if everyone was excited to see the Sox sign a 1B who is presently posting a 91 OPS+ with mediocre defense at age 34?
Im high on them for some dumb reason i guess.
This is simply not true. Gonzalez is a first baseman who has stopped walking and hitting home runs, and seems to have improved his ability to hit for average. And he's heading on the wrong side of thirty. And he's owed $130M DOLLARS THAT IS NOT A STEAL OF A CONTRACT ON ANY LEVEL.
Dave Cameron loves this (still not completed) trade for the Red Sox. Next we'll be hearing confirmation from Will Carroll that he's seen the official trade documents in the commissioner's office ready to go.
I think you're letting your Red Sox fandom overly impact your optimistic view on all 3 of these players. Imagine if all 3 of these guys were on the Yankees: They owed a declining and increasingly belligerent Beckett $30M for 2 more years and had signed Crawford to a historic contract only to see him contribute absolutely nothing over the first two seasons. Now imagine that they had traded Banuelos and Montero for Adrian Gonzalez, and then spent $154M to lock him up for 7 years only to see him stop getting on base and stop hitting the ball out of the park. Would you be excited that they were trading away 3 big names in August, or worried that they were going to take that money and spend more efficiently on better players?
At least Ray thinks it's never going to happen. I think that outweighs the Cameron issue.
Or do you think that Gonzalez and Beckett alone are good for 10-12 WAR next year? Because I'll bet the under on that.
Hamilton would be a disaster in Boston. That would be the Crawford deal all over again.
1B wtf??
Don't worry, I'm sure they'll be able to negotiate an extension for Loney!
We traded Rizzo and those other guys for two fringe pitching prospects??
De La Rosa and Webster are not fringe prospects. Those guys are legit mid-rotation starter material. Jerry Sands isn't exactly chopped liver, either. He could probably manage an OPS north of .800 playing half his games at Fenway. At worst, he's a potential platoon partner for Kalish in the OF and whoever at 1B.
There is no upside to this. It's 2009 except the FA field is a billion times weaker.
This is a clown freakout, bro. After the last few years, why would you even want the Sox to be looking at the FA market as their principal means of reloading? I am sort of relieved that this winter's market is shaping up to be good but not great players who aren't going to command contracts in the neighborhood of 5/100 or more.
I have a lot more confidence in the front office's ability to go get an impact player or two via trade, and now they have a deeper farm system with more ML-ready prospects to dangle. This is a good thing, in my estimation.
I don't think it's as easy to do as it seems. Additionally, to do it for year one without screwing up years 4-5 is tougher. One of the benefits that GOnzalez and Crawford brought is that they are still pretty young as free agents go. Both are younger than Hamilton who is probably going to require 6-7 years and more AAV than either player got to sign.
I noted it elsewhere in the last couple of days but the kvetching about Gonzalez is way over the top in some corners. Yes, he's having a down year but he's still awfully good and there is every reason to think he will have a much more typical Adrian Gonzalez season next year. Dale is of course over the top when he calls it a steal of a contract but I think it is a very fair contract and much less than what Gonzalez would get if he were a free agent at the end of the year.
Also, I'm not sure why we're so concerned about the lineup when it's the pitching that's been the problem the last two years. Yes, losing A-Gon won't help but it's not hard to imagine upgrades on Crawford vintage 2011-2012, and they won't be giving at bats to Nick Punto.
It's not Will Carroll, but here you go...
Jed Lowrie for Mark Melancon
Josh Reddick for Andrew Bailey
Kevin Youkilis for a bag of baseball
Marco Scutaro for Clayton Mortensen
I still think Lowrie and Reddick are vastly overrated by their fans (hi Dale!) but the fact is there is no reason so far to think that Cherington is going to do a good job of getting an impact player in a trade.
So it's over?
*In other words I feel just like the Dale Sams camp. Only the exact opposite.
edit: ** Rays says its not going to happen? I need to find out if there is a line on this in Vegas...
At the very least, if there's any bounce-back he has that "indentured servant" option year on his contract (at ML minimum) that would kick in since he had TJ surgery, and if he's even league average in 2013 that option year for 2015 at ML minimum is a big trade chip that I suspect would appeal to a lot of teams.
I'm OK with punting 2013; I just want to feel like there's a plan. Spending $ on FA isn't a Plan A.
I suspect a lot of the plan is hanging out in Portland, ME right now. Between Bradley and Bogaerts the Sox have some potential real impact players hanging out in AA who are likely to be ready to roll for 2014.
Whaddaya mean? That's exactly what Plan Angelos is!
Okay, I'm flipping. I hate it now.
I just think the Gonzalez thing is okay. Guys lose value after 30, especially big slow guys, especially if they can't move down the defensive
spectrum, especially if they play poorly at 30. People lose track of that too easily. Mark Teixeira was every bit as good as Gonzalez, and he's not a star anymore, or not much of one. For instance.
I hope so... See, that's fun to me. Seeing guys come up, do well... that's fun. Buying John Lackey... not fun. Buying Nick Swisher... not fun. Bring up the kids. Fill in where you have to but don't go nuts with FA.
I confess I'm getting giddy at the thought of a rebuild. There was going to be very little this team could do at the margins in 2013/2014 to improve the team for 2015; now it has the room to do so.
I'll bet Amaro is wishing he could dump Howard's contract on ol' Ned right now...
