Who would have guessed that two AL teams would hand out $200MM+ contracts this winter, and neither of them would reside in the AL East? Here's the latest from the only division with three 90-win teams in 2011…
- The Red Sox have checked in with Edwin Jackson and maintain interest in Roy Oswalt, reports Jon Heyman of CBSSports.com (on Twitter). They're also looking at some infielders.
- Blue Jays GM Alex Anthopoulos told MLB.com's Gregor Chisholm that he doesn't anticipate a move to upgrade the starting rotation before Spring Training (Twitter links). "I wouldn't expect us to do anything else. Maybe adding a reliever is probably the only thing I think we have a chance at doing," said the GM a few hours before signing Francisco Cordero.
- In an interview with Jim Duquette and Jeff Joyce of MLB Network Radio, Anthopoulos said that Brandon Morrow's work ethic was one reason why the Blue Jays signed him to an extension. "I haven't been doing this very long … but the mistakes we have made, we haven't necessarily put as much stock into someone's character and the work ethic," he said.
- Anthopoulos also acknowledged that the Blue Jays would be able to support a high payroll down the road, but they're "not there yet right now."
- Rays president Matt Silverman told Marc Topkin of The Tampa Times that they haven't found a deal to trade one of their excess starters yet, but that doesn't mean they aren't still looking (Twitter link).
- Yankees closer Mariano Rivera hinted at retirement during Jorge Posada's retirement press conference today, reports MLB.com's Bryan Hoch. "[It's] the same thing; just knowing that it's time to go," Rivera said. "You just have to accept that. I mean, I love the game and I have the passion for the game, but when the time comes and you have to go, you have to go."
- WEEI.com's Alex Speier wrote about the Red Sox in the wake of the Prince Fielder signing, saying they preferred trading for Adrian Gonzalez last offseason to waiting for this year's crop of free agent first baseman.
- Prior to avoiding arbitration with a one-year deal, the Yankees and Russell Martin discussed a two-year contract according to WFAN's Sweeny Murti (on Twitter).
Mariano’s right.. his time is fast approaching.. I fully expect him to hang it up in a decade or two, when he starts to lose it.
I mean, I love the game and I have the passion for the game, but when the time comes and you have to go, you have to go. Beepboopbeepbeep
Thank you for this it made my night.
Sounds about right.
Can’t imagine anyone not named Mariano Rivera closing games for the Yankees, but I guess all good things must come to an end just like when Jorgie and Andy retired 🙁 . I hope D-Rob is ready when the time comes.
AA: “not there yet right now.”
Votto and/or Lincecum in 2013 sounds about right
you mean 2014
Winter 2013, i.e. after both their contracts are done and hit free agency 😛
If i’m going to over spend on someone, it may as well be a Canadian that won’t lose a foot to diabetes at the age of 29. Not to mention that kid from Dazed and Confused.
yeah, Lincecum just signed a two year deal…
Doesn’t delay his free agency at all. Not even an option.
I think the Rays will wait until the trade deadline to deal one of their pitchers. It seems like contenders (at the time) are always in need of pitching and will trade more in return.
more than the hauls the A’s & Pads got this offseason?
Its a shame rays and yankees are in the same division. Price for Montero+ would’ve made lots of sense
that would have to be a HUGE +
It seems like Price is going the Lincecum route though and would’ve priced (pun intended) himself out of rays’ budget in a year or 2. Maybe something around Latos package or even less since latos still has a year of pre-arb left.
Price’s performance and potential are matched or exceeded by very few young arms in baseball..
It would take a huge haul to land him, I think it would exceed both the Gio/Latos deals
I don’t doubt that, I’m just saying that based on surplus value in relation to contract though, its closer than we think.
I can see something like this happening:
Price: 4.3/9/14/20 millions
Latos: 0.5/6/10/15 millions
with a total net difference of 15 million in salary over their controllable years.
