jacksonianmarch

They signed Nakajima, who sucks

Apparently having a top prospect in Banuelos and the guy who started the ASG two yrs ago isn't depth? And how did DD smack me down? He completely disregards the fact that 5 guys on your team, 5 important contributors, had unsustainable seasons. And nobody really had a down yr. That isn't happening again.

They should go into the yr as the favorites, I agree. Just they aren't favorites by a wide margin, and once a few of those unsustainable dominos fall, they will be looking up at one or more teams

SS, I cannot wait to shovel some crow down your throat. Can't we get this season started?

DD, your post is beyond comprehension. But I will break things down into itty bitty words to make things easier to digest. 1. JBJ- I think you are pretty reasonable on this. Revert, IMO, was the fact that the kid had a 1.000OPS in High A in 2012 before moving up to AA. AA and AAA showed a different player. A Daniel Nava-esque player. Some power, minimal SB potential, good D, good eye, not a lot on the BA front. What I think most people are missing is the fact that he compiled his numbers with a massive BABIP in the minors. He comes to the bigs, and he compiles a ridiculously low BABIP. If you correct down to a .300 BABIP, he's a useful player, just not Ells. Therefore, he is a downgrade and in his first full season, likely a big one. 2. Salty had a career year in 2013. Going from 2013 to 2014, you replace that production with an aging AJ. Big downgrade 3. Bogaerts is likely a top 5 prospect. He has all the potential in the world. He is also replacing a guy who played plus D and was worth 3.4WAR. You cannot tell me that Bogaerts is going to give you 3.4WAR. He might, he also might give you a negative WAR. He's a rookie, you don't know what to expect and he is a rookie at the most important position on the diamond In terms of the Ortiz retort, lol, not really a retort. Jeter is 40, that is truth. But he isn't the center of the lineup, the guy who is expected to be far and away the best offensive weapon on the team. Ortiz is your most valuable player in the lineup. I know Pedey is probably your most valuable position player, but offensively, Ortiz is your best player. He's 38 and is one yr removed from Achilles and foot issues. To ignore that is pretty ignorant. I accept Jeter's age and injury history and am pretty sure he isn't playing the whole season. Fully anticipating it. Are you anticipating what would happen if Ortiz got off the juice, ahem, started to act his age? Nice retort to Nava too, lol. Nava NEVER produced like he did in 2013. And his BABIP was unsustainably high. Accept sabermetrics my friend, don't shun them when the argument suits you. Victorino was amazing defensively in 2013. I don't disagree. He also posted his second best offensive season of his career. He had a career high BABIP. And he has the penchant for nagging injuries. I think he is the least likely in my observation to regress significantly, but typically, career high BABIPs lead to disappointing subsequent seasons In terms of Napoli, what aren't you getting? He set a career high with his BABIP and his K rate reached a career high. If his BABIP goes down to a typical .300, he's a hole in your lineup Carp may have figured something out. But there is no way he hits near .400 on balls he keeps in the yard. None. No possible way. And Chris Davis, his BABIP was 50 points lower than Carp's. Food for thought. Pedroia had a 5.4 WAR last yr, which is pretty consistent with his career norms. He posted pretty typical offensive numbers at a time when offense is declining, hence his WAR is higher. And yes, I am looking at the Yankee infield. I am looking at an infield that will probably add Stephen Drew. I am looking at an infield with a SS who will be playing probably less than 2/3 of the games there who will be replaced by a defensive wizard in Ryan. I am looking at a return of Mark Teixeira. I am looking at us adding the best offensive catcher in baseball. Our infield wont be productive circa 2004, but it will hold their own enough to let the OF and the DH play a pretty significant offensive role as well. In terms of the pitching, the sox staff is good. It will be consistent. There wont be any Cy Young winners, and there likely will be one all-star (Lester). I never said your staff blows ours out of the water. We had two guys continuously referred to on here as crap (Nova and Kuroda) who posted ERA's lower than Lester and Lackey, the horses on your staff. We have an ace who came off off-season elbow surgery whose stuff arrived late to the party and was uncharacteristally wild at the end of the yr. We also added the top pitcher on the open market. We also have Banuelos and Pineda healthy. We have 2 pitchers who started for us last yr as well. In terms of pitching depth, we have it, for now. The question is, if they can stay healthy.

Yanks are considering a run at Stephen Drew. This makes too much sense for it not to happen, IMO. We'd only lose a second round pick and our current 2b has a long history of injury. And his lefty swing in the Bronx could produce some more power than it did in Boston.

