Who Will the Red Sox Target for 08/09 FA? Who Will They Trade?

[MBz]

I would give tek 2 year 10 million dollar deal (his previous deal 4 year 40 million dollars so we can say that , that was 10 mill per year 6 for catching and 4 for hitting) but if we resign him he will be pretty much good for the catching and thats it.

he's not going to sign that, thats a no secruity contract thats a 3 million dollar pay cut per year. No way a boras client signs that (not that i disagree that 5 mill a year is a good number, its just not going to happen.)

also, i dont know about wake not resiging. he's on a year to year team option. if he wants to pitch, i can't see them turning it down, its only like 2.5 a year.

It'll suck if he doesn't sign it, because no one is going to give it to him.  He was flat out awful this year with the bat.  I like the 5 mil and I wouldn't go over that number.  Also, I may be one of few, but I have no issue trading Ellsbury and keeping Crisp if it's going to bring an elite player back.  Especially if it means getting a guy like Matt Cain who will be available.  I'd love to have Saltalamacchia, if they could pick him up, you could let him play against righties, as he hit around .311 against them this year and if you resign tek, you let tek hit against lefties, because surprisingly, he hit .284 against lefties this year.

[Chris]

I know they are in premium right now but 9 million for a guy who can't hit?? Mauer deserves 9 million and more not tek.

I would give tek 2 year 10 million dollar deal (his previous deal 4 year 40 million dollars so we can say that , that was 10 mill per year 6 for catching and 4 for hitting) but if we resign him he will be pretty much good for the catching and thats it.


I really think a guy like dusty brown could be good. He is young, hit 290 with 20 dingers last year season for triple a and is considered a strong defensive catcher. (at least groom him into a starting role)

First, Mauer is more of a $15-$20 million man in this market.  He is both an All-Star hitter and top level catcher...there simply aren't guys like that in the game anymore.

You could offer Tek $5 million a year for two years, but then he would probably walk (you are really underestimating how few good catchers there are out there).  If he walks, they better have a better backup plan for him than Dusty Brown.  One of the reason you keep Tek here is so you can have him here to teach the young guy(s) what he knows.  

As for Dusty in particular, he had a decent year (don't know where you got 20 HR from though...he only had 12), but he still is a little ways away from being a major league player.  I think it speaks volumes that he wasn't called up, but Kotteras was instead (he is the one who hit 22 HR this year).

[Redz]

I would give tek 2 year 10 million dollar deal (his previous deal 4 year 40 million dollars so we can say that , that was 10 mill per year 6 for catching and 4 for hitting) but if we resign him he will be pretty much good for the catching and thats it.

he's not going to sign that, thats a no secruity contract thats a 3 million dollar pay cut per year. No way a boras client signs that (not that i disagree that 5 mill a year is a good number, its just not going to happen.)

also, i dont know about wake not resiging. he's on a year to year team option. if he wants to pitch, i can't see them turning it down, its only like 2.5 a year.

It will be fun see the chicken salad Boras serves up from Varitek's chicken poop season.  Though Boras prefers to try to make lobster salad out of chicken poop, which is an even greater trick.

The tradeoff of "expert pitcher handler" vs "wet noodle bat" is getting to be a tougher sell.

[ma11l]

I'd love to see Manny's money used to go after Texiera.  He's be a great fit with this team and Fenway.  I know we hit Balfour hard in this series, but he'd look great in the back of our bullpen, he has good stuff.


I think it would be a tragedy if they traded Bay.  The guy is a baseball player.  He is good for the team on and off the field.  His numbers are solid and he showed well in the playoffs.

[yall hate]

I'd love to see Manny's money used to go after Texiera.  He's be a great fit with this team and Fenway.  I know we hit Balfour hard in this series, but he'd look great in the back of our bullpen, he has good stuff.

A great fit where?  thats the problem, he is a great player who wouldnt fit.

[crownsy]

I'd love to see Manny's money used to go after Texiera.  He's be a great fit with this team and Fenway.  I know we hit Balfour hard in this series, but he'd look great in the back of our bullpen, he has good stuff.


