Papelbon/Bard et al

[ellsburyforMVP]

I bet you'd have a different tone if they don't resign ellsbury? Or petey? Or Lester? Or bucholz?? All those guys have missed time, some significant ..... But according to your logic, we shouldn't re-sign them due to the fact that they may get injured.....

 

Lackey and Crawford and even drew are in a different category than papelbon... All 3 of them came through free agency, and only 1 ( Crawford ) was worth entertaining ..... Pap started his career in Boston, had a few slides, but has been one of the best players in our organization ...... You can't compare him to free agent signings

 

And your right era IS VERY misleading with closers.... A few horrible outings will mess up a closers era for the entire season .....if you want to talk about paps numbers

[The Boomer]

Are you reading what i'm writing?

 

I said the stupidity OF THOSE EXACT CONTRACTS YOU'RE MENTIONING is the reason why they exercised caution (and rightfully so) with regards to Papelbon.

 

Right, if Paps blows out his shoulder this year then you have one more dead contract to deal with. It's probably not going to happen but if it does it's someone else's problem.

[The Boomer]

I bet you'd have a different tone if they don't resign ellsbury? Or petey? Or Lester? Or bucholz?? All those guys have missed time, some significant ..... But according to your logic, we shouldn't re-sign them due to the fact that they may get injured.....

 

Lackey and Crawford and even drew are in a different category than papelbon... All 3 of them came through free agency, and only 1 ( Crawford ) was worth entertaining ..... Pap started his career in Boston, had a few slides, but has been one of the best players in our organization ...... You can't compare him to free agent signings

 

And your right era IS VERY misleading with closers.... A few horrible outings will mess up a closers era for the entire season .....if you want to talk about paps numbers

 

Paps was a FA this year, so I don't see how it's any different that other players who came in via FA, except they came from other teams. Unless the Sox have some special "homegrown" sauce that means no homegrown player will have a career-ending injury.

[kapsis21]

Are you reading what i'm writing?

 

I said the stupidity OF THOSE EXACT CONTRACTS YOU'RE MENTIONING is the reason why they exercised caution (and rightfully so) with regards to Papelbon.

you are taking the comparison in the wrong manner, i am saying guys who have done nothing wearing a Redsox uniform get overpaid and yet a workhorse like Papelbon gets denied due to a risk factor.. F**K that. your logic says we overpaid guys that were worth s*** so lets not overpay the guy who has actually done a lot for us in the past years...

5 years for Lackey, and we cant even come up with 3 for Papelbon. and even if we had to eat his salary for 1 year he was worth all the money.

 

like i said someone in the FO is clearly not doing their job....

[User Name]

I bet you'd have a different tone if they don't resign ellsbury? Or petey? Or Lester? Or bucholz?? All those guys have missed time, some significant ..... But according to your logic, we shouldn't re-sign them due to the fact that they may get injured.....

 

Lackey and Crawford and even drew are in a different category than papelbon... All 3 of them came through free agency, and only 1 ( Crawford ) was worth entertaining ..... Pap started his career in Boston, had a few slides, but has been one of the best players in our organization ...... You can't compare him to free agent signings

 

And your right era IS VERY misleading with closers.... A few horrible outings will mess up a closers era for the entire season .....if you want to talk about paps numbers

 

Flawed logic. The inherent risk and volatility of relief pitchers is lightyears beyond position players or starting pitchers.

 

Why don't you try some apples to apples comparison (which is sound logic, and not what you're doing)?

 

The only closer to receive a big contract and live up to it in MLB history is Mariano Rivera. Guys like Brad Lidge, Joe Nathan, BJ Ryan, Trevor Hoffman, among others, all had a history off good numbers and health, yet failed miserably or got injured in the middle of their contracts.

[kapsis21]

I bet you'd have a different tone if they don't resign ellsbury? Or petey? Or Lester? Or bucholz?? All those guys have missed time, some significant ..... But according to your logic, we shouldn't re-sign them due to the fact that they may get injured.....

 

Lackey and Crawford and even drew are in a different category than papelbon... All 3 of them came through free agency, and only 1 ( Crawford ) was worth entertaining ..... Pap started his career in Boston, had a few slides, but has been one of the best players in our organization ...... You can't compare him to free agent signings

 

And your right era IS VERY misleading with closers.... A few horrible outings will mess up a closers era for the entire season .....if you want to talk about paps numbers

 

:thumbsup::thumbsup::thumbsup::thumbsup: hear ya...

