sk7326

I suspect these aren't "Ben" trades.

Allen Craig, Joe Kelly

Joe Kelly and Allen Craig for Lackey

Also note the mechanism by which Cespedes goes free after 2015. His contract forbids the team from offering him salary arbitration - they essentially agree to cut him, thus no compensatory pick attachment. You have to think this was done with the intent of signing him longer but they did not buy a ton of control here.

In some ways he is a more attractive commodity - that extra year of control for peanuts.

It is the fascinating question - it has been good enough to pile up the runs so far. There was not a great impact bat left, so they went the other way.

The move also does block Betts - who picked up where he left off with his Pawtucket feats of strength. On the other hand, in Boston he'd be subjected to management who has been incredibly weak kneed about their internal prospect evaluations.

To be fair, they were already there - they and the Angels have been the 2 best teams in the AL most of the season, just crush it on the run differential. It's not like Detroit is getting 2012 Verlander performances this season. Hammel has been terrible for Oakland, so Beane I think was looking to upgrade opportunistically. They got Lester at what was (for them) a pretty small price - a low OBP outfielder who they were not going to resign after 2015. Not that they won't miss Cespedes, but for a rotation anchor rental, it was a pretty fair price.

Under the contract he signed, Sox are not allowed to offer him arbitration after the 2015 season. http://oakland.athletics.mlb.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20120213&content_id=26674580&vkey=news_oak&c_id=oak

Suffice to say, for the A's, this is a rental. At the same time, this is a tremendous deal for Oakland - improves their already terrific run prevention ... add a reasonable corner outfield bat who has played in big games (fwiw) and did not have to give up any young assets. If Lester comes back (or somebody similar in the offseason) this move looks better than it does right now. Getting 1 season of Cespedes for 2 months of Lester and Gomes is a solid return on some level, but considering what you'd have hoped for in dealing the top name on the market, it feels thin. Second of the Sox trades where it seems like they did not get 90 cents on the dollar.

I am not even thinking about the shiny baubles so much as the going rate for guys of Lester's ilk - in an industry drowning in cash ... in a market who gets a lot more bang for winning than others. A lot of teams are doing well, so the idea of replacing Lester easily (or Lackey for that manner - legit workhorses) is a bit of a dream. Especially with a lot of cheap controllable position help seemingly here or on the way, the money is there to allocate to the rotation. I do believe 30 year olds are risks on principle. But you have to evaluate individual investments, and Lester's durability changes the calculus significantly here. There was a solid industry comp to Lester to work with (Greinke) if they wanted it. But they've made their choice without an apparent plan B.

There is a huge winners curse to free agency - without a doubt. The best use of free agency is to fill a targeted need which you can't source internally - maybe a key bat, something like that. The Cuban signees had considerable risk (and Cespedes is a bit behind the other two although spectacular). Now that being said, starting pitching is one of the areas which is very hard to source if you don't already have it - so there is a market premium on good guys. The best use of money used to be for draft bonuses - but the league scuttled that. The latin FA pool is a source of efficiency but not the depth of the draft pool with a ton of performance variability. I think the worry that this franchise wants to go cheap is warranted - the owners have reps for begin fairly hawkish on the issue of compensating players - which does not fly when you charge the nation the prices or litter the broadcast with ads. Nobody is asking the Sox to spend stupidly - but the market has financial advantages, and the fans are asked more financially than any other set of fans. Those factors require that the team not run itself like the Pirates. Money has its perks - the ability to take on a Mike Lowell in a deal, the ability to resign homegrown guys and not have to make the sort of choices the Twins have to, and the ability to correct mistakes quickly.

He didn't cost an arm and a leg - and the durability and upside is there - if not the probability. For some contenders, they just need guys who can make a dozen reasonably competitive starts. It is interesting how the industry values innings - not necessarily stupendous quality, but the ability to deliver in bulk. (of course that is central as to why Lester is a good value in the market regardless of whether he replicates his 2014 form)

Not nearly that high. Basically when he said "let's move this to the offseason", Lester has committed to at least exploring the auction. Boston will have to put a competitive offer to get him. They might not have to offer the most, but it has to be close. There is very little evidence that they have been inclined to make that kind of offer. And frankly, I don't think has really been Cherington's call.

Oscar Tavares was one of the top 5 prospects in baseball with comps to Vladimir Guerrero. For 2 months of Jon Lester that is a pretty phenomenal return. I also am certain that was never offered because the Cards are not stupid.

Great buy low move for the Cubbies. Doubront for basically zippo ... his command sucks, he has #2 stuff but the command means he probably won't me more than what he was a year ago. That said, three years of control for a potential #3/#4 starter for a bag of donuts is a very good move. Cubs are loaded with farm bats - not so much with guys who can soak innings up.

