sk7326

The two times the Dodgers broke 90 wins in the last 6 years, they led the league in attendance. The years they have scuffled, they have scuffled at the box office. The fan base is fickle, but they'll show up to see a winner. Helps to have a great ballpark and tradition.

The Yankees had great players - they kept that. Chemistry forms as teams win - not the other way around. The 1996-2000 Yankees were largely home grown with a few key veterans, so that is a pretty poor example of mercenary. They outspent, but to keep their guys. And considering how much they charge their public, they damn well ought to have.

I think they'd like to. But it's not a bad contract ... 1 year for a durable guy who misses bats decently. He was important for them the way Tim Wakefield was in years past. If he's your worst pitcher, life is not that bad. I'd want to at least get an Engel Beltre sort of lotto ticket for him if I'm eating salary.

Pedroia IS the face of the franchise - but if he were not an elite player, the "face of the franchise" stuff would never happen. That he is more than just a great player is true - but being a great player is the entry criteria. Pedroia is the team's biggest star and resonates with the Boston fan base uniquely for reasons both baseball related and otherwise. Ortiz resonates as well, mostly because of both his current production as well as his connection to 2004 - and damn right is should be. As much as Boston fans like to talk about wanting a team of Scrappy McScrappersons and frowning at fat cat superstars - that is largely nonsense. I have a few years of Pedro Martinez starts to counter that. Winning sells, period. The 2011 team, which is always the cautionary tale told - did not win enough, and that was the crime. They went 81-42 in the middle 123 games of their season, and you heard none of the "these are bad guys" sort of hooey. They stopped winning - and that stopping winning continued in 2012. I think Boston's organizational philosophy has not really shifted - they won in 2007 with home grown folks too. That is always the goal - grow your own, and figure out the rest later. For instance, between whichever prospect guys you read, you imagine that: Bogaerts, Cecchini, Owens, Barnes, Webster, Ball, Swihart (who can't be traded yet, but no matter), Betts ... are all probably Top 100 sort of prospects. So the Red Sox have a lot of guys coming up. You add other guys like De La Rosa, Merrero, Ranaudo, Brentz, who are some version of attractive. Hoarding all of them makes no sense - for either the Red Sox or the players. We know Bogaerts is part of the immediate future. The rest of the guys are assets, just the way it is with Tampa. The difference is, due to Boston's actual big market edges, the prospects + money gives the Sox more options to do things for the major league club. I don't think Cherington is shifting the franchise 180 degrees away from the way the team has operated before (which of course he was a prominent part of) - it just happens that now the organization has more cards to play - such is the cyclical nature of prospects and whatnot.

Puig was a rookie whose prior experience was a world where players enjoy themselves. Will he slide into the "yessir, nosir" that MLB expects as the "right way to play?" It will improve - but you don't teach the pure ability to hit the baseball like he has.

Ramirez AND Greinke getting healthy (Greinke gave them the NL's best 1-2 combo) at the same time Puig came up was a perfect confluence. I think of their 4 outfielders Puig is the only one not on the block - he has by far the best contract after all.

Basically the Dodgers have Puig and 3 outfielders they are taking calls on ... it is really about which guy gets them the best deal. Crawford has rebuilt his value a little bit - not Tampa Bay level but at least a 3 win sort of guy you can play without holding your nose. Ethier needs a platoon partner but is probably the best contract. Kemp is the high wire act - could be a bonanza or a disaster.

Note the "kicking the tires". There is probably not a deal there - and given the red flags, not that I'd want one. Here is the thing about Henry's view on long term deals etc. Everything he said was blindingly obvious - stuff everybody knows. However, the key thing is the "in certain cases" qualifier he offers. Pedroia is one of the top 20 position players in the league - so THAT is one of the qualifiers. Carl Crawford was an MVP candidate when they signed him - obviously that was a mistake, but they aimed high. The Red Sox did not make some sort of fundamental paradigm shift - there was just nobody worth that sort of monster investment so they went to plan B. The Sox have money, and they have prospect depth - including a lot of prospects who are attractive and probably blocked. There is the chance to be opportunistic if the right sort of guy is available. Kemp given his hamstring problems is probably not it ... that said, he represents the sort of talent level who is worth laying out a lot for.

Kemp is very interesting though yes, his injuries probably preclude him from being a full time CF. He is worth kicking the tires on for LF.

One thing to note is that the votes are taken after the regular season ends. So the postseason has no impact - aside from narratives like the MVP not being able to come from a non playoff team or whatever.

Corey Hart who has not had a major league at bat since 2012 and a sandwich pick. Napoli at 3/40 gives me pause but I can't imagine the Red Sox won't get some sort of basic protection - whether it be a Lackey clause (the contract goes down hard if Napoli has a serious hip injury) or a simple vesting option. His strikeout rate doesn't matter a drop.

Very much so. IMO, he was excellent here generally, although he grew into the job. Solid early, very good later. 2011 was not one of his better years, but a lot of forces conspired there. But the 89 wins in 2010 showed really how good he has become. Farrell had problems in Toronto and has improved at his job. And he had a good season last year - with some things that could be improved still ever more. He could be a better manager and the team could do worse next year - it is entirely likely in fact.

Oh managers and players would do worse. That would be a lot of reputation votes (look at what the players do for all star reserves). It was hardly an injustice. Tito, Farrell and Melvin all had reasonable claims, and honestly if Joe Girardi got a couple of votes that would not be wrong either. It's not like a writer voted for Ron Washington or anything. And what does manager of the year measure - really. It measures which team outstripped expectations the most. There are good managerial performances on bad teams and vice versa - happens all the time.

