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6/27-6/30 Red Sox vs. Blue Jays Series Thread
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Post by awall on Jul 1, 2013 18:23:51 GMT -5
What would you rather have, Jacoby Ellsbury at $18m a year, or Jackie Bradley plus $17.5m dollars to make up the difference between Bradley and Ellsbury elsewhere? The decision to (not) re-sign Ellsbury has a lot more to do with the MLB pay scale than it does the actual players involved. Exactly this. The drop off to JBJ will be more than made up by being able to use that money elsewhere.
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Post by fenwaythehardway on Jul 1, 2013 18:32:05 GMT -5
That's even assuming Bradley isn't a better player than Ellsbury for the next five years or so, which isn't by any means certain.
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danr
Veteran
Posts: 1,871
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Post by danr on Jul 2, 2013 1:57:33 GMT -5
Basically, I am saying two things, plus one more.
First, Bradley isn't proven yet. That doesn't mean he won't prove himself, maybe this year. But until he does, we should not count on him. That doesn't mean we will not be able to count on him. There is a difference.
Second, Ellsbury is more valuable to the Sox than to many other teams because the Sox do not have good options in the minors outside of Bradley.
And, the Sox have plenty of money to spend, and so this isn't a zero sum game. They don't have to save money from what they might have to pay Ellsbury to also address some other needs. They can afford to sign Ellsbury for a very substantial sum, and still go after another expensive player or two, if they choose to.
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Post by bluechip on Jul 2, 2013 6:51:21 GMT -5
Second, Ellsbury is more valuable to the Sox than to many other teams because the Sox do not have good options in the minors outside of Bradley. How many teams have multiple high level minors center fielders? Some teams have center fielders on the MLB, but so do the Red Sox in the form of the very good defender Victorino. How many teams have a gold glove center fielder in right field and a nearly ready, future gold glover in triple a? I am not sure why you think the Red Sox have less depth than many teams. If anything, they have more depth at centerfield than most teams.
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Post by gatortough on Jul 2, 2013 8:41:07 GMT -5
Ellsbury has great range in center, and can play center for the foreseeable future. Bradley's a better center fielder. The biggest difference I see between the two of them, and the damning case for Ellsbury, is that he essentially has a we noodle attached to his shoulder and Bradley has a cannon attached to his. Moving him over to left makes a good deal of sense for two reasons besides his arm playing better there. One, while his range in left will be left muted by the wall, it will be of use in other parks, like Yankee stadium. Two, I don't see great internal or readily available external options that wouldn't also cost a lot to slot in instead.
I think the argument that we shouldn't sign Ells because we have Bradley is flawed, since Bradley is clearly the better center fielder. There are however, reasons to not want to pay Ellsbury to play left. Carl Crawford in left has parallels. We all know how that worked out, but for different reasons than hopefully it would with Ellsbury.
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Post by Oregon Norm on Jul 2, 2013 11:51:34 GMT -5
... First, Bradley isn't proven yet. That doesn't mean he won't prove himself, maybe this year. But until he does, we should not count on him. That doesn't mean we will not be able to count on him. There is a difference... To me, this is the chicken and egg question for minor leaguers. The team can't count on him till he proves himself, but he can't prove himself if the team doesn't count on him, that is to say play him on a regular basis. Just put him out there and let him play. Ignore the incessant noise from the media freaks. For every commentator who's got serious questions, there are ten who either want to be seen as having influenced the FO decision process, thus making points with their audience, or who want to churn the waters, again for the sake of more eyeballs. Pretend this is Oakland: stick the player out there and forget about him. He'll find his level at some point. The statistical variation in baseball is significant. How many guys who hit .400 for the first month and a half pan out that way over an entire season (yo, Ted, where are you)? Look no further than Ellsbury's number for the May and June to see how this works: .254/.338/.331 vs. .360/.414/.480, so it's good to be careful with the comments about this player having permanently tanked, or on the other end of the pantheon, that player having risen to super-stardom. It just don't happen that way. Given enough time the true talent will out. But you need more than 100 PAs to find out what that might look like. Second, Ellsbury is more valuable to the Sox than to many other teams because the Sox do not have good options in the minors outside of Bradley... Scott Boras will play a significant role in deciding just how valuable teams perceive Ellsbury to be. Given his track record, I'd lay a lot of money down that the value, in dollars, will be a bit more than you seem to think it will. As others have mentioned, the Sox are not devoid of options what with Victorino around for a few more years. They're perfectly positioned to make a reasonable offer to Ellsbury, and then to walk away if the bidding gets bug-eyed.
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Post by fenwaythehardway on Jul 2, 2013 16:14:24 GMT -5
Basically, I am saying two things, plus one more. First, Bradley isn't proven yet. That doesn't mean he won't prove himself, maybe this year. But until he does, we should not count on him. That doesn't mean we will not be able to count on him. There is a difference.
Second, Ellsbury is more valuable to the Sox than to many other teams because the Sox do not have good options in the minors outside of Bradley. And, the Sox have plenty of money to spend, and so this isn't a zero sum game. They don't have to save money from what they might have to pay Ellsbury to also address some other needs. They can afford to sign Ellsbury for a very substantial sum, and still go after another expensive player or two, if they choose to. You're ignoring the other side of that coin, though: yes, we can project Ellsbury's 2014 more confidently than Bradley's 2014. But that's not the question when we're talking about a 4-6 year deal. Projecting minor leagues isn't an exact science, but projecting major leaguers half a decade out is arguably even worse. And as far as the money goes, you can't just hand-waive it away by saying the Red Sox have a lot to spend. I mean, didn't the team just go through this? A bad $100m dollar contract here, a bad $100m contract there, and pretty soon you're talking about real money.
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