[User Name]

you are taking the comparison in the wrong manner, i am saying guys who have done nothing wearing a Redsox uniform get overpaid and yet a workhorse like Papelbon gets denied due to a risk factor.. F**K that. your logic says we overpaid guys that were worth s*** so lets not overpay the guy who has actually done a lot for us in the past years...

5 years for Lackey, and we cant even come up with 3 for Papelbon. and even if we had to eat his salary for 1 year he was worth all the money.

 

like i said someone in the FO is clearly not doing their job....

 

Paps was a FA this year' date=' so I don't see how it's any different that other players who came in via FA, except they came from other teams. Unless the Sox have some special "homegrown" sauce that means no homegrown player will have a career-ending injury.[/quote']

 

This.

 

Also, explain "workhorse". He's a relief pitcher, and not one who pitches a particularly high amount of innings at that. Roy Halladay, CC Sabathia and Mark Buerhle are workhorses.

[ellsburyforMVP]

You're seriously comparing a SP to a closer.

 

Like, seriously?

 

It's not even a question whether starting pitchers are more valuable than

 

Yeah, papelbon is, was, will be more important to the sox

In the past,present, and future than John lackey ever will be.... So

YES I'm comparing a closer to a starter

[User Name]

You're seriously comparing a SP to a closer.

 

Like, seriously?

 

It's not even a question whether starting pitchers are more valuable than

 

Yeah, papelbon is, was, will be more important to the sox

In the past,present, and future than John lackey ever will be.... So

YES I'm comparing a closer to a starter

 

This point simply makes no sense.

 

What is the "value" you speak of?

 

Also, John Lackey is the poster boy for "past performance does not necessarily mean future success". That doesn't help your point, it argues against it.

[ellsburyforMVP]

What past performance with lackey?? He has never in my eyes, been an elite pitcher... Frankly going by his numbers, which you seem to be hung up on with pap, lackey was rather mediocre most of his career....pap has been and is one of the 2 best closers since he came into the league , and I mostly only raise this point because our team dearly NEEDS a closer??????

[User Name]

An above average pitcher is more valuable than a top-tier closer.

 

Also, the closer position, in itself, is overrated. Although not all guys can close, a lot of them can do it effectively at a high level at a reasonable price.

 

It's just not a smart investment to dump a lot of money into a multi-year contract for a reliever.

 

Now, to clarify my point further, i'm only arguing the "Papelbon vs Lackey" line of thinking because of the inconsistency inherent to that thought process. You cannot complain about the Red Sox signing Lackey if you wanted them to sign Papelbon, because it's exactly the same type of contract.

 

One blew up in their faces, and they wanted to avoid a second one doing so too.

[SCM33]

He sucked in 2010 and was decidedly not as good in 2009. He could decline. Multi-year deals to relievers are an exercise of futility.

 

That's the reality, and it's supported by a lot of empirical evidence. Personal attachment to Papelbon should have no effect on this issue.

 

They should have re-signed him....and it should have been done years ago.

 

Nothing you could ever say would change my mind.

[User Name]

They should have re-signed him....and it should have been done years ago.

 

Nothing you could ever say would change my mind.

 

They shouldn't have.

 

Nothing you say would ever change my mind.

[ellsburyforMVP]

This shouldn't be pap vs lackey or pap vs Crawford or pap vs how much money we saved......

 

Your saying the sox were justified in letting pap because of the chance of injury or because we have failed on certain contracts in the past?? Papelbon by standards is an exceptional closer, workhorse ? How about 40 svs of more than 1 inning pitched? 70 innings a yr , every yr... Fastest to 200 svs... Has world class numbers in the playoffs, holds the MLB record for scoreless innings to start a career in the postseason... I could go on and on....bottom line is the sox dropped the ball on pap, they have the money, he deserved to be paid

[User Name]

This shouldn't be pap vs lackey or pap vs Crawford or pap vs how much money we saved......

 

Your saying the sox were justified in letting pap because of the chance of injury or because we have failed on certain contracts in the past?? Papelbon by standards is an exceptional closer, workhorse ? How about 40 svs of more than 1 inning pitched? 70 innings a yr , every yr... Fastest to 200 svs... Has world class numbers in the playoffs, holds the MLB record for scoreless innings to start a career in the postseason... I could go on and on....bottom line is the sox dropped the ball on pap, they have the money, he deserved to be paid

 

Define "deserved"?

