Lord Snow

+1 The Ellsbury hate really annoys me. I can't understand why everybody is so eager to ship him out of town. He isn't made of glass, and he has had freak, but serious, injuries. I don't want to see him signed to an extension this off-season because there is a lot of risk involved but he comes out and hits .300/.360/.500 with 25 home runs and 25 stolen bases or better that is enough proof for me that he really is the 2011 MVP candidate and I'm 100% behind him getting an AAV north of $20M for 6-8 years. Ellsbury keeps himself in great physical shape so he is the type who will age well (similar to Johnny Damon) if he can avoid major injuries. His lack of quality performance last season is of no concern to me. Ellsbury keeps himself about 185 pounds with a lot of muscle (probably 20-30 pounds more than your average person) being out for 2 months and not being able to work out, he probably lost a good 10 pounds of muscle and with it has bat speed and power. Don't be surprised if he comes out and catches fire early next season and rides it through the end of the season. If he hits 7-8 homers a month all season like he did in the second half of 2011 he can go deep 40+ times.

My problem with the Victorino signing, and I'm sure a lot of the fans share in this sentiment, is that we sucked last year. We lost talent so, as a fan, you spend all off-season waiting for the front office to make an impact move that will put the team back into contention and you see Shane Victorino get signed, Mike Napoli, Ryan Dempster, David Ross, and Koji Uehara signed instead. Those guys would be fine adds if you had holes 6-9 in the line-up. But we've got holes 3, 4, and 5. We've got one of the worst rotations in the major leagues. Ryan Dempster does little to help it. I'm looking forward and trying to make realistic projections. Best case out of Lackey & Dempster I see sub-4.5 ERAs and 200 inning each. Do the Sox make the playoffs if that happens? I don't think so. Do you? Where is the beef?

It is extremely fair to say that the Boston Red Sox have been poorly managed since around the start of the 2010-2011 off-season. They've just made numerous half-baked moves. They sold the farm to acquire Adrian Gonzalez. They shifted an aging Youkilis to 3rd base. Then they traded Youk. Then they traded away Adrian Gonzalez, leaving a hole which could have been filled by Youk at first base. But ultimately leaving the Red Sox in worse shape than they had been in before the initial trade for Gonzalez. They signed Carl Crawford to a ridiculous contract that is sure to go down as one of worst in the history of baseball. They let Jonathan Papelbon walk over what turned out to be a reasonable contract for a guy who is on a Hall of Fame track. After going .299/.358 (good numbers for a SS) they traded Marco Scutaro away for a bag of balls in a apparent salary dump? They traded Jed Lowrie for Mark Melancon who was presumably to be the team's closer. But, they did that before exploring all of their options and later traded Josh Reddick for Andrew Bailey and created two holes in the line-up in doing so. Injury-prone Bailey spends the majority of the year on the DL, returns an ineffective pitcher. Reddick goes on to win a gold glove and hit 31 home runs for Oakland, god knows the kind of impact he would have had if he played half his games at Fenway rather than Oakland. Now this off-season they're prepared to leave Josh Hamilton & Nick Swisher on the table in favor of Jonny Gomes & Shane Victorino, when most of us know the there is slim to no chance those two guys end up being considered "good signings" a year from now, much less three years from now. What I can't quite figure out is if I know a move doesn't make much sense for a team, if most of the fans know that too, and if the radio talk show hosts and journalists know it too then why the hell doesn't the front office know it?! Isn't that what they are paid hundreds of thousands of dollars, if not millions, per year to know?

Yeah. And it's not even a good clause. We get Lackey and his now bum arm for an extra year at $500K. Woo hoo. :/ It would be one thing if the contract could be voided in the event of an injury but that's not the case. If they've got enough concerns about Napoli that they're worried about his health over the next 3 years I'd rather they not sign him, sounds to me like they're setting themselves up for disappointment.

