Grady Sizemore has a chance to make it back after two years recuperation time, out of the game. If he can be only 90% of what he was in Cleveland, that’s good enough to start for Boston, once he knocks off the rust, and he’s still only 31. The Sox like to take on a reclamation project or two every year, and sometimes they pay off.
It would be really nice to see Sizemore make it back. One has to admire his determination. He was a hell of a player.
I’m not sure Boston needs him, but it’s a cheap flyer with a lot of upside.
I’m assuming what you meant to say, is that since the Yankees are a privately held corporation, that their balance sheets are not available to the public. Oh wait, I already that in an earlier post.
And as I already posted, I’m relying heavily on the estimates of Forbes and others.
But the Yankees’ way of conducting business is unsustainable, for the simple reason that it’s no longer as effective in producing a top product, and without a top product on the field, the Yankees are in trouble.
10 years ago, the chances of Mike Trout hitting the FA market were at least 50-50. In 2014, the chances are less than 1 in 10. The Angels will either pony up to secure the rest of his prime years, in the next year or two, OR they will trade him to a team that has prospects and the payroll flexibility to get him to agree to an extension. The Yankees have no prospects to trade. You won’t be seeing any top MLB players, still in their 20’s, hitting the open market. So, you’ll be stuck with paying top dollar for 30 somethings OR taking expensive risks on Japanese players like Tanaka.
The Yankees, so far, have blown away their top 2 picks in the 2014 Amateur draft. Five years ago, that wasn’t as devastating, since a team could always draft a hard-to-sign amateur in a lower round and then blow him away with money well over the recommended slot. That loophole was closed a couple of years ago. And losing a couple of high-draft picks, not only hurts you, but the money your allowed to spend on the entire draft is reduced by 50%. And the international signings pool has also been cap limited.
Up until last year, the Yankees have led the league in payroll every year in this century, and won the World Series once. So a flawed strategy yielded mediocre results, and that strategy is becoming increasingly flawed, but their still sticking with it.
Maybe they have great fortune with the talent they purchased this year and win it all, although there’s a greater chance, IMO, that they still finish in the middle of the pack. But win or lose in 2014, going forward, their plan of operations is unsustainable and a string of mediocre years is disastrous for them.
Hmm, wondering if that prevents them from signing any more compensation FA’s.
One big problem with Sizemore is whether or not he still projects as a CF. That’s where the Sox need backup, even if it’s Sizemore playing once or twice a week. Victorino is not really ideal in center, and while I have faith in the Sox’ long-term confidence in Jackie Bradley Jr., the transition to MLB is a lot easier if you have a backup on the bench.
Back in 2009, the Sox took a flyer on Rocco Baldelli, another good young talent, who’s body failed him. It didn’t work, and left the Sox short on the bench.
At this point, it doesn’t really matter. They’d just lose their 3rd pick( which would actually be, in effect, the comp pick they got from Seattle for Cano, I think) As far as the 2014 draft is concerned they’re already screwed. On the plus side, they actually had extra picks in 2013 (comp for Soriano and Swisher), which was a good start at straightening out the mess, but then they pull a 180 this off-season.
I don’t get it.
I just can’t buy that the results are mediocre, sorry. While you are cleverly starting “this century” in 2001, as mathematicians insist on, let’s choose my arbitrary boundary of years starting in 2. Not that it matters, but in those 14 years the Yankees have made the playoffs twelve out of fourteen times, won the World Series twice, made it there but lost another time, made it to the ALCS but lost three times, and the other six times lost the ALDS. They haven’t yet had a losing record in the start-with-2 millennium. That level of playoff success is precisely what one would expect from the playoffs being near-random, and they make the playoffs almost every year. That Boston has won the World Series three times since years started with “2” and the Yankees have only won it twice is not compelling evidence Boston has a better formula than New York any more than I would find it compelling evidence New York has a better formula than Boston because the Yankees have made the playoffs (quite a bit) more often since 2000. A broken formula is when you’re the Blue Jays or, recently, the Angels (ack.)
I mean, you may be right, and I really don’t understand why they spent all that money and couldn’t spend it on retaining their best player, but I’ve been hearing people say this same stuff since, oh, 2001 or so. I would love for the Yankees to blow up, and I hope for it every year, and yet they haven’t done it yet. They keep buying their way back in. I’ll believe they can’t keep doing in when it actually happens.
Given his three knee operations, not to mention the back operation, and the speed they’ve presumably cost him, I suspect Boston has Sizemore in mind for LF, not CF. That was a patchwork position last year - even though Gomes, Nava, Carp, and the various other guys who cameo’ed out there last year are all decent players etc., they can all be improved upon.
The compelling thing about the Red Sox is that they’ve changed their strategy in reaction to the fact that the economics of baseball changed. That’s what’s impressive. You try one way, and do it until it’s no longer effective and come up with a better way.
But one thing has been constant under the ownership of J. Henry & Co, is their 100% commitment to scouting, drafting and development. Before the latest cap application to the amateur draft, they were maniacal on drafting “hard-to-sign” kids at the lower round and then spending a ton to sign them. Even in years where they forfeited draft picks with FA signings, they always were maximizing their own comp picks, like signing a Billy Wagner in August 2009, knowing that he was going to FA that winter… or even offering arbitration to the wretched Tony Graffanino after 2005. The Sox got stuck with a lot of high paid duds from the draft (not to mention Tony Graffanino), but the accumulated cost is less than the Yankees pissed away on one busted FA signing. In fact, most of the latest changes to the drafting process were in reaction to closing the loopholes the Sox exploited.