If we are conservative and assume Price to be a 4.5 WAR pitcher moving forward and Latos to be a 4 WAR pitcher, they would have roughly the same surplus value..
Montero + Sanchez would be about right value wise and solve lots of rays’ holes
or, you know, keep them to make a run at the playoffs, since they’re a 90+ win team as constructed.
Because we know Moore’s going to come up and be an ace and NOBODY’s going to get hurt and Wade Davis is going to be serviceable. Right?
I don’t really agree with Alex Speier’s logic. Given the choice, which I think is what he is insinuating btw Gonzalez and Fielder and referencing money spent both this year and last year, one could assume they don’t make the Crawford signing if they had a different organizational plan. I agree Gonzalez is a great value compared to Fielder, and likely will be the better value on the life of the contract (we’ll see who plays longer and best and no one can forecast that).
The argument has been made several times, should the Red Sox have waited till this year and had a pick at one of the three in free agency? Would they have used more restraint in handing out the Crawford contract if they didn’t acquire Gonzalez last off season(this is a fair question)? I believe they may have held back in that case. Would Gonzalez have received a larger contract this year in free agency than the extension with the Red Sox? Based on these deals, he may gotten in the range of $180mm so they are ahead of the game there.
Looking at it in its totality and perhaps what a GM’s agenda for an off season would be, it’s worth contemplating which plan ultimately would be better.
Gonzalez + Crawford = $302mm total dollars plus the loss of 3 top prospects
Fielder = $214mm total dollars and retain 3 top prospects
This logic is so incredibly bad, I don’t know where to begin a dissection..
firstly you are writing off crawford after 1 bad year, so ya. I’m not sure why you feel they wouldn’t have signed Crawford in anticipation for bidding on a 1B the next year, actually makes no sense
secondly, in what world do you live in, where on the open market, Adrian Gonzalez gets 35 million less than Fielder?
Well I was expecting that. Have several teams shown in recent years an explosion of large signings in one off-season? Yanks in 09. Phillies in 10, Red Sox in 10, Angels in 11, Marlins in 11, Tigers in 11/12. I’m just simply stating there seems to be a pattern where teams are making fairly standard organizational moves YOY and then boom, one year they drop $300mm. My point is what if the Sox waited 1 additional year to drop $300mm? Is that allocated to different players.
I don’t get your 2nd question.
You’re not addressing the core issue..
The case study is on Adrian Gonzalez and whether or not the Sox saved money by trading for him and giving him an extension.
The reality is, undoubtebly. YES.
Had Gonzalez hit free agency, he would have gotten more money than Fielder, why wouldn’t he have? Gonzalez is every bit with the bat, and adds defense.
So the Sox could have kept their prospects, and went after Gonzalez, Pujols or Fielder in the offseason, but that would have cost them at the very least 60 million dollars more.
great extension. the end.
And here is one last way to make my point.
If someone slid two pieces of paper in front of you and said pick one and you have an option to implement one plan for the 2011 season and the other for the 2012 season.
Page A – 2011 Total $302mm – 3 top prospects
Adrian Gonzalez $154mm extension + $6mm salary
Carl Crawford $142mm salary
Page B – 2012 Total $320mm + 3 top prospects
Prince Fielder $214mm
Jose Reyes $106mm
Which do you choose? Which brings more value to the team?
I’m not challenging if Gonzalez is a good deal or not. Based on what we’re seeing, he’s a steal. The whole point of the initial response was that the writer wanted to make the point the Red Sox did better by making the trade instead of waiting for free agency. The other question is, looking at an off season in its totality, what if they did wait for Gonzalez to be a free agent and evaluate the markets in their entirety and subsequently do not sign Carl Crawford? Its an entirely plausible idea.
So your whole beef is to include Crawford in a scenario that was clearly referring to the Sox waiting out the 1B FA market exclusively. It even says how we preferred the trade over this seasons free agents in the main tagline. Stop trying to make it about something it isn’t. Otherwise your a hater. Nothing more. Crawford could clearly bounce back to career norms, but thats not even the point. Point is the article is about how good a deal we got compared to Detroit, and LA. So bow down to the amazing deal Theo got us or let it go. The article is not about the totality of the offseason (Which is still very much in question).