This team is a sinking ship. It's like they're trying to fill the roster with the cheapest priced major league talent that they can find and put them on short-term contracts. Ken Rosenthal actually came out today and said the Red Sox outfield looks set for the season. That means they're serious about starting Jonny Gomes 150+ games next season. They'll piss more money away on Dempster. A guy who got unequivocally rocked in the AL. Probably give him 3-years $39M too and get 200 inning and an ERA north of 5.5 over the duration of the deal. The worst thing is we will probably see Josh Hamilton sign for $20M per season elsewhere, continue to be a great hitter, and we will be stuck watching a declining Shane Victorino, and a declining/injured Mike Napoli for $26M per year.

Another problem with signing mediocre talent, they don't sell tickets. Star players sell tickets. Hamilton would sell tickets. Fans dont want to pay $80 to see if Jonny Gomes will hit a home run. Thats a reason I'm glad the Sox stayed away from Greinke. He might have been the best starting pitcher on the market but he is by no means a star pitcher, or ever an elite pitcher, he's a good pitcher, that's about it. But not the type that's going to energize a fan base.

That in itself is a problem. Players are usually bargains for a reason. My problem with Ben Cherington is that he has gone out and signed mediocre players to mediocre contracts, they're not making $20M per year, and they're not making $3M per year, they're getting like $10-15M a year for 2-3 years. Mediocre players on mediocre contracts almost always disappoint because when a player regresses from a B/C player to a D player (e.g. JD Drew, Julio Lugo) he is no longer worth a place in your line-up. But if you're paying an A player $20M and he regresses to a B player (e.g. Mark Teixeira in New York, Adrian Gonzalez in Boston) he is still worth slotting into the starting line-up but he just isn't worth what you're paying him. Signing starting pitchers is a tricky game as well. Almost all free agent pitchers have a lot of mileage on their arms and how many pitchers in baseball are dominant for 12 years? (because thats what you're talking about when you give a player with 6+ year service time a 6-7 year contract). In that sense it's almost always better to trade prospects for a young ace with low mileage on his arm.

Not true, if a potential owner has x amount of dollars to spend on a club, and the club has $200M in contracts, rather than $100M in contracts, that's an extra $100M or so the new owner has to pay out of pocket which is a significant chunk of change. Most ownership groups like to be able to build their own team, start with a clean slate, not work with what they're given I don't necessarily think Henry is selling. But I can see the possibility of it happening in the next year or two. I look at two of the better high risk pitchers on the market, Dan Haren & Brandon McCarthy, and both are signed, and not in a Boston uniform. Yeah they didn't come dirt cheap but you're telling me Theo Epstein wouldn't have signed those guys 4-5 years ago? This team has changed. The FO has changed. They used to try to make a splash to fix the team every off-season. This year there were/are some parts the Sox probably should be gambling on and they're sitting back. I understand there are concerns about Josh Hamilton, but the Sox need a left-fielder, and he reports are making it sound as if he can be had for something like 3/75 or 4/90. You're talking about 31-year-old player who is going to give you a .900 OPS. That's about what we pissed away on John Lackey!

If that was the case somebody from the FO would have come out and dispelled all the rumors circling about the deal falling apart. All it would take is a text message to Gordon Edes (or any other writer) to set the record straight. Instead this rumor is bound to hit newspapers tomorrow morning.

I'm thinking he failed his physical. Something tells me this isn't just Boston working out an injury clause... if that was the case they never would have scheduled an announcement before they knew the deal was finalized. I'm also starting to think that John Henry's investment losses, and Liverpool losses are making him cheap out on the Red Sox. Since Henry became owner the Sox haven't been this frugal. There were a couple of pitchers who were no-brainer signings that should have been made considering the rotation's severe lack of depth but the Sox didn't take the risk. They opted for a $5M left-fielder in Jonny Gomes, a $13M right fielder in Shane Victorino. Neither of which can realistically be expected to contribute very much in 2013 and beyond. They're likely to pass on a very reasonably priced Josh Hamilton. Where else are you going to sign a 40 home run hitter, who is still in his prime, and who posts a decent average and OBP for $100M or less? Part of me thinks JH is trying to keep the payroll down so that the team is more attractive to a new buyer should he decide to sell. Also, did anybody catch the rumor today about the Sox still being in the picture on Swisher? Maybe it's related to the Napoli fallout.

