Links for Thursday…
- Chat today, 2pm CST.
- Dan Hayes of the North County Times tweets that the Padres signed Eric Munson to a minor league deal. Munson, 32, hit .265/.362/.450 in Triple A last year while catching 73 games.
- Potential high 2010 draft pick Anthony Ranaudo, a righty at LSU, will miss a start Friday due to elbow discomfort according to Baseball America's Aaron Fitt.
- ESPN's Jerry Crasnick looks at the mentor role Ben Sheets will play for the Oakland pitching staff.
- Maury Brown of The Biz of Baseball reports that despite a decrease in attendance, MLB revenue reached a record $6.6 billion in 2009.
- J.D. Drew feels that he's been worth the $42MM he's been paid so far by the Red Sox over the 2007-09 seasons, reports Steve Buckley of the Boston Herald.
I call shenanigans on no offers for A-Gon this off season.
He’ll be traded. No Doubt about it.
Absolutely, especially after making it absolutely clear he will not be giving a hometown discount. I see that as a polite way of saying, trade me already. I mean, that shouldn’t be concerning him for another year at least.
The thing is, he wants to play for the Padres for the rest of his career. He loves the city (it’s where he lived his whole life in), but he wants to get paid. And I don’t blame him. He’s producing Runs and Home Runs for 3 or 4 million dollars. He’s one of the best bargains in Baseball and he’s certainly ready to cash in.
I bet that the 6-1 deal was
Morrow
Olson
Vargas
Aumont
Carp
Lopez
Maybe?
also, Ranuado seems like a lock for the number 3 pick in the draft. Maybe 2. I think this draft has a lot of talent in the first round. Christian Colon, Deandre Smelter, Bryce Brentz, Delino DeSheilds Jr. (yes thats right), James Taillon, obviously Bryce Harper, Austin Wilson, A.J. Cole, and Levon Washington are all really impressive. And Drew Pomeranz as well.
Ben Sheets will really help Brett Anderson, Vin Mazzaro, Gio Gonzalez, and Trevor Cahill I think. Yeah.
The Red Sox did win the world series in 2007 so so far the J.D. Drew contract was worthwile. Good job by Theo.
If you are wondering about the Adrian Gonzalez bullet I previously had…I took it out because I realized that Howard already included that info in an update last night. So if you want to talk about the rumor that no team approached the Padres about Adrian this winter and how the Ms made a 6-for-1 offer during the summer, this is the place:
mlbtraderumors.com/2010/02/no-discount-for-adrian-…
Gotcha Tim. I was really confused for a sec!
Okay, well then let’s see. I’ll go with J.D. then. I think Drew has been quietly worth the money Boston has been paying him. I agree with him.
The grand slam in the 07 ACLS was worth 100 million.
JD Drew has been worth almost all the money to the very cent so far, im very pleased considering he took over the role of a big fan favorite in right field
I also agree with Drew. His annual ~.400 OBP has made his contract worthwhile.
Sorry, pink hats your lame comments prove that Drew’s contract is indefensible. Value reflects your actual performance and how can you justify paying Drew 42mill for averaging 128 games-18HR-65RBI’S-276BA. That comes out to 18mill if he played a full season but then again he has never played a full season in his career.
Yeah… Being pretty good for 3/4 of the year is almost = to being crappy the whole year.
That depends how you define pretty good. Who do we defend next, Lugo or low risk high reward mistakes that cost over 10 mill. I’am sure Theo could come up with a graph to justify those blunders.
I personally like Lugo. Of course, that’s probably because he is getting paid next to nothing by the Cardinals. However, I will say this. From the Red Sox side, that contract blew chunks.
If you play it by WAR Drew has actually been underpaid. Over his career in Boston he has put up a 10.3 WAR earning the team 45.3 mil. Maybe you’re just upset that he doesn’t rub pine tar into his hat and helmet, or dirt into his uniform, or create clubhouse drama, or visibly swear when he strikes out. The guy has been a very steady defender, gets on base nearly 40% of the time, and has delivered some seriously clutch hits in the post season. He’s not been without his flaws, I will agree he needs to stop being such a little b#%$tch about little aches and pains, and I also think he doesn’t apply himself to the max all the time. But I’m pretty sure he has been worth the investment. By the way, my fitted Sox cap is sun faded blue, the visor is falling apart, and there are little spackles of white paint all over the B, so don’t bother with the lame “pink hat” insult when you reply.
No….he doesn’t play like Pedroia or Youk but that is only one of many things that upsets me and a lot of red hat Boston fans . I find it disgusting that Theo and the front office feels the need to prop this slug up and badmouth Bay because he went to the Mets.Heck, they did it last year withTex and will do it when Beckett walks. If you do a little research you will find that Jeremy Hermida has been as productive as Drew over the same three year period.
Every statistical metric in the world indicates that you are absolutely full of crap.