I think it would be a tragedy if they traded Bay.  The guy is a baseball player.  He is good for the team on and off the field.  His numbers are solid and he showed well in the playoffs.

i think theo traded for bay with this FA market in mind (read: bad)

there's really no LF on the market this year, and they get to see him for a full season next year before the decided on the future of LF, be it bay or someone else.

as to tex, i agree he'd be a great player, but where do you play him?

he's a 3B/1B...we've already got pretty solid guys thier. i wish he played SS, but he doesn't.

also, can we quit with the "use manny's money" justifications? there's no salary cap, and the team prints money down at fenway. manny's money won't come into decisions.

[ma11l]

I'd love to see Manny's money used to go after Texiera.  He's be a great fit with this team and Fenway.  I know we hit Balfour hard in this series, but he'd look great in the back of our bullpen, he has good stuff.


I think it would be a tragedy if they traded Bay.  The guy is a baseball player.  He is good for the team on and off the field.  His numbers are solid and he showed well in the playoffs.

i think theo traded for bay with this FA market in mind (read: bad)

there's really no LF on the market this year, and they get to see him for a full season next year before the decided on the future of LF, be it bay or someone else.

as to tex, i agree he'd be a great player, but where do you play him?

he's a 3B/1B...we've already got pretty solid guys thier. i wish he played SS, but he doesn't.

also, can we quit with the "use manny's money" justifications? there's no salary cap, and the team prints money down at fenway. manny's money won't come into decisions.

Lowell's injury worries me.  I think it could have a lingering effect next year.  In that case we could put Tex at first and Youk at third.

To be completely honest I think the void he'd fill would be at the DH spot.  I love Ortiz and don't want to be disloyal to the guy because of what he's done, but he's past his prime.  I know injuries are a part of it, but he's been on a downturn the last two years since his huge 2006.  Besides the 07 playoffs he just hasn't been the same guy.  He's clearly not the same without Manny and since we're not going to bring him back , maybe we need to trade Ortiz while he still has some value left. 

[Chris]

I'd love to see Manny's money used to go after Texiera.  He's be a great fit with this team and Fenway.  I know we hit Balfour hard in this series, but he'd look great in the back of our bullpen, he has good stuff.

A great fit where?  thats the problem, he is a great player who wouldnt fit.

I agree...although the more I think about it, the more I think you simply have to go after a player like that, and then deal with making him fit later.  It is tough to do something like that midseason, but in the offseason you can make it happen.  With the injuries to both Lowell and Papi, they could likely find a spot for him...and they also have the option of trading Youkilis if a good opportunity presented itself.

I also want to clarify my stance on Varitek.  I think the Sox should move on if they can.  But if they move on, they need to be bringing in a veteran Catcher to replace him, and there just isn't much out there.  Varitek is very important to this team, but even more importantly, two way catchers are exceedingly rare.

[sportsfreak]

It was a fairly disappointing loss, but this series showed some of the flaws we have as a team. First of all we had gaping 'black holes' in this lineup. Guys who came up and most of us knew they were pretty much guaranteed outs, sure they had some clutch hits but those were:

Catcher - Varitek had one hit which was a clutch hr, but he looks done hitting wise
SS
DH (dare i say it, but game 5 and 6 he showed up, but thats it, he was hurt so i'll cut him some slack)
1B

when there are 4 holes in a lineup with 9 players and only Crisp, pedroia, youk, drew and bay were hitting. our offense was flawed. How about first thing first we address our CF position.

Trade #1
Ship Ellsbury, Clay + others for Matt Holliday, Brian Fuentes.
Automatically gets us a monster hitter to protect Ortiz, and depth in our bullpen

Trade #2
Ship some prospects for Jared Saltammachia
Saltammachia - has been great against rightys, a good offensive catcher and varitek can mentor him for the 2 years he's here.


FA, Sign JV to a 2 year deal.
Brings stability to the catcher position. can teach a young catcher and hit leftys


 and our new lineup would be
Dustin (2B), Bay (CF), Ortiz(DH), Holliday (LF), Youk(1B), Drew(RF), Lowell(3B), Lowrie(SS), Saltammachia (C)

I'm sticking with lowrie because give him a full season before we write him off.

Pitching wise, we have possibly the best top 3 in the league but after that it just drops off, trade for Jake Peavy or sign Ben Sheets.

