Post by jimed14 on Apr 15, 2014 8:43:31 GMT -5
Yeah, I would have payed McCann 5/$90m. I think if it was close, he would have signed with Boston over New York-- Ross basically said as much in an interview last week. Maybe the Yankees would have just blown that out of the water, but I doubt it-- they had enough needs that they couldn't afford to sink too much on one spot (see their walking away from Cano and Choo, unwillingness to spend on the bullpen/infield, etc).
I thought McCann was a great buy-low candidate who was fully healthy for the first time in years and just needed a little BABIP regression to become a true offensive juggernaut again (he was borderline elite in 2013 despite a slightly below-career-average BABIP, for instance, and his peripherals have remained pristine). McCann is also a better defensive catcher than you're giving him credit for-- remember, caught stealings constitute a small percentage of a catcher's defensive value, and McCann's pitch-framing and game-calling are very good to elite, and he's an average-to-plus pitch blocker. I also think he'll stick at catcher for at least the first three years of his current deal, and maybe longer if you really needed him to. He's thirty, but you see a fair number of catchers sticking behind the plate through their thirties these days. Yeah, the tail end of any deal is going to involve some dead money, but he's going to way outproduce his deal in the first few years, and for an All-Star-caliber player, five years and $18m a year is actually below-market (see: Ellsbury, Choo, Hamilton, Fielder, Reyes, etc).
I'm all about $/WAR, but at some point, the Red Sox are going to have to spend money somewhere. They've already assembled a roster with averagish players at most positions, and it's going to be tough to upgrade without spending market prices somewhere. Their approach so far gives them plenty of flexibility, but you still have to use that flexibility somewhere, and it seemed to me that McCann was as good a place to spend it as any. We'll see, I suppose.