November 28th, 2006 → 10:18 am @ Seth Mnookin
In other news, Larry Lucchino, currently eating sushi in Japan, says the Sox have made a formal offer to Matsuzaka and his cuddly agent, Scott Boras. I don’t imagine the contract talks will go seamlessly — no talks with Boras ever do — but it does seem as if the signs point to D-Mat (or Monster, or Mini-Monster, or whatever your nickname of choice happens to be) will end up a Red Sock (what is the singular, anyway?) next year. Still, I can’t help but wonder why Lucchino went public with the offer. It puts Boras and Matsuzaka in a tough position — at this point, it would be bad for everyone if Daisuke was forced to pitch for the Seibu Lions next year — and goes against the recent Sox policy of negotiating deals in private. Lucchino has been accused of throwing a wrench into deals by speaking to the press before; is this a bland public statement? Or a harbinger of what’s to come?
Post Categories: 2006 Hot Stove Season & Daisuke Matsuzaka & Scott Boras
November 28th, 2006 → 10:17 am @ Seth Mnookin
Unless Manny is traded before the winter meetings, we can expect several more days of feverish speculation on whether or not the best right-handed hitter of his generation will be playing in Boston next year. Right now, both the local and national media are saying Manny won’t be patrolling left field at Fenway come April; the Globe‘s Gordon Edes reports that while talks with AL teams have cooled off, the Sox are deep in discussion with the Padres, Giants, and Dodgers, while the Herald‘s Michael Silverman says the Angels and the Rangers are still the frontrunners in the Manny sweepstakes.
Regardless of where he ends up, if Manny isn’t batting behind Papi next year, there’s sure to be outcry among the natives. And without knowing anything more than your average schmuck on the street (or at least your average schmuck on the street who spent a year living with the team), color me confused. Back in June, I explained why I thought this year’s anemic free agent market meant it was more likely that Manny would stay in Boston, a sentiment which was later echoed to me by Red Sox execs. And even if Manny is threatening, as he has many times over the past five years, to shut it down, history would seem to indicate the likelihood of that happening being close to nil. Whatever happened last year could make this offseason different, but until I hear otherwise, it’s hard for me to see why you’d jettison a player who now seems like a relative bargain…especially if the offensive replacement has a healthy history of not being healthy. (If some variation of these deals do go down, it’ll be a gutsy move by the Sox: if Manny came back to Boston in ’07 and performed below expectations, the outcry wouldn’t be nearly as severe as if Manny left and smacked the shit out of the ball…especially if nominal replacement J.D. Drew had a tough acclimation period in Boston.)
Post Categories: 2006 Hot Stove Season & J.D. Drew & Manny Ramirez
November 20th, 2006 → 7:48 pm @ Seth Mnookin
The $8 billion to Cubs paid out to Aramis Ramirez and Alfonso Soriano make a couple of things clear:
* Despite all the talk about a new, smarter generation of GMs, there are still folks who are more than willing to shell out crazy amounts of money regardless of the long-term consequences.
* Coco Crisp’s three-year, $15.5 million contract extension (with an $8 million team option for 2010) is looking a lot more attractive. How attractive? Well, as Buster Olney points out, Carlos Lee, one of the remaining big-time free agents on the market, must be salivating at the prospect of an obscene payday (Lee is already said to have a five-year, $60 million deal on the table). From ages 24-26, Lee averaged (and I’m eyeballing this), a .275 average, a .345 OBP, and a .475 slugging percentage. If you take at face-value the notion that Coco was injured last year, his 24 and 25 year old seasons average out to somewhere around .298, .345, .450. That’s $7 million more a year for 25 points of slugging percentage. Let’s say Coco does end up being a bust; it still puts the Sox’s decision in much better perspective.
* Speaking of perspective, the WMP deal — while still, considering the dearth of good pitching (to say nothing of good two-tone mullets), an occasionally painful one — makes even more sense. Here’s a guy who has the potential to be an absolute monster who’s under the Sox’s control for two more years.
* All of which offers one more illustration of why it made sense to offer up that $51.1 million posting figure for Matsuzaka. The Sox have the revenue to spend a lot on payroll, but don’t want to shell out obscene amounts for free agents who want to be signing until they’re 52 years old. They do, however, want to spend that money on 26-year old studs.
* Finally, if the Sox were really thinking about J.D. Drew as a Trot replacement, that option just got a helluva lot more expensive. It’ll be interesting to see what happens here; overpaying on dollars and years for someone like Drew would seem to go against everything the Sox have been working towards as of late; on the other hand, maybe they can get Drew at a relative bargain because of his injury history.