We are the type of team that can take in a Ben Sheets and survive if he goes down. Remember he was an allstar this year but has injury concerns.

therefore we can have a healthy Beckett, Dice K, Lester, Sheets and/or Peavy. that would be a pretty good team. Our farm system is stacked, so therefore we can afford to lose some prospects to bolster our pitching and offense.

[nickagneta]

I don't know how many of you are aware as to what was happening behind the scenes with Jason Varitek this year but for a very long part of the early season he was fighting of illness that, from what I here, he may have picked up in China. He lost a bunch of weight and was very weak. But he played through it playing as much as 9-10 lbs under his usual playing weight most of the year.

Second, I guess he went through a divorce this summer and we all know those are like the second worse thing someone can go through emotionally except for the loss of a child. Remember Johnny Damon in2003 and the horrible year he had. That was his divorce summer. The next year he came back with his head on straight and was a force.

Now I'm not saying that Tek, if resigned, will return to the form of 2002-2004 where he hit .275, 20HRs, and knock in 90 RBIs. But considering the market for catchers, considering that, at least in my opinion, his game calling and handling of the pitchers is worth about .50-.75 on the team's ERA, and that I think he's earned a mulligan from us for being the team guy his is during what must have been an awful summer for him, I say sign the guy to a 3 year $21 million contract with the last year being a team option. If worse comes to worse and he's not producing, offer him retirement and a major league coaching position on Tito's staff. The man will someday make a great baseball manager, maybe even right here in Boston after Tito hangs it up here.

[crownsy]

It was a fairly disappointing loss, but this series showed some of the flaws we have as a team. First of all we had gaping 'black holes' in this lineup. Guys who came up and most of us knew they were pretty much guaranteed outs, sure they had some clutch hits but those were:

Catcher - Varitek had one hit which was a clutch hr, but he looks done hitting wise
SS
DH (dare i say it, but game 5 and 6 he showed up, but thats it, he was hurt so i'll cut him some slack)
1B

when there are 4 holes in a lineup with 9 players and only Crisp, pedroia, youk, drew and bay were hitting. our offense was flawed. How about first thing first we address our CF position.

Trade #1
Ship Ellsbury, Clay + others for Matt Holliday, Brian Fuentes.
Automatically gets us a monster hitter to protect Ortiz, and depth in our bullpen

Trade #2
Ship some prospects for Jared Saltammachia
Saltammachia - has been great against rightys, a good offensive catcher and varitek can mentor him for the 2 years he's here.


FA, Sign JV to a 2 year deal.
Brings stability to the catcher position. can teach a young catcher and hit leftys


 and our new lineup would be
Dustin (2B), Bay (CF), Ortiz(DH), Holliday (LF), Youk(1B), Drew(RF), Lowell(3B), Lowrie(SS), Saltammachia (C)

I'm sticking with lowrie because give him a full season before we write him off.

Pitching wise, we have possibly the best top 3 in the league but after that it just drops off, trade for Jake Peavy or sign Ben Sheets.

We are the type of team that can take in a Ben Sheets and survive if he goes down. Remember he was an allstar this year but has injury concerns.

therefore we can have a healthy Beckett, Dice K, Lester, Sheets and/or Peavy. that would be a pretty good team. Our farm system is stacked, so therefore we can afford to lose some prospects to bolster our pitching and offense.

bay would be an atrocious CF in fenway and bigger parks. he's not fast enough.

i'd like to address CF for a minute. people overvalue this position offenseivly and devalue it defensivly, much like catcher. The simple fact is, most centerfielders are fast, contact hitters. there's a bare handful who hit more than say, .280 with 15 dingers.

crisp, despite the crap he takes around boston, is a starting level CF on 25ish teams. ellsbury is a better contct hitting version of coco at best, with MABEY 15 HR's a year. they need to hit for average and play thier gold glove caliber defense in center. coco's defense, some fielding sites speculate, is worth a run a game to red sox pitching. all those balls he runs down in the gap are stamped "DOUBLE" if you put bay out there.

so, a good CF is a good contact guy with speed and slight pop.which is fine. People are spolied by the redsox, they expect a 25+ hr guy at every position, and if your not doign it, you suck. the grief coco gets is stagerring. do we need new power hitting on the club? you bet. but its probley not coming out of center. seriously, look up the marquee Center fielders in the MLB. outside of about 5 of them, all the good ones are contact hitters. CF isn't a power position, and its tons more important to be solid thier defensivly with speed, since it sees the majority of potential gap doubles.

