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Jacoby Ellsbury nearing 7 yr/$153mm deal w/MFY
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Post by FenwayFanatic on Dec 3, 2013 22:11:33 GMT -5
This move will be great for the Yankees for I'd say about 4 or 5 years. I don't think Ellsbury is going to turn to Carl Crawford. His speed is still top-notch, doubt he'll need to move out of CF for quite awhile and he will hit some HRs with that short RF. It strengthens the Yankees and weakens the Red Sox. You knew the Yanks would respond to the Sox winning the Series and to their own fielding a AAA team a lot of the season. They got the best catcher available, the best OF available, will retain Cano, and will eventually get the best starter available - Tanaka once everything gets ironed out. That said, I think the Sox would have been nuts to have gone 7 years plus an option on Ellsbury. I'd have offered 5 years $110 million with an option, but that's as far as I would have gone and I know that wouldn't have sealed the deal, so I don't have regrets about the Sox losing Ellsbury as much as I hate who they lost him too and although in time I do believe Bradley will be a highly effective player, he won't quite have the skill set Ellsbury had. Ellsbury, like Damon, wasn't Rickey Henderson at the plate, but he could work the count, get on base, and totally wreak havoc once he was there. I'll miss what he brought to the Sox, and I'll always think of him highly, but I hate the thought of him in pinstripes. This feels like Johnny Damon again, but unlike Damon, Ellsbury has more years of effectiveness left and he won't need to immediately move out of CF the way Damon had to. The Yanks got a lot better today and in 2014 the Sox got worse losing Ellsbury in favor of Bradley. Makes me thankful for 2013 and hopeful for the future with Bradley as part of it. How do you expect the Yankees to sign Tanaka with the new likely bid posting rules? More likely he goes to a team like the Cubs.
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Post by orcoaster on Dec 3, 2013 22:22:45 GMT -5
All due respect to ericvan as I am not his sabermetric equal, but I don't see how JE bites at that appeal. A player hires SBoras for one thing and one thing only, and it's not rings. It's money. JE is not coming to Boston because it will be easier to win more championships or to donate more money. He will go wherever the biggest paycheck leads him. True, Jason Varitek hired Boras with instructions to get him the best possible deal to return to Boston, but I see not so much as a hint of that kind of loyalty on Ellsbury's part. It appears to me that he's "all in" if you know what I mean, regardless of how human brains may or may not work. The meme that all Boras clients go to the highest bidder has been exploded over and over again in this thread. With Boras as his agent, Ellsbury could end up re-signing here on a contract that's $20M higher than it would have been had he had someone not as good representing him. You sign on with Boras because he promises to get you the best possible contract. But a player determines what that means, and the notion that it's ever only money, for any human being, is patently absurd. Maybe you don't have any friends who are highly skilled, and work in fields where the paychecks are warm and toasty, or maybe, if you do, you've never followed along with them on a job search. One of my best friends is an MIT grad who makes 6 figures as a user interface expert, and she just settled on a new employer. The main things she talked about during the job search were things like corporate culture, ease of commute, and the specific job they wanted her to do, in terms of challenge and interest versus pressure and potential frustration: she didn't want to go into a broken situation without knowing that the corporate culture would allow her to fix it. Money got mentioned, but it was generally the last thing, because if you've been making 6 figures for a while, it's not a big worry. I guess Ellsbury just really wanted to be a Yankee all along because obviously the money didn't matter.
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Post by Oregon Norm on Dec 3, 2013 22:23:30 GMT -5
I think this is a pretty reasonable deal for the Yankees. People keep comparing it to the Crawford deal and implying that it's worse but: a. The Crawford deal wasn't horrible (aside for him being a bad fit) until Crawford, who had no injury history, got hurt. b. The Crawford deal happened 3 years ago. Inflation, and the cost of a win, going up by 9% seems perfectly reasonable. c. The Yankees don't work on the '~6mil/win' FA criteria that everyone else is working on. If they get 1 win for every 7.6 mil they pay in Free Agency, they aren't crippling their team. And I'm willing to bet Ellsbury is worth about 20 WAR before that contract is over. Anyone disagree? Crawford is worth even less than when the Sox traded him at this point. Good point. It's nice to think good thoughts about a player. Better is to have some semi-objective measure of their worth. Using wins above replacement, Nava was worth more than Crawford in 2013. As much as I like both of them, even I don't think Nava's worth the $20 million that Crawford got - though it would be nice to see him get a hefty raise. Value is where you find it, and the Sox got it from an ex-farmhand. For NY, the Ellsbury contract is probably as much about getting some buzz going over the possible loss of Cano as it is about performance. They took a raft of crap from their hyper-relentless media last year and this will help. And those Yankee-Sox games this year just got more interesting.
