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I like that move, resigning Donnelly. He looked pretty effective and would certainly be the type of pitcher the Sox would have to go after anyway, so why not? :dunno: Seems smart to me.

I suppose things are just pretty quiet at this point. http://www.concordmonitor.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20071206/SPORTS/712060385/1007 Basically says what many of us are thinking: this is a win-win, particularly if the Yankees are involved. The Sox are like a dog defending a big pile of food; they really can control the discussions. I think they can match or surpass any package of 'specs the Yankees offer, and because of that they can push it just high enough for it to be a net loss for the Yankees even if the Twins accept. Gaining Santana would be huge for the Yankees, but losing Melky, Kennedy and Hughes would be great for the Sox in 6 years, when Hughes is, what, 27?

I type thousands and thousands of words on this site, and all you can do is criticize my usage of the word 'rental', saying it makes me look like an idiot. Pretty unimpressive analysis.

Do you think U-Haul and Avis are getting ready to sue me for misuse of the word "rental"? You clearly knew what I was talking about which is, pragmatically, the purpose of all language. What would you call the price they have to pay to get access to FA Santana a year early? I made the grave mistake of calling it a rental; would TAX be more appropriate? Posting fee? Ticket? who cares?

I don't really get it either. The discussion of Kalish + Lester + Masterson seems crazy, not because of their solid value--which they have--but given that there was awhile there when it was Lester + Ellsbury + Masterson + Lowrie was being discussed. I think Crisp is involved, and there may be another piece from MN (per reports that I saw above someplace). Crisp makes so much sense. Oh yeah, that's definitely what could be happening. Sox brass go to dinner after having agreed in principle, only to negotiate a contract in the evening?? We can hope, right? A long evening indeed.

As far as the Twins are concerned, they are demanding players for the one guaranteed year of Santana. If a team comes along and pays 100m or 10$ they don't care. The Sox get him one year earlier than they might have otherwise for the same amount in cash, but in order to have the opportunity to get access to him (supposedly to pay free-agent salary) they have to give up talent. I call it a one-year rental because the value of the players exchanged is to make Santana available a year earlier, STILL to a huge contract that the Twins will pay NONE of. I would imagine that anyone demanding 23m a year in a limited negotiating window will have a tough negotiation with the Red Sox FO, no matter how many Cy Youngs they may have. I'm betting the deal is more reasonable, or perhaps front loaded with significant incentives built in for Cy Youngs, All-Star games, etc.,

No we aren't. I bet we give him a high-teens contract with incentives. Just guessing. And yeah, as far as all negotiations without extension go, this is a one year rental. They will need to sign him to an extension, but that is not impacted by the package they are giving away.

Yeah, getting Maybin and Miller ++ is about as great as the Fish could have hoped for.

Here's the viewpoint you're defending. I was right. If I had thrown Place's name, or Lin's name or any other CF name in there I would still have been more right, because, as it appears now, the deal does not require Ellsbury or Buchholz, which was my original point. The Red Sox are, shocking as it may be, capable of making a deal using lower-level guys who have tremendous upside, and the Twins are smart enough--as so many here apparently didn't think they were--to know talent when they see it, and VALUE when they see it. It doesn't take a genius to know that the Sox aren't going to give away all of their top talent for a one-year rental. THey also aren't going to overpay just to prevent the Yankees from doing something. Originally I said Lester + Kalish + Bowden or Masterson. By "Bowden or Masterson" I actually meant "Bowden or Masterson" and I have said many times that I think they are very close in value right now, MN can take their pick (I like both). Bowden is clearly a SP, he doesn't maver Masterson's build or sinker, but he does have more polish as a pitcher and, with his increased repetoire, may have more upside if he can produce. Masterson may only be a MR, or may PROJECT to best fit as a MR. He may be closer to the bigs and may fill a role that MN needs (a role that ALL teams need is effective MR). If we get to keep Bowden then GREAT. If we get to keep Masterson then GREAT. I don't have the same ambivalence between Coco and Ellsbury and Kalish. I want Ellsbury out of that group significantly more than the other two. Now, that said, I would still be surprised if this deal went down without Coco. It doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me, as Kalish isn't going to fill CF immediately. Of course, they recently acquired an OF in a trade with TB, so perhaps they feel fulfilled in CF. I don't know

What if Ellsbury just stays in Boston, and we get a great deal for one of the best pitchers in baseball? Of course, Neshek would be fine too! :thumbsup:

I would rather be off on the smaller prospects and mlb replacements (Lowrie and Crisp) than being willing to sell whatever it takes to get Santana. Just throw Ellsbury in there, why don't we? I proposed two pitchers and the CF prospect that are likely to be in a deal--if one happens--I left out Crisp because either a) he was a given, or I simply don't care very much if he leaves and I left out Lowrie because he is a very small piece. It seems to me that predicting that a package centered around those two pitchers (Masterson and Lester) and a CF prospect with a high upside (Kalish) was more spot on than any of the garbage that has come about about "It's a no-brainer to trade Buchholz" or "it's a no-brainer to trade Ellsbury". Sour grapes, if you ask me.

