2013 Offseason Red Sox thread

So how much do the Sox really have to spend? Currently, the Sox have about 125million committed to contracts (including the 3.9 million they have to send to the Dodgers ... when they send over the check, I wonder if they'll include a picture of the WS trophy with "thanks!!" written on it). The luxury tax will kick in at around $189 million, so the Sox have 64 million before signing their pre-arb and arbitration-eligible players. None of their arb guys will be expensive, but it adds up. Are we talking around 15 million to lock up the pre-FA guys they need to? It's about 500K for the pre-arb guys, plus some money for Andrew Miller, etc. Am I overestimating how much they need to lock up those guys? Haven't dug in on it ...

Assuming Napoli accepts his QO, that leaves at least 45-50 million to fill the bullpen, sign a center fielder and catcher. That's kind of a lot of scratch to play with. And the Sox only have Pedroia, Victorino, and Buchholz signed for 2015 (with a cheap option on Lackey), although they have essentially no rotation as of now.

Man, the Sox really are in pretty good shape financially. Seems like extending Lester would be a good idea, though, although you'd be buying high a little bit.

edit to add: "No rotation" is a wild overstatement, now that I think of it. They have Buchholz, Doubront, and Lackey under team control for 2015. Extending Lester would only leave one rotation slot open and a slew of young pitching coming on line. I had a vague notion that this team was lined up well, but really digging in on it brought that home even more strongly.

Looking at the payroll obligations for next few years is it really out of the question for us to grab Choo (4 years 18 per), McCann (4 years 15 per) and Hart (2 years 10 per)? All three fit the mold the red sox are looking for. Personally I think the sox are going try and get away from having so much swing and miss in the line up. Dropping two guys (Salty and Nap) with 25%+ K rates would help the team substantially in that department. While also getting rid of players that are due for a decline in performance(Salty, Nap). This would take some other roster moves, like trading either Dempster and/or Peavy. This would make the team, on paper, better than the previous year. While also making the 4 young pitchers in AAA hungry for the last rotation spot. Personally I think the Sox are going to be a lot more aggressive than people think. Maybe I am just dreaming.

Sure, they could ... they have numerous times in the past. But they generally try to be around the luxury tax and not exceed it by much when they do. And dip under it regularly to keep their rate from getting too high (it rises for each year above the threshold)

I think brian said it well, but I'd also agree with totheheights: especially given the way the payroll looks in 2015 (with very reasonable contracts for Pedroia, Buchholz, Victorino, and Lackey along with a number of arbitration or league minimum players) I don't think they'd hesitate to go over the luxury tax limit for 2014.

Again, I don't see any empirical evidence to suggest he would suddenly become an even average defender if moved to Fenway's RF. This isn't about his tools but rather his instincts.

I think it's a bit premature to write off Bradley Jr after 100 rushed PAs. He's performed well at each level and deserves an opportunity to show he can hit while he's out there saving runs roaming CF.

Ideally, I would like to resign Drew to a multi-year deal and plug in Xander at 3B. If that can't happen and Xander takes over SS, then I'd rather they target a Chase Headley type before pursuing expensive OF FAs who will cost a pick.

One could make a strong case that it doesn't make a lot of sense to do an overpay at catcher considering the options. Rarely does it make sense to spend even QO type money on a catcher. I'd rather spend our moolah on a starting pitcher upgrade with Ervin Santana, Tanaka or Kuroda and make one of existing SP a trade option. And look at Choo or retaining Ellsbury. I'd go cheap at catcher. It won't be long before we have some talented options emerging and we can have acceptable results from a Kurt Suzuki on a one year deal assuming they don't give Lavarnway a shot ( which looks to be the case ). Suzuki's numbers probably go up significantly after leaving Oakland and he's decent defensively. We can get our offense from other options.

We have the cash to acquire Napoli or Morales at 1st but may well go with a Loney since he has no QO. What if Napoli declines the QO? I wouldn't be a bit surprised if they beeline it for Loney or another guy with no QO attached. They probably want that pick for Napoli rather than a multiyear deal with Napoli IMO.