Post Categories: 2006 Hot Stove Season & Alfonso Soriano & Coco Crisp & Daisuke Matsuzaka & J.D. Drew & Red Sox front office & Wily Mo Pena
November 20th, 2006 → 11:59 am @ Seth Mnookin
In other news, the Soriano signing may mean, as Gammons says, that the Cubs are turning themselves into instant contenders; it also highlights just what a good deal Manny Ramirez is for the remaining two years (and $36 mil or so) of his contract. In order to land Soriano, the Cubs shelled out $136 million over eight years. For those of you keeping track at home, that means Soriano will be earning $17 million a year through 2014, when he’ll be 38 years old. Seriously, think about that: Congressmen will need to run four times before Soriano needs to think about his next job. There’ll be two presidential elections. Even Senators will need to make their case to the public. But not Alfonso…who has never been as consistent an offensive force as Manny (and is arguably as much of an adventure in the field).
The Soriano deal shows the extent to which the market has gone crazy; it’s the biggest deal since the $141 million contract extension Todd Helton landed before the 2001 season, and pretty much marks an official return to the 2000-2001 insanity. (If history holds, only a couple of this year’s mega-signings will pan out; Manny and Mike Mussina are the only guys from the 2000 class who can be said to have paid off.)
This year’s funny money contracts also point to why the Sox’s mega-offer for the negotiating rights to Matsuzaka arguably makes sense. As the always eloquent David Leonhardt points out in yesterday’s Times, “Matsuzaka is unlike any other free agent on the market this year — or almost any other year. He is 26, an age when a typical pitcher is in his prime and yet usually too young to be a free agent. Players who come up through the minor leagues generally don’t have the chance to test the market and choose their own team until after they have spent six seasons in Major League Baseball, according to free agency rules. By then, they are typically in their late 20s, or even their early 30s, and their performance is already starting to slide. This, more than anything else, explains why so many free-agent signings turn out to be busts.” (Why is it that it takes a business writer to explain the economics of baseball? Why couldn’t, say, the Times‘s baseball columnist have attempted to understand (and explain) this?) This is also the framework through which it makes sense to look at a bunch of the Sox’s recent moves: the Arroyo for Wily Mo (D.O.B. 1/23/82) deal; the Crisp (D.O.B. 11/1/79) acquisition; even the Beckett (D.O.B. 5/15/80) deal.
It’s not even Thanksgiving (you remember Thanksgiving, right?) and the Hot Stove has already boiled over. (I’m sorry. Really: I’ll avoid the stupid stove puns for the rest of the offseason.) It’s going to be an interesting couple of months.
Post Categories: 2006 Hot Stove Season & Alfonso Soriano & Daisuke Matsuzaka & David Leonhardt & New York Times & Red Sox front office
November 20th, 2006 → 11:45 am @ Seth Mnookin
Out of all the Hot Stove departures that have or are likely to happen, there’s something uniquely sad (albeit understandable) about that of Alex Gonzalez, a.k.a. the human vacuum cleaner. Gonzalez was the best Olde Towne Team shortstop I’ve ever seen, and the fluidity and grace with which he fielded his position was a marked and delightful contrast to those look-at-me-I’m-trying-really-hard shortstops that, say, win Gold Gloves. In years past, the crippling, seemingly crippled play of Edgar Renteria would have been par for the course at Fenway. It’s remarkable that Pokey and A-Gon have made Renteria seem like an abberation rather than the norm. (Speaking of Reds acquisitions: Mike Stanton? What the fuck is that?)
Post Categories: 2006 Hot Stove Season & Alex Gonzalez
November 17th, 2006 → 7:40 am @ Seth Mnookin
It’s November, which means — like February, March, June, and July — there are the obligatory “Manny wants out of town” rumors, coupled with the “the Red Sox want to get rid of Manny” and the “why do the Red Sox always trade their best players, like Roger and Pedro?” queries.
Yesterday, Buster Olney wrote about the possibility of Manny’s being traded in his ESPN column. The crux of Olney’s argument — that Manny’s two remaining years at $19 mil per looks pretty damn good in this market — is exactly why it makes sense for the Sox to hold onto that lovable lug. It’s been five months since I made almost that exact same argument; I say almost because I wrote that Manny’s now not-so-unreasonable deal made it much less likely the Red Sox would look to jettison #24. Indeed, at the time, Sox execs were saying exactly the same thing.