 

The funny thing is, had they given Papelbon all that money and he got injured or regressed, the guys in the Papelbon camp would go to war saying the FO "should have known better".

 

There's just no winning when you're playing a Monday Night Quarterback.

[ellsburyforMVP]

There you go again expecting that pap is going to be hurt at sometime? My point is, you can't give out contracts on the possibility of someone not getting injured.... Your saying we should let ellsbury,petey,Lester and bucholz walk when they are FA because it's possible they might get hurt ( and they all have been in their career!!! ) if you ran the team, we wouldn't have a team in 5 yrs????

[SCM33]

They shouldn't have.

 

Nothing you say would ever change my mind.

 

The only reason you dont sign him, is because of the luxury tax....because all of sudden that matters to the cash strapped ownership. Then they go out and save some bucks by trading Scutaro, and don't back fill him with anyone....then spend 178 million dollars on f***ing soccer players this offseason and shove that s*** down our throat on NESN when nobody around here gives a s***.

 

If they can blow millions of dollars on Lackey, Crawford, a DH and some soccer players.....they could pay Papelbon, he earned it more than any of those others who got theirs.

[User Name]

There you go again expecting that pap is going to be hurt at sometime? My point is' date=' you can't give out contracts on the possibility of someone not getting injured.... Your saying we should let ellsbury,petey,Lester and bucholz walk when they are FA because it's possible they might get hurt ( and they all have been in their career!!! ) [b']if you ran the team, we wouldn't have a team in 5 yrs????[/b]

 

What does this mean, and what does it matter? You don't know or understand what is my philosophy for team building, not that it matters, since i'm just a fan like you, not a baseball executive. Stick to the baseball discussion.

 

The point here is relief pitching specifically. There's a lot of evidence of why you shouldn't give out long term contracts to RELIEF PITCHERS, which has been my point all along.

[ORS]

How about this? Right now, nobody is right. Only time will tell. If Papelbon pitches well and stays healthy for the duration of the contract, meanwhile the Sox struggle at the back end of the BP over that time, then they screwed up. If Papelbon regresses significantly, or spends a significant amount of time out of action, they avoided a mess and were right. Until either of those situations are met, or the thousands of shades of grey in between, it's a fruitless discussion, because no conclusion can be reached either way.

[The Boomer]

It appears that some are upset when a good portion of a FA contract goes to pay a player for performance on another team. For example, the Angels are paying a boatload of money to Pujols not for future performance but to repay him for the years he was massively underpaid by the Cards. We are paying Lackey back for the pitching he did for the Angels for years, etc.

 

It's not fair and I don't like it much, but this is how FA works. If you want to play the game, you have to pay the price.

 

You can make the case that by overpaying for Paps we're paying ourselves back and that's better then the Lackey model, but I think the Sox simply decided that we were paying enough back pay as it was and couldn't afford to fund any more players' past performance when it robbed from the future performance of the franchise. You can disagree with that position but it's pretty defensible from where I sit. Sure, in hindsight we should have not signed Lackey but that's a choice that Ben doesn't have the luxury of making.

[User Name]

An above average pitcher is more valuable than a top-tier closer.

 

Also, the closer position, in itself, is overrated. Although not all guys can close, a lot of them can do it effectively at a high level at a reasonable price.

 

It's just not a smart investment to dump a lot of money into a multi-year contract for a reliever.

 

Now, to clarify my point further, i'm only arguing the "Papelbon vs Lackey" line of thinking because of the inconsistency inherent to that thought process. You cannot complain about the Red Sox signing Lackey if you wanted them to sign Papelbon, because it's exactly the same type of contract.

 

One blew up in their faces, and they wanted to avoid a second one doing so too.

 

The only reason you dont sign him, is because of the luxury tax....because all of sudden that matters to the cash strapped ownership. Then they go out and save some bucks by trading Scutaro, and don't back fill him with anyone....then spend 178 million dollars on f***ing soccer players this offseason and shove that s*** down our throat on NESN when nobody around here gives a s***.

 

If they can blow millions of dollars on Lackey, Crawford, a DH and some soccer players.....they could pay Papelbon, he earned it more than any of those others who got theirs.

 

Ditto for Crawford etc. Be consistent. You either support the stupid spending, or you don't. Where it stopped doesn't matter, but it had to stop.

