End of Youkillis Era - Start of the next one

[Rdsxmbnt]

This is probably the last weekend for Kevin Youkilis in Boston. Even though we are all ready for him to move on I think it is fair to say that he has been a great Red Sox player over the past 5-7 years.

 

Was going to originally respond in the thread but felt this topic deserved its own.

 

Youk's (impending) departure is pretty noteworthy in the sense that he was really the first homegrown player the Red Sox had produced since Nixon and Nomar. From there the Red Sox were able to reel off numerous all-stars Papelbon, Lester, Pedroia, Buchholz, Ellsbury.

 

However since Buchholz's debut in 07 the Sox haven't had nearly that kind of success bringing up players that stuck on the roster and had a large impact, and notably the team just has not had any deep runs in the postseason since. That spans 08-11 where say Bard was the only real meaningful guy that has stuck. This is also the period where they loaded up on expensive FAs as a result of not having that kind of pipeline.

 

Now I really think the Sox are on the verge of the next era of home-grown raised dominance. They have a guy in Cherrington who didn't get googly eyed at some of the marquee FAs this year, hired a manager who is not a veterans-first manager (WMB over Youk), and produced the deepest bullpen the Sox have had in forever (despite losing the two best pieces) and for once we won't have to overpay for a mediocre MR.

 

Look at the prospects coming up the line right now WMB is here, Kalish is ready to be the RF, Doubront looks like a very consistent AL East #3, then in AAA you have Lavarnway who could very well step into the DH spot next year, Iglesias who could be the SS, Bradley in AA who could soon replace Ellsbury, Barnes cruising through the minors, and Bogearts with the highest potential of any prospect since Buchholz/Hanley.

 

The best part is that all of those guys are within possibly a year away from being on the MLB roster (with the exception of maybe Bogaerts). Considering the core of the old-new era of Gonzalez, Lester, Buchholz, Crawford, Pedroia, Salty, Nava? all have a minimum of 4-5 PRIME years left of their careers, I'd say this is the start of another decade of high quality Red Sox baseball.

 

Finally this all depends on them sticking to what has worked in the past and not tying themselves up to big name FAs and not letting go of prospects for rentals.

[ellsburyforMVP]

well written, but i dont see why everyone is so intent on letting ellsbury go...yeah, he's had 2 long-healing injuries, but both were "freak-accident" ordeals....as far as the length of recovery time, maybe the sox are just being careful with him? seeing how he's proven he can be an MVP-type player..

 

Idk, call me crazy, but ells played his ass off last year for this team, and i'd like to see him get another shot

[example1]

Ella will get plenty of chances... Until he's a FA. Then he goes to highest bidder. Could you imagine the shitstorm of criticism the FO would get if they signed Ells to a 20+m contract and he was injured every other year?

[Rdsxmbnt]

See I love Ellsbury but I think he's going to be the type of contract I'm advocating that the Sox stay away from. If it weren't for Crawford I'd be more lenient to sign him but the possibility of having two speed-reliant players on 20mil a year deals long term is very unattractive.

 

If he'd sign for 5 years or less than I'd say go for it but that is just not realistic. I'd actually be in favor of trading him in the offseason for an equivalent SP.

[lospunchados]

I don't think everyone is intent on letting ellsbury go it's just that his agent is Boras and they just paid a similar player a 7year 142 million dollar contract it seems unlikely they will pay ellsbury that much ( or more) to keep him. There is a whole year with ellsbury still under contract next year so we should have a good idea by the moves they make or don't make next offseason.

 

Hopefully Youk can find a good landing spot as he has done a lot for the sox over the years

[SemperFi Sox]

Soon as Crawford signed that contract Ellsbury was as good as gone.

[redsoxbeatz]

Thread is about Ellsbury/CC or Youk??

 

Hope we get someone awesome for Youk.

[Spitball]

Thread is about Ellsbury/CC or Youk??

 

Hope we get someone awesome for Youk.

 

I bet the Sox have to eat most of his salary and only get grade C+ to B- prospect. He has been injury prone and hasn't been hitting, not to mention a soon to be free agent.

 

He has no value at this point and will be difficult to get rid of in my opinion...and I have always been a Youkilis fan.

[Elktonnick]

Thread is about Ellsbury/CC or Youk??

 

Hope we get someone awesome for Youk.

 

I wouldn't expect anything that would help right now. Perhaps a prospect or two or the proverbial player to be named later.

[SCM33]

Thread is about Ellsbury/CC or Youk??

 

Hope we get someone awesome for Youk.