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Dec 3, 2013 22:24:50 GMT -5
Can the countless posters who cited every other reason why Ellsbury would sign somewhere other than money please take note? I realize a lot of it was wishful thinking and I have no problem with the guy cashing in which was his right but he's been destined for the highest bidder all along. Unfortunately this is years of local sportswriters reminding us of this. Too bad for the Yanks he can't pitch... Right. Because he signed with the Yankees, who with all their problems will still be a perennial contender, for probably $30M more than what we were offering, that means he would have also signed with a perennial crap team like the Mariners for $10M more. The argument was always that Ellsbury would take the offer whose combination of everything made the most sense. Staying in Boston undoubtedly had financial value to him, but it couldn't possibly be worth $30M. And, again, for all, the distractions, that's a good team to play for. Girardi is universally respected, the franchise is legendary, the city is special. It always goes without saying, even amongst those of us arguing that these decisions are always about additional stuff besides the money, that if and when the Yankees decide they really want someone, they get him. They're the MFYs. They play in New York City.
And in fact, for those whose jaws are still on the floor at the size of this contract, you can imagine that it did take outbidding us by a huge margin to land him. So I think that the sheer size of the contract, perversely, may argue that it wasn't all about the money. But enough money trumps everything, if the rest of the stuff is close, and when its the MFYs, it's always going to be close, because they can go head-to-head with anyone on the quality-of-the-experience factors. This is going to look terrible for a few years, because I'm a firm believer in his power potential. In that park he could easily have an 8 WAR season again. Maybe more than one. But it doesn't address their biggest need, and in the long run, of course, it will severely limit what they can do, just as the ARod contract (combined with Jeter, etc.) ought to have made this much more difficult.
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Post by bluechip on Dec 3, 2013 22:26:51 GMT -5
This move will be great for the Yankees for I'd say about 4 or 5 years. Does it? I really like Ellsbury, but the ability to recover from injuries can almost be considered a skill. I'd say There is a chance he misses time with an injury during the next five years.
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Post by bluechip on Dec 3, 2013 22:36:00 GMT -5
Can the countless posters who cited every other reason why Ellsbury would sign somewhere other than money please take note? I realize a lot of it was wishful thinking and I have no problem with the guy cashing in which was his right but he's been destined for the highest bidder all along. Unfortunately this is years of local sportswriters reminding us of this. Too bad for the Yanks he can't pitch... Right. Because he signed with the Yankees, who with all their problems will still be a perennial contender, for probably $30M more than what we were offering, that means he would have also signed with a perennial crap team like the Mariners for $10M more. The argument was always that Ellsbury would take the offer whose combination of everything made the most sense. Staying in Boston undoubtedly had financial value to him, but it couldn't possibly be worth $30M. And, again, for all, the distractions, that's a good team to play for. Girardi is universally respected, the franchise is legendary, the city is special. It always goes without saying, even amongst those of us arguing that these decisions are always about additional stuff besides the money, that if and when the Yankees decide they really want someone, they get him. They're the MFYs. They play in New York City.
And in fact, for those whose jaws are still on the floor at the size of this contract, you can imagine that it did take outbidding us by a huge margin to land him. So I think that the sheer size of the contract, perversely, may argue that it wasn't all about the money. But enough money trumps everything, if the rest of the stuff is close, and when its the MFYs, it's always going to be close, because they can go head-to-head with anyone on the quality-of-the-experience factors. This is going to look terrible for a few years, because I'm a firm believer in his power potential. In that park he could easily have an 8 WAR season again. Maybe more than one. But it doesn't address their biggest need, and in the long run, of course, it will severely limit what they can do, just as the ARod contract (combined with Jeter, etc.) ought to have made this much more difficult. Just because the Yankees did outbid the Red Sox by a substantial margin doesn't mean it actually required such a massive bid to acquire him. The Yankees were clearly willing to pay a lot to acquire Ellsbury and Boras being a good negotiator was able to squeeze a lot of out of them. Ellsbury might have been willing to go to New York for one dollar more than boston offered, that he took so much more says more about Boras than it does Jacoby.