You're an idiot. They are the #8 and #9 hitters in the lineup. And they'll hit better than JBJ and Pierzynski, the two guys likely to be at the bottom of yours

Alright, I have heard enough talk about how bad the Yankees are. Shall we look at the emperor and see if he has any clothes? The Red Sox won the World Series last year. It is a fact. But 2013 is over and the new year begins pretty soon. As it stands, the first pitcher and catcher date is Feb 6th, a mere 14 days away. What have the Red Sox done this offseason. They have, um, not really, um done anything to better themselves at all. 1. They lost a 5 win player in Ellsbury and replaced him with a player who had played 104 games total from 2010-2011 and hasn't actually taken the field the last 2 seasons. Oh, and those two years that he managed to play 104 games, he combined to have an OPS under .700 with a WAR of -0.6. The guy who is likely going to take the field the most, JBJ, had a disastrous opening campaign in the bigs that actually saw him revert a little on return to the minors. The guy has proven that he can walk, but can he continue to hit at the level he has in the minors? Of note, the guy has a .349 career MiLB BABIP. Just an aside, Tony Gwynn's was .341 in the bigs. My guess is, this kid is not going to be a 5 win player, at least not yet 2. They lost Jarrod Saltalamacchia and replaced him with AJ Pierzynski. Salty had a 3.6 WAR last yr and somehow graded out positively as a defender per fangraphs. AJ is a 37 yr old catcher coming off a 1.6 WAR season. That's a downgrade right there, at least from the 2013 level. 3. They lost Stephen Drew (most likely) and replaced him with Xander Bogaerts. Nobody questions this kids potential, but Drew was a 3.4WAR player last yr. Typically, even future stars don't have very solid rookie campaigns. And Drew's season was very solid. 4. Iglesias was traded mid season, and he was a part of your success, with a WAR of 1.6 in 63 games. Middlebrooks takes over the position coming off an abysmal year with a negative WAR after pitchers figured him out. He struck out more than once per appearance and saw his OPS drop below the .700 mark. Now, lets take a look at the sox players in 2013 who had career or resurgent offensive years. 1. David Ortiz- Ortiz had his highest WAR since 2007, when he was 31 years old. Ortiz just turned 38. How much longer can he be relied upon to hit .300 with a .900+OPS and 30 or more HRs? 2. Daniel Nava- the guy went from DFA in 2011 to ridiculous season in 2013. His line was phenomenal at .303/.385/.445. When was the last time, prior to 2013, that Nava hit over .300 in a season in which he appeared in more than 100 games? The answer is none. His production in 2013 was completely aberrant from his history, major or minor league. It might have something to do with his .352BABIP. That is not a typo. He might have carved out his niche in the bigs, but he isn't replicating 2013 again 3. Shane Victorino- add Shane to the career high list. His 6.1WAR was the highest of his career last yr. He is definitely a solid player, but he's not proven to be a 6WAR player on the regular. He's probably a 3-4 WAR player, but repeating 6 again would be an aberration based on his career norms. He also had a career high BABIP of .321 4. Mike Napoli- Nap has had better years in the past. But this past yr was weird. The guy put up quietly good numbers including a 4WAR. But he also posted the highest BABIP of his career at .367. Sufficed to say, if he keeps K'ing at his current rate, that number can only go down, and with it will come his production. 5. Mike Carp- 2013 was the first yr he posted a positive WAR. He also had a .385 BABIP. There is no f***ing way he continues to be this hot. The funny thing is, the sox hit on all cylinders offensively with some guys finding the fountain of youth and others performing at unsustainable levels. I expect a dropoff, a pretty significant one, come 2014. There is no way that Carp, Nap, Victorino, and Nava will continue to post career high BABIPs. And you are taking 3 pretty reliable offensive weapons from 2013 and replacing them with 2 rookies and a washed up veteran. Lets go to the mound. This is where the sox have a lot working for them. Lester returned to being solid and is in his prime. Lackey showed that his stuff is there when his elbow is attached. Father time nips at him a little, but he didn't throw in 2012 and probably has some more in him. Peavy threw as a solid mid rotation guy when he came to the sox. Buchholz was injured, but he is probably the only guy I can point to in the rotation and say that he wont repeat his performance. He isn't pulling a Pedro circa 1999. His ERA will be over 3 in 2014, and who knows how many innings the pussbag can give you. Doubront is an enigma wrapped in a riddle. He's actually been a consistent back end starter for 2 yrs, one wonders if he'll take the jump. You have depth with Dempster and Workman. The staff is likely to be good. But the pen will be interesting. Uehara will not repeat his 2013. Actually, nobody will repeat his 2013. He turns 39 and pitched the most innings in his professional career last yr. His career ERA is in the mid 2's, so a repeat of 1.09 isn't likely. Also, it isn't likely that Craig Breslow will give you 60 innings of a sub 2ERA either. That being said, the staff looks pretty good. Lester is a second tier ace (who shows up in the post season) and your 2-5 all are effective starters capable of giving innings and winning games. So in the end, your rotation will likely be near the top, your pen will revert a bit, and your offense will drop a fair amount. Is that enough to fight off the hard charging Yankees or the intact Rays? That is a good question to ask yourself sox nation, as your GM hasn't done s*** this yr.