Thanks for the concern, please don't pull a muscle taking your foot (or typing hand) out of your mouth. Seriously though (because I'm not serious about the above) I didn't hear you laughing at the Kalish proposal I made. Just Jacksonianmarch. You simply said Ellsbury shouldn't be a hold-up at all in the deal and I disagreed, thinking they could put together another nice package if they were determined to keep him. A 5 player deal rather than a 3 player deal is exactly the type of thinking I anticipated if they truly wanted to keep Ellsbury. Otherwise they will ensure they get fair value for him and don't simply treat him as a standard 'prospect'.

Who would EVER have thought that Kalish was worth throwing into a deal like this? My God... Oh wait... I guess I said that a month ago, on 11/5. To which Jacksonianmarch responded: " that gets a couple snickers and a dial tone when you propose that to Minny." Still snickering? After all the abuse I've taken here for arguing that the sox should hold firm to making this deal happen without Ellsbury, I REALLY hope they get it done as proposed. Lester + Crisp + Masterson + Lowrie + Kalish is a HUGE package of nice players. Crisp would be the CF hold over, Kalish would be the future stud. Lester and Masterson will both be key players, and Lowrie... well, who knows.

I think Lester + Bowden + Crisp would be a better package for the Twins that Hughes + Cabrera, as it would mitigate the risk with a very nice prospect and an MLB ready lefty with good stuff. Bowden has a pretty nice ceiling, and is quite young. I'm hopeful that the Sox blow this out of the water with lower-level talent like masterson and bowden. EDIT: At this point the Red Sox must be being easier to work with than the Yankees. I mean, Theo is not calling out the Twins for not accepting their very nice package.

If neither team gets him, the Red Sox will have won.

Will respond to the PM so as not to clog this thread (any more than I have already ). What I can gather by your explanation is that it is similar in approach, but more thorough in terms of the variables that can impact the system, and particularly the weights of those variables. As with anything, systems clearly build upon systems, necessitated only by flaws in the previous attempts.

I don't have much to say here, other than that it would be interesting to see: VORP for pitchers in 2007: 1. Peavy 2. Webb 3. Sabbathia 4. Carmona 5. Penny 6. Lackey 7. Oswalt 8. Hudson 9. Beckett 10. Santana 11. Smoltz 12. Haren 13. Bedard --------- WS for pitchers: 1. Sabathia 2. Peavy 3. Webb 4. Carmona 5. Lackey 6. Penny 7. Haren 8. Bedard 9. Beckett 10. Vazquez 11. Hudson 12. Santana 13. Escobar ------------- 2007 VORP for hitters 1. A-Rod 2. Hanley 3. Magglio 4. Ortiz 5. Wright 6. Chipper 7. Holliday 8. Posada 9. Pujols 10. Cabrera 11. Fielder 12. Utley 13. Pena 14. Granderson 15. Rollins 16. Suzuki 17. Vladi 18. Ryan Braun 19. Barry Bonds 20. Victor Martinez 21. Grady Sizemore Win Shares for hitters: 1. A-Rod 2. Ordonez 3. Wright 4. Ichiro 5. Pujols 6. Sizemore 7. Vlad 8. VMart 9. Pena 10. M. Cabrera 11. Holliday 12. Ortiz 13. Hanley 14. Utley 15. Rollins 16. Fielder 17. Gonzalez 18. Beltran 19. Granderson 20. Chipper 21. Byrnes Not sure what to make of it. Overall, I think the lists are similar, but WS seems to give guys more credit for fielding. Again, it's not perfect, but Pujols is higher with WS than with VORP, as is Victor Martinez, Ortiz is lower. It appears to me that the players who get the highest fielding WS are on the defensive end of the defensive spectrum (C, SS, in particular take up 16 of the top 20). I don't particularly like the fielding Win Shares system either, but when it is one part of a significantly enormous system for evaluating players, I think that's okay. Notice, JHB, I'm not saying it is a perfect system , but I am saying that I still think it is a good overall system, compared to, say, guessing, or even OPS. I'd be interested to know what caused the discrepancy you saw between Bonds and Pujols. I can tell you that the first one is simply the positions that they play. Catchers get the highest WS and 1B closer to the lowest. I'm not sure why that is. Perhaps the majority of plays at 1B are ones that the average player can make, (and tends to make on most teams). :dunno: According to FRAA, the entire team's defensive prowess is used to dole out FRs, isn't it? So, just like Win Shares, the totals are divided among the players based on overall ability to prevent runs. I'll take your answers off the air.

