Fair or not, Ben gets credit for putting the A-Gon, Beckett, & Crawford deal together.  A HUGE RESET BUTTON.  Softy doesn't get this.

The moves he has made in this off-season however are highly questionable.  In isolation, each one of these deals are underwhelming guys who are being signed in a seriously over-inflated market, & Ben C. seems desperate to find worn out, big pop potential guys......  if they can only stay healthy enough to hit a big .250????   Bottom line....  He's paying way too much for low second tier guys.  Are there no Bill Muellers left out there?  Guys off everybody's radar that would be very good role players for short money?

Softy's big mistake is wanting to assign blame to Ben C. for everything including the Babe Ruth deal.  As usual, he marginalizes everything he says with his extreme positions. 

What Ben C. is putting together THIS YEAR IS HIGHLY QUESTIONABLE in and of itself.   I will continue to hold out hope that Ben C. can and will cobble together a competitive team, capable of a post-season run!!!!

This is a bit too nuanced for the likes of Softy, & I can almost hear his tiny little head imploding.

In response to redsoxdirtdog's comment:

I think the people that are upset about the contracts the Sox have given out have simply not fully thought through the issues:

• There is a far greater demand than supply for talent this winter, inflating prices;
• The Sox have signed players requiring no draft pick compensation, inflating prices;
• The Sox want to sign such players to short -term contracts, inflating prices;
• The Sox have no money issues at the moment, so a few extra million/year to achieve the above are just not an issue.

As Notin wrote tonight (I paraphase here):  it's laughable that guys on internet think they know more about baseball than BC and LL.

 

 

 

 

I'd be ok with a Gomes/Nava LF platoon if they each batted the other way around i.e. cheap pair that mashes against righties and has a high OBP against lefties.  But they don't, and neither fields well, so that doesn't seem like a good platoon to me.

Victorino's splits as a LHB were decent until 2012 so if he can recover to a respectable level (career LHB OPS is .732 plus his great defense and speed) perhaps he could play every day platooning with Gomes in LF and a decent LHB in RF. 

1-Gomes/Nava is blah, but Nava's career v righties is .768 and Gomes career v lefties is .894.  Assuming a 2:1 L/R ratio, that's a .809 overall.

2-On Vic, most players have splits.  It just means they are less effective some days and more effective other days.  The fact that Cano hit .646 v lefties just means he beat the crap out of righties.

Does anyone hear much about Cano platooning?

In response to Joebreidey's comment:
[QUOTE]

I didn't know Buchholz had congenital issue with his neck.  He had a 3.48 in 2011, and had a 3.41 in 2012 in his last 20 starts, and Bill James has him forecast for a 3.68 this year.

((( Joe, do you remember you proposed a bet after the 2010 season, I predicted A. Sanchez would be a better pitcher than Clay going forward. You opted for Clay.

Clay has been unable to sustain the low BABIP and high LOB% as many predicted.  I posted the James prediction, and I don't share his optimism.  Here is something I posted last week  )))))

After Clay went 17 and 7 in 2010 there was talk about his low BABIP of .261 and his 79% LOB, I called him lucky and took flak.  

What has happened since:  2011/'12 (2010)

BABIP  .277  (261)

LOB% 72.5  (79%)

ERA   4.24  (2.33)

FIP   4.56  (3.61)

WAR 3.0  (3.8)

K/9    6.25  (6.22)

BB/9  3.14  (3.47)

Bill James is predicting 7.16 K/9 and 3.64 ERA

A. Sanchex 2011 / '12

8.47 K/9    2.57 BB /9   3.77  ERA    3.44 FIP    7.6 WAR

 

3-Not sure what you mean.  Vic won't replace Ellsbury unless he is traded, or unless Bradley takes a step back.  And if he replaces Ellsbury, doesn't that mean we're are obtaining picks, not losing them?

4-Not sure what you mean here either.  The way I see it, these short-term signings are here so that we don't have to either trade the kids, or bring them up too soon.

Don't get me wrong, the heart of my philosophy has always been to develop the minor league system.  But no minor league system can supply every position, and no minor league system pumps out x number of players each year.

The only thing that signing Victorino and Napoli and Dempster does is to ensure that we are competitive until the 4 Bs++ arrive.  No one gets held back.  No picks are lost.  No prospects have been traded.

The only thing not signing these guys would've done is to put more money in Henry's pockets, and possibly drive down future revenues.

((((((( The more important part of the rebuild is the return on trading Papi, Ells, and Lester.  Victorino will be on many lists as the worst VALUE signing of the offseason.  Having MN and SV in 2015 will be a problem, I'd have signed the better fielding Youk to play first or let Sands play 1B.  Bill James 2013  Napoli  .848  Sands  .812).))))

