S5Dewey

Ah yes. The last weapon when an argument is being lost. Condescension.

Really? What is it about business that you don't understand? To the FO baseball isn't a game as much as it is a business. They put money in, they expect a return back commensurate with what they put in. I guess the question is, what do you expect in terms of metrics at the end of the year from a pitcher who's making $13MM? And how does that compare to a pitcher who's making 2.3 times that?

That would work. It worked with John Lackey.

Well, since I started this mess three pages ago let me clarify my point. David Price is making $30MM this year. Clay Buchholz is making $13MM. It's reasonable to expect that Price is going to be 2.3 times as good as Buchholz, which doesn't set the bar all that high for Buchholz. (9 wins or an ERA 2.3 x Price's or a Whip 2.3 times as high as Price's). The problem is some people's expectations for a pitcher making $13MM. For some reason people seem to think that because Clay is making $13MM he should be "worth" 14-18 wins with an ERA of around 2.5 and a WHIP of ~1.5. If that happens he's a HUGE bargain in today's market. Look, I'm not sticking up for Clay. I'm just saying that due to his history it's entirely possible that he will "earn" that $13MM. His performance at this point is horrible but he has shown many times that he has the ability to turn it around. There's still plenty of time to turn it around and IF HE DOES that $13MM will be a reasonable figure for his salary.

I'm all for that. Just remember that it completely scraps all those metrics that so many fans hold near and dear to their hearts.

Yes. That I agree with. I used the high end of the spectrum to illustrate my point between "the best pitcher in baseball" (or at least the highest paid!) and a veteran player who's making much less money but is regularly being criticized here. And I still think my point is reasonable within that context, Now... at the other end of the spectrum we have players making the Major League minimum. Ideally the players making the minimum should be the worst player at their position across baseball. But that's not true and everyone knows it. However, at that end of the spectrum the minimum is still the barometer. That means that players like JBJ and Bogaerts are netting a YUUUUGE ROI for the parent club, which offsets some of the losers - although in honesty there aren't many of those this year. To put it into a business sense, they're getting a big ROI from their young players.

Why not? How would you establish value if not by salary?

Agreed. Wins was the low-hanging fruit for my comparison but in reality the fruit was tainted.

To carry this a bit further, Price is making 2.3 x as much as Buch. Therefore using any metric you choose Price should be 2.3 x as good. If you think it's realistic for Price to have an ERA of 2.00 then a comparable ERA for Buch would be 4.6. If you like WHIP and think it's realistic for Price to have a WHIP of 1.00 then Buch's WHIP has to be 2.3 for the ROI to be equal.

Fair enough. What would you like to use? ERA? WHIP? Whatever you use the point is the same. Players get paid according to what the FO thinks they'll do and the best players set the bar. Everything beyond that is ROI.

It's all about expectations and ROI. Baseball IS a business, after all. In a perfect world a player would be paid based on what he does, but baseball isn't a perfect world. In baseball a player is paid based on what the FO thinks he will do next year. The FO then tries to calculate a Return on Investment for each player. That's a fancy way of saying they try to figure out what each player is going to be worth and pay them that much (or a little less!!) In a nutshell, salaries are based on expectations. Comparing David Price and Clay Buchholz now.... Price is getting $30MM to pitch this year and it's realistic to think going into the season that he should win 22 games. He is, after all, one of the best pitchers in baseball. If he wins 22 games he "earns" $1.4MM per win. Others may disagree but I see that as a realistic barometer. Now lets look at Buch. He's making $13MM this year. At 1.4MM per win he has to only win 9 games to be as valuable as Price. Will he do it? I dunno. But I do know that based on what he's done in past years he could be capable of reeling off a dozen wins in a row, which would make him underpaid.

I'm not even certain that the MLBPA would let him walk away from this contract and then sign one for less money. They're hinky about things like that. I can remember when ARod wanted to do just that - walk away from a contract to re-sign for less money with the Sox - and the union stepped in and said no-no-no. [THANKFULLLY!!!]

I like old baseball maxims, mostly because there is usually a lot of truth in them. "You can't win it in April but you sure can lose it." "It's a marathon, not a sprint". At this point you can say that the Sox certainly haven't "lost it" in April (and May), which is one heck of a lot better than they've done in the past two years. It's a marathon and they haven't put themselves so far back in the pack that they have to make up a lot of ground. That's about the best we can (realistically) ask for at this point in the season.

C'mon... everyone who saw him throw a ball knew he was at risk. I'm certainly no medical person nor am I a scout but the first time I saw him throw I said. "OMG! This guy's a walking Tommy John case!". Knowing he's at risk isn't the same thing as knowing he's going to be injured. He pitched ok last year and they had no reason to know his problem was going to manifest itself this year. They hoped for the best and got the worst.

Start at 1:28 -> 1:50

Thanks, SY. That's your basic excellent post.

Have you met his mother?? Maybe it's justified!

But there's probably no one as happy as John Henry!

Yep. And I'm happy as a clam that the Red Sox aren't paying him!

The asking price and the selling price are two different things. The Sox may be dealing from a position of weakness in their needing pitching but they're definitely dealing from a position of strength when it comes to dealing prospects. There's nothing wrong with saying, ,"No, those four players are untouchable. Now, how badly do you want that catcher? Badly enough to take on 3 or 4 top prospects and build for your future?" That's the kind of thing good teams can get away with because they have both the players and the resources to deal from strength. And if you're not willing to deal from the position of strength when you're strong what's the point to being in that position?

Ya know... Don't you have to feel a little bit bad for Ellsbury, being compared head-to-head on a daily basis with the hottest hitter in baseball for the past month? Wait... what was I thinking? Of course not!

There were a whole bunch o' bad pitches combined with one worst pitch and it was that worst pitch that did him in. Every pitcher makes bad pitches in every game. The trick is not making those worst pitches - which is what Buch (and everyone supporting him here) is lamenting. His games have now become a microcosm of his career - they're either very good or very bad and there doesn't seem to be much 'mediocre'.

The trouble with made-up "trades" like this is that they're made up in a vacuum, implying that the only effect on the team would be who we are gaining and ignoring who we're losing. If a team were absolutely desperate for a GG CF'er with power AND had a surplus of young stud pitchers they MAY be willing to give up one of those pitchers for the outfielder they need. By the same token, if the Sox were desperate for a young stud pitcher they MAY be willing to give up that outfielder to get the pitcher. However, the problem for the Sox is that they're then stuck with an outfield of Holt, Mookie, and Young in exchange for a player who takes the mound every five days. I see that as not being a good trade from the Sox perspective. I see four position players on the Sox team who should be essentially untouchable. Bogaerts, JBJ, Mookie and Vazquez. These are the guys you build a team around. It's not impossible to think about Swihart as the centerpiece of a trade along with two or three of our top prospects for that pitcher we need, but in order for that to happen the Sox need to find a team with a pressing need at catcher and a stud pitcher they're willing to give up - which may be hard to do. As with everything, it's all about the matchups.

It always amazes me how some people can't wait to trade away top-flight players.

Then let's talk about trading Betts. He's not as good as JBJ offensively or defensively. Or Bogaerts. The argument can be made that they are about equal defensively but JBJ is a better hitter. Trading any one of those three would be ridiculous. Especially with as many blue chip prospects as this team has. This team is young and many of these blue chippers are essentially blocked. That means that sooner or later they're going to become Rule 5 eligible. Let's get something valuable for them now.