I guess I have found a fair amount of value in Win Shares, though I don't know enough about all the other ones to know where they differ. WS uses a form of Replacement Player, but neutralizing the scoring throughout the league, determining marginal runs score by each team, and then divying those runs up (offensively, at least) according to the runs created formula. Whether it is perfect or not it is a pretty system, in that it takes numbers from the top end (Runs scored by a team, Runs scored throughout the league) and combines them with individual production (RC) to determine what percentage of those runs belong to each hitter. The system is considerably more complex than I describe it--as I'm sure you know--and seems a lot more complex than a blanket dismissal would warrant. Then again, I do respect your opinion and will agree to sort-of-disagree. I don't think it is valid to dismiss any particular metric overall if I feel it makes good progress in certain areas, but rather it would be better to look at all of them and pull out information from there. Lord knows its better than 20 years ago, when AVG, HR ,and RBI would have been the litmus test. :dunno: Have you compared VORP + defensive totals with Win Share totals? In other words, does the list of players with highest VORP in 2007 correspond with players with highest Win Shares? I'm not trying to change your mind, but AM trying to eek out some utility for Win Shares, since I'm only now trying to wrap my head around them and feel that the system itself--aside from the various value permutations applied to fielding etc.,--is logically sound and quite ingenius. Perhaps I'm wrong, but I haven't been convinced just yet.

Okay, Mr. just watch a baseball game to see who's better: What did you notice from your careful observation of Ellsbury's poor streaks last year? What percentage of strikes was Santana throwing when he got beat last year? Did it 'look' like he was getting shelled, or did he just give up bloop hits. The fact is, unless you study tape and watch EVERY SINGLE INNING of a pitcher pitching you are going to be off base with your 'just watch him' philosophy. Chances are you, like most of us here, watched MAYBE 4 Santana starts last year, and MAYBE 4 the year prior. So you may have seen 8 Santana starts, where you watched every single pitch and took really careful note... you know, like professional scouts do. Or, you might be like me and have only watched, MAYBE 1 or 2 starts of his from start to finish the past few years. I think it's funny how much 'observation' some people claim to be capable of. Personally, I don't have the time to watch a majority of Red Sox games AND to catch every other significant player out there. Unlike you, I apparently must rely on the statistics. Fortunately, statisticians understand that this is a problem and have developed reliable statistics to measure production over a large span of time. If you don't think it's valid then more power to you, but you should be thankful that the Red Sox do because your view--based on an insufficient scouting report--would be wholly inadequate. Yes, but if it isn't backed up by a statistical record, I have to wonder whether that "swagger" or even that "ace" actually exist. 1. Haren isn't Santana. True. Neither are most pitchers. What does Haren cost again? 2. Whether or not Haren is It is fine to ridicule someone who uses Win Shares as a metric, but to then say that using your 'eyes' is just as good or better is absurd. Try again.