The schedule imbalance was what it was ... sort of knew it was a two man race. Francona was a worthy choice - and he surely deserved to win in years past (2010 leaps to mind). The worst to first was a great achievement - although when you see who was hurt last year and healthy this year, the Red Sox were a good team on paper entering this season. Bob Melvin has been excellent recently also.

This is not that bad ... at the same time: Ruiz is 35 and can't hit righties ... that is not a player who deserves 2 years. Lavarnway/Ross make more sense than this. Corey Hart is a good idea but he does not require that sort of guarantee. If he can walk, he can be a righty partner in a platoon, and perhaps more. But the contract needs to account for that. Juan Uribe - no. Chris Young - if you can get him at this price it is a very good idea. Can play CF for real as a platoon partner and could supplant Gomes as the fourth outfielder Jesse Crain or Madson - good value plays, just need them to be values

On-Base is the very act of not producing an out - this is not new fangled anything. Stephen Drew produces fewer outs than most shortstops this side of Tulowitzki or Jose Reyes or that ilk. A lineup of players who do not produce outs will score a ton - we just saw one of those. The Yankees and Red Sox have combined for 7 titles in the last 15 years on the back of this philosophy. Maybe folks did not track it like in the old days, but unless managers had brains made of jello, not producing outs has generally been insanely valuable. (This team was not as good as the 2004 entry, and probably better than the 2007 one, though the pitching drives that ... much closer than it looks at C, worse at 1B, better at 2B, SS ... worse-ish at 3B, worse at LF, better in CF and RF. Rotation in 2013 was better, and bullpen was a tie, manager was worse but not by a margin that matters) Comparing Drew to Pedroia accomplishes very little in this argument - since Pedroia has been one of the top dozen or so position PLAYERS in the entire league the last 7 years. So Drew does not stack up next to one of the best players in baseball - wonderful. Iggy had a higher OBP than Drew - it was also an entirely outlying season based on some luck which his ability to hit line drives does not support. Drew's season had a high BABIP of course, but not really out of line with his career - and he has always been a line drive hitter.

He batted 7th or 8th ... for the league's best offense. And he was 2nd among SSs in the AL (6th overall, 500 PAs qualify) in OBP - which is the thing BA was supposed to measure in the olde days. This offense was a juggernaut - but they used more of the script of the vintage 1998-2000 Yankees teams. A lot of power and a lot of patience, but spread across a lot of places. The teamwide approach was not really different from the 2003-2007 days, it just looks striking compared to the hot steaming mess of 2012. Drew was not among our best hitters - but he was among the best hitting shortstops ... which does indicate quite a bit about our lineup. He has limitations as a hitter - basically a fastball hitter - but like Napoli, the patience wallpapers over a lot of it. He is a pretty effective offensive player - and a 16 game slump shouldn't really move the needle one way or the other. There are some front offices who still get all googly eyed at batting average, but they are fading fast.

Well the shift from the Nomah days is defense being just easier for teams to understand fully. When you look at comps for Drew - Elvis Andrus is the obvious one - a plus defender with solid on-base skills is going to get a look. Clearly the industry is a lot smarter about the value of strength up the middle than it was even a decade ago. Clearly the Drew family has a lot of trust in Boras, and he has been a very good advisor. Also - and this is why looking at gross salaries now is a little bit misleading - is that there is baseball's economic reality. Teams are drowning in cash, and the current CBA hamstrings a lot of these teams from pouring it into the farm - since signing international FAs and draft picks are now much harder. The result is a lot of money chasing not an amazing group of players - and as teams have gotten smarter about resigning guys, I don't expect FA classes to get that much better. Drew can get $12-$14 a year just on the basis of fitting into one of these Judge Smailses salary structures. I do expect that his glorious injury history will prevent teams from signing him without SOME sort of protection. But he can be a 3-4 win sort of player, and he is sort of asking the going rate for that type of dude. Xander as the starting SS makes sense - and is a fair decision for the franchise. But when you make that choice, you are hoping for a Derek Jeter sort of tradeoff - below average but acceptable defense and a bat that is a wonder to behold. I suspect the Red Sox would have been overjoyed for Drew to take the QO - but had no expectation that they will agree on a multi-year answer. He has an injury history, but when healthy he is clearly a top shelf SS (he had a bad month at the plate, and his "true outcome" sort of production shape is what it is), and all it takes is one team with a need.

It is an industry-wide shift over the years. AAA is really a taxi squad ... AA is the true "prospects vs prospects" league

Well, depends on what you have as an expectation for next year. If he fields the position like he is capable and gets on base at a league-average sort of level, that is plenty for him to be valuable in Year 1, with plenty of upside beyond that. I will note again: 10 HR, 10 SB, .360+ OBP who fields the crap out of centerfield - is an All Star. He is not nearly as far away as it looks.

Kinda sorta - his problem was that he had an amazing spring, and thus made us forget he had just so few reps. He got ABs against big league taxi-squadders, that helps a lot.

Easiest of the awards this season ... really shabby batch of AL rookies - Myers the best by a good margin, and that is even with the hat tip to Iglesias.

Loyalty? His original team dealt him at the deadline in 2004. He then signed with the Mets (his first voluntary signing) who then dealt him when it was rebuilding time. Then he signed with Saint Louis until it ran its course. He chose 2 of the 5 teams he played for ... it's like David Cone - that a lot of teams have wanted him is a plus.

Also, considering how much a righty platoon caddy would play, a flyer on Mark Reynolds who had been a useful True Outcomes guy before last year could also make sense.

1B/DH is relatively easy to source - the list of free agents sucks, but that doesn't mean that there is not a platoon of value there. Corey Hart was a very productive guy before his knees went out on him. Could you fake 1B between Nava, Carp and Hart, assuming you find another outfielder? Platoons can substitute for Napoli decently - but the problem is taking extra roster spots when you are insistent on carrying a 12 man staff.