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Cross posted from the main thread:
Home/Road for his career:
263/360/440
303/376/568
And he should take all of his negotiating advice from Roy Halladay.
(Also, I think the $5.5 mil salary is sort of irrelevant now. They're going to renegotiate and Gonzalez has most of the power. The only thing on the Sox side is that Gonzalez may want the security coming off a shoulder injury.)
Unlikely. I think he will get somewhere between this and what Teixeira got.
Fair enough. Usually you are deadly serious about all tings Red Sox and money-related.
I can't decide what this means for Papelbon. Less likely to deal him this off-season, since the payroll will go down?
There's still room for Crawford or Werth here, but they're in a much better position now if they can't get that done. And I don't see an Upton trade now given that the club won't want to completely empty the farm.
So who are we rooting for Beltre to sign with now? The Sox already have the 19th pick + a sandwich pick from Detroit for Martinez... what are the scenarios wrt getting picks for Beltre and giving them for Werth?
1) Crossposting from the other thread, check out the ten flyball outs Gonzalez made last year that would be homers in Fenway: SoSH post of hit chart.
2) Kevin Youkilis might be a good third baseman. He was a reasonable third baseman as a young man, he has a good arm, and he's been perfectly competent there in recent years. In something like 90 games at third between 2008 and 2009, he put up a +3 UZR and a +10 TZ. If Youkilis is actually above average at third, as the numbers suggest, he's could be one of the best players in all of baseball. Moving Youkilis to third might be one of the hidden benefits of this trade.
I count 11. 10 to left and 1 to right.
Of course, it's hard to know how many of those long flies would turn out to be homers turned to singles and doubles.
I would have thought eating a bunch of salary and trading him for Bell made some sense, in that you wind up (with Bell's salary + salary eaten on Papelbon) probably shelling out around the $15 million they offered Rivera when all is said and done, while upgrading pretty nicely.
Papelbon would probably bounce back a bit with a move to the NL, and that park would help him as well... It really makes all the sense in the world to move Papelbon and try to get Bell.
i'd love to trade for Bell. I assume, though, if the Sox were going to do that, they'd have done it last night. In any case, Papelbon makes no sense whatsoever as part of the trade.
EDIT: I guess one could theorize a three-team deal in which a third club took on part of Papelbon's contract and maybe shipped a prospect to San Diego. But in that case, why wouldn't the third club just deal with San Diego directly?
When it comes to the Red Sox payroll? Absolutely.
OK, I admit it. I'm desperate to trade Papelbon. If the non-tender rumors are true, I suspect the Red Sox wouldn't mind doing it either.
Agree, I feel the same way... but they're right [ed.: 'they' referring to everyone else in the thread]. Papelbon for Bell makes no sense no matter how you slice it. Given what appears to be the Padres' plans going forward, Papelbon makes zero sense for them. Might as well include another prospect or two in the Gonzalez deal and add Bell outright. Which doesn't make a ton of sense for Boston in terms of resource allocation.
The reports are getting pretty consistent that it's Kelly/Rizzo/Fuentes/PTBNL
This is now what I'm hearing/seeing as well (I had basically just woken up when posted previous comment), and I cannot believe how cheap that is. I mean, we've been saying all along that these 'mega-deals' always turn out to be poorer prospect-wise than the BBTF contingent expects (Santana, Teixeira the second time, Lee twice, Victor Martinez, etc), so I expected this one to be somewhat disappointing for the Pads, but I figured that meant they wouldn't get Bard or Kalish. But for Kelly to be the only A-list guy in the package, and for it to include no major-league ready players, seems crazy to me. But what the hell, I love the Red Sox, so I can just smirk and say "send it"!
I'm not desperate to trade him, but I do think it might make sense. Can they get a decent set-up guy and middle infield depth, or a catching prospect, or two decent set up guys? That said, this is kind of an all-in year with this current group, so keeping him is probably the best bet.
If the prospects going to SD appear underwhelming, this is something to keep in mind. Other potential trading partners may not have been able to be as confident about extending Gonzalez and would therefore have scaled back their offers accordingly.
I'm also a little concerned about the toll playing 3B might take on Youkilis. It's a more demanding position, and Youk will need to spend lots more time working on his fielding than hitting, plus he'll be 32. Not hugely concerned, because I'm really still really excited about Gonzalez, but it's a tough switch to make at that age.
Also, what's the Red Sox budget like right now? If they wind up giving Gonzalez $20M a year, can they even afford Crawford or Werth? Seems like they're paying a lot for a pretty crappy pitching staff right now, and it doesn't seem like anybody except Buchholz is significantly underpaid on that team.