At work, shouldn't be writing, but can't resist. I don't know a better overall metric to use other than WS. I look around and have a hard time finding one. Runs Created is great for offense, WARP, VORP are other options. I chose WS. I know, from private messages between you and I, that you disagree with the fielding aspect of it, which is fine with me. I think it is still a useful way of looking at players--especially hitters and pitchers--and is a good way, as far as I can tell, of comparing one player at one position with one player at another position. Given that we are comparing a pitcher with a 'hasn't really played yet' CFer (for whom OF WS are hard to find), I did the best I could. Second, if I'm reading your post right, you think it is too high for me to assume that Santana will produce 150% of what he already has. FINE WITH ME!!! If you couldn't tell, I made that estimation, placing him in the pantheon of great career pitchers like Smoltz, Glavine, Clemens and Maddux, to get people to stop thinking I was biased against Santana in favor of Ellsbury. I'm trying to be generous, because I think the argument for Ellsbury's ability to match Santana's career WS from here on out is a pretty strong one. If you think that is too high then you're in luck, so do I. Even with those lofty 'expectations" I thought I showed pretty solidly why that further amount of Win Shares, by an OF, is not at all unattainable. Pitchers who produce like Santana has for the past 5 years are very valuable, but as soon as they start slipping into the middle group of pitchers they become players who only play every 5th day and their WS totals dip considerably. If you have the time (and energy) to do it, I would love to see a NON-WS based evaluation of the projected future. FWIW, I'm in the middle of reading Bill James' "Win Shares" right now, and actually--aside from the fielding, which we can talk about privately--I find it a brilliant work. Aside: I don't know if you're at all familiar with Ludwig Wittgenstein's "Tractatus Philosophica" but it is a point by point, logical break down of analytical thought, using logic, with the goal toward putting an end to philosophy. It is WAY over my head as an analytical philosophical work, but it supposedly is quite profound (when Bertrand Russell asked questions about it at Wittgenstein's doctoral defense of the work, he was told, essentially, "Don't worry Bertrand, you just won't get it"). Anyway, I have a similar feeling reading this book by James. I am able to follow it pretty well, but I find the scope and approach of the book to be very solid. I also LOVE the idea of having a simple number to quantify and summarize all of the OTHER numbers that statisticans keep. There are undoubtedly criticisms of the system at large, but the majority or lists produced using it, and the methods for composing it, are really, really solid in my opinion (much more solid than claims like "he will never match the production of so and so). Getting a solid number gives you a good barometer to compare players by. Again, my guess is that if Win Shares is Bill James' baby, and if James is one of the Sox consultants on things like this, then they are using some modified WS method for this question. Furthermore, the WS totals that I am using are from THT, and have been adapted from James's to a revised model. Forgive me for OVER hyping what Santana is capable of, if only to prove a point. I get the sense that a lot of people around here expect him to keep producing at the same rate, and they don't realize that anything below that rate moves him into the group of other regulars who do NOT justify 20m a year. Again, thanks for filling me in. I'm going to stick with WS but your observations are dualy noted. I hope you now recognize that when I say "do you think that would be fair?" I'm trying to get over the anti-Santana bias that people ascribe to me. My valuation of the rest of his career is, truly, much closer to yours. cheers.