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Post by orcoaster on Dec 3, 2013 22:44:57 GMT -5
And I'm willing to bet Ellsbury is worth about 20 WAR before that contract is over. Anyone disagree? I do, he was worth around that in his 7 years here, it's not an incredibly safe bet to claim he'll post the same numbers in his decline years. I wouldn't be surprised at all to see Bradley out perform him over that time. Jacoby's ISO will get a bump from 81 games in his new home park, but JBJ will post a higher OBP and play much better defense. It's not a stretch to project JBJ to average 3 WAR over the next 7 years.
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Post by wcsoxfan on Dec 3, 2013 22:52:48 GMT -5
According to ESPN he's been worth 20.2 WARS in his first 7 years, but has only had two years 2011 and 2013 that with a WAR above 2.7. He had .6, 2.7, 2.5, -.2, 8.0, .8 and 5.8. I'm sure he'll have some good years, but he's also going to have at least 2-3 years that are only going to be ok. I have no problems with the Sox letting him go, smart move. I have a little more faith in Fangraphs which has him at 22.3 WAR over the past 6 years (taking 33 games from his debut and calling it a year really isn't fair). If he had remained healthy enough to play (assuming you subscribe to the 'freak' injury view), that number likely would have been around 30 for one less year The last 2-3 years may become a little rough. Still, a good move by the Yankees - who have the money to spend.
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Post by buffs4444 on Dec 3, 2013 23:52:46 GMT -5
Congrats Jacoby. Some good times watching you in Corvallis and Boston, you've been a winner everywhere you've gone, and you'll surely be one in NY.
Best of luck (except for every game against Boston) in the future. Go get'em kid....
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wcp3
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Post by wcp3 on Dec 4, 2013 0:10:25 GMT -5
I don't think it's a stretch to say the Yankees are one of the worst organizations in baseball.
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Post by thelavarnwayguy on Dec 4, 2013 0:30:33 GMT -5
Money can overcome a lot of personal flaws. Just look at Donald Trump.
The Yankee organization could be run by bozo the clown and still put a winner on the field with that sort of cash available.
This was also a message to Cano to a degree. He probably comes back in line for a $160-$170 mil deal now. Big difference. And he better move quickly. The Yanks have money burning a hole in their pocket.
I don't think Choo is in play for them any more now though, or Beltran. They need Cano and at least 1 and probably 2 top starters. Things are coalescing in NYC.
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Post by thelavarnwayguy on Dec 4, 2013 0:37:17 GMT -5
Boras is sipping an Ortiz sized bottle of champagne right now. Places Ellsbury in the most prestigious spot in baseball, lining him up for tons of anciliary endorsement deals and such on top of a tremendous contract and sticks it to Cano at the same time for dumping him as his agent.
He is a happy guy tonight.
And as with Jonny Damon, I don't blame Ellsbury for taking this deal. He's immediately a superstar with this deal, and the toast of the biggest city in the country. Boston had a chance to land him but chose not to. Ellsbury has never gotten the street cred he deserved in Boston. I wish him the very best.
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Post by ikonos on Dec 4, 2013 0:38:40 GMT -5
I hate MFY as much as the next Sox fan but you have to respect what they do even if part of it involves throwing the money around. Dont forget that the MFY was right there in the WC hunt almost till the end even with all the problems they had last year. I think it will be interesting to see if MFY will ink Cano now and if they do, how they will plug the rotation. If they also ink Cano then I think they will go full court press for Tanaka. I would love to see Sox plugging in farmhands and reap the rewards while the MFY goes FA to FA and miss playoffs for the next 10 years. Oh my wishes.
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Post by fenwaythehardway on Dec 4, 2013 0:39:51 GMT -5
I don't think it's a stretch to say the Yankees are one of the worst organizations in baseball. Define "worst".
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ericmvan
Veteran
Supposed to be working on something more important
Posts: 8,924
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Post by ericmvan on Dec 4, 2013 3:06:33 GMT -5
I think the key thing to understand here is that deal made sense for the Yankees, but would make no sense for us to approach, let alone match.
