The Red Sox's Master Plan Is In Motion

Fangraphs splits are not quite as diverse as ESPN’s. But if my math doesn’t suck too bad, that’s around a 3.38 FIP.

xFIP is higher, but I can’t say for sure based on the, again, limited splits between ESPN and Fangraphs. Also, I’m not completely in love with xFIP because I think it tries to control too exactly. I think there’s probably some guys who do by their nature give up fewer home runs per fly balls—probably not much better than 9% or worse than 11%, but neutralizing it exactly at 10% is kind of like not giving Jeter credit for about 10 or 20 points of his BABIP.

just because they haven’t been acquired in free agency (the best players rarely hit free agency…) doesn’t mean the team hasn’t been built solidly all around and doesn’t have some of the top players.

When was the last time the Yankees have acquired one of the top 1 or 2 players in baseball in FA? A-Rod maybe, but he only hit FA because he knew that they would re-sign him for more.
The fact is, guys like Mauer, Pujols, and Hanley just don’t hit the open market that often.

There’s been no need to fill holes in many of the positions, and the other positions, the top 1 or 2 players at the position have not been FA when it would have been applicable.

When is the last time any of those sort of guys ever hit free agency? They don’t anymore. Not frequently anyway. Who in the last 5 years would you have rather signed that make sense? It’s a testament to the way the team is run that we haven’t had to sign any of the top players in baseball to major contracts. We didn’t need to sign Pedrioa or Youkilis or Lester or Papelbon, we already had them. You don’t need to sign the best players when you’ve already drafted them. It lets you take risks on Lackeys and Camerons or Beltres and hope they work out.

What should be baseball’s best rotation. And if Beckett was healthy, it would have been. But that’s what they cost! Good pitchers cost good money. There are a few guys that surprise every year, but signing a guy to consistently provide good pitching? It’s gonna cost you. Theo tried and failed with the high risk/high reward method with Smoltz and Penny. It didn’t work and he got berated for it. Lackey is a far more consistent option. The price is ridiculous but if you want to assemble a team it’s what you’ve got to do. Zito, CC, Burnett, Perez, Zambrano, Arroyo these guys set the market and set it high. If you want a product you have to pay for it. You’d be just as pissed if Theo had gone out and paid a lesser pitcher half the money and he still sucked, there is no winning when it comes to handing out contracts. We needed a good pitcher, Lackey was a good pitcher who’s only real question mark was health, not much of a sign available in his stats that he would just lose control like he did this season.

We’re talking about a 25-man roster.

The Red Sox have a $170 million payroll.

That’s 6.8 million per player.

We have a number of cost-controlled players under that amount. A SP (Buch), Utility or SS (Lowrie), starting OF (Ellsbury) and bullpen member (Bard) are pretty firmly in place as being “on the team” at a price 6.4 million under that average, so already we have another 25 million to distribute amongst the remaining 21.

Atchison is $400k, Delcarmen is $900k. So we’re at 37 million.

Tek, Oki, Delcarmen, etc. are all well under the figure.

You get the picture.

Could we have spent it on the bullpen? Sure, but looking at it beforehand, is that really smarter? It costs a fair bit to get “good” relievers and they’re less reliable than the starters you have such a complaint with and pitch a third as many innings.

Upgrade from Cameron in the OF? Check the market: you’re going to have to give the same type of long contract to another aging player at best. Get better backups? If they’re a big part of your season, you’ve got trouble as is (and oh, did we ever). Pick your “poison” with the money you have to spend. We didn’t exactly have anyone big to lock up unless you’re going to sign Bard for 8 years or are much higher on Ellsbury than a lot of other people.

I mean, you can say the Sox should put it in their pocket and save it for a rainy day, but they’re going to have more money coming off the books next year, and then the year after, etc. etc. etc. The Sox are certainly relying on having a steady stream of young players to allow them to have that excess cash to spend year after year, but so long as that keeps up and the Sox aren’t looking to return to a $120-140 million payroll, there’s no problem with the Lackey/Beckett signings. There’s only so much talent available on the FA market, and the team budget being independent of draft and IFA budgets, there’s no reason not to spend each and every year as much as they’re allowed.