Ellsbury is a key piece of how much that is worth. If he averages, say, 23 WS over that period and Crisp gets 16, the difference in value is enormous. Anyway... Briefly, yes, and I generally agree with you. However, what we are talking about are two guys who do have similar skill sets and similar developments. You can certainly use Crisp as a comp for Ellsbury, the question is which one of these two is going to top out at the potential that Crisp had. I think Ellsbury has a better chance of continuing to achieve at the level that he always has, whereas I think that Crisp has shown signs of it but has not put it together and certainly has looked over matched at times offensively. Everyone makes a big deal about his defense, but don't you think it--like everything else that is good--will regress to a more normal level? I think that is to be expected, and if that were the case--say back to 11-12 WS--Crisp would quickly become questionably valuable to a lineup as good as the Sox, especially if Lowell, Varitek and Pedroia all regress as you predicted they would (a view that I can't really argue with). We need to have offensive production out of the CF spot. Crisp's superb season in CF defensively made him somewhat valuable, but not significantly so. I dispute (a) because I don't think a player should be penalized for going to a Div I university, playing 3 years and being named one of the top players in the country. Yeah, he might have struggled had he decided to play in single A, who knows. He never struggled anywhere in his life, but I suppose it is possible that he would have ground to a halt in A ball. No, certainly not based off of those numbers. But look at Crisp since. Is he going to be a 25 or 26 WS guy ever in his career? How high do you think he will get, realistically? No, it is because this team would have an absurd pitching staff and one of the sickest lineups around, cemented in place for a few years. Replace Lester with Santana, leave Ellsbury at the top of the order and everything is solid. It is all about what the team needs, and right now they don't need pitching. They can deal a good young pitcher like lester, because they have already decided that Buchholz has the higher ceiling and they would be getting Santana. Personally, I think objectively Lester would be the more valuable commodity, just given how valuable pitching can be on the market (i.e., MN could trade Lester when he's 26 and get quite a bit back). Lester has great stuff and will be a fine MLB pitcher. If that is for the Red Sox, then great. If Johan Santana takes the ball instead, that's fine too. ---------- I know you think I'm dodging around some hidden "love" for Ellsbury because I defend him so strongly. I defended Youkilis and Pedroia as strongly, as I'm sure you remember, but do not defend every prospect. I can admit that I see in all three of them something I don't see in a lot of other players around the league and it is hard to quantify. Part of it, I think, is plate discipline... which is something the Sox draft to and have been very impressed about all 3. It is also approach, the hitters have a philosophy when they are up and rarely get cheated out of ABs. We've watched Coco try to adjust to that style of hitting. The Sox certainly looked at his MiLB record and OBPs with CLE and figured he was as good a candidate as any to give a shot, particularly at such a cheap cost. Ellsbury clearly has a better eye, I don't think there is much argument there. If the inclusion of Ellsbury rather than Crisp is the sticking point, there is a reason for it. The Red Sox clearly do not think the difference between them is insignificant, if they did Ellsbury/Lester/Masterson and Lowrie would be headed to MN right now. What do you know that they do not? I think the Sox are in a win-win situation here. I think that Hughes is more valuable than Ellsbury, and that the Yankees currently trail the Red Sox in pitching by quite a bit. Getting Santana will help that, but not for very long. Hughes is a once in a generation talent for a franchise. It is very hard to work hard to not get overly attached to players. That's what all the numbers do, they allow you to back up and (try to) be more objective. I have tried to do that with Ellsbury, but I can't promise that I'm perfect about it. I think that older generations of baseball fans had a good deal when they had players that they could attach to for more than a year or two. Every once in awhile there is a player who a team develops who is good enough to merit sticking, even with a superior team like the Red Sox. I think I have shown using Win Shares and other comparisons that Ellsbury would be more than worthy in this lineup, extremely cheap, fine on defense, and all that stuff. Part of me definitely wants the red sox to stick with a player who will be exciting and who, if things work out the way they appear to be heading, could be one of the premier leadoff hitters and run scorers in all of baseball. I get killed for not wanting to give up just two special home-grown players to bring in a guy who, though tremendous, I have no attachment to and have concerns about his past workload and 20m salary. I would hate to see this tremendously built franchise be buried under the salary of a pitcher who throws out his arm and is owed 20m to sit on the bench, or to return only to subject us all to the inevitable "reinvention" of himself into a finesse pitcher when his FB dips from the mid-90's to the low 90s. We have the chance to not have to see any deterioration at all. One of the things about baseball is how players eke out niches for themselves. We can all speculate about who Ellsbury could turn out to be by comparing him to other players with similar skill sets. But that can range from Juan Pierre to Rickey Henderson, from Willie McGee to Chili Davis. It is too broad. There are plenty of great players within that genre, as value can be found in many places. I imagine the potential for 20-25 WS from Ellsbury at MLB minimum is hugely enticing, for both sides. I don't wonder why the mets refuse to part with Jose Reyes, and I don't wonder why the Sox won't part with Ellsbury unless the offer is sweetend beyond the one-year rental that it currently is.

First of all, how is having a cost-controlled 20 WS player for 6 years not part of the Santana investment discussion? Just curious... okay... Should we look at their 18-20 years too? One of them was a first team All American and Pac-10 co-player of the year, the other had two consecutive seasons of .258 and .254 ball. In terms of challenge, Ellsbury hasn't really seen one yet. Even when he is unproductive he makes things happen. Career MiLB numbers (because it all counts in terms of track record and potential viability of a prospect): [table] player | G | AB | AVG | OBP | SLG | OPS | SB | % | Crisp | 424 | 1627 | .299 | .372 | .411 | .783 | 149 | 75% | Ellsbury | 250 | 1017 | .314 | .390 | .426 | .816 | 105 | 80% | [/table] One of them is highly touted because he doesn't seem to have been phased at all coming out of college. He handled the minors as well as anyone could ask of him (and better than Coco Crisp, even with the convenient forgetting of Coco's early years). He's not untouchable, but he shouldn't just be haphazardly thrown in with Jon Lester. Combined they are going to produce a lot of wins in their career and we don't need to wait for them to develop any more. They're ready now. Straw men are fun, aren't they TheKilo. I told you before Ellsbury isn't untouchable, but that it would need to be much closer to a 1:1 for me to think about it. I consider Ellsbury + Lowrie to be much closer to a 1:1 than Ellsbury + Lester + Masterson + Lowrie was. If the Twins bite at Ellsbury + Lowrie (or possibly even Masterson) then that means we will have saved two of the 4 players that you would have happily given away. Just trying to explain why some restraint is in order.