UN, I don't think you read the article you posted. Read the second scenario.

If he pitches like Matt Garza, then yeah, it's a ridiculous steal.

4 yrs and $52 mil is a steal.....assuming Garza's elbow doesn't implode. He has two screws in there that have caused him to miss considerable time. Throwing 4 yrs at him is awfully risky for a small market club

Yeah, but the chasing of the mighty dollar is what has priced out the families who used to go to games. Now, you have to go to one game a year for the price of what it used to be to go to 10. Now, the family games are down on the farm. That being said, the owners aren't in the business of making people like them. Theyre in the business of making money and boy are they making it

And the article UN posted actually helps a lot to understand why NYY keeps running a deficit yet increases their net worth. They're effectively fudging the numbers. The YES network is worth twice as much as the Yankees themselves. Hank and Hal own a third of that conglomerate. And it makes absolutely no sense for them to renegotiate their payments since that would be subject to revenue sharing. I am sure Steiny would want to accept a lower payout so he wouldn't get taxed as much and collect more on the YES end. If the Yankees have a $25 mil deficit, but YES is profitable, Steiny is gonna get that $25 mil back and then some from the YES side of things. After reading that, I think NY could comfortably go into the $300 mil range and be fine. As long as the Yankees are good and go to the playoffs, they will continue to generate massive profits to the Steinbrenners.

I read Forbes a bit wrong. The $300 mil from the YES network was total. The Yankees only see $65 mil a yr. But seeing as the Steiny's are part owners of YES, it makes no sense for them to renegotiate their TV deal as more money would have to move into the revenue sharing pot. The fact that NY has operated at a loss but their franchise and network's worth have skyrocketed gives you an idea as to how much they're actually getting paid. This conglomerate is making money hand over fist. And post season runs are incredibly profitable. Hence, the spending is not likely to end any time soon

http://www.forbes.com/lists/2011/33/baseball-valuations-11_New-York-Yankees_334613.html Just an idea of how the Yankee money making machine works. While we're hearing about all these teams signing deals with Fox or whomever, the Yankees own a third of their network and brought in over $430 mil last yr from the network alone. Their annual revenue from ticket sales is over $300 mil and they also have a hospitality service raking in the dough. The tix and merchandise are subject to revenue sharing, but the fact that they're generating $800 mil plus a year in revenue means that they can continue to pile on the contracts. All I ask is we don't do another ARod deal. No more deals with 5+ years of dead money. And this offseason, the only contract that really scares me in terms of age is Beltran as he's around the age of complete decline.

Spending now only limits NY if they let it. They have operated under a fixed budget for two years now, only to find that we don't give a s*** if Hank and Hal save money. We care if they win. If the Yanks made the playoffs last yr, then this budget would be in place right now and we'd suffer through a lost season. But we've already had a lost season and the lost revenue from that is still stinging the Steinny's.

Yeah you are. He's in the mix to start in CF. Just like Roberts is in the mix to start at 2b. If either of the oft injured vets are injured, you'll have to rely on a utility player or rookie.

The thing about the Yankee minor league system isn't lack of talent. The problem has been performance. We had an epically bad year in 2013 on the minor league front. After 2011, much of the same prospects highlighted one of the best farms in baseball. There is an ebb and flow to these minor league rankings as we know most of them don't work out. Thing is, should Mason Williams or Tyler Austin or Banuelos etc come out of the gate running on all cylinders, they'll be talking about how the system rebounded

Sox get Sizemore. This guy makes Brian Roberts look like an ironman

Zac with a solid post. Yeah, we need one more pen arm. We have a fair amount of pen talent in the minors, but I'd rather not have a rookie setup man or have Kelley set up

He's the #4 to start the yr. CC, Kuroda and Nova are ahead of him.

The guy has to adjust to the US and to NY. It's not going to be easy to come over from Japan and go to a town where you don't understand anyone and where they'll boo you after your first inning if it doesn't go well. If he can hold his own in yr 1, we'll be happy. After that, I hope he can explode on the scene

They can relegate him to the minors in ST only. Once his suspension is lifted, he cannot be sent to the minors without his permission and there is no way he gives that

please what? We won 86 games a yr ago with an all star team on the DL. We've got them back plus added a ton of talent. We're gonna be hard to beat.

We don't need him to be legit, we need him to be above average in 2014. Anything else is gravy. I hope he becomes a Darvish esque pitcher, but I'll take a guy who can give us innings around a 4ERA in yr 1