--You're not Teixeira or Cabrera, but we all agree your well above Dunn.
--We think you'll be better outside Petco, but no one can say that for sure.
--If we wanted to outbid everyone else, we could just wait a year and not give up all these good players, which leads into:
--How's your shoulder feel? We're willing to bet $100 mil on it being better. What are you willing to gamble on it?
I think he goes FA if that's their best offer. He could probably have gotten 5/100 from SD.
I agree. He's not getting paid $5M this year if they agree to a new deal. They'll restructure his contract to give him more than that, plus another 6-7 years probably around $20-25M per. The way the Red Sox have been going after AG for years, they're gonna have to pay up.
Including the two richest teams in baseball, plus the Angels. Nice work if you can get it.
At 6/110? About 20 teams. If he's that cheap, the Yankees will sign him to replace Posada at DH. The Cardinals might let Pujols go and sign Gonzalez.
Ryan Howard got 5/125 and is much, much worse.
Free agents seem to be priced around $4M per win above replacement. That puts Gonzalez' fair market value somewhat under $20M per season.
When it comes to free agents, it never really seems like the Red Sox get particularly good deals. They seem willing to pay a premium for security. Once they decide on their guy, they just pay the market rate or maybe even slightly more. I don't think they really got great deals on Drew, Scutaro or Lackey. Certainly not on Cameron. They did wind up getting a great year out of Beltre, but coming off of his terrible 2009, $10M actually seemed pretty generous. The Red Sox always pay a little more than "fair market value" (if such a thing can really be determined) because they can afford to spend, and they can't afford not to get their guy if they want to remain highly competitive.
Looks like closer to $5M so far this year, and Gonzalez was 7.0 and 6.3 WAR the last two years.
I'd still like Crawford as well -- unique albeit not AAA. Werth on the other hand looks to me to fall into the Sox' grey area in which they overpay for mediocrity plus. The correct use of money is to acquire excellence, not to overpay for the ordinary.
Another reason I've seen to go after Werth is that he can slide over to RF in a year when Drew leaves. One, this wastes Werth's talents for 20-25% of his contract. Two, it wastes the talents of Kalish/Reddick, who will probably be manning an OF slot in 2012 and would presumably be moved to left when Werth slides over. The Sox need a left fielder, a job for which Werth is over-qualified. They don't need a right fielder in the short term and in the long term can probably get 80% of Werth's production for 5% of the cost. Now maybe Kalish and Reddick both fail to develop or are needed in center, but we know there's a short and long term need in left and a solution like Crawford doesn't hit the free agent market very often. He's precisely the type of player the Sox should flex their financial muscles to sign.
Oh, I think it'll take more than that. 6/125 is a no brainer - you obviously sign him for that. I would guess it's something more like the 7/145 mentioned in #38. I wouldn't be surprised to see something like 7/160, either.
I like Crawford better than Werth as well, but I think he'll also be more expensive, and those salaries add up. I don't know how big a deal this is, but adding both Gonzalez and Crawford does start making the Red Sox awfully left-handed.
EDIT: Or everything PCR said, amplified.
I don't like Werth at ALL, and his potential for cliff-level decline scares me. I wish they'd get Crawford instead, but it's true that that would really screw up this year's team vis a vis batting handedness and lineup construction (try to put a rational-looking lineup together with Gonzalez/Pedroia/Scutaro(/Lowrie)/Youkilis/Crawford/Ellsbury/Drew/Ortiz as the starters - it's a nightmare), though that should admittedly be low on their list of concerns. I'm no longer really worried about the youngsters; assuming that's the group of position players they go into 2011 with, next offseason they'll have to replace Scutaro, Cameron, Drew, and Ortiz, and assuming Lowrie develops as we hope he will, those holes are all filled easily and naturally from within - yet more reason that extending Gonzalez and signing one of the big two OFs this offseason makes too much sense not to do.
Basically, I see Werth as Lackey redux. Having been an early and vocal opponent of that signing, I don't know how much stridency I can muster against getting Werth... it just seems like a fait accompli already, a signing that I already know I will hate soon and regret later. But the long-term approach, despite my objections, is sound - if he's the best guy you're going to be able to get in the next 3 years at a position of need within 1 year, you pay to get him, and let the chips fall where they may, as much as internet fanboys like me might dislike it.
And agree with PCR of course - 6/125 is a done deal.
