sk7326

Ummm ... Hudson was also successful in the AL ... as was Dan Haren ... Dempster should be moved, but if he isn't, that's OK. He is disposable on a playoff roster, but he is invaluable for the marathon. Also - he has a good contract, I would not eat salary without getting something of value coming back.

I doubt Napoli gets a clean 3 years from the market. Perhaps 1 year + option, MAYBE 2 + option. He was a 4-win player last year, and for a team in Boston's position (playoff contender, significant marginal revenue per win) that is a $16M-$17M sort of dude. I'd feel more comfortable having that be an incentive laden upside. What we can be assured is that he will not be signing for a $5M base salary. As far as Koji goes - he is the closer to start the season, and you use him basically the way Farrell did. Limit the work early, but you definitely want him to have a few 4+ out saves from a perspective of conditioning. Furthermore, best to be prepared for Koji to not be the answer next year. Certainly he won't be as good as he was this year, because that is basically impossible.

Basically - this is the value we applied to Tim Wakefield's presence. That he took his starts and kept a staff organized. He struggled at times, but that was not the point. And the industry has priced that single value quite high now. Jackson had a bad season, but a #4 starter who doesn't miss turns has innate value. Even Dempster proved that. Every start you don't need to wheel out Kyle Weiland or 2011 Tim Wakefield is a win for your rotation.

It was not good - although $13M a year is a fair contract for proven innings soakers like Jackson. Dempster was a much better value obviously. His record was not perfect - but it would be disingenuous or stupid to mention the past without noting it's the best decade in modern Red Sox history. It was when they went away from it that it got muddled up. Indeed, in 2011 they were a 90 win team that got crushed by injuries in the pitching staff. That the media narrative became the folklore does not mean it actually was true.

He will get it. Shortstop replacement level is much worse than it was a decade ago when Nomah was walking the earth. Drew and Peralta are clearly the best SS options, with Drew having a solid edge defensively. You don't think a contender would pay $12M a year for a 4-win shortstop? He'd be worth MORE if he did not have such a checkered injury past.

Ellsbury was awful down the stretch in 2008 - that's why he was benched during the biggest part of the season. Crisp had some potential for sure but he has clearly settled into what he is: a good CF to have until you find a better one.

This isn't Theo Epstein's era ... it's Theo Epstein's lieutenants. Cherington won using the 4th highest payroll in baseball, the team leaders from the 2007 team and the former pitching coach and PawSox managers who he and his boss brought in. 2013 didn't repudiate the Theo Epstein era, it reinforced it.

Not arguably - but Darvish was also much better than Matsuzaka stuff-wise. Of course Matsuzaka was great stuff wise too - that was not the problem. I am not sure how the new posting agreement will work, but I believe finishing in the Top 3 is what matters as Tanaka will have some sort of choice. At least that is what the reports indicate will be part of the new posting agreement.

Have to look at market inflation. It is more a supply-demand question than using a past pitcher comp.

Those 2 titles and 5 playoff spots in 9 years ruined my day many a time. A reign so bad that all his former assistant GM had to do was rehire a bunch of guys who were in organization before 2011 to win a title again.

We can't ... but Gonzalez had an MVP-caliber 2011 season and power was not a problem. The injury hampered his power somewhat maybe - but that was only a modest part of him turning from a potential MVP into Nick Swisher overnight.

Bad games can be painful, but that describes baseball too. What I will say is, a 1-0 game with about a dozen good, serious scoring chances can still breeze along.

Stanton has played more than 125 games exactly one time in his career. This is not Andruw Jones who was in his 4th year as a durable starter and heading towards "best defensive outfielder of his generation". This is not Adrian Gonzalez, for whom most of the 30 GMs would have made that deal given the circumstances. That he fell off of a cliff in 2012 is not something typical of a 30 year old ... certainly not one coming off of the 27-29 seasons he had. Stanton could be a cornerstone OF, but his injury history is a concern - and corner outfielders are rarely worth emptying the farm for. He is a strong on-base guy, good hitter with 80 power ... but he has had trouble staying healthy and adds no defensive value. The Marlins would need a Bogaerts to justify the deal to a very skeptical public - but he does not warrant it.

23 year old Andruw Jones obliterates the other two ... assuming the total package matters.

