Aside from David Ortiz accepting arbitration, the Red Sox had an uneventful Winter Meetings, though the offseason is still young. The latest:
- An executive who knows Red Sox manager Bobby Valentine says he's very high on Japanese shortstop Hiroyuki Nakajima, tweets Joel Sherman of the New York Post. Sherman's source expects Nakajima to reject the Yankees' attempts to sign him, play in Japan for 2012, and sign with the Red Sox as a free agent.
- Red Sox GM Ben Cherington met with pitching coach candidate Brad Arnsberg before leaving the Meetings, tweets Sean McAdam of CSNNE.com. The meeting went well, but others will be interviewed. Arnsberg has served as pitching coach for the Blue Jays and Astros.
- It's unlikely the Red Sox focus their remaining offseason resources on offense, Cherington told reporters including WEEI's Alex Speier.
- Cherington said he's felt all along that his pitching staff would be an "all-winter project."
- Asked if the Sox considered being creative to try to fit Albert Pujols in, Cherington replied, "Not really."
- Regarding the compensation owed by the Cubs for acquiring Theo Epstein, Cherington said, "Loosely, we've loosely defined a strategy of talking at some point in the near future. Yeah. We'll resolve it at some point I'm sure."
- In case you missed it, the Red Sox added reliever Jesse Carlson on a split contract and minor league pitcher Marco Duarte by way of trading Rule 5 pick Marwin Gonzalez to Houston.
Why would the Red Sox even consider obtaining a shortstop when they have the reincarnate of Honus Wagner combined with Ozzie Smith in Jose Iglesias waiting in the wings? I thought he was some sort of legit sure-fire superstar based on the way Peter Gammons talks about him
Well Gammons is a borderline nut-job, so there goes that.
Speir reported that one think it was… Then he goes off the deep end also at times.
Yeah, I wouldn’t take anything too seriously that comes out of weei-land. At times, I think ability to go off the deep end is one of their primary hiring qualifications.
Very similar to the NY media hyping up Joba as the next Drysdale. And don’t forgot Can’t Miss Phil Hughes: the 21st century Walter Johnson. Sure worked out.
Except for the fact that Hughes and Chamberlain actually performed at a extraordinarily high level in the minors, whereas Iglesias has never shown any ability to be anything more of than a glorified utility hitter. Can’t hit a lick and can only field.
That hardly excuses the HoF plaques that were likely already being chiseled before they threw one pitch in the majors.
Both sides have over-hyped prospects/players, what’s that saying? “Pot calling the kettle black.”
pot calling the kettle an overrated second-hand POS loserface h!ck of a kitchen utensil
Hughes and joba were both reasonably hyped and considering joba still is a great reliver their was nothing wrong with his hype. Tell me agian how homer bailey turned out? he was condisered a better prospect than hughes.
baseball america ranked hughes #4 and bailey #5 in 2007. they ranked joba #3 in 2008
I always thought it was the other way around thanks. Ya it can be said Joba didnt reach his hype but i wouldnt fault anyone for hyping prospects when those actually make it to the big leagues.
The guy is 21 and could arguably field better than 99% of the SS in the league. If he can hit for average with a tiny bit of power you got a player who looks very similar to Ozzie Smith. He was pretty useful.
Ozzie smith wasnt a bad hitter in terms of his era iglesis so far looks like he would be
I get that. My point is though Ozzie had some decent doubles power, average, and an amazing glove. The Sox have had Varitek starting until this past season which is an example of how we seem to be able to devote one lineup spot to someone with less offensive talents in exchange for other perks.
League average for SS was .258/.314/.370 this year, if Iglesias only hits at that level (which I don’t think is would be a problem for him) he would be a valuable player to have based on his superb defense. Remeber, he was only 21 and in AAA this year, and he hit at that level as a 20yo in AA last year.
I was under the impression that smith’s era was so weak in hitting in general so that smith was a league average hitter not just league average hitting ss. Sure Iglesis can be a very valuable player if he can progress which he should. Assurbel caberra had some sub par seasons in the minors and he turned out fine.
League average regardless of position was only .255/.321/.399 this year.
Isn’t he only like 21 with hardly any professional baseball under his belt?
Yeah, ’11 was only his second pro season and he was 21yo in AAA.
It was a disappointing offensive season to be sure, but it’s not like the kid’s a bust.