How is playing Werth in LF a waste of his talent but playing Crawford, a guy who is probably at least a +5 CF, in left field isn't a waste of talent? This argument makes no sense at all. Werth is a far better fit for this team, especially with Gonzalez on board as another LHH. I don't think people have really looked at Crawford's splits. His career line vs. LHP is .270/.315/.382 for an OPS of 697. Even during his career year last year he hit .256/.312/.384 for an OPS of .696. He is awful against left-handed pitching. In addition to his big splits, he refuses to hit leadoff. He refuses to play CF. I don't see how this is a player worth drooling over. The last thing this lineup needs is another player who can be completely neutralized by bringing in mediocre LOOGYs.
I would sign Werth because he's a very good player with a very well-rounded game who is athletic enough that I'm not too concerned about him aging poorly. He destroys left-handed pitching, which is something this team needs with Victor and Beltre both departing, but he's also a solid hitter against RHP. I'd also value his versatility in being able to provide average or better defense in all 3 OF spots, rather than Crawford who throws a tantrum if he's asked to play anywhere besides LF. That means the team would have more options in creating a lineup in 2012 after Drew departs, and also means that the team is more flexible in case of injuries to Drew and/or Ellsbury.
EDIT: MLBTR via Rosenthal/Heyman via Twitter says Werth gets 7 years from the Nats. BIG-TIME bullet dodged for the Sox if so.
Werth signs for 7/$126M.
Beltre and Crawford are going to ask for silly money too now, you'd think...
Although it certainly increases the price for Crawford. I can't say it makes me happy.
If this Gonzalez deal doesn't get done, I'm going to be pretty disappointed, because it probably means we go and sign Beltre to at least a 5-year deal.
What a clusterf@ck day.
Well anyways, thanks be due to the baseball gods for keeping Werth away from Theo, I have to assume Theo wouldnt have thought once about 7/126. I was concerned about the prospect of signing him to a 5 yr deal.
Now in retrospect, it looks even worse letting Martinez walk. That would have been a scary lineup, even with Ellsbury/Kalish/Cameron/etc making up 2/3 of the OF.
I'm still waiting to see the details of the contract, especially the luxury tax hit in 2011. How much $$ is left to spend on bullpen/C/OF?
Wait, would the higher average annual salary of the extension affect this year's luxury tax, or only after the extension begins?
I agree it doesn't look great at this point, with Werth signed and Crawford likely wanting a 7/160 of his own, but it is still early. The winter meetings haven't even happened yet. Even if this current group of players is final (which I highly doubt) this doesn't look too bad:
LF Ellsbury
2B Pedroia
1B Gonzalez
3B Youkilis
DH Ortiz
RF Drew
SS Lowrie/Scutaro
CF Cameron/Kalish
C Salty/Varitek
One of the interesting things about the Werth deal is that, as pointed out above and elsewhere, this might affect the contract Crawford can get. More interesting is that, once the ledger of absurd contracts include Werth and Crawford, it becomes more of a market thing than an outlier. Why is that interesting? Because the (trade) value of Ellsbury and Kalish will skyrocket. If the marginal cost per win above replacement among outfielders goes up, it's becomes much more valuable to have above-replacement talent at rock-bottom prices than it was previously.
I put "trade" in parentheses because the Ellsbury and Kalish contracts are valuable not just in trade, but in value to the Red Sox. Maybe it means they're less likely, instead of more likely, to trade these players away because it will cost much more to replace them. I'm not sure where it ends up, but this kind of stuff I always find fascinating.
vs righties:
Pedroia 2b
Drew Rf
Youkilis 3B
Gonazlez 1B
Ortiz DH
Manny LF
Scutaro SS
Saltalamacchia (did I get it right?) C
Ellsbury CF
vs lefties:
Ellsbury LF
Pedroia 2B
Youkilis 3B
Gonzalez 1B
Manny DH
Lowrie SS
Cameron CF
Drew RF
Varitek C
Agree, its not too bad. But on paper its not better than last season (offensively or defensively IMO). That may be ok with some bounce-back from the pitching staff and improvement in the pen, but I still really hope they're not done.
None of them would have hit the wall?
7/154 in closed negotiations, apparently.
Is Upton still an option at all? It just really seems like this team needs a strong righty bat, and no others come to mind.
As long as AGon's deal isn't announced the Sox can still afford to add a huge contract this year. I'd absolutely love to see Upton brought in, but I think the only way Towers trades him is if he can pull of the baseball equivalent of raping a coma patient.
