Red Sox Are Batless In The Battle
Well, our long national nightmare is over, to coin a phrase. Jason Bay will be a New York Metropolitan in 2010. And, Mike Lowell will likely be dealt in the Spring. That translates into 53 fewer homers for the Sox from their 2009 totals (36 by Bay; 17 by Lowell).
Boston will be at a serious offensive disadvatange vis a vis the Evil Ones 250 miles to the south. They (the evil ones, that is) remain an offensive juggernaut even after losing Hideki Matsui and Johnny Damon(Curtis Granderson alone had 30 HRs last year)–and they may still re-sign the “Idiot”.
As laudable as it is to resist 5-year commitments to 30-plus year old players, this was a serious mistake on the part of Theo and the Trio. Having a productive hitter in the middle of the line-up who not only survives the climate in Boston but thrives on it, is a rare commodity indeed. And, apparently for a difference of $6 million and an option year, they let that commodity go.
There is only one solution–making the much discussed deal for Adrian Gonzalez. Obviously, Jacoby Ellsbury can no longer be included in the deal, but Buchholz and two elite prospects (Josh Bard?/Casey Kelly?/Ryan Westmorland?) are probably enough to pry away someone who can play Gold Glove first base (allowing Youk to move to third) and clout in excess of 40 home runs a year.
Theo, do the deal. Now.
FenwayNation: The MLB Blog 
a power outage was one of Boston’s problems last year.. i’m surprised they haven’t yet addressed that..
theo is doin what theo does. attempt to make sure he has the SECOND best team in the east. i get cameron is a excellent defender but last time i checked outfield defense wasn’t really an issue the past 1 1/2 yrs. cameron is 36 yrs old. he’s hit above .250 maybe 2-3 times in his career. yeah he’ll prob hit 20 or so HR’s and he’ll have a marginal OBP and strike out 150 times. scutaro is a slight upgrade offensively at short. so your telling me he REALLY thinks he can go into next year with casy kotchman ( a braves cast off ) at first and mike cameron in LF and be competitve for the AL east title? no way. and he knows it i’m sure. i don’t care how good the pitching is they won’t be able to score enough runs to beat the yankees. it’s not like they’re pitching is bad and off is light years ahead. but that’s not really his goal he’s content with second place.
one other interesting thing. i always preferred holiday long term to bay BUT cameron will be 38 at the end of his 2 yr deal. bay would have been 37 i believe so i don’t see the logic in not going 5 yrs with bay or preferably 5-6 with holiday.
You sir are a complete and total moron. Look over the lineups and try to understand that full season contributions from Victor Martinez combined with the upgrades of Scutaro, Cameron and Beltre more than make up for the loss of Bay.
53 fewer HRs, eh? So that means you expect 0 from Cameron and Beltre? The only thing this column proves is that you don’t have to pass a test to write a blog.
I figure 30 from Beltre. Now healthy and playing in Fenway, he should up his normal 25 by about 5. Cameron’s always good for 25. Looks like a net gain there to me.
Whaddya think about catcher. Think Martinez and Varitek might hit a few more than Varitek and Kottaras?
Please, in the future, think before you type.
Bay had a UZR of -11.2 and Ellsbury in center was -18.3 in 2009. So yes outfield defense was indeed been a problem last year and switching Ellsbury to left should help that with less ground for him to cover.
this is so embarrassingly inept it hardly deserves the energy to type this but i just can’t help myself.
the weakness last year for this club was not offense; not in the least. in fact, it was a strength. the issue was defense. they were one of the worst in mlb in defensive efficiency.
the additions of beltre/cameron/scutaro (according to early projections) will save this club 50 runs which equates to about 5 wins.
they were able to sign 3 key pieces for roughly half the $ what it would’ve cost to sign just bay.
the final nugget of idiocy in this piece is in regards to the idea that theo can just “do the deal” like it’s just sitting on the table waiting to be accepted by boston.
but other than that, awesome article.
“one other interesting thing. i always preferred holiday long term to bay BUT cameron will be 38 at the end of his 2 yr deal. bay would have been 37 i believe so i don’t see the logic in not going 5 yrs with bay or preferably 5-6 with holiday.”
it’s all about minimizing risk. in cameron you are committing 2/15 vs 5/80 for bay & whatever holliday ended up signing for which was a lot.
also, a tremendously deep free agent class next year would encourage the red sox to spend a little less now to spend more later on better investments.
I’m so sick of these arm chair GM’s who think they can do a better job putting together a team than the current management and who think they can trade for any MLB superstar like it all the other GM’s duty to trade their best players like the Red Sox and the Yankees. Bay was nowhere near worth his asking price. Yes he had 36 hrs and 119 RBIs but he was extremely streaky,very prone to the breaking ball, only hit .267, and was poor defensively. I’m very happy with the signings so far and very excited to see the revamped pitching and defense in action, all while not being commited long term to players like Scutero, Beltre and Cameron. Pitching and defense wins championships and it’s not always about the homerun. I’ve been wanting to see the Sox play a little more small ball in recent years, taking advantage of Ellsbury’s speed.
I have a question for whoever posts this blog and those who call themselves Red Sox fans who actually take it seriously; ARE YOU SERIOUS?!
This is a disgrace of a Major League baseball blog, to think that people who call themselves Sox fans would give credence to counting stats like Home Runs. A power outage? At least if you are going to criticize the FO for taking a new tact at exploiting market inefficiencies (cough…defense…cough) do it in a manner that takes into account something more advanced than Home Run totals.
We are not in the baseball stone age anymore, please don’t disgust me anymore by making people think that Red Sox fans actually buy into this crap.