1) He's ideally suited for their ballpark, and an ill fit for ours.
2) Because of their so-so farm system and aging roster, they project to be on the cusp on getting into the post-season for the duration of this contract. Our situation is rosier. The wins that get you from an also-ran into the post-season are far more valuable than any extra wins you accrue once you're there. They are looking for a lot of the former, while we are reasonably looking at at least a bit more of the latter.
It's been shown that those sorts of wins can be worth quite a bit more than $5M each. At $7M per win, which is a figure I've seen mentioned, they need 22 WAR over seven years, from a player coming off a 5.8 WAR season who can reasonably be expected to add value from power, both because of the park and because he's a year removed from a shoulder injury.
I think they stand a very good chance of being ahead on this deal after four years, which means he doesn't have to be worth anything during the years when he'll be worth not much. They are of course gambling on getting 140 games for him each year, which is to say avoiding major injury. I have no strong opinion on whether he's truly injury prone ("I'm a sabermetrician, dammit, not a doctor!").
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Post by bighead on Dec 4, 2013 7:20:07 GMT -5
Right. Because he signed with the Yankees, who with all their problems will still be a perennial contender, for probably $30M more than what we were offering, that means he would have also signed with a perennial crap team like the Mariners for $10M more. The argument was always that Ellsbury would take the offer whose combination of everything made the most sense. Staying in Boston undoubtedly had financial value to him, but it couldn't possibly be worth $30M. And, again, for all, the distractions, that's a good team to play for. Girardi is universally respected, the franchise is legendary, the city is special. It always goes without saying, even amongst those of us arguing that these decisions are always about additional stuff besides the money, that if and when the Yankees decide they really want someone, they get him. They're the MFYs. They play in New York City.
And in fact, for those whose jaws are still on the floor at the size of this contract, you can imagine that it did take outbidding us by a huge margin to land him. So I think that the sheer size of the contract, perversely, may argue that it wasn't all about the money. But enough money trumps everything, if the rest of the stuff is close, and when its the MFYs, it's always going to be close, because they can go head-to-head with anyone on the quality-of-the-experience factors. This is going to look terrible for a few years, because I'm a firm believer in his power potential. In that park he could easily have an 8 WAR season again. Maybe more than one. But it doesn't address their biggest need, and in the long run, of course, it will severely limit what they can do, just as the ARod contract (combined with Jeter, etc.) ought to have made this much more difficult. Just because the Yankees did outbid the Red Sox by a substantial margin doesn't mean it actually required such a massive bid to acquire him. The Yankees were clearly willing to pay a lot to acquire Ellsbury and Boras being a good negotiator was able to squeeze a lot of out of them. Ellsbury might have been willing to go to New York for one dollar more than boston offered, that he took so much more says more about Boras than it does Jacoby. As far as I'm concerned if a hapless team like the Mets offered him more but not significantly more than the Sox in terms of years and AAV instead of the Yanks offering significantly more the only thing that would change is Boras would shop the offer around baseball. The reason this drama didn't play out is because the Yanks crushed the field with their offer and that was by design. I am convinced that he'd walk for the bigger deal no matter who the offer though. He went to the highest bidder and there is nothing wrong with that. Unfortunately fans, myself included, become attached to players to more of a degree (for the most part) than players become attached to teams and cities. They have to look out for themselves and their families well being and more often than not it comes down to dollars.
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Post by PedroKsBambino on Dec 4, 2013 7:36:11 GMT -5
My concern is that the Red Sox won't strike and sign someone to help replace the offense lost. I doubt they end up as the top bidder for Choo bc this isn't their MO. The last time they made a splash in the free agent market it burned them with Crawford.
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steveofbradenton
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Watching Spring Training, the FCL, and the Florida State League
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Post by steveofbradenton on Dec 4, 2013 7:40:07 GMT -5
Sorry to see you go, but it's time............to change that photo!! Glad we didn't do anything stupid like that even though he was my favorite player. As stated earlier, excited about the Jackie Bradley JR era starting.
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steveofbradenton
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Watching Spring Training, the FCL, and the Florida State League
Posts: 1,823
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Post by steveofbradenton on Dec 4, 2013 7:50:03 GMT -5
Here is my new photo/avatar.
