Let's Grade the GM on the Off-Season

[jacksonianmarch]

That "theoretical trade" does not apply to the situation at all. Also, how did they "Badly overpay" Ortiz? He got a two million raise, not almost five.

 

You're obviously just busting balls here.

 

He got a $2.2 mil raise when he should have gotten a $2.5 mil paycut at least. For someone pinching pennies, he screwed the pooch on that one

[User Name]

He got a $2.2 mil raise when he should have gotten a $2.5 mil paycut at least. For someone pinching pennies' date=' he screwed the pooch on that one[/quote']

 

He was never going to get a paycut, let's be realistic here. What i do think is that he should have gone to the arb battle and given him a minimal raise.

[mvp 78]

If he doesn't make any more moves' date=' isn't it up to Bobby V and the coaching staff who goes north?[/quote']

 

If Iglesias is the SS, it changes my mind about Scutaro leaving.

[jacksonianmarch]

He was never going to get a paycut' date=' let's be realistic here. What i do think is that he should have gone to the arb battle and given him a minimal raise.[/quote']

 

he could have declined to offer arb and then resigned him to a 1yr $10 mil deal

[Rdsxmbnt]

I gave him a B but would prob give a B- if that was an option. Liked his moves to shore up the bullpen and like some of the SP depth signings. However, the Scutaro trade at this point looks like a straight salary dump and Ortiz was handled poorly (shouldn't have even been offered arb). I like the Valentine move also. I think its obvious he had financial constraints so I can't complain too much, but he really should have looked more into signing a Darvish/Kuroda/Oswalt/Jackson type SP.

[User Name]

he could have declined to offer arb and then resigned him to a 1yr $10 mil deal

 

Says who? They offered 2/18 before offering arb and he turned it down. We're both theorizing here, but realistically, it was very unlikely he would have signed for 1/10. Maybe 1/13 at the least.

 

Although i see the option of not offering arb, had he gone to greener pastures, they would have collected the picks.

[SCM33]

D.

 

Worse today than they were at the end of last season.

[a700hitter]

If Iglesias is the SS' date=' it changes my mind about Scutaro leaving.[/quote']Knowing Bobby V's past, he has been partial to defense at SS. I think he is leaning toward Iglesias, but on tonight's Red Sox report Gammons was saying that Iglesias needs about 400 ABs at AAA. It sounds like the plan is not to bring him north.

[wyo-sox]

I gave him a B. While the total moves or lack of feel more like a C or D, I am considering three things.

 

1. I do not think he was given opportunity from his bosses this early in his job yo spend much.

2. It seems to me that the overall free agency market was not real deep this year.

3. And this is part of 2, I believe not adding any big contracts, saving a ton of money with the closer, getting some solid outfelders without spending much is all in preparation for next year when I think there will be much better pitchers to go after.

[Bellhorn04]

It's a grade for his off season performance. It's not meant to be an overall final 2012 grade. It's a progress report.

 

Right, but we might sort of retroactively change the mark later on. Epstein probably scored high marks last offseason. Then Crawford sucks, Lackey bites, Dice-K, Buchholz and Jenks disappear, the team royally implodes and Epstein is out of town.

[jacksonianmarch]

Says who? They offered 2/18 before offering arb and he turned it down. We're both theorizing here, but realistically, it was very unlikely he would have signed for 1/10. Maybe 1/13 at the least.

 

Although i see the option of not offering arb, had he gone to greener pastures, they would have collected the picks.

 

Right, but they had to know that offering him arbitration was going to end up with him staying in Boston. You have been championing this cause for months man, cmon now, don't up and play hypocrite on me now. You had said before that on the open market he's maybe an $8-10 mil per year player based on what recent 1 dimensional players have been signing for later in their careers. Now, you think it would have taken 30-40% more than that to sign him? The premise comes down to if they have a hard budget or not. If they have a hard budget, then it's a stupid move. If they really don't have a hard budget and just wanted David back for one season regardless of the money, then it is a smart move. But the way they've been acting, I think the likelihood is the former vs the latter

[User Name]

Don't make s*** up.

 

My initial idea was to let Ortiz go, and sign Beltran. If you refer to "My perfect off-season" thread, you'll see that's what i was "championing for" months ago. However, given the impossibility of signing Beltran, i was all for offering Ortiz arb, and taking the picks if he left. I understood the possibility that he could have been overpaid, but getting something if he left (and it was a possibility) was more important than one or two million, which was the raise he got in the end.

 

Cut the crap.

[jacksonianmarch]

You keep saying $1-$2 mil. That assumes the $12 mil was sunk cost. And for the record, it's $2.2 million, but who's counting. If he was under contract at $12.5 mil and he got a $2.2 mil raise, that's one thing. He wasnt under contract, so the cost is the whole frickin nut.

[a700hitter]

Right' date=' but we might sort of retroactively change the mark later on. Epstein probably scored high marks last offseason. Then Crawford sucks, Lackey bites, Dice-K, Buchholz and Jenks disappear, the team royally implodes and Epstein is out of town.[/quote']Buchholz, Dice K and Lackey had nothing to do with last years off season. They were holdovers from 2010. Theo had a good off season as of Spring Training in 2011. AGon was a great pickup, and Crawford, Jenks and Wheeler seemed like good pickups too. It didn't turn out well for him, because Crawford under performed and Jenks was injured almost the entire season. However, as of March 1, Epstein had addressed all of the teams needs. They needed to replace VMart and he did that with AGon. They also needed a LFer and bullpen guys. As of October, Theo's grade had plummeted IMO opinion not because of his 2011 off season pickups, but because of what he had built in prior years, and he didn't do enough to plug the holes at the trading deadline. His off season 2011 should prove to be pretty good in the long run.

