Kimmi
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Everything posted by Kimmi
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You are going to blame Ben no matter what. Feel free. I'm going to believe that the other team's baseball execs probably have a better idea of what's going on than you or I do.
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I agree that the Sox really botched the re-signing of Lester. IMO, it's rather odd that the FO would not offer him somewhere in the neighborhood of a Bailey contract, but now they are "all in" for Price.
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On the other side of that, sometimes having a player that only plays the first half of the season ends up being a blessing in disguise. Perhaps Owens needs the first half of the season in AAA to continue his development and to fine tune his skills, or just to manage his innings. Perhaps Owens joins the team when Buchholz gets injured and does a great job for us in the second half.
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I agree. And if this is the case, I will also not be as critical of the Kimbrel trade.
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I want Price on the team as much as anyone. I understand the need to pay, and even to overpay for free agents now and then. That doesn't mean that I have to like the contract that a player will get. If the Price contract doesn't keep the team from financially being able to fill other needs in the future, then all is well and good. If it does, then IMO, that's a problem. Another problem is that a contract like that could very well end up blocking a younger and better pitcher from a spot in the rotation in 5-6 years. If Price is pitching like a #4/5 pitcher at the end of his contract, and we have better options in AAA, do you think Price is going to be benched with his $30 mil salary? History has shown that signing pitchers, especially ones in their 30s, to large contracts is often not a good move. Again, I would love for the Sox to sign Price. I think my concerns about his contract are valid, however.
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Kind of like Buchholz and his 3.2 WAR last year.
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I don't think 'blame' is the right word either, but he receives a lot of unfair criticism, IMO. It's too early to know exactly what direction this team is headed in. If it's a win now at any cost philosophy, I will be against it. Sure, I'll be as happy as anyone if we win a championship in the next few years, but I do not like that approach to building a baseball team.
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My statement was based on the way they pitched last year. I would take 1/2 year of the way Buchholz pitched last season over a full year of the way Miley pitched last season. So from that stand, it has nothing to do with Miley's overall consistency versus Buchholz' inconsistency. I do not undersell the value of innings pitched. I understand the value of innings. I am one who always defends guys like Miley, and defends fWAR for pitchers, which puts a lot of weight on innings pitched. If it came down to the Sox having to trade one of Miley or Buchholz this offseason, I would trade Buchholz. My post was in no way a knock on Miley, but rather a defense of Buchholz. I really just don't understand being averse to picking up Buchholz' option and/or having him on the team in addition to getting a #1, not in lieu of getting a #1.
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I care, because IMO, the approach that they seem to be taking now is going to harm the team in the long term. We may be good for 3-4 years, but if we continue on this course of this seemingly new philosophy, we will go through a long drought after that.
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We didn't pursue the best pitching available last offseason, including one of our own guys, because Henry was against giving out a huge contract to a pitcher in his 30s. He is still against it, but it seems that after what he saw last season, he has decided that the team needs to get a number one pitcher, no matter the cost. You can't blame Ben for not signing an ace last offseason if he was not given the go ahead to do so. He had to find other avenues with which to spend that money. Once again, the consensus among several baseball executives is that the decisions Ben made were the result of directives from higher up.
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As I just posted to a700, it's not that Ben wasn't given any money to spend, and I don't think that that is the suggestion. It's that Ben was not given the okay to spend HUGE on either retaining Lester or signing a free agent stud pitcher. Dombrowski has that okay, and it seems like Henry has given him a directive to get us an ace at almost any cost. If Ben had the okay to spend whatever he wanted on an ace, I'm sure he could do just as good a job of landing Price as Dombrowski can. I'm not sure that Ben would agree with it though.
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It's not the lack of payroll. Henry has always been willing to spend, and Ben had plenty of money to work with during his time as GM. However, Henry has been quite open about his reluctance to giving long term contracts to pitchers in their 30s. Dombrowski has more or less been given the clearance to obtain that one "big fish". Ben was never given the okay to do that. He could have easily re-signed Lester or signed Scherzer last offseason if he had that clearance. That's the point of the first statement I bolded. Dombrowski will surely get a lot of praise for being able to get us an ace, while Ben is still being criticized for not getting an ace for us last offseason. Dombrowski and Ben are not operating under the same conditions though. It's unfair to criticize Ben for not being able to sign an ace when he did not have the okay to hand out a huge contract like Dombrowski has.
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Like it or not, WAR does a very good job as a descriptive stat. That said, without looking at WAR, if I had to choose which I'd prefer for this season between the performances that we got from Buchholz and Miley last year, I'd still take the 1/2 season of ace-like pitching from Buchholz over the full season of Miley. This is not a knock on Miley, as I am a big fan. Buchholz was just that good last year. All that said, I know that you can't separate a player's contract from his value. Buchholz is still a great value at $13 mil, but Miley would be the better value in terms of WAR/salary.
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I still think that trading bad contracts, Panda for Shields, would be a good move for both teams. Shields isn't the pitcher he used to be, but he'll be a good, mid rotation innings type of pitcher.
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This is indeed a legitimate concern. That being the case, the issue is not so much with having the three semi-unproven outfielders, but with having a viable Plan B in case one, or heaven forbid more than one, falters. To state the obvious, we need a really good 4th outfielder. Having Holt on the team helps as well. It's interesting that Dombrowski stated a few days ago that his two top priorities now are getting an ace and getting a 4th outfielder, not getting another BP arm. -
I've learned that you never count the Yankees out on anyone, no matter what they say. They are like a predator lying in the weeds, ready to pounce when least expected.
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Two thumbs up for this excerpt.
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Woohoo!
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Salary differences aside, Buchholz was worth more to the team last year than Miley was, in 80 fewer innings.
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I agree that you have to have that special type of mental toughness just to play in the majors. Greinke would probably be fine here, though we have seen a few players who played well elsewhere, but for some reason were not able to play well here. On a slightly different note, I read a good piece by Lauber today about the probability of Price and Greinke being able to pitch well through the duration of their contracts. He quoted some scouts who feel that Price and Greinke are both pretty good bets based on their ability to reinvent themselves as they lose velocity off their fastballs. Both pitchers have already shown an adjustment to relying less on that pitch. The scouts also noted that the mechanics of both pitchers bodes well for long term durability.
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Hi Andrew. Welcome!
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And that's all fine, provided that the dead money does not keep the team from filling another need in 5-6 years. For that matter, we don't want some huge contract keeping the team from filling another need even during the good years of the contract.
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Yes, it's too much, but honestly, that contract would not be too bad IMO because of it being 6 years. I would rather pay a slightly higher AAV for fewer years than sign him to a longer term contract. Personally, I don't see Price signing for anything under $200 mil and I don't see him signing anywhere for 6 years. My guess right now is that it will be closer to 7 years/$210 mil, or higher.
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There is speculation now that Dombrowski will beat the highest offer by $30-$40 million, if necessary. That is absolutely insane. Let the shuddering begin.
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It seems almost a given that the Sox are willing to go over the Luxury tax, at least based on all the speculation we've heard about signing Price. Giving up our draft pick, OTOH, does not seem to be as much of a given. The Sox would perhaps do it for Greinke, if they can't get Price, but I highly doubt they would part with the pick for Lackey or someone comparable.
