sk7326

It is ... BUT, the size of a QO has been known most of the season (just project up from the 2013 amount - we were even kicking around 14 million on this board as an estimate). If the Sox did not think they could sign him, they could source the catcher position for a LOT less money. Given the extremely inflated market, the draft pick probably would not dissuade somebody from taking him on - there is just a lot of money chasing a relatively small amount of quality.

Indeed - and he is making 2/3 of the likely contract and has had a far better track record of actually being able to play at a 5 win level ...

I am curious too - I have seen some of the fawning reports. At the same time I have seen skeptics who wonder if Tanaka is really more like a pitcher like Kuroda (darn good still) but riding the Darvish hype to end up overvalued.

I suspect if Salty is getting a QO, that means he and the Sox are at least in the ballpark for a multi-year agreement.

He had a devastating shoulder injury ... and then hurt his chest this season. He made all his starts in 2012 and then missed a bunch for a non-recurring reason this year. That ain't Buchholz. Peavy has a track record as a hoss (the giant shoulder asterisk noted) ... Buchholz has never gotten that. Team could use some help in the rotation - spending 100 million on a #3 Japanese starter ain't it - but pitcher health is sort of the variable every team faces. And if one is afraid of missing starts - that's what Dempster is for.

Well Bobby V did have a good run with the Mets and has won a lot in a lot of places, usually with ragtag sort of outfits. Definitely played mindgames and such - like your Billy Martins or whatnot. I actually did not mind the hiring - certainly if you are going to run off Tito, bringing in an anti-Tito is the only sane thing to do. If you wanted to change the culture of a coaching staff built on making the clubhouse seem like a normal place to function, then bring in a guy who does the opposite and keeps people on high alert. I was expecting the players to be knocked off kilter - but I did not expect him to be so unprepared. I don't think he put that much effort into the gig this time around. I was not sure there was a master plan. Certainly his coaches did not understand it. At the same time, Bobby does have a right to note that his team was obliterated by injuries and "aging", especially Youk and Beckett. Basically, the team's best hitter and arguable best pitcher turned into replacement level chum overnight. He was dealt an awful hand, which he proceeded to play very very badly. I am not sure whether the leadership on a club (since this is a job like anybody else's) is as simple as Pedroia not having standing - a former MVP always has standing. And professionals have a knowledge of which guys are locker room lawyers and which actually deserve respect (often the guy playing through injuries for one), and adjust accordingly. It is hard to picture a pro like Adrian Gonzalez turning a bunch of championship tested pros into five year olds. The problems were probably much more mundane than that. The no-win dynamics seem more related to the guys who couldn't play more than anything that methaphysical. I tend to look at chemistry as a trailer, not a leader. It's like any workplace - getting along with your co-workers is important, but secondary to actually being good at the job. The chemistry comes with demonstrated success. If the Red Sox did not get early results with the 2013 changes (and results might be more than W/L), I suspect that the same rumblings you got in 2012 would have come. In a lot of ways the Farrell hiring and results mirror what happened when Boston hired Grady in 2002. In both of those cases, you had the franchise hiring former assistants to settle some disruptive circumstances. Farrell I think was able to foster credibility because the senior members of the team knew him already. Lester, Papi, Pedroia knew and respected him. Beyeler and Lovullo were both former PawSox managers. It was the opposite of an "adjustment" - it was just going back to a work environment they were already familiar with. And when the stalwarts have bought in, the new guys tend to fall into line.

I think they want to. But I would not deal him as a pure salary dump - the contract is not nearly enough of an albatross to tell a team "just take him please". I'd want some actual value coming back if a team wants us to eat some of his salary.

Boras is doing his job - he's the best agent around for a reason. The Red Sox are in a very easy position here. Make the QO, see what happens. Even if there is no amazing extension, they either have a sandwich pick or Ellsbury back for another season. And Bradley is a quality Plan B. I doubt the decision keeps Cherington up at night. I think there is a non-zero chance he will come back to Boston with an extension, but there is a lot of money chasing very few players. The CBA has taken a lot of the spending alternatives away from mid-level teams. There are large piles of money for teams and chasing veterans as the only real way to spend them. All it takes is a team to swoop in and offer Ellsbury 6 years or more and suddenly it is easier to shake his hand and wish him luck.

Ross is a career backup - that he had a good week does not change that. The Red Sox value him for being able to catch 50 games or so and provide some solid stability, but he is not somebody you want to give 110 starts to, never has been. Salty had a good season - and was a decent defensive catcher (poor at stopping the run game, pretty good at blocking). There is a lot of narrative associated with him that follows from since they dealt for him but does not really square with 2013 reality. If Swihart were a next year guy, that is blocking. Lavarnway has had a lot of chances to take the job and has not been able to - and he is legitimately bad defensively. Dempster I expect will be shopped. But that he is a healthy, durable starter who does miss bats gives him intrinsic value. He's not someone you want near a playoff game, but it is hard for championship teams to get through the marathon without guys like him. He doesn't have a knuckleball, but a lot of what folks like to laud Wakefield for applies here. His contract is also extremely movable now. 1 year, 12 million ... considering what Tim Lincecum makes now (yes, he has more "fan appeal"), Dempster's salary does not actually look crazy at all

He had an awful slump. He has a bat though - right there among the good SS bats. That he strikes out a lot should not obscure that he is a pretty good offensive player by today's shortstop standard.