[jacksonianmarch]

There were no warning signs on Crawford. He was young and coming off a career yr after a career of being very consistent. There were warning signs on Lackey that he ignored. I do agree, though. He got Crawford and AdGon while replacing Beltre and VMart. He also thought he addressed the pen with guys who at the time, looked good. How could Theo predict that Bobby would need two back surgeries and 3 months of coumadin from a PE.

[User Name]

You keep saying $1-$2 mil. That assumes the $12 mil was sunk cost. And for the record' date=' it's $2.2 million, but who's counting. If he was under contract at $12.5 mil and he got a $2.2 mil raise, that's one thing. He wasnt under contract, so the cost is the whole frickin nut.[/quote']

 

Give me a scenario where they release him, then re-sign him at less than 12 per, after offering 2/18 and being turned down.

 

By the way, the term "sunk cost" does not apply here.

[a700hitter]

You keep saying $1-$2 mil. That assumes the $12 mil was sunk cost. And for the record' date=' it's $2.2 million, but who's counting. If he was under contract at $12.5 mil and he got a $2.2 mil raise, that's one thing. He wasnt under contract, so the cost is the whole frickin nut.[/quote']Ortiz is being overpaid this season by $4-5 million. If they didn't offer arbitration, they could have signed him for 2/18 or 2/20 at the most. That would make the second year a bargain.

[User Name]

THEY OFFERED A CONTRACT AROUND THAT SAME AMOUNT AND WERE TURNED DOWN.

 

Ignore is for pussies.

[jacksonianmarch]

And who was going to top the offer of 1yr $10 mil? We went through this already. He turned them down, yes. But when he finds out nobody is willing to offer him more money, he's gonna have to take his best offer, right?

[jacksonianmarch]

Give me a scenario where they release him, then re-sign him at less than 12 per, after offering 2/18 and being turned down.

 

By the way, the term "sunk cost" does not apply here.

 

sunk cost does apply. You are assuming the $12 mil is already on the books for 2012 and that he "only" received a $2.2 mil raise. That $12 mil was not on the books when the offseason started.

[User Name]

And who was going to top the offer of 1yr $10 mil? We went through this already. He turned them down' date=' yes. But when he finds out nobody is willing to offer him more money, he's gonna have to take his best offer, right?[/quote']

 

That's the problem. How do we know someone doesn't take the plunge and offer him a better deal and he bolts? Losing him for nothing is a risk they didn't want to take.

[jacksonianmarch]

I understand that they didnt want to lose him for nothing. But going by what most recent late stage DH's signed for, he had to know the market wasnt there for him to make that kind of money. Ortiz is locked into the AL and all the big money teams ended up signing players who could play the field to fill their 1b/DH roles. Who else had the money to pay him, Toronto? They played conservative and got burned. They kept their player but at a premium cost.

[User Name]

Toronto might have signed him on a one-year deal. Seattle had interest, Baltimore had interest. Hell, Detroit could've taken the plunge instead of going full-out for Fielder.

[jacksonianmarch]

Ortiz accepted arb for a reason. He knew his options were limited

[a700hitter]

And who was going to top the offer of 1yr $10 mil? We went through this already. He turned them down' date=' yes. But when he finds out nobody is willing to offer him more money, he's gonna have to take his best offer, right?[/quote']No one was going to top $10 million for him. If there was actually another multi year active bidder for him, the bid wasn't going to exceed 2/20. The Sox just needed to match.

[User Name]

Or he thought he could get a multi-year deal at his price by accepting arb, expecting a huge payday otherwise. We could go on theorizing all day but the truth is: We don't know.

[User Name]

No one was going to top $10 million for him. If there was actually another multi year active bidder for him' date=' the bid wasn't going to exceed 2/20. The Sox just needed to match.[/quote']

 

Watch out, we got an armchair GM over here!

[a700hitter]

Ortiz accepted arb for a reason. He knew his options were limited

He knew it was a guaranteed raise. The free agent market was not going to result in a raise. Sure he knew it.

[Muggah]

Say no more---you ARE a pollyanna and it was kind of namby-pamby vote, but you were right that he wasn't given much financial room to play with. OTOH, maybe if he had been given that he might have pulled even a bigger boner than he did when he offered Papi arbitration. Assuming Ortiz wanted to stay in Boston and that his market was very low we could have probably gotten him for much cheeper that the $14 million Plus that we shelled out for him.

 

I gave him a generous D+. To me the guy is risk averse, and a procrastinator who has trouble making decisions. He is shaping up in my opinion of becoming a penguin in the garden.

 

You're right, Fred. That D+ is generous. Very generous. When local radio stations are playing "Is it Ben or Theo" with audio clips and most people can't tell difference I'd say the guy's a got a severe identity crisis right off the bat. Add to that the fact that 80-90% of the fanbase isn't convinced yet that he's simply not just a hand puppet for Larry, and it sets him back even further in the court of public opinion. For this alone it's silly for anyone to give him anything higher than a D.

 

But I will say this. Forcing Lackey to go under the knife was a great move, and it's got all the earmarks of a sleazy Blunder move. Whether or not it was Ben's brainchild or something passed along to him by Blunder is irrelevant. Just because Ben was involved brings his grade up from F to D in my book.

[redsoxfan3]

You are losing it if you think Melancon and Bailey will "replace" Papelbon and Bard.

 

How am I "losing it?" Don't put a different meaning on the word than it actually has. I simply said Melancon and Bailey are going to replace Bard and Papelbon at a much cheaper price. That does not mean I am saying they are going to be as good as Bard and Papelbon have been for us in the past. I think Melancon and Bailey will be a good combo, but not as effective as Bard and Papelbon, especially not in the first year. I could see them being very good for us, especially with the more experience they get. I hope they are both in Boston for years to come.