Catcher is not a need. Could you upgrade on Saltalamacchia. Sure. Could you downgrade and make yourself happy talking about defense? Sure. Replacement level at catcher is basically zero and at status quo there aren't half a dozen teams with better catching situations than ours. Laying out a lot of money on McCann does not create much marginal improvement at that position. He is an upgrade - but for the cost, not a large one. Relief pitching is a need - as is the case for every team. You cannot go in expecting Breslow to give that performance again, or for that matter Uehara. Some of this can be sourced internally, but shoring that up makes sense. More starting pitching is a fair ask if it's not too pricey. Getting some improvement from the outfield offensively would be nice too. Victorino's turnaround was shocking and you have to anticipate some regression for a 33 year old. LF we created a positive situation out of platoons - but Beltran for a short hitch would be an upgrade. But with a QO attached to him he is a non-starter.

Makes sense - although the games waste less of your time for the scores. And some of the best games get you to 3-2 or so.

Webster's upside is not insane - mid-rotation ... which is good, but I'd listen on. The walk rate can be fixed. The homerun rate and groundball rate for a sinkerballer was alarming. De La Rosa has some real promise though. Kemp is one of the 10 best players in the league when healthy. That said, his injury history might be worse (and more problematic) than Ellsbury's. Ellsbury has had some rotten luck on freakish injuries ... Kemp's problems (hammies, shoulder, ankle) speak to stuff which have some pretty good chance of recurring. The Dodgers will drive a hard bargain though - well they should. He is their best player. Ethier they'd drive to the airport.

Oh if you are looking at "healthiest franchise (on the field) for the next 5 years" the answer is CLEARLY Saint Louis ... though Boston is among the elite in that field too ... I mean the media drooled all over Wacha, yet they have at least 3 pitchers with higher ceilings not make a start in their postseason. (Miller, Martinez, Rosenthal - who is a guy with Top 2 starter stuff put into closer since they needed one) And one thing we know is that if an org is lacking depth somewhere, a bottomless supply of arms is a good asset to use to shop for depth.

Drew turning down the QO is interesting ... not surprising. It was a 50-50 proposition. In a way this is the perfect time to have Boras as your client. Shortstop of any sort of quality in this year's market is a 1-man show (well 2 if you count Peralta, which is fair) ... and there will be no shortage of patience waiting for the teams to figure it out. The pick penalty will be tough for a team to swallow, unless you are a team like the Cards (who came within 2 games of a title with a little leaguer playing SS) or the Dodgers (who could move Hanley to 3B)

Ellsbury is probably the best "lead off guy" in the classic sense in the league. Trout did not lead off because he is the Angels best hitter, and you don't put your best hitter 1st. It's not that he can't lead off (he did last year) so much as his superpowers are better used elsewhere.

The money? From the ticket prices, the influx of national TV money from the new contract, and the extra bump that NESN is going to get with the defending world champions ...

Well with Darvish, you also had the live datapoint of how dominant he looked in the WBC - it wasn't grainy video, it was a dude making MLB hitters (in spring condition granted) look bad.

Trout, McCutchen ... Gomez had better numbers, but the lack of track record plus how much of it was tied in defense shifts Ellsbury up to #3 ... but Gomez at #3 is certainly reasonable.

Did it, really? Defense broke the tie when nobody was hitting. That Ross had a solid week does not really answer anything about long term employment. When talking about how much Ellsbury is worth (or anybody else) it is hard to discuss without factoring context ... each team's revenue formulas, etc. Is Ellsbury worth 20M? If I were Seattle who is not very close to contending, not really. If I were Pittsburgh, on the verge of something important and with some extra money that comes with a young team reaching the playoffs a year before? Probably not - but there are some calculations. If I were Texas, who fields a pretty darn good everyday lineup and is probably a player away from being a serious force again? That could be different. Ellsbury is a lot better than Bourn ... although how you regard his injuries (luck vs being injury prone) will impact the valuation. Ellsbury was the 3rd best CF in the league last year ... so stands to reason he will get a big payday.

Yeah, what I have read tracks about not having nearly the stuff Darvish has. On the other hand, Darvish might be the best "stuff" pitcher in the entire league - so I am not sure whether "not as good as Darvish" is really saying much. The commentary I have read in that direction make it much more about what Darvish has so much as Tanaka missing anything. There seems to be some consensus that his splitter is plus, the way you expect from most of the successful NPB guys. Certainly it seems like the control is there, and the radar guns have the fastball at least in the 89-92 sort of range. If a comp is prime Kuroda, that is not a bad place to be. Not a true ace, but nothing to sneeze at. For me the red flag is his missing a month last season. Given how hard these guys are worked from an early age in Japan, there is some risk of whether that is a longer term thing. At the same time, there isn't a FA starter out there without major red flags. Just a matter of what you are willing to live with.