Signing Greinke to that much money was such a bad move. The guy has pitched like #2 or #3 pitcher since 2010 and they just made him the highest paid right-handed pitcher in the history of the game? Just another poor decision by the front office (like volunteering to pay the balance of his contract to Carl Crawford). This reminds me of a Barry Zito-style overpay where a pitcher gets over-hyped for being a Cy Young winner still in his 20s even though his CY was 3+ years ago. Not to mention Greink has anxiety issues. Much like Carl Crawford, I think he will have trouble living up to that $24.5M per year price tag and cave under the pressure.

Ben Sheets, Paul Byrd, Mike Hampton, Eric Milton, Edinson Volquez, Joey Devine. Some of those guys are under 30. My point is simply you can find plenty of examples of guys who had TJ and never made it back to the majors in a meaningful role, or who took 2-3 years to "recover". So its wishful thinking to believe Lackey will come back and be the same, or better. Odds are he will be worse, and it's certainly possible he only makes a handful of starts next season.

Nobody would be willing to pay a 34-year-old pitcher coming off TJ $15M. Get a grip. The Sox are lucky if Lackey pitches 75 innings during the remainder of his contract. History has shown that guys typically don't bounce back from TJ when they have it in their 30s.

1. Lackey 2. Victorino 3. Gomes 3 worst contracts because they're vastly overpaid and will have a negative affect on the team winning games.

Lord Snow thought it deserved it's own thread to highlight Ben Cherington's incompetence.

Well there is a gamble involved. I wouldn't want to move Ellsbury until the trading deadline. If the Sox are fading out of contention by the deadline, and Ellsbury has reestablished his MVP value the Sox could presumably trade him for an organization's top 3-5 prospects. Which is probably a much better haul than the Sox can deal him for this offseason. But that raises another question. If Ellsbury does reestablish his MVP value wouldn't you want him to stay in a Boston uniform for the next 7-8 years?

He was hurt. Maad props for the Billy Mueller pic.

Hypothetically, Lets say the Red Sox could trade Jacoby Ellsbury for a starting pitcher. Who could they get? A #2 or a #3? It's not like they're going to be able to trade him for Felix Hernandez as they may have been able to at this time last year when he was coming off an MVP runner-up campaign. If Ellsbury gets traded for somebody like Matt Harrison, or Jason Vargas are you guys happy with that? I'm not. I just don't see that as a good return. If you could trade Ellsbury and bring back somebody like King Felix I could get behind that. But I don't want to trade Ellsbury so I can watch him have a career year and win the MVP in 2013 meanwhile watch Jason Vargas regress to a 4+ ERA pitcher.

Napoli wasn't a bad signing. I'm just not a big fan. I don't like guys coming off seasons where they just hit .227. Makes me nervous.

+1

Obviously my math doesn't work with the moves that have already been made. Too much money has been pissed away on Victornio and Gomes. We are handcuffed nearly $20M on those two fools for the next two years. Two bench players. Makes me disgusted to be a Sox fan.

Yeah. He did. Because BC was asleep, I guess. Same thing with Ervin Santana being traded to KC for junk. BC was sleeping then too. I guess he thinks John Lackey, Felix Doubront, and Franklin Morales are going to combine for 45 wins next season.

Why not? Santana $25.5M Hamilton (est $25M) Haren $13M Nick Swisher (est $15M) Ichiro (est $8M) $86.5M and that is being generous on those estimates for Hamilton, Swisher, and Ichiro and assuming the Mets wouldn't kick money in for a Santana deal (which it sounds like they're willing to do). That would put payroll at about $172M. Luxury tax is $178M. That's under.

This was a good signing. The first good signing Cherington has made this off-season. The bullpen is strong, but Uehara came at a good price and is a good pitcher.

Right. Up until 2012 Boston was one of the most desirable free agent destinations. Even given the poor front office management of the club you have to believe it's still more desirable than Seattle.