A starting pitcher can change an individual game more. A hitter can change a season more. The Sox DO believe in Moneyball principles, and moneyball does not mean "OBP, OBP, OBP". Middlebrooks is never going to be a high OBP guy - that is obvious. But there is a lot of talent there, and the OBP only has to be high enough to allow the rest of his game to fluorish. When you see what a valuable player Josh Reddick was in 2012, you can see that the threshold for OBP for a guy with some real talent and ability in the rest of the game, is not actually that unreachable.

A Drew/Bogaerts infield would be better this month for sure. And there are questions about Bogaerts' defense at SS. He should be able to make all the normal plays, but yes there will be a dropoff from Drew. At the same time, the analysis short shrifts Middlebrooks. He is too young and his tools are too good to give up on. You substitute him with Bogaerts in the postseason because he was slumping and the Sox had a decent option (and the one time to have short term thinking is the playoffs). But he still has a solid above average 3B sort of future in him - his mechanics improved with his tour in the minors, enough to respect his credentials for being the 3B next season. Guys with his athletic ability are good candidates to "get it".

I think he thought that the Red Sox could contend in the division. I did too - but I thought they could finish last because everybody was going to be so bunched up ... Toronto was the sexy pick, and it was sexy to doom NYY and Boston to the dustbin, but in reality the teams were all very close together, with the Orioles as only real negative regression pick. Of course the Orioles ended up getting better (and missing the playoffs anyway, such is baseball) and Toronto had the problems that come with a team of older players. My guess is Cherington thought this team was a 2010 sort of arc ... 85ish wins, some version of contention, they'd at least get us to the last month of the season before petering out. I doubt anybody saw the wire-to-wire best team in baseball. That said, the pieces were there - they had just been largely injured in the last couple of seasons.

You certainly cannot be sentimental. We can all sniff about not completing the alleged Myers deal - but a top 5 prospect with an all star ceiling for Lester is nothing to sneeze at. That Myers was not a superstar out of the box does not affect his projection at all. Obviously I am glad we had Lester today, but that doesn't mean it was a crazy deal. If someone blows us away with an offer for Lester you have to look at it. That is part of being a good GM. That said, Lester is one of the surest things in the league. I don't like extending 30+ starters - but his durability and effectiveness have been one of the general constants for this franchise - he had a crappy 2012, granted. But workhorses are hard to find, and he has a true track record of not missing starts - he is not a guy I'd feel bad about giving a 4-5 year extension to.

Oh I agree there - the owners did not suddenly make the players healthy. They did not restore character, integrity whatever. But they did figure out that they (more or less) had tried to fix something which wasn't really broken. They were lucky that somebody intimately familiar with what had worked was still in the front office. And they were lucky that the GM's most preferred manager was available too. As far as where the character and chemistry come from? I attribute that to the incumbents - it was hard to really buy fully the idea that a team that still had Ortiz, Lester, Pedroia on it, were a bunch of crybabies, or that Adrian Gonzalez turned the former into bowls of mush. After all, if you think Petey set the tone this year, then he must have in 2011-12 as well. There was a lot of "been there" on this roster, and it couldn't have hurt. I think you add to that a good start, and the group can develop that mutual trust that they can do this. Winning begets winning in that way.

Lovullo, Butterfield strong candidates to be hired. The contracts are what they are, but as standard practice they do not prohibit a coach from going for a promotion. And it's not a death sentence if they move on. Epstein always did a good job with the pipeline, and you'd expect Cherington to do the same. The coaching staff for Tito turned over quite a bit between 2004 and 2007 - it's ok.

Cherington will win Executive of the Year - in the AL it is a good field, but still they fielded the best team in the league from wire to wire and he has to get a lot of credit. Farrell will win Manager of the Year - this turnaround (and remember the votes take place before the playoffs) is the sort of thing that almost always guarantees such an honor. Tito, Bob Melvin, Joe Maddon will all get some love, and deservedly ... but it will be a surprise if Farrell is not the choice.

You have to take the good with the bad with ownership in this case. After all the previous owners were the driving force behind the Jimmy Fund while simultaneously displaying a hideous record in terms of integrating African-American players into the team. Folks are complicated. These guys - just by the results in all the measurable ways - have been the best ownership this team has had. But certainly it has not been perfect - they clearly see the Red Sox as essentially a ballpark, and a TV channel, with the team sort of coming along with it. But that said, they could have run this cheaply like Jeffrey Loria does. The money has largely been in the product, and with the exception of one season, the results have been hard to argue with. After all, the Red Sox are the only 3-time champion in the bigs during their ownership run, and only the Cardinals have won more pennants. The mistakes they have made have been consistent with folks who run a TV property - too much attention to flash instead of recognizing that winning is the best of the cures (and if there is flash - that is have some heft behind it, like 1999 Pedro), an overreaction to minute by minute fluctuations (the bloodletting after the 2011 season). Remarkably, because of the Dodgers, and because of the availability of a lot of pieces of the old regime - they were able to put the toothpaste back into the tube. An amazing story all around.