They can live with Drew if he accepts the QO but probably would prefer the pick. If he accepts it they probably look at potentially trading Middlebrooks.

My post is going to get very boring very quickly


1. We don't need to positionally adjust or add in a replacement level baseline. I don't know much, but I know that the Red Sox in 2014 will have a CFer. So, we really are just looking at batting, base running, and defense. Have it be above whatever baseline you like, though I prefer average when comparing specific players. Doesn't really matter at that point, though, as X+2=Y+2 can just be rewritten as X=Y. So, when we start by saying Ellsbury is a +5.5 win player, it is only helpful in the context (during this conversation) of his expected replacement. So, just look at the three components of value without adjusting for position/replacement/etc. That gets us to a much more reasonable conversation, imho.

2. When you look at defense and base running, you agree that we should regress. However, we shouldn't regress his 2013 numbers against his career UZR/baserunning numbers; we regress against the sample mean. So, either he is a +12 player in 2013 regressed heavily towards zero (likely a +4 or so player) or he is a +8 career UZR player in CF in a about 3.5-3. years of data regressed to +6 or so. Do the same for base running and we get to something similar. So he gets about a win out of base running and defense. Maybe you can stretch it a few more runs. The question is how much better or worse that is than what we expect out of Bradley -- I'd give Ellsbury a 0.5 win advantage, as I think Bradley will be a similar defensive player with positive - but lesser - baserunning. This level of precision is the closest we can get to, I think; we cannot -- and should not - speak with such false precision. My kid doesn't have a fever b/c the thermometer reads "99" instead of "98.6" as there are problems both with the 99 and the 98.6 that false precision.

3. Ellsbury had a 355/426 line in 2013. It is undisputed that replacing 355/426 with 340/400 makes the team worse Probably about 10 runs worse. I think a 340/400 line is not unreasonable for Bradley. So, maybe the difference b/w Ellsbury and Bradley is a win and a half.

All that gets me to a similar place - there is a definite expected downgrade b/w Ellsbury and Bradley. But, I think in a little more reasonably toned manner, and it focuses the downgrade on the more reasonable expected 1.5 win range, which is fixable.

Having read your (insightful) posts for years now, I know you get all this, though you may believe I overstate it. However, I think it worth doing so.

This harkens back to someone's argument years ago about Daniel Nava strike out rate in his first 100 PAs, or whatever. The argument was that a SO rate "stabilizes" quickly such that after 100 PAs (really, 60, iirc) you can see it -- and cited to old BPro studies. But, that really misunderstood the math to speak with much greater precision than it attempted to do. All that we can say after 60 or 100 PAs is that the SO rate is likely buried inside there, with a few standard deviations guiding our way, and an unstated assumption about distribution (that I believe is likely correct, fwiw).

I think JBJ will be fine, but I think there's a pretty good bet he may need a straight platoon partner until that part of his game develops.

I don't think Choo is a fit at all for what he brings at that cost. The sox already have a very similar player in Nava at a nice price.

I think they will work to bring back pretty close to the same team minus Ellsbury and probably Drew. The two positions with in-house replacements.

Here are some of the reasons I do not have complete faith in Jackie Bradley Jr. to be an adequate full-time center fielder in 2014. Note that this does not mean I think he's a bad prospect or that he won't have success in the major leagues. It means that I want the front office to add a veteran outfielder so there is a viable alternative on the roster in case he struggles.

1) He has a noticeable hole in his swing (hard stuff inside) that continues to linger and will be exploited by major league pitchers. His swing can get a little long, and he likes to get his arms extended, which means pitchers can pound him inside. He made some adjustments towards the end of the season, but that often led to his trying to key in on fastballs inside and instead getting fooled by breaking balls or hooking fastballs on the outer half. He made progress over the course of the year, but this is still a real concern and one I don't think will be fixed by Opening Day. Here's a look at his zone profile in 2013-- as you can see, he really struggled against pitches on the inner half:



2) His strikeout rate in general has risen sharply as he's moved up the minor league ladder. It went from 13.2% in Salem to 18.1% in Portland to 20.1% in Pawtucket to 29% in the majors. With those strikeout rates, Bradley doesn't project to be a contact hitter in the Ellsbury (career 12.8%) or Pedroia (career 8.9%) mold. In his brief time in the major leagues, he posted well below-average contact (73.8%; 79.4% league-average) and swinging-strike (11.2%; 9.3% league-average) rates, in large part due to his struggles with inside pitches discussed above. He probably will improve on his to-date MLB marks in 2014, but I still think he's more likely to hit .250 than .270.