 

I doubt we get a thing for him. And thats fine, I wanted him and Beckett gone in the offseason. Addition by subtraction.

 

He was more tolerable when he wasn't an elder statesman on the club. As his service time grew and his comfort level rose, a sense of entitlement grew with Youk.

 

With that said, he was a damn good offensive player here when he was younger and healthy.

[jung]

Once all said and done Youk will deserve to be acknowledged much more for the good he did than for his foibles. He really was a major part of some serious flag raising at Fenway.

 

I don't think they will get anything for Youk at this point unless somebody is desperate for RH 1st baseman going into the second half.

 

Frankly as soon as I heard all that crap about his offseason weight training my first thought was Oh No.....this may be it for Youk.

[Elktonnick]

Once all said and done Youk will deserve to be acknowledged much more for the good he did than for his foibles. He really was a major part of some serious flag raising at Fenway.

 

I don't think they will get anything for Youk at this point unless somebody is desperate for RH 1st baseman going into the second half.

 

Frankly as soon as I heard all that crap about his offseason weight training my first thought was Oh No.....this may be it for Youk.

 

Even though I wanted Youklis traded over the winter and I consider him currently to be a liability to this team, I will remember him fondly. Over all he is one of the better players to have worn the Red Sox uniform.

[Bellhorn04]

Youk was a huge contributor for several years and an integral part of the 2007 championship. I'd like to see him get traded to an NL team and have some more productive years.

[a700hitter]

Youk was a huge contributor for several years and an integral part of the 2007 championship. I'd like to see him get traded to an NL team and have some more productive years.

... and throw Gonzo in the deal too.

[seabeachfred]

Personally I'm not bidding Youkilis a fair adieu until he is finally out of Boston---which right now he most certainly isn't. Calling to mind how Prune Face Henry refused on four occasions back in 2010 to agree to eat any part of Mike Lowell's last year of his contract and negated four deals because of it , I am a little doubtful at this time that much has changed with respect to the befuddled owner. They also have a ready made out if they want it. The Sox have said they would rather have Youkilis in the NL instead of the AL, and right there I see a red flag. They can always say they did not want to trade him within the league and now that the three or four NL teams will give us fair value for him, well, we are going to hold onto him.

 

For the record, I have always been a Youkilis fan and his emergency solid play in the middle of the 2004 season when we lost my all time favorite Red Sox player, Bill Mueller, for a month, helped keep our team above water. He also played a solid role in 2007 when he was a solid No. 6 man in the lineup for us and a Gold Glove type first baseman. How, however, he is keeping our best prospect in and out of the lineup and it's time to start bailing some of our veterans out of Boston and give our young players a solid chance to prove themselves. Our starting pitching has proven already that we are not going anywhere this season so this would be the optimum time to start clearing the deck chairs and not winding up being baseball's version of the Titanic.

[seabeachfred]

Personally I'm not bidding Youkilis a fair adieu until he is finally out of Boston---which right now he most certainly isn't. Calling to mind how Prune Face Henry refused on four occasions back in 2010 to agree to eat any part of Mike Lowell's last year of his contract and negated four deals because of it , I am a little doubtful at this time that much has changed with respect to the befuddled owner. They also have a ready made out if they want it. The Sox have said they would rather have Youkilis in the NL instead of the AL, and right there I see a red flag. They can always say they did not want to trade him within the league and now that the three or four NL teams will give us fair value for him, well, we are going to hold onto him.

 

For the record, I have always been a Youkilis fan and his emergency solid play in the middle of the 2004 season when we lost my all time favorite Red Sox player, Bill Mueller, for a month, helped keep our team above water. He also played a solid role in 2007 when he was a solid No. 6 man in the lineup for us and a Gold Glove type first baseman. How, however, he is keeping our best prospect in and out of the lineup and it's time to start bailing some of our veterans out of Boston and give our young players a solid chance to prove themselves. Our starting pitching has proven already that we are not going anywhere this season so this would be the optimum time to start clearing the deck chairs and not winding up being baseball's version of the Titanic.

[KCBRUIN]

We'll get WMB for every game no matter what the actual return is so make it happen.

[redsoxrules]

... and throw Gonzo in the deal too.

 

I'd throw Crawford instead

[SoxSport]

The buzz now is he is going to the WSox for Matt Thornton. Decent BP lefthander who is 35 and up for contract in '14.

 

I think Youks was doomed when AdGon was signed. I doubt he was physically able to play 3B--maybe due to his injury the previous year, maybe just due to age and conditioning. The adjustment from 3B to 1B is a piece of cake compared to 1B to 3B. We'll see how long Miggy lasts there.