The latest ODDIBE on the Orioles has Smoltz and Hoffman as Uehara's top comps. Intriguing.
Well good that he wants 2, but those werent exactly the names I would have expected the Red Sox to be after. And can we all stop fantasizing about the Red Sox being able to build a bullpen "on the cheap". If they are done w/ FAs, they have some money to burn. Bring in Soriano on closer money for 3 years, use the expected Beltre/Martinez kitty to pay for hiim this year and Papelbon's salary off the books to pay for him next.
I also still hope they pursue a catcher thru trade (Napoli). I dont think going into the season with an offense and defense that is worse than last year would be, as MCoA put it, a successful offseason.
Willingham and Ordonez on a one year deal appeal to me. Ordonez especially because he is "free."
Varitek
Saltalamacchia
Gonzalez
Pedroia
Scutaro
Lowrie
Youkilis
Drew
Ellsbury
Cameron
[left fielder]
Ortiz
Assuming 12 pitchers, that leaves one spot, and I don't think it could be manned by someone as limited defensively as Willingham or Ordonez. Or by a 'complementary' outfield move does he mean filling that starting LF spot with someone crappy? I guess that would make sense, Jeremy Hermida worked out so well after all...
I guess I'd say that if there's a player out there as good as Ordonez or Willingham, but with his talents more evenly distributed between offense and defense, I'd be perfectly fine with bringing him in instead of them. Do you have a proposal?
I agree that it'd be useful to have a multi-positional backup, but I think it's more important to get the best possible outfielder because that player will likely take 400-500 PA this season.
why not Ordonez/Willingham and Kalish as your 24 & 25. Lowrie and Scutaro can play all over the infield. If you need another IF, you can send Kalish down and bring up a no-name MI from Pawtucket. If you need another short-term OF because of injury, you can call up Nava or Reddick. If Kalish is rotting on the bench, you can play him in Pawtucket and have Nava/Reddick as the 5th OF.
Agree that the best possible (preferably RHB) outfielder is needed for the [left fielder] spot. I was referring to the last roster spot AFTER that, who I think pretty clearly needs to be able to play at least one infield position - right now it looks like there are only five guys (plus Ortiz, if you count him) covering the four infield spots.
EDIT:
Lowrie and Scutaro can play all over the infield
Right now only one of them can because the other one's starting at short. That makes Lowrie the backup at 1B, 2B, 3B, and SS, and Ortiz the only guy behind him on the depth chart. So if Tito has to replace two infielders in a game, he's ######.
Not to nitpick but if Tito has to replace two infielders in a game, isn't he kinda ###### regardless? The only way the Sox are screwed there is if the two infielders are among 2nd, short and 3rd. If Gonzo gets hurt we can throw Ortiz (or Saltalamacchia) at 1st base. Even if Youk and Scutaro goes down I think I'd deal with three innings of "Mike Cameron - 3rd baseman" and call up Yamaico Navarro the next day.
Hopefully two guys getting hurt in the same game won't be a problem that is frequent enough to be worth spending time worrying about it. I think we kind of used up a bit of injury quota last year dammit.
Then you'd get another bench player for the 13th position player. That guy could be multi-positional. A four-corners player would be what I figure the Sox would want, ideally.
Looks like Wigginton is Mr. 25. Not bad, but not good. I'd still have preferred Hall. See what he signs for, I guess.
Your'e probably right. Although I could envision the Sox going with just one for certain patches.
Since I didn't say it explicitly: the roster list you put together has eleven named players on it. The Sox need, on top of that, a left fielder and a bench bat, preferably one who can play four corners. So, I think the debate we've been having since post 75 has been based on the idea that there's a tradeoff between acquiring a good hitting LF, and having a four corners style bench bat. There isn't one, we can and should have both.
I agree with this quote in the abstract, but I don't think it has any bearing on the 2011 Red Sox, unless your contention is that replacing Victor Martinez with full seasons from Kevin Youkilis and Dustin Pedroia, replacing Adrian Beltre with Adrian Gonzalez, and replacing Darnell McDonald and Daniel Nava with Jacoby Ellsbury and Mike Cameron qualifies as downgrading both the offense and defense.
Replacing Beltre with Gonzalez, in this context, is not an upgrade. Neither Beltre nor Gonzalez projects to do better than Beltre 2010. And Buchholz had a fluky great year, he'll come back to earth. They're sacrificing about two wins at catcher. My back of the envelope numbers have these moves overall as more like a 2-4 win upgrade from 2010 than a 6-win upgrade.