Softy's big mistake is wanting to assign blame to Ben C. for everything including the Babe Ruth deal.  As usual, he marginalizes everything he says with his extreme positions. 

It's the sign of a lack of discipline.  A first-rate mind clearly denlineates between what works, and what doesn't.  And assigns blame accordingly.  You can see that in a lot of the posters.  It is impossible for them to say Theo, or Ben, or Tito, or BV, did these three things wrong, and these four things right.  With many of them, they have so little confidence in themselves, they simply say 'everything so-and-so did was wrong'.

In response to SonicsMonksLyresVicars' comment:

I think the people that are upset about the contracts the Sox have given out have simply not fully thought through the issues:

• There is a far greater demand than supply for talent this winter, inflating prices;
• The Sox have signed players requiring no draft pick compensation, inflating prices;
• The Sox want to sign such players to short -term contracts, inflating prices;
• The Sox have no money issues at the moment, so a few extra million/year to achieve the above are just not an issue.

As Notin wrote tonight (I paraphase here):  it's laughable that guys on internet think they know more about baseball than BC and LL.

 

 Sonic,

I agree with all of this, but I'm not really excited about any of these moves.  They are short term moves with low risk, except for the $$$$, but guaranteed to underwhelm your average Sox fan.  I don't see any of these moves making us much more competitive than we were last year.  I assume we will be more healthy than last year, but none of these moves come near solving that problem.  These guys are older & perhaps more injury prone.  They are also very low second tier players, with less than average stats, besides the potential for pop, if they can be healthy enough to play 140ish games.  Big IF!

Still, I can live with these moves, if they are backed up by some REAL SPing.  Without that, we are in for a very LONG season.

 

 

In response to SonicsMonksLyresVicars' comment:

Gomes will hit LHP.  Hopefully they get a RHH LF better than Nava. I would prefer someone like David Murphy,  Seth Smith,  or David DeJesus.

[/QUOTE]

I assume you meant LHH LF'er.

Yes, Gomes had great numbers vs LHPs. His career OPS is a hefty .894 vs lefties. To get an idea of what he can do in this split, here are his career numbers prorated to 650 PAs:

.284  29  90  (.382 OBP/.512 SLG)

His OPS in 2012: .974 in 196 PAs. Prorated to 650: .299  36  89  (.413/.561)

 

As it stands now, if we don't get a LHH'ing LF'er, we have a few players who will be fighting for the slot, none of which inspire much confidence:

Numbers vs RHPs (note: most are small sample sizes):

Nava (SH) .261/.369/.399/.768 in 374 career PAs. (.261  6  79 w 53 2B/3Bs)

Kalish (LH) .239/.295/.348/.644 in 222 career PAs. (.239  11  73 w 29 2Bs)

 

As I have mentioned before, Shane Victorino really struggles vs RHPs as well, so getting another corner OF'er who can hit righties well and also field RF well might be a nice pick-up.

Victorino (SH) vs RHPs:

.267/.330/.402/.732 in career 2979 PAs (not counting a .563 OPS batting RH'd vs RHPs in 91 career PAs.)

Prorated to 650: .267  10  60  (35 2B+3Bs)

2012: .229/.296/.333/.629 (Prorated: .229  6  53 with 32 2B+3Bs)

[/QUOTE]

I'd be ok with a Gomes/Nava LF platoon if they each batted the other way around i.e. cheap pair that mashes against righties and has a high OBP against lefties.  But they don't, and neither fields well, so that doesn't seem like a good platoon to me.

Victorino's splits as a LHB were decent until 2012 so if he can recover to a respectable level (career LHB OPS is .732 plus his great defense and speed) perhaps he could play every day platooning with Gomes in LF and a decent LHB in RF. 

[/QUOTE]

Victorino is the RF'er until Jacoby gets traded or walks, then he will move to CF (unless Bradley rises quickly).

As for Victorino being "decent until 2012" vs RHPs, I guess that depends on what you call "decent" vs RHPs (65% of games) and at $13M a year.

2011: .787

2010: .681

2009: .787

2008: .762

If he can repeat .787 while still hitting lefties very well, I wouldn't be too upset. Maybe hitting in Fenway will help.

 

1-Again, that all depends on your view of an 85-win season being the ceiling. Not everyone agrees with that.

2-If we make the WC, it will be because Lester and Buchholz have returned to form. In that case, they can win the WS. And even if not, no one has an inside path to the WS.

3-We're not losing any picks by signing these guys. The future is exactly the same as it was.

4-Had we traded Ells and Lester, we'd basically be saying that we were going to shut down major league operations until 2015 at the earliest, and more likely not compete until 2016. With our financial strength, I see no need for that.

Well said.