Defensively he is the second coming of a hybrid of Alex Gonzalez/Jesus/and song 2 by Blur. With a bat he has a lot to learn. At his best he will be Alex Gonzalez with better D, a respectable batting average, and more doubles power than HR power. At his worst he will be Better at D than Alex Gonzalez. Watching him play is insane.
sounds like you’re talking about hechavaria too
Didn’t read here the NYY bid was only like 2-3m for Nakajima? If so.. Is John henry standing on the corner with his hat out looking for 25c?
““On the pitching front, we felt like, all along, this was going to be an all-winter project. Some of the moves will be very under the radar, and there may be some that are more on the radar. We have a much better idea of what’s out there and what it might take now than we did on Monday. …”
If that quote from Cherrington does not make all about for certain the rotation will break camp with (gulp) a Weiand type in it.. I don’t know what does… This is almost non imaginable they could do this.
“Didn’t read here the NYY bid was only like 2-3m for Nakajima? ”
You’re assuming that Joel Sherman of all people actually knows what he’s talking about.
“If that quote from Cherrington does not make all about for certain the rotation will break camp with (gulp) a Weiand type in it.. I don’t know what does…”
Him saying “we’re breaking camp with Weiland.” You’re reading waaaay too much into it. A likely more accurate translation is “I didn’t expect to walk away from the Winter Meetings with our pitching issues resolved. We’ve gotten a much better feel for the market, we’ll be looking into some obvious candidates (Probably guys like Kuroda) and some less obvious solutions (Non-tenders and trades).”
They’ve already spoken with the White Sox and A’s about pitching options and this is generally the earlier part of the offseason. The free agent market is honestly pretty thin this year, the Sox will probably spend the next month or two looking into potential trade targets.
Bro, scared now.. that entire Speir story looked like throw in the towel, or the way he quoted Cherrington at least.. it was written like he was going to be shopping blue light specials at kmart.
yeah, we have all pretty much chatted here a lot about various possibilities I understand, but many have evaporated or look horribly expensive if by trade.
LarryDelucaNY (of course the “NY” in your user name tells us how your post is going to read without us having to look at it):
Maybe he doesn’t want to play for the Yankees just to be a utility player? Just a thought.
someone’s username is missing a hole. It’s a bit strange to assume what someone random ss is thinking, coming over in a utility and playing well will probably get him more money next year than staying in japan
is there anything Japanese Valentine doesn’t like? I’m surprised his wife isn’t Japanese. I bet his mistress is though.
Bennnnnnnnnnnn, do something, will ya!!
Because Boston is closer to the West Coast than NY? ummm
Well it’s closer if you’re flying the other way around the globe.
pffft. Not sure why this is being cited as a source when that was never said in the actual tweet. It was just Sherman saying it on his twitter account. He’s entitled to his opinion but, yeah…
How is this not tampering by the Red Sox? They basically say they are willing to sign the guy as a starter next year if he doesn’t sign with the Yankees.
Nah, MLB did nothing when they tampered with the Dodgers-JD Drew situation, offering him a bigger contract so he would terminate his contract, even when the Dodgers proved they made illegal offers. Nor they did a thing when they knew that Epstein had knowledge and discussed PED usage by Éric Gagné and failed to notificate MLB, nor when Bosox players had ties and even failed antidoping tests but were not included in the Mitchell report, made by a boston red sox worker…
Even if the Nakajima comments were official ones, I hardly see how that would be tampering. GMs and Execs talk about how they would like to get their hands on different players all the time. It would be tampering if Ben Cherington went to Nakajima saying “We will sign you for X amount of money more than the Yankees and give you a starting job next season,” but I can’t see that happening.
Why are you taking what someone wrote so seriously? It’s an opinion, not a fact.
He was quoting an executive who knows Valentine, and what this executive speculates could happen. How exactly is that tampering, or how is it even connected to the Red Sox organization?
The Red Sox want this kid so bad they didn’t even bid on him… (They already have 3-4 options for SS, so I don’t know why they’d even want another one unless he’s a legitimately great talent).
Sox are sooooooooooo quiet
the sox don’t have money to make a big splash this offseason. If you look at their payroll right now they already have about 170 million committed. That leaves them with around 8 million to fill 2 or 3 holes in the rotation not to mention rebuilding the bullpen which is in shambles now that Paps is gone. they are paying Lackey 15.5 million this year to sit on the bench and Dice-K just over 10 million to not play. Do you know what this team could do with that 25 million? Those contracts are the gifts that keep giving. Theo left this team in tatters.