Then you have the 1.5-2 win downgrade at catcher, and maybe a 1-2 win downgrade from Beltre's awesome season to a projected All-Star season by Gonzalez. (Beltre was really, really great last year.) The pitching doesn't project to improve much - they were abnormally healthy in the rotation, and underperformances balanced out overperformances reasonably well. The bullpen should improve, in theory, but bullpens are hard to project. The regular roster is mostly in their decline phase years, so that costs a little. Hopefully it will be balanced out by a good new LF. That's why I've got the club only around 91-93 wins right now, even with a couple complementary additions.
I don't disagree especially strongly but I'm more confident than you for a few reasons.
1. I think Beckett + Buchholz in the aggregate will be the same as it was in 2010. I think the sum will be greater than the parts because I think going (roughly) from "Great start/crummy start" to "good start/good start" is better over the course of a season.
2. I expect the bullpen to be improved though this has not happened yet. Because of the leverage of that role I think an improved bullpen is more than a straight "10 runs=1 win" improvement. By way of example a Jonathan Papelbon who improves by 6 or 7 runs probably gets the Sox 2-3 more wins because he isn't blowing saves.
3. Simiilar to item 1, I think having a strong lineup 1-9 will create a benefit. The Sox had long periods last year where they had sizable portions of the lineup staffed by AAA hitters. I think a more consistency throughout a lineup is beneficial. Put another way, and maybe I'm 100% wrong on this, I think two lineups with identical .775 OPS but one which has 9 guys at a .775 OPS and one that has 6 .875 guys and 3 .575 guys the consistent lineup will score more runs.
Where you gettin' this Matt? Your numbers are usually spot on but BBRef WAR has Beltre = Gonzalez (actually AGon a shade better) in 2010 and Gonzalez was better in 2009 than 2010. Given his age I think it's fair to think that Gonzalez made a "leap" in 2009 and that represents more his true talent level.
Am I missing something that you are seeing (quite likely).
I like Bill Hall for the latter role, although he might command too much in FA to justify paying for a reserve (although I haven't heard his name mentioned much this offseason). Jorge Cantu could work, I guess. Willingham would be a great fit for the former, but I still don't understand why his name has even come up; as far as I can tell he's got another year of arb and is slotted in as the starting LF for Washington. He's also really good. I've heard Matt Diaz a bunch, but would hope for someone better than that. Not sure what else is out there. Reed Johnson, Scott Hairston, Austin Kearns, Xavier Nady, Marcus Thames, none of these guys seem good enough. That sort of does leave Manny and Magglio Ordonez among free agents, unless you go rummaging around in other teams' non-tenders. I used to think Travis Buck was going to be good a long time ago. Maybe I should have left this post at the hypothetical, actually digging around for names has gotten me depressed.
I think if you have the Sox at 91-93, and I have them at 94-96 (and I'm going about this a lot less scientifically than you are), then three wins isn't that much in the grand scheme of things. As Jose notes, it's more likely that Gonzalez will be as valuable in 2011 as Beltre was in 2010 (take away points for an adjustment period and stronger pitching, add them for the insanity that is being a lefty going from Petco to Fenway), which erases two of the three-win difference between us. If I'm slightly more optimistic on Saltalamacchia or Lowrie than you, does that make up the other win? Does signing Soriano do it?
At this point, this early in the offseason, I think your actual projection calls for more optimism than the conclusions you're drawing from it.
What I'm doing is trying to quantify, in a rough way, how many games a reasonably healthy 2010 Sox would have won (I think about 94 games), and how much the players remaining from that team project to retain or improve on their performances, and how much effect offseason roster changes project to have. It's messy, and it's got big error bars, not least because I probably made errors.
However, I don't know how to evaluate an offseason without attempting to project team wins for the following season. I've always taken a 95-win projection as the Sox goal - because they always say it's their goal - and the Sox almost always match that goal during hte offseason. So far, this year, I don't think they're there yet, and I don't think the "complementary pieces" offseason plan would get them there.
EDIT: I do think what I'm doing is better than starting with the 2010 projections, because then you'd have to account for 2010 performance and two years of regression to the mean. They'd both be messy, but I think this is a little less messy.
I may be mistaken, but isn't their stated goal to win 95 games, not to have a 95-win projection before the season?
I'm pretty sure that most projection systems only end up with one or two teams at the most that are projected for 95 or more wins.
I think it's fair to say that the Sox are building a team that "projects" to win 95 games in part because they figure a few games either way is a playoff team. A few games up from 92 is a definite playoff team while a few games down is 2010.
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