Red Sox 2011

[Roy H.]

What a weird team.

Combined record, April 1 -> 15, September 1 -> 28:  9 wins, 30 losses, .231 winning percentage (Winning percentage, if extrapolated over a full season, would be the worst in MLB since 1899, and the third worst ever)

Combined record, April 16 - August 30: 81-42 (.658 winning percentage, on pace for 107 wins if extrapolated over a full season)

[nickagneta]

Players coming off the payroll for the Red Sox:

David Ortiz: $12.5 million
J. D. Drew: $14 million
Jonathan Papelbon: $12 million
Mike Cameron: $7.75 million
Tim Wakefield: $2 million
Jason Varitek: $2 million
Eric Bedard: $1 million
Conor Jackson: $3.2 million
Dan Wheeler: $3 million(contract conditional)

Players with options:

Marco Scutaro $6.0 million club option or $3million player option

Players that are arbitration eligible and current contract number:

Jacoby Ellsbury $2.4 million 2nd time in arbitration
Jed Lowrie $ 450K 1st time in arbitration
Jarrod Saltalamacchia $750K 2nd time in arbitration
Matt Albers $860K 2nd time in arbitration
Alfredo Aceves $650K 1st time in arbitration
Rich Hill $700K 2nd time in arbitration
Franklin Morales $450K 1st time in arbitration
Andrew Miller $1.9 million 1st time in arbitration
Mike Aviles $640K 1st time in arbitration
Joey Gathright minimum 1st time in arbitration

So I personally think its safe to assume all the free agents except Ortiz and Papelbon will be let go and even those guys will test the market and are no guarantee to come back, but probably will. That's going to save almost $33 million.

Gotta think Scutaro has earned the option and the team will pick it up.

Of the arbitration eligible guys Ellsbury is going to be the only one being retained at a significant increase. Aceves and Salty will get good raises too but nothing wild. I don't think they keep both Lowrie and Aviles as I think Iglesias will see time on the club next year. Hill and gathright are probably gone and the rest will have to make the team in spring training and will receive very modest increases if any.

Still, with the increases in some contracts and the increases people in arbitration will get I have to think the Sox will have about $25 million to play with under what they spent this year(that is if they retain Papi and Paps at around $25 million or so combined)

Their needs though will be starting pitching, another catcher, relief help and an everyday right fielder.

[PosImpos]

And to top it all off, Wakefield has announced he definitely wants to return, and even made a comment that the fans deserve to see him chase the record for most wins by a Sox pitcher.

So now we deserve to see him go 7-19 with a 5.75 ERA next year, but hey he got the Red Sox all time wins record!  Woo hoo!!!  I'm sorry, but he's been atrocious for the past 3 months, and should not get a pass just because he's Tim Wakefield.

If Theo has any sense, he'll sit Wake down and tell him that he's not in the team plans for 2012, and that they would completely understand if he wishes to try to continue his career elsewhere.

But to be fair, he should not have started more than 5-10 games tops this past year.  He came in as the 6 or 7th starter.  Generally you expect guys like that to start a handful of games at most.  You can't count on losing your #5 starter for the season, your number 3 starter for 3/4 of the season, and a couple other guys for a handful of starts as well.

I have no problem with Wake coming back as an insurance policy again, because frankly, you just don't find quality starters willing to sign on for a gig like that.

At this point, Wake is guaranteed 4-5 runs through 5 or 6 innings.  Is he really a quality starter?

Not really.  His ERA was 5.12 this year.  Which means he averaged about 3 runs every 6 innings I believe.

People are remembering his struggles to try to get that win, but are forgetting that he was very solid before that.  

Wake has always been incredibly streaky, and if he is not overused, then he can still be very useful.  Not to mention, if the bullpen didn't keep screwing him.

I also think you are misjudging how few decent starters there are in baseball.

He was okay toward the start of the year, but decidedly awful toward the end.  Given his age, I think that speaks to the fact that you can't expect Wakefield to start games on a regular basis anymore.  I'm fine with him as an arm in the bullpen and a spot starter when injuries crop up, but I don't want him as the 5th or 6th starter in the rotation.


Despite the Red Sox scoring a lot of runs this year, the MLB has become in large part a pitcher's league.  Batting averages, runs scored, ERAs etc are all down across the board.  There might not be a ton of aces out there, but most of the good teams in the league have 4 guys who they can count on to pitch a good game on a regular basis. 

That's more than can be said of the Red Sox for the majority of the 2011 season -- even when things were going well, they could count on Beckett, Lester, and Buchholz.  The other guys in the rotation were essentially a coin flip and a shrug.

[PosImpos]

Players coming off the payroll for the Red Sox:

David Ortiz: $12.5 million
J. D. Drew: $14 million
Jonathan Papelbon: $12 million
Mike Cameron: $7.75 million
Tim Wakefield: $2 million
Jason Varitek: $2 million
Eric Bedard: $1 million
Conor Jackson: $3.2 million
Dan Wheeler: $3 million(contract conditional)

Players with options:

Marco Scutaro $6.0 million club option or $3million player option

Players that are arbitration eligible and current contract number:

Jacoby Ellsbury $2.4 million 2nd time in arbitration
Jed Lowrie $ 450K 1st time in arbitration
Jarrod Saltalamacchia $750K 2nd time in arbitration
Matt Albers $860K 2nd time in arbitration
Alfredo Aceves $650K 1st time in arbitration
Rich Hill $700K 2nd time in arbitration
Franklin Morales $450K 1st time in arbitration
Andrew Miller $1.9 million 1st time in arbitration
Mike Aviles $640K 1st time in arbitration
Joey Gathright minimum 1st time in arbitration

So I personally think its safe to assume all the free agents except Ortiz and Papelbon will be let go and even those guys will test the market and are no guarantee to come back, but probably will. That's going to save almost $33 million.

