Re: Sox Sign Drew
posted at 12/19/2012 5:07 AM EST
In response to EdithBRTN's comment:
there's no disputing the fact that the third year in particular for victorino and napoli could come back to haunt them and that tying up this money could prevent them from making certain moves next year in free agency. in terms of "value" there is little doubt they are getting short-changed, though wrongly or rightly I think there's some level of consciousness on the part of the front office/owenership that this is the case.
I guess my only response is that IF you buy the basic philosophy (and I know that's a big if for a lot of people) that this team needed some fiscal responsibility and had to stop with the horrible long term flyers, perhaps this is a better approach? one still has to acknowledge that if you sign mediocre players to shorter contracts you still have mediocre players however. in terms of free agency, I guess the opposite approach would have been to go after greinke, hamilton, and sanchez and forget stockpiling lesser talent to fill the gaps. they also theoretically could have traded some of their top young talent for quality players. they did have a lot of holes to fill though and not making moves was going to likely lead to another season like last year. this to me seems like an attempt to stay the course by putting a reasonably competitive team on the field for the next few years. I realize not everyone thinks they've done that.
now, they never should have been in this spot in the first place, because the leadership shouldn't have made bad, hueg money deals, but they're in the spot they're in. Ideally, they would have had an overiding philosohoy that would have prevented some of the horrendous moves that were made, but they didn't. the front office was in dissarray and maybe it still is.
if the kids were ready to go now I'd say these latest moves would block young talent from getting into the line-up, but that isn't the case right now. perhaps beginning in 2014 some issues might start in that regard - i guess we'll see. there's no doubt that some of these decisions are based an fan appeasement, which is part of what got them in trouble before - making deals to create headlines and sell tickets/promote the "brand". perhaps these, in their own way, are no better than some of the longer deals they made before - at least then they were swinging for the fences... ?
of the signings, only ueahara made absolute sense and the rest of the guys come with issues (injury/age/down years/fielding deficiencies, etc). year one and two they're probably overpaying about 12 million per or so to get out of the additional years. this is not totally insignificant, but don't know that this team was going to completely turn it around right away no matter what they did. As built, assuming decent seasons from bucholtz, lester, and Bailey I see this as about a .500 team (perhaps a little better/worse).
again, this is far from a dream and so I understand anyone really unhappy with this personnel, but these moves are also being influenced by the mistakes of the past that put them in a postition where they needed to acquire players to fill a roster riddled with holes. this fan base would definitely not stand still for them not spending 150 million or more and they'll likely climb to 170 at this rate.
the obvious better plan would have been to sign younger players and build in a real, organic way, but they'd never do that because they'd be too afraid the fan base wouldn't accept another season below .500 with them spending well below their capability. in order to do this you've got to take the hit for a few years with a roster that include players who are growing on the job, ala oakland and other small market teams. just not the way it works here and probably never will be.
Wow the poster formerly known as Pike, stays on topic!
You missed the elephant in the room. Keeping Lester, Papi, and Ellsbury helps the 25 to 1 2013 Sox but hurts the team's future. I called for Papi to be traded last year before he got hurt, and the insults flew my way. Big market teams are not immune to rebuilds, especially after the new CBA. The NYY haven't had to rebuild, but I think that was a unique situation. They have signed one of the few FA who remained a stud in Sabathia, and he has been the difference maker. Plus Jeter, Posada, Mariano, Pettite all had unusually long productive careers. I wouldn't bet on that happening twice.
The Sox are less likely to be great from 2015 - 2020, at the cost of the 2013/14 Sox being at least mediocre.