3) He could use a platoon partner. In Pawtucket in 2013, he hit .267/.383/.386/.769 versus lefties and .279/.369/.507/.876 versus righties. He still walked a lot versus lefties, but all his power was off righties. In MLB, he hit .080/.207/.120/.327 versus lefties (albeit in only 29 PAs) and .229/.308/.414/.722 versus righties (78 PAs). Signing a guy like a Chris Young or Franklin Gutierrez to play versus tough lefties is a good idea. (Caveat: he needs to face lefties if he's to improve against them in the long-term. But to maximize his performance next year, a platoon is a good idea.)

4) Expectations are too high (maybe only on this forum). I mentioned this in a previous post, so I won't repeat myself too much. But rare is it the player who can repeat or improve his AAA line in the major leagues, yet I've seen multiple posters think that a .270/.350/.450 line is a reasonable projection for Bradley, or that he should be penciled in as the lead-off man. Maybe he hits at that level in his prime, but he almost certainly won't in 2014. I, for instance, would be thrilled to see him put up a .260/.340/.400 line. If you think he's going to replace Ellsbury's production, you're going to be disappointed, just as the Boston media was early in 2013 when Bradley didn't repeat his Spring Training stats.

EDIT: scooped by mr. thetaoist

double post....

I will add, Keith Law posted his top 50 free agents and seeing all the names along with the a write ups just re-enforces how bad a free agent crop this is.

Also, taking money out of it for a minute, are people really in the boat that Choo is not a vastly superior player to Daniel Nava?

Sometimes players hit better in the majors than they do in their last year in the minors but it is clearly rare. For example Iglesias. Sometimes injuries can be a factor, or park factors or just a guy having a bad year in AAA but your larger point is certainly valid. To me instead of a platoon partner though we should be looking for a fulltimer and make JBJ the 4th or 5th OF option. I think the whole "the guy has to play fulltime in order to improve" issue is a little over rated. He can get lots of development time with the mlb staff and enough PT to continue to improve even as a reserve OF.

Regarding Nava and Choo, I don't want to go into the Nava issues again but he is apparently not well regarded by someone in the FO or by Farrell so why not trade him? If he isn't good enough to start over Jonny Gomes in their opinion against RH pitching we should trade him. Why keep him if we chose not to play him against 8 RH pitchers in a row or whatever it was. Someone might give us good value on a guy who is largely cost controlled with his overall numbers. If they think he is a sell high candidate sell him. Which is what I expect this winter. He's probably traded.

There is nothing wrong with upgrading somewhere and trading the guy you replaced. We should do the same thing with one of our starting pitchers if the deals for Santana or Kuroda are reasonable at all. We should spend our money in the areas which maximizes the team's utility for gain and not look only for specific areas to fill holes. You can improve a team in various ways and the key is getting there efficiently. If we sign a great starting pitcher like Tanaka, Santana etc...then trade Dempster, Peavy or Doubront even if necessary if the return is worthy of the transaction.

wcp - there is a difference between having a viable backup and a platoon partner. platoon, means what it means. In this case it means having someone else play against LHP. That doesn't make JBjr the starter in general it makes him the starter vs RHP. To platoon a young player is not something you want to do unless you don't want that young player to ever be a full time regular. You're just ensuring he NEVER learns how to hit LHP.

I'm in full agreement that if he's your starter then you need to have a Chris Young type as a backup plan. This isn't a platoon though.

The point I was trying to make, is per the numbers, he doesn't have a big problem with LHP.