Of course, at the time, Manny hadn’t yet decided to take the month of September off, and there are plenty of people in the team’s front office that aren’t in love — and by that I mean are actively bothered by — Manny’s frequently maddening approach to the game. So sure, Manny could be traded. But I think it’s less likely as opposed to more; I also think this is yet another example of sportswriters grabbing ahold of the tastiest rumor and using it as fodder when there’s not a lot of information and not a lot to report on coming out of Naples…
In the midst of Nick Cafardo’s piece on Manny, Cafardo writes that there’s a growing consensus that “J.D. Drew will be in right field and Julio Lugo will be at shortstop.” I’m never sure where these “growing consensi” (consensuses? it’s 6:30 and I’m rushing to catch a train…) come from; in ’05, when I was with the team, I was amazed by the insane trade “rumors” that were floated as being “all but agreed on” according to this or that reporter but hadn’t even been discussed by the team itself. (I wasn’t the only one amazed; some of the more outlandish stories were occasionally read aloud.) Drew’s name has certainly come up a lot, and I know the Sox have had discussions. And maybe I’m hoping his patrolling right at Fenway is less of a growing certainty and more of a growing rumor because Drew he worries me. In his eight-year career, he’s played 145 games exactly twice, with 146 last year and 145 in ’04. If we’re looking for someone to replace Trot, it doesn’t make a whole lot of sense to go for someone who seems to be even gimpier; if we’re looking for someone to split time with Wily Mo, J.D. at big money for four years ain’t the right guy.
And with that, I’m off to South Station…
Post Categories: 2006 Hot Stove Season & Manny Ramirez & Sports Reporters
November 16th, 2006 → 7:04 pm @ Seth Mnookin
I’m at Fenway (because nothing gets me on the Acela quicker than a good Bob Lobel-hosted fundraiser)…and D-Mat* fever is already a full-on reality. As I walked down Yawkey Way, there were two cabs full of what I later learned were Japanese reporters…and Matsuzaka isn’t even in town yet. The security guards are talking about Matsuzaka, the front office folks not in Naples are buzzing; hell, Fenway hasn’t been this electric in November since 2003. (And we all know how that worked out.) For what’s it worth — almost nothing, mind you — the perception here (and among some members of the Fourth Estate) is that the Sox will end spending that $51.1 mil…because Matsuzaka will be part of a Schilling, Beckett, Papelbon, Wakefield rotation next year.
Anyway. This morning’s post resulted in some quick (and snappy) comments; a chunk of them were along the lines of “this doesn’t change the economic reality of the Red Sox vis a vis the Yankees.” On one level, that’s obviously true. If I spend $500 on a shirt, that purchase doesn’t make me any better off. What it does do is give the people the sense that I have enough economic security so that it’s not an issue if I want to spend $500 on a shirt. (Don’t worry: my much-maligned pink shirt cost nowhere near that much.) Offering up a $51 million posting fee doesn’t change the fact that the Yankees play in a much, much bigger market, nor does it change the fact that their revenue streams are much larger. It does mean it’ll be harder for the Sox to argue — as they did on this year’s trade deadline — that they didn’t make such and such a move because it they couldn’t afford to do so (even if that’s true).
And that — that appearance/perception/whatever — could very well become an issue…especially if/when the Sox struggle and what’s increasingly becomming an instant-gratification fan base gets a little blood lust. Two thousand and six was a rough one; what would it have been like if the Sox had claimed relative poverty after shelling out $51.1 mil for the right to negotiate with D-Mat?
That said, everything I know about this front office leads me to believe that neither this move, nor future moves, will be made in reaction to public perception, which is why I disagree with gary’s comments (“I think the theo was stung by the notion that he didn’t do enough at the trading deadline, and this is the result. But it doesn’t mean this isn’t a blip on the radar” and “if they had lost out to ny again, hell would have been the result”). It’s my firm belief that Theo wasn’t stung by what people did or didn’t think about what happened at this year’s trade deadline, just as it’s my firm belief that if the Sox make a move with the Yankees in mind, it won’t be because they’re worried about what the ‘EEI response will be to any given signing/non-signing.
* Boras-san has dubbed Matsuzaka D-Mat, presumably figuring that a first letter, first name-first three letters, last name label landed A-Rod $250 mil…so it has to be worth an extra mil or two a year, right?
Post Categories: 2006 Hot Stove Season & Daisuke Matsuzaka & Red Sox Fans & Red Sox front office & Theo Epstein
