sk7326

25 year old with potential. Throwing a $15m/year deal at him vs Ubaldo for instance ... lot of money chasing very few players

Also considering MLB runs the WBC, that is probably not something that is bound to happen ... it's money that the teams get to keep also.

Can JBJ be a .270/.340/.400 sort of hitter next season. I don't see why not. His track record has been very consistent there. I would not guess him hitting .370 OBP in Year 1, though he certainly has that sort of approach.

Hard to tell him not to pitch in a WBC - although there pitch counts are monitored.

Oh you're putting the blame in the wrong spot here. It is the coaches who want to be known as winners. The kids, you can't count on them to say no. There is the repercussions from the coach and the fear of being called a wuss by his teammates. Coaches in those settings often have precisely the incorrect incentives.

I think you miss the Epstein quote's meaning here. Bill Parcells put it another way - that each season is its own thing, not a continuation of last year. Chemistry appears when demonstrated success appears. You bring in a bunch of high character guys who suck at baseball and then pile up a 3-17 start, chemistry ain't happening. You do want to change a team's energy each year and try to keep improving. That will rarely happen with zero turnover. What did Epstein's change mean? It meant a playoff berth in 2005, an honorable season in 2006 and then another title. In a sport as fluky as baseball, I don't see what the complaint is about the results. Can you replace Napoli? Hell yeah you can. It might take a platoon formula like they did for LF, but of course you can cobble that together. The Red Sox 4 FAs are ALL replaceable, but there is some risk and/or tradeoff surrounding each one. I think the org is happy to give young players a spin here - but there is also a lot of money flowing and they will have a chance to improve. I think they could be in on Tanaka just because outside of Ellsbury and Cano there is no All Star talent in this year's free agent crop. I am sure there is commentary about loading up for Stanton, but yes - as a corner outfielder with an injury history of sorts - that is a risky guy to throw the system at.

Drew is one of those interesting test cases for just how much money is flowing through the industry - same with Salty. Both of these guys would be 2-year + option sort of guys in a less prosperous environment. But with all of the TV money coming in, and all of the handcuffs being put on teams in terms of international signings and development - there are going to be a good number of "He signed for WHAT??!!" offers coming.

There are few amateur events with that sort of cache here. But we see coaches do this stuff all the time in the College World Series. Hell, the Chinese federation kept holding Yao to his national team commitments despite his NBA career, and you saw the impact that had. Just some cultural expectation which I get but it can have a negative impact. After all, Dice-K was 26 when the Sox won his bidding, and then a TJ candidate 4 years later. Not saying Tanaka is headed down that road obviously, but the early usage patterns of a lot of the really good NPB guys is worth noting. As I said earlier, a 25 year old free agent pitcher with some #2 ceiling (and #2 in scouting parlance still could be a staff's #1) is innately very interesting - but the risk is considerable.

I don't know if he will get 3 years, but I could see a year with a perfectly achievable vesting option (like say linked to 500 plate appearances or something)

You are severely underrating Napoli within the context of the Free Agent market of 2013. Think about it: There is 1 legit superstar in this class - Robinson Cano There is high probability all-star besides Cano in this class - Ellsbury There are zero pitchers without major question marks - Tanaka is the one with the most upside due to age, but with zero major league track record. Teams are going to convince themselves that Ubaldo Jimenez and/or Ervin Santana is worth a 4-year commitment - and given the alternatives, they probably are The Red Sox 4 FAs are all among Keith Law's (only noting since that list was published today) Top 20 FAs. With Napoli and Drew among the top dozen. For a team with the resources and some measure of playoff contention, Napoli is a very attractive commodity. I don't think he'll get 3 years or anything like that, but he is due a pay raise from this year ... perhaps in the form of reasonable incentives ... and I wouldn't be surprised if he can find AT LEAST a vesting option in this cash rich environment.

It is not a great FA class ... Drew is a fringe Top 10 guy in the class. Replacement value for SS is VERY low these days. He will probably get multiple years from somebody - the only question is how much the injury discount is. A plus defensive SS who can hit enough is a 3-4 win player, which Drew was when he was healthy this past year.

Keith Law's Top 50 FAs are here (Insider needed) http://insider.espn.go.com/mlb/story/_/id/9862934/robinson-cano-tops-year-free-agent-rankings-mlb ...

Lavarnway has value if he can actually catch - still up in the air. Otherwise he's a fringy DH, though he might have a better chance at doing well there.

It is an underreported story when talking about Ortiz' legacy. He is probably the greatest free agent pickup in baseball history - almost certainly the greatest "non-tender" .

