Who Needs Jason Bay Anyway?

as I have shown, the offense will be close to what it was last year. Scutaro+a full year of VMart +Cameron are within 15 runs of production of Bay. You forget that last year’s offense was more run productive than any Sox team since 05. The 07 team was the best Sox team of the last 30 years not because of offense. It was the combination of decent offense and superior run prevention. This year’s team should save way more runs than they lose on offense. The defense alone should be significanly improved by the addtitions of Cameron and the loss of Lowell and Bay. Furthermore, last year we had 1/2 a year of Wake, 1/2 a year of a learning Buchholz and almost no Dice-K. This year we likely have a full year of our 4/5 pitchers plus Lackey. Simply much better.

We were the best team in the AL in the first half of last year. Our second half was totally marred by our pitching woes. OUr team ERA went up by nearly one point. Even so, we were much closer to the Yankees than you realize. By pythag we were within 3 wins, and by WAR we were within 4 wins. And these 2 metrics are based on performance, not based on projected performance. If you look at the Yankees last year, they has one major injury (Wang) and otherwise had nothing but near peak performance and overperformance by nearly the entire offense (and defense). Many of these guys were 35 +. The odds of this happening again are very low. Meaning if you even ran the 09 season over the odds are it is much closer. Going forward the Sox have improved their team more than the Yankees at this stage.

Putting Ells in LF makes Ells a more valuable player (same offense, better defense). It also provides a significant defensive upgrade at both positions. Leaving Ells in CF means you only get a defensive boost at LF – where arguably there is less room for an upgrade, given the nature of Fenway, so you are wasting a lot of Cameron’s defensive value.

I think most of us agree that over the long haul, Beckett is going to be at least a slightly better pitcher than Lackey from this point. But it is pretty clear they are at least comparable. The thing is, you still have to sign Beckett. If they lose Beckett next year and didn’t have at least some sort of comparable replacement, then they would be totally hosed. Lackey’s price was the going rate for that level of pitcher. And having him provides additional leverage with Beckett next year.

Any contract over 3 years makes me nervous. But that’s the market. There is no way you are going to get that quality of pitcher without signing a 5 year deal and Burnett set the price last year. If they had traded for Halladay they still would have had to sign him to a big contract in addition to giving up prospects. If they had traded for Lee – he too will need to be signed so you’d be looking at signing both him AND Beckett next year – plus they would have had to give up somebody. So I don’t see where the other options might have been (unless we think they should have gotten Javier Vasquez from the Braves like the MFY did). And at least for Lackey’s style/quality of pitcher (big, physical power pitcher with a history of success) there is some precedent for that style of pitcher being able to pitch very effectively well into their 30s. Yes, the overall averages don’t look promising, but if you just focus on similar pitchers, its a little more reassuring.

that he’s the “future” CF and we have to let him figure it out. I say that he is trade bait and a great year of LF could make him look good next offseason. I bet by then one of our OF prospects will look a lot better.

sign Beltre, but only if it’s a 2 year deal at 6mil per.

Not even just here. Think of all those years where he was the only good player for the Pirates. That must have sucked.

You lost when you suggested we platoon Varitek and half V-Mart.

You further went into the hole with ‘V-Mart isn’t a very good defensive catcher’ – please back that up with some facts.

V-Mart’s been a perfectly fine everyday catcher for some of the best pitching staffs in baseball, including two Cy Young award winners. For some reason folks here in Boston have this notion that because V-Mart is a great hitting catcher he must have some sort of defensive short-comings. Well if he does, folks need to point them out instead of just assuming that is the case. The numbers don’t back that up. And please don’t throw caught-stealing percentages at me. Those are not a very important measure of a catcher’s defensive value, especially on a team like the Red Sox who have a pitching philosophy of basically ignoring base runners.

Of note – even as an everyday catcher, V-Mart has not shown any tendency to drop off in the second half either.

His offensive value over the average catcher is enormous and the fact that we are starting the season with him at that spot is a huge improvement over where we spent half the season last year.