Exactly the Sox got better all around production and plus defense with the same youth for cheaper in years and dollars. Crawford is a question mark but is more likley to bounce back then repeat bad numbers, and besides the fact that one acquisition isn’t connected to the other. As far as 1B free agent signings go we are the clear winner even with talent gone having got a player on a shorter cheaper deal saving something like 60M.
oi. 2 likes. That’s means two other people need to head over to B&K tomorrow and pick up an economics book. Comment presentation may have been poor, but there is a very valid point in there, somewhere.
no there isn’t.. your whole post is made on an assumption that they wouldn’t have signed Crawford had they not traded for Gonzalez, which makes no sense..
After that assumption, you assume that crawford’s done and his contract is an anchor
after that assumption you assume Gonzalez will only get 180 million on the open market..
I’ve dissected all of the assumptions above, not really sure why you think you have any sort of revelation of any kind
“crawford’s done and his contract is an anchor”
Not quite sure those were my exact words or anything close to that. Again looking at it from the point of view of total dollars spent for the organization one off-season to the next. I’m playing devils advocate, if you wait for one thing, what are the subsequent moves/non-moves.
Yeah you’re right since we’re tossing monopoly money around let’s just say this player is worth much more than the next. Who knows. I peg him at around $180mm, that’s my opinion, which is just one, so deal with it.
But you know what, you want to be told you’re right, so I’ll let you feel as is you won this discussion. I was looking for some open mindedness and once again that fails to present itself on this forum.
“I peg him at around $180mm, that’s my opinion, which is just one, so deal with it”.
seriously, I know your a yankees fan and everything and probably have a hard time admitting any sox players are good.
but you honestly can sit there and say, on the day that Fielder recieved a 9/214, that the red sox only save 20 million dollars by not letting him reach free agency?
you want open mindedness, begin with admitting you are completely off
Yeah, if the Sox had to choose either Fielder or Gonzalez for 214m, they’re taking Gonzalez. Yes, they gave up propsects for him (ones I’m sure they’re still fine having parted with today), but in the end they are paying AG 54m less while only having him under control 1 season less. I expect Gonzalez is going to age very nicely. Fielder is way less attractive down the road, and far more costly.
Adding Crawford to the mix seems silly. I’m sure they would hit undo if they could, but at the same time he seems like an excellent bounce back candidate. It’s not like they signed Werth.
I bet they’d take Reyes over Crawford right now, but if it meant paying that extra money for Fielder, I think those feelings vanish quickly.
Believe there is no hope for this one. To put it a fancy way, he cloaks his ignorance in the trappings of pseudo-intellectual language/sentence structure. I honestly haven’t meet anyone out of high school who would ever use the phrase “fails to present itself” when trying to come off as smart, or the word “simply”, or even suggest someone who disagrees with them should “pick up an economics textbook”. I’m actually an econ major and I can tell you the whole argument is bogus on many levels for a lot of the reasons you already pointed out.
A-Gonz is around as young as Prince and a more complete player. The idea that he couldn’t have fetched more money and years than Prince is insane. He would have. Its not opinion its fact. So seeing as we got him for 60M cheaper than prince with less years its not even arguable we won the 1B free agency shoot out. Its insane to even argue it. The only motive you could have to dig and find things unrelated to the article is straight up bias. When the Yanks make a good signing or trade I give em 100%. Apparently you guys are more petty.
Have not been around yet on the entire Boras swindle over Pizza-man and man did he ever pull one of..
This deal is 100% worse than Zito in 3-4 years.. Just what is Detroit going to do with 2 DH’s they cannot move due to enormous salaries?
