vjcsmoke

Thank you Dempster!! I was just thinking a while ago that we'd have to eat some of that money to move Dempster to another team. now it gets freed up all by itself. I think you save that money and use it when you've identified a prime player. As for Kemp, I would not give him a big contract. i'd consider giving an incentive-laden 'prove it' deal for 1 year. And then if he plays awesome, he is welcome to test the free agent waters after. The bigger question to me is what do we do about Ortiz? He says he wants a multi-year extension. To my mind, Giving him 2 years/32m would be ideal. But would he take that? I wouldn't go over 2 years. A 2 year extension would take him to age 40. The other thing I'm thinking is that with the Dempster money saved, now might be the perfect time to sign Lester to a long term extension. I just don't want to give crazy money ie not Kershaw type dough.

1. Ortiz will NEVER go to the Yankees. I think he would rather keep signing 1 year deals with the Red Sox until he doesn't want to play any more. 2. Jenny Dell and WMB is such a nonstory. I don't care who WMB screws. It's a shame she got canned just because of who ended up in her bed, but that's how it goes. At least she got 'reassigned' instead of outright fired. But if she lands WMB, I think her financial needs will be secure even if she ends up as ringside card girl down the road. 3. Whether WMB stays with the Red Sox depends on his ability/inability to handle big league pitching, and that includes breaking balls. WMB needs to be able to maintain an OBP north of .300 and an OPS of .750 to be worth holding a regular starting job.

I think signing Drew on the cheap makes sense. He can back up in the infield. All I know is that XB MUST START. He's got Hamley Ramirez upside. As for WMB, I just don't know. He could turn into quite a good 3rd baseman, or maybe his inability to hit the breaking ball could turn him into a bust at the ML level.

175m to be exact [155m contract + 20m posting fee]. And he doesn't have to be an ace to be an economic win for the Yankees. Why do you think they got guys like Ichiro, Kuroda, and in the past Matsui? The Yankees dominate the Japanese market now and Tanaka guarantees they will be relevant in Japan another 7 years even once Ichiro and Kuroda retire. The marketing benefits alone more than pay for the investment. As long as Tanaka is at least a solid #2-3 pitcher. The Yankees made a no-brainer deal to shore up their starting pitching while also assuring themselves of dominant Japan market-share.

Nobody knows. Tanaka might bust like Matsuzaka, who still had a couple of decent years before MLB batters figured him out and injuries caught up to him. Or, he might turn into a younger version of Koji Uehara which would be our worst nightmare. AKA the Yanks getting a guy with ridiculous stuff just entering his prime and signed for the next 7 years. A lot of differences in the game, from the ball, to mound height, etc. But the scary thing about Tanaka to me, is that he was suppressing batters at the tune of a 1.27 era when they were playing with an illegally JUICED rabbit-ball. He must have some pretty filthy stuff to make that happen!! Of course, since he plays for the enemy, I hope Tanaka turns into a colossal bust and his contract becomes an albatross for the Stankees. But I'm just not confident of that happening. We'll just have to see how this plays out. Even if Tanaka turns to be good, If Sabathia doesn't bounce back, the Yankees are still in trouble imo. Cos his contract would be a pretty heavy dead weight.

No it doesn't seem insane at all. His base salary is 750k. If he meets incentives that means he was good enough to earn the 6m. Besides which, it's not your money, so why do you care? I think this is a typical low risk high reward signing by BC. It definitely worked out with the initial Napoli signing and Drew signing. It might work out again with Sizemore. Sizemore used to be an elite CF in the bigs. If he regains his health, well he'd definitely be a better option than a raw/green JBJ. In Ben we trust. He's earned that much after pulling off 2013. Yeah I know he's not going to hit on basically ALL of his FA signings like he did in 2013. But let's give the man some credit and wait and see what happens. The Sox definitely needed another depth OF and they got a high upside, albeit injury prone OF on the cheap.

Unless she is 'sucking' away his power. I see no reason to 'get rid of' one or the other. LOL, what the heck is this forum now, one of those rumor mags? Who WMB dates is totally IRRELEVANT!!

I think you guys are too hung up on the innings pitched number. Hall of Fame AMERICAN Major Leaguers back in the day used to throw 400-500 innings in a season easily. Remember a guy named Cy Young? He pitched around 400 innings per season from age 24-29. Then pitched over 300 innings per season from age 30 to 42. Didn't retire until age 44. Over 7,300 IP over his career! http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/y/youngcy01.shtml Getting a little silly and exaggerated with the 'walking timebomb' descriptions. The dude just turned 26. Japanese pitchers don't seem to have career longevity issues. Just check out Hiroki Kuroda, pitching past his year 38 season already. http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/k/kurodhi01.shtml And our own Koji Uehara at the top of his game at age 39. http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/u/ueharko01.shtml So chill with the exaggerations. From what I've heard, I expect Tanaka to be not the same pitcher as Darvish obviously. But if he's an upgraded, younger version of Kuroda who gives you 200+ ip a year with 3.xx era and 1.1ish whip would he be worth the money? Absolutely.