The return to Farrell and Cherington had a role ... But so did: 29 extra starts of John Lackey, the 2009ish version 60 extra games of Jacoby Ellsbury at an All-Star level 19 extra games of Dustin Pedroia at his normal level 47 extra games of David Ortiz at his revamped level 50 fewer games started by guys named Aaron Cook, fresh from TJ Daisuke Matuzaka, Franklin Morales, Zach Stewart and Daniel Bard Lester, Buchholz, Peavy, Lackey, Dempster and Doubront combined for 144 of their 162 starts. So for basically 7 of 8 days, we were wheeling out somebody who was more or less, somebody that was in our planned rotation A lot is made of the new guys, and they all had contributions. But a lot of the title came from the stalwarts just being able to play.

Cherington had a terrific offseason - but this severely discounts the comical level of injury problems that plagued this team between 2010 and 2012. You look at the games Pedroia, Ellsbury, Ortiz, Lackey did not miss ... Jonah Keri in his Grantland wrap up covered a lot of this - this franchise had a 2 year run of incredibly s***** luck, much which resulted in fielding a team with a lot of replacement level chum - and on the mound far worse than that. This year, the guys they were counting on all along were actually able to play and contribute ... empowering the assistant GM and assistant coach from the good old days of 2007 or so was a part of it - but this team finally had a couple of breaks go their way, and were able to avoid the infirmary.

Peavy was a 200 inning guy as recently as 2012. He has his chest injury this year, but that does not qualify as chronic. He struggled in the playoffs - but he has a lot of track record to suggest he will be solid next season. Buchholz is more fragile - but hopefully he figures out something - there is risk there certainly. Pitching depth will always be a concern, but you also think Allen Webster is in a better position to contribute than he was in year 1, and maybe Anthony Ranaudo is as well or De La Rosa. I think KC exercised their option on Shields so he won't be going anywhere - that said he would have been a dangerous signing for Boston. Dempster could be gone, but I'm not selling him off either, 1 year, $12M for what he provides (durability basically) is a going rate in the marketplace, and the Red Sox should get a real asset for him. I'd be comfortable with a true ace sort ... but who wouldn't. But a rotation of #2/#3 starters can win a World Series. Hell, it just did.

The Giants were able to exploit a bad divison a couple of times ... but you also look at Tim Lincecum becoming a replacement-level pitcher (and the Giants giving him $18M a year ANYWAY). They were an ordinary offensive team who never fixed it. I am not sure underperforming is a fair term. Scutaro is nothing special ... Posey slipped some from MVP level, but Sandoval was still roughly the same. The problem with holding is that the other teams will be improving, and there are more candidates for non-peak than peak on the roster right now.

Tanaka could be a tough bid - there is some cross racial comparison obviously with Darvish ... and the posting fee could be nuts. But by many scouting accounts, he is more Kuroda than Darvish. Kuroda is a damn good pitcher, but Yu Darvish is another level ... and I would not want to post $50M for Hiroki Kuroda. Matsuzaka has #1 caliber stuff, but his approach was generally awful ... but the bid made sense. Salty is a good offensive catcher, and has worked to improve to average level behind the plate. Blocking is pretty good, throwing not so much. His big weakness is that he punts away 1/3 of his at-bats by pretending he is a right handed hitter. He fixed that and he could be very good. As is, he managed to be a 3-win player which is a lot better than I expected. McCann (for one) has a longer track record, but an older body and contract demands that might force you to picture him as a DH in 2-3 years - frankly the FA investment between him and Salty is not at all a slam dunk. Lavarnway has a history of a DH/1B who is trying to catch for positional value - Mike Napoli of old basically. I think there is a very strong chance he just can't hack it as a full time catcher, and he has (in his tours, usual sample caveats apply) shown evidence that the job might be too big for him. (catching and hitting at the same time)

Maybe - although ALL of those starts being given to Tim Wakefield's corpse, Kyle Weiland, Andrew Miller, Eric Bedard ... take that and whatever 50% of Lackey's true level ... you had substandard pitching for 76 of their 162 games. In retrospect, winning 90 games in spite of the garbage being shoveled on the mound on a nightly basis was something. Lackey shouldn't have pitched so long hurt - but the team had literally no options. His frustrations personally clearly bled in also. I disliked it too at the time and do not second guess myself. But in retrospect I do respect what a warrior he was that year too ... a cranky warrior to be sure

I totally get it - and I do agree. That said, you have to wonder in retrospect how hurt he was while he was doing that.