sk7326

For this to be a fair posting agreement, you'd think something like $20M + 10% of total negotiated contract value might have been a fairer compromise.

I suppose my finger slipping on the keyboard earned that.

In 2012, this team, with B+ level injury luck ... was the best team in the game from wire to wire basically. If you evaluate the lineup changes in the offseason by position (my guess with some caveats): LF: Same-maybe a shade lower (Nava is a regression candidate, Gomes a positive regression one, both should not be big deals) CF: Lower (although Bradley's on-base skills could REALLY help here) RF: Same-shade lower (age-related regression, though if the power spike coming from quitting hitting lefty is real it's a different player we are evaluating) 3B: Higher (Bogaerts or Middlebrooks for the full season will be fine) SS: Higher (Bogaerts or Drew, former has more ceiling although latter is just fine) 2B: Higher (figure the injury healing will enable the power to return in earnest) 1B: Same (Napoli I expect a similar season, Carp is a regression candidate perhaps) C: Slightly Lower (Pierzynski's age and on-base skills a dropoff, Ross is Ross) DH: Same (Papi has to show me the regression first) To the pitching staff: Lackey, Peavy, Dempster have some age-based regression possible ... at the same time Peavy should be better than he was at the end of last season. Lester is one of the surest things in the game and Buchholz we can rattle off the wide range of outcomes. That said, overall this rotation is good and if they make 144 of 162 starts like they did last year - the rotation will be a strength. Bullpen - Breslow is a prime regression candidate. To be fair Uehara is too only because that level of achievement is impossible to expect. That said, Workman, Britton, De La Rosa, Tazawa all have reasons to expect improvement or continued solid performance. The new guys are all solid adds, and Cherington will keep adding more bodies because that is the best approach to take to the bullpen. I think looking at the breakdown, if a legitimately good LF option showed up, they'd really have to look at it. Otherwise, the positions are in decent shape. The bullpen is always worth adding arms - and the rotation while it lacks a true #1 (although Lester did a pretty good job as such in the playoffs) is rich in #2/#3 sort of guys, and you can (and have) win a title that way.

5 years with him would bother me a little less in that his skills (batting eye, some measure of power) tend to age fairly well. The back end of the contract he might not be "worth" $18M/yr, but he is still probably a 2-3 win sort of player who can play an adequate LF. IF the Red Sox want to pay a premium to get him, I understand ... it's not like he'd end up a Vernon Wells level flaming train wreck at the back end of the deal.

If he is a cheap hitch, who cares? One thing we know if you cannot have enough relievers.

Choo at $18M is completely sensible for the Red Sox. The number of years is the larger issue there. I have my reservations about his splits etc, but $18M is a very fair valuation for an on-base machine who can play a corner decently.

Not surprising. This is the problem with the new arrangement (which has not been officially announced). The whole idea of the auction was to compensate a team who was giving up an important asset (both on the field and in the box office). Giving up a 25 year old pitcher who went unbeaten last season (and the control that comes with it) should be worth more than $20M. This happens all the time in club soccer. If they just tied the posting fee to the contract he agreed to, that would be a lot simpler.

1. Friends don't let friends use pitcher wins. 2. He is a strikethrower has at least one or two big league pitches. He also improved his approach to something more American i.e. pitch to contact. He is by all acclaim not in the ballpark of Darvish as a free agent. But very very few are, so that is not any sort of dig. 3. His age and #2 potential are very enticing. The workload he has had to date require some skepticism.

$2.99 including postage

Well then don't guarantee a guy like him that spot. Depth is crucial - but the Red Sox have several months and a lot of prospect inventory to solve the issues.

Well you have to lean on your evaluators as to whether the commitment is worthwhile. At first sniff, I'd say probably not. But the financial commitment (even at 130) for a 25 year old with #2/#3 expectations immediately is not unreasonable at all. My skepticism with him is the workload to date - he has major questions, as do all of the other starters on the market. But his questions combined with upside make a bit more palatable a combination.

LOL ... nothing wrong with being opportunistic. Here is the reality. Not all of: Cecchini, Webster, Barnes, Swihart, Ball, Betts, Owens are going to be future studs. Xander was the one uberprospect they had once they discovered he might not be ticketed for 3B after all ... everybody else has at least some sort of question mark between upside and probability. There are some future starters in the rest of this crew (and some better than that), but there is also some excellent currency if a really good opportunity shows up. You don't blow you wad, but the Sox have the prospects to put their ear to the ground and see if an interesting trade prospect appears.

The man knew how to put down that fastball sign ...

The Red Sox had multiple injuries to multiple position players - and their best ones. You lose two of the league's best offensive players - no team is equipped to make up for that. 2010 they were beaten up in a way that any team with that sort of problem would have been stuck with - no team can make up the quality the Sox lost. That it was one of Francona's best managing jobs to get 89 wins out of that group is clear. The depth issue is overrated (depth is important, just as a house on fire concern now). They don't even really have to solve it in the offseason. Matt Stairs, Eric Hinske, Bobby Kielty types emerge during the season and can be traded for fairly painlessly, especially for a team with a LOT of prospect inventory like Boston. Another credible CF makes some sense ... perhaps someone to help in the corners if Drew is not re-signed. Also, kicking the tires on true blue options at LF and C (neither is a need, both could be upgraded even with the moves made to date) and in the rotation is just being responsible as a GM. The Red Sox project to have 6-7 guys in most prospect top 100s (Cecchini, Owens, Webster, Barnes, Ball, Betts, Swihart) and more who are respectable (Ranaudo, Brentz, Vasquez, Merrero). Given the position of this franchise in the league - you only really expect a small number of these guys to actually be solutions for the future Boston Red Sox. This is obviously not a call to trade prospects for veterans - but the Red Sox have the wealth to be opportunistic.