[redsoxrules]

The buzz now is he is going to the WSox for Matt Thornton. Decent BP lefthander who is 35 and up for contract in '14.

 

I think Youks was doomed when AdGon was signed. I doubt he was physically able to play 3B--maybe due to his injury the previous year, maybe just due to age and conditioning. The adjustment from 3B to 1B is a piece of cake compared to 1B to 3B. We'll see how long Miggy lasts there.

 

I highly doubt this

[SCM33]

http://espn.go.com/boston/mlb/story/_/id/8088983/kevin-youkilis-boston-red-sox-unhappy-being-lineup

 

I wonder if Youk was the one leaking s*** to Buster Olney last week.

 

Get his ass out of town ASAP.

[jung]

Well I think if somebody had talked to Youk before the game it would have been a pretty short discussion...."we are going with the hot bat Kevin, at least tonight."

 

If there is one thing I have noticed just in V's press conferences, he is very terse and it seems to me that he assumes people know exactly what he is saying when in fact he is saying very little of substance and is often nebulous as hell. I guess I don't know how that has worked for V in the past. I suspect he can get away with it with reporters cause reporters need the Manager just to make their living. So he can throw some nebulous crap out there to them and when they say they don't understand he can criticize them for their pea brains and get away with it. Don't think that works with anybody else yet we seem to hear this a good deal with V. "I thought so and so understood". "I thought so and so was told by such and such."

 

Nobody is telling anybody anything unless you, V, clearly instruct somebody to do so. Isn't it interesting that as the Olney article got clarified more and more it became pretty obvious that it is the level of communications in the organization that is lacking. I am not sure I would point fingers at Youk because it appears to me that V does this with everybody and has a pretty piss poor success rate doing it.

 

Nobody gets his cryptic, nebulous crap and I am sure nobody appreciates being treated like an idiot because they can't see into the "wizard's" mind and divine what the hell he is really saying.

[TutGadol]

Lavarnway for DH? David Ortiz is the only player who actually deserves to be overpaid. I want to see him retired in this uniforms, after all those years being paid significantly less then Manny.

[Rdsxmbnt]

Lavarnway for DH? David Ortiz is the only player who actually deserves to be overpaid. I want to see him retired in this uniforms' date=' after all those years being paid significantly less then Manny.[/quote']

 

You want to overpay someone because he made less than Manny?

 

Theo generally knew when to draw a hard line and dropped Nomar and Manny and eventually won a WS in the first case and went to 7 games in ALCS in the second case. You shouldn't pay for loyalty its just a bad way to run a team. If Ortiz wants to keep going year to year then that's fine but multiple years? no thank you

[jung]

A two year deal for Ortiz would likely have been perfect this time around. Sox would have saved some cash. David would have had the security of at least a two year deal. Now however a two year deal takes him to the 2014 season and that may not work for the Sox.

 

Even with that I am not sure Ortiz would have been happy. Does not appear to be OK with the idea that you get max money for the shortest term and as the term goes up the money per year goes down. It sounds like Ortiz would not have been happy unless he could have gotten max money over a longer term and that just does not happen.

[redsoxbeatz]

35 yr old BP pitcher for Youk? No thanks

[SCM33]

35 yr old BP pitcher for Youk? No thanks

 

Yeah, no thanks.....way too much value for a 33 year old injury prone backup corner-infielder who cant hit anymore and makes 14M a year.

 

We would be LUCKY to get such a good player in return for the corpse that Youkilis has turned in to.

[redsoxbeatz]

I don't think Youk is a corpse at all. He is having a rough time in Boston but out of the ALE he could dO great almost like Burnett is now

 

Plus, I like our BP. We don't need another injury probe oldie. This team has to many issues even now with Buchholz sickness.

[lesterkett]

... and throw Gonzo in the deal too.

 

and CC TOO pleasee

[seabeachfred]

I don't think Youk is a corpse at all. He is having a rough time in Boston but out of the ALE he could dO great almost like Burnett is now

 

Plus, I like our BP. We don't need another injury probe oldie. This team has to many issues even now with Buchholz sickness.

 

Beatz, I don't think you understand the ramifications of this problem. In short, as long as Youkilis is on the team there is a third base controversy and a very unhappy outspoken player on the bench, or if he is playing, our best young player sitting instead. It could tear the team apart further into two camps on that issue alone. Whether it is Thornton or whoever, Youkilis has to go....PERIOD!!!!!!!!!! To keep him around is to court trouble and whoever doubts that is living in a dream world.