Sure, Cabrera’s contract comes off the books in 2015 and VMart also, but that is an awful lot of slots for the DH to try and hide people, especially after 2012 when Vmart comes back and no chance anyone takes his remaining 2/25 for 2013-2014 after missing all of 2012 with that Achilles injury.
I guess the economy in Detroit has gotten better over the last 20 years than the news has stated and auto makers are hiring again, influx of people rather than people getting out of that area…
Adrian would’ve reached or exceeded Fielder’s deal since, ya know, he can play defense on top of swinging a mean stick.
Would have exceeded for sure for that reason
I can see your reasoning. Fielder is not a great player and not great players get paid $214mm. Good players like Gonzalez as the guy above alluded to, get paid real money and are worth $300mm.
No. Fielder is not worth that contract. The move was just an unnecessary reaction to Martinez’s injury. Gonzalez would have gotten more money because he plays better defensively and is at least as good with the bat.
I think it’s more a reaction to Ilich’s age and wanting to win one final world series trophy.
resorting to patronizing tactics because you are wrong?
no one said anything negative about Fielder, but theres no doubt Gonzalez is the more complete player. You are arguing the contrary because admitting the truth would negate your entire post.
It’s worth noting that there were various reports about Gonzalez nitpicking about small things through out the season including late night play, etc. Also, I remember reading on several occasions that Boston writers were surprised he didn’t take more of a leadership role in the clubhouse. Understandable, since it was year 1 and that should change in time, but Fielder is a dominating presence and was the leader in the Brewers clubhouse. He’ll have that immediate impact on the Tigers. He had the Brewers working like an army behind him. If we’re talking “complete player” isn’t this to be considered?
It’s actually not worth noting, it has nothing to do with how good he is on the field, and he was hardly the only one complaining about it. It was the middle of a stretch of 20 something straight days without a day off, and they added a double header toward the end of it; everyone was complaining about it (Pedroia complained about it as well, and if there’s one player on that team who you can say gives everything for the team it’s Pedroia).
Prince Fielder is fat. Isn’t that worth noting?
I love Gonzalez but I think you are short-changing Fielder. Since becoming a full-time starter (at age 24) Gonzalez has managed an OPS of 900 and an OPS+ of 143 (park adjusted to remove the negative effect of PETCO).
Prince Fielder has been a starter since his age 22 season. During that time he managed an OPS of 932 and an OPS+ of 144.
They are within about 100 PA’s of each other for their career. Fielder has been worth 23.4 WAR while Gonzalez is sitting at 27.5. That works out to be about 0.5 WAR/season difference (which makes sense as Gonzalez is a better fielder and baserunner). The gap is essentially a rounding error on a year to year basis.
All in all I don’t think there is much difference between them. Fielder would have been younger but carries (using conventional wisdom) a higher risk of injury. I would have given Gonzalez the bigger contract but then again I wouldn’t have handed Fielder a 9 year deal under any circumstance.
What is not in dispute is that the Red Sox made a brilliant move in bringing in Gonzalez. An an Angels fan I would have rather given up prospects (sans Trout) and taken on Gonzalez’s new contract vs signing either Pujols or Fielder. Out of all the big dollar 1st baseman contracts signed in the last few years (including Tex) A-Gon’s is going to look the best when all is said and done.
Am I the only one that doesn’t see Oswalt going to the Red Sox? Seems like they are the team that is going after him the hardest but yet he hasn’t signed. Seems to me that if he was gonna be Sox, he would have signed by now.
They just moved Scutaro. IF (and that’s speculation) he was moved to clear space for Oswalt it’s not surprising that it isn’t done yet.
There really wasn’t another logical reason to move Scutaro.
Cody Ross doesn’t represent an upgrade, and there isn’t an improvement over Scutaro on the roster.
The Red Sox seem to do an awful lot of “checking in with” and “looking into” players. Let me know when they actually sign someone that will be a full time player and not just a “platoon” guy.
Looks like the Red Sox and Cherington are doing their best to make the team a 4th place club in the AL East.
Thanks Disqus…