Well 7/110 for a legit #2 starter is probably a fair-ish price ... not saying I'd do it, but that's possibly less than what Lester will probably command on the market with 4 years age difference. The revised posting system is good for a lot of parties, but will reduce the NPB incentive to post guys in their prime. Frankly a simple cut of contract value might have been a lot simpler.

I think they are looking at the box office ... rebuild has been spinning their wheels and they feel some external pressure. Not that this is the most prudent reaction, but it is a rational one. From a business view, obviously markets are different (duh). But not all wins are similar bang. The wins the Astros could get, the difference between 54-108 and say 70 wins, is basically zero revenue-wise. (this makes sense, either way the team sucks and is probably out of it by the ASB) No point in spending on veterans to get that improvement. But from 70 wins on up, that is different, and almost certainly non-linear. Cano is one of the top 10 players in all of baseball. He should crank out a few 6-7 win seasons and his skillset is such that he will probably persist as an overpaid but not bad player (see later years Todd Helton). But will wins 72-77 really earn them a lot? Probably very little - it doesn't affect playoff contention or such. They need their own kids to make up that gap, but their kids have shown very little evidence so far of doing that. For the Yankees, trying to improve on an 85 win team, the wins are worth a lot comparatively. It means possible additional home games, and certainly improved gate, TV ratings etc etc. This is where spending makes sense - obviously they have basic affordability concerns like anybody else. The funds are not unlimited even if each player acquisition "makes sense" in a vacuum. Losing Cano hurts the Yanks quite a bit. Really means they are kind of more or less where they were last year even with Ellsbury. The business case for another big free agent is clearly there, but the names are getting short, and I don't know what they have to trade, if anything.

Sox should look to match here. Not because he is not replaceable, but it does run into matters of roster limits. In the land of 12 man pitching staffs and with Boston already sort of committed to some sort of platoon in LF, signing Napoli could help keep the lineup puzzle a little less complicated.

But what is flaming out really? At a position where replacement level is being able to roll out of bed without turning your ankle (and Pierzynski wasn't a whole lot better than that a year ago), the threshold is very very low. And with the bleating about poor defense from last year's starter - the replacement option is more of the same with far less actual upside. As noted earlier, in the grand scheme of things it is not much. Boston's 2014 fate will be driven by injuries and how Bogaerts and Bradley are ready to deal with varsity level work - but at catcher it was a very expensive lateral-at-best move.

If they did that, they become interesting. At the same time, do they have the prospect muscle to execute that strategy? That is an interesting situation. Last year, they had - outside of Seager - ZERO position players who were even as good as Daniel Nava from an fWAR perspective. Their pitching staff of course was better, but their actual peripherals were nothing special. Iwakuma had a marvelous season bolstered by a BABIP which flies in the face of his previous career enough that the burden is on him to prove it's real. King Felix of course needs no defense. But the rest actually wasn't that good. Boston's comeback from 69-93 to world champs was laudable - but there were the pieces of a good team there already. Seattle, outside of a couple of players, offers no such optimism yet.

Not at all - this ain't the NFL ... franchises have very different revenue profiles and situations. Yankees were an 86 win team a year ago which included some horrible injury luck. The marginal wins that McCann and Ellsbury and re-signing Kuroda could add have would make a large difference to the bottom line now and in the near future. If they had the young controllable choices Boston had, they probably do something different. The Ellsbury deal would be crazier for another franchise that doesn't have the Yankees variables going for them. Of course, what they do at 2B will have a large impact here.

The Yankees local revenue function is just MUCH higher than anyone else's, combined with their own native resources. (this is one of the reasons that I hate discussing salary numbers without context) Whatever you put the luxury tax at, in general, the revenue per win that the Yankees face can close a business case for them. Now the Steinbrenner's might now WANT to put that sort of money into the payroll - like every owner, that is their prerogative. But the marginal wins that the Yankees can get by going from "mid 80-win contender" to "solid postseason contender" is well worth it to them in terms of the revenue streams and such. The Red Sox face the same sort of bonanza from adding wins, but have somewhat more limited resources. Increasing the luxury tax hurts the teams like Boston or Detroit or whomever that might be able to play in the deep end but can't. For the Tampa's and Kansas City's ... they still can't afford what the Yankees can afford - but with the new CBA a lot of the tools they had to offset it (draft pick signing bonuses, international free agents) have been taken away from them. So the revenue sharing helps them somewhat, but it doesn't help them getting quality controllable talent.

I was noting the AAV just to put the players in perspective. But yes, the plus is we are only on the hook for one year. My take is - if you are going to just have a stopgap for a year while waiting for a more permanent solution, which was a totally defensible position btw ... I think Lavarnway-Ross is much more prudent use of resources. Lavarnway is a poor defender, but so is Pierzynski. I just find this is 8M spent on the 2014 payroll for no apparent reason.

Management advances that a lot (we need to show credibility blah blah blah). And I'd believe them even - if they were like Tampa in 2007-2008, sitting on a powder keg of young stars who were ready to burst forth. But Seattle is much much further behind the curve there, and until they solve their amazing developmental issues (the sheer number of position players with very serious pedigrees who have just not developed under their watch is astounding), this is just a cynical attempt to put asses in seats, which will work for a few minutes until the 78-84 seasons start rolling in.

It sounds better than it is. Anything that becomes a hard cap can make it harder for the little guy to compete paradoxically. One of the ironies of the current CBA is how it hurt Tampa and Kansas City despite the more punitive luxury tax.

It is an interesting case ... I certainly do not shun Choo JUST because he has poor splits. It is more giving $20M a year to somebody who does not add tremendous defensive value for whole you are basically punting 100-150 of his PAs. I would not mind signing him for the right price. A contract that resembles what the Yanks gave Ellsbury is not it.