The moves that the FO has made so far are a win-win.   The offseason plan gives the team a shot to contend this year while not hampering the long-term goals of the team either financially or in terms of rebuilding the farm.

These moves may not be as flashy as some would like to see, but they give us some good players to go along with the solid core of players that we already had.

The success of the team, IMO, is not going to depend so much on how these new guys do as it will depend on whether the returning players, Lester and Buchholz in particular, perform up to expectations.

 

In response to Joebreidey's comment:

In response to RedSoxKimmi's comment:

There's a reason none of the guys we signed were able to get 4 or more years from any team.

In response to Joebreidey's comment:

 

Exactly Joe!  A sign of a very weak mind!!!   A mind only capable of looking at one side of a debate, whether it be MLB, RS, or socio-political.  These weak sisters can only see the facts that back up their bias.  They simply ignore or, more likely can't even process facts that conflict with their own preconceptions.  VERY WEAK MINDS!!!!

 

Take the shooting in Conn.  I am a VERY fiscally conservative & socially moderate Republican.  This BLOWS softy's little pee brain.  I am also PRO-2nd Amendment!!!!!!

BUT!!!!  Who, IN GOD'S NAME, needs an assault style automatic or semi-automatic rifle? 

Handguns to protect oneself?  Absolutely!!!

Hunting rifles?  Buy as many as you want!!!!!!

The 2nd Amendment was passed to protect us from our own tyrannical government?  YES!

There should be ZERO LIMITS ON THIS 2nd Amendment?  Are you FFFF'n kidding me?

***  One would clearly need tanks, F-16's, & perhaps Nuclear weapons to do so, ipso facto this is an absurd line of reason.  An assault weapon would not protect anybody if our government were to become tyrannical again.  Anybody got a nuclear sub????  We will need one off the Cape, you moron Softy!

So......  We already have limits on the 2nd Amendment, for the SANE who already know this.  Softy is already lost in the complexity of this argument.

SO WHO IN GOD'S NAME NEEDS AN ASSAULT WEAPON?

Expand concealed carry?????   YES!  ( there I go.... lost a bunch more mindless ideologues with the soft one)  In schools?  YES!  Now I'm really blowing his freaking mind with the possible contradiction!!!!! 

How many violent crimes are committed by legal concealed carry citizens each year?????   NOT MANY YOU FLAMING IGNORAMOUS soft one!  But wait.  Softy agrees with this part, so what does he do??????

VERY RIGOROUS SCREENING!!!!!

The last bastion of the pathetically ignorant IDEOLOGUE!  DEMAGOGUERY!!!!

 

aHHHHHHHHH!   :)  

 

I think LL knows basebal better than most gim him credit for. He has worked in the industry for a long time. Surely something he has picked up something by now.

 

He has enough pwer and a low enough profile that he maes for an ideal scapegoat. And he might even be ridiculously egomaniacal, I wouldn't know. But I do doubt he is ignorant on the subject, and even if he admitted as much (which I believe he has), it probably comes from comparing himself to peers or possibly out of humility (if he has any).

 

That casual fans like us think we have more of a clue about baseball than him is actually quite ridiculous...

I'm sure Lucchino know quite a bit about baseball.  However, IMO, Lucchino is a businessman first, and a baseball person second.  When he is looking at baseball moves, he is looking at them from the viewpoint of how profitable it will be - what will sell tickets, sell merchandise, and get the fans to spend their money. Winning is secondary.

The GM, OTOH, is not concerned with profit.  He is concerned with putting together a team that can give you the most wins under the budgetary constraints that he is given.  IMO, this is where Theo and LL often clashed. 

I meant to do this calulation myself. .809 is decent, and it's a good thing Fenway may hide their poor fielding to some extent.

It still kind of scares me that we may get a .750-.775 OPS from our RF & LF combined vs RHPs. Add to that Iggy being in the line-up, Salty's not-so-great BA and OBP vs righties either (.230/.299) and we may have serious issues vs RHPs.

Yup, we need another LH bat.

In response to SonicsMonksLyresVicars' comment:

I'm not blaming him for 2011. I'm blaming him for 2012 and 2013. We are looking at another last place finish in 2013 , his second full year on the job. I guess if one can't defend Ben's performance , the thing to do is to attack his critics.  Have to laugh at the dumb remarks like " You seem to be confused."  I am not confused at all. The confused are those who think Ben has done a good job. It looks like his only claim to fame is a salary dump. 

Those who can't see that Ben came in hamstrung by an out of control team are willfully blind.  Those who don't acknowledge his putting together a deal to dump AGon, Beckett, AND CRAWFORD are blind and stupid.

Those who don't question his moves over THIS winter are ???? IDK   Stubborn to a fault?  Blind?  Willfully ignorant? 