Chasing skirts? *raise eyebrow*

Dempster is a nice 5th starter. But he makes too much money for that role. I hope we can dump his contract on somebody soon!

Problem is that there's no way Japanese teams can match the money he would make in the Majors. Tanaka will probably get at LEAST an average of 15m/year in MLB. Probably the most his Japanese team could comfortably afford to offer would be 5m per year and only one year deal at that cos he ain't gonna stay past his window to become a free agent eligible for MLB. Would LOVE to see the Mariners with Cano and Tanaka! Ichiro was a huge star in Seattle, so it might not be beyond the realm of possibility that Tanaka ends up there.

I think Choo will be worth his 18.5m contract but likely only over the first 5 years. I expect drop-off in years 6/7. I agree with the Red Sox decision not to go 7/130 for Choo. So after all is said and done, I think we still need an RH platoon bat who can play CF and some RF in Fenway.

I don't see us even close to a matching a 300m dollar offer. LOL. So, no Kershaw to the Sox. But if the Yankees go crazy after missing out on Tanaka, maybe they say the hell with the luxury tax and offer Kershaw 350m. That would be the end of sanity. But it wouldn't surprise me if the Stankees were backed into a corner, this is just the type of move they could make to 'buy themselves' back into contention. PS I think anyone would be crazy to turn down 300m dollars unless they have an ironclad secret agreement with another team in hand for significantly more dollars.

His talent level doesn't have to be .880 again to be worthwhile. If his OPS dropped to .800 to .850 he'd still be a valuable bat off the bench. And Carp doesn't have to be the 'heir apparent' to be valuable. Ortiz and Napoli are older, they can't play every day, and it's good to be able to insert a young power bat into the mix to give those guys days of rest without suffering too much dropoff in offense. Where we differ is your valuation of Blanco is overrated imo. I wouldn't give up Carp straight up for Blanco. You'd want to throw in Carp plus prospects for Blanco. The Giants probably don't move Blanco just because their outfielders suck that bad. I don't want Blanco because I feel he sucks that bad compared to our other outfielders. What about Blanco's speed? 14 steals and 9 caught stealing last season? That's a terrible caught stealing rate of 36%. And Who does he replace? Not Victorino in rightfield with his 5+ WAR. What about Nava? Nava's .800 OPS crushes Blanco, and he also has a superior career .369 OPB vs Blancos career .347. What about Johnny Gomes, he owns a career .770 OPS and has what our manager refers to as the 'IT' factor. How about JBJ? I think it's safe to say if JBJ put out a sub 700 OPS people would be calling for his head. Since Blanco is not an Upgrade to Left or Right field, that only leaves him as a platoon with JBJ, but guess what, Blanco is ALSO a left handed bat. You just do not go with a lefty/lefty platoon. There is just NO FIT here with the Red Sox. I don't see the value for the Giants OR the Red Sox.

Seriously. I don't think the Yankees winning is 'good for baseball'. It's good for the Yankees. What makes playoff baseball compelling, is not that you see the same old teams, but rather the storylines that develop for the teams that make it. Would I like to see the Cubs in the World Series? That would get hyped like crazy. I don't think they will, but that's just an example. Using our team as an example - it was the Last to First story. And it was Boston Strong. I think the Boston Red Sox winning the World Series this past season was GREAT for baseball. A much stronger storyline than, oh btw Yankees make it to the Series for the Umpteenth time. But regardless of how good the 'story' is, bottom line we DID have the BEST TEAM in baseball. Our guys played their hearts out and earned that championship by winning against the best and most talented opponents surviving in the playoffs this year.

What about Carp's .880 OPS? That doesn't exactly grow on trees and the Sox can use all the power bats they can get. Ortiz and Napoli are long in the tooth. They're not going to play forever. I don't see Blanco as being good enough to give up a good power bat for. He is a career .683 OPS OF and his speed is nothing to write home about either. Versatility is a plus, but sub .700 OPS is subpar for ANY OF position.

Would love Kershaw but the Dodgers would be stupid to let him go. And the current Dodgers LOVE to spend. So I don't see us landing him. Masterson is a sinkerballer who I don't see playing that well in Fenway. He's a #2/3 type pitcher anyways. We traded him away for a reason. Shields... is an innings eater but his numbers have been getting worse each year. The thing about NPB pitchers is that although they throw a lot of innings per game, they play much fewer games total than the Majors. And Tanaka is 6 years younger than Shields. I think he's still young enough that his total IP is not a worry for me. I think it's good that: 1. The Yankees are denied a chance to get him for one year. 2. The Red Sox will have a shot at him with a LOT of money coming off their payroll. 3. We get to see more 'work product' to make up our minds, is this guy a #2 or could he potentially become a staff anchor. I think Tanaka is going to be the best free agent option in 2015, at age 26, assuming that Kershaw is extended longterm by the Dodgers before he gets there.