There is some truth there, but some revisionism too. Pedroia flailed - very badly in his callup. The thing was that management - this was where Epstein and Francona were great - trusted their evaluation and rode things out. Kids need reps - but some of those can be big league reps if it's the right guy. Bogaerts in his callup last season showed evidence that he was that sort of guy. Where the post-Francona/Epstein version of the management team has screwed up is by being very very reactionary to short term blips. Anointing Jackie Bradley due to a hot spring, and then choosing Grady Sizemore over him using the same evidence. I defended the Drew signing as the best way to solve 3B in Middlebrooks' absence - but I was wrong there. Certainly putting Bogaerts in some sort of rotation with replacement level fodder (like Herrera when he was here) was extremely counterproductive. Promoting kids aggressively is fine - it is part of your evaluation of the kid, and both Bogaerts and Bradley have gobbled up promotions in short order - but you can't promote a guy aggressively and then panic and act surprised when the kid is getting his sea legs.

I imagine if it is Pittsburgh, their first call might be for Jameson Taillon, their best pitching prospect who is on the tommy john shelf.

Sadly much true

There is a lot of logic here which is good in a vacuum - the problem is when it gets applied to the marketplace, and 30 firms with 30 different revenue functions. 1. The Red Sox do not have the same fiscal constraints of other teams. If they place those shackles on themselves, it is entirely by choice. The value Lester (or anybody) provides does more for the Sox bottom line than it would in Tampa. 2. Jon Lester is very hard to replace because of both the quality and quantity of production. There is no way they can replace the quantity of production with one pitcher next season. Indeed, it is unlikely that any of their pitchers, regardless of age - will produce the innings value that Lester will provide in the next 3 seasons. He is basically one roster spot which has to be replaced by 2-3 pitchers in his absence. 3. You have to eat some suboptimal years to absorb a premium free agent. The question is what those years look like and can you live with that. With Lester, you'd probably get 3 years where he is more like (on average) 2012 Jake Peavy than a Cy Young contender. But that is 1200 innings of #2/3 starter production ... and in the way the market has evolved, that is probably worth $20-$25M a year fairly. 4. There is a possibility that this front office just does not believe in compensating players to that degree - which sounds good until you see what they are charging the public. It does not compute in a tolerable way.

None that I know of. I think it is really more a case of being a pure DH plus the relative unsexiness of his production ... both doing it in Seattle, and being really good for a very long time in a non "capturing the imagination" sort of way.

You certainly can't win without a level of pop. But make it simple. A team with a 1.000 SLG pct in an inning could have just scored 1 run. (a solo homerun and 3 outs). An OBP of 1.000 is a team that would never be retired. The name of the game is to score, and not making outs is the most central tenet of scoring a lot of runs. If you are not making outs, you're getting on base. I think I have read statistical measures indicating OBP is 40% more important than slugging (that 1.4 x OBP + SLG is a bit more truthful). There is noise in the team stats, but there is noise in all stats. The top 2 OBP teams in the AL last year were the top 2 OBPs by a long long way. Baserunners are the building blocks of offense.

Last 5 years of his career were in a hitter's graveyard - I discount RBIs since they are a function of team. Now, if you want to evaluate if his case looks better than Edgar's due to HRs and RBIs, I'd be with you. But he did not get on base as often, his peak seasons were not as dominating and his ballpark circumstances were at least as favorable. Career OPS are close - but we know OPS wildly understates the O which is much more important than the slugging part. The .418 vs .379 OBP is a huge difference. Edgar was just a better hitter by a solid margin. Frank Thomas was even better than that - though his production was more peaky.

Level of production matters ... Thomas was a 1B for first few years. Also he had a 5 year stretch where he was far and away the best hitter in the league. 72.4 fWAR/2322 PAs, career slash .301/.419/.555, wOBA .416, and a best 5 year total of 34.8 fWAR. Martinez' counting numbers are less, but of course RBI is a function of lineup quality. He spent his last five years in a terrible hitter's park too. Let's put it this way - you need to be talking Miguel Cabrera 2012-2013 level production to justify DH value (which is what Thomas was doing, and Edgar's best years were in the neighborhood). Ortiz, while excellent has never touched that level.

Salty is not as good a player has he was for us last season - but he had a much better chance of that than Pierzynski did. I understand why they let him go, but it made a lot more sense to let Vasquez handle the job earlier. This team did a lot of very counterproductive dithering with low ceiling vets this year ... just silly for a "reloading" season.