The truth hurts more than the hype…
Gonzalez is going somewhere, whether Seattle or Boston or somewhere else, he will be on the move most likely this mid-season. Now that all this nonsense that kept him in a Padres uniform last year is past, the whole “so good and so cheap” thing isnt in affect, hes moving
Anthony Ranaudo! LOL, I struck out against him my senior year in h.s when he was a 6’6′ sophomore. The dude has great stuff, it will be interesting to see where he goes.
Fangraphs has his value over those three years (’07-’09) at $46.2 million.
So by those numbers, $42 million over that span was a good deal.
It appears BA pulled their story on the Draft Blog that Anthony Ranaudo will miss his start due to elbow discomfort. Interesting.
EDIT: Actually they just moved it to the College Section instead of keeping it in the Draft Blog. New link – baseballamerica.com/blog/college/?p=2828
J.D. Drew is a shining example of how new age statistics fail to value what is fundamentally most important in valuing a player, the amount of runs they produce for a team. This game is about putting runs on the scorecard, isn’t it? Don’t get me wrong, the man has great potential and I admire his poise and talent, but he has not been worth 14 Million dollars per season.
Part of this is not his fault. This is because he has batted fairly low in the Red Sox order throughout his tenure, which is clearly not his fault, or a good indication of the runs that he can produce. He has not been able to stay healthy, as others have mentioned, which should be no surprise because he hadn’t demonstrated that he could be healthy throughout his entire career. It should also be noted that as a $14 million a year man that he should be held accountable for driving in 100 runs, scoring near 100 runs and dropping 20+ bombs, though HRs are somewhat misleading because they take away from the number of total runs one produces in a given period of time. When the Red Sox signed Drew, I was a junior in high school, and my intuition and knowledge of archaic metrics of production told me that it was highly unlikely that Drew would be capable of driving in 100 runs or scoring 100 runs in a season as should be expected out of a player with such a high salary.
Looking back on the firs three years of his contract, I see two things. One, his OPS and other such statistics indicate that he would drive in 100+ runs if he were to bat third or fourth in the Red Sox lineup. Two, that the Red Sox knew that he was not signed to hit in those spots in the lineup. This means that on one hand, he has the potential to be a $14 million a year guy, but he was never given that chance as a member of the Sox and they knew it prior to his signing.
Is he worth the money? No. Could he be? If he stayed healthy for a full season, which is highly unlikely. When he is in the lineup, hes worth his contract given the fact that he has the RBI and runs scored opportunities that merit paying a player that much money.
Side note, he’s a good defensive right fielder with a good arm. That also should not be ignored.
That entire post was such a mess of contradictions I don’t even know where to start. He’s not worth $14 million because he doesn’t drive in 100 runs a year, yet you concede he likely would drive in 100 runs a year if he batted from the 3 hole and that the entire reason his stats are lower are because he tends to bat lower. I just don’t know how to approach this lunacy.
I’ll put this in terms that someone who throws his blind faith into new statistics will understand.
J.D. Drew would likely drive in 100 runs, score 100 runs or both IF:
a: he batted third in the red sox order
AND
b: he stayed healthy for a full seaston.
To think that the Red Sox had the slightest intentions of signing Drew to be their 3 hole hitter when Manny and Ortiz were in their primes, you would be out of your mind. One would have to be equally out of their mind to believe that Drew could consistently stay healthy for an entire season when he had essentially no track record of doing so. Its not his fault, some peoples bodies break down.
He would be a $14 million a year man in a vacuum. Not in reality and not as a member of the Red Sox.
Munson…poor guy, how he must have hated Kingpin when it first came out.
How does UZR create the value that Drew recieved? I’ve been watching sox games since I was a kid, and I’ve seen just about every Sox game Drew has played. I’ve seen him dive for a baseball probably twice since he’s been with the team. More often than not, he lays up and lets the single fall in front of him instead of going after the ball. I’m not saying he has to go out there and make amazing plays all the time, but it seems distorted to say he’s a plus defender with a 12.9 UZR in 08 and a 15.7 UZR in 09 when he never goes after the baseball. That’s not plus defense to me – that’s laziness. He does have a good arm, though.
(I often catch myself yelling “Earn your money JD Drew!” every time I see him play.)
He plays some of the best RF defense in Fenway. He covers his zone out there extremely well. Knowing how easily he can get injured, I’d rather him give up the single than break something. It’s not the web gems that impress me. It’s the way he can read the wall by Pesky’s Pole. Tons of RFs misread the way the ball will come off of it on a grounder or if it bounces off, Drew holds those triples to doubles and sometimes singles. To go back to the singles that fall. Usually it happens when he is having to play deep. More often than not those are usually outs with him. His offense has been better than people think too. Always around .400 with OBP. Bats about .275 regularly. Always flirting with 70 RBIs batting around 6th or 7th. Then managed to hit 24 HRs out of the bottom of the order last season. Don’t need to get into WAR someone already mentioned it and you know the UZR. It’s like I said. He has been quietly worth the money.
Thought I hit reply…this is to wakefield4life…