Pretty much. It sounds like the Sox are willing to see what JBJ can do for them in center. I'm worried he might not pan out and then they have to do an emergency trade where they pay out a lot more than they want to address the CF position. I still think the Sox situation with Crisp/Ellsbury was ideal. You had the veteran and you had the up and coming youngster. Both potentially capable of being starting players for you. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coco_Crisp And what did we give up andy marte, gullerma motta, and Kelly shoppach. did losing any of those guys haunt us?

Of course we don't want another Matsuzaka. But Tanaka is a different type of pitcher. Imagine if we could get Uehara at age 25, when he was still a frontline starting pitcher, for example? In any case, there's always some risk potential when signing a free agent. and not just a Japanese free agent, any of them. You could be getting the next Yu Darvish or you could be getting the next Kei Igawa. Who knows. However we do know that the risk is more affordable with the posting fee now being capped. In any case the Yankee will be all in once Tanaka is posted. I guess all we can do is drive up the price. But the Dodgers and Mariners will likely be driving up the market already. I think if Tanaka comes out this year, there is much less chance of us bidding him up. But if he gets posted the following season, after Dempster, Lackey, etc. go off the books, then he becomes a great fit for us.

Or maybe they just didn't want THAT outfielder.

The scouting report on JBJ is that he only has average to above average speed. He's not an elite speedster like Ellsbury. So we can expect about 20 SB from JBJ but I think he bats 9th until he proves he can hit major league pitching with decent OBP.

5 WAR for a rookie is extremely optimistic. Just for reference sake - only 33 Major Leaguer batters all last year made the 5.0 war mark and on the Red Sox only Dustin Pedroia, Jacoby Ellsbury, and Shane Victorino topped or met 5 war. David Ortiz just missed the mark with a 4.4 WAR. http://espn.go.com/mlb/stats/batting/_/sort/WARBR/order/true Do you really believe JBJ will be more valuable than David Ortiz? I don't. I think Ortiz' WAR suffers a little because he's a DH and doesn't field. But still. I don't see JBJ realistically making the 5 WAR mark unless he turns into a ROY candidate and even then it would be tough. In fact just check the top 40 in batter war last year and you'll see a list of a who's who of the best players in baseball. I would be thrilled but utterly surprised if JBJ turned out to be a top 40 player for us. XB maybe, but I don't expect that out of JBJ. I'd be happy with a solid rookie season and showing us the potential to grow into a starting player at the MLB level. I think that most people seem to agree that Choo is worth 18m per year. The question is how long of a contract commitment would he get and are those dollars the best way the Sox can spend their money.

The problem is that if he is posted this year, we have to compete with the Yankees. If he is posted in 2014, they may already have the salary slotted for pitchers that they signed in the free agent market. So the Red Sox would have a better shot with the salaries of Dempster and company coming off the books. As for the posting system its going to need some kind of tweaking in the future that may involve some kind of bonus or percentage based on the size of player contract. Because if you're the Fukuoka Eagles, do you take the 20 million, or do you pass and compete for another Championship next year? The Eagles may have been reluctant to post Tanaka before, but the promise of a 50m dollar cash injection surely would have given them an attractive incentive to let Tanaka pursue a career in America. Now, not so much! Think about it, right now, there's no top team in MLB that needs starting pitching who wouldn't pay 20m plus contract for Tanaka. Especially with the new TV deal going through. That mean's it's probably too good a deal on the American side of the ocean.

Tanaka is 6'2 200 lbs. Size is not an issue. The issue is whether or not his team will even post him now that the posting fee has been capped to only 20m dollars. There is a lot less financial incentive for Japanese teams to let their stars go early now. Tanaka is in his prime now at age 25. http://bleacherreport.com/articles/1861216-how-masahiro-tanakas-stuff-will-play-against-mlb-hitters Yup, the Yankees will be in big trouble if they have to wait another year. They can't, they have holes right now and they will likely have to sign /overpay another free agent that might not be as skilled.

Well they don't necessarily need to make a big splash. But they could use a right handed bat to platoon with JBJ. I like his upside but I'm not ready to give him the keys to CF next season without a fallback plan of some sort. Remember when the Sox had Crisp and Ellsbury? That was the ideal situation. Once Ellsbury proved himself, they moved Crisp. Is Stanton on the tradeblock or what? http://www.boston.com/sports/baseball/redsox/extras/extra_bases/2013/11/marlins_president_opens_door_for_a_stanton_trade_j.html