Loss Of Damon a Big Mistake

This stance ticks off the player and his agent, and costs the Sox millions of dollars and the loss of good players.

BTW, Damon (who was offered a decent contract) left and cashed in w/ NYY (his business model and good for him) – his contract would have been bloated and his arm is very weak – I think the Sox made a tough business decision based on the metrics of their business model and let him walk.

because Johnny Damon was not a center fielder when he left the Red Sox. He had been a bad center fielder in his last year with the Sox and was a terrible center fielder for one year with the Yankees before they realized that they needed to move him to left field. In left field, the Red Sox had Manny Ramirez, who was not about to be supplanted by Johnny a moderately productive outfielder, so the Sox had no place to put him. Getting rid of Damon was an excellent decision.

Do you also think the Red Sox should have re-signed Jason Bay? The left fielder who, since leaving the Sox, has only played 105 games and at a well below average level of production? It’s too early to say for sure whether Keeping Martinez would’ve been a good idea in the long term, but I think the fact that the team he’s currently playing on is only using him as a catcher once a week and that despite that, he’s already on the disabled list, speaks volumes.

None of the things you’ve stated here are mistakes. They have made some mistakes, but by and large, they’ve made good decisions when it comes to letting their players go (Lowell was an exception)

(1) The Sox won without Damon.

(2) The MFY overpaid Damon to play CF. After his first year in NY it was painfully obvious that Damon could no longer play the position. For three years he was a LF/DH. During that period, the Sox had Manny/Bay in LF and Ortiz at DH. There was no place to play him.

(3) If Damon was the Sox’ CF in 2007, the team never would have won the WS. Crisp had an awesome defensive year, and was worth 3.9 WAR (primarily with his glove). Ellsbury, in limited duty, was a 1.3 WAR player. In 2007, Damon was a 2.1 WAR player—in LF (Damon was a 2.2 WAR player in CF for the Sox in 2005, his final year in Boston).

(4) From 2006 to 2009, Damon was worth 12.3 WAR. Over the same period, Crisp/Ellsbury were worth 13.6 WAR. And when you factor in the money spent, the Sox came out way ahead.

And this would have prevented the arrival of Drew a year later, who has provided more value. Do you realize there were health reasons why the Sox did not offer longer contracts to Bay and Martinez, and that these concerns have been well justified? I mean, if Martinez were still a catcher and could have been so for four more years, yeah, they would have been crazy not to re-sign him. As a DH/platoon catcher with poor defense, he holds little value; and on the DL he provides zero value.

RE: Bay, they had injury concerns over him and since then he has had injury issues in New York and when he has played hasn’t shown the production he had in his 1.5 years here. If I remember right, he wanted an extra year over what the Red Sox and most other teams offered him. The Mets(I could be wrong) were one of the only teams that offered him that extra year because their front office is run by fools.
RE: Martinez Obviously there are times when I would like to see V-Mart at catcher, but if you look, the Tigers don’t even see him play catcher. He is currently a DH on the DL. Now, you could say that he would be playing more at catcher if the Tigers didn’t have Avila and that might be valid but if he isn’t healthy a month into the year as a DH I have a hard time he could take catching 70+% of the games. If the Red Sox had signed him there is a decent chance you wouldn’t be watching Adrian Gonzalez or Carl Crawford. They didn’t just hoard the money, they spent it elsewhere.

RE: Damon, he was offered a decent deal and chose to go with the Yankees for more money. The Yankees almost always put the most money on the table and often times a good % more than any other team. If the Marlins had outbid the Red Sox, yeah maybe you could look to them as cheap. But I think it is wrong to call them “arrogant” because they don’t want to pay top dollar for every player that goes to free agency, especially one where they are in a bidding war with the Yankees. Also see Drugs’ post above. The OF that came in to replace Damon provided as much or more “value”, and the positions that Damon played in NY were occupied by much better hitters in Manny and Ortiz.

They have made mistakes and let guys go who have produced elsewhere, and they have let guys go who have done nothing since. They felt like they didn’t have to overpay Damon because they could replace his value and they did. They felt like Bay would not provide enough value to justify the years he was asking for, and he hasn’t thus far. They let Beltre go because they were able to get Gonzalez. They felt like they needed to bring in Crawford instead of keeping V-Mart because they had questions on how much he could catch (and his defense wasn’t great) and DH/1B were occupied.

And I know you mentioned that they should’ve tried to extend these guys as early as possible, but not all players want to extend. Alot of them WANT to eventually test free agency to get the price up. Scott Boras is the agent for both Damon and Bay. My guess is that Scott often times tells his clients to go to free agency because it allows him to manipulate teams into paying a higher price. Especially with Bay since he and Holliday (If I remember right) were going to be two of the only real “big” name OF’ers on the market.

It’s the right thing to do, to put a price you’re willing to pay on something and then not exceed it. If everyone was capable of that sort of restraint the world would be a much better place. Teams that go out and sign players no matter the cost become the Cubs, Mets or the Yankees in a couple years and also from the middle of the last decade. Lotta names, little results. We didn’t sign Damon and we moved on, our outfield since has consisted of Drew, Ellsbury, Bay, Crisp, Cameron and now Crawford with a ton of future potential in the minors. We missed out on Tex but we still have Youk, got a couple good years out of Lowell and then a great one from Beltre and then we got Adrian Gonzalez, so we’re fine there too. Catcher, well, we’ll see, maybe it was wrong to let Victor go but in all honesty, the price paid is too much for a guy who isn’t likely to remain efficient at his position.

I think you’re missing the pattern on these guys and what Theo is really doing, he’s tapping the last market that can be exploited, defense. Those guys are all poor defenders at this point in their careers. Salty before his injury had shown flashes of solid defense (note this is more than just tossing out runners), the guys in the OF we’ve gotten since, Cameron, Crawford, Crisp, all great defenders, Beltre, great defender. Across the board right now we’ve got guys that are at least average defensively with the exception of Salty right now. Great teams are being founded now on pitching and defense, at their best, this is one of the most fearsome rotations in baseball and the defense behind them can only help rather than hurt, as some Sox teams from the last decade felt 1st hand.

I really don’t know what you’re complaining about, despite losing these players, we’ve won a championship and assembled teams that compete for it every year.

His throws would make it to 2nd because that’s basically how far he can throw. The ball will sink towards its way to 2nd, perfect for the tag.