I don’t think the Sox 3 World Championships were random results. They just missed making the WS in 2008 and 2003, which balances out the 3 WS wins. After 80 years of trying to imitate the Yankees, an ownership came in that realized you just had to outsmart and outmaneuver the Steinbrenners. And that’s not too hard too do.
Neither Gomes nor Nava nor Carp can play CF, and moving Victorino to center, weakens the team at both CF and RF. My guess is that if Sizemore can’t play CF, the Sox end the experiment in ST and trade for a backup at center. There’s no replacement at the farm and you can’t count on JB Jr.s to play 150+ games as a rookie.
Hmm? The outfield would be Bradley CF, Victorino RF, Sizemore LF if he can handle it, the Dream Team again if he can’t. They committed to Bradley when they decided not to play Boras’ game with Ellsbury.
Nava had an .894 OPS in 400 PAs vs Right handed pitching, so Sizemore would have to have a monster spring to beat him out and since he’s a LH there’s no platoon possibility.
Bradley is an automatic defensive upgrade over Ellsbury. You can’t be much better at picking up balls off the bat than JB Jr. Ellsbury also used to drive me insane with his pull swing in Fenway, ending up with all his weight on his back foot and reducing his speed from the plate to first. But it might get him 25 homers in Yankee Stadium alone… if he can stay healthy.
We are talking about the Boston Red Sox, correct? The team that paid over $60 million in 2013 to newly-signed free agents? Thirteen million for Victorino? Thirteen million for Dempster? Nine for Drew, sixteen for Napoli? The team that spent more on free agents than the Rays spent on their entire payroll? Those Red Sox?
Sounds a lot like the Yankee way to me.
If it sounds the same to you, then you might be tone deaf. Victorino’s deal was for 3 years. Dempster’s deal for 2 years. Napoli’s deal for 2, and Drew was signed for one year. 4 players, total commitment 8 years. This winter the Yankees just committed 29 years to 4 players. That’s the Yankee way, and it’s the reason they’ll still be paying $24 million to a 43 year old ARod.
That seems like an interesting self-selection. Wasn’t it not long ago when long contracts to Adrian Gonzales and Carl Crawford were entered in to? Just because the Red Sox were lucky that the Dodgers were willing to take those contracts doesn’t mean they weren’t entered into in the first place.
If you’d read my earlier posts, I made the point that the Sox realized the old way was no longer working and changed their approach, in contrast to the Yankees who just keep on doubling down.
But, even before that trade, the Sox always (since new ownnership in 2002) have always concentrated on scouting, drafting and development, while the Yankees have seen it as an afterthought for the past 15 years or so.
$60 million plus is an awful lot of money. Very few teams in MLB could go out and spend that kind of cash on free agents. (And of course iSiddiqui is right, they only had that money because they’d traded the free agents they’d just spent it on.) Of course the terms of the contracts are a lot shorter than the Yankees have typically offered, but there’s no question that the Red Sox went out to buy themselves a pennant. Which they did quite successfully.
And if the current crop of can’t-miss rookies that the Red Sox have misses, you know they’ll do it all over again.
This really is not “concentrating on scouting, drafting and development.” This is “buying your way to the World Series.” The fact that they aren’t as blatant about it as the Yankees doesn’t change that.
You had said that the Sox did the same thing as the Yankees; committing $60-$70 mil is not the same thing as committing to $430 million.
Most baseball sources give the Sox 9 or 10 of the top 100 minor league prospects for 2014. More than any other team. Do you think that happened by accident? Given that the Sox have had only 1 pick in the top 10 in the last 20 years?
since baseball is a business and players are professionals, then of course each team tries to “buy” success in the goal of making a profit. If you have a problem with a team like the Rays being in a crappy market, with a crappy stadium with a crappy fan base, well that’s another issue. MLB never should have sold a franchise to that area. I wish MLB would get rid of their territoriality rules and let a franchise move to Northern NJ or even the Boston area. Unlike St. Pete, we actually like baseball up here. If the Rays were able to attract 5% of the money dropped at the Tampa Strip Clubs, per annum, then they could afford to “buy” championships too.
Be nice if a second team moved to Boston. Maybe the ownership would be forced to build a new stadium. I’ve been to Fenway and I laugh at the poor suckers buying seats in that shithole every time they do the crowd shots.
But anyway, the reality is that for both Red Sox and Yankees fans, the rivalry only rocks when both teams are good. So going forward, I’m really looking forward to the games next season.
Fenway Park now ranks as the #1 tourist attraction in Boston, so I doubt it’s going anywhere. I’m not a big boy, so I don’t mind the seats, although I don’t like how so many of the seats are so poorly angled. But the best thing about Fenway is that, like Wrigley, it’s placed smack dab in the middle of a thriving urban neighborhood. There’s no way a new park would ever be able to obtain prime real estate for it’s location.
And as far as the Sox-Yankee rivalry – during the 2003-2004 seasons, I had enough to last a lifetime; as did the rest of the country. I actually prefer the rivalry with the Rays with Joe Madden doing his Mr. McGoo imitation and flying to St. Pete to make sure that Sox fans outnumber Rays fans during playoff games.