FirebrandAL forever.
what the… ? i came here to find why “Fenway Nation thinks the Red Sox made a mistake by not re-signing Jason Bay, and wants to see the club atone for it by trading for Adrian Gonzalez.” but ….. besides Ernie Paicopolos, who clearly overpaid for his fenway ticket 500 years ago; no one is buying into bay being worth his salt water.
i agree. bay will drown in ny. too much of an ocean to cover and the pylons are further than 320 ft. he’ll be up a creak without a paddle.
he left us for a guaranteed $3m! he doesn’t get it, so long. he can’t swim with red sox nation. in fact, i think he’s a foreigner, from another country like cuba or russia. oh, maybe canada, which is the same thing and that’s where gagme is from.
hey, ernie, you are writing to new englanders, not new yorkers. we have schools. get your numbers straight. you need to include camerons 24 tater’s to offest our loss in dingers – if that is even relevent. 53 years ago, the only stats were avg/rbi/hr, but things have changed a little since then. leave the numbers out of your scribes.
we are in good shape to position ourselves to play in october.
remember, we just need to win 4 vs yankmees, as long as they are in october.
anyone that thinks we must “atone” for not signing bay, is all wet.
I’m not a big fan of name calling, but I have to agree with the earlier poster who referred to you as a moron. How do you figure they lost 53 home runs by losing those two players? You do know they are being replaced by other players, right? Apparently, you either believe their replacements will hit a combined zero home runs, or you are incapable of understanding third grade math.
If you can’t understand this, I probably shouldn’t mention the fact that there are seven other spots in the lineup that will factor in to the team’s home run total, and the fact that players home run totals vary from year to year, making it impossible for anyone to know how many home runs they will hit next year…I’ll stop now, I don’t want to make your head explode.
I hate to insult fellow Sox fans… But are you all CRAZY? I love Bay as much as the next guy, but giving him 5 years would be a terrible investment. Going short term with our great outfield prospects is a great idea. We are far from the 2nd best team in the East. We are the best team in the east. There are 2 hitters in this lineup who probably won’t hit around 20 homers… Ellsbury and Scutaro (maybe Pedroia). Beltre can hit 30-35. Ortiz realistically will hit 30-35 now that he has had his regular offseason training which he missed last season, hence why he hit .300 from June-September and hit the most homers in baseball in that period. He’s far from done. Martinez can hit 25-30. Youk can hit 25-35. Drew can hit 20-25. Cameron can hit 20-25.
Basestealing, Cameron can steal 15-25. Ellsbury can steal 60-70+. Pedroia can steal 15-20. Scutaro can steal a few. Drew can steal a few. Beltre can steal a few.
Defense. By far the best in baseball. No competition.
Pitching. Our starting pitching is by far the best in baseball. Our worst pitcher (Wakefield) was an all-star last year. Buchholz even finished VERY strong and Dice-K will be back this year. He’s in the best shape he has ever been in.
Meanwhile the Yanks have 2 outfielders who wouldn’t start on most teams (Gardner and Swisher) which are the same holes in theory that hurt us (Varitek and Lowrie). They have the oldest left side of the infield in baseball (Jeter/Arod). Pettite is a 4.50 ERA guy who if the offense doesn’t keep him afloat, he will sink. Posadas ability to catch and swing a bat are questionable. Likely they will have to use Cervelli more than they would like to.
They are not in a good position. The Sox starters alone will win a minimum of 70 games. (Beckett 15, Lester 15, Lackey 15, Matsuzaka 10, Wakefield 8, Buchholz 7) Thats if all of them have subpar years… More than likely our top 3 will each win 15 OR MORE. This team is the most exciting team I’ve seen since the 2002 Angels and anyone who disagrees simply hasn’t done their research. There is no reason to move Clay or Jacoby for Gonzalez. If Lars Anderson rebounds, he will provide future power.
Patience Sox fans. Lets not get caught in the same financial trap the Yankees got themselves into, now having to deal with subpar players at a few positions. This is not the same team that had Damon and Matsui. This is also a team thats one year older on both sides. For us that’s a good thing, as our players enter their primes. For the Yanks, it sucks because they are for the most part on the wrong side of 35 (Jeter, Posada, ARod, Rivera, Pettite).
For God’s sake, people are crying Lowell is done and he’s 35… All the above players are older. Arods the same age…
Please be patient. We will more than likely win the division and we will not reach our potential for another 2-3 years. All we have to do is stay competitive and the next Lesters (Kelly) Pedroias (Westmoreland) and Youkilises (Anderson/Reddick ect.) are on their way up.
And 53 homers is made up for with Cam (20), Beltre (20+) Scutaro (10)
this is short and sweet. a signing af adrian gonzalez made sense 2 weeks ago, but where do you expect to put him? the sox have just commited 9 million to beltre WITH A PLAYER OPTION!!!!!! that would put youk at first, beltre at third, and ortiz/v-mart at DH (martinez wont play catcher everyday… we still have varitek). I can only guess that if the sox moved ortiz, maybe theyd get somethin done, but that move would upset many in red sox nation. if youre so certain the only way we can beat the yanks is with him, how do you expect the sox to handle a high paid player upsetting the locker room because they are being benched? and besides, despite gonzos great contract, the sox would still be over luxery tax, so that player being payed 3 million a year will be costing the organization 20 million a year. the idea just doesnt make sense. oh another thing… actually three things. casey kelly is going to be a star pitcher in the future, westmoreland is the guy the sox need once cameron retires (that will be soon), and daniel bard is a great pitcher who has the potential to take over the closer job if papelbon leaves boston. i love what the sox have done, dont let them ruin it for 2 years of a player that would cost them 20 million a year!
Josh Bard? I think you mean Daniel Bard… How much of a fan could you be if you confuse a past backup catcher with a stud who throws in the triple digits? Rethink this article before ranking on Theo.