Hate that Ells went to the Yanks, but we will be a better team for it in the future.
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Post by gregblossersbelly on Dec 4, 2013 8:34:10 GMT -5
Red Sox sign Cano and move Pedroia to SS... wishful thinking? I think that would really shore up the offense and the Sox could move Pedroia back to 2B and Cano to 1B/DH once Ortiz retires though. Not going to happen - I don't see Pedey ever moving off second at this point. If anything, you'd probably look to put Cano at 3B. Just put Cano at 1b. He doesn't miss any games at 2b. Hard to believe he'd get hurt playing 1st.We have Xander and WMB for the other side of the infield for a long time. And, if WMB fizzes out, Cecchini is waiting in the wings. We won't do it. But, Cano in Fenway would have some monster seasons.
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Post by Guidas on Dec 4, 2013 8:52:36 GMT -5
The Yankees presumably strongly suspect that Rodriguez's suspension will be upheld at least for most of 2014 (Rodriguez's camp did storm out of arbitration last week). Oh, I'm sure they got a call from Bud Selig in the last week saying, 'Don't worry. It's all been arranged. Spend away, guys."
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Post by FenwayFanatic on Dec 4, 2013 9:17:10 GMT -5
I wouldn't mind Canó at 170, we should match the Yanks offer and drive up their price at least. He would put up monster numbers at Fenway and can multiple positions presumably. Plus he's Dominican = )
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Post by raftsox on Dec 4, 2013 9:52:35 GMT -5
I wouldn't be surprised at all to see Bradley out perform him over that time. Jacoby's ISO will get a bump from 81 games in his new home park, but JBJ will post a higher OBP and play much better defense. It's not a stretch to project JBJ to average 3 WAR over the next 7 years. I wouldn't be surprised to see Jacoby put up 25 WAR in the first 4 years of that deal. You just can't look at his WAR history and say "he's only up up X and 2 of those years were good". In 2008 he put up 4.1 WAR, largely based on great defensive value. In 2009 he put up 2.1 WAR largely based on poor defensive value. (Note: I think defensive metrics are incorrectly valuing or incorrectly assigning value) In 2010 he was hurt. In 2011 he was a stud. In 2012 he was hurt. In 2013 he was way above average. It's not even a slight stretch to assume he's a 6 WAR player with 2 more seasons of increasing value without considering the bump in power he'll see playing in Yankee Stadium. I think he's a 7-8 WAR player the next 2 seasons (barring injury). Assuming normal decreases per season after that and you'll have 7.5, 7.5, 6.5, 6. I'm not sure exactly how the aging curve goes, but around his age 35 season you could probably assume some heavier losses in production. So, if we take the ~$6.5M/WAR that fangraphs assumes we'll get $179M of value over the first 4 seasons.
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Post by p23w on Dec 4, 2013 9:53:57 GMT -5
I think the key thing to understand here is that deal made sense for the Yankees, but would make no sense for us to approach, let alone match. 1) He's ideally suited for their ballpark, and an ill fit for ours. 2) Because of their so-so farm system and aging roster, they project to be on the cusp on getting into the post-season for the duration of this contract. Our situation is rosier. The wins that get you from an also-ran into the post-season are far more valuable than any extra wins you accrue once you're there. They are looking for a lot of the former, while we are reasonably looking at at least a bit more of the latter. It's been shown that those sorts of wins can be worth quite a bit more than $5M each. At $7M per win, which is a figure I've seen mentioned, they need 22 WAR over seven years, from a player coming off a 5.8 WAR season who can reasonably be expected to add value from power, both because of the park and because he's a year removed from a shoulder injury. I think they stand a very good chance of being ahead on this deal after four years, which means he doesn't have to be worth anything during the years when he'll be worth not much. They are of course gambling on getting 140 games for him each year, which is to say avoiding major injury. I have no strong opinion on whether he's truly injury prone ("I'm a sabermetrician, dammit, not a doctor!"). Pretty much sums it up. Although, now, a side of my wouldn't mind if there was a pop fly ball to shallow RCF at YS and a Ellsbury and Cano met up close and personal.
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Post by JackieWilsonsaid on Dec 4, 2013 9:57:33 GMT -5
Here's hoping the yanks next acquire Beltre!
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