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sk7326

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Everything posted by sk7326

  1. sk7326
    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.
  2. sk7326
    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.
  3. sk7326
    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 ...
  4. sk7326
    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.
  5. sk7326
    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" .
  6. sk7326
    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.
  7. sk7326
    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.
  8. sk7326
    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.
  9. sk7326
    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.
  10. sk7326
    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 ...
  11. sk7326
    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.
  12. sk7326
    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.
  13. sk7326
    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.
  14. sk7326
    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.
  15. sk7326
    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.
  16. sk7326
    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.
  17. sk7326
    That is fair - but I am more interested in baseball, not budgetary limitations. Nobody argues they avoid bad moves. But at the end of the day, if the players make more money who cares? For the cost of the operation to fans, better it go where you see it. Would a large post be a stupid move. Possibly, because Tanaka does not merit the love. It is not stupid just by being a large investment.
  18. sk7326
    Pretty much. The industry is doing really well and teams are flush with cash. If they are not spending on the club somewhere (and the draft bonus rules are reducing the options other than big leaguers) you are basically choosing between compensating players more, or having the Judge Smailses owners pocket more moolah. I'd prefer the former. Personally, years is a more interesting discussion than the annual salary - teams have different economic situations, and wins have different marginal revenues. Years ties up your structure and make players hard to trade. Ellsbury was the 3rd best CF in the league this year. Carlos Gomez had better numbers without the track record, and Matt Kemp was hurt. Very or good middle of the field help is the most valuable commodity in baseball this side of starting pitching. Middle of the order boppers are fun - but you can find guys playing the corners who can bop it without a ton of difficulty (the Red Sox were a prime example this season). If he did this for the next 6 years, he'd be a $20M a year player - but I would not bet anything important on that actually happening.
  19. sk7326
    It is less that than the "they have their own TV network and charge the highest ticket prices in the league" gag ... consumers spend more than other fan bases do, it is not unreasonable to expect them to see it in the product - does not exempt running a smart front office. But their salary structure is essentially limited by how much money they want to take out of the business.
  20. sk7326
    The age is the fascinating part of this. He is 25, that is the big plus here, and there is a decent chance he could end up a solid #2. It would be a large investment for that - but that would be a good guy to have. I agree you can't expect him to be a staff anchor. But as we saw this year, a rotation of #2/#3 starters is plenty to win the title.
  21. sk7326
    You'd trade 2 of our top 3 prospects for a pitcher who is not actually better than Lester? OK. The Rays would have driven him to the airport if we had a prospect the level of Wil Myers to give up ... we do in Bogaerts but we had no intention of trading him. Tanaka is worth considering - he projects as a #2, and he is young. I'd be more comfortable with a shorter hitch - but I won't dismiss Tanaka either. I do not expect Darvish level ceiling though - there is no evidence of that. The free agent lot is good on depth, short on #1 stuff ... and if any of the top guys get QOs, it becomes a tougher decision (like with Kuroda or Ervin Santana). There are some depth guys with a modicum of ceiling like Ubaldo Jimenez or Scott Feldman who might be worth a spin. Heck, you could even bring back former Red Sox Great Bronson Arroyo for a year.
  22. sk7326
    I think that you can argue Workman, no doubt. And if they dealt Dempster to give Workman a job - more power to them. That said, Dempster essentially filled a Tim Wakefield role last season - a guy who doesn't suck that badly and always takes the ball. This is not a great Hallmark card, and you don't want him near any truly nervous spots - but he is absolutely valuable for negotiating the 6-month slog. Dempster's strikeout rate did not have that crazy April level, but it stayed pretty good all season. I am not stumping for Dempster to stay - but he is a depth guy and a sunk cost ... and for a team who needs an innings eater, he can provide it at a salary which is probably inflated but not that much so.
  23. sk7326
    McCann's body has a LOT more wear and tear than Saltalamacchia. There is a lot of money chasing not a lot of players. If it gets past 3 years with him, that is a problem. Among Braves fans I know (and I went to school with a lot) - there is very little chance McCann can catch in 3 years if that. He already has slipped some defensively (Salty is at least his equal at blocking the plate, really the gap is all in the throwing out runners part), and is not a DH/1B caliber bat. I can argue agaiinst Salty for 3 years ... but McCann ain't it.
  24. sk7326
    Maybe - I am more comfortable with going after Kuroda if you want more depth
  25. sk7326
    1. Posting system agreement needs to be reached. We are almost there, but not quite per reports. 2. Given the precedent set by Darvish and Matsuzaka, a $50M+ post is expected whether or not Tanaka is worth it. He has the superficial numbers, and there is a precedent. 3. The new posting process PROBABLY will give the player some input into where he goes - that could impact the number of bidders. 4. From scouting reports I've read, from some of the Sickels/Law sort of types - the numbers are amazing, but Tanaka is more Kuroda than anything if you want to make a Japanese comparison. BTW: the actual Kuroda would be a FA I'd take a hard look at in real life. Is that worth an investment comparable to Darvish? It seems less of an open case that Tanaka will achieve true #1 level like Darvish.
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