Scutaro may not put up the same numbers as last year, but he’ll almost certainly provide significant overall improvement in both offense and defense over what we got out of SS last year.

Bay is a very fine hitter, but his defense was a significant detriment.

Cameron will probably continue to get on base at his typical just-slightly-below-league average OBP of .340 or so and hit 20-25 HRs. He’s been very consistent the last 4 years. His slugging may go up in Fenway because he’s such a pull hitter and that wall will love him. So offensively he won’t be stellar, but he won’t hurt us. He’ll be a positive contributor. His defense, though, will be huge improvement over what we had last year. By putting Ellsbury in LF and Cameron in CF, the combo will literally make a ton of outs that were not made last year with Bay in LF and Ells in CF. I could care less if Cameron never steals another base.

And you obviously know nothing about Beltre. Oh heck, why do I bother?

Beltre is WAY better than lowell. he’s one of the best defenders in the league, hits pretty well away from SAFECO and has good power. lowell is horrible defensively, doesn’t really hit well anywhere and is especially sucky on the road, can’t run at all, is really old, really expensive…. the sox have been trying to get rid of him since the end of 2008 for a reason.

Boston doesn’t need Bay. If anything Bay needed Boston. Sure Bay posted career numbers in HRs and RBI, but he slumped badly in June and July, struckout a ton, was a below average defender and ONLY hit .267. They can get that from Camereon and he will IMPROVE the defense. Also Bay steals less than Cameron, from 2007-2009 Bay stole 27 Bases, while from the same time frame Cameron stole 42 bases.

As for Beltre, you are smoking crack if you think he sucks. Sure he isn’t worth going over the Luxury tax for. But if they could get him for a 1-2 yr deal for no more than 6 mil per I would do it in a heartbeat.

He’s had the misfortune of playing at Dodger Stadium and SafeCo Park – two of the WORST hitter’s parks.

Look instead at his road stats for his career :

       Total Home Road
PA 6877 3308 3569
AB 6285 3297 3272
HR 24 21 26 (adjusted for 162 game season)
BA .270 .253 .287
OBP .325 .311 .338
SLG .453 .416 .488
OPS .779 .727 .826

So he’s a significantly better hitter than his raw numbers would suggest. Offensively he would NOT be a drop-off from what Lowell has given us these last few years. Arguably, Lowell’s numbers already have benefited greatly from Fenway and if you compare his road numbers to Beltre’s, to remove park effects, Beltre looks like an upgrade. And defensively he’s a huge upgrade over what Lowell provided last year.

Unfortunately I doubt we will be able to pay for him, based on what Boras seems to be asking.

did you notice that in the year and a half since Manny left the team actually scored more runs than in the year and a half before that? Baseball is about scoring more than the other team. The 07 Sox scored 80 fewer runs than the 03 team. They were a much better team.

The Marlins first championship they overpaid to get and then had to have a firesale after they won. The second was mostly the result of incredibly good timing in some guys coming up from the minors most notably Miguel Cabrera.

With the Yankees on their game you can’t scrimp, that is my point – look where it’s got you – you lost Teixiera, you lost Manny, you lost Bay, you didn’t get A-Rod when you could’ve; 1 or 2 of these gaffes is OK but if the brass starts making a habit of it, that can’t be good.

Signing Lackey probably gave the Red Sox the best 1-2-3 punch in baseball. Add in the fact the Sox get a full season from a healthy Dice K and either Buch or Wakefield at the end of the rotation. Plus they added Cameron and Scutaro who improves the defense ten fold. And if they could add Beltre for 2 years on the cheap they really would have spent their money wisely.

By not resigning Bay and even without a Beltre signing the Sox improved the OF and IF defense and starting pitching. If they signed Bay they would be in the same boat defensively and who is to say Bay would hit another 30+ hr or driven another 110+ RBI? How do we know he wasn’t playing for a contract year? Plus I really don’t see Bay putting up 09 numbers 4 years in a row.