[ma11l]

I don't know how many of you are aware as to what was happening behind the scenes with Jason Varitek this year but for a very long part of the early season he was fighting of illness that, from what I here, he may have picked up in China. He lost a bunch of weight and was very weak. But he played through it playing as much as 9-10 lbs under his usual playing weight most of the year.

Second, I guess he went through a divorce this summer and we all know those are like the second worse thing someone can go through emotionally except for the loss of a child. Remember Johnny Damon in2003 and the horrible year he had. That was his divorce summer. The next year he came back with his head on straight and was a force.

Now I'm not saying that Tek, if resigned, will return to the form of 2002-2004 where he hit .275, 20HRs, and knock in 90 RBIs. But considering the market for catchers, considering that, at least in my opinion, his game calling and handling of the pitchers is worth about .50-.75 on the team's ERA, and that I think he's earned a mulligan from us for being the team guy his is during what must have been an awful summer for him, I say sign the guy to a 3 year $21 million contract with the last year being a team option. If worse comes to worse and he's not producing, offer him retirement and a major league coaching position on Tito's staff. The man will someday make a great baseball manager, maybe even right here in Boston after Tito hangs it up here.

Maybe I'm just being cynical, but even with these excuses he is god awful.  That illness has nothing to do with this year's playoffs, or his performance last year which was also pretty bad. 


Secondly, I can't put any significance behind these rumors, but it's been thrown around by many people that he cheated on his wife with Heidi Watney, in which case I absolutely do not feel bad for him at all.  (Actually, the jealousy from this might be why I want him gone.)



If he wants to sign for a year and split the time with a young guy he is mentoring, and continue to build the young pitchers that would be great.  That's all I want though.

[Chris]

bay would be an atrocious CF in fenway and bigger parks. he's not fast enough.

i'd like to address CF for a minute. people overvalue this position offenseivly and devalue it defensivly, much like catcher. The simple fact is, most centerfielders are fast, contact hitters. there's a bare handful who hit more than say, .280 with 15 dingers.

crisp, despite the crap he takes around boston, is a starting level CF on 25ish teams. ellsbury is a better contct hitting version of coco at best, with MABEY 15 HR's a year. they need to hit for average and play thier gold glove caliber defense in center. coco's defense, some fielding sites speculate, is worth a run a game to red sox pitching. all those balls he runs down in the gap are stamped "DOUBLE" if you put bay out there.

so, a good CF is a good contact guy with speed and slight pop.which is fine. People are spolied by the redsox, they expect a 25+ hr guy at every position, and if your not doign it, you suck. the grief coco gets is stagerring. do we need new power hitting on the club? you bet. but its probley not coming out of center. seriously, look up the marquee Center fielders in the MLB. outside of about 5 of them, all the good ones are contact hitters. CF isn't a power position, and its tons more important to be solid thier defensivly with speed, since it sees the majority of potential gap doubles.

I agree completely about this...although I think you are selling Ellsbury's value a little short here.  He needs to do some work on his hitting mechanics (or more his consistency with the mechanics, because he simply lost them a couple times during the season), but he has the potential to be a great contact hitter.  He has the potential to be one of the top leadoff hitters in the game.  He is not going to hit many homeruns, but he has gap power, and more importantly can make a living off of infield hits, and causing havoc on the bases.

This guy had 50 stolen bases his rookie year...50.  And if he hadn't injured his wrist, and been unable to slide headfirst (or get on base for that matter), he likely would have had a lot more.  Jacoby is not a problem on this team, he is just a rookie that needs some more time.

Offensively what this team needs is a healthy Lowell and Ortiz, and if that can't happen, they need to replace them.    Without them in there and producing, it turns one of the deepest lineups in the league (even with Varitek at the bottom of it) into a very mediocre one.

[nickagneta]

Regarding everyone else:

- I think eventually the Red Sox will regret the contract that they gave to Mike Lowell last season. Mike is an outstanding guy, a clubhouse leader, an unreal bridge between the Hispanic players in the clubhouse and management(just trust me on this one), and a professional in every sense of the word. We may also never see him have a year anywhere near as good as 2007 ever again. Without Lowell, it makes the offseason really easy. Get a power hitting 1B or 3B player. Now, doing that makes moving an emerging Youk with a couple more years of arbitration control necessary or eating a bunch of cash for someone to take a now rehabbing Lowell.

