S5Dewey

The one who would surprise me the least if he had a breakout year is JBJ. Sometimes a player who has extremely hot and cold streaks is going to 'get it'. His hot streaks are so profound that I keep thinking that he's just a tweak away from being a .900 OPS guy.

I'm skeptical of a guarantee because never understood why any team would guarantee any player anything. It ties the team's hands too much. Suppose they'd guaranteed Sandoval that he'd be the starting 3Bman all season or guaranteed Hanley that he'd get at least 600 AB's barring injuries. Isn't that why Rich Hill got away? Because the Sox wouldn't "guarantee" him a starting pitching job? IMHO a player gets signed to do whatever the manager tells him to do, especially when we're talking about $20MM to do it.

After a quick internet search.. "That means if you stay out of trouble for usually one year unless the parties agree upon a shorter time, the charge will be dismissed. If something happens during that period like you get in more trouble, come around the victim, etc then the charge can be brought back up and proceed as if the delay never happen. " -Travis Thomas Overton Criminal Defense Attorney Nashville TN.

IMO Boston isn't Price's favorite place to play but that $31M makes it a lot more palatable for him. I could be wrong about this but I don't see him walking away from that kind of money in the hope that he can get nearly that someplace else. I also don't see any GM paying nearly what the Sox are paying for a player with an elbow that's a ticking time bomb. The last I heard Price was being referred to as a miracle in that his elbow heals itself. Were I a GM I wouldn't be willing to pour $31M into something doctors can't explain.

That .250 BA and .750 OPS last year pretty much played him into a backup role. However, I'm willing to be optimistic and say that his shoulder problems were the cause of it and give him a chance at 1B in ST. If he can play the position and post an OPS of ~.850 he'll get enough AB's to vest and that's fine with me. If he can't he can platoon with Moreland and not vest. Your premise that we can trade Hanley and save $5 - $7M after signing JD is (IMO) pretty unrealistic. The only way that happens is if we get someone who's willing to take on all of Hanley's contract and even *I* am not that optimistic!

You put entirely too much faith in sabermetrics.

double post. Sorry

Meh. Sam Travis is as good as a non-producing Hanley. Probably better, depending on how badly Hanley isn't producing. And Travis is cheaper.

I think we have a difference in memory here. IIRC he wasn't supposed to be as good as Iggy but was supposed to be one heck of a lot better than he is now. But that's just his defense. I'd be relatively happy with it if he were producing offensively as he was supposed to.

And to expand on my "YES" comment, I still fail to see the harm in going with Moon's idea. Either Hanley will produce @ 1B or he won't. If he does and he vests, so much the better. We've got a producing 1Bman. OTOH, if he doesn't produce we sign someone else (this someone else who's cheaper and can't be much worse than Hanley- remember Hanley wasn't producing) and give Hanley so few PA's that he doesn't vest. Is there a downside to this???

one word. YES!

I agree that finding one who does both is the secret. However, as I said before, I'll give up some offense in an up the middle position to gain a big defensive advantage. IMHO one of the biggest shortcomings of this team is in our SS. This guy was supposed to be the be-all, end-all of shortstops. One who'd play stellar defense and also make big offensive contributions. So far he's done neither. If he were hitting as expected we wouldn't be worrying about trading an all-star caliber CF because what that CF lacks in offense would be made up by the SS.

There's a fine line (ok, not all that fine) between "flawless" and a 25% - 30% difference in totals though. Let's take the 2017 WAR for just two Red Sox players, XBO & JBJ for example: fWAR bWAR Bogaerts 3.2 2.2 JBJ 2.3 2.8 This is only not "flawless", these two sources have a 25% - 30% difference in the player's WAR and they can't even establish which player is better! How am I supposed to have any confidence in anything either of these two sources calculate for WAR for any player?? I know that we as fans want something we can hang our hats on to compare players but WAR isn't it. To paraphrase a line from the movie ARGO, "WAR is the best bad idea we've got." And yet we use it like it has value.

And BTW, I've fallen into that same 'trap' too. I believe in "solid up the middle", that I'm willing to give up a little offense to have players at C, SS, 2B, & CF who are outstanding defensively. I expect the average of those players to be about middle of the pack of all teams. Offense comes from the corner positions where I'm willing to give up a little defense to get that offense. One problem I see with this team is that they only have two outstanding "up the middle" defensive players (assuming Pedey doesn't come back at full strength) and they don't have the offense at the corners. We have a SS who is about average (maybe a little less) defensively whose only redeeming feature is that he's better than average offensively for his position. We also have a bunch of second basemen who are question marks but realistically can't be expected to be any better than average defensively and less than average on offense, again for their positions. This team has an outfield and catcher of WSC caliber but it's hard to make a case that our infield is any better than average. That's why I don't understand this rush to trade away 1/3 of the outfield to try to bolster the offense. This team NEEDS a power hitting 1B.

And exactly why is that? Why would one think a team needs more offense from some positions than others?

This is why I have so little faith in the advanced metrics. We now have Beni in LF whom most of us would agree is better than his numbers indicate because "LF in Fenway skews a player's metrics", and JBJ in CF who is allegedly 14th in baseball in UZR/150. These numbers can regurgitate some crazy s***, man. It makes me wonder how many other "advanced metrics" there are exceptions to. Or is it only confined to outfielders who play half their games in Fenway park???

Are you really trying to convince me that 10 CF's have more range than JBJ??? Just asking.

^^^this^^^ omg ^^^this^^^!!

I agree with all of that but it doesn't alter the fact that it was an insane contract. IMO the problem with the contract wasn't the money. I know that kind of money was necessary to sign him. My problem with it is that with his opt-out a) if he's worth that salary the team loses him and has to try to resign another CY caliber pitcher, hopefully for the same money, or if he's not worth that salary the team is stuck with him - and his salary. Price had them over a barrel. He could have included a clause that he got one weekend a month with JH's wife and they still would have had to sign him. The fact that it had to be done doesn't make it any more 'sane'.

Yep. Which is why I thought this was an insane contract to begin with!!

Yeah. Thanks, Manny. Maybe we should reward Manny with a multi-million dollar contract. Ugh.

Neither. We just have to remember that while we're looking out for the best interest of the Boston Red Sox, Jax is looking out for the best interest of the New York Yankees.

Remember that when we had this Great Farm System the Red Sox were finishing last in their division in two consecutive years.

Thank you for pointing that out. We Sox fans had almost forgotten about those three signings.

Now THERE is the lowest bar I've seen in a long time!!