Well you do touch on something here. You can get more peak in general by trading for one of those sorts of guys. It is rare for a guy to get to unrestricted free agency these days who are going to be that hot a commodity (it's why I advocate for calling Seattle and kicking the tires on King Felix). In a sense it is one of the things buoying Tanaka's candidacy - how often do 25 year old ANYTHINGS get to the free agent market here? You get some of the Latino free agents who aren't close to the bigs, but that's about it.

I'm not sure. The 2004, 2007 vintages were good in this area. Hell, the team this offense evoked most were the 1998-2000 Yankees (and Baltimore of life before I was born I suppose). You see a lot of pitches and figure things out. I don't know if it's exclusive, but it is very flattering company.

They will make a killing until his arb awards - and even then, assuming a normal performance curve (which means there is BETTER left for Trout) it is unlikely the arb awards would keep up with his value (there is flat out almost no aribtration data for cases like his). The Angels will try to buy out his arbitration years and maybe a year of free agency - and those sorts of deals have had some attraction to young players. You give a little bit of earning potential in exchange for additional job security and a little bit more money up front.

This is Ells last chance for a real big time contract - so he is not going to be stiffed. The QO was obvious there. The trickiest of the QO decisions were Drew and Salty. You could flip a coin with either of them - looks like they basically did.

With position players - the risk is pretty low. Pitchers you are going to roll the dice a bit more. That said, with the evolution of TJ surgery, elbow problems are no longer death sentences. Shoulder injuries on the other hand ...

Indeed - that is the risk with all long term deals ... but in a sense you are always playing the percentages and hoping. The risk is considerably lower with position players obviously than pitchers, and if you have a good athlete so much the better. It'd be nice to build a team and sign players a year at a time from a GMs perspective. But of course if you want to land and keep your very best players, you gotta pay to play.

The problem with citing clutch hitting is that Papi was AWFUL in the ALCS ... he hit the grand slam, but there were tons of important at-bats which he squandered. Were those other ABs not important? Did he not give full effort then? I think it is sufficient to say Ortiz had 2 amazing playoff rounds around a dud just because baseball works like that. He figured things out because he is good. The hitters who came through were all good - and you can't keep good down for too long.

The thing with long term deals is that at some point during a 10 year contract, the guy will be legitimately overpaid for his future contribution. The question is when that point shows up, and did the player deliver enough value during the early part to make it worthwhile. If you signed Mike Trout to a 10 year contract now - you absolutely are going to get value for it because the first 5 years are going to be valuable enough to hold up any dropoff in the 2nd half. You'd like to not have to pay for any non-peak years, but it is the nature of an auction that you will have to pay a premium.

There are 30 teams with #1 positions. I mean Chris Tillman was a staff ace - but nobody would confuse him with a #1 pitcher in parlance ... but when you are speaking about a "#1 pitcher" as an evaluation criteria, you are almost certainly not saying "Top 30 pitcher". When I think of a #1 in that term - I am thinking of a pitcher who has bona fide credentials to be considered alongside positional MVP candidates. That is a pretty exclusive club. I don't think it is 5 pitchers or 6, or a specific number. Indeed Liriano with the Twins (or Liriano now) has always had #1 stuff - but the durability and command has been in and out. It is hard to have the #1 credential without both the stuff e.g. strikeout or extreme ground ball stuff, and the durability.

Teams have different revenue functions and different situations - it's one of the reasons baseball's model is more sustainable than the lockout-a-decade NHL. There is a point when the $$$ is flat-out too much indeed, but the team that places the bid knows what that level is for them. The ARod deal did not work out for Texas because ARod's contributed wins were not nearly enough to get into a needle moving area. In Boston, where the franchise was in 2001, the wins added and the playoff impact and the revenue benefits that come with it, a gigantic investment makes more sense. Indeed, when Boston signed Manny to that contract, this all came into play. The business decision the Sox have to make with a large investment is separate from what the other teams do ... so it is hard to argue that a posting fee of XX is good or bad, since it depends on the team that actually is ponying up the cash.

Lester was awesome in the post-season. At the same time, I do look at the larger body of work - which is still good. I'd place him a wee bit below the Kershaw-Verlander-Hernandez-Darvish sort of level ... but that is another level of missing bats. That is what I think when I think "true #1". But Lester being an elite #2 who can do some #1 work - is not at all a dig or anything. The downturn in his #1-ness is best seen through a sharp dip in strikeout rate the last couple of years ... but the postseason he showed signs of bringing some of that back.