Gotta think Scutaro has earned the option and the team will pick it up.

Of the arbitration eligible guys Ellsbury is going to be the only one being retained at a significant increase. Aceves and Salty will get good raises too but nothing wild. I don't think they keep both Lowrie and Aviles as I think Iglesias will see time on the club next year. Hill and gathright are probably gone and the rest will have to make the team in spring training and will receive very modest increases if any.

Still, with the increases in some contracts and the increases people in arbitration will get I have to think the Sox will have about $25 million to play with under what they spent this year(that is if they retain Papi and Paps at around $25 million or so combined)

Their needs though will be starting pitching, another catcher, relief help and an everyday right fielder.

I agree with most of this.  I suppose it's too soon to consider Lavarnway as an every-other-day option for backup catcher.

I'm torn on whether it's worth it to bring back David Ortiz.  I'm hoping Papelbon wants to come back.  We can't rely on Bard as our closer.

The team should definitely prioritize getting a top 3 starter over replacing J.D. Drew.  We can live with what Josh Reddick gave us.  We should have enough bats.  The pitching is priority #1.

[Finkelskyhook]

Lavarnway looked like a stiffer Jose Canseco swinging the bat in Kansas City.  Looks too mechanical and slow for pitchers not to figure him out in a hurry.

[Donoghus]

Wouldn't mind seeing the Sox keep the Boy Wonder a little more in check.

I, at least, hope this has given him a bit of a wake up call.

[PosImpos]

Wouldn't mind seeing the Sox keep the Boy Wonder a little more in check.

I, at least, hope this has given him a bit of a wake up call.

Yeah.  You can't just spend for the sake of spending.  I like that the Red Sox are willing to spend -- if you have so much more money than the majority of MLB teams, you should use it to your advantage -- but that money needs to be spent wisely.

[thirstyboots18]

Wouldn't mind seeing the Sox keep the Boy Wonder a little more in check.

I, at least, hope this has given him a bit of a wake up call.

 

Yeah.  You can't just spend for the sake of spending.  I like that the Red Sox are willing to spend -- if you have so much more money than the majority of MLB teams, you should use it to your advantage -- but that money needs to be spent wisely.

Agree. In real life.  In sports.  In government.

Spending money does not guarantee success.  Look at the Sox payroll compared to the Rays.

[PosImpos]

Wouldn't mind seeing the Sox keep the Boy Wonder a little more in check.

I, at least, hope this has given him a bit of a wake up call.

 

Yeah.  You can't just spend for the sake of spending.  I like that the Red Sox are willing to spend -- if you have so much more money than the majority of MLB teams, you should use it to your advantage -- but that money needs to be spent wisely.

Agree. In real life.  In sports.  In government.

Spending money does not guarantee success.  Look at the Sox payroll compared to the Rays.

Or the fact that the Yankees didn't win a World Series for 10 years despite spending billions of dollars over that span.

I don't think there's any question that the Sox totally underachieved this year, though.  The roster that Theo put together should have at least made the playoffs and had a very good shot at winning a series or two. 

Although the Crawford signing has been a bust, I think the main thing that killed us this year was the ongoing backlash of bad decisions from years past -- specifically Lackey and Daisuke and the dearth of quality replacements for them. 

If the Sox had one more pitcher on the same level as Beckett / Lester, they would have made the playoffs pretty comfortably, in my opinion, even with Buchholz's injury. 

[kozlodoev]

If the Sox had one more pitcher on the same level as Beckett / Lester, they would have made the playoffs pretty comfortably, in my opinion, even with Buchholz's injury. 

Towards the end of the season, both Wakefield and Lackey were of Becket / Lester's level -- that would be, "bloody awful".

[Redz]

If the Sox had one more pitcher on the same level as Beckett / Lester, they would have made the playoffs pretty comfortably, in my opinion, even with Buchholz's injury. 

Towards the end of the season, both Wakefield and Lackey were of Becket / Lester's level -- that would be, "bloody awful".

Exactly.  The expectations were that the Sox ostensibly had two #1's.  Neither of them filled that role, or anywhere near it, in the last month.  The beauty of a true stopper is that you'll never have the kind of prolonged stretch of losing that the Sox had.

[PosImpos]

If the Sox had one more pitcher on the same level as Beckett / Lester, they would have made the playoffs pretty comfortably, in my opinion, even with Buchholz's injury. 

Towards the end of the season, both Wakefield and Lackey were of Becket / Lester's level -- that would be, "bloody awful".

True, but I think it's safe to say Beckett and Lester will be better in the future.  If we had another pitcher of or near their caliber, though, who hadn't gone into a huge funk to end the season, the team probably would have pulled out another couple wins. 

[Jon]

The truly devastating part of it has been the past month.  Last night, while I was disappointed, I preferred that to prolonging the agony of a 1 game playoff or a potential ALDS sweep. 

The good news is that they have Dice-K, Drew, Papi, Varitek, and Scutaro coming off the books.  They should be able to revamp a bit. 

The only shame is that they're stuck with Lackey for a few more years.  However, if he can get his personal life straightened out, I think he can still be an effective 3-4 pitcher; however, that's a far cry from what he should be.