- I don't know about anyone else, but I love the bullpen as is. Papelbon, Okajima, Delcarmen, Masterson, and Lopez are a great bullpen and once again demonstrated that in September and October. You have the future best closer in the game, a great situational lefty, a lefty who's deceptive windup makes him extra effective and is also great against righties, a major power arm that has closer stuff, and a two pitch rookie that has ice water in his veins and more movement on his pitches than all the other guys combined. I think a long guy(their a dime a dozen in this league) and one more arm( maybe Bowden working out of the pen in the season's second half ala Masterson) is all this area of the team needs.

- They have to settle on a center fielder. Pick one. I like both and don't like both. I love Ellsbury's speed and defense and hate that god awful uppercut swing. I love Coco's defense and hustle and hate the prolonged slumps he goes through. So pick one. I don't care which and maximize the other for a trade.

- Get JD Drew healthy and playing for an entire year. I would love to see what he could do for this team if healthy and he has his head on straight, whichin 2007 he obviously didn't because of his son's health.

- I hate saying this but Papi's injury will require surgery soon and even then we are looking at the type of effects that Nomar had on his power and swing after he had the very same surgery. His time may have come here and gone here. I doubt it will happen but serious consideration needs to be given to maximizing his value in a trade as well.

- Pick up Wake's option. If Buchholz and someone else, like a FA signing or traded player, end up making up the last two spots in the rotation offer Wake the long reliever job or retirement. He should take the reliever spot because we all know this team will never go through an entire season without injury to a starter and Wake could jump right in and give the team meaningful minutes. He also could very well earn the 5th spot and give the team another 180 innings and a 10-10 record. He is still young, for a knuckleballer.

- Give Lugo away. Heck sell his contract to a Japanese club. Anything, but get him off this team.

As for who to add, well:

Derek Lowe seems to be angling Boras to get him back to Boston, possibly even at less money. The Sox could do worse than the 15-12 3.75 ERA that Lowe would give this team. Not to mention with our bullpen he might win a bunch more games than he did in LA.

I say sign Rocco Baldelli as a fourth outfielder. He'd be close to home. He wouldn't have to play everyday here. He's a great pinch hitter and pinch runner built into one, and I think his swing is built for the Monster.After getting rid of Coco or Ellsbury, this is the guy you want as a fourth outfielder.

I think a flyer on Kyle Farnsworth out in the bullpen would be a great investment as a back of the bullpen option.

Sabathia, nuff said.

Trades, well those are always fluid. Obviously Lugo, Ellsbury/Coco, and/or maybe Papi and/or maybe Lowell might also need to go but to move some of these guys the Sox are going to have to give up good young prospects, probably pitching, to get anything in return. Those we would have to see about and will get a better idea about later this winter.

[Triboy16]

some facts everyone should know further is that

for the FA period after next year crisp has a 8 mm club option also jason bay is a FA.  No matter what if crisp is signed or not that figure is something bay will work with and no doubt command at least 11 per season for 5 or 6 years. Matt holliday who is also going to be a FA will prob ask for 13 to 16 a year for 5 or 6 years. And for me holliday is worth that extra 2 to 3 million per year. (bay is a good player but he is not "clutch") He hits first inning home runs and rbis but particularly late in the innings when we need him to drive in runs he has failed. Matt holliday and texeira are the kind of players the redsox will get as close to manny as possible( 300 avg hitter, 30 home runs, except for last year 100 plus rbi's, 400 plus obp)

For that year of FA beckett has a club option of 12 million. Beckett has been good to us but i really don't like his injury riddled career and don't trust it. So we could either hope for bucholz to develop into an ace(not lookign the greatest right now) or we could get a trade package going and get a top three pitcher.

Someone stated ellsbury, bucholz for holliday and fuentes. I like this trade alot but colorado will also demand bay in that package too and of course we would get something more back from them.(jeff francis for example)

Or how about bucholz, crisp and bowden for example for brandon webb and others(webb FA 2009 class)