If Swisher can be had on a fair deal, maybe 3/27, then he's exactly the sort of complementary player that a club like the Sox should be acquiring. He's a league average player with a solid OBP and defensive flexibility between corner OF and 1B. I'm pretty sure that almost all the douchey things about Swisher that are grating today would become reasonably endearing once he had an 850 OPS for the Sox.
Amaro clearly has no intent to dump any of his crazy contracts. He already missed the chance to unload the Lee contract on the Dodgers.
That's how I've put up with Beckett in odd numbered years.
2013 should be a bridge year, but a bridge year on a $170M budget doesn't mean you lose more games than you win. The Sox should be able to bridge to the next core while also playing meaningful baseball in September.
Yeah, that guy is a slap hitting first baseman. We traded Anthony Rizzo, let Beltre walk, and didn't let Youkilis even think about slumping because of that slap-hitter. And now we're letting him walk so we can spend the money on BJ Upton.
You guys are forgetting, this team was headed to 72-90 WITH AGon. This isn't Moneyball. Spreading the WAR out to replace AGon is just going to get you to 72-90.
And what if papi says at the end of the year. \"#### you guys." Well, there's another 14mill to spend on guys who will never replace him.
If he had suggested Lee + Howard, maybe Ned does the deal!
2004 was fun--those were smartly bought players and traded-for players. More please.
Having 5 HOFers* (Im counting Damon and Nomar as 1/2 each..even if Nomar was a non-factor) kind of helps. Pedroia is the only guy on the team now that has a sniffing chance.
*Let's not nick-pick. I'm calling Manny and Papi HOFers, yes.
It's only if you think the Sox have the talent right now to compete and win in 2013 or 2014 that you can reasonably hate this trade.
I said I had more confidence in the FO performing well in the trade market than the free agent market. That doesn't mean I have a lot of confidence in their ability to, well, to do much of anything really. But this trade is the most encouraging thing they've done in a while, so let's hope it's a good start. It'll certainly be more interesting than watching the same team try not to #### things up in the same way for the third straight year.
Did you really call AGon a "30 year old fatass who's having a shitty season"?? Really? REALLY? The guy has three bad months, and he's a '30 year old fatass having a shitty season." WEEI is down the hall mouthbreather.
I love Swisher. He seems like a fun guy. What are the douchey things about him that I've missed? (Honest question. My opinion of him was formed several years ago, and I haven't watched much of the Yankees lately.)
I will of course take all of this back when he's wearing a Red Sox uniform and flashing rock'n'roll horns at the fans on the monster. Then it will be charming.
Which part of it isn't true? He's 30, he's having a crappy season, he's a big, slow, not-terribly-athletic guy. But you seem utterly blind to that.
If Lackey is a pain in the ass earning $15M, what would he be like at the minimum? Don't think many teams would want to go down that road even with the discount. Besides, it seems likely Lackey would just threaten to retire unless he got a better deal.
I don't know, he strikes me as more of a harmlessly gregarious dude who enjoys playing baseball and smiles a lot. I mean, sure, he's a jock. Most ballplayers are.
On Swisher, Matt, well, you're probably right. He seems like he's trying, like he's playing at being that bro for marketing reasons, which grates. But that's could easily be just the uniform talking. (If anyone has better evidence, I'll walk it back again.)
Swisher is getting $10.25M this year and isn't really having a year that suggests he'll take a pay cut. While matching Jayson Werth's contract might be unrealistic on Nick's part, he won't come all that cheap. It will be tough for the Red Sox not to pay market price when everyone knows they have a pile of cash, and some folks might even want a premium to play in a "crazy clown town" environment.
The second half of your post is just fanboy wishcasting.
The first three months still count, you know.
Look, what I'm pointing out, about which you seem to have decided to not think, is that Gonzalez is neither young nor athletic, and he's on a huge contract. There's no particular reason to believe he's the player he was in San Diego. Most guys aren't as good in their 30s as they are in their 20s. And Gonzo isn't the kind of jock one should expect to be an exception.
Only if you base your evaluation solely on BBRef's stats. Fangraphs has him at 3.2, 4.1, 3.8 and 2.6 (so far in 2012 despite missing time). I think Swisher is a decent bit better than 2.5 WAR and I sincerely doubt the market is going to value him at that rate. Swisher is going to get a lot more than 3/27.
All of a sudden these pinheads are going to make good decisions? I would much rather fire Ben, Bobby and Larry then let them drive the team further into the ground. On top of Youk and Shoppach, this just stinks of a malcontent dump with Crawford thrown in. I don't like Crawford, Beckett makes me mad...but I have no faith in the FO to do right.
Andre Ethier, who is a comparable, but younger and slightly better hitter, got 5/85 negotiating with one team. I think 4/50 is a floor for Swisher.
Swish is the guy in Moneyball who has the story about asking someone from Cleveland what was going on Finley and Tawny Kitaen, at his pre-draft meeting, right? I think that's just who he is. I will say I can see how that would be incredibly obnoxious, though.
EDIT: And to attempt to add some actual thoughtful baseball content, I'd be stunned if Swish got less than $60 million for four years.
But I still blame the need for it all on Beckett and Lester being mostly horrible. Decent performances by both would not have forced the team to be this worried about not just 2013 but beyond to the point they'd even contemplate the need for the salary cap flexibility this should bring.
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