You choose.

p.s.  Sorry for once again looking at both sides of an issue.  It will happen again.....

 

[/QUOTE]

Victorino is the RF'er until Jacoby gets traded or walks, then he will move to CF (unless Bradley rises quickly).

As for Victorino being "decent until 2012" vs RHPs, I guess that depends on what you call "decent" vs RHPs (65% of games) and at $13M a year.

2011: .787

2010: .681

2009: .787

2008: .762

If he can repeat .787 while still hitting lefties very well, I wouldn't be too upset. Maybe hitting in Fenway will help.

 

[/QUOTE]

Mid-high 700s OPS for a great fielding, great running CF isn't "decent"?  Career platoon splits:

Yaz vs lefties:  .692

Rice vs righties:  .836

Papi vs lefties:  .824

Tris Speaker vs lefty starters:  .777

Fred Lynn vs lefties:  .710

 

There's a reason none of the guys we signed were able to get 4 or more years from any team.

None of the guys are worth 4 year deals, or even 3 year deals.  IMO, they were all overpaid.  However, the deals are short term enough that the they do not strap the team from future moves.  While I know that it is sometimes necessary to give up prospects, I have always preferred overpaying in dollars over prospects. 

These players are not game changers.  But they are good enough, IMO, that they should complement the existing core of players well, if the returning players play to potential.

Obviously, there are a lot of ifs.  I would still like to see them add a LH OF/1B and a #3 or better pitcher. However, I don't see our chances for contending next year as dire as many others do.

 

 

In response to dgalehouse's comment:

Ahhh, you're a prognosticator.  I did not know that.  Who do blame today for the 2025 Red Sox season?

In response to tom-uk's comment:

I didn't see this post but I totally agree.  The moves we have made so far won't get us anywhere.  We may have well just feilded the youngsters now and taken a chance.  At some point our FO needs to make a real improvement and stop throwing money at guys that don't deserve it.  We have bad health and some of the worst OBP as it is so nothing has really improved, Dempster included.

The Red Sox organization gets more and more interesting with each passing year.

2013 should be no exception.

 

In response to SonicsMonksLyresVicars' comment:

Victorino is the RF'er until Jacoby gets traded or walks, then he will move to CF (unless Bradley rises quickly).

As for Victorino being "decent until 2012" vs RHPs, I guess that depends on what you call "decent" vs RHPs (65% of games) and at $13M a year.

2011: .787

2010: .681

2009: .787

2008: .762

If he can repeat .787 while still hitting lefties very well, I wouldn't be too upset. Maybe hitting in Fenway will help.

 

[/QUOTE]

Mid-high 700s OPS for a great fielding, great running CF isn't "decent"?  Career platoon splits:

Yaz vs lefties:  .692

Rice vs righties:  .836

Papi vs lefties:  .824

Tris Speaker vs lefty starters:  .777

Fred Lynn vs lefties:  .710

 

[/QUOTE]

We were talking offense. I have already praised our uptick on defense.

No, mid .700s vs 65% of the leagues pitchers is not decent. If it was vs LHPs (35% of the games), it can sometimes be absorbed.

In response to RedSoxKimmi's comment:

These contracts will restrict who we can sign next winter-- a better FA class.

Yes, too many "ifs" for me to think we have a legitimate chance in 2013.

In response to ampoule's comment:

Owners and Presidents usually start talks with huge deals like that one, then the GM's negotiate all the players involved.

Exactly Joe!  A sign of a very weak mind!!!   A mind only capable of looking at one side of a debate, whether it be MLB, RS, or socio-political.  These weak sisters can only see the facts that back up their bias.  They simply ignore or, more likely can't even process facts that conflict with their own preconceptions.  VERY WEAK MINDS!!!!

 

Take the shooting in Conn.  I am a VERY fiscally conservative & socially moderate Republican.  This BLOWS softy's little pee brain.  I am also PRO-2nd Amendment!!!!!!

BUT!!!!  Who, IN GOD'S NAME, needs an assault style automatic or semi-automatic rifle? 

Handguns to protect oneself?  Absolutely!!!

Hunting rifles?  Buy as many as you want!!!!!!

The 2nd Amendment was passed to protect us from our own tyrannical government?  YES!

There should be ZERO LIMITS ON THIS 2nd Amendment?  Are you FFFF'n kidding me?

Due, you saved me a lot of writing.  Fiscal conservative, social moderate, don't give a rat's a $$ what you do as long as you don't bother me or anyone else.

You can get a license for a rifle to hunt.  You can get a pistoll for self-protection.  But there isn't a lot of call for an assault rifle for self-protection, full body armor is not the thing that comes to mind if someone tries to jack your car, etc.

Let's just being a little sensible about all this.  Just a little.