[User Name]

How about this? Right now' date=' nobody is right. Only time will tell. If Papelbon pitches well and stays healthy for the duration of the contract, meanwhile the Sox struggle at the back end of the BP over that time, then they screwed up. If Papelbon regresses significantly, or spends a significant amount of time out of action, they avoided a mess and were right. Until either of those situations are met, or the thousands of shades of grey in between, it's a fruitless discussion, because no conclusion can be reached either way.[/quote']

 

Would you have given Papelbon that contract though?

[SCM33]

How about this? Right now' date=' nobody is right. Only time will tell. If Papelbon pitches well and stays healthy for the duration of the contract, meanwhile the Sox struggle at the back end of the BP over that time, then they screwed up. If Papelbon regresses significantly, or spends a significant amount of time out of action, they avoided a mess and were right. Until either of those situations are met, or the thousands of shades of grey in between, it's a fruitless discussion, because no conclusion can be reached either way.[/quote']

 

Yeah....I agree.

 

Username...I respectfully bow out of this argument.

 

Its just going to go back and forth. You wont agree with me, I wont agree with you and we both know where we stand.

[User Name]

Yeah....I agree.

 

Username...I respectfully bow out of this argument.

 

Its just going to go back and forth. You wont agree with me, I wont agree with you and we both know where we stand.

 

Now we can go back to arguing about Salty and his "tallness" and "adequacy".

[ellsburyforMVP]

How about this? Right now' date=' nobody is right. Only time will tell. If Papelbon pitches well and stays healthy for the duration of the contract, meanwhile the Sox struggle at the back end of the BP over that time, then they screwed up. If Papelbon regresses significantly, or spends a significant amount of time out of action, they avoided a mess and were right. Until either of those situations are met, or the thousands of shades of grey in between, it's a fruitless discussion, because no conclusion can be reached either way.[/quote']

 

exactly......im on par with this, but honestly you have to agree that as of RIGHT now it was a bad decision to let him walk, until he proves otherwise ( either way ) ......and even if he does get injured in philly, doesnt mean he would of got hurt in boston, they may use him to much, etc....i just think, if anyone deserved to get paid...out of drew,lackey,crawford,jneks??, dont you think papelbon should of "gotten his" ? you cant penalize pap because other deals you made didnt work out..

[iortiz]

How about this? Right now' date=' nobody is right. Only time will tell. If Papelbon pitches well and stays healthy for the duration of the contract, meanwhile the Sox struggle at the back end of the BP over that time, then they screwed up. If Papelbon regresses significantly, or spends a significant amount of time out of action, they avoided a mess and were right. Until either of those situations are met, or the thousands of shades of grey in between, it's a fruitless discussion, because no conclusion can be reached either way.[/quote']

 

100% agree.

[User Name]

exactly......im on par with this' date=' but honestly you have to agree that as of RIGHT now it was a bad decision to let him walk, until he proves otherwise ( either way ) ......and even if he does get injured in philly, doesnt mean he would of got hurt in boston, they may use him to much, etc....i just think, if anyone deserved to get paid...out of drew,lackey,crawford,jneks??, dont you think papelbon should of "gotten his" ? you cant penalize pap because other deals you made didnt work out..[/quote']

 

How can you be "on par" with it then try to prove yourself right again?

[The Boomer]

exactly......im on par with this' date=' but honestly you have to agree that as of RIGHT now it was a bad decision to let him walk, until he proves otherwise ( either way ) ......and even if he does get injured in philly, doesnt mean he would of got hurt in boston, they may use him to much, etc....i just think, if anyone deserved to get paid...out of drew,lackey,crawford,jneks??, dont you think papelbon should of "gotten his" ? you cant penalize pap because other deals you made didnt work out..[/quote']

 

He did get paid, just not by Boston.

[ORS]

Would you have given Papelbon that contract though?

Probably not, but what's done is done. No sense arguing about what they should have done in the past, when all that's left is to let things play out and see what happens.

[ellsburyforMVP]

How can you be "on par" with it then try to prove yourself right again?

 

let me correct myself, im on par with the 1st half ( which is all i read when i responded lol ) but to be fair, i believe pap is a great closer and i just cant factor in a guy " getting hurt" down the line into my thinking.... anyone that factors in an injury to